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It's Draft Week ... Finally
The uncertainty of the 2014 draft is only rivaled in magnitude by the walkup, which mercilessly comes to an end in three days. Whose name will Roger Goodell call first at Radio City? It's the Texans' secret, and they're not telling
By Peter King
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/05/05/nfl-draft-johnny-manziel-khalil-mack/5/
My meandering T-minus-three-days draftapalooza column (attaway to sell the column, King!) includes an eye-opener from Mike Mayock, predictions from the cognoscenti, separating fiction from fiction [cq] on Johnny Manziel, a rundown of places I think I think I know something about, a way to make a four-day draft sound almost tolerable, and the hottest name in the draft.
My mock draft runs Tuesday on The MMQB. Until then, here’s what I know now:
Ten things, from 1 to 32.
From the top of the first round to the bottom, here’s what I’m hearing:
No. 1, Houston. The buzz about a trade-down or Khalil Mack to Houston instead of Jadeveon Clowney won’t die. The Texans are doing a good job of sending mixed signals to the GM community, that’s for sure. Mack’s in the dark, which is to be expected. I can’t see Atlanta mortgaging the farm on any player, so if the Texans want to trade down, the return likely won’t be a ransom.
Nos. 2 and 13, St. Louis. I sense the Rams like Greg Robinson at two—over Sammy Watkins and Jake Matthews. A St. Louis contingent went to Auburn on Thursday to work out Robinson; no negatives surfaced. More mystery about 13. The Rams really like Johnny Manziel, and if he were there at 13 (which is unlikely), they will consider picking him. His workout for the Rams on Friday in Texas, with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer running the show, was impressive, as was the 80-minute post-workout session in the meeting room with Schottenheimer and Jeff Fisher, among others. One other piece of knowledge I got confirmed Sunday: Rams GM Les Snead recently went to Texas Tech and met at length with coach Kliff Kingsbury—Manziel’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at A&M in 2012—and came away thinking Manziel could adjust to life well as an NFL passer. Does that mean the Rams will take Manziel if he’s there at 13? I am still dubious. But I can tell you the Rams like him a lot.
No. 3, Jacksonville. A peer of GM David Caldwell said Sunday he knows a big Jag priority will be to play it safe with this pick. Sammy Watkins or Jake Matthews … quite safe.
No. 8, Minnesota. The Vikings are more inclined than ever to get their quarterback out of a bottlenecked group of passers at No. 40 in the second round. Vikes want a front-seven disruptor—defensive tackle Aaron Donald comes to mind—more than anything else up here.
No. 11, Tennessee. Hadn’t heard quarterback and the Titans in round one until Sunday. Now I hear: corner one, quarterback two.
Odell Beckham's return skills, in addition to his ability at wide receiver, make him a first-round lock. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)Odell Beckham’s return skills, in addition to his ability at wide receiver, make him a first-round lock. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
No. 20, Arizona. We’ve been hearing a lot about quarterback here, and with the unpredictability of the QB market this year, it’s entirely possible the Cards could take a Derek Carr. On the other hand, Arizona’s not far away from competing in the NFC West, and is the best use of their draft currency to take a quarterback they’ll likely redshirt this year behind Carson Palmer?
No. 22, Philadelphia. Keep hearing they want in on the prime receiver action, and the receiver they want could be LSU’s Odell Beckham, who can play outside, inside in the slot and as a returner. But the Eagles would have to trade up, and GM Howie Roseman is doing his due diligence, talking to at least two teams in the mid-round neighborhood when Beckham would likely go. But the cost could be too rich for the Eagles’ blood. They may have to settle for Marqise Lee, who would be some consolation prize.
No. 24, Cincinnati. Bengals like Teddy Bridgewater. They couldn’t. Could they? Well, if you’re Cincinnati, and you’re seriously thinking about making Andy Dalton the center of the franchise and paying him $17 million a year, you might be asking the question about whether Dalton’s worth it.
