Seven-round NFL mock draft, Round 1: Building a win-now team from active players for 2024 season

Each April, I build a complete seven-round NFL mock draft that attempts to find homes for college prospects based on their value, as well as the roster needs and schemes of all 32 pro teams.

We’re bringing back the mock draft concept to re-imagine the NFL landscape for a third straight year, with teams building balanced rosters — including veteran and young talent on both sides of the ball — designed to WIN NOW.

This sort of mass redistribution of talent obviously would never happen in real life. But with training camps still a few weeks away, let’s have a little fun with another seven-round mock ahead of the 2024 NFL season.

This mock draft is simply one version of countless possible projections, given players’ expected on-field performance in 2024 (assuming they are all on one-year contracts) and each team’s current coaching staff and front office.

Before we get started, a few important notes:

• Teams are listed based on the first-round order from the 2024 NFL Draft, restoring traded or forfeited picks to the original holders.
• The subsequent rounds are “snaked” to distribute talent evenly among the 32 franchises — that is, the order of Round 1 is reversed in Round 2, which is reversed in Round 3, and so on. The order does account for tiebreakers from round to round, though, so it’s not a straight snake throughout.
• No trades or compensatory selections were included.