Complete NFL Draft Grades for all 31* hats

The good, the bad and the very, very, very ugly.

By James Dator Apr 2, 2019, 11:42am EDT

On Tuesday New Era released its designs for the 2019 NFL Draft hats. Now, normally I don’t really have strong feelings about head wear — but this is different. Rather than going for bold looks and innovative designs, the New Era team created 32 hats that are a healthy mix of “good,” “fine,” and “this is 100% a ripoff hat you’d find at a truck stop.”

Let’s dive in, in draft order of course.

No. 1 — Arizona Cardinals

This hat is fine. Pretty standard Cardinals hat with the rays to evoke the state’s flag. No beef with this one. I promise you they’re going to get a lot worse.

Draft Hat Grade: A

No. 2 — San Francisco 49ers

This is a high-quality bootleg hat. One of those hats you’d see at a hastily-assembled stand in a parking lot a few blocks from the stadium. It’s not offensively bad, but it’s not good either.

Draft Hat Grade: B-

No. 3 — New York Jets

There is no draft hat for the Jets on account of them having a new logo. The hat is set to be released on Thursday.

No.4 — Oakland Raiders

I love this hat. I love it for a lot of reasons. Firstly, logo on American flag looks fine. That’s not why I love it. I love this hat because with the Raiders being in-between California and a move to Oakland New Era was like “Ummmm .... America I guess?” to keep their flag theme going.

Draft Hat Grade: A-

No. 5 — Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I’m conflicted on this hat. I’m pretty sure someone, somewhere thinks this is amazing and that makes me feel out of touch with the youths. There was a strong motivation for me to overrate this hat to feel like I’m in touch, but I have to be true to myself and call this ugly.

Draft Hat Grade: C-

No. 6 — New York Giants

This absolutely came from a gas station.

Draft Hat Grade: D

No. 7 — Jacksonville Jaguars

I know you think this is going to get a low grade, but PLOT TWIST: I love it. This hat is perfect. It’s not perfect for every team, but it’s so perfectly North Florida and matches the Jaguars’ penchant for being gaudy with their fashion choices. Jason Mendoza will be wearing one of these on The Good Place, I guarantee it.

Draft Hat Grade: A+

No. 8 — Detroit Lions

There’s nothing special about this hat. It makes me feel nothing.

Draft Hat Grade: C+

No. 9 — Buffalo Bills

This is just ugly. I know it’s trying to evoke the Buffalo city flag — but I can’t help but imagine a buffalo fart. I’ve never heard of a buffalo farting, but I’d imagine it would be thunderous ... like this hat.

Draft Hat Grade: C-

No. 10 — Denver Broncos

This is what I expected every draft hat to look like. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Draft Hat Grade: B-

No. 11 — Cincinnati Bengals

This hat has stink lines.

Draft Hat Grade: C+

No. 12 — Green Bay Packers

I like this because it speaks to me. It tells me of an era 20 years from now, where this hat is in every Wisconsin household, sweat-stained, fading the green after years of grass mowing in it. It’s kind of beautiful, and also stinky. Because old hats smell like butt.

Draft Hat Grade: B+

No. 13 — Miami Dolphins

They have palm trees in Miami. We get it. Would have been better without the tree.

Draft Hat Grade: C

No. 14 — Atlanta Falcons

You fools. You damn fools. Why the heck would you evoke Georgia’s flag, which was based on the first design of the friggin’ Confederate flag when Atlanta’s city flag IS A FLAMING BIRD OF JUSTICE!

Giving this a bad grade on principle. Hat is whatever. Missed opportunity.

Draft Hat Grade: D

No. 15 — Washington

This hat is fine.

Draft Hat Grade: B

No. 16 — Carolina Panthers

Oh God is this ugly. This is one of the worst hats I have ever seen, regardless of time or place. I know they wanted to do the whole “two states, one team” thing but God this is awful. It looks like a patchwork quilt and a gas station bathroom had a baby. I hate it.

Draft Hat Grade: F-

No. 17 — [The Browns traded this pick so we’re grading them here]

I like that the Browns got the Ohio state flag while the Bengals got stink lines.

Draft Hat Grade: B-

No. 18 — Minnesota Vikings

This looks like someone’s mom got an embroidery machine for Christmas and decided to “jazz up” a Vikings hat. Which, honestly, is good enough in comparison to some of these hats to not get totally roasted.

Draft Hat Grade: C+

No. 19 — Tennessee Titans

The hat is fine, but I can’t help but imagine that extending the brim color onto the cap itself will result in people looking like they have mico-heads.

Draft Hat Grade: B

No. 20 — Pittsburgh Steelers

Bumblebee cops.

Draft Hat Grade: B+

No. 21 — Seattle Seahawks

Oh, the number 12. How original. Definitely haven’t seen this 20 million times before.

Still better than 90% of the hats.

Draft Hat Grade: A-

No. 22 — Baltimore Ravens

Maryland has one of the coolest and most-iconic flags in the country and this was just a ho-hum representation of it. Wraps around the hat. Still doesn’t excite me.

Draft Hat Grade: B-

No. 23 — Houston Texans

I’ll cut New Era a little slack here. It’s tough to work in the Texas flag when the Texans logo itself is ostensibly just the Texas flag. This hat still bores me, though.

Draft Hat Grade: C+

No. 24 — [The Bears had this pick, but traded it away. We’re grading them here.]

There’s almost nothing to this hat. Some stars you can’t see and that’s about it. That makes this hat okay.

Draft Hat Grade: B

No. 25 — Philadelphia Eagles

Ed Hardy-ass lookin’ hat.

Draft Hat Grade: D+

No. 26 — Indianapolis Colts

Is there some law that all Colts merch needs to look boring af? Anyway, I like the horse shoe on the white background. Fine with this. Looks like a traffic circle.

Draft Hat Grade: B

No. 27 — [Dallas traded this pick so we’re grading them here].

I hate praising the Cowboys, but here we are. I like this hat. There’s no doubt the Cowboys have some of the coolest colors in the league and the Texas flag re-imagined in them is actually pretty great. Good hat.

Draft Hat Grade: A