Issue #270: Draft Night

By Derrick Ernst

April 23, 2026

No. 1 Overall

As promised, it’s time to get serious. Not to say I’m going to completely disregard any psychological thoughts between now and the start of the season, but let’s just say they’ll need to move the needle in order for me to dedicate it space in the newsletter. It’s time to dive into the 2026 season and there’s no better place to start than the draft.

Since 2001 (the past 25 drafts), do you know there has only been two other positions outside of QB to have been drafted No. 1 overall? Any guesses? I don’t know why I was expecting that number to be larger (maybe because I was thinking other positions were favored more in the 2000’s), but it speaks to the importance of these positions, or their lack of indispensability.

Over the last 25 years, there have been:

• 19 QBs drafted No. 1 overall (76%)

• 4 DEs drafted No. 1 overall (16%)

• 2 Tackles drafted No. 1 overall (8%)

I feel like most football enthusiast can rattle off a baker’s dozen or so of the QBs so as to give the DE’s and T’s some love, here are the six others:

• DE: Mario Williams (’06), Jadeveon Clowney (’14), Myles Garrett (’17), Travon Walker (’22)

• T: Jake Long (’08) and Eric Fisher (’13)

A pretty good group and for some it means getting paid, like T. Walker just did. JAX couldn’t be further away from MIN so I don’t hear much in the way of Walker’s name to know how he’s doing, but for fans of the team, they apparently don’t have any pushback on the extension:

For those that didn’t see the news, he signed an extension for $27.5M/yr. Anything under $30M/yr these days feels like a steal. I concur with the JAX fans. I bet you needed to be reminded that he isn’t even the highest paid player on their D-line. I sure did:

Source: Over The Cap

Some fun facts about the last 25 No. 1 overall picks:

• Nine have won the Heisman, all of them being QBs

• The latest to win the Super Bowl was Eric Fisher with the Chiefs in ’19

• Eli Manning is the only multi-Super Bowl winner

• The latest to win MVP was Matthew Stafford with LAR last season

• Myles Garrett has been selected to the most Pro Bowls (7 and counting)

• Only 3 have won Offensive Rookie of The Year (K. Murray, C. Newton, S. Bradford)

• There has only been one Pro Bowl selection among the last five No. 1 overall picks (T. Lawrence), the longest stretch over the last 25 years

This last point is telling. I think it may have something to do with points I’ve made about players of younger generations, but to me this feels more about the uncertainty (and public pressures) of drafting players of need rather than the best player available. This is really the decision all draft picks boil down to (this applies to fantasy too). Not to say F. Mendoza won’t work out (I tend to think he won’t but I hope I’m proven wrong for competitiveness sake), but LV drafting someone else would stir a fanbase and put immense pressure on a first-year coach to produce. Mendoza is the safest play — no one is going to wrong you if he doesn’t turn out. Some say we won’t see Mendoza until his second year as he sits behind Kirk. I bet we’ll see him start this year.

Attendance

The kid in me came out a little bit over the weekend. With ESPN now involved in the WWE, I caught some of the free action of Wrestlemania they threw on their main channel. I found it funny how much the WWE made a big deal about attendance — they practically dedicated an entire segment to John Cena, who was the host, to make the announcement to the crowd. It was a classic Ricky Bobby moment, “I’m not sure what to do with my hands?” For a moment that was supposed to elicit screams and hollers, it ended up being awkward and one that put a damper on the flow of the production. Anyways, if you’re curious how many people a two-day Wrestlemania event draws, here’s your answer (and I’d assume a good chunk of this number are the same person who bought a two-day pass):

Source: Facebook (Wrestle Everest)

I don’t know what it has been about these last few drafts, but I can’t get enough of the overhead shots of the crowds. They are becoming spectacles. I think the NFL got it absolutely right to take the draft on tour and have there be different host cities every year. I like the different flares each host puts on. It makes the entire production unique. Let’s be honest, Radio City Music Hall was getting a bit stale.

Without knowing, it turns out I was onto something with the crowd levels these past few years. I should’ve guessed, COVID is what really put this into hyper speed. Here are the top-five highest attended drafts (three day totals, Thu-Sat) in NFL history (thanks to Google AI):

The “+” sign after 775,000 is because apparently security had to turn people away over the course of the weekend because the grounds were at capacity. That’s insane! DET also holds the record for the highest attendance for a single day of the draft (275,000). We’re not going to compare Wrestlemania to the NFL Draft (the latter is free to attend by the way), but it is impressive that an event centered around people announcing other people’s names and shaking hands draws hundreds of thousands of people more than WWE’s main event. My money is on Pittsburgh to come in between KC and GB/Nashville this year.

NYG

That makes two top-ten picks for NYG tonight. I’m to the point where my NYG prediction looks so good on paper that I almost want it to fail. This will start to become consensus and when it does, there won't be much value to extract from it. Here’s my parting draft thought, expect all the mock drafts you’ve seen up to this point to be ripped to smithereens. Expect the No. 1 pick to be the only expected selection.