2022 NFL Draft: How 49ers won Round 1 without doing a thing
By Peter Panacy
49ers win Round 1 of NFL Draft by rest of NFC West not improving
Day one of the draft won’t reveal the full success of any team’s rookie class, of course. And while the Niners didn’t wind up taking home any top-end prospects in the round, it’s hard to say anyone else in the NFC West improved much at all either.
In fact, there was only one pick to an NFC West team throughout the entirety of Round 1, the Seattle Seahawks taking Mississippi State offensive tackle Charles Cross, which addressed a need but too late to save quarterback Russell Wilson’s desire to stay there.
The Los Angeles Rams? Like San Francisco, they didn’t select in the first round either.
And the only other divisional transaction of note is the Arizona Cardinals trading away their own first-round pick, No. 23 overall, to the Baltimore Ravens to acquire wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown.
Brown is a good player. Not great and not elite.
The Marquise Brown trade makes ZERO sense for the Cardinals.
— Austin Gayle (@austingayle_) April 29, 2022
This is an absolute ROBBERY by Baltimore.
Arizona needed defensive help and improvements for the offensive line. Not someone who can merely replace now-Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Christian Kirk, who left in free agency.
Simply put, the Cardinals whiffed on this one, and the rest of the division isn’t better.