With two weeks passing since the NFL Draft, we can finally discuss who are the early winners and losers.

I usually say you can’t see who won and lost until the players finish their rookie contracts, but it doesn’t hurt to discuss the early impact. You can’y knock a team for reaching on a player or taking what most would consider the wrong player. Each team has their own scouts and they do extensive work to figure out who they want. Teams run their own schemes and certain players may fit what they’re trying to do while others might not.

After all, the rankings given to players pre-draft are often guided by media. Who do you trust more the actual scouts or the media?

For this reason, the best way to judge a draft is by evaluating once the players from the draft finish their rookie contracts, which is essentially 3-5 years from now.

Anyways, let’s find out what I thought given my own scouting and views!

I thought that the Texans, Rams and Jaguars had the best drafts.

The Texans would have had the perfect draft if they took a better quarterback or had one on their roster. What they did was take amazing players throughout, but because of their overwhelming lack of a quarterback, I can’t give them major credit. They took three players in three rounds who I thought were first round players. Jadeveon Clowney is obviously one of the best defensive talents to hit the draft in a long time. Xavier Su’a-Filo was the best guard in the draft. Louis Nix was a player who completely slid into the third round because he didn’t fit into many teams schemes. These are three extraordinary players.

The Rams had the best draft. They get the best tackle in the draft in Greg Robinson, the best defensive tackle in Aaron Donald, a player who I absolutely love in Lamarcus Joyner who can play safety as well as cornerback, a talented running back to add some excitement to their offense in Tre Mason and so many other great players. Michael Sam was the story of the draft when he was added to the Rams in the seventh round. I am not the biggest fan of Sam’s game after a poor performance in all pre-draft exercises, but you can’t debate that this was the SEC player of the year taken in the seventh round. The SEC is the best division in all of college.

Then there is the Jaguars. I can’t call their draft the best one yet. What they did was go all in on Blake Bortles. Not only did they surprise people by taking him with their first pick, but they made sure that they will give him everything he needs to succeed. They give him amazing receivers in Marquise Lee and Allen Robinson to pair with Cecil Shorts and possible Justin Blackmon. If Blake Bortles turns out the way that they think he will, this could be one of the best offenses in football down the line. They also added Telvin Smith in the 5th round, a player I love and thought should have gone in the 2nd-3rd.

All in all this was a fun draft. We saw amazing players last into the seventh and final round, as well as go undrafted. There is no denying the strength of this draft. We will see how many top players in the NFL come out of this draft down the line, but if I had to guess I would say plenty of these guys go on to have amazing careers.

That about does it for Sports Weekly this year, and I am happy to say that I will be returning next year to offer more sports news! Enjoy the summer and see you guys next year!!!

-Nick Cocchiaro