BUSINESS HORSE 2023 NFL MOCK DRAFT EXTRAVAGANZA

[Todd McNeigh]

Oh yinz thought that since I have actual things I need to be doing to like, pay my bills and shit that I wouldn’t be back with a brand new pimp mock for your limp cocks. Well you thought wrong because I am the 1911 Christy Mathewson of wasting useful time on trivial activities.

As usual, the disclaimers:


1. My rankings are hastily assembled and only feature players I’ve had “time” to watch. So if you are wondering, “hey where the f is Rawjerr Cranberries on your WR list”, well, I didn’t get a chance to watch anything on Rawjerr Cranberries so he’s not on the list. I may look at him later and think he’s awesome. But that leads me to number 2. One such example is Jalen Pitre last year. I had never heard of him when Houston took him in the early 2nd round so there’s no way in hell he was going to be even considered in my shitty mock but it took about 14 seconds to see that this dude was really fuckin’ good. I probably would have had him as a first rounder if I, uhhh, knew who the hell he was.


2. When I say I spent some time watching a guy, I mean that I most likely spent no more than like 5 minutes. There are hundreds of these guys and this is not my job, as in real life I am the guy who watches the urinals through that little glass hole and flushes them after each use. I just simply don’t have enough time or patience to spend what it would require of both to actually make a good mock draft.


3. On top of that, I don’t really know what I’m doing. Like when I watch a left guard it basically boils down to “hmm do I think this guy is good or not good, he sure blocked that other guy really nice there yeah he’s good”. This ranks me a distant 32nd among NFL GMs in competence, ahead of only Trent Baalke.


4. I don’t have the inside information that NFL teams have. For example, most people had Teven Jenkins in the first round in 2020. However, medical checks showed something with his back that scared teams off a bit and dropped him to the 2nd. The Bengals had Willie Anderson in 2021 to tell them that Jackson Carman was a good pl….ok maybe that’s not the best example. I also don’t know how these players interview or what their college coaches say about them.


5. NOBODY knows how these guys are actually going to turn out. NFL teams spend milllllllions of dollars on this process and even the best teams miss a lot more than they don’t miss. Every jump, be it from high school to college or college to the NFL, has a lot of variables that are tough to determine. Here were the top college recruits in the 2015 class according to SI:


1. Byron Cowart
2. Josh Rosen
3. Iman Marshall
4. Martez Ivey
5. Derwin James
6. Kahlil McKenzie
7. Trenton Thompson
8. Damien Harris
9. Calvin Ridley
10. Terry Godwin

I have heard of four of those guys. It’s like each level is a different planet with a different atmosphere and you can do all the testing you want, it’s still going to be difficult to determine how something will react to it until you actually place them in that environment.


6. An apparently still little-known secret – even in the first round, most of these guys won’t be all that good. On average, only about 38% of first rounders make even a single Pro Bowl in their careers. But yet every year you read “the Saints have a glaring hole at ILB, but with the selection of Chernobilus Poppyseed will turn the position from a weakness to a strength”. Uhhh, no it probably won’t. He’s probably not going to be all that great and even if he is it won’t be for a few years. There are very few Micah Parsonses in this world.


7. In that vein, if you like or don’t like a guy, keep liking or don’t liking them even if I or someone else disagrees. Like I said, no one knows anything. I thought Justin Herbert and Josh Allen would suck and that Corey Coleman would be a star.


8. This is a hybrid of what I would do and what I think will happen. It’s not exclusively one or the other. That is because this is for entertainment and not an entry into a mock draft competition, which would be a dumb thing to spend time on.


9. Trades happen in every single first round. If you don’t have any trades in a mock draft then it is occurring in a different reality. Which is fine, I’m just saying.


10. Everything in this mock is guaranteed to happen 100% as I predict it will.


Now a brief overview of my thoughts on the draft that is about to occur in the year of our Lord 2023. I think this class is moderately weak at the very top but not nearly as weak as last years. There is a bit more sizzle this year and we’ve got a bunch of QBs to make it interesting. This draft is also absolutely STACKED at corner and also appears to be really good at tight end. Like of the top 30 players in this draft, 10 of them might be corners. This draft is also pretty deep in the 2nd and 3rd round tiers, which I think last year’s was as well. I would want to horde 2nd and 3rd rounders this year if I could say trade out of late round 1. One thing I do think after watching the guys I picked off a list as the “top prospects” is that I don’t trust any of these lists of top prospects and I think the actual teams are going to have significantly different rankings and it will look like a crazy surprise or something. No, Lukas Van Ness and Nolan Smith just aren’t very good.

To be fair, I also thought 2011 would suck and that became arguably the greatest first round in the history of the draft. Similarly in 2017 everyone said “all these QBs suck there’s no first round QB wait until next year”. Well, that draft included Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson and the next year featured Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold in the top 3. You just don’t know so don’t get all up in arms before your teams player actually plays a real game. And we’re kind of doing that again this year. Last year it was “man the QBs suck, wait until next year because that class is gonna be stacked” and now here we are once again poking holes in all of these guys and saying “Play Dead for Caleb” or some shit. Rinse and repeat.

Let’s get started. Here are my positional rankings in a vacuum, as schemes do matter and I don’t know everyone’s scheme because come on man. As was the case last year, there’s no gifs as that just takes way too much time. RAS refers to “Relative Athletic Score” (https://ras.football/), which was created by a guy named Kent Lee Platte and combines all athletic testing metrics and height/weight (ie running 4.38 at 300 lbs is more impressive than doing it at 190 lbs) into one single number from 0 to 10. It’s basically a percentile for each position. Finally, my comps are dumb and for everyone best case is Hall of Famer and worst case is out of football immediately. If I compare a guy to Bruce Smith I don’t necessarily think he is going to be Bruce Smith, I may just see one particular similarity. Ok let’s do this LEEEEEROOOYYYYYYY BUTTTTTTTTLEERRRRRRRRRRR

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[Todd McNeigh]

1. CAROLINA PANTHERS – Bryce Young, QB, Alabama

We all know damn well that Carolina didn’t trade up to take Peter Skoronski.

Initially I was thinking this would be Stroud because I thought Stroud was the best QB in this draft. But recent news reports just keep pushing Young and Stroud is getting piled on with red flags and I’m choosing to believe the hype.

I still remember my grandfather telling me, “son, there’s no way in shit’s fuck that an NFL team is going to take a sub-6 foot QB first overall” but here we are living in a post-Kyler Murray world and that old trope no longer applies. Bryce Young is the size of a small child and when you watch him play it literally looks like a 10th grader won a competition to play in an SEC game. That size will fool you though as Young certainly has the goods – he’s extremely accurate, places the ball well, navigates the pocket well (particularly for a guy too short to see anything) and isn’t afraid to take a hit. He really does look a lot like Tua in many regards but I just think he’s better. Tua wasn’t inaccurate but he could get a little scattershot with his ball placement to his slew of first round WRs. Young however is much more precise and doesn’t have the same level of weapons as teams of Alabama past. And he’s the kind of guy that coaches talk about as someone they’d want their daughters to marry. Your daughter just bent over the kitchen counter and there’s Bryce Young on a stepstool just railing the shit out of her. Coach why are you thinking about that?

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows with our Short King. The number one red flag to me is the arm strength – I’ve heard reports that he’s got plenty of zip but man do those throws outside the numbers just die on him. IMO it is a major concern if you’re gonna take an already outlier QB number one overall. He also appears to lose track of things when he’s running around “cooking” and takes way, way, WAY too many massive shots from dudes three times his size. Yeah it’s great that you’re tough but we’ve already seen with Tua what can happen when you’re constantly getting your vertebrae slammed directly into the mantle of the Earth by NFL defensive tackles, and it’s not good.

But just about all of these guys have concerns every year, and I think that Bryce Young’s positives will outweigh his negatives and he’ll at least be a functional NFL starting QB. We’ll just have to wait and see if his candy arm can grit and intangible the Panthers down the field consistently enough to change their fortunes.

I tried to workshop a weird-ass trade with the Panthers trading the pick to Houston for 2 and 12 and taking Stroud but that just seems too stupid even by dipshit mock standards.

 
2. HOUSTON TEXANS – Will Anderson, Edge, Alabama

Back-to-back uhhh Crimson Tiders here as Houston decides that they will wait until next year (or maybe pick 12? I don’t know where I’m going with this yet) to get their QB. The current betting odds are for Will Levis to go 2nd overall but I mean, as much as I want to make Josh McDaniels and the Raiders hilariously trade up for Levis I’m not gonna force it. Houston has already suffered enough from overly forceful QBs and they don’t need to re-live that here. This is a safe space! If it were me I’d probably take Stroud, but he might not be a football automatron and the Texans are still run the Patriot Way®, so instead they draft Mose Schrute in blackface.



Now, I do think Will Anderson will have a decent NFL career, but I am certainly not of the thought that he’s the best player in this draft and that he’s going to be an NFL All-Pro. I think he was more of a college pass rusher than an NFL pass rusher, much like Jarvis Jones was. Now Anderson is hella twitched up compared to Jarvis Jones so they aren’t the same player but I think the situation was similar. Alabama schemed Anderson into a bunch of his sacks with stunts while he blew past a nobody guard and allowed him to rack up coverage sacks as well. Yeah yeah “SEC!” and all but let’s not forget, Jarvis Jones was also highly productive in the SEC. In the last two seasons, Anderson combined for 27.5 sacks. In Jones’s last two seasons at Georgia, he combined for 28.0 sacks. I just haven’t found a full-game tape against a quality opponent where you say “damn, Will Anderson just took that shit over!”. When he faced a legit pro OT in Tennessee’s Darnell Wright he could barely even make a dent. He’s undersized and just doesn’t have the power behind him to push a guy like Wright back. He’s got shorter arms and struggles to get leverage. Alabama moved him around the DL so yeah he’s versatile but they were often just having him get tossed around closer to the middle fo the field when they did it. I think he’s gonna be way overdrafted.

