{"id":873279,"date":"2026-04-24T03:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/873279\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:54:16","slug":"freeling-taken-in-the-2026-nfl-drafts-first-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/873279\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeling Taken In The 2026 NFL Draft\u2019s First Round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PITTSBURGH, Pa. &#8212;\u00a0\u00a0Junior offensive lineman <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/monroe-freeling\/9522\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9522\" target=\"_blank\">Monroe Freeling<\/a> was taken in the opening round of the 2026 NFL Draft Thursday, marking the ninth straight year that Georgia has had at least one first round pick.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFreeling gives the Bulldogs nine straight years of having an offensive lineman taken in the draft.\u00a0\u00a0Georgia has now had 21 first round selections with only 21 total losses during the <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/coaches\/kirby-smart\/3559\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"3559\" target=\"_blank\">Kirby Smart<\/a> era that started in 2016.\u00a0\u00a0The Bulldogs have produced 14 first round selections over the past five seasons.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFreeling, a 6-7, 318-pound native of Charleston, S.C., started 17 games and appeared in 36 contests during his three seasons on the Georgia line.\u00a0\u00a0The 2025 Coaches Second Team All-SEC selection was a two-time SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week during Georgia&#8217;s second straight conference title run and a trip to the College Football Playoff Quarterfinal round for the second consecutive time.\u00a0\u00a0Freeling started 13 of 14 games last season and helped give QB <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/gunner-stockton\/9572\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9572\" target=\"_blank\">Gunner Stockton<\/a> time to complete 69.7 percent of his passes.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThis marks the second straight year that the Panthers have selected a Bulldog after taking RB Trevor Etienne in the fourth round in 2025. Freeling is the first Georgia offensive lineman taken by the Panthers and the eighth player overall dating back to 1999,<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe NFL Draft continues Friday in Pittsburgh with rounds 2-3 starting at 7 p.m., followed by the final four rounds beginning Saturday at noon.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH, Pa. &#8212;\u00a0\u00a0Junior offensive lineman Monroe Freeling was taken in the opening round of the 2026 NFL Draft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7],"class_list":{"0":"post-873279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}