Biggest Winners and Losers of Round 1

Last night's first round of the annual NFL Draft was arguably one of the most interesting and unexpected opening rounds in recent years.

Three of the top four picks were offensive tackles and five of the top 10 picks were offensive lineman. And for the first time since the 2001 draft, there were less than two quarterbacks selected in the first round. There were a couple of projected first rounders that are still on the board after last night, and a couple of teams made a reach for their respective first rounder.

One thing's for certain: there are both winners and losers of the opening round.

Winners

Minnesota Vikings: With three, yes, three first round selections last night, the Vikings made huge improvements on both sides of the ball. In the deal that sent Percy Harvin to Seattle, Minnesota received the Seahawks' 25th overall pick, and they also made a draft-day deal to grab the 29th pick from New England.

Defensive tackle Sharrif Floyd, projected to go in the top five, fell all the way down to Minnesota at No. 23. Two picks later they landed Antoine Winfield's replacement with cornerback Xavier Rhodes. And, with the No. 29 pick from the Pats, they landed the second best receiver in the draft––Cordarrelle Patterson from Tennessee––to replace Harvin on offense.

Solid picks all around for the Minnesota Vikings.

St. Louis Rams: Head coach Jeff Fisher traded up from the No. 16 spot to the No. 8 spot in a trade with the Buffalo Bills. With that pick, they snagged the most explosiver player in the draft: wide receiver Tavon Austin. With the departure of Danny Amendola this off-season and the need for weapons on offense, the elusive 175 pound speedy wideout may have been the best selection in the draft so far.

St. Louis had two first round picks thanks to the trade with Washington last season, which allowed the Skins to move up to No. 2 and snag Robert Griffin III. With their other pick (No. 22 overall), the Rams moved down to No. 30 in a trade with Atlanta and added inside linebacker Alec Ogletree.

E.J. Manuel: The only quarterback selected in the first round, the Bills used it's 16th pick in the trade with St. Louis to snag Manuel out of Florida State. I've been questioning the move by Buffalo to grab Manuel, though it appears he moved up the board because of his speed and mobility, which fits what Buffalo wants to do on offense.

Losers

New York Jets: It's become quite evident that head coach Rex Ryan worries too much about his defense than his offense. The Jets already traded away their best player––All Pro shutdown cornerback Darrelle Revis––to the Bucs. With the No. 13 pick they received in the deal, the Jets added defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson. Four picks prior to that, at No. 9, they added a potential Revis replacement by selecting Alabama corner Dee Milliner.

Quarterback Mark Sanchez could use all the help he can get on offense, as the Jets ranked 30th in the passing game last year, and 28th in overall offense.

Dallas Cowboys: Instead of using their No. 18 pick to improve the secondary, as I expected, the Cowboys traded down to the No. 31 spot and made a huge reach to improve on the offensive line. Jerry Jones selected Wisconsin center Travis Frederick, whom I was expecting to see come off the board in the second or third round––not the first. Huge reach for Dallas, especially when they could have added Eric Reid with the 18th pick.

Geno Smith: The Jaguars, Raiders, Eagles, Cardinals and Bills all made the decision to pass on Geno in the first round, which frustrated the West Virginia quarterback. Though he has changed his mind and will end up staying in NYC for the second and third rounds tonight, he was originally so frustrated that he had stated he was going home after being skipped over by all 32 teams last night.

Someone close to him must have informed him that returning home today would only hurt his stock, and show teams that he can't handle adversity. Even though he's staying in NYC, I believe that the fact that he even thought about going home today may still hurt his stock a little. He'll be selected by someone in the second round later this evening, but it's still yet to be seen how he handles the situation this season.

The second round is set to get underway at 6:30 pm (eastern time) later this evening, with plenty of talent still available on the board, including several players with first round grades. Should be an exciting second round.

Best Available:

Geno Smith

Ryan Nassib

Matt Barkley

Eddie Lacy

Giovani Bernard

Johnathan Franklin

Le'Veon Bell

Justin Hunter

Robert Woods

Zach Ertz

Menelik Watson

Barrett Jones

Johnathan Hankins

Damontre Moore

Margus Hunt

Alex Okafor

Arthur Brown

Manti Te'o

Kevin Minter

Johnthan Banks

Jamar Taylor

Jonathan Cyprien

Shmarko Thomas

Phillip Thomas

Top 5 picks in Second Round:

1 (33) Jaguars

2 (34) 49ers ((from Chiefs))

3 (35) Eagles

4 (36) Lions

5 (37) Bengals ((from Raiders))

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NFL playoff system "broken" but can't be fixed

The NFC West division has been a weak link for years when it comes to the National Football League's playoff seeding procedure, but it hit a new low this season.

After defeating a hapless St. Louis Rams offense last night, led by rookie quarterback Sam Bradford, the Seattle Seahawks became the first team to win a division with a sub-.500 record (7-9). Recently several NFL employees have brought to attention the weak spot in the procedure for figuring out each conference's playoff seeds.

Because of the format (No. 1 thru No. 4 division winners, No. 5 and No. 6 the two Wild Card teams), the Seahawks get to host the 11-5 New Orleans Saints, since they are in a stronger division and didn't win the NFC South. Depending on how the sixth seeded Green Bay Packers do in the first two rounds of the playoffs, Seattle has a slight chance at hosting not just the first week, but the conference championship game as well if they make it that far.

Another thing that was brought to my attention is the fact that two 10-6 NFC teams (New York and Tampa Bay) are both sitting at home watching the playoffs while the Seahawks are not. Funny thing is that both the Giants and Bucs crushed Seattle earlier this season--New York won 41-7 during week nine and Tampa won 38-15 just last week. In the history of the league this is the first year that two 10-6 teams in the same conference missed the postseason.

It's clear that Seattle, who didn't even get to start Matt Hasselbeck in last night's game yet still managed to pull out a victory, doesn't deserve a playoff spot after finishing with a point differential of -97 and going 2-6 on the road.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. This isn't a fixable system like the NCAA's.

Employees have brought up the idea of changing the format to just picking the top six teams in each conference (record-wise). But what exactly does that fix? I mean yes it does allow the top six teams to make it in to the postseason, but it also completely takes away the whole point of having divisions.

If this change happens sometime in the near future, I am not going to be a happy camper. There would be no reason to have division match-ups and it would take away from the rivalries which have been created through having four divisions in each conference.

If they want to fix the system, you might as well fix the entire format of the league. And that just seems like far too much trouble to go through.

I hope you hear me, Roger Goodell. Do not fix the playoff system. That may temporarily fix the problem, but it will only lead to new problems.

Photo credit: AP Photo/John Froschauer