NFL Draft Thoughts
I watched the John Lynch/Kyle Shanahan press conference. “The 2021 NFL Draft Pick 3 Narrative” is one of my favorite football movies of all-time. This is great drama. Whoever they pick, this is great fucking drama. And this was a surprisingly interesting and watchable press conference. Kyle Shanahan gets pissed at times. Gets emotional at times. The 2021 draft has been so good already.
Saving this for later…an article at PFF in February on why Mac Jones is a better QB prospect than Tua Tagovailoa was.
Here’s an interview show I came across: I Am Athlete. Brandon Marshall, Stefon Diggs, Fred Taylor, Jarvis Landry among those who sit around and talk about football in this one-hour special.
Some stuff I heard: Jalen Ramsey, Xavien Howard might be the only corners who still travel around and trail a team’s best player. Ravens played man the whole game, according to Diggs. Stefon Diggs doesn’t really believe in “going back and forth” with corners, aka jawing or talking trash. Diggs tells a tough personal story around 19-20 minutes. Not gonna have time to watch the whole show now, interesting if you are curious to know more about Diggs and Landry.
Teven Jenkins, Azeez Ojulari, and Jaelan Phillips are the players most-often mocked to the Colts. I’ll throw this out there since nobody else has: nobody predicted that the Packers were going to draft a quarterback in the first round last year. Trey Lance or Justin Fields could land in a similar spot. Indy has a fragile QB, but more importantly, Carson Wentz is entrenched as the 2021 starter to if he does stay upright, Lance or Fields could sit for the entire year, then figure the QB situation out in 2022.
On the Falcons being open to offers on Julio Jones: Well, I have assumed for a while now that Atlanta would target the top pass-catcher in the draft and so it would make sense to see what could be done with Jones. A lot of teams would “fit” Jones, so it is easier to write off which teams probably won’t make that deal. No teams in the NFC South. Probably no contenders in the NFC. Draft position shouldn’t matter much because a) likely involves 2022 draft picks and b) Jones isn’t going to command a first. And probably no teams that are already up against the 2021 and/or 2022 salary cap. So why not…the Bengals? If Cincinnati drafts Penei Sewell at five, they could trade a 2022 conditional second for Julio Jones and it wouldn’t be selling the receiver short on a bad QB situation. All parties probably win.
You can’t ignore a potential fit with the Patriots either and New England is not shy about trading draft picks for receivers and Bill Belichick has favored opportunities to add wideouts of note like Randy Moss, Josh Gordon, and Antonio Brown.
More sleepers at wide receiver: Jaelon Darden, North Texas. Jonathan Adams, Arkansas State.
An ESPN article on the difficulties of the 2021 draft process: Added an AFC general manager: "The Senior Bowl was very important because that was pretty much the only opportunity to meet with a guy in person, face-to-face and have a conversation. It's the only chance to feel his energy."
Lots of good tidbits in that article. Here’s a hunch that I alluded to literally earlier today with regards to Seattle steering clear of the draft because of the pandemic that I guess is confirmed by Schneider: The Seattle Seahawks were less comfortable with their ability to fully evaluate players headed into the 2021 draft, and it was one of the reasons they traded two first-round picks to the New York Jets last July for safety Jamal Adams. As one Seahawks source told ESPN's Brady Henderson, the uncertainty around the pandemic made Seattle GM John Schneider believe "if there's ever a year to go for it" with a blockbuster trade, this was it.
An article from three years ago by Jason Kirk on why analytics would be proven right about Josh Allen. “If this works, then stats really are for losers, I guess.” Just a reminder that analytics never comes back to say, “Stats really are for losers, I guess.”
Go look at Locker’s scouting reports coming out of UW. You could replace his name with Josh Allen and you wouldn’t know the difference.Josh Allen had multiple NFL-caliber players surrounding him in 2016 and he ranked 101st out of 133 qualifiers in adjusted completion percentage #NFLDraftWorst final FBS season off-target rates among top QB prospects last 3 years: Josh Allen 16.3% DeShone Kizer 14.5% Jeff Driskel 14.4% Connor Cook 13.5% C Hackenberg 13.4%Some interesting factoids from @SI_PeterKing on Josh Allen with assistance from @PFF si.com/nfl/2018/04/18… Perhaps the biggest takeaway, how Allen has struggled with the blitz:I asked Kiper Jr. about disconnect of explaining away Josh Allen's accuracy but knocking Lamar Jackson's. Said Lamar Jackson had a lot of "layups" in Louisville's offense. Said Allen didn't have easy throws in Wyoming's offense. If he did, "he would have been at 60 percent."What good is a rocket launcher arm if you don't know how to use it? Josh Allen completed just one pass of 40+ yards in 2017. Each of the other QBs in this class completed at least 3 such passes.NFL passer rating on deep passes in 2017: Human Howitzer All-World Arm Josh Allen: 84.6 (31.0% complete), 37th in the draft class @bakermayfield : 134.8 (56.7% complete), 13 TDs, 1 INT, led the draft class. Oh, Mayfield had more passes dropped too. #ArmTalent.A lot of those same people would push the narrative that (2021 QBa) will succeed and (2021 QBb) will fail. Remember Josh Allen.
Kiper ranks Lawrence behind Elway, Manning, and Luck as QB prospects, all-time.
Howie Roseman has been a GM for as long as John Schneider: 10 years, going into 11. Roseman has done more draft day trades than any other GM in that time. Schneider can’t be far behind. There is reportedly a good chance that Zach Ertz will be traded this weekend.
I can’t believe I’m seeing headlines of “Justin Fields at 32 in mock draft” and it’s still a couple days to the draft. And it’s not my birthday. I’m still not positive if Fields will go in the top-ten, but I’ve suspected for a long time that he was maybe just a late first rounder.
Caleb Farley’s agent insists he’ll go top-20.
Cardinals at 16: CB, WR, Micah Parsons, Zaven Collins, Najee Harris. That narrows it down.
Patriots could move into the top-ten, yes, but again, not for Fields necessarily.
Somehow the Dolphins are being praised for bad moves now. Me, on the other hand, have decided that the Dolphins are being overrated. Suddenly everyone is rooting for a Belichick branch after so many years of bashing anyone associated with Belichick.
Don’t mock Sewell to Miami. (Don’t think anyone will get the chance after Bengals.)
Another rumor: Eagles want into the top-ten. https://nypost.com/2021/04/27/eagles-trying-to-move-back-into-nfl-drafts-top-10/
Saints could move into the top-20 for Farley.
Okay, I’m gonna publish these since half of it is almost 24 hours old, it seems. I’ll get something fresh up later today. Barely more than 48 hours until the draft.