Sports | NFL draft An Awkward Surprise of the NFL Draft Kentucky QB Will Levis not selected in first round as expected, and the cameras were on it By John Johnson Posted Apr 28, 2023 8:27 AM CDT Copied Kentucky quarterback Will Levis waits in the Green Room with family at the 2023 NFL Draft Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Kansas City, Missouri. (AP Photo/Doug Benc) The top pick overall in Thursday's NFL draft went pretty much the way everybody expected. One part of the televised night was a surprise, however: Kentucky quarterback Will Levis did not get picked by any team in the first round. ESPN had given him a 92% chance of being in the top 10, and Yahoo Sports notes that he was the betting favorite to go No. 2 overall. Which is why the cameras were on him all night as pick after pick went to someone else, with his girlfriend and family members offering comfort. "It’s painful to watch a kid go through that on live TV," observes Chris Branch at the Athletic. At Yahoo, Dan Wentzel writes that Levis is merely the latest victim of the "NFL's peculiar draft hype machine." In this case, some unfounded internet buzz on Reddit earlier this week raised false hopes of him going No. 1, per the New York Post. The best guess is that concerns over a toe injury Levis suffered this year made teams wary. Whatever the reason, he is widely expected to go somewhere in Friday's Round 2, and plenty of people are pointing out that none other than Tom Brady was pick No. 199. Read These Next Sienna proves herself to be a very, very good dog. Three hikers jumped into a waterfall and never resurfaced. America has lost a '60s teen idol. Millions of student loan borrowers could see their paychecks docked. Report an error