Agreed. For lack of a better term, I might go with “injury bust.”
The Giants had one in David Wilson, a running back they drafted in the first round at some point. Dude had a spark but then suffered a neck injury and I don’t think he ever played again. As far as I know he can walk and live a normal life and everything, but it’s tough to play football when your neck is a time bomb.
The Vikings are releasing WR Adam Thielen, mostly as a salary-cap casualty.
Thielen is a local favorite (he grew up in Minnesota), and after making the Vikings as an undrafted free agent, became one of their all-time best receivers. But, he’s about to turn 33, has been surpassed by James Jefferson as the team’s #1 receiver, and was under contract at nearly $20 million for next season.
The Vikings had spoken with Thielen about a restructured contract, reflecting a more limited role in their offense, but it sounds like he wants to see if he can still be a top-tier receiver elsewhere.
Speaking as a Packer fan, he was always frustrating to watch play against my team, because he would consistently get open and make big plays.
Ugh! Justin Jefferson!
And here we go:
I know the Panthers seem to love Richardson but do they really need to move to #1 to get him?
Regardless of how that #1 pick turns out for Carolina that’s a pretty good haul for the Bears for basically nothing. DJ Moore’s a good player.
Nice haul for the Bears, who need to improve in a lot of areas.
If only D.J. Moore wore #3 instead of #2, this would have been a revisit to the “Lawrence Welk trade,” still infamous in Packer lore: in 1974, the Packers, desperate for a QB, traded with the Rams to get John Hadl. They sent the Rams two first-round draft choices, two second-rounders, and a third-rounder.
Hadl was coming off of being an All-Pro in ‘73, but he was 34, and starting to decline; he wasn’t successful in Green Bay, and unhappy fans nicknamed the trade of so much of the Packers’ future draft capital for bandleader Welk’s opening to songs: “A one, an’ a two, an’ a one-two-three.”
God the Panthers seem set on fighting tooth and nail to remain irrelevant to the NFL.
I now predict that one of them will be whoever Carolina drafts. 
Good for Chicago though.
It’s got to be Richardson, right? His performance at the combine was record breaking, so I can imagine that was the catalyst for going all in on getting the top pick to select him. I can see the team’s ownership thinking that they went to a Super Bowl with Cam Newton, so another player with “super man” potential would be worth the investment.
But aren’t there all sorts of warnings about falling in love with a player because of how they do in the “underwear Olympics”? Combine performances don’t always portend great careers.
Folks in Green Bay are trying to read the tea leaves regarding the Packers’ plans for Rodgers, from an interview that team president Mark Murphy gave while in attendance at a high school basketball tournament, across the street from Lambeau Field. Some excerpts:
The latter definitely feels like a “past tense” sort of statement.
Maybe I’m a lunatic, but I’m disappointed with this deal. Reddit, Twitter, ESPN and everywhere including here seem to be giving the Bears flowers for this deal. The opinion seems universal that the Bears just fleeced the Panthers. I don’t see it.
I think the best comp we have is that recent 49ers-Dolphins trade for Trey Lance. The 49ers traded up from 12 to 3. They sent the Phins a 1st rounder in the next two years and an additional 3rd rounder. So the headline is “three 1sts” to move up 9 spots.
The Bears got DJ Moore, 1 future first, a late 2nd rounder and a future 2nd rounder for just the 1st overall. Let’s see if we can balance the equation here:
| Asset | Bears-Panthers | 49ers-Dolphins | Comparative Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick Swap | 1 → 9 | 3 → 12 | Bears gave a lot more |
| Pick | 1st (+1 Year) | 1st (+1 year) | Equal |
| Pick | 2nd (Pick 61) | 1st (+2 years) | 49ers got more |
| Pick | 2nd (+2 years) | 3rd (+1 year) | Equal? |
| Player | DJ Moore | All Bears |
So basically, this implies that DJ Moore is worth the difference between the 1st and 3rd overall pick plus the difference between a deferred 1st and the 61st pick. I’m not convinced he is.
The WR market right now is completely wild, and the Bears are already getting clowned for overpaying for Chase Claypool. Last offseason the market for guys like Hollywood Brown, Christian Kirk, DaVante Adams, AJ Brown and Tyreek Hill was nutty, Hill got QB-level compensation in a trade. Brown and Brown both commanded 1st round picks. Kirk signed for $20M/year after never really distinguishing himself as a WR1. So based on that logic, DJ Moore is probably adding a lot of value to that deal.