Now I don’t think he’s a bad player by any stretch. He’s very quick, he uses his hands well when he doesn’t get overpowered by a long-armed sasquatch OT, and his motor is absolutely insane. This dude goes like 102.4% all the time and he never gets tired. He’s a smart player who does actually defend the run pretty well from the outside and he diagnoses plays very quickly to get himself into position before he can be moved. Coaches rave about him, he’s got the work ethic and leadership and all that jazz that NFL coaches beat off to. Shit, Dave Gettleman would violate the Geneva Convention against his own dick if he had a chance to draft Will Anderson. And Houston is fuckin’ full of Dave Gettlemans. The Texans got rid of Easterby but they still have Nick Caserio running the show and honestly, pretty much all Belichick disciples are Gettlemans. The Texans have been engaging in dipshittery for sport ever since the day Billy O’Brien walked through those saloon doors so I do think there’s a chance they take Levis, but in the end I think they froth at the mouth to draft a “culture setter” type this year and figure out quarterback later. Bryce Young had Patriot Way written all over him but Lovie hilariously fucked them as a parting gift…this is going to be absolutely hilarious if Young has a Hall of Fame career. I don’t know why but I really enjoy watching the Texans flounder.

In the end I think Will Anderson is a 7 sack per season team-leader type who maybe has like Josh Allen (Jaguars version) upside.


3. TRADE ALERT

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS TRADE WITH ARIZONA FOR THE THIRD PICK

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS – Will Levis, QB, Kentucky

Hey look, they actually taught Tim Tebow how to throw!

I have to do this. The urge to do so is overpowering and I cannot fight it, and I mean Josh McDaniels loves nothing more than to absolutely derp his way through a roster rebuild. Yeah the Raiders signed Jimmy G but Jimmy G ain’t gonna keep you from drafting a top prospect QB and really, Jimmy G doesn’t work unless he’s not supposed to be the QB. He needs to be in a weird situation to truly unlock his Jimmy G abilities, like mentoring a 24-year old rookie QB who puts mayonnaise in his coffee. My only fear is that the ghost of Al Davis is still haunting the facilities and whispering “Richarrrrddddsooooonnnnn” into everyone’s ears.

I’m not super down on Levis like a lot of people are, but I sure as absolute tits would not want to draft him in the top 10, let alone 3rd overall. I think he’s an ok lottery ticket that you are spending way too much to buy at the top of the draft. Yeah he’s got a good arm, yeah he can throw a nice ball, sure he can run a little bit. He’s a big guy who can take a hit and hell, he can deliver a hit too. Levis gets compared to Josh Allen quite a bit and yes, he’s got a little bit of Josh Allen in him. He can throw ropes off-platform, he’s a big strong QB who can run pretty well, I mean yeah, this motherfucker’s got some tools. Maybe he can sign a deal with DeWalt. So yeah, in some ways yeah they are similar but…Levis does not have Allen’s arm, he does not appear to have Allen’s level of pure athleticism (IMO), and he doesn’t have anywhere near Allen’s peak plays. Josh Allen at Wyoming was dumb play, throw over a guys head, ridiculous 50 yard dart into a tiny window while doing a cartwheel. Levis’s peak play is throwing a slant to Wandale Robinson and then he runs 70 yards.

As for the bad, well, maybe you should stop trucking people on account of you BEING THE FUCKIN’ QUARTERBACK WILL LEVIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING, it’s like he saw Matt Corral and said “hold my beer”. He’s got a bit of a windup that makes it easier to break on his passes. He loves to look at one guy the whole time and throw to that guy. If that guy is covered, he might still throw it, or he’ll just take off and look to break some skulls. He doesn’t freak out at pressure and he’ll stand in there and take a hit. He also often doesn’t sense the pressure and has no choice but to take a hit. He’s got the most surprisingly floaty deep ball, as if he’s doing a tribute to Dwayne Haskins (*pours some out*). and so many of his yards are a result of receiver YAC (yards after catch). I think he is generally more accurate than the consensus seems to be but man there are stretches where he’s just absolutely all over the damn place. And he does not hesitate for a second to throw his receivers into an absolute fuckin’ guillotine. Yes, Kentucky’s offense last year was a magnesium fire but you can go back and watch Kentucky play Iowa in 2021 and Levis looks like a 5th rounder, and really, what do you think he’d be going to in Houston? So you’re really betting on the tools here. I know it worked for Allen and it worked for Herbert but I don’t think Levis has those tools. He’s a good athlete with a good arm. He’s also going to be 24 and he couldn’t beat out SEAN CLIFFORD at Penn State. This isn’t Joe Burrow sitting behind five-stars. So what really is the ceiling here? Oh well, I guess he “loves ball” so he’s a McDaniels guy. Get every last Belichick spawn out of every building, or be doomed to spend top 3 picks on the Final Boss version of Jake Locker.


4. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS – CJ Stroud, QB, Ohio State

This in my opinion is the ideal scenario for the Baby Horses and I’m thinking that it’s actually pretty likely to happen at this point.

The “flags” keep piling up with Stroud but in my opinion we’re still overthinking this. He’s the second most consistently accurate thrower I’ve seen in at least the last 5 years, behind Burrow. Yes, he’s throwing to top WRs, and yes, he’s got a good line, and yes, he’s I guess too mellow or whatever, but he accurately throws the ball to the guys who are catching it. I think that’s important.

So let’s just start with the flags right away. First, he’s an Ohio State quarterback, and if Justin Zwick couldn’t excel in the pros, how can CJ Stroud? Forgive me if I think that’s a bit of a dog whistle (and I guess we’ll find out in a year or two if Kyle McCord blows up), but it only really seems to be a thing with Ohio State these days. Stroud is nothing like Fields (who isn’t even a bust yet), who is nothing like Dwayne Haskins. After Joe Burrow completed his last season throwing to two of the greatest receivers in the history of football, did anyone give the slightest most microscopic fuck that the best NFL quarterback to come out of LSU in the last 30 years was like, Stan Humphries? This is Jamarcus Russell’s alma mater! Was no one afraid that Burrow was Zach Mettenberger or Matt Flynn? Did Herbert get knocked for the careers of Marcus Mariota, Akili Smith and Joey Harrington? The last time I can remember this actually mattering was when it caused teams to pass on Aaron Rodgers. After that it seems like people realized that hey, most of these QBs become busts, so maybe it doesn’t matter what Craig Krenzel did?

Let’s consider it, though. Did Ohio State help Stroud out? Yeah, it did. His OL was really good (even though I’m not the biggest Paris Johnson fan), and he had a slew of NFL receivers. But those receivers, at least last year, were NOT separators. Stroud’s tape is full of small windows that required precise ball placement, and he continually placed his balls wherever they needed to go. Jaxon Smith-Njigba played about 4 snaps last season and I do not think Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka are all that close to the level of Wilson and Olave.

The complaints about Ohio State’s one-read offense? Yeah, I do get those, and Stroud didn’t do all that well in this regard IMO. He’s often taking a snap, looking one way and throwing that way. Fields was much better at scanning the field and going to secondary reads than Stroud was, and this is the sole reason that I do not have him as my easy number 1 overall mock pick. Now, unless Stroud is being told exactly where to go like Jared Goff was, this isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. There is something to be said for making the right reads pre-snap. Trevor Lawrence was a one-read and throw guy for much of his time at Clemson. Joe Burrow did this a lot at LSU. Herbert at Oregon, good Lord did he look bad at times doing this. Hell, Brock Purdy doing it in San Francisco had people losing their damn minds. I think this can be improved upon but it is an issue. It just doesn’t immediately disqualify you anymore.

The second flag is his supposed poor results in the S2 testing, which is some newfangled test where they like show you a rhombus, and if you quickly indicate its rhombosity then you are considered to be a franchise quarterback. Brock Purdy dominated it, and Bryce Young did really well this year. Stroud supposedly scored a remarkably low number and has potentially never even heard of rhombuses. But there’s a very small sample on this, and the highest score ever scored was purportedly that of Justin Fields, another Ohio State QB who supposedly couldn’t read a defense if you gave it to him on audiobook. So if this is even true, it’s quite early to be burying people over it. What other top QB prospect had a bad score? Any? If not then what is this even saying?

And finally, Stroud maybe doesn’t eat, sleep and deepthroat football like the Bryce Youngs of the world. He’s more Aaron Rodgers than Tom Brady, I guess. Whatever. This didn’t impact Kyler Murray or Herbert or Zach Wilson (who looked like a literal 12 year old and really I should have known better) but it’s going to bury Stroud? Meh.

My biggest red flag with Stroud is one that I don’t really hear talked about, and it’s that he appears to suffer from Derek Carr disease. Derek Carr has (or at least had) one of the best arms in the NFL. He was generally accurate and seemed like a smart QB. But Derek Carr didn’t want to take any hits. He would get rid of the ball early, throw it off his back foot, desperately look to throw it out of bounds, et cetera et cetera. I used to trace it to his leg injury but going back and looking at it more, he was doing this in the NFL from day 1. In my opinion this is the single biggest difference between a guy like Carr and a guy like say Ben Roethlisberger. Usually QBs do this when they get older (Roethlisberger in his last few seasons, Eli Manning), but at this stage? It’s not a good sign. A lot of CJ Stroud’s bad throws are when he senses any pressure and either falls back and throws it off his back foot or gets rid of the ball too early to whoever he can find. He is also prone to checking down way too early and throwing before he can reset into a better base. But I do think there’s hope, as he got better as the year went on and seemed to have stopped doing it altogether in the Georgia game, which coincidentally was his most impressive college performance. He looked really good against Michigan in my opinion, despite the result. Michigan was BLANKETING his receivers and he was still fitting the ball into microscopic windows under pressure. So I know he can do it, and that would be enough for me to take a shot on him here if I’m the Colts. I just cannot see anyone other than Al Davis’s ghost taking Anthony Richardson over Stroud.

Can’t wait to watch Chris Ballard fuck this up and take Hendon Hooker.


5. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS – Tyree Wilson, Edge, Texas Tech

Now that Seattle finally made their first round pick last year without trading down, I don’t have to gin up some dumb scenario where they trade down into the late 20s and draft Zach Charbonnet. I particularly don’t want to trade out of this one because you just know Pete Carroll is frothing at the tits to make this “fuck you Russell Wilson” pick.

All of the professional talkers are slotting Jalen Carter here, but…does Seattle like interior defensive linemen? Does John Schneider even remember that Cortez Kennedy played here? Rather, to me at least, it seems like they like to take gigantic edge rushers. And there is no bigger edge rusher this year than Tyree Wilson. He is the Vitruvian Pass Rusher.

Wilson is strong as absolute fuck and a lot of people have him ahead of Will Anderson as this year’s best edge rusher, but I am not the biggest fan of his. I don’t think his burst and quickness are very good, he wasn’t very productive in college, and he’s often playing too high to use all that aforementioned strength. NFL teams love drafting ball-of-clay pass rushers high and “coaching them up”, because what’s the fun in drafting someone who actually knows what they are doing? And who loves doing this more than Seattle?

The Seahawks seem to follow a formula of one historically great draft followed by 10 years of braindead fuckery, and after last year’s masterpiece it seems like it’s time to get back on their LJ Collier shit. Tyree Wilson just screams Seahawks to me.


6. DETROIT LIONS – Jalen Carter, DL, Georgia

This is a tough one, because Jalen Carter doesn’t seem like a Dan Campbell guy. So I want to mock Christian Gonzalez here, but….I just can’t convince myself that the Loins would pass on a Carter if he fell to them. There are very few 315 pound humans who can move like this and sometimes you just gotta take them if they fall to you. As good as I think Gonzalez will be, Detroit’s lace-curtain defense offers all the resistance of a slight breeze and I think they need to keep investing in the DL if they want to change that. I’m also assuming that they may be a bit Okudah-ed out on corners for a draft or two.

This would be easy if Carter didn’t more red flags than an Olympic opening ceremony, but then again if it were that easy it would be your mom. Ol’ Albert Haynesworth here is back, wrecking shop when he feels like it, drag racing teammates home from the bar, and supposedly putting on a ton of bad weight over the last 2 months. I don’t know if Haynesworth is the right comp since Carter does mostly seem to care on the field (when he isn’t winded), but it’s really not much better to be giving off Reuben Foster vibes. Still, the at some point the talent wins out and with Carter it’s probably going to win out early.


7. ARIZONA CARDINALS (traded from #3) – Christian Gonzalez, CB, Oregon

Can’t keep dropping Rod Woodson, and he’ll fit in perfectly with another defense that needs help at the “competent player” position.

The Cardinals defense is arguably worse than Detroit’s and I considered Myles Murphy here but I just think Gonzalez is too good to keep dropping him. If Houston takes a QB at 2 Arizona would probably just stay here and take Will Anderson but this is my world and that didn’t happen here so eat shit.

I think Christian Gonzalez may be the best player in this draft, as I haven’t yet seen a single receiver gain a micropenis of separation from him. This guy comes from a family of like Olympic sprinters, he’s 6’2” and fluid, and he showed last year that he can come up with interceptions so what more do you really want from a corner?

My main concern when drafting corners is the inconsistent impact of the position, as it seems like every year there’s a new “top corner”. But Gonzalez has what it takes to be a top, so positional flakiness be damned.

I could have worded that better.


8. ATLANTA FALCONS – Bijan Robinson, RB, Texas

Let’s get like, a misdemeanor amount of stupid here.

The somehow-Desmond-Ridder-lead Falcons are another team that could use just about any defensive player, and they are certainly not the type of team that should be spending top 10 picks on running backs.

But this is no running back. This…is BIJAN.

You’ve heard about Bijan. Bijan is generational. Bijan is Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and LaDanian Tomlinson all wrapped into one player. Bijan is greatness.

IMO, Bijan is….Trent Richardson.

Go ahead, laugh it up. I’m used to it, I heard it when the Browns traded, you know, Trent Richardson. “How could they do this? This was their only good player!!!” – no, actually, that guy fuckin’ sucked. Bijan doesn’t suck. Well he might, but I don’t think he does. He’s truly exceptional as a receiver, which makes him inherently better than any of the bust RBs I might otherwise compare him to. There’s a chance he’s great, and he’s got the workhorse back profile, and he’s decent at everything, and that’s why I ranked him number one in this class, even though I don’t think he’ll end up being the best running back in this draft when all is said and done. But that’s the thing with running backs, who knows which one is going to be awesome so why draft them this high?

Well, it’s Arthur Smith. Arthur Smith walks, talks, eats, breathes, shits and barfs running the football. “RUN THE FOOTBALL!”, he might think to himself randomly in the middle of a random Tuesday in July. “FUCKIN IMPOSE OUR WILL”, he barfs. This guy made his name in large part by helping Derrick Henry to make his name and I don’t think it’s crazy to think that he might see a chance to do the same thing in Atlanta with his own personal hand-selected Derrick Henry. This guy took a 31-year old wide receiver and a random mid-round rookie and made the #3 rushing offense in the entire damn league last year. With Cordarrelle Patterson and Tyler Algeier! And frickin’ Marcus Mariota!!! That’s not chicken salad, this guy made like lobster puree from chicken shit. I bet he stays awake all night dreaming about what he could do with…Bijaaaaannnn (/trails off angelically).

So why do I think this unicorn generational once in a millennium prospect is more Trent Richardson than Walter Payton? Well, as Mike Tomlin once said through Ryan Clark, he absorbs punishment, he doesn’t deliver it. Trent Richardson bounced off little college LBs but he didn’t bounce off of Terrell Suggs. Bijan doesn’t even bounce off of fools as well as TRich did. He gets tripped up quite a bit, in fact. And while I don’t think he is as hole-blind (guhhh) as Richardson, I do really question what he’s looking at sometimes. He’s got a great jump-cut move that freezes people all over the field but that’s about all he seems to have and I don’t think it’s going to just continue to catch defenders by surprise in the NFL. Much of the time he’s grinding down directional Texas and then exploding in the 3rd quarter. So yeah, he had better be able to catch a slant.

But I mean holy deity of your choice can he catch a slant. The receiving hyperbole is no joke, he can for real line up outside and go over a DB to make catches. It’s not enough to make me change my thoughts about him overall, but it is enough to make me slightly reconsider and think that maybe there is more juice to this guy overall than I may have originally thought. But I’m sticking to my guns and predicting that Bijan Robinson does not make the NFL Hall of Fame, as the 2nd Amendment guarantees me that right.


9. CHICAGO BEARS – Paris Johnson Jr., OT, Ohio State

I’m trying to find a team to trade up for Anthony Richardson here but I can’t really see a logical avenue for it so Chicago’s gonna have to stay put and make a pick.

Here’s another guy I don’t love in Paris Johnson. Even though he’s not my cup of piss, I do think he’ll be the first OL off the board because…well because that’s what everyone is saying so that’s what I’m going with. There are rumblings of Johnson going to Arizona at number 3. Number 3, can you believe it?? Well I mean you probably can but whatever. I don’t even think Johnson is the best Ohio State tackle in this draft.

Now what does he do that would make him go above all of the guys I consider to be better at blocking than he is? Well, he’s a strong ox-like figure who takes upright defenders and places them onto the ground against their will. He like, moves properly with the correct technique and stuff. At least according to my very rudimentary understanding of how this is supposed to be done. And he’s got that NFL wingspan. Ohhh yeah that wingspan. We love that wingspan here in Scoutsville, yall. If we could draft a California Condor to play left tackle then golly gee fuck that’s what we would do. Oh hell would you look at that big beautiful bird playing left tackle woo boy can he extend that arm. You know one arm is longer than two, right? Right? Hello??

The bad? He doesn’t seem to move all that well, at a position where athleticism and moving are verrry highly correlated to success. You wouldn’t think pure athleticism and jumping drills and 40 times are important for offensive tackles, but they are in fact extremely important. Last year’s All-Pro tackles, Lane Johnson and Trent Williams? 9.95 and 9.61 RAS scores. Second team All-Pros Tristan Wirfs and Andrew Thomas? 9.76 and a positively pedestrian 8.10. It matters a lot here, Johnson didn’t do any drills at the Combine, and I question his movement.

He also falls on the ground a lot, which I don’t think is ideal. Oh well, I’m sure the Bears will unlock his greatness (*uncontrollable laughter*)


10. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES – Myles Murphy, Edge, Clemson

The fuckin’ Saints traded this pick for Trevor “Ultimate Warrior” Penning last year, which is absolutely hilarious. Penning promptly hurt himself trying to suck his own dick and now the 2022 runners-up have a top 10 pick. And they could go just about anywhere with it.

No matter what Philly chooses, they are primarily choosing it for next year. This roster is stacked, but the OL, DL and secondary are starting to age and/or show some cracks that will need to be patched up soon. May as well buy the spackle now.

Everyone knows that Philly loves bullshit cheesesteaks and drafting edge rushers, and they get to indulge in at least one of those pastimes here. Most sites have Murphy as the #3 or even #4 edge rusher this year, a level below Anderson and Tyree Wilson. But not me. I think he’s the #1 edge rusher. He’s got great burst off the line, can bend like Anderson and Wilson could only dream off, and to me he just looks like a legit NFL edge rusher in the games.

Now I am violating my main rule for edge rushers here, which is, “does he look like Robocop?”. Like, does he physically look like Robocop. I prefer top edge rush prospects to look like Robocop, and Murphy does not. Who looks like Robocop this year? Nolan Smith looks like Robocop, and I think he’s bad at edge rushing relative to the other top picks. So this year may be a true make-or-break year for the Robocop test.

[Todd McNeigh]

11. TENNESSEE TITANS – Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Ohio State

Strongly considered slotting Richardson here, but after seeing how utterly petrified they were of allowing Malik Willis to throw a forward pass, I don’t think they’d want to take Richardson or Levis if he were available. So another year of the Tanne-thrill!

The kings of going 10-6 really need offensive linemen, and there are quite a few available here. So they’re going to take one and pound the everloving shit out of the rock, right? Maybe catch some magic and win 9 games for absolutely no reason?

Oh no. The Titans finally decide to end their practice of starting wide receivers that absolutely no one has heard of and again add some talent to their pass-catching stable with ol’ JSN here.

Smith-Njigba isn’t the fastest receiver, and he’s always getting caught from behind, but he is quick as hell and that’s all he needs to get open. On a team with Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, JSN was the guy putting up the biggest numbers. That’s very Devonta Smith. Everyone at OSU said that he was the best of the bunch. And then he channeled his inner Michael Thomas and missed just about all of 2022 with a nebulous hamstring injury.

This team is going to be painful to watch, man.



12. TRADE – HOUSTON TRADES THE 12th PICK TO NEW ENGLAND

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS – Dalton Kincaid, TE, Utah

I know this would never happen, but I love the idea of Belichick hopping over Green Bay to take a tight end too much to not do this. Houston could take anybody, what’s two more spots to them? Belichick smooth-talking Caserio into taking a conditional 8th rounder for the swap? Fuck yeah let’s ride.

Belichick probably feels complete naked, chained against a goalpost and being simultaneously whipped and pegged without a true mismatch tight end. And ol’ Bill doesn’t like that feeling. They’ve cut Jonnu Smith after paying him like $2 mil per catch, and Hunter Henry just ain’t that guy, so Bill’s gonna have to go fishing in the draft for his next Aaron Hernandez.

And that guy is NOT Michael Mayer.
Dalton Kincaid is an absolute receivin’ GAWD of a tight end and I’m sure Billy would love to have him so he can get back to running like Fuckstack Right 97 Swords out of archaic 1950s service academy formations. That’s the only time Bill feels any joy, the only time he truly feels free. He feels the rain on his skin. No one else can feel it for him. Well, Dalton Kincaid can.

Kincaid was the main receiver on Utah’s offense, everyone knew he was getting the ball, and they still couldn’t stop him. He is super fluid, he runs away from linebackers and catches the ball over DBs, and he runs after the catch better than Bijan. He looks like a truly great athlete at the position where it matters most for predicting future success. More on that in a second.

What’s the downside risk here? Well, he’ll be 24 soon, so there’s a chance he benefitted from “man against boys” syndrome, he can be a bit choppy in and out of breaks, and he’s a bit undersized. Now about that athleticism, what’s Kincaid’s RAS score? Well, he doesn’t have one because he didn’t run at the Combine due to a back injury. Uhhh yeah you don’t want to hear “(guy you just drafted)” and “back injury” in the same sentence. So that’s not ideal. And you really do want an RAS score for tight ends.

The site seems to be down, but earlier I checked all of the tight ends since 2000 who have had a 1,000 yard receiving season, and all but like two of them were elite, elite elite elite level athletes by RAS. Delanie Walker was good-not-great, but in reality he is a tremendous athlete who is being docked for being undersized. I think the only two without great scores were like Ben Coates and Mark Andrews. Andrews was in the 7s and Coates legitimately tested bad. Apart from them, it’s like 15 guys at 9.0+. Kincaid looks like he would belong in that group, but it would be nice to know for sure. Oh well do yo thang Bill.


13. GREEN BAY PACKERS – Jordan Addison, WR, USC

With the top tight end out of the question, I have to do this. This would be fuckin’ hilarious. This should be part of a Richard Pryor standup special. One last fuck you to Aaron Rodgers as they send him out the out to pasture on his Favre-ian quest. Btw can’t wait until 2032 when he gets arrested for ripping off like Wisconsin agriculture funding or some shit.

I do not know what to think about Jordan Addison. I used to not like him, then I was like ok maybe he’s actually good, but I still don’t know exactly what I think. And this is why the draft is so hard. Is he Marqise Lee or Antonio Brown? I see a lot of AB in this guy, out there making huge plays and running much faster than his testing suggests. Just out-quicking everyone else on the field for 60-yard bomb after 60-yard bomb after 70 yard catch and run.

Or…is he Marqise Lee? Marqise Lee tested super average after a great final year at USC, where he caught bomb after bomb and caught slants and ran away from people. It’s seriously eerie how similar a Jordan Addison USC highlight video looks to a Marqise Lee USC highlight video.

Another thing – people said last year that yeah Kenny Pickett put up numbers but like how much of that was Jordan Addison, right? Well….do we have the same question with Caleb Williams? Or do we think…hmm, Jordan Addison was in nothing but amazing situations, while Zay Flowers was catching ducks from Phil Jurkovec? I don’t know. Flip a coin I guess.

Don’t be upset Aaron, maybe they’re just collecting Jordans.


14. HOUSTON TEXANS – Broderick Jones, OT, Georgia

Not really any realistic trade scenarios here if it all plays out as I have forecasted (which it won’t but still), so Houston is forced to make a pick. I just don’t see them taking Anthony Richardson, so I’ll give them a tackle to help protect the neck of Davis Mills for another year, before they finally banish him to the XFL.

Broderick Jones is like steak tartare raw, but he is an incredible athlete for a tackle with rare, rare movement ability. It’s like they just told him to go block people and he did what he thought would work. Like hey, just go slide around a bit, might as well throw my hands at this guy, just push him over here, ok cool. It’s very Tyler Smith-esque, and Tyler Smith surprised a lot of people with his rapid development last year once he got to Dallas. Broderick Jones really only played for one year at UGA so he should have a lot of room to improve.

Of course, you’d prefer your draft picks know what they are doing, but with a guy like this at this point in the first round I think you just take him and hope you can figure it out. I’ve never seen a guy just try to casually block two rushers with each arm before.


15. NEW YORK JETS – Darnell Wright, OT, Tennessee

Well, the Jets finally got ol’ Sourpuss Rodgers, so they may as well protect him as he closes in on his 40th birthday.

Most services have Peter Skoronski ranked higher than Darnell Wright, but Skoronski is just quite an outlier with regards to arm length while Darnell Wright is a prototype and I think the Jets go with the latter if they have the choice.

Wright checks all the boxes - the athletic testing, the technique, the strength, the pass blocking proficiency, he speaks fluent Mandarin – and I think that makes him the pick here over Big Pete. (I made up one of those skills, can you guess which one?).

Now I think Wright moves kinda clunkily despite his athletic testing but the RAS score would help allay my fears a bit in that regard. He also essentially just said “sit down, Will Anderson” when UT played Alabama so he’s probably not a stiff. I think you could argue that Darnell Wright is the “safest”* tackle prospect in this year’s class.

*None of these guys are “safe” and this is the single dumbest NFL trope, proven wrong year after year after year after cocksucking year, but you know what I mean. Like, he’s not the Robert Gallery “giant plucked from the stands” type.


16. WASHINGTON COMMANDERS – Anthony Richardson, QB, Florida

Fuck it, let’s ride. The Commanders need some pizzazz, some sizzle. So let’s give them the guy who threw the ball off the ceiling during his Pro Day for whatever reason.

Anthony Richardson could probably be an Olympic skier if he just tried it once. He looks like Ray Lewis if he ran a 4.4 and could throw 70 yard missiles. He has better pocket awareness than arguably all of the other QBs in this draft. He senses the pressure well and avoids it with regularity. He’s the only guy in the class who can regularly step up and reset a pocket when it collapses on him from the outside. So why doesn’t he go first overall?

Unfortunately he is perhaps the least accurate thrower I can remember, at least among top prospects. And there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for it – like, it’s not like he’s all over the place mechanically or throwing fadeaways or what have you. He’s setting and throwing from a good base and….it’s 5 yards over a guy’s head. Deshone Kizer was the same way. He did everything right but he just couldn’t put a ball where he wanted to with any regularity. So there’s just a massive potential that Richardson is a bust and I think that’s going to hurt him on draft day.

Now, would I take him over Levis? Yes. Here’s why.

• First, Richardson is 21 and has only started like 12 games. And he got better as he went along. Levis is 23 and a two-year starter. That matters when you are talking about development.

• Richardson is like Tim Tebow in that he gets much better (relative to other QBs) as the throws go downfield. He’ll flick his wrist and just launch a dot 65 yards into his WR’s chest. Levis throws those floaty Daniel Jones deep balls for whatever reason.

• Levis has good tools. Richardson has GREAT tools. The arm, the speed, the ability to reset and find another target rather than just taking off, he’s better at the basic fundamental QB stuff. Well, other than throwing a catchable ball to his receiver but you can’t win ‘em all.

• Richardson almost always seems to miss high. If he were all scattershot (which bad-tape Levis is), it would be more concerning IMO than if he missed most every throw in exactly the same manner. It might be fixable. I wouldn’t risk a top 5 pick on it but here? When are you going to get another chance to take a guy like this? Ron Rivera is committed to the Jeff Fisher 7-9 role.

So that’s why I have Richardson above Levis in my rankings and why I would bet on his upside rather than on Levis’s floor. Florida’s offense was also a complete mess but I do wish Richardson would stop missing wide open guys on the occasions that they do appear.


17. PITTSBURGH STEELERS – Peter Skoronski, OT, Northwestern

There are a lot of directions the Steelers could go here, but I think it would be hard for them to pass on Short-Arms Pete if things broke this way. Devon Witherspoon would be tempting but this class is hella-deep at corner so I think they would hold off until one of their second rounders. I fear Nolan Smith or Lukas Van Ness but I’m afraid to speak that into existence so forget I even had the thought.

Skoronski has very little in the negative column, provided you can ignore his tiny, barely functional T-Rex arms. This leads to a potential catastrophic scenario where he gets moved to center and the combination of his pointless little wings snapping the ball to Kenny Pickett’s baby hands leads to the formation of an inescapable black hole that immediately consumes the Earth, likely resulting in a Steelers forfeit. So care must be taken to prevent this from happening.

Apart from his diminutive flippers, Skoronski seems like one of those David DeCastro-esque “safe bets” that aren’t actually safe but I guess they might be a little safer maybe? Skoronski is actually very similar to DeCastro physically (same height, same weight, same hand size, same arm length) while being a substantially better all-around athlete (at least according to RAS – DeCastro was a 6.83). He’s strong, has good technique, great burst as a run blocker, he’s smart and executes zone blocking schemes well and uses rushers’ momentum against them, and he’s battle tested. He faced a lot of top pass rushers (Aidan Hutchinson for starters) and shut them all down. The likelihood that he has to move over to guard likely keeps him out of the top 10, but at this point in the draft he starts to become an option. Particularly for a team like the Steelers, who can start him off at tackle and see if he can handle it but who also desperately need interior OL help and who have shown previously (Faneca, Pouncey, DeCastro) that they don’t mind taking interior OL with premium picks.

Just please don’t take Joey Porter Jr with this pick, pleeeeease.


18. DETROIT LIONS – Devon Witherspoon, CB, Illinois

Illinois randomly built their very own Legion of Boom last year. Weird. Their entire secondary is going to be drafted this week. And the clear Richard Sherman of this group was Devon Witherspoon, who seems to fit the Lions very well. He’s feisty and aggressive and a great tackler despite not being all that big – just seems like an MCDC kinda corner. A little piece of Dan Campbell dies inside every time a cornerback doesn’t take on a lead blocker to force the ball back inside, and he will not have to fear that with Devon Witherspoon.

Aside from that he’s also good at the most important part of the job, which is covering people. He reads plays well and jumps routes, he changes direction quickly and moves well laterally, and he’s also a very “clean” corner in that he keeps his hands off of WRs as much as he’s able to. Guys like Joey Porter are handsier than Deshaun Watson and it always gives me Darqueze Dennard vibes. Not Witherspoon. I’m a big fan of the ‘Spoon.

He’s probably not gonna be Darrelle Revis but most people aren’t Darrelle Revis. In fact, in the history of the NFL, only one player has been Darrelle Revis. But I do think Witherspoon will have a solid pro career and will be one of those leader types that do the lazy coaches’ jobs for them.



19. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS – Will McDonald IV, Edge, Iowa State

Probably time to start getting weird as this is the point where I really just don’t agree with the general ranking consensuses. Consensi?

Tampa doesn’t have any glaring holes (outside of CB) but they are going to have some really soon. And they really don’t have any strengths either, so they can go wherever they want with this one. I weighed Cam Smith, Will McDonald the Fourth and Drew Sanders and decided to go with McDonald.

Will McDonald is a bit undersized but he is an absolutely elite and explosive athlete off the edge (#EdgingExplosions). He’s also very technically sound and has highly developed rush moves for a college edge rusher. He reminds me of Brian Burns, who has worked out quite well for Carolina. I mean, he’s basically the size of Shaquil Barrett and should be just fine as a 3-4 OLB.

He did have a down year statistically in 2022 and probably should have came out in last year’s draft, given that he stayed at ISU for a 5th year and will be a 24 year old rookie. To be fair, Iowa State’s brilliant coaching staff decided to use this 235 pound quick explosive edge rusher as an interior defensive lineman at a rate that ties logic to a post and flays it alive. Put Willy Mac outside and let him do his thing. Hopefully he still fits in 2024 after Tampa fires their entire coaching staff.



20. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS – Zay Flowers, WR, Boston College

Another pick that could go in a number of directions – mock drafts are the ultimate “choose your own adventures”! Seattle has Lockett and DK Metcalf but behind them they have virtually nothing and could really use an injection of talent to open things up for the offense. Plus, Lockett is going to be 31 in August so they are going to need to think about replacing him soon. Zay Flowers seems like he would be a great fit for this role.

Large Play Zay is a versatile receiver who lined up inside and outside at Boston College and excelled from both. He is quick as hell off the line, accelerates like a Tesla and has the top gear to pull away from most defenders. He is undersized (almost all of the receivers are this year) and he can get pushed around a bit but the NFL is different now. You can put a 4’8” 7th grader at wide receiver and he’d probably get 3 catches a week. These quick little shifty guys create so much separation and that’s an easier throw than trying to throw 10 jump balls to N’Keal Harry. Geno seemed much more efficient last year throwing to Lockett than he did throwing to DK. Done. Ok next.

[Todd McNeigh]

21. LOS ANGELES CHARGERS – Jalin Hyatt, WR, Tennessee

Man, this would be tough if it played out this way because Zay Flowers would be perfect for the world’s most underachieving franchise. This feels like a massive reach but I just can’t see the Chargers not being dead-set on adding a receiver on day 1 – perhaps they trade up if they see a run on receivers coming. Maybe they trade down. Maybe they fold the franchise? I don’t know, anything could happen.

I know Quentin Johnson is out here but does LA really need another Mike Williams? I think they need a Mike Wallace, and to me that guy is Jalin Hyatt. Hyatt is probably a one- or maybe two-trick pony – that’s a figure of speech, I have confirmed that he is indeed a human and is not actually a tiny horse – but his one trick plays very well. Yeah, Tennessee’s offense schemed him open quite a bit against clueless college safeties, but the speed here is very real. He is extremely fluid and just pulls away from anybody trying to cover him without help. Hyatt demands extra attention or else something very bad might happen to your defense. He’s the check engine light. (He’s not actually a warning light in a car, he is as previously mentioned an adult human).

While Hyatt will never be confused with a teenager after prom given the proficiency with which he takes the top off of the defense, he would be very risky as a first rounder because if the speed and big play ability do not translate well to the NFL, there’s really not much else to work with at the moment. His route running is quite undeveloped and I did not see him make a single contested catch at Tennessee. That could be due to his QB not throwing the ball to anyone who wasn’t wide-ass open, but you’d expect to see like, I don’t know ONE occasion of this happening? This will almost certainly keep him out of round 1 but weird things happen every year and teams panic and I’m gonna make the Chargers panic! At the draft, bro.


22. BALTIMORE RAVENS – Cam Smith, CB, South Carolina

The Ravens also desperately need receivers but they always desperately need receivers and that doesn’t mean they’ll panic here like the Chargers. Just as it’s easy to make the Chargers reach, it’s easy to have the Ravens not reach. Given that they also desperately need corners and the strength of the corners available here compared to the available receivers, I think they would take a corner with this pick and worry about WR later on. And really, WR has become very RB in that many of the good players are going in the 2nd and 3rd round nowadays. Ironically, the strength of this cornerback class will likely push guys down as teams may be more inclined to wait at the top of the draft. I know, I know, that’s probably not actually ironic, it’s actually logical and easy to explain but whatever man.

I think Cam Smith has star potential in the NFL – he’s got the athletic ability, the awareness, and the “swag” to truly excel in the pros. He is a fluid cover corner who also breaks on passes and creates picks and he’s not afraid to come up and tackle. He seems to locate the ball well, which is a fatal flaw for a lot of otherwise great athletes who don’t pan out in the league. He’s not very grabby, either. And he seems to make receivers mad, which I’ve noticed generally seems to work well for corners if they can back it up.

The flaws are that he is small and can get pushed around, but so are a lot of cornerbacks. This guy just seems like a Raven and as a not-fan of the Ravens, I hope they don’t take him.

NOTE: I’m assuming that they don’t trade Lamar Jackson, though I did consider Washington getting crazy under new ownership and signing him to a tender.


23. MINNESOTA VIKINGS – Joey Porter Jr., CB, Penn State

Every year it seems like there’s a run on some position in the early 20’s and the Vikings are always part of it, just runnin’ right through the okra patch over and over again.

And in homage to the famed Vikings Love Boat, they select the grabbiest corner in the draft, Joey Porter the Younger. He may be the grabbiest corner in the last few drafts. He does have the baseline athletic numbers to play the position and his arms are longer than Fred Smoot’s sea dildo, but man if he doesn’t clean up the technique he’s going to be an automatic first down waiting to happen. Yeah great he’s aggressive but if he’s struggling to consistently press college kids from Purdue, what’s going to happen against NFL players?

So yeah I’m not the biggest fan of JPJ in the first round.



24. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS – Brian Branch, S, Alabama

Not a great safety draft, so if you like one you better take him. Me personally, I probably wouldn’t take any of these guys in the first round but I do believe that Branch will probably go at the back end of round 1.

Branch is this year’s Jamal Adams memorial “oh my GOD watch this play by Brian Branch can you believe he tackled this guy that ran to his side of the field????” trophy for being both such a leader and a quarterback in the secondary. He’s gonna go like 29th and that team is universally getting an A+ for that pick on Friday morning.

And like Jamal Adams, I don’t think Branch is a bad prospect by any stretch. He’s a good player and he may even be worth a pick in the mid-to-late first (most of these guys are going to be busts anyway). I just don’t think he’s going to be great. He seems to be a pretty smart player (I would say he’s more instinctive and fluid in coverage than Jamal Adams but then again so is Bryan Adams) and he is sufficient against both run and pass. But I don’t think he’s going to change your defense, and you sure as hell better not let him get isolated over the top with even a moderately fast receiver.



25. NEW YORK GIANTS – Drew Sanders, ILB, Arkansas

It seems like I do this every year because I want the Giants to finally have an ILB people have heard of. I know they need receivers desperately but there’s a shit ton of receivers available and I think they are smart enough to pick one later. In my opinion, there is one inside backer in this entire class who is even remotely worthy of a first round pick, and that’s Drew Sanders.

Sanders was an edge at Alabama who did jack shit, transferred to Arkansas this past year and switched inside, and just immediately blew up. He probably had absolutely no clue what he was doing but was still lighting people up. This is just a rocked up explosive player who sorts through trash well and blows up plays in the backfield. That’s the type of ILB I like. I absolutely HATE the Keith Murray “120 tackles and they are all 6 yards downfield” linebackers. Sanders ain’t that.

Now there are serious concerns with him, primarily that he misses an absurd amount of tackles, and secondly that he may be more of a straight-line athlete rather than a nimble one. He struggles to properly break down in the open field and that leads to a lot of the misses. I’m choosing to believe that this is mainly because he just started playing the position like, last Thursday.


26. DALLAS COWBOYS – Luke Musgrave, TE, Oregon State

Who the fuck is Jake Ferguson? Whoever he is, he’s currently penciled in as the Cowboys #1 tight end. I think there’s a better chance that the Cowboys relocate their team to Ferguson, Missouri than there is of Jake Ferguson carrying the tight end load all season. Wait what

Anyway I may like Sam LaPorta more than Musgrave but it’s hard to ignore how good Musgrave looked in the like 9 games he played in college. He looks like Travis Kelce, big fast tight end who runs away from linebackers and catches everything near him, and then gets yards after the catch to boot. And, you also get the bonus of Musgrave doing actual tight end stuff. You can line him up in-line a lot. He’ll even block a guy or two! Not like dominantly but he’ll get in their way for a bit.

Now why is he behind Kincaid? He’s not as good after the catch, he’s not nearly the same route runner and he was too busy being injured for almost all of last season to put up numbers at Oregon State. But life doesn’t end after Dalton Kincaid gets drafted. The world keeps spinning, and the other teams gotta try to keep up.


27. BUFFALO BILLS – Emmanuel Forbes, CB, Mississippi State

Fuck yeah, this may be my favorite player in the entire draft. And he gets to go to a great situation in South Canada.

Forbes is like, a 2031 style corner. The meta where he excels hasn’t even taken place yet. But shit, he might just create it himself. This guy is a rare, rarrrrre ball-hawk of a corner who had 14 picks in three seasons in the SEC and took six of the back for TDs, which is the most in FBS history. In three years! He sees shit before it happens and just goes there before the ball does. Then he catches it and runs it all the way back, all praying mantis-ey and shit. He’s the best.

He also weighs 166 pounds. No for real, he is 6 feet tall and weighs 166 pounds and he’s going to play defense in the NFL. With a BMI of like, 3. This is another true outlier, and I know they say “hey don’t draft all these outliers” but I can’t not. The technique could use some work though he did seem to improve it this past season and he can occasionally get a lil’ grabby but I don’t think it’s to a concerning degree. He’s also aggressive as hell despite weighing 30 pounds and that’s gotta count for something.

I do fear that he’s too skinny to stay warm in Buffalo so I hope he likes poutine.


28. CINCINNATI BENGALS – Nolan Smith, Edge, Georgia

I’ve long had a theory about the Bengals, that Mike Brown’s relative cheapness leads to Cincinnati depending more on outside draft information than all or at least most other teams. Like I’m sure they subscribe to a lot of these draft sites and so they are always taking the players everyone likes and getting great draft grades every year after doing so. And really, no matter what they are doing, it’s worked out well for them – they seem to draft better than most teams, at least in recent years. So I’m going to give them a “falling” player.

Nolan Smith does seem to pass the Robocop test.



Previous Robocops include:

Kayvon Thibodeaux (no other player has ever looked more like Robocop, IMO)

Nick Bosa

Myles Garrett

Danielle Hunter

Khalil Mack

Tyron Smith (sometimes the only way to stop a Robocop is with another Robocop)

You could argue that previous Bengals draft steal Carl Lawson had a good amount of Robocoppery

I’m sure there are some failed Robocops but so far it seems to be the best predictor of NFL success as far as I’m concerned. I guess Shawn Oakman was a failed Robocop but there was a lot of off-field stuff going on there. Bonus points if they have a visor and facemask cage; Thibodeaux’s equipment choices were what really put his Robocop level over the top.

Nolan Smith is slender for a Robocop but he’s still a Robocop. And he tested at an insane level – running a sub 4.4 and only being docked on the RAS due to his smaller size. If you run him as a receiver or corner he’d be at 10.0, which seems mildly insane. So he’s definitely good at the decathlon, assuming he can triple jump.

Oh, and he’s one of the higher character guys in a draft full of them. True team leader types. The guys who get Dan Campbell all tingly inside. So why am I dropping him to 28? Shouldn’t he go top 10 at minimum, just as most services are projecting?

I mean – I just don’t ever see him doing much of anything. He didn’t run agility drills and I question the lateral movement skills, which is huge for a pass rusher (I believe 3-cone time is the number one metric besides Robocop Factor as far as predicting NFL success). He doesn’t really have any pass rush move and he’s generally shrugged aside with ease, which makes sense given his slight frame. He just screams Odafe Oweh, who I guess has kind of maybe worked out? Oweh though was bigger, somehow even faster, and had the elite agility metrics to boot.

I think Nolan Smith is going to be a team leader/coaches want him to absolutely plow their daughter into another time zone type who’s going to help set the tone for your franchise for a few years until you decline his 5th year option. He seems at his best dropping into coverage and just generally athlete-ing around in the middle of the field, so maybe they could do an Urlacher with him and put him in the middle. I wouldn’t bet on it though. Sorry Robocop.


29. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS – Lukas Van Ness, DE/Edge, Iowa

Who knows what this team is ever doing on a year-to-year basis, even after last year’s joke of a draft that resulted in the Eagles getting the 10th overall pick so the Saints could draft a WWE wrestler in a weak class, so there is a chance they trade up and take a long snapper or something like that. But since I can’t get inside the head of a team that for some reason still seems to think they are a true contender, I’ll just assume they do something that makes some sense.

Lukas Van Ness also has a little bit of Robocop in him, though I probably would not go as far as to call him a true Robocop. Did Robocop have like a Robin sidekick of some sort? Van Ness is another height/weight/speed athletic freak, but this one comes in the 6’5” 275 lb model. I could absolutely see the Saints seeing him as their next Cam Jordan. Van Ness moves incredibly well for his size and he is relentless, just piling up chasedown tackles from the backside and things like that. Real hustle plays.

That being said, I don’t want to draft a 6’5” 275 lb monster who’s primary skill is being a hustle player. This motherfucker is absolutely addicted to getting blocked. It’s as if being locked up by an offensive lineman is black tar heroin to this kid. There was a play against Ohio State where Van Ness beats the tight end that Iowa was using to block him (lol), runs at the RB in pass pro, and the back just absolutely decleats this Tarzan-looking motherfucker. I have to gif it.



Damn man, what is your safe word, “FUCK ME HARDER”? Van Ness is a true masochist. His best play from that game by the way was one where he falls on the ground and CJ Stroud just accidentally kind of runs right into him when he gets up. Most of his sacks are as unimpressive as sacks can possibly be. Uhhh yeah, no thanks on this guy. I think I was watching a Penn State/Michigan game and Van Ness somehow got pushed onto the screen by a fullback.

But whatever his fetish is I’m sure he can find it in NOLA.


30. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES – Jahmyr Gibbs, RB, Alabama

Not gonna lie, this is mostly wishful thinking. The biggest draft bet that I made this year is Over 1.5 RBs in Round 1, something like +415 odds. Seemed like a good bet.

There is rumor abound that Philly could take Bijan Robinson at 10, which I don’t really believe given their M.O., but it’s out there and suggests that they could be looking to add a true weapon in that spot. It seems more palatable at 30 than it does at 10…most of the players taken around pick 30 don’t do anything of note in the NFL. At 10 you still have top talents are premium positions, at least in most years.

Gibbs is a much different RB than Robinson – he’s basically Alvin Kamara. It’s a common comparison but they look eerily similar and its hard to ignore. Gibbs is a big-play runner who can hit a 50-yarder at any time. He’s shifty and quick out of his breaks, has legit 4.35 speed, has the vision to find a crease and the quickness and balance to zip through it, and he has the receiving ability you need from a player of this archetype. I do think he has a good chance at going somewhere in the back third of the first round.

He is undersized, he does have a very high percentage of “stuffs” (ie losses or no-gain type rushes), and if you keep him from getting outside it does limit what he can do. But for a team like Philly I do think he could make a lot of sense, even though in reality yeah they’d probably go corner or DL here. Whatever gotta hit my bet.


31. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS – Hendon Hooker

Jk

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS – Adetomiwa Adebawore, IDL, Northwestern


There’s probably a pretty good chance that someone does trade up to the back end of the first round and takes the 25-year old QB with a torn ACL so they can get the 5th year option, but I don’t really feel like trying to flesh that out so I’ll keep the Chiefs in their spot. They’ve been relentlessly adding defense in recent years and I think it continues here. Frank Clark has mostly struggled in recent years and now he’s off the roster, so the Chiefs may want to take some of the pressure of “being the entire defense” off of Chris Jones. Adetomiwa Adebawore is another of my favorite guys in this draft and he seems like he’d fit the requirements here.

Adebawore is a 285 lb DT who runs sub 4.5 in the 40 and has perhaps the single greatest burst off the snap that I’ve ever seen at this position. This dude is lightning. I’ve seen him projected anywhere from mid-2nd round to like, round 5, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he went even higher in the first round than this. There are very few people on Earth this big that move this quickly and they tend to go quite high in drafts. The previously mentioned Odafe Oweh was drafted in the first round off pure athletic projection despite having a full college season with zero sacks in his final year at Penn State. Here’s a similar guy at DT who has actual production. And he’s going in the 5th?

Northwestern used him inside and outside as an edge rusher, and while I wouldn’t split him all the way out, I do think he can function well as like a 3-4 end type. He’s going to have to get stronger if you want him to take on double teams and set edges well which isn’t ideal but by the end of the round there’s no more “ideal” left. He’s more like Eugene Robinson than Robert Kraft, as you’re paying for the penetration here rather than for the hand technique.

He also gets all the “intelligent hard working team leader high character” stuff that many of these guys are getting this year. Good for him.


32. PITTSBURGH STEELERS – Keion White, DE/Edge, Georgia Tech

Yeah I know this is the 2nd round but it’s my world and I do what I want. The Bears actually traded this pick for Chase Claypool my goodness

The Steelers need to add beef to both the offense and defensive lines; just big, hot, muscly beef. Keion White is a beef baron, one of this draft’s chiefs of beef. I didn’t know who he was until like yesterday so he’s not listed on my spreadsheet but he seems as if he could be someone the Steelers would consider. Cam Heyward is getting into his mid-30s and this defense is already extremely gashable when he’s playing well so they should probably address that.

White was a true edge rusher at Georgia Tech but I think he’d profile best in more of a 3-4 DE role. He is a bit inconsistent and needs to add rush moves but he’s got crazy athleticism for his size and he’s got a lot of power and that would seem to work for an NFL defensive lineman.

Ok bye

[Todd McNeigh]

OTHER GUYS I WATCHED THAT DIDN’T MAKE IT

QBs

Hendon Hooker: Yeah he has good poise and throws a ton of TDs and very few picks but he’s already 25, he is coming off of a torn ACL, the offense he ran was very verrrry QB friendly, and his ball placement is all over the place. Just watch one game and you’ll probably see the WRs jumping all over the place trying to catch 5 yard passes. I think he’s very RG3.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson: I watched about 14 seconds but I like him a lot as a Day 3 flyer. Then again so do a lot of people so he’ll probably suck.


RBs

Tyjae Spears: Love this guy and think he’ll go way higher than projected (generally Day 3). He looks faster on tape than he does on stopwatch but he’s also got tremendous vision and contact balance and runs right through arm tackles, you know, the way everyone seems to think Bijan Robinson does.

Israel Abanikanda: This guy has the profile and has the vision and has the speed and in reality he’s probably a guy the Eagles would draft in the 4th rather than taking Gibbs at 30. I do question the true explosiveness.

Devin Achane: Legit 4.3 speed but he seems to use it to run directly into linebackers way too often. I could see him having a decent NFL career though.

Zach Charbonnet: Everyone loves this guy. Everyone except me, at least. I see a giant tree that defenses are happy to chop down. This guy’s like 220 lbs and I didn’t see him break a single tackle. He’s a fentanyl addict’s Bijan.




TEs

Michael Mayer: Holy shit, the golden boy didn’t go in the first round? He doesn’t have the athletic profile of tight ends that generally succeed at a high level in the NFL and I don’t think he’ll go in the first round. I think he’s good a enough sum of his parts type to have a decent career but I’m thinking more like a Kyle Rudolph career than a George Kittle career.

Darnell Washington: May be too much of a freak to not go in the first round but perhaps this draft is better than I thought. He was behind a guy at Georgia who’s probably going to go very high in next year’s draft so they used him more as a blocker than a receiving weapon, so there’s a lot of projection here. But he’s an amazing blocker for the position and has physical attributes that you can’t teach, like being tall and being fast.

Sam LaPorta: Another one of my favorites, projected somewhere on Day 2 but I wouldn’t be surprised if he sneaks into the end of round 1, potentially to the Bengals. He’s like a version of Mayer that translates better to NFL success. He can block, he can run, he can catch, he can probably sing or some shit as well. Never a bad idea to shop at the Iowa Tight End Factory.

Zack Kuntz: 10.0 RAS all-time athletic freak for the position at the position where it matters most. 6’7” monster that glides down the field like Jamiroquai. Star, right? Not really…Gesicki Jr. up here managed three catches in two years at Penn State before transferring to Old Dominion and putting up decent numbers against Sun Belt teams. Kuntz has the single weirdest play I’ve ever seen from a tight end – I giffed it – where he just kind of runs in place after the snap rather than block the guy in front of him. It’s like he’s playing basketball half the time. So we have a 24 year old super raw athletic freak who put up 9.4 yards per reception against directional schools. I’ll pass unless the pick is in the 200s.




WRs

Quentin Johnson: Many people have him as WR1 this year but I think the slower 40 time hurts him a lot. He was originally looked at as a 6’4” beast running 4.3s, like Julio Jones. Now he’s a 6’4” beast running 4.5s, like Corey Davis. He absolutely embarrassed Julius Brents (who has an outside shot at going in the first round) twice, but that’s pretty much it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he slips out of round 1. He has moments where he looks like he could be a real NFL #1 WR so I don’t think he’s like N’Keal Harry or anything but I would probably go elsewhere on Day 1.

Josh Downs: Kinda like Zay Flowers but IMO not quite as good. Another quick midget who somehow makes catches in traffic, he has an outside shot to go at the end of the first round.

Marvin Mims Jr: Draftniks love this guy, but I really don’t see like a clear superstar talent here. He has the athletic profile and the speed and the hands (he makes some wild highlight reel catches, ODB Jr-esque at times), but he seems to struggle to do the basic WR stuff like get off the line and get open. You can teach that but I don’t think he’s worth the risk until we’re into the late 2nd round at the earliest.

Nathaniel Dell: Man I love this guy but the Combine killed him, IMO. He’s like 5’8” 150 lbs and his nickname is “Tank”. He’s just burning people all over the field, he’s massively productive (lead NCAA in yards and TDs last year), he runs good routes, he’s making catches over people and running by DBs, but then he goes and runs a Jalen Reagor time. I know it’s just a 40 time and doesn’t really matter as much as you think for WRs, but for a guy like who put up huge numbers at a non-Power 5 school at an extremely small size, I am quite concerned that he ran a 4.5. I’d still take him on Day 3 though and be happy with the pick.

Jonathan Mingo: An actual NFL-sized WR, he also makes crazy highlight catches and has elite elite athletic metrics. But like many of these types, he just doesn’t get separation because he’s not really running routes out there and setting up DBs and being subtle with movements and shit like that. He’s just running where the arrow on the play sheet tells him to run. Unless you’re an absolute insane athlete like Julio or DK Metcalf, NFL DBs can generally cover that with no problem.



OTs

Dawand Jones: I like Dawand Jones, in fact I like him more than Paris Johnson Jr. and I think he’ll probably go round 1. He’s absolutely massive (6’8” 375 lbs) and he moves well enough given the size. He’s also got extremely long arms and decent technique. He’s got that Orlando Pace/Johnathan Ogden potential, assuming he can move well enough. The 40 time suggests he can’t and the acceleration is quite poor, so maybe he could benefit from losing some weight, but there’s enough here that I would take a chance in molding him into something after the top 20 or so.

Matthew Bergeron: Didn’t know who he was until yesterday so he isn’t listed in the table but he also has a shot at sneaking into round 1 and will almost certainly be gone by end of Day 2. Great technique, good strength, really, realllly good at getting into the second level, breaking down and actually getting his hands on the little quick people who play back there – there is definitely something here and I think he’ll be a good NFL starter-caliber lineman. It is a bit concerning that Myles Murphy absolutely whipped the shit out of him though.


IOL
John Michael Schmitz: I didn’t put any interior OL in the first round, unless you count Skoronski. I almost put Schmitz in there. He’s going to be 24 so you are concerned that he was beating children with the benefit of grown-ass man strength, but other than that he’s a pretty clean center prospect. And I love centers – IMO a great line needs to have a great center. Look at what Creed Humphrey did for KC and as long as Jason Kelce is in Philadelphia their line is a strength. Schmitz is violent with a mean streak and just buries people, he moves well side to side, he has a good burst when run blocking, he just plants guys at the LOS. He also seems to be a smart player that can handle zone blocking schemes and all the center responsibilities that most teams give to the position. I like this guy a lot.

O’Cyrus Torrence: The O’Cyrus of this shit! Torrence is one of those ox-like guards that push the Van Nesses of the world out of the complex. He does not however move as well as Schmitz nor does he handle zone blocking as well, from what I saw. I still like him in the 2nd round.

Cody Mauch: Everyone loves Cody Mauch because he was skinny and now he’s not, and he has crazy red hair and no front teeth. He IS a good athlete with elite metrics. He ISN’T good at blocking people, at least by the standards I have in my head for an NFL prospect playing against South Dakota State.


IDL

Calijah Kancey: Kancey is a very difficult projection. His highlight films are positively ridiculous, he IS Aaron Donald on these plays and not just because he played at Pitt. This mf will charge right through an offensive line as if it were a breathalyzer on Will Clark’s car. He has elite timed metrics, runs like a 4.7 at 285 lbs. But he is the outlier of all outliers at the position. He has some of the shortest arms every measured at the position – like there is no comparable that actually had even a semblance of an NFL career. And it shows outside of the highlights – he has a non-Aaron Donaldian tendency to get wiped right out of plays. If you watch him run his 40 he looks like an egg running at 20+ mph. He was insanely productive and has a pretty good chance of going in the first but you try not to make your living taking outliers that high.

Bryan Bresee: I think I like Bresee more than most. Seems as if consensus has him falling out of the first round, and to be fair so do I, but I think he’s worthy of a top 20 pick. Yeah he’s a bit tall and lightish so he can get dominated sometimes but he’s quick as hell and seems to make a more consistent play-to-play impact than most of the other guys. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Steelers take Bresee at 32 for the role I described for Keion White.

Mazi Smith: Supposedly an athletic freak, I don’t know that I see that and he didn’t test. He certainly does move well for his size, and he’s got true nose tackle size at 6’2” 325 lbs. He’s got some good peak plays too and has the strength to push the pocket. But he tires out SO damn quickly and immediately becomes a massive liability – this guy is like, one play and rest two if you really want him to be functional – and he’s often blocked just fine by one guy. What’s the point of a nose tackle who doesn’t warrant extra attention? Then again guys this big who can move are rare so he might go late first.



