That’s a wrap, y’all.

Props to you if you watched all 14-plus hours of the NFL Draft. I don’t blame you. It’s going to be awhile before we have a live football event of any significance. Squeezing every drop out of that seems smart.

And after all, there were SEC players galore.

We came into the final day of the 2019 NFL Draft with the SEC having 28 players off the board already. That was 12 more than the next-closest conference, which made it extremely likely that the SEC was once again going to have the most draft picks. Perhaps even more impressive was that 12 SEC teams had a player picked in the first 3 rounds.

But Saturday wasn’t just about the totals. Let’s dig into some of the SEC things that stood out from the final day of the 2019 NFL Draft:

I didn’t think these 5 SEC players would last until Day 3, but they did

At one point or another, all 5 of these players were first-round picks in mock drafts:

  • Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, Florida DB
  • Jarrett Stidham, Auburn QB
  • Riley Ridley, Georgia WR
  • Deionte Thompson, Alabama S
  • Mack Wilson, Alabama LB

Gardner-Johnson I thought especially with how strongly he finished the season in the Peach Bowl, would be a Day 2 guy. But teams were slow to draft defensive backs, which probably hurt the former Gators standout, who did end up in a solid secondary in New Orleans.

Ridley had first-round buzz as early as this week. Todd McShay was super high on him, despite the fact that he was never a true go-to receiver at Georgia. But Ridley’s ability to show up in big games made him an intriguing prospect, especially considering his brother Calvin Ridley made an immediate impact with the Falcons.

A lack of explosion probably dropped Ridley into the Day 3 picture. The good news is that he ultimately landed with the Bears, who have an eager, young group of receivers. Oh, and they’re already got some of Ridley’s former teammates in Javon Wims and Roquan Smith. It was actually Wims who Ridley replaced in the 2017 National Championship.

The 2 Alabama players, Thompson and Wilson, were picked after a punter. Let that sink in. Thompson and Wilson both struggled limiting plays in space, and perhaps in this modern era of pass-heavy offenses, that resulted in their respective falls to the fifth round. Neither was particularly good in the Playoff, either. There was also reportedly some attitude concerns about Wilson, who didn’t necessarily have the year many thought he would.

Certainly Shannon Sharpe was surprised to see Thompson fall to the first pick of the fifth round:

Maybe those guys were part of Nick Saban’s rant about underclassmen leaving money on the table by declaring early for the NFL Draft. If they weren’t before, they probably were after Saturday.

The one guy who really didn’t show up in any recent first round mocks was Stidham, but he was expected to be a Day 2 guy. I thought he’d be the perfect “your a backup and if you turn into a legitimate starter, that’d be awesome” guy. Relatively low-risk, high-reward.

But as it turned out, teams were even lower on him than I realized. Only 5 quarterbacks were picked in the first 3 rounds and Stidham wasn’t one of them. I can’t help but wonder how much that had to do with playing in Gus Malzahn’s system. In the Senior Bowl and at the Combine, Stidham shined.

Now, though, that’s all in the past. A healthy Stidham will get a chance to learn from the G.O.A.T. Nobody thought Stidham was going to be a Day 1 starter because of the scheme adjustment, but now he gets the ultimate passing-of-the-torch situation. Then again, it seems like we’ve been saying that about Tom Brady forever.

But Brady will be 42 by the time the season starts, and Stidham will likely be his backup. I’d give Stidham a legitimate chance of becoming the heir apparent.

Speaking of SEC quarterbacks …

I thought the SEC would have a first-round quarterback for the first time since Johnny Manziel in 2014. I thought wrong.

Drew Lock surprisingly fell to the second round, where he was still somehow picked by the Broncos. It actually worked out extremely well for the former Mizzou star because John Elway added some key offensive pieces in the 2 picks before taking Lock in the second round.

I also thought the SEC would have at least 3 quarterbacks selected for the first time since 2014. I thought wrong about that, too. I was surprised that Kyle Shurmur went un-drafted given the last 2 years he had at Vanderbilt and his NFL connections with his dad.

