It was a good night for the SEC at the NFL Draft with the #1 overall pick and a record 12 first round draft picks. Half the conference (seven teams) contributed at least one player to this haul. Of course Georgia wasn’t one of them. Seth Emerson reminds us that Georgia’s absence isn’t a bad thing, though it is a necessary consequence of the fallout from the class of 2013 and finishing unranked in consecutive seasons. It’s worth remembering that several players who would have been likely draft picks (though not necessarily first rounders) chose to return and contribute to the 2017 team.

Emerson concludes that “it should be a good year numbers-wise for the Dawgs in the 2018 draft,” and he’s also right that there doesn’t seem to be a first round lock among them. I’ve thought that Michel projects as a higher pick because of his versatility, but Chubb could also do a lot for himself by playing a full, productive, and healthy 2017 season. Trenton Thompson has a very high upside among the defenders. Still, it’s likely to be a deep class, and you don’t have to look far to find ten eligible players from the 2017 team who should expect a serious look from the NFL.

The flip side of Emerson’s piece is an added urgency to produce in 2017. All eyes are on the incoming freshman class as Kirby Smart restocks the roster, but the potential loss of anywhere from 5 to 10 NFL-quality players (depending on the decisions of underclassmen) would leave plenty of holes around the depth chart. When you combine the returning seniors and the rising juniors, the team is perhaps as loaded at the upper end of the experience curve as it is at the lower end. After this season, the demographics of the team change to favor Smart’s first three classes and the 2017 class in particular. The extent to which the program is able to reload for 2018 depends on the progress of Smart’s first two classes as well as whatever the team is able to add in 2018, but that uncertainty makes it more important to show results with this current group.

A part of us wants to be patient with Smart’s process and recognize that there are still holes on the team where playing freshmen might be necessary even with so much top-end talent. At the same time, you don’t want the “throwaway season” label within miles of a team with that many potential draft picks. Seeing so many talented players come through without so much as an SEC East title would be as big of a shame as Stafford, Moreno, and Green also leaving without a trip to Atlanta. It’s going to be a lot harder to enjoy Draft Day 2018 if we don’t have much to enjoy in 2017 first.

(Is it unhealthy to already be anticipating the “well, we’re a very young team” line in 2018?)