Seventeen days until the first night of the draft…
Mills: Thomas Shea/USA TODAY Sports; Walker: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports; Coral: Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports
• Most years middlemen are pushed to the top of the board because, well, everyone who doesn’t have one is desperate to get one. And it may happen again this year, even with what is seen as the shakiest quarterback to enter the league in nearly a decade, because of course the need, if any, is more pressing now than it was in the past.
But there is one thing I have to take in and I’ve danced around the last few weeks in a few columns – a lot of teams are changing the way they look at the situation.
At least it seems that a new consensus has been built that being good in the position may not be good enough, especially in the AFC where it will be stored Patrick MahomesAnd Josh AllenAnd Lamar JacksonAnd Joe BoroughAnd Justin Herbert And Trevor Lawrenceamong others, for the foreseeable future.
So the question these teams have to ask themselves when looking at this year’s class is whether or not you’d be better off stepping into the water and waiting for a future midfielder, rather than diving into the possibility that you might not be completely sold out on who you’ll be On your way to take one later. It’s a scary proposition, of course, because there are no guarantees that the right person will come. But it can be worth it if it’s handled the right way.
Which brings me to my model, 2013 heads. Andy Reed and John Dorsey were freshmen that year, and they were the first picks in the draft. Matt Cassel was on his way out the door. The quarterback class was seen as worse than it was this year. So rather than force anything, Kansas City handed out a few second rounds to the Niners to get Alex Smith. Smith, in turn, had the Chiefs race on the spot, and Dorsey and Reed bought time to build the roster, giving them room to wait until they found the right quarterback to follow in strong.
We now know how that ended. And that’s where I think the new staff in Vegas and Minnesota with their quarterbacks – they look at it Derek Carr And Kirk Cousins As better options than the Beginners who will be available to them in April, and able to be good starters keeping their teams in competition for the next few years, hopefully over time, the opportunity for Mahomes will emerge just as it did with the Chiefs.
Now, history tells us that the NFL may be wrong about the dismissal. But I have one CEO of a team with the stability of the middle, who told me last week that it would be “scary” to need a participant in this year’s draft. More than a few others have indicated in the past few months how happy they are not to be in this situation. We’ll see, in time, if it’s as bleak as the teams think now.
Nowadays, it doesn’t look good. And what has stuck with me in the last few months is how it all started at Senior Ball, when I asked about which quarterback had had the best week there.
Two men answered Matt Coral. Because Coral was the one who wasn’t there.
• While we’re there, we should trust what Houston coach Luffy Smith has to say Davis Mills. Because it’s not hard to believe that Texans will see Mills as a better prospect than any of the quarterbacks in this year’s draft class.
Mills’ numbers were comparable to those of McJones in New England, despite the fact that he lacked the training and roster infrastructure that Jones had around him, and he was better than the rest of the class. It’s also fair to say that from a purely talent standpoint, Mills is actually a player of first-round caliber, albeit with very little luck and health-wise, he’s managed to stay on the field in college.
And if we put Cousins and Carr together, I think it’s a good idea to put Mills together with Philly’s Galen Hurts As a young player he has shown enough promise to give his team a good starting option without restricting his team from being promoted in a year or two if justified.
Here, for what it’s worth, is what Smith told me at Mills a few weeks ago: “You look at the rising midfielder we played against, [Trevor] Lawrence, [Zach] Wilson with the Gates, we played with San Francisco with Tre Lance. Of all those players we’ve played against, Davis has played as well as any of these up-and-coming players. So everyone wants to talk about the midfielder – I love him. I love his demeanor, how smart he is, and I love that he and Babe Hamilton have been together for a year already. These things should help us.”
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• Where is Georgia? Travon Walker The territory will be interesting. Yes, he’s an eccentric athlete – in this department, I’ve heard him compare to him Miles Jarrett (Both were 6’5″, 272 pounds when combined, with Walker getting a 4.51 50 for Garrett’s 4.64, and Garrett jumping 41″ to Walker 35.5″.) Yeah, he’s strong, he plays with a powerful engine, and he has the kind of thing The intangibles that all teams are looking for in the draft forecast.Yes, it was part of the defense of generations.
So what’s the problem? The bar doesn’t come close to matching the sport. He seems lost at times, and what the NFL teams would likely want him to do, which is work as a rusher, you don’t really see in his Georgia game. In this regard, his reputation compared to the Vikings star Daniel Hunterwho has not fully tapped his potential at LSU.
But here’s the thing – Hunter was a third-round pick, not a first-choice overall. Where with Hunter you could point to his college struggles as a result of his training, it would be hard to do with Walker, given how strong the Georgia team, led by Kirby Smart, was, and how many other possibilities they pumped into the defense.
In the end, Walker was tough, but it also refers to the class as a whole. Hard to get a read.
• At least it is interesting that the leaders are not bringing any potential players to Ashburn for a visit to the Top 30. It could mean one of a few things – either they all work Carson Wentzthey don’t like the draft class (which would affect being all in Wentz, of course) or they try to hide their interest in someone.
They chose 11th place, so most top players should be present at the selection.
• A rare case of New York teams working together: I arranged the Jets and the Giants for both Aidan Hutchinson and Ickey Ekwonu to visit their facilities back-to-back this week. The idea was brought up by their agent, Mike McCartney, who wanted to limit travel on the two, both of which are solid bets to go in the top five. With both teams in mind for both teams (each holding a top-five pick and two top-10 picks), it made sense to arrange business visits in Michigan and North Carolina.
They will go back to hating each other after.
• One thing I definitely collected is what this draft may lack in home run expectations, it makes up for men who would be nice wall husbands. Hutchinson and Ikuno, as well as Alabama Evan Neal and Mississippi Charles Cross They are seen as high-profile players who may not be “amazing”, but they are considered good players in the NFL for a long time.
• XFL has worked with the NFL Academy to create a development pipeline that is not only smart but could end up being vital to the league’s survival – if the NFL sees value in another league that creates depth for its teams and fails when inevitable waves of injuries hit, then you think they’ll support its existence. The NFL is a strong ally.
• It surprised me a bit to see Walmart Rob Walton bid on the Broncos, since the family is already running NFL owners (even if only by marriage, with Rams’ Stan Kroenke). What didn’t surprise me was the bid number that was put up. I’ve been thinking $4 billion has been the goal for a while. After asking at owner meetings, it became clear to me that the owners thought the Broncos would bring in more, which is pretty amazing.
Forbes ratings, for what it’s worth, made Denver the 10th best franchise in the league last year. For the team to go north of $4 billion is good news for a whole bunch of billionaires.
• Next Monday an interesting checkpoint in Baker Mayfield epic, with Brown set to report on their off-season program. If Mayfield wants to speed things up, the best thing for him might be to show up in front of him. Not reporting will make it easier for Cleveland to retry to try and trade Mayfield. If he’s there on a daily basis, it could be a bit awkward, which might work for Mayfield.
• Rob Gronkowski said last week that he would only play for the Bucs, and it’s fair to say that OJ Howard’s whereabouts may have been a factor for him. Had Tampa brought Howard back, it’s definitely possible that the Boss family just moved out of Gronk. And in that case, the Bills wouldn’t get Howard, which would have left the possibility of Gronk ending up with the other team he deemed unsuitable for the season.
Instead, it will be Dawson Knox And Howard plays tightly with Gronk’s hometown team, perhaps Cam Pratt Gronk you there for the Boss family.
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