The Carolina Panthers didn’t go into the 2022 NFL draft with an awful lot of ammunition. Last year’s trades for former New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold and former Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback CJ Henderson left them without picks in both the second and third rounds.
So—as the proceedings began on Thursday night—they had only a first-round pick, a fourth, two fifths, a sixth and a seventh. That Day 2 void, however, wouldn’t stop them finding perhaps the most value of the entire weekend.
Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis pieced together a bit of search into value from the draft. Using a consensus set of projections based off numerous mock drafts, Sharp found which teams got themselves the best and worst value and which players were notably underdrafted and overdrafted.
And in case you couldn’t tell from our little introduction, the Panthers came out on top.
best value NFL draft classes:
1. Carolina Panthers
2. Green Bay Packers
3. Kansas City Chiefs
4. Las Vegas Raiders
5. Seattle Seahawks
6. New York Jets
7. Baltimore Ravens
8. Arizona Cardinals
9. Philadelpha Eagles
10. Atlanta Falconssee pic for 1-32 plus methodology pic.twitter.com/JbFjPEWN1Y
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 30, 2022
What helped them get to that -32 differential were, in particular, the selections of Virginia Tech defensive end Amaré Barno at No. 189 overall (a 65-pick difference) and Baylor cornerback Kalon Barnes (-63). As shown above, Barno and Barnes—which also sounds like the name of an awesome law firm—ranked 10th and 13th amongst the most underdrafted prospects.
Carolina also received some nice value from plucking Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral, who was the second-best value of the third round (48), and Penn State linebacker Brandon Smith (27), the seventh-best of the fourth.
Not too bad for a team who was seemingly handcuffed for the event, huh?
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