Williams, Daniels, Maye, Penix, McCarthy and Nix go in top 12 ‘No heads up’: Cousins surprised by Falcons’ Penix Jr selection NFL draft 2024: the first round – as it happened Caleb Williams swiftly walked on stage, looked out and screamed “Woooo! Yeah!” Long-suffering Bears fans felt his joy ..read more

Atlanta selected the Washington QB with No 8 pick in the draft Cousins signed $180m contract with Falcons this offseason Bears tap Caleb Williams with No 1 pick as six QBs go in top 12 The Atlanta Falcons provided the shock of the first round of the NFL draft by selecting quarterback Michael Penix Jr with the No 8 overall pick on Thursday night. The Falcons extended their recent trend of selecting offensive skill players in the first round by drafting Penix one month after signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180m contract with $100m guaranteed. Using a draft slot normally targeted for play ..read more

USC’s Caleb Williams selected first overall by Bears Six quarterbacks chosen in the top 12 overall picks ‘We got no heads up’: Cousins surprised by Falcons’ pick Roger Goodell walks out to a rousing chorus of boos – thank you to Detroit for maintaining the league’s most delightful tradition. He brought out Eminem, Calvin Johnson, Aidan Hutchinson and Jared Goff with him, which helped a little. Also: Calvin Johnson looks like he would still be the best receiver in the league ..read more

Man who shot ex-Saints star receives 25-year prison sentence Smith was shot eight times during confrontation with Hayes The man who fatally shot retired NFL star Will Smith during a confrontation following a car crash in 2016 received a 25-year prison sentence on Thursday in a New Orleans courtroom. It was the second time Cardell Hayes, 36, had faced sentencing in Smith’s death. He was convicted of manslaughter in December 2016 and later sentenced to 25 years. But the jury vote had been 10-2 and the conviction was later tossed after the US supreme court outlawed such non-unanimous verdicts ..read more

NFL to open academy for teenagers on Gold Coast Move is latest step in league’s global expansion efforts The NFL will expand its international search for talent by opening an academy in rugby-mad Australia to develop promising teenagers in the Asia-Pacific region into college and pro prospects. The NFL Academy will open in September for student athletes aged 12 to 18, following recruitment camps taking place this summer in Australia and New Zealand, the league announced on Thursday ..read more

Our writers take a look at the best prospects coming out of college, and which teams needs to nail their picks over the coming days It feels like a lock that it will be LSU’s Jayden Daniels, thought I wouldn’t put it past the Commanders to fall in love with Michigan’s JJ McCarthy. Daniels is a funky prospect; he was a starry duel threat at LSU, but it’s tough to see whether the best elements of his game – his running, his deep ball – will smoothly transition to the NFL. He doesn’t possess Lamar Jackson-esque breakaway speed and has a brittle frame. As a thrower from the pocket, he has a snappy ..read more

The league’s annual circus will descend on Detroit this week. We look back on some of the draft’s oddest and infamous moments Teams spend years plotting their draft strategy. But once the clock starts ticking, things do not always go as planned ..read more

Four quarterbacks are likely to go in the top 10 of the 2024 draft later this week. But a similar rush occurred in 2021, and the results were not pretty On 25 April in Detroit, Michigan, the 89th annual NFL draft will begin. As team owners, general managers, coaches and scouts pore over the best prospects preparing to jump from college to the pros, there is a strong possibility that four quarterbacks will be selected in the top 10 for just the third time in history. In fact, for what would be the first time ever, the top four picks could all be quarterbacks. That’s partly a function of the tal ..read more

Caleb Williams will almost certainly be the No 1 overall pick this month. But there are plenty of interesting players lower down the board In recent drafts, we’ve seen players selected from Australia. We’ve had a tight end with no experience picked out of Germany in the sixth-round, thanks to Mike Mayock demanding it on the draft broadcast – that really happened! What we haven’t seen is an American-born player selected out of Canada. And we haven’t seen an American-born player drafted who played no college football ..read more

The franchise has long been dismissed as backwards looking. But it is set to draft a star who happily pushes back on athlete stereotypes Among the NFL’s heirloom franchises, the Chicago Bears are the still living in the last century – the pride of George “Papa Bear” Halas, a league founding father. From their neoclassical stadium to their 101-year-old owner-matriarch to their stubborn reverence for “Bear Weather” (ie: lake-effect winter conditions that only affect the other team), everything about the franchise is old-fashioned. Even the Bears being in position to select a quarterback with the ..read more