https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45597769/picking-best-nfl-draft-picks-ever-every-slot-common-era-1967-2024Danny Trevathan. The best 188th pick ever was Danny Trevathan.
I know this because I've spent the past month or so looking at every draft pick since the common draft era began (1967) and using the modern seven-round format (Nos. 1-262) to answer that very question: Who was the best player taken at this draft slot? Plenty of "Oh, I remember him!" moments ... and plenty of impossible decisions.
How I went about things:
I took "best" to mean some combination of "most talented" and "most successful." As is always the challenge in debating the bestness of football players, any argument that exclusively looks at Super Bowl wins and All-Pro nods is insufficient and lacks context. Similarly, any argument that leans solely on individual player stats and film impressions is lacking as well. I generally tried to use historical accolades to contextualize career-long production. Peak season performance and single-season record-setting also mattered to me; this isn't just a measure of who played the longest but also who played ... well, the best. And of course, rings matter because rings always matter. But there's no formula here. There's my read on each pick, levied as fairly as I could make it. Disagreement is expected.
In order to be the best draft pick, you kind of have to play for the team that drafted you. I only used this rule to the water's edge -- I'm not dumb enough to knock Brett Favre because he was drafted by the Falcons. But when it came to splitting hairs, the spirit of the exercise implies that the player was talented and the team that drafted him was successful because of the pick. Lifers for one franchise got an edge over career journeymen.
There isn't a bump for QB value (unless it was inescapable). Again, the specifics of the exercise established a guardrail. Is "best draft pick" the same as "most valuable draft pick?" If that feels like a pointless distinction, understand that I had to make it in order to solve several ties. I'm interested in finding the best player regardless of position, which means that safeties can beat quarterbacks, and guards can beat pass rushers. Only in cases of the blatantly obvious (see: Purdy, Brock) did I let the expanded impact of the quarterback position affect my choice.
I am 28 years old. I did my best with the stars of the 1970s and 1980s, but please do not interpret any mischaracterizations of the historical GOATs as ageist propaganda. When I'm being deliberately anti-throwbacks, I'll make it very clear, I promise.
