Winners and Losers of the Second and Third Rounds of the 2024 NFL Draft

David Tepper made a fool of himself, the Raiders look smart, Howie Roseman restocked the Eagles’ secondary, and the Bills (finally) landed a wide receiver. Here are the winners and losers of night two.

Day 2 of the 2024 NFL draft is in the books! Which teams made smart moves, which owner made a fool of himself, and which college program stole the show? Here are the winners and losers from the second and third rounds.

WINNER: Buffalo Bills (and Keon Coleman)

The Bills were a bummer on night one. They first traded with their AFC rival Chiefs to move back from 28 to 32 (then watched Kansas City draft speedy receiver Xavier Worthy there), and then traded out of the round entirely, swapping the last pick of the first round with Carolina for the first pick in the second round.

They picked up plenty of mid- and late-round capital through those moves back, and when they finally went on the clock on Friday, they made the wait worth it by selecting former Florida State wide receiver Keon Coleman with pick no. 33. It felt like the Bills were—finally—moving forward.

After shedding older starters this offseason, including veteran wideout Stefon Diggs in a trade with the Texans, like it was going out of style all offseason, the Bills added to their draft capital in multiple rounds and got younger at a key position of need. Coleman, the 36th-ranked player on the media consensus board, is a bully-ball receiver who is best utilized on the vertical route tree, boxing out defenders deep down the field in jump-ball situations. The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder seemingly catches everything and can throw defensive backs out the club to come open at the catch point.

He couldn’t have entered a better situation, either. Even though he isn’t a jittery athlete and lacks dangerous downfield speed, Coleman could very quickly become one of Josh Allen’s go-to options in a Bills offense devoid of receiver talent after the Diggs trade and Gabe Davis’s departure in free agency.

WINNER: Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines

NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, a proud (and vocal) Michigan alum, couldn’t get enough of his Wolverines on Friday’s broadcast—and neither could the league. Former Michigan players defensive tackle Kris Jenkins and slot cornerback Mike Sainristil came off the board at no. 49 and no. 50 to the Bengals and Commanders (respectively), while another run of Wolverines players went in Round 3, delighting a very pro–Maize and Blue crowd that gathered to watch the draft in Detroit. New Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh kicked off that run with linebacker Junior Colson—whom he recruited to Michigan in 2020—at pick no. 69, and then running back Blake Corum, wide receiver Roman Wilson, and interior offensive lineman Zak Zinter went back-to-back-to-back at pick nos. 83, 84, and 85. Perhaps the only person who liked it more than Eisen was Harbaugh, who sang “Hail to the Victors” in the Chargers draft room. It was a good day to be a Wolverine, indeed.

LOSER: David Tepper

The Panthers weren’t scheduled to pick in the first round of the draft on Thursday night, and two hours before the Bears went on the clock at pick no. 1, Panthers owner David Tepper walked into Dilworth Neighborhood Grille in Charlotte to, um, grill employees about a sign out front that read, “PLEASE LET THE COACH AND GM PICK THIS YEAR”—the implication being that Tepper interfered at the top of last year’s draft, when Carolina took Bryce Young over C.J. Stroud. Of course, the billionaire hedge fund manager had the extra time to stop by the restaurant because he, now infamously, traded away Carolina’s 2024 first-round pick (which became the first overall pick after a horrible 2023 season that drove Tepper to adult-food-fight behavior). Initial reporting from ESPN’s David Newton, who interviewed the restaurant manager, indicated Tepper wasn’t visibly upset. But then a Charlotte TV station released surveillance video footage of the event Friday morning, and it painted the incident in an even more embarrassing new light.

Tepper isn’t visibly upset in the video. But he was irked enough by what reasonable people would consider to be an innocent joke that he TOOK THE HAT OFF AN ADULT MAN’S HEAD. It was pompous, self-righteous, clearly childish behavior—fitting of a man who threw a drink at a rival fan and once said he thinks about buying restaurants just to fire waiters he doesn’t like.

So of course it’s not shocking to see screenshots of him sitting alone in the Panthers’ draft room while other members of the Panthers front office celebrate their second-round pick on Friday night:

We can only hope this means that the staff at the Dilworth Neighborhood Grille got their wish and Tepper had nothing to do with making the pick.

[whispers] WINNER: Raider Nation

It’s probably easiest to explain the Raiders’ start to the draft by listing all the things they didn’t do. New general manager Tom Telesco and first-year head coach Antonio Pierce didn’t make an over-aggressive trade-up for one of the developmental quarterbacks who came off the board just ahead of where they were picking at no. 13 in the first round. Even with their glaring quarterback need, they didn’t force themselves to draft a prospect with a poor injury history (like Michael Penix Jr.) or age concerns (like Bo Nix.) Instead, while staring directly into the mustaches of an uninspiring quarterback depth chart of veteran journeyman Gardner Minshew and second-year QB Aidan O’Connell, Las Vegas drafted the best player available in each of the first three times they were on the clock, taking tight end Brock Bowers at 13, Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson at no. 44, and Maryland offensive lineman Delmar Glaze in the middle of the third round. For most of the league, that would simply be considered smart drafting; for the Raiders, it’s a massive shift in draft philosophy, a miracle hand-delivered from some kind of higher power who finally grew tired of laughing at the franchise for the last two decades.

The Raiders got great value in both Bowers (The Ringer’s Danny Kelly’s third-ranked player, and the likely target of multiple teams who were trying to trade up in the first round) and Powers-Johnson, the 28th-ranked player on this media consensus board. Sure, both Bowers and Powers-Johnson play low-value positions, and they took Bowers a year after selecting TE Michael Mayer in the second round, but …

Throw that nerd shit out the window for a second (no offense, Barnwell). Bowers and Powers-Johnson are good players, and look like they can actually be foundational pieces who will stick in Vegas for years. Only two of the Raiders’ 11 first-round picks since 2015—edge defender Tyree Wilson and offensive tackle Kolton Miller—remain on the team, and Wilson isn’t even projected to start in 2024. Bigger than their need at quarterback, or another high-value position, is the Raiders’s need for impact football players. They finally added those on Day 1 and Day 2 of the draft.

WINNER: Howie Roseman

How does Howie Roseman just keep getting away with this?! Drafting cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, two top-25 players on the media consensus board, at pick no. 22 and no. 40 (respectively) almost feels too good to be true—and downright disrespectful to the rest of the league. The trade up for DeJean on Friday evening diminishes some of the value of the selection, but both Mitchell and DeJean have all of the tools necessary to be long-term starters at outside cornerback on a team that desperately needs to get younger in the secondary. Plus, DeJean has inside-outside versatility and could make the switch to safety if necessary.

Cornerbacks age like milk in the sun; the drop-off in production is often quick, ruthless, and steep. Eagles’ Darius Slay and James Bradberry are entering their age-33 and age-31 seasons, respectively. Marrying fit and value is becoming Roseman’s calling card, and Philly fans can’t get enough of it.

LOSER: Non-Ngata Announcers

I hate nearly all of the guest announcements during the draft. The only ones I actually support are the kids that they let grab the mic. (I feel the same way about jumbotrons at sporting events. I don’t need to see middle-aged men drinking beer or awkward adults seeking their five seconds of “fame” with an unfunny dance move or frantic hand wave. Let the kids have the fun, please!)

That said, former Ravens defensive tackle Haloti Ngata, who was tapped to announce Baltimore’s Day 2 picks, brought out his sons for assistance, and the young Ngatas took the cake for best guest announcement of the weekend thus far. Ngata’s clearly raising those kids right: