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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/16/nfl-draft-picks-prospects-trades-mmqb-peter-king
Six Ways To Draft Day: How First Half-Dozen Picks May Go
The Browns, Giants, Jets, Broncos and Colts, like the rest of the NFL, are keeping their cards close as April 26 nears. The latest on Darnold, Mayfield, Barkley and the rest, plus sections on the Reuben Foster lesson, the Dez Bryant facts and much more
By Peter King
The best thing reporters can do at T-minus 10 days to the NFL draft is listen to all the people they trust and know that much of what they’re saying might be a best guess because so few people inside an organization (one, perhaps) truly know what that team is about to do in the draft. Do not be absolute about anything.
And maybe this is more along the lines of
the closer you get to the draft, the more flaws everyone finds. But I can’t find anyone in the NFL who thinks there’s an Andrew Luck in this quarterback crop. That’s why the top of this draft will be so hard to pick, and will be so overwrought and over-thought both before and after the first round.
“I don’t see Luck in this draft, and I don’t see Carson Wentz, who I liked a lot coming into the draft,” Saints coach Asshole Face said Saturday. He’s in the market for a passer. “I’d feel a little bit uneasy if I were at the top of this draft and I decided I had to have a quarterback. The pressure to get a quarterback is so great in this league, I get that. But we can’t create ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if only one of these guys is left standing in four or five years, and if so, I’d guess it would be Sam Darnold.”
So here’s what I think, a week and a half before Roger Goodell steps to the podium inside his best friend Jerry Jones’s stadium in Arlington, Texas, and opens the 83rd draft by saying, “The Cleveland Browns are on the clock...”
CLEVELAND, PICKING FIRST
GM John Dorsey
has to have made a decision by now, and my gut feeling is it’s going to come down to a quarterback, Wyoming’s Josh Allen or USC’s Sam Darnold, with this pick. For the first three months of the college season, Dorsey scouted all players, knowing there was a good chance he’d be a GM in 2018. For the last four months, since being named the Cleveland GM, he’s known he had to know everything about every quarterback because he was likely to pick one with the first overall pick.
If he’d seen six Baker Mayfield games before taking the Cleveland job, don’t you think he’s seen every game of the top five quarterbacks, and at least privately has decided who he favors by now? Dorsey is one of the most thorough personnel people I’ve met in the business.
I’m not saying he has written a name on the card Goodell will read yet, because I’m sure Dorsey wants to hear out smart offensive minds who may differ—namely coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley. I’m just saying I’d be surprised if deep down Dorsey didn’t know who he is picking.
So put me down for Allen or Darnold here, at least as of this morning.
NEW YORK GIANTS, PICKING SECOND (OR TRADING)
I can’t say with certainty, but I believe GM Dave Gettleman has looked at the five top quarterbacks in this draft and found flaws in each one. Now, he may love one quarterback, even if it’s not a perfect one, and if he’s there at two, who knows?
But those who know Gettleman believe he would not use the second pick in a draft on a flawed player, particularly when he has a quarterback who is healthy and has won two Super Bowls—though Eli Manning has not played well in recent years—and a quarterback he never got to see last year (rookie Davis Webb)—because of stupid Giants’ decision-making in the last month of a lost season. Gettleman has to look at this draft and think about two players:
• Penn State running back Saquon Barkley, the best back to come into the league in years. Think of Philly defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, even with Star Wars weaponry all over his depth chart, trying to defend Barkley, wideouts Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard and rising-star tight end Evan Engram, with a solid left tackle (Nate Solder) suddenly making Manning less vulnerable to a great pass-rush. Beckham is 25, Shepard 24, Engram 23, Barkley 21. That is pretty tempting.
• North Carolina State defensive end Bradley Chubb, a relentless edge rusher who could step in day one and be a good bookend for Olivier Vernon on the Giants’ front. There aren’t many college edge rushers who can play the run well and the pass superbly, but this stat from his college career says he can do just that: He exceeded 20 tackles for loss and 10 sacks in each of his last two college seasons.
I truly don’t know what the Giants will do, particularly if they’ve got a bright prospect like Darnold staring at them when their 10 minutes start April 26. But I don’t see Gettleman passing on two surer things over a quarterback he’s not at all sure about. I also would be surprised if Gettleman trades the pick with two franchise players on the board, but if the Bills offer three ones to come up, he’s going to have to think about it.
I doubt he’d do it, because of what he said at the combine: “You’re drafting [at two] what you think is gonna be a Hall of Fame player. So you can’t get too cute about the whole thing.”
One final piece of intel: Gettleman was the Carolina GM for five drafts, between 2013 and ’17, and he never traded any of his five first-round picks. Only once did he trade one of his second-round picks, moving up 16 spots in the 2015 draft to snag wideout Devin Funchess. So there’s not much of a history there.
NEW YORK JETS, PICKING THIRD
A quarterback. My gut is Sam Darnold or Baker Mayfield, or the much-studied Josh Rosen. I’d probably lean toward Mayfield if he’s there, and he likely will be.
The one thing we know about this draft is at least two quarterbacks are going in the top three. After that, anyone’s guess.
CLEVELAND, PICKING FOURTH (OR TRADING)
I think they’d trade only for a ransom, like three ones from Buffalo (at 12) or Miami (at 11), and that’s unlikely. Dorsey went to the Gettleman school. Don't trade a guy you project to be an annual All-Pro player (Chubb, Barkley or even Notre Dame guard Quenton Nelson) when you’re trying to build a great team. The one X-factor here: If Darnold survives the first three picks, one of those mega-trades might pop up. I wouldn’t do it if I were Dorsey, and I had the chance to get a player like Chubb here.
DENVER, PICKING FIFTH (OR TRADING)
I’m told a few things about GM John Elway’s draft-night preference:
1. He’s very unlikely to trade up.
2. He doesn’t think Bradley Chubb will be available here (nor do I), but he also views Quenton Nelson as a long-time great guard who could anchor his offensive line for years.
3. He hasn’t given up on Paxton Lynch, and though there’s a quarterback he likes a lot here (my guess is Mayfield or Darnold), having Case Keenum in the house for two years makes the drafting of a quarterback in this draft a lower priority. And if Elway picks one, Lynch would be the Rocky Mountain version of Christian Hackenberg—living on borrowed time.
4. Per Albert Breer, the Broncos are also smitten with two other ideas: trading down, or replacing Aqib Talib with Ohio State star cornerback Denzel Ward.
INDIANAPOLIS, PICKING SIXTH (OR TRADING)
The Colts are not likely to trade down to 11 or 12, because their floor sounds like it’s a play-making linebacker like Roquan Smith or Tremaine Edmunds. No way GM Chris Ballard could count on one of them being there at 11 or 12. There’s a chance, but it’s very possible they both go in the top 10; San Francisco and Oakland, picking ninth and 10th, could take them in succession.
Ballard could have his eye on Ward, which would be understandable; the Colts were last in the NFL last season in passing yards per play, allowing a gaudy 7.33. But the Colts will be very interesting to watch when they’re on the clock. Ballard is the type of GM who has so many holes on his roster that he wants to be blown away.
Indy needs one of the top four quarterbacks to be there when it’s on the clock, so Miami or Buffalo would be tempted to pay a premium for the pick. For the Colts to consider moving from six to 11 or 12, I’m guessing the price would be that pick plus another first-rounder, plus a mid-round pick this year or next. Buffalo, for instance, might offer 12 and 22 in the first round this year, plus a third or fourth next year. That might be worth the risk for the Colts.
TWO SIDES OF THE REUBEN FOSTER STORY
Sometimes your best draft choices are the picks you don’t make.
The Saints were thinking that way last week, when San Francisco linebacker Reuben Foster—a target of New Orleans late in the 2017 first round—was charged with felony domestic violence. Authorities in California said Foster dragged his girlfriend by the hair, punched her in the head eight to 10 times, and punctured her ear drum. The 49ers are letting the legal system run its course, for now, but if the charges prove true, it’s hard to imagine Foster stays on the roster of a franchise with a recent history of sordid acts by prominent players.
Saints coach Asshole Face told me Saturday he thinks New Orleans still would have chosen Wisconsin tackle Ryan Ramczyk with the 32nd overall pick last April, even if the 49ers hadn’t jumped ahead of the Saints to grab the 31st overall pick, which was used on Foster.
I was in the 49ers draft room last year, and the most dramatic point of the weekend was the Niners feeling they struck gold by stealing Foster from the Saints.