No. 26, Cleveland. Time to get a quarterback, right? Not so fast. GM Ray Farmer has asked at least one team low in the round about trading back into the first round from Cleveland’s second-round slot. That leads me to think Cleveland wants to get ahead of Houston, another obvious quarterback hotspot, and get a passer with a third first-round pick. That leads me to …
No. 32, Seattle. Think about the advantages to picking, saying, 35th instead of 32nd if you’re the Seahawks. Every dime is going to count going forward because of pricey vets like Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman who must be re-signed. Last year, the difference between the 32nd pick (safety Matt Elam) and 35th pick (tight end Zach Ertz) was $350,000 per year. Not a huge sum, but when you add a $1.4 million total difference between 32 and 35 to the fact that the Seahawks might be able to get a low-fourth-round pick for moving down three slots—and you remember how good Seattle’s been in the lower rounds of drafts—you start to think John Schneider has to be thinking about this too. That’s if Cleveland would do a deal low in round one. But it’s intriguing. All Seattle would lose is the ability to add a fifth-year option by keeping its first-round pick. I think the advantages of saving $1.4 million and adding a mid-round prospect outweigh the edge of the fifth-year option.
* * *
An idea for a four-day draft.
I’ll make a trade with you, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: You put the draft back in April, and I’ll support a four-day draft. I actually don’t think a four-day draft is a terrible idea. I don’t love it, but digest how the draft breaks down now, using the 2014 draft as an example:
Day 1: 32 picks.
Day 2: 68 picks (including four compensatory picks).
Day 3: 156 picks (including 28 compensatory picks).
It’s misleading to say Day 3 is four rounds. It’s actually five, if you include the nearly full round of compensatories. Those 156 picks come in a cascade, with little time for interpretation. Moving it to a fourth day, logically, would make Day 3 be rounds four and five, with the final day wrapping up rounds six and seven—but with something added at the end. How about this revamped schedule for April 23-26, 2015:
Day 1: 32 picks.
Day 2: 68 picks (including four compensatories).
Day 3: 76 picks (including 12 compensatories).
Day 4: 80 picks (including 16 compensatories) … plus a two-hour “Top Undrafted Free-Agents Show” to follow.
If 7.5 million people watch some portion of the NFL Scouting Combine, then some appreciable fraction of that will watch to see who has a shot to be the next Arian Foster or Kurt Warner. ESPN would drop off at the end of the seventh round, most likely, and the NFL could get ratings juice by putting two hours of Daniel Jeremiah and (if he still has a voice left) Mike Mayock on NFL Network breaking down the first two hours of the annual post-draft land rush that sees teams sprinting to sign preferred undrafted players.
But the league has to come to its senses and help teams out here by realizing that putting the draft 19 weeks after the regular season—and just 11 weeks before the start of training camp—hurts teams’ chances to get rookies ready to play on day one of the regular season. This is not just a media or public issue (though the public is so sick of draft prep now, from what I get on Twitter from fans, that they could scream); it’s an issue of football preparedness. You don’t think two more weeks of being inside the playbook isn’t going to help Johnny Manziel be ready to start opening day, if that’s what his team prefers? It’s unfair to hamstring the 32 coaching staffs by not giving them their rookies in any sort of camp setting till the middle of May—for no good reason.
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Stat of the Week
Asked a veteran personnel man this week how many players his team had with “make-it’’ grades on his draft board, and he said 170, which is up about 25 players from a usual draft. Different teams I’m sure will have different ways of looking at this board; I’m just saying this draft probably has more players that would make an average NFL roster than most recent drafts.
The 170th pick is the 30th pick in the fifth round this year. San Francisco owns it. Here are the teams that, theoretically, could have the biggest injection of new life on their rosters this fall, the teams with the most picks among the top 170:
8: Cleveland*, Jacksonville, San Francisco.
7: New York Jets.
6: Atlanta, New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Houston, Detroit, Minnesota, Green Bay.
* Cleveland’s top eight picks all come in the first 145 slots.
On the other end of the spectrum, the teams with the fewest picks in the top 170:
3: Indianapolis (and the third one is 166 overall)
4: Tennessee, Denver, Kansas City, Oakland, Washington, Tampa Bay, Seattle.