It also ended up being a frustrating weekend for Jordan Ta’amu and Nick Fitzgerald, both of whom were hoping to come off the board on Day 3.

Here was the total draft breakdown of this now 8-year stretch with just 1 first-round quarterback from the SEC:

  • 2019: 2 (Drew Lock, Jarrett Stidham)
  • 2018: 1 (Danny Etling)
  • 2017: 2 (Chad Kelly, Josh Dobbs)
  • 2016: 2 (Dak Prescott, Brandon Allen)
  • 2015: 0
  • 2014: 4 (Manziel, A.J. McCarron, Aaron Murray, Zach Mettenberger)
  • 2013: 1 (Tyler Wilson)
  • 2012: 0

It definitely wasn’t a year reminiscent of 2014, which I’d argue was the best year for SEC quarterbacks. My guess? That happens next year with Tua Tagovailoa and Jake Fromm.

Two incredibly obvious picks

Hjalte Froholdt to the Patriots and Benny Snell to the Steelers. They both make too much sense.

Froholdt is going to New England, where he’ll be reunited with Bret Bielema. You can bet he put a good word in for the Danish offensive lineman. I’ve been saying Froholdt just felt like a guy who would be picked on Day 3 and start for the next decade. What a perfect place to go do that.

I love the potential of someone who started as a defensive player in college and all he did the last 3 years was produce. He was extraordinary as a pass-blocking interior offensive lineman even as the Hogs struggled in the SEC. Froholdt is an immediate rotational guy who I wouldn’t be surprised to see starting by season’s end to help preserve Brady’s final years.

As for Snell, well, him playing in a blue collar city like Pittsburgh is perfect. Those fans will fall in love with Snell when he’s dragging dudes across the goal line. Obviously the wear and tear is a bit of a concern, but Snell won’t be asked to be a high-volume guy with James Conner locked in as the starter. Snell will start as a short-yardage guy who is capable of bigger and better things.

I might have also been the only one to notice the irony of the Steelers losing an Ohio native running back with a rap career (Le’Veon Bell) and replacing him with Snell … another Ohio native running back with a rap career.

Talk about an ideal fit.

SEC running backs who left early weren’t necessarily wrong

Speaking of Snell, it was probably easy to look at the way it went for SEC running backs and wonder why they all left school with eligibility remaining. There were 6 on the board, and I’d argue that Josh Jacobs was the only one who went about where we expected.

The rest — Snell, Trayveon Williams, Elijah Holyfield, Jordan Scarlett and Damarea Crockett — all had to wait a bit longer than what a lot of the projections said, but that doesn’t mean they were wrong to leave early.

For guys like Williams and Snell, they already showed enough in college to go to the NFL. Both took a ton of hits en route to first-team All-SEC honors this past season. They are what they are at this point. They probably only would have hurt themselves by coming back, even though they were Day 3 picks (I still can’t believe Williams waited until the sixth round because he definitely wasn’t the No. 15 running back in this class).

For Scarlett, Holyfield and Crockett, all of them would have returned to extremely crowded backfields and they probably wouldn’t have been starters. It’s hard to fault any of them for leaving even though they weren’t considered top 5 running backs. As it turned out, they weren’t even top 10 running backs.

But would Scarlett, Holyfield or Crockett have improved their draft stocks by staying? Probably not. At the running back position, it’s hard to ever fault a player for leaving early. Day 3 picks have plenty of opportunity to carve out a role, and the SEC’s early entries will be no exception.

The SEC still owns the draft, and history

Duh.

For the 13th consecutive year, the SEC had the most amount of draft picks. But this year was special, even for the SEC. That’s because the conference had 64 players picked. That broke the SEC’s record for the most players ever selected by a conference in a given draft.

Pretty incredible.

Another impressive thing was that at the end of every round, the SEC had the lead in the overall total. No, the SEC didn’t tie the overall conference record with 12 picks in the first round back in 2013. But it was still 9 first-round picks, which led the way.

The SEC actually bested its yearly 7-round total from 2014-18 before the seventh round even started. That says a lot, too.

Needless to say, it was another flex-worthy weekend for the SEC.