Who won the 2023 NFL Draft?
Contrar-Ian takes on choices made by Detroit and Houston along with scattershot notes on various 1st round selections.
I took in the 2023 NFL Draft from the home of a devoted Detroit Lions fan. It was a pretty fun experience. Going into the draft my friend had a long list of prospects he’d diligently watched and a developed “if, then” series of what-if scenarios for the draft order.
Many of those what-ifs began to fall apart early on, particularly when the Seattle Seahawks took Devon Witherspoon no. 5. Were the Lions about to go against their spoken principles and take a chance on a guy like Jalen Carter? Were they among the suckers who were going to fall for Will Levis? The tension was thick.
They traded down, to my friend’s immediate relief, and then the process began again. “At 12 Bijan Robinson might be available! Or Christian Gonzalez!”
Then we approached the 12th pick and the Lions took running back Jahmyr Gibbs. “Wasn’t he expected to be more of a second round pick?”
Pick no. 18 came along and then the Lions really sent him for a loop by taking Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell, who was so far down the big boards my friend hadn’t even heard of him. Now he was completely befuddled and trying to process selections and decision-making methods which were clearly at odds with conventional wisdom.
The Detroit Lions are actually pretty good already, so not only was this a draft about using multiple picks to try and build the future of the team it was also one which could potentially add the key pieces to make a playoff run. It lead to a different spirit around the whole process and as someone who doesn’t claim an NFL team, it was fun to watch someone taking it in like learning they were learning the gender of their child. I also had my own cold evaluations of how well teams had scouted some players I’d watched for years in college and plenty of riffs about the general spectacle of the event.
Here were some overall impressions from the 1st round by yours truly…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to America's War Game to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.