One of the most exciting things about the start of an NFL season is the anticipation of new players and what they will bring to the team. For veterans who have newly joined a team through trades or free agency, we already know a lot about what we’re going to get. Rookies, though, are a different story, since we’ve never seen them perform against NFL competition.
It’s reasonable to expect a Round 1 pick to contribute right away. Day 3 picks are a different story, yet fans sometimes agonize about them contributing as well, even though there’s a reason they were still on the board on Day 3. Our opinions about what should happen once the season begins mean nothing, though. (“What’s wrong with Shane Bowen, only playing Abdul Carter for 38 snaps?” was a common refrain on X this past Monday.) All that matters is what does happen.
You may or may not have confidence in what the Giants’ front office and coaching staff are doing. It’s better to look at the entire league and see what the collective “wisdom” of the 32 teams is about how much rookies should be used right off the bat. It depends on many things – how high the rookie was drafted, whether a given player was drafted into a position of strength or need, his health coming out of training camp, how quickly he adapts to the pro game, etc.
Here’s a fascinating diagram by Anthony Reinhard showing every single 2025 draft pick and what that player did in Week 1 (go to the tweet to see the full range):
It’s tough to read unless you zoom in, but the details aren’t the point. The color coding tells you everything you need to know about how players drafted in different rounds are used by their teams at the start of the season. The details of course will vary from season to season, but with 32 teams the general behavior should be fairly consistent from year to year. Here’s what we learn:
- Starters (green): About three quarters of first-round picks start in Week 1 of their rookie year. Abdul Carter and Jaxson Dart are two of the exceptions, the former because Carter was drafted into a position of strength and Dart because the Giants signed a veteran as a bridge to allow him to develop at his own pace (or not, if Russell Wilson has many more games like last Sunday’s). Once you get to Round 2, only about 25% of rookies start. Interestingly, only a handful of draftees start in each of Rounds 3-6, and there’s not really any trend from Round 3 to Round 6. Only when we get to Round 7 is it highly unlikely for any rookie to start (and the one who did, started on special teams).
- Playing time (blue bar): Even though Carter didn’t start, he played more than half the game, and that was typical of what many rookies did last week. The differences are more due to conventions for playing time at different positions: Quarterbacks and offensive linemen, e.g., tend to play every snap while edge defenders and interior defensive linemen rotate. That’s not to say he shouldn’t have played maybe 10 more snaps than he did, only that you’ll never see an edge defender or IDL playing 100% of snaps. Cam Skattebo’s and Marcus Mbow’s limited usage in Game 1 was typical of most of the players who were drafted just before and after them (though only Skattebo got an Angry Runs scepter from Kyle Brandt). Once you get past Round 5, it is rare to see a rookie getting much playing time.
- Inactives (gray): People on X were already complaining that Darius Alexander, the Giants’ third round pick, is a bust because he was inactive for Week 1. However, we can see that aside from the inactive players on IR (e.g., Walter Nolen and Derrick Harmon in Round 1), there are a pretty decent number of fairly high draft picks who were inactive in Week 1: Five in Round 2 alone, nine including Alexander in Round 3 for non-injury reasons, and similar numbers in Rounds 3-6. There are fewer such players in Round 7, but that’s because many are on IR. Some are injured players who were not placed on IR, some are not (e.g., Round 2 pick J.T. Tuimoloau of the Colts, Vernon Broughton of the Cardinals, and Landon Jackson of the Bills.
- Busts (purple): That’s too harsh a term for players who are not on their team’s 53-man roster. Some are on their team’s practice squad, for example. No one drafted through Rounds 1-4 did not make their team’s 53. After that, though, there are increasing numbers of players from Rounds 5-7 who wound up on a practice squad. The surprising result is that only three drafted players in total were just released and not re-signed to a practice squad. Maybe scouting is getting better in the NFL. Or maybe teams think they’ll look bad if they can’t salvage something from a pick and admit defeat early.
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