Day two of the 2026 NFL draft is in the books! Don’t put in the newspaper that Sean McVay is angry. The Texans defense got scarier. Brothers reunite. The Cowboys and Eagles made smart trades. Carson Beck (!) and Drew Allar (!!) could both start in 2026? These are the winners and losers from day two.
WINNER: The Texans defense
Houston’s defense ranked second behind only the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks in Expected Points Added (EPA) and points allowed per drive last season, and all 11 Texans defenders who logged 400-plus snaps a year ago are returning for head coach DeMeco Ryans in 2026. Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. are arguably the best edge-rushing tandem in football, and the Texans have several young stars in the secondary.
And on Friday, the rich got richer. The Texans traded up from no. 38 to no. 36 near the top of the second round — jumping ahead of a New York Giants team with a Dexter Lawrence-sized hole in its defense — to pick Ohio State nose tackle Kayden McDonald.
The Texans defense was already an embarrassment of riches before they added McDonald to the mix; now it's like an overloaded sundae with three or four cherries on top.
McDonald is a 6-foot-2, 326-pound one-man wrecking crew with violent hands, an explosive first step, and a relentless motor. McDonald can eat double teams, allowing Houston to play with light boxes and two deep safeties. McDonald is a force multiplier for a defense already bursting at the seams with talent. It's honestly not even fair at this point.
LOSER: Jermod McCoy
Jermod McCoy hasn't played a snap of football in nearly 500 days. The University of Tennessee cornerback tore his ACL in an offseason workout in January 2025, missed all of last season, skipped the Senior Bowl, and didn't run a single drill at the combine in Indianapolis. Still, he entered the draft ranked as a first-round pick on many of the big boards, including here at The Ringer. His 2024 tape was outstanding, and he ran a sub-4.40 40-yard dash and jumped out of the gym at his pro day in March. Plenty of draft analysts believed that was enough, and he’d be picked on Day 1. Instead, McCoy completely fell out of the first three rounds of the draft.
According to reports from Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson, surgeons needed to use a bone plug to repair a cartilage defect in the same knee he tore his ACL, a procedure some team doctors believe will require another surgery and extensive recovery (potentially a full year) in the future. It’s not uncommon for injuries to cause talented players to fall in the draft—cornerback Will Johnson tumbled to no. 47 just last year, and linebacker Nakobe Dean slid to the third round in 2022, for example—but nobody predicted McCoy would still be available on Day 3.
WINNERS: The NFC East Trade Market
Day two started with trade action. The Cowboys sent a fifth-round pick to San Francisco for Dee Winters, a 25-year-old linebacker who started all 17 games for the 49ers last season. A former sixth-round pick out of TCU, Winters plays fast, hits hard, and is seemingly always around the football. I expected Winters to be a part of the 49ers’ long-term plans along with Fred Warner, but it’s now clear that the return of Dre Greenlaw made him expendable for the 49ers. In Dallas, Winters and DeMarvion Overshown (assuming he can stay healthy) could be quite the dynamic linebacker duo in 2026. Giving up just a fifth-rounder for Winters is a great value.
Then Howie Roseman did Howie Roseman things. The Eagles sent two third-round picks, one each in 2026 and 2027, to Minnesota for 28-year-old edge rusher Jonathan Greenard. He’s getting a four-year, $100 million extension as part of the deal. Greenard had 12 sacks in his 2024 Pro Bowl season, but his production dipped quite a bit in 2025 as a shoulder injury cost him five games. After losing Jaelan Phillips in free agency, Philadelphia desperately needed to add a proven pass-rusher this offseason, and when it was clear the Vikings weren't going to give Greenard the new contract he wanted, Roseman smartly pounced on the opportunity. Two third-round picks for a potential double-digit sack guy is good business.
WINNER: The Terrell brothers
Draft night doesn't always produce many moments this sweet. The Falcons selected Clemson cornerback Avieon Terrell, the younger brother of Atlanta corner A.J. Terrell in the second round, and the way they hugged was just so damn pure.
The football part of this selection works, too. Avieon is a tough, physical cornerback with inside-outside versatility who loves to tackle. He's a fluid mover with quick feet who can match and mirror in man coverage, and he possesses great instincts to close open passing windows quickly in zone. Avieon should compete to start right away while his big brother leads from the front as the team's top corner. A.J. has played 800-plus snaps every season of his six-year career, and now he'll have the opportunity to mentor and play alongside his brother. It doesn't get much better than this.
WINNER: Rams spin zone
Sean McVay's flat, subdued demeanor on his first-round phone call with quarterback Ty Simpson and at the post-Round 1 presser with GM Les Snead sent the NFL corner of the internet into full Zapruder mode. The Rams head coach, usually full of energy whenever he's talking ball, seemed off, if not plain mad in seemingly every video that dropped after L.A. took Simpson 13th overall. McVay said he wanted to keep his conversation with his veteran MVP QB Matthew Stafford close to the vest, gave short non-answers, and wouldn't even commit to Simpson being QB2 ahead of 2023 fourth-round pick Stetson Bennett. Then it was reported that McVay hadn't met Simpson before the draft, along with a clip from an interview from late last month in which McVay said he hadn't done much pre-draft work on Simpson. Later, it was reported that Snead and Simpson's dad are old friends. It snowballed. By midnight, the internet consensus was that McVay surely hated Simpson, hated Snead, and was barreling toward retirement and a cushy TV gig in 2027.