Edges

Derick Hall: I absolutely do not see it. Great, he put up good athletic marks. Bad, he can’t get by offensive linemen. There’s no burst here. I see K’Lavon Chiasson here.

BJ Olujari: Figured I’d like him since I liked his brother, but I don’t. He’s only 20 so should have more development remaining but just doesn’t finish well and the athleticism just doesn’t seem to be there.

Yaya Diaby: I like Diaby and the peak plays make you think it could work. The size/athleticism combo is rare and Louisville did not put him in very advantageous positions but you’re doing a lot of projecting with Diaby. I’d still be happy with him on Day 2, which may be higher than consensus has him going.



LBs

Trenton Simpson: Some services have him as ILB #1, which I think is laughable. He seems to not know what he’s doing.

Jack Campbell: EVERYONE loves Jack Campbell. All-time elite athlete, fluid as hell and super comfortable in coverage. 2022 Big Ten defensive player of the year, team leader/captain type, highly regarded and respected teammate. Also made like 5 tackles for loss in his entire career and seems to make his living jumping on the pile 5 yards downfield. Most people have Campbell as ILB #1 and a potential first rounder and man I absolutely do not do not do not at all see it. I’ve become convinced that ILB is the most “you see it or you don’t” Potter Stewart-ish position and I don’t see it with Campbell.

DeMarvion Overshown: Here’s a guy I see it with, but he just drops and moves way too awkwardly to take before end of round 3. This is a converted safety who backpedals like an actual Elephant. Make it make sense. He will absolutely fuck people up tho.

Henry To’O To’O: This guys is awful and plays like Devin Bush with two fractured legs, so for me it’s a no’O no’O.



CBs

Kelee Ringo: He’s big and fast which is nice but I don’t really see much else here. He seems like he’ll be a Robert Alford type of career, a fast corner that sticks around for a pretty long NFL career but never really does anything.

Julius Brents: Rare athletic profile for a corner of this size (6’2” 200 lbs and a 9.98 RAS) but the thing that keeps him from 10.0 is a slowish 40 time and he also doesn’t like, seem to be that good. He got absolutely embarrassed twice by Quentin Johnston, who is not really a guy who should be tying a corner into knots like he did to Brents. He reminds me of Justin Layne – people used to say “man watch out for Justin Layne as a draft steal, he’s big and athletic” and then they show you a play or two and you’re like wait this is supposed to be impressive? That’s Brents IMO.

DJ Turner: Love DJ Turner, I think he’s a first round talent. Ran a 4.26 and it absolutely shows, he’s extremely fluid in every direction and he covers the shit out of WRs. Michigan put the clamps on Ohio State’s stable of WRs and Turner was a big part of that. Despite his smaller stature, he’s aggressive against the run and doesn’t shy away from contact one bit. The main issue is that Michigan players have seemingly never had turnovers explained to them and so Turner has not really shown an ability to create interceptions, which many NFL defenses depend on these days. However there are a lot of corners that don’t get picks in college but do once they get to the NFL, and I’d be absolutely thrilled if my team picked Turner.

Deonte Banks: All-time elite athlete at a position full of all-time elite athletes, and he looks it on tape. I think he’s versatile and can play in multiple schemes, he’s got great size, he’s aggressive and closes quickly, he’s got quick feet and he can press. He just doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing after that and just kind of runs with guys because, well, because he can. I also like Banks quite a bit and he’s been getting a lot of first round hype as well.


Riley Moss: Guys there’s a white cornerback in this draft and he’s going to get picked and play in the NFL. It’s going to happen and I’m pumped for it. I just don’t think Moss is anything special – he’s got great athletic metrics (9.9 RAS) but I just don’t see the quick feet/change of direction you’d expect from that score. Jason Sehorn was incredibly fluid – Moss doesn’t seem to be that. Seems like he’ll just be depth in the NFL.



Safeties

Jordan Battle: The other Alabama safety, I like him more than Branch. He’s big, seems to be a high IQ player and he brings the hammer. He is more of a box safety though – you don’t want to live putting Battle in centerfield.

Sydney Brown: An absolute athletic specimen who flies around looking to murder, and also found time in between murders to rack up 6 interceptions in 2022. The issue is that it took him until his 5th year in college to do this and he did it as part of an Illinois secondary teeming with NFL-caliber talent around him. He’s also quite short for the position (5’9”) so you’ve gotta hope he’s more Honey Badger than Shamarko Thomas. I don’t hate him though and wouldn’t be upset if my team took him in the late 2nd or beyond.

Christopher Smith II: I like this guy, super high IQ player who reads plays and jumps routes and also aggressively plays the run and screens and shit like that. He was used as a true centerfield safety at Georgia so he’s quite versatile. The issues – he’s undersized and can get pushed around at times, he doesn’t finish consistently, and his athletic testing was bad. I mean really bad, like sub-3.0 RAS bad. It doesn’t matter as much at safety but most of the elite players are at least over 5.0.

Ji-Ayir Brown: Wanted to like this guy but it’s just hard to ignore all the negatives. Was a ball magnet at Penn State and racked up 10 total picks in the last two years, but many of them were fortunate bounces, he bites on fakes all the time trying to get those picks and he misses an absolutely absurd amount of tackles. I think there’s enough there that he’s worth a Rd. 3 pick but he does have high “cut after one year” potential.

[Todd McNeigh]

[Todd McNeigh]

Looks like it only took 11. Ok great probably not doing this again next year jeez that's just too much

[tennbengal]

Literal laughing out loud at a bunch of that.

[tennbengal]

Altho boo on giving the bengals the guy you give a 4th round grade to...

[tennbengal]

Also, I suspect IRL if Forbes gets to 28 he comes off the board to the Bengals. They met with him at the combine and had him for a top 30 visit. If LouA takes that kind of an interest in a player, that's usually a pretty good sign of where they are gonna go on defense early, if their guy is still there. Which, he wasn't, in your mock.

[Gunpowder]

Altho boo on giving the bengals the guy you give a 4th round grade to...

I'm the only person that doesn't like him - everyone else seems to love that guy


EDIT: I would actually love it if the Steelers picked him and planned to put him at ILB, I just can't imagine an edge guy is going to be thrilled to switch to a position where second contracts are like three times smaller.

[A_B]

Robocop 5: A good amount of robocoppery.

[tennbengal]

"plays as if Kim Jong will imprison his family if he attempts a block" is just pure unfiltered awesome

[rass]

Love this, it's become my only draft guide. Thanks man!

[DSafetyGuy]

the Bears will unlock his greatness (*uncontrollable laughter*)

The truest part.

[Pruitt IV]

Henry To’O To’O: This guys is awful and plays like Devin Bush with two fractured legs, so for me it’s a no’O no’O.

Brilliant

[sancarlos]

The only mock draft I read!

[tennbengal]

We are making this the draft discussion thread, too, right? Can we just have this in one place (like your mom)?

[A_B]

We are making this the draft discussion thread, too, right? Can we just have this in one place (like your mom)?

Uh, last I checked, there were four places your mom has it.

[Gunpowder]

If the Steelers trade into the top 10 to take Paris Johnson, McNeigh's gonna lose his mind

[rass]

If the Steelers trade into the top 10 to take Paris Johnson, McNeigh's gonna lose his mind

haymem!!

[tennbengal]

What if they stay put at 17 and take dewand Jones?

[mister d]

I think Nolan Smith is going to be a team leader/coaches want him to absolutely plow their daughter into another time zone type who’s going to help set the tone for your franchise for a few years until you decline his 5th year option.

[DSafetyGuy]

We are making this the draft discussion thread, too, right? Can we just have this in one place (like your mom)?

We could also use the Swamp mock draft thread. Am I on the clock at #9 yet?

[Gunpowder]

What if they stay put at 17 and take dewand Jones?

I like Dawand Jones more than Johnson at any spot.

[tennbengal]

Wow. So much negative chatter on his lack of any kind of workouts or measurements other than day 1 of senior bowl week. Worries that he is four bills. Guessing you think that is all bullshit?

[Gunpowder]

Wow. So much negative chatter on his lack of any kind of workouts or measurements other than day 1 of senior bowl week. Worries that he is four bills. Guessing you think that is all bullshit?

It's certainly a concern, I just don't think Paris Johnson is all that great. I like the other tackles more than the Ohio State stiffs.

[tennbengal]

I'd be good with the bengals taking a shot on Jones at 60. But not at 28.

[tennbengal]

As for the bengals, assuming no way to trade down, my order of preference if the players were available to them is Gibbs, Forbes, Kincaid. I am just super curious what a dynamic fast RB would look like as an option for Burrow against two high looks. A back who could actually punish teams with potential for big plays against light boxes.

[tennbengal]

[Gunpowder]

Drafting RBs at the tail end of rd 1 seems like good practice. Still think Buffalo should have grabbed Ken Walker last year. They'd have destroyed people.

[tennbengal]

Drafting RBs at the tail end of rd 1 seems like good practice. Still think Buffalo should have grabbed Ken Walker last year. They'd have destroyed people.

Yeah, he would have been deadly there. I have had to listen OMG NO 1ST ROUND RBS for months now and...apparently Gibbs at 28 would be a terrible idea but Gibbs at 33 would be a-ok. Communal draft wisdom can be so weird.

[tennbengal]

Word seems to be after all the testing bullshit and they-don't-want-deal-with-his-agent rumoring that the Texans will stay put at 2 and take Stroud after all.

[Gunpowder]

I should have just stuck with my original inclination on that and gave them Stroud. We were in all likelihood way overthinking it.

EDIT: Actually I guess my initial inclination was to send Stroud to Carolina but whatev

[tennbengal]

Young is just so small. I genuinely don't get it. Hard to project him four years out being healthy. Maybe he really is Fran Tarkenton part II. Otherwise...seems a huge risk.