Desmond Ridder Named one of the 2022 NFL Draft's Biggest Steals

The consensus big boards didn't agree with the player's draft position

Author:
Russ Heltman
Updated:
May 5, 2022 12:31 PM EDT

CINCINNATI — The Athletic's Arif Hasan puts together a detailed Consensus Big Board every year and then assesses the biggest reaches and steals once the dust settles. Well, a Bearcat made the cut as one of the eight biggest steals of the 2022 NFL Draft.

Desmond Ridder earned that distinction after falling 32 spots from his consensus No. 42 ranking. The Falcons selected Ridder with the 74th pick in the draft.

"Another bonus for quarterbacks is in play here," Hasan wrote. "But this might have made the list regardless, given that the Falcons gained about 40 slots of value here. The real issue is not whether all these teams were smart to grab these well-regarded quarterbacks late but why so many people liked this quarterback class enough to rank them so highly in the first place. But the board doesn’t do post-draft adjustments like that, so it trusts that the quarterbacks were fairly evaluated."

Ridder was adamant on his draft-selection phone call with Atlanta that the whole league would regret passing on him.

"It shouldn't have taken this long," Ridder told Falcons GM Terry Fontenot. "They done [expletive] up. I ain't even gonna lie."

A motivated Ridder isn't someone I'd want to be in the way of, and that's exactly what Marcus Mariota is doing as the current QB1. Time will tell how long the former No. 2 overall pick can keep that job.

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