We have the bust prediction thread, but not a general purpose draft thread.
Day 1 of the draft is on Thursday, May 8. We have the same (I think?) structure of 1st; 2nd and 3rd; 4th through 7th during the 3 days.7 Everyone agrees the push back of the draft sucks. Gooddell is trying to stretch out the time between free agency and the draft to keep the NFL in the headlines longer, but once you see the 19th version of someone’s mock draft, the market is pretty oversaturated and you just want to get on with it already.
I have no idea what the Browns are going to do. They’ve disguised their interests really well. My fear is that they’re targeting Derek Carr at their 2nd first round pick (the one, if you recall, Indy traded to them for Trent Richardson. Ha). Carr has pretty much the worst flaw you can have as a QB prospect - he panics under pressure and he sees phantom pressure. His mechanics become trash when there’s even the hint that he’s got someone after him. Want nothing to do with him.
The rest of the QBs are a grab bag of mystery. Personally, I’m fully onboard for Teddy Bridgewater. I don’t know how a guy can be a consensus #1 overall prospect going into last season, have a great season, have a great bowl game, still be considered the #1 (or #2 behind Clowney) overall prospect, and then sometime during the offseason drop from #1 overall to a second round or later. I suspect that it’s all just media pundits repeating themselves and going a little whacky, or some team is deliberately leaking things about him to control the press about him in the hopes they can make him surrounded by doubt and fall a bit. I think he still goes in the top half of the first round.
He is, without a doubt, the guy I want the Browns to snatch up at #4. He’s got pretty much everything you want in a QB except for muscular weight (and he had jaw surgery that made him lose some weight last year) and not elite arm talent. He ran a somewhat pro style offense, or at least an offense with progressions where he made a lot of pre-snap and post snap reads. He was consistently productive, well liked by his teammates and coaches, no character concerns I’m aware of. He has what seems to be a pretty cerebral approach to the game and seems equipped to handle the complexities of an NFL offense. He’s willing to put in the mental work it takes to be a great QB. He should still be considered for the #1 overall pick, so if he does slide to #4 I’ll be extremely happy. Except I don’t think the Browns will take him, so then I will be extremely mad.
Manziel, I have no idea what to do with. I suspect he’ll bust but I’m not going to be the guy who says he’s sure he will. Maybe he can make magic happen in the right offense. His arm and throwing talent is underrated I think because people like to pigeonhole prospects, but so much of what made him successful in college just won’t carry over. Hard to predict. If he slips to 26 and the Browns take him instead of Carr, I wouldn’t hate it immediately because at least it seems like he’d be entertaining, but I don’t want him.
Bortles - all I’ve heard about Bortles is that he’s 6’5 235. That’s it. People just talk about his prototypical size over and over again. I don’t know if that’s because Bortles has no real other qualities to talk about, or if the media is just dumb.
My guess for what the Browns actually do - I think they’re going to try to trade back to the 10-15 range if they can and take Dennard or Mosley. If that trade down option isn’t there, and Kahlil Mack is still on board, they take him, even though they invested the #6 pick last year in an OLB and their prized FA that year was also an OLB.
A lot of Browns fans are clamoring for Robinson or Mathews at 4. Yes, tackles, with a potential HoF 29 year year old tackle already on the team. They want a right tackle with a top 5 pick. Even with a young, pretty good RT already on the roster. Let me explain this little oddity: Macho football fans with a little bit of knowledge think “Casual fans just look at the flash. They look at QBs and WRs and RBs and don’t really understand that line play is critical to the team. But I, as a true hardcore football fan, know that line play is very important. The thing that proves how smart of a football fan I am is my appreciation for line play. Therefore, if I say ONLY line play is important, and play down everything else, I’ll be even smarter! Hell, every other non-line position isn’t even important. The team with the best lines will win, everything else is just window dressing”
So I’ve had to endure years of talking about how terrible QBs were just fine, if we could just draft 5 hall of famers on the line in the first round for 5 years then we could carry a scrub QB to victory, because the QBs don’t really matter anyway, they’re just a product of their line.
It is utterly tedious to wade through, and it has the worst trait an argument can have - it’s a dumb argument that makes the person making it feel smarter.
Anyway, I’ll write more at some point, but here’s my prediction for the Browns. Mack or possibly Watkins at 4, and then try to scrape a second tier QB prospect off the scrap heap in the late first round. I would say it’s Weeden all over again, but I’m not sure Derek Carr can even be bas bad as Weeden.
