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Aaron Schatz, ESPN Writer
Entering every season, there are high expectations for NFL rookies. And throughout the course of the season, some rookies break records and become starters, while others get injured or struggle once they get on the field. And some rookies aren’t even good enough to get playing time in their first year. So how did this year’s rookies — drafted and undrafted — pan out?
We’re taking a look at all 32 rookie classes in the NFL and ranking the value of their contributions in 2023. We want to emphasize that this list is only based on how much production teams got out of these players in their first season. There may be great future contributions from injured rookies such as Anthony Richardson and Christian Gonzalez, but those players missed most of the 2023 season.
To rank the rookie classes, we started with Sports Info Solutions’ Total Points metric. Based on game charting, Total Points takes every element of a play and uses that data to evaluate each player on a scale that allows you to compare between positions. In other words, how many points do we estimate that this player either earned for his offense or saved for his defense? You can read more about it here. We then adjusted some teams up or down based on the importance of certain positions or how well players did in ESPN tracking metrics and the DVOA ratings.
Our list is headed up by a team that received a lot of criticism for trading up and ending up with two of the top three picks in last year’s draft. But those two picks had very strong rookie seasons.
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LAC | LAR | LV | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
The Texans are No. 1 for a simple reason: They found a franchise quarterback. C.J. Stroud had one of the top 10 rookie seasons of the past 25 years despite missing a couple of games with concussion symptoms. But the Texans didn’t stop there.
Third overall selection Will Anderson Jr. finished the regular season with seven sacks and is a Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate. Third-round pick Tank Dell had 47 catches for 709 yards and seven touchdowns before suffering a broken leg in Week 12. And rookies held down the center position all year: At first it was sixth-round pick Jarrett Patterson, then second-round pick Juice Scruggs took over when healthy.