I thought I’d get the draft talk rolling now that we’ve got a few weeks to go. It starts on Thursday the 28th - they’re doing the 3 day format again.
With the CBA issue, teams can’t trade players for draft picks, but they can apparently still trade draft picks for other draft picks. They can’t sign the rookies they draft. I’m not sure how else the situation affects the draft.
In years past, I’ve gotten really into the draft, reading scouting reports, watching the combine, watching bowl games to key in on certain players - but my heart just isn’t in it this year. Not sure if it’s the constant emotional beatdown of rooting for an inept team, or my distaste over the possibility of no football this year because multimillionaires are squabbling with billionaires, or what, but I’ve hardly done any research outside of seeing some people discuss the various prospects.
As a Browns fan the expected route the team is going to go seems to be either WR or DL. Given Heckert’s drafting history, DL seems more likely. But I can’t really say I like any of the prospects at #6 besides Dareus, and he’s likely to be gone by then. The rest of them have too many question marks to feel comfortable.
I’m actually hoping for Patrick Peterson. Corner isn’t a big need for the Browns but he’s supposed to be the best player of the draft and it’s plausible that if 2 quarterbacks are taken in the top 5 he may fall to #6. Snatch him right up, start him next to Haden for the next 10 years, move Sheldon Brown to FS, and you’ve got quite a secondary. The rest of the defense will be crap, but you can’t fix everything in one year. Would’ve been in a more flexible and less desperate position if they hadn’t dumped Shaun Rogers…
Other than that, I’d rather have AJ Green than any of the non-Dareus DL prospects. The WR corps is the worst in the league and Green is the whole package although not amazing in any particular way except maybe hands. I think McCoy may turn out to be decent, but I don’t have a ton of faith in him - he’s not the sort of QB that can turn scrubs into stars, he needs at least one good WR to make him effective. AJ Green could significantly revamp the offense and give him a chance. I’m hearing from people that Julio Jones is better suited to the WCO, but I think matching WRs to schemes is probably overrated. Still, if they have their hearts set on Jones, maybe they could trade down a few spots for a team that wanted Peterson or one of the DL prospects and pick him up at #9-15 somewhere.
Not sure what Carolina is going to do. Drafting a QB high always gets asses in the seats. Potentially we could have 4 teams in the top 5 interested in QB - Carolina, Arizona, and Cincinatti, and Buffalo. I don’t know if any of this year’s QBs are worth a top 5 pick, but there’s a decent chance two of them go that high.
DISCUSS!