Foster told the Niners—and later told me—that Payton was on the phone with Foster minutes before it was going to be the Saints’ choice and said the Saints were going to pick Foster. Foster also said Payton asked to speak to Foster’s girlfriend. According to Foster, Payton asked the girlfriend, “Are you going to be the guidance to be sure Reuben doesn’t get into trouble?”
Payton confirmed that, and said periodically over the years he asked a prospective player’s significant other if the Saints could count on her to help steer the player away from trouble.
“This was part of our fact-finding late in the round,” Payton said. “I hadn’t had a chance to meet his girlfriend during the pre-draft process, and we were still in the process of deciding. I think we were going to take Ramczyk anyway, but I wanted to talk to her about Reuben.”
Meanwhile, the Niners traded with Seattle to move to the 31st slot, picked Foster, and rejoiced at what they considered at the time was a big win for the franchise. Turns out it’s verging on being a huge loss for the franchise.
But Payton had more of a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-us feeling Saturday than a feeling of spiking the football in the end zone because Foster went elsewhere. “It’s tragic, and it’s sad,” Payton said. “I just feel awful when those things happen.”
Avoiding Foster turned out to be the stroke of great fortune that helped GM Mickey Loomis, assistant GM Jeff Ireland and Payton have the franchise’s best draft since 2006 (Reggie Bush, Roman Harper, Jahri Evans, Zach Strief, Marques Colston). Here’s how good it was:
• Cornerback Marshon Lattimore (first round, 11th overall) was Pro Football Focus’ninth-rated corner as a rookie.
• Ramczyk (first round, 32nd) was PFF’s number four tackle, and top-rated rookie.
• Safety Marcus Williams (second round, 42nd) was PFF’s top-rated rookie safety, and 12th-rated overall. “We had him with a low first-round grade,” Payton said. “If we got him low in the first round, that would have been fine with us.”
• But when they took Williams, Payton figured the skill player he wanted badly, Tennessee running back Alvin Kamara, was gone. But when he was still available late in the second round, the Saints started working the phones, and dealt a 2018 second-round pick to the Niners to claim the 67th overall pick and the third pick in the third round. That netted Kamara, whose explosive burst helped overcome a slow start. Kamara was named the 2017 offensive rookie of the year.
• Nine picks after Kamara, the Saints used their own third-rounder to pick the poor man’s Foster, Florida weakside linebacker Alex Anzalone. They still have hopes for him to become a sideline-to-sideline playmaker, but Anzalone missed all but four games last season with an injury.
That’s the kind of draft that could keep the post-Drew Brees Saints strong contenders … assuming they find a quarterback to be a solid heir to Brees. It’s far and away the best draft any team had in 2017, and it’s a reminder how important off-field homework is on draft weekend.
Whereas Foster had a shaky past, Ramczyk had zero zits on his résumé and was steady from the first practice. The Saints had five picks among the first 76 overall, and surely they should have gotten two or three good players out of that haul. But five—if Anzalone pans out? That’s one of the best drafts in recent years.
Deep down, the Niners can justify the Foster pick as swinging and missing for a potential franchise linebacker. But Lynch knows that now, with the recent spate of rap-sheet Niners, he’s got to pick Eagle Scouts. This franchise has erred with risky players once too often, and for a while, they’re going to have to pick totally clean players.
FACTOID THAT MAY INTEREST ONLY ME
Dick Hammer, the late grandfather of Sam Darnold, once played the Marlboro Man in print ads and billboards across the United States.
The Marlboro Man is one of the most famous images in advertising history. Several ruggedly handsome men played the part in the seventies and eighties in the ads. They were shown smoking a Marlboro cigarette and wearing a Cowboy hat.
POD PEOPLE
• Kansas City coach Andy Reid on the value of football: “I think this game teaches you all the values of life. It’s a microcosm of life, and the way the rules are set now for injury, we’re taking the head part of it out of the game. It’s as safe as it’s ever been right now. These life values way overrule any of the injury.
I think if you look at any sport, you’re vulnerable to being hurt, so I think it’s a whole different mindset, and we’re really getting to that point where it’s not about the injury anymore; it’s about this question that you’re asking me about the values you should learn through the sport that you have a chance to play.
