2022 NFL Draft Winners and Losers

- - On Thursday night NFL fans everywhere anxiously sat and watched their favorite holiday unfold, Draft Day.

The NFL draft is a day where HOF careers are predetermined and quite literally shape franchises. With that being said, let's take a look at some winners & losers of the draft.

Winners:

1. Jets

The Jets took the best cornerback available with the 4th pick in Sauce Gardner. Got their hands on the best receiver in the class, by selecting Garret Wilson with the 10th pick. The Jets later traded up to get Jermaine Johnson at 26. Not only did they have a fantastic first round, but they also cleaned up the rest of the draft bringing in great value from Breece Hall, Jeremy Ruckert, and Michael Clemons. In a foundational draft, the Jets have a strong core to move forward with.

2. Ravens

Yet again the Ravens had an amazing draft, because of course they did. They got arguably the best safety and center in the draft in the 1st round by staying put. Additionally, Baltimore selected star edge rusher David Ojabo in the second round, despite his achilles injury. And the rest of the draft was value, value, value. Travis Jones, Daniel Faleele, Jalyn Armour-Davis, Charlie Kolar, Isaiah Likely, Damarion Williams. Another masterclass by Eric DeCosta.

3. Seahawks

As much as Pete Carroll denies it, the Seahawks are in rebuild mode. This year's draft class didn't have the hype of the Joe Burrow's or Saquon Barkely's of the world. But what 2022's draft was missing in stardom, it made up for with depth and consistency. Seattle did a great job at taking advantage of the depth, and satisfied their greatest necessities. Seattle did what the other winners did, acquired value in day 2 and day 3. Although some disagree with the Charles Cross pick, they hit the rest of the draft out of the park. All three of their day 2 picks had round 1 value. Boye Mafe, Kenneth Walker, and Abraham Lucas will be fundamental pieces towards developing Seattles future core. Also, Cobe Bryant and Tariq Woolen are fantastic additions at cornerback. The Seahawks were smart in deciding not to reach on a quarterback. They are setting up their offense well for a rookie quarterback in 2023 with bookend tackles and a strong running game.

Losers:

1. Vikings

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is still learning the ropes and on Thursday it showed. These are the struggles of a rookie GM. Not only did he trade picks for divisional rivals to add good wide receivers, he also got fleeced on them! They let the Lions move up 20 spots in round one, to move up 12 spots round 2 and get a 3rd round pick in exchange. Yikes. Even so, Lewis Cine and Andrew booth are good players, and they’ll be needed to stop Christian Watson and Jameson Williams after gifting them to the Packers and Lions.

2. 49ers

The 49ers are reaping what the sowed when they gave up a haul for Trey Lance. And even with their limited draft capital they did not make good selections. Drake Jackson is inconsistent and a project. Tyrion Davis-Price and Danny Gray were head scratching picks in round 3. The rest of their selections are just names, in a deep class they did not pick up contributors. Brock Purdy is a competitive college quarterback, the Mr. Irrelevant selection doesn't seem to be much more than a career backup.

3. NFL Draft Media

More informed people knew that the quarterbacks were not great. People like Rob Staton and Scot McCloughan knew that these quarterbacks had round 3 grades. But the draft media on NFL Network, ESPN and other big media outlets kept on pumping up the stock of the quarterbacks. People had Malik Willis going 2 overall to the Lions! He went 86th. Ridder went 74th. Corrall went 94th. Howell went 144th. The only QB who went round one was Kenny Pickett, and at that point he was quite the reach. The weekends for the QBs were hellish, watching Malik Willis for hours in the greenroom waiting for the call was agonizing. The draft media was highly mistaken, and major networks should really reconsider who they give airtime in the future.

Reach reporter Robert Jokinen at robbyjokinen@msn.com. Twitter: @westcoastdraft.