No mention of Eric Stokes? I don’t really follow the draft, but I was surprised no one mentioned that at least the Pack didn’t draft ANOTHER QB
Legally, what can Rodgers do if