AFC Draft Performance Assessments 2025
Drake Maye gets all the toys. C.J. Stroud gets the Spartan Baby treatment. The Browns heed the Call of Cthulhu. All 16 AFC teams graded!
Welcome to the 2025 AFC Draft Performance Assessments. Are you looking for the NFC DPAs? You will find them here.
Are you wondering what DPAs are? They’re GRADES, okay? I spent 20 years in public education hearing buzzwords for “grades,” then the last 20 years on the NFL Internet being told how stupid draft grades were (by the folks reading and reacting to them). So I came up with this bit a few years ago. Now I am stuck with it. And finally coming clean does not feel liberating in any way. Please just play along for the sake of my dignity.
I … I think the Shedeur Weekend may have gotten to me. Anyway, let’s do this.
AFC East
Buffalo Bills
Improved Roster: B+
Used Resources Well: B
Met Needs: C+ (A WR would have been nice)
Final DPA: B
After selecting Maxwell Hairston, a fine value pick at a need position, the Bills chose to play a Ravens-style succession game. T.J. Sanders, Landon Jackson and Deone Walker represent an awful lot of man meat along an already-deep defensive front. The Bills will develop them to swap out aging (DaQuan Jones), expensive (Ed Oliver) or underperforming (A.J. Epenesa) pieces over the next year or two.
Sanders didn’t crack the Too Deep 96: he lacks OMG traits and popped straight up out of his stance a little too often when I watched him. He was a productive tackler, however, and has a burst when he beats his blocker.
Adding sheer quantity at cornerback (Jordan Hancock and Dorian Strong) made sense. Jackson Hawes is one of my binkies; look for him as the TE3 when the Bills choose gropo tactics.
WR Kaden Prather was overshadowed at Maryland by Tai Fenton but could end up having a better NFL career. Prather is a 6-foot-3 beanpole with 4.37 speed and the ability to make twisting, leaping adjustments to off-target throws.
Trading up for Sanders doesn’t feel like an analytics-approved move, and the Bills and Bears traded the 109th pick back-and-forth like they were sharing a joint before the Bills selected Walker. But whatever: the Bills saw a draft full of cornerbacks and D-linemen, so they drafted a bunch of cornerbacks and D-linemen. That’s a sound long-term strategy for remaining in contention.
Miami Dolphins
Improved Roster: C+
Used Resources Well: D
Met Needs: D+
Final DPA: D+
The Dolphins hold a Red Wedding every few years in which everyone in the organization realizes that the latest plan has failed and tries to slaughter everyone else. We’re at that point again. Terron Armstead was a cap casualty. Jalen Ramsey is on the trading block. Tyreek Hill is reminding us yet again that he sucks as a partner/parent/person. GM Chris Grier plum forgot to mention Tua Tagovailoa when rattling off a list of the team’s leaders at his predraft press conference, though he did mention Hill. Grier stated after the draft that Tua’s “health risks” were “unacceptable,” which is an interesting way of shaming the employee who suffered several near-death experiences in your workplace. Meanwhile, Zach Wilson, the arithmetic mean between Sam Darnold and Trey Lance, was a “calculated target” according to Mike McDaniel, who may not be feeling the temperature under his seat rise.
So yes, The Purge is imminent, and this draft may reflect the Dolphins’ eagerness to get on with the backstabbing. Kenneth Grant was a worthy first-round selection, but the Dolphins spent third AND fourth-round picks to move up a few spots in the second round for Jonah Savaiinaea, a standard-issue thicc run-thumping guard.
Grier then disappeared until the fifth-round, where he stocked up on dollar-store items, including QB Quinn Ewers, the type of bumbling winnersauce prospect a team falls in love with once it makes a commitment to negging its quarterback.
Assuming Ramsey gets traded for 2026 draft picks or released, the Dolphins are now opening more roster holes than they are filling. I’m not predicting that Ewers will be starting for interim coach Joe Barry in Week 18 or anything. But it would not be out of character.