This one drives you to where you question, if I could take another step, physically, which leads into the mental toughness part of it, which leads to:
I got knocked down, can I get back up? These are all things that help you in life, I think, during tough times, and there are all kinds of tough times in life.”
• New Orleans coach Asshole Face: “It teaches leadership. It teaches grit and overcoming adversity. Your buddies may be starting, and you might not be in the starting lineup—it happened to me as a high school junior—and you have those low moments, and you continue to practice, you continue to fight, and then you get those opportunities and you get success, and you realize it’s just like life.
So I think it brings so much to the character and the building of a character of the individual. And it might be flag football to a certain age … I think the rewards far outweigh the negatives.”
• Mike Vrabel on what he learned from his father, an Ohio high school basketball coach: “My first experience with seeing somebody coach was my dad. I was the ballboy and the manager and the scorekeeper for the varsity basketball team in Norton, Ohio, and my job was to basically, sometime between the first and second quarter, catch his sport coat as he threw it off as he was yelling at a referee.
It would wrap around my head. I was probably about six, and that was my job to catch that sport coat and I’d hand it back to my mom and after that I just had to make sure that the players had water. So he was probably my first coaching influence, and I would go to practice and watch him.”
THINGS I THINK I THINK
1. I think the 2018 regular-season schedule is not done—it always comes down to a tight close the week before the draft—but my guess is the league would like to have it released late this week. My money’s on Thursday. Part of the reason for that is the NFL doesn’t want the schedule release to conflict with the draft next week, so they’ll work hard to get it done this week and maximize the spotlight on the schedule.
2. I think I think the greatest sight of the week was Ryan Shazier exiting a golf cart without assistance Saturday on the field at the Ohio State spring game, standing without holding on to anything, and waving to an appreciative crowd.
His recovery from a spinal injury, clearly, is going well. “It’s a good feeling to be on the field, but it hurts for a second,” he told Steelers.com. “I was talking to a good friend of mine on the phone and sometimes when you are at the games, or in the moment, it kind of hurts dealing with my situation.” Understandable. But it doesn’t stop him, not for a moment.
3. I think the draft in Texas will have one particularly distinctive feature, which NFL director of special events Peter O’Reilly
described for our Tim Rohan: “We’re taking a page from the political convention playbook, if you will, of creating team delegations, which we’re calling ‘The Inner Circle.’ So on the floor of the field of the draft, right in front of the stage, each team will have a delegation of 50 fans who will represent them. You’ll see them quite a bit during the draft coverage.”
That’s an interesting concept. But I would wonder this: What do you do with the
Rams delegation, which won’t have a pick on Thursday night, and won’t pick Friday night till late in the third round? Or Houston, which goes pick-less in rounds one and two? And the other team, Kansas City, with no picks in round one? Bring some coffee for them.
4. I think I can’t find a likely spot for Josh Rosen in the top six. Not saying there won’t be one—at all. The Jets could pick Rosen, and the Bills or Dolphins could trade up to do so. I just can’t find it right now.
5. I think, not to be pitiless to Mark Sanchez, but I don’t have any sympathy or empathy for someone who tests positive for a substance that is on the banned list.
Sanchez, surprisingly, was suspended for the first four games of the 2018 season. (He is now a Bears backup quarterback.) There’s only one way to have a rule and that is to suspend anyone who tests positive for performance-enhancer.
6. I think, after reading
this story by Juliet Macur and John Branch of
The New York Times about the abuse cheerleaders face in stadiums and in crowds and at appearances, I’d recommend three things:
a. Every time a cheerleader ventures out beyond secure boundaries like stadium sidelines, she should have some form of security official with her. Sending cheerleaders, for instance, to sell their cheerleader calendars out in parking lots or outside stadiums is a recipe for disaster. Sending cheerleaders to take photos with potentially inebriated fans is even worse.
b. Follow the idea of six NFL teams, such as the Giants and Steelers: Don’t have cheerleaders. I never go to a game in Pittsburgh and hear anyone say: “I wish we had scantily clad women on our sidelines yelling things no one can hear.”
c. Or do what the Packers do: Have college cheerleading squads—traditional cheerleaders from local schools—cheer at the games.
Truly: I’ve never heard fans say that cheerleaders make a significant difference in the fan experience at a game.
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