NFL Draft preview: JJ McCarthy of Michigan football could create history in the 2024 draft
Using all the pertinent data, observations, and even historical context at our disposal, we give you a sneak peek at the Michigan storylines you should follow in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The NFL’s 32 teams will alternately make 257 decisions over the course of three days and seven rounds of the draft on Thursday evening in Detroit. Not only will this year’s draft conveniently located only down I-94, but the Michigan football team is anticipated to be well-represented at the event, as it has been for the past few years. More than a dozen Wolverines anticipate hearing their names called at the NFL Draft Combine after the Wolverines saw a record-breaking 18 of their 2023 players invited.
Below, we lay down all the pertinent data, notes, and even some history at stake to give you a sneak peek at the Michigan topics you should watch from the event.
When we broke out Georgia’s 2022 record of 15 players selected in a single draft in May, we were among the first publications to report that the Wolverines will have an opportunity to surpass it. Jim Harbaugh was singing the same song to everybody who would listen by the summer.
“I anticipate that 20 players will be selected in the upcoming NFL Draft,” Harbaugh stated to The Athletic. We smash that (draft) record, I wager. That year, Georgia had fifteen.”
It won’t be 20 because a few players choose to stay at Michigan for an additional season, including Rod Moore, Makari Paige, Josaiah Stewart, and Donovan Edwards. However, following their victory over a team loaded with veterans, the Wolverines had eighteen players invited to the NFL Draft.
combine, giving Michigan’s chances of selecting 16 or more guys this weekend some genuine credence.
Of course, it’s not a given that it will occur. Just 13 Michigan players were placed in the top 257 of Pro Football Focus’s big board as of Tuesday (four of them were in the 273–301 range). In the seven-round mock draft held by NFL.com, thirteen Michigan players were chosen, compared to just fourteen in the ESPN.com mock draft. The Athletic assigned draft grades to 16 Michigan players, but over half of them were sixth- or seventh-round selections. The NFL Mock Draft Database lists 14 Michigan players among its top 257.
