This might be true every year, but it feels especially true in 2024: You cannot tell the story of the NFL season without the rookie class. The Commanders would not be in the divisional round without Jayden Daniels, and the Eagles might not be there without Cooper DeJean or Quinyon Mitchell.
To size up all of this season's standout rookies, I made my first- and second-team NFL All-Rookie picks. I named one first-team player and one second-team player at 22 different positions. But before we dive in, a few important notes:
1. Playing time doesn't matter ... but also it does. As a general rule, good rookies earn playing time, and guys who were on the field for much of the season should be rewarded. Snap count can serve as a proxy for quality rookie performance. But it can also serve as a proxy for having a pretty bad team, too. If I said the name "DJ Glaze" (which is a cool name, by the way), how many NFL fans would be able to correctly place the third-round rookie who started every game at right tackle for the Raiders? He was solid and deserves a mention, but it's always worth remembering that some rookies look far better simply because they got so many more reps than their contemporaries, who catch up in later seasons.
I tried to make my rankings independent of total snap counts, but inevitably, the more snaps a player took, the more likely it was he was producing good film by the end of the season. It creeps in.
2. It was an amazing year for rookie offensive linemen, quarterbacks and cornerbacks. If you asked me for three positions that always need an infusion of young talent, I would have listed offensive line (where the league has long lamented poor development at the college ranks), cornerback (where skill tails off fast, so younger bodies are always needed) and quarterback (because we always need good QBs). That is exactly where the 2024 draft class ended up strongest. Therefore, I couldn't get extremely deserving players such as Bo Nix, Beaux Limmer (two Bo/Beauxs!), Cooper Beebe, Cam Hart, Tarheeb Still or Olu Fashanu any accolades. This will go down as an extremely impactful class in recent history because of the talent pool at critical positions.
Let's dive in, starting at QB and going position by position.
Jump to a position:
QB | RB | WR | TE | OL
Edge | DT | LB | CB | S