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The uncertainty of the 2014 draft is only rivaled in magnitude by the walkup, which mercilessly comes to an end in three days. Whose name will Roger Goodell call first at Radio City? It's the Texans' secret, and they're not telling
By Peter King
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/05/05/nfl-draft-johnny-manziel-khalil-mack/5/
My meandering T-minus-three-days draftapalooza column (attaway to sell the column, King!) includes an eye-opener from Mike Mayock, predictions from the cognoscenti, separating fiction from fiction [cq] on Johnny Manziel, a rundown of places I think I think I know something about, a way to make a four-day draft sound almost tolerable, and the hottest name in the draft.
My mock draft runs Tuesday on The MMQB. Until then, here’s what I know now:
Ten things, from 1 to 32.
From the top of the first round to the bottom, here’s what I’m hearing:
No. 1, Houston. The buzz about a trade-down or Khalil Mack to Houston instead of Jadeveon Clowney won’t die. The Texans are doing a good job of sending mixed signals to the GM community, that’s for sure. Mack’s in the dark, which is to be expected. I can’t see Atlanta mortgaging the farm on any player, so if the Texans want to trade down, the return likely won’t be a ransom.
Nos. 2 and 13, St. Louis. I sense the Rams like Greg Robinson at two—over Sammy Watkins and Jake Matthews. A St. Louis contingent went to Auburn on Thursday to work out Robinson; no negatives surfaced. More mystery about 13. The Rams really like Johnny Manziel, and if he were there at 13 (which is unlikely), they will consider picking him. His workout for the Rams on Friday in Texas, with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer running the show, was impressive, as was the 80-minute post-workout session in the meeting room with Schottenheimer and Jeff Fisher, among others. One other piece of knowledge I got confirmed Sunday: Rams GM Les Snead recently went to Texas Tech and met at length with coach Kliff Kingsbury—Manziel’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at A&M in 2012—and came away thinking Manziel could adjust to life well as an NFL passer. Does that mean the Rams will take Manziel if he’s there at 13? I am still dubious. But I can tell you the Rams like him a lot.
No. 3, Jacksonville. A peer of GM David Caldwell said Sunday he knows a big Jag priority will be to play it safe with this pick. Sammy Watkins or Jake Matthews … quite safe.
No. 8, Minnesota. The Vikings are more inclined than ever to get their quarterback out of a bottlenecked group of passers at No. 40 in the second round. Vikes want a front-seven disruptor—defensive tackle Aaron Donald comes to mind—more than anything else up here.
No. 11, Tennessee. Hadn’t heard quarterback and the Titans in round one until Sunday. Now I hear: corner one, quarterback two.
Odell Beckham's return skills, in addition to his ability at wide receiver, make him a first-round lock. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)Odell Beckham’s return skills, in addition to his ability at wide receiver, make him a first-round lock. (Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
No. 20, Arizona. We’ve been hearing a lot about quarterback here, and with the unpredictability of the QB market this year, it’s entirely possible the Cards could take a Derek Carr. On the other hand, Arizona’s not far away from competing in the NFC West, and is the best use of their draft currency to take a quarterback they’ll likely redshirt this year behind Carson Palmer?
No. 22, Philadelphia. Keep hearing they want in on the prime receiver action, and the receiver they want could be LSU’s Odell Beckham, who can play outside, inside in the slot and as a returner. But the Eagles would have to trade up, and GM Howie Roseman is doing his due diligence, talking to at least two teams in the mid-round neighborhood when Beckham would likely go. But the cost could be too rich for the Eagles’ blood. They may have to settle for Marqise Lee, who would be some consolation prize.
No. 24, Cincinnati. Bengals like Teddy Bridgewater. They couldn’t. Could they? Well, if you’re Cincinnati, and you’re seriously thinking about making Andy Dalton the center of the franchise and paying him $17 million a year, you might be asking the question about whether Dalton’s worth it.
