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2012 NFL Draft Day 1 – Movin’ On Up

Published on April 26, 2012, by in NFL.

Nobody should be remotely shocked at the first two picks of day one of the 2012 NFL draft, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any interesting results with the remaining selections. Teams were moving up at a frantic pace throughout the night, resulting in the most trade-ups in the history of the draft. Here are the top 10 selections in the 2012 NFL Draft.

3rd: Cleveland traded its 4th pick plus their 4th, 5th, and 7th round picks with the Vikings in order to move up and secure running back Trent Richardson. They were convinced another team would leapfrog up to third in order to grab this NFL-ready talent and secured the RB to give their offense a much-needed boost.

4th: The Vikings came away laughing, having nabbed the player they’ve had their eyes on for months (offensive tackle Matt Kalil) by trading places with Cleveland, while also stealing all of those later-round picks in the process.

5th: Jacksonville jumped up two spots to grab WR Justin Blackmon, effectively doubling their offensive option count to two. Looks like they’re willing to give QB Blaine Gabbert a good look.

6th: Dallas moves up from 13th to 6th to grab Morris Claiborne, arguably the best cornerback prospect of the draft class. That 6th round pick originally belonged to the Redskins before they moved up to 2nd in order to secure RG3. We’ll see how the divisional rivalry plays out.

7th: Not the flashiest pick-up in the top 10, the Bucs took safety Mark Barron out of Alabama after trading their 5th pick with Jacksonville in exchange for 7th and a 4th round pick. Hopefully he can plug some of the holes that lead to TB giving up more points than any other team last season. Kudos for also sneaking back into round one and nabbing a RB with the 31st pick.

8th: Finally! A team selects a player using the draft position they came in with. Miami used their 8th pick on Ryan Tannehill, the ‘other’ QB in the top 10. He’ll be reunited with his former coach Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman, now Miami’s offensive coordinator. Interestingly enough, he often played at WR until his 4th year, where he had an impressive QB rating of 133.2. Maybe he’ll be filling in for the void left by Brandon Marshall?

9th: The Panthers selected linebacker Luke Kuechly with the 9th pick, a smart decision given the injuries Thomas Davis and once IDP fantasy stud Jon Beason suffered early last season.

10th: Rounding out the top 10, the Bills selected cornerback Stephon Gilmore. He’s expected to have an immediate role on the team and will be put to the test against the passing game of perennial division champs, the New England Patriots.

Here are all of the picks from the 2012 NFL Draft’s first round.

1 Indianapolis Andrew Luck QB
2 Washington (from St. Louis) Robert Griffin III QB
3 Cleveland (from Vikings) Trent Richardson RB
4 Minnesota (from Cleveland) Matt Kalil T
5 Jacksonville (from Tampa Bay) Justin Blackmon WR
6 Dallas (from Washington/St.Louis) Morris Claiborne CB
7 Tampa Bay Mark Barron SS
8 Miami Ryan Tannehill QB
9 Carolina Luke Kuechly ILB
10 Buffalo Stephon Gilmore CB
11 Kansas City Dontari Poe DT
12 Philadelphia (from Seattle) Fletcher Cox DE
13 Arizona Michael Floyd WR
14 St. Louis (from Dallas) Michael Brockers DT
15 Seattle (from Philadelphia) Bruce Irvin OLB
16 NY Jets Quinton Coples DE
17 Cincinnati (from Oakland) Dre Kirkpatrick CB
18 San Diego Melvin Ingram OLB
19 Chicago Shea McClellin OLB
20 Tennessee Kendall Wright WR
21 New England (from Cincinnati) Chandler Jones DE
22 Cleveland (from Atlanta) Brandon Weeden QB
23 Detroit Riley Reiff T
24 Pittsburgh David DeCastro G
25 New England Dont’a Hightower ILB
26 Houston Whitney Mercilus DE
27 Cincinnati (from New Orleans/New England) Kevin Zeitler G
28 Green Bay Nick Perry OLB
29 Minnesota (from Baltimore) Harrison Smith SS
30 San Francisco A.J. Jenkins WR
31 Tampa Bay (from New England/Denver) Doug Martin RB
32 NY Giants David Wilson RB
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