The damage control started Friday. First, a piece from ESPN reporting that McVay and Snead were in complete alignment on Simpson. Then, after the Rams took a tight end (Max Klare) and a tackle (Keagen Trost) in Rounds 2 and 3, McVay opened his press conference with a grin. "What do you guys think, am I angry right now?" McVay said. He also said he and Snead, "couldn't be in more lockstep in every decision that we make," and punctuated it with a pat on his GM's back. PR crisis successfully averted (for now).
Simpson entered the draft with just 15 career starts, and the history of first-round quarterbacks with that little experience is not pretty. The questions about his size, athleticism, and arm talent are real. It's hard not to think of the Falcons taking Michael Penix Jr. at no. 8 in 2024, not long after they handed Kirk Cousins a massive contract—a decision that looked questionable for Atlanta at the time, and looks worse now. Stafford's standing in L.A. is obviously much better than Cousins's ever was in Atlanta, but drafting for the future in the heat of a win-now window with a 38-year-old reigning MVP carries the same awkward two-timeline energy that will either be celebrated if it works or panned to oblivion if it doesn't.
McVay and Snead can't justify the pick with cheap smiles and words of affirmation. Simpson will need to play—and play well—whenever Stafford's time is up in L.A.
WINNERS (SORT OF): Carson Beck and Drew Allar
To be clear, I’m not high on either quarterback as pro prospects. Beck has plateaued a bit over his 55 career games in college at Georgia and Miami, and Allar can’t hit the broad side of a barn, but for quarterbacks, the landing spot matters. And both of these guys just landed in quarterback situations where they can compete to start in 2026.
The Cardinals took Beck with pick no. 65, making him the third QB drafted in this class (behind first-rounders Fernando Mendoza and Ty Simpson). The Cardinals other quarterbacks are Jacoby Brissett, who is skipping offseason workouts in hopes of creating leverage for a new contract, and Gardner Minshew, who isn’t much more than a wily backup with fun hair at this point in his career. The Cardinals don’t plan to name a starter, either, until at least August, according to GM Monti Ossenfort. Beck at least has a shot to be in the mix for early playing time.
Allar, meanwhile, should get plenty of practice reps right away for the Steelers, who took him with pick no. 76. The Steelers still don’t know for sure if 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers is even going to come back to play for his old pal Mike McCarthy, and the quarterbacks on the roster, Mason Rudolph and Will Howard, are nothing to get excited about.
Because the Raiders could start Kirk Cousins in Week 1 to allow Mendoza time to develop, and Simpson will sit behind Matthew Stafford in L.A., Beck and Allar might actually have a better shot at meaningful reps this year than either first-round quarterback. Of course, Arizona and Pittsburgh are probably already looking ahead to the 2027 quarterback class, but a chance to start in the NFL is a whole lot better than being buried down the depth chart somewhere else.
WINNER: A whole bunch of random tight ends
Last season, NFL offenses fell back in love with multiple tight end sets. The Rams leaned into 13 personnel so heavily over the second half of the season that it became one of football's biggest stories. McVay doubled down on that strategy by taking Ohio State's Max Klare at no. 61—and that was just the beginning of a run on tight ends. Eight (!) tight ends came off the board on day two. The Eagles drafted Vanderbilt tight end Eli Stowers, a freaky athlete with great pass-catching ability, as a potential heir apparent to Dallas Goedert. The Bears drafted Stanford’s Sam Roush despite already being invested in veteran Cole Kmet and 2025 first-rounder Colston Loveland. The Texans took a flyer on a German-born Michigan alum named Marlin Klein. Jacksonville made Nate Boerkircher the third tight end off the board, drafting him more than 100 spots above his consensus rank. The Dolphins took a similar leap of faith drafting Ohio State’s Will Kacmarek, well higher than projections. That’s a lot of blocking tight ends with limited college production off the board early.
LOSER: Denzel Boston’s fantasy value
The Browns seem to have gotten a steal in the second round when they were able to grab University of Washington wide receiver Denzel Boston with pick no. 39. He’s a physical, big-bodied wideout with a massive catch radius and strong hands, and most analysts figured he’d be a Day 1 pick.
Fantasy football players should be wary. Cleveland’s quarterback situation is one of the most depressing in the league. Whether it’s Deshaun Watson, Shedeur Sanders, Dillon Gabriel, or some nightmare combination of all three throughout the year, it’s hard to imagine the Browns passing game firing on all cylinders. Maybe new head coach Todd Monken can raise the floor, but there’s a lot of mouths to feed and, therefore, a lot of unpredictability in terms of where the targets are going to go. They drafted another receiver, Texas A&M’s KC Concepcion, in the first round. Harold Fannin Jr. was a rookie phenom at tight end for Cleveland in 2025. Jerry Jeudy is technically still in the building. (And they’ll be starting at least four new guys along the offensive line.)
For Boston to be a legitimate fantasy threat this year, you need the quarterback to be good, Boston to earn volume over everyone else, and Boston himself to hit out of the gate. That's a lot of ifs. If he'd landed in Miami or Las Vegas, where wide receiver was a genuine need, this conversation looks very different.