No. 26, Cleveland. Time to get a quarterback, right? Not so fast. GM Ray Farmer has asked at least one team low in the round about trading back into the first round from Cleveland’s second-round slot. That leads me to think Cleveland wants to get ahead of Houston, another obvious quarterback hotspot, and get a passer with a third first-round pick. That leads me to …
No. 32, Seattle. Think about the advantages to picking, saying, 35th instead of 32nd if you’re the Seahawks. Every dime is going to count going forward because of pricey vets like Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman who must be re-signed. Last year, the difference between the 32nd pick (safety Matt Elam) and 35th pick (tight end Zach Ertz) was $350,000 per year. Not a huge sum, but when you add a $1.4 million total difference between 32 and 35 to the fact that the Seahawks might be able to get a low-fourth-round pick for moving down three slots—and you remember how good Seattle’s been in the lower rounds of drafts—you start to think John Schneider has to be thinking about this too. That’s if Cleveland would do a deal low in round one. But it’s intriguing. All Seattle would lose is the ability to add a fifth-year option by keeping its first-round pick. I think the advantages of saving $1.4 million and adding a mid-round prospect outweigh the edge of the fifth-year option.
* * *
An idea for a four-day draft.
I’ll make a trade with you, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: You put the draft back in April, and I’ll support a four-day draft. I actually don’t think a four-day draft is a terrible idea. I don’t love it, but digest how the draft breaks down now, using the 2014 draft as an example:
Day 1: 32 picks.
Day 2: 68 picks (including four compensatory picks).
Day 3: 156 picks (including 28 compensatory picks).
It’s misleading to say Day 3 is four rounds. It’s actually five, if you include the nearly full round of compensatories. Those 156 picks come in a cascade, with little time for interpretation. Moving it to a fourth day, logically, would make Day 3 be rounds four and five, with the final day wrapping up rounds six and seven—but with something added at the end. How about this revamped schedule for April 23-26, 2015:
Day 1: 32 picks.
Day 2: 68 picks (including four compensatories).
Day 3: 76 picks (including 12 compensatories).
Day 4: 80 picks (including 16 compensatories) … plus a two-hour “Top Undrafted Free-Agents Show” to follow.
If 7.5 million people watch some portion of the NFL Scouting Combine, then some appreciable fraction of that will watch to see who has a shot to be the next Arian Foster or Kurt Warner. ESPN would drop off at the end of the seventh round, most likely, and the NFL could get ratings juice by putting two hours of Daniel Jeremiah and (if he still has a voice left) Mike Mayock on NFL Network breaking down the first two hours of the annual post-draft land rush that sees teams sprinting to sign preferred undrafted players.
But the league has to come to its senses and help teams out here by realizing that putting the draft 19 weeks after the regular season—and just 11 weeks before the start of training camp—hurts teams’ chances to get rookies ready to play on day one of the regular season. This is not just a media or public issue (though the public is so sick of draft prep now, from what I get on Twitter from fans, that they could scream); it’s an issue of football preparedness. You don’t think two more weeks of being inside the playbook isn’t going to help Johnny Manziel be ready to start opening day, if that’s what his team prefers? It’s unfair to hamstring the 32 coaching staffs by not giving them their rookies in any sort of camp setting till the middle of May—for no good reason.
---------
Stat of the Week
Asked a veteran personnel man this week how many players his team had with “make-it’’ grades on his draft board, and he said 170, which is up about 25 players from a usual draft. Different teams I’m sure will have different ways of looking at this board; I’m just saying this draft probably has more players that would make an average NFL roster than most recent drafts.
The 170th pick is the 30th pick in the fifth round this year. San Francisco owns it. Here are the teams that, theoretically, could have the biggest injection of new life on their rosters this fall, the teams with the most picks among the top 170:
8: Cleveland*, Jacksonville, San Francisco.
7: New York Jets.
6: Atlanta, New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Houston, Detroit, Minnesota, Green Bay.
* Cleveland’s top eight picks all come in the first 145 slots.
On the other end of the spectrum, the teams with the fewest picks in the top 170:
3: Indianapolis (and the third one is 166 overall)
4: Tennessee, Denver, Kansas City, Oakland, Washington, Tampa Bay, Seattle.
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