NFL teams obviously don’t start their scouting process for the following year in the following year. It’s a year-round process. Area scouts are readying for the 2022 college football season. Scouting directors are coordinating the whole things, and general managers are crunching a bit of tape whenever they might be able in bite-size pieces around the daily business of getting ready for their own seasons.
One thing that tells all those people what their needs might be in next year’s draft is this year’s preseason. You have a pretty good idea at this point what your team’s strengths and weaknesses are, and while you may get a slight kick from somebody else’s castoff in final cuts, you kind of have what you have unless you’re thinking about making a major trade before the deadline.
So, the 2023 draft matters. Even now, when the 2022 NFL regular season hasn’t even started.
With that in mind, here’s how I might assess team needs and prospect availability were I every general manager with a first-round pick in that 2023 draft, using the Pro Football Focus draft simulator. Team slots are based on PFF’s projections.
A few things you’ll notice right off the bat. I am assuming that the Falcons and the Texans will end the 2022 season happy enough with their quarterback situations to avoid selecting Alabama’s Bryce Young or Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, or whichever NCAA quarterback comes out of nowhere, as one quarterback seems to every year. Same with the Dolphins, who are using their non-forfeited first-round pick elsewhere. After Atlanta and Houston, the real QB-needy teams at the top of the draft — the Lions and Seahawks — act accordingly.
Here’s one person’s version of the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, based on how the 2022 preseason has gone, and how the 2022 regular season might shake out.
