3 teams dubbed biggest winners of the 2019 NFL Draft

Bleacher Report recently handed out grades to all 32 teams for their 2019 NFL Draft results four years later. Here were the biggest winners. 

It doesn’t make a ton of sense to grade every team’s draft class immediately following the NFL Draft. As talent evaluators, we study for months to get a good idea of which players will be successful at the NFL level, but obviously, we never know for sure.

I think four years is just about the right amount of time to look back and accurately determined which teams had a successful draft class. Recently, Bleacher Report revisited the 2019 NFL Draft and handed out grades to all 32 teams.

This wasn’t a particularly strong year in terms of all-around talent, but the 2019 class did produce an impressive group of wide receivers and a franchise quarterback who just broke the bank. Here are the three highest-graded draft classes from 2019, according to Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton:

Arizona Cardinals: A

Kudos to the Cardinals’ new management for not settling for anything less at the quarterback position. After the team just took Josh Rosen in the first round the year prior, Kliff Kingsbury and his crew opted for QB Kyler Murray with the first overall pick in the draft.

Recently, Murray just became the second-richest player currently in the league — behind only the great Aaron Rodgers, via Adam Schefter. The Cardinals followed this up with a very solid selection in CB Byron Murphy. While they more or less struck out with the rest of their mid-round picks, Murray was the gem of the 2019 NFL Draft and they have gone from a bad team to competitors with him at the helm.

San Francisco 49ers: A

With the second overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers clearly took the next-best impact player of the group: edge defender, Nick Bosa. Bosa has been electric during his first three seasons — kicking things off with a 9.0 sack performance as a rookie. In 2021, the talented edge defender recorded 15.5 sacks and led the league with 21 tackles for a loss.

However, Bosa wasn’t the only slam-dunk pick. Landing Deebo Samuel in the second round was one of the biggest steals of the draft. While the rest of their draft was average at best, this one-two pairing of Bosa and Samuel is one of the best we’ve seen from a team in years.

Tennessee Titans: A

The Tennesse Titans were clearly one of the biggest winners of the 2019 NFL Draft. Despite finishing with just the 19th overall pick, they were able to land an imposing defensive lineman in Jefferey Simmons. Their second-round pick was followed up with stud receiver in A.J. Brown. Though they didn’t extend Brown, they were able to get three years out of him and swap his services for a first-round pick from the Eagles.

The Titans are also one of the only teams to strike gold with three star players in the 2019 draft class. In addition to hitting on Simmons and Brown, Tennessee essentially stole safety Amani Hooker. In his third NFL season, Hooker graded out as the 3rd-best safety in the entire NFL, according to Pro Football Focus.

These three draft hauls were certainly a cut above the rest in the 2019 NFL Draft. Each team has seen the fruits as they have been playoff teams thanks in large part to the talented players they drafted four years ago.