Day three of the NFL Draft is supposed to be the part of the weekend where general managers throw on a pot of coffee, lean back, and look for value. The first three rounds get the prime time slots and the suit checks, but the rounds four through seven on Saturday are where teams actually shape the back end of their rosters. The 2026 draft Day 3 in Pittsburgh delivered enough movement to keep even casual fans paying attention to a board most people stopped tracking around pick 80. Tennessee cornerback Jermod McCoy, LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, and Mr. Irrelevant Red Murdock from Buffalo gave the day its three biggest stories.
McCoy went off the board with the first selection of round four, picked by the Las Vegas Raiders. He was a likely first round pick at this time last year before he tore his ACL in January 2025 and missed the entire 2025 college season. Most teams had him stamped with a medical flag that knocked him down their boards by at least a full round, but the Raiders took the swing on a corner who was projected to go in the top 32 before the injury. Vegas needs depth on the perimeter and got a player who, when healthy, has the long speed and ball skills to start by year two. The Raiders are also paying him on a fourth round contract, which is the kind of value swing that rebuilding rosters cannot afford to miss.
Nussmeier was the bigger surprise. The LSU quarterback came into the spring as a projected late first or early second round pick and ended up sliding all the way to the Kansas City Chiefs at pick 249 in the seventh round. The reasons for the fall depend on who you talk to, but it lines up around three issues. His accuracy on intermediate routes regressed in 2025 after his father took a coaching job that pulled him out of LSU, his pro day numbers were average, and several teams reportedly had medical concerns about a shoulder issue from late in the season. Andy Reid landing him at 249 is the kind of move that makes the rest of the league quietly groan, because the Chiefs do not need a quarterback and now have one with first round talent on a quarter of a million dollar contract sitting behind Patrick Mahomes.
Red Murdock from Buffalo was the final selection of the entire draft, taken by the Denver Broncos at pick 257 to claim the Mr. Irrelevant title. Murdock is a six foot one inside linebacker who started 39 games at Buffalo and led the MAC in tackles for loss in 2025. The Mr. Irrelevant designation comes with a tradition that includes a trip to Newport Beach in June, a parade, and a roast called the Lowsman Banquet. The award has produced a few legitimate NFL players over the years, including Brock Purdy, who was Mr. Irrelevant in 2022 and is now the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Murdock will get the same chance to flip the script, beginning with rookie minicamp in two weeks.
The bigger picture from day three was the run on tight ends, which scouts had flagged as a deep position group in this class. Twelve tight ends came off the board on Saturday alone, including five in the fourth round. Teams that missed on a tight end in the early rounds were left scrambling, and several front offices traded back into the late rounds specifically to grab a body at the position. The other position group that surprised was off ball linebackers, where four players who were expected to come off the board on day two ended up in the late fifth and sixth rounds.
Quarterback was the storyline that kept getting weirder as the day went on. After Nussmeier slid to Kansas City, two more quarterbacks came off the board between picks 200 and 245 that most analysts had off their boards entirely. The 2026 class was always considered weak at the top of the position, with only two quarterbacks taken in the first round on Thursday, but the late round runs suggest that teams are loading up on developmental arms behind starters they are not sure they can extend. The salary cap math on quarterback contracts has gotten brutal enough that having a competent backup on a rookie deal is suddenly worth a sixth round pick.
Compensatory picks shaped the back half of the draft in a way that does not always get talked about. Eight of the picks between 200 and 257 were comp selections, awarded to teams that lost more in unrestricted free agency than they signed the previous year. Those picks tend to flow to organizations like Kansas City, Baltimore, and Green Bay that consistently let high priced free agents walk. The result is a pattern where the same teams quietly stockpile talent in the cheapest tier of the draft year after year. The teams that complain about not having enough picks usually have rosters built around expensive free agent signings, which means the comp pick math works against them.
The Mr. Irrelevant story is fun, but the real value of day three usually shows up two to three years later. About 35 percent of fourth and fifth round picks become starters at some point in their first three seasons. Sixth and seventh round picks hit at closer to 15 percent. McCoy at the top of round four is in the cohort that has the best odds of starting, and Nussmeier at the bottom of round seven is in a tier where teams are mostly hoping for a roster spot. By rookie minicamp this June, the conversation will already be moving on to who actually showed up in shorts, but the picks made on Saturday will quietly shape the next three to five years of football.