But still, I think the Bears left stuff on the table here. The biggest issue is that they weren’t staying in the top 5. They aren’t going to have a chance a guys like Anderson or Carter drafting 9th. We don’t really know what Houston or Indy were thinking, but it’s hard to believe that neither team made an offer. The Raiders and Falcons, drafting immediately before the Panthers, both likely are in the market and could have been bidding. Was making the trade now, instead of closer to draft day, really the peak value?
The odds of them making 2 moves back in trades with QB needy teams is also likely dead with this move. If the rumors about Indy making a deal are true, then a similar deal with them minus DJ Moore leaves the Bears at 4 with another chance at a major trade haul. Or to draft Anderson at 4.
Footnote: I think it’s dumb when the media talks about trades like this as the Bears “getting 2 firsts, and 2 seconds”. They didn’t “get” two firsts, they swapped picks this year. They gave a first and got a worse first. That first you’re getting back isn’t really a new asset. When you compare this to deals like the Russell Wilson trade, that was actually “2 firsts and 2 seconds”.
Who knows. The trade above I referenced was similar in other ways. It was conducted well before draft day and the general public had no idea who the 49ers were actually targeting with the move. There were rumors that it was Mac Jones. Richardson aced the Combine, but Bryce Young and CJ Stroud were great in college. Stroud also was really great at the Combine.
If the Panthers do draft Richardson the critics will be coming out of the woodwork. Trading away a bunch of capital to take a unproven guy with monster upside is sort of the playbook for fucking over your future. I actually am drinking the Richardson Kool-aid, but it will be weird if he goes first overall. I’ll say this, as a Bears fan I really, really hope they take Richardson. Even if he’s eventually great, his year one is almost certainly gonna suck. And we get next year’s first. Young or Stroud probably get the Panthers to 5 or 6 wins.
It will be very interesting to see if the Panthers go public with the pick before draft day. If they legitimately don’t know who they like best yet and are waiting for the rest of process to play out, making this trade now is kind of nutty. In fact, it probably suggests that the Panthers feared the price would go up once the rest of the league gets a chance to see all these guys up close.
Well, Schefter says in that article that the Panthers are looking at Stroud and Young as well. If they were dead set on Richardson I don’t think they would need to go to #1 for him.
Just going on the record now. I think Zay Flowers is the best WR in this class. He’s the complete package minus some size. One of the comps for him is Steve Smith and I think he might be even more versatile than he was.
This feels like a draft where a lot of teams are going to really regret their 1st round WR selections.
Former Vikings head coach Bud Grant has passed away, at the age of 95.
He coached the Vikings for 18 seasons (1967-1983, 1985), and while he took his teams to the Super Bowl four times, he never won it.
He also played two seasons in the NBA with the Minneapolis Lakers, two seasons in the NFL with the Eagles, and four seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL; after retiring as a player, he became the Bombers’ head coach, and won four Grey Cups, prior to moving back to the NFL and becoming the Vikings’ coach. He was the first person to be elected to both the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and the (NFL) Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He was known for his toughness and discipline as a coach, and refused to let his players use heaters on the sideline. Famously, at age 88, he appeared on the field for a Vikings playoff game in 2016 as an honorary captain; he went out to the fifty-yard line for the coin flip, in -6F weather, without a jacket. 
When I was a kid, his Vikings teams regularly dominated my Packers, but I always had a great deal of respect for him. Rest in peace, Bud.
This will never not annoy me. The worst is when they say the Bears gave up a first to get Trubisky. No they didn’t.
While we’re discussing things that annoy us, I hate shitty football takes like this one. The headline: " David Tepper finally gets in position to solve Carolina’s quarterback problem."
Fuck that noise. The Panthers could have drafted any of these QBs in the last 5 years: Justin Fields, Mac Jones, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, and Desean Watson.
The idea that Carolina, or any fucking team, needs the #1 pick in the draft to get a “franchise” QB has been proven not just wrong, but laughingly idiotic over and over and over and over. Especially in this season, where there are 3 legitimate QBs who could be the #1 pick.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Exactly, it doesn’t matter how nice of a pick you have if you’re incapable of evaluating talent well enough to recognize a franchise QB.
Spoken like a Packers fan. Do you need the #1 pick? No. Does it improve your odds of not having a bust? Unquestionably. Is QB evaluation more guesswork than science? Also yes.
Should teams draft day two prospects far more regularly and develop them instead of waiting until the situation is desperate? God yes.