Nobody should be remotely shocked at the first two picks of day one of the 2012 NFL draft, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any interesting results with the remaining selections. Teams were moving up at a frantic pace throughout the night, resulting in the most trade-ups in the history of the draft. Here are the top 10 selections in the 2012 NFL Draft.
3rd: Cleveland traded its 4th pick plus their 4th, 5th, and 7th round picks with the Vikings in order to move up and secure running back Trent Richardson. They were convinced another team would leapfrog up to third in order to grab this NFL-ready talent and secured the RB to give their offense a much-needed boost.
4th: The Vikings came away laughing, having nabbed the player they’ve had their eyes on for months (offensive tackle Matt Kalil) by trading places with Cleveland, while also stealing all of those later-round picks in the process.
5th: Jacksonville jumped up two spots to grab WR Justin Blackmon, effectively doubling their offensive option count to two. Looks like they’re willing to give QB Blaine Gabbert a good look.
6th: Dallas moves up from 13th to 6th to grab Morris Claiborne, arguably the best cornerback prospect of the draft class. That 6th round pick originally belonged to the Redskins before they moved up to 2nd in order to secure RG3. We’ll see how the divisional rivalry plays out.
7th: Not the flashiest pick-up in the top 10, the Bucs took safety Mark Barron out of Alabama after trading their 5th pick with Jacksonville in exchange for 7th and a 4th round pick. Hopefully he can plug some of the holes that lead to TB giving up more points than any other team last season. Kudos for also sneaking back into round one and nabbing a RB with the 31st pick.
8th: Finally! A team selects a player using the draft position they came in with. Miami used their 8th pick on Ryan Tannehill, the ‘other’ QB in the top 10. He’ll be reunited with his former coach Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman, now Miami’s offensive coordinator. Interestingly enough, he often played at WR until his 4th year, where he had an impressive QB rating of 133.2. Maybe he’ll be filling in for the void left by Brandon Marshall?
9th: The Panthers selected linebacker Luke Kuechly with the 9th pick, a smart decision given the injuries Thomas Davis and once IDP fantasy stud Jon Beason suffered early last season.
10th: Rounding out the top 10, the Bills selected cornerback Stephon Gilmore. He’s expected to have an immediate role on the team and will be put to the test against the passing game of perennial division champs, the New England Patriots.
Here are all of the picks from the 2012 NFL Draft’s first round.
1 | Indianapolis | Andrew Luck | QB |
2 | Washington (from St. Louis) | Robert Griffin III | QB |
3 | Cleveland (from Vikings) | Trent Richardson | RB |
4 | Minnesota (from Cleveland) | Matt Kalil | T |
5 | Jacksonville (from Tampa Bay) | Justin Blackmon | WR |
6 | Dallas (from Washington/St.Louis) | Morris Claiborne | CB |
7 | Tampa Bay | Mark Barron | SS |
8 | Miami | Ryan Tannehill | QB |
9 | Carolina | Luke Kuechly | ILB |
10 | Buffalo | Stephon Gilmore | CB |
11 | Kansas City | Dontari Poe | DT |
12 | Philadelphia (from Seattle) | Fletcher Cox | DE |
13 | Arizona | Michael Floyd | WR |
14 | St. Louis (from Dallas) | Michael Brockers | DT |
15 | Seattle (from Philadelphia) | Bruce Irvin | OLB |
16 | NY Jets | Quinton Coples | DE |
17 | Cincinnati (from Oakland) | Dre Kirkpatrick | CB |
18 | San Diego | Melvin Ingram | OLB |
19 | Chicago | Shea McClellin | OLB |
20 | Tennessee | Kendall Wright | WR |
21 | New England (from Cincinnati) | Chandler Jones | DE |
22 | Cleveland (from Atlanta) | Brandon Weeden | QB |
23 | Detroit | Riley Reiff | T |
24 | Pittsburgh | David DeCastro | G |
25 | New England | Dont’a Hightower | ILB |
26 | Houston | Whitney Mercilus | DE |
27 | Cincinnati (from New Orleans/New England) | Kevin Zeitler | G |
28 | Green Bay | Nick Perry | OLB |
29 | Minnesota (from Baltimore) | Harrison Smith | SS |
30 | San Francisco | A.J. Jenkins | WR |
31 | Tampa Bay (from New England/Denver) | Doug Martin | RB |
32 | NY Giants | David Wilson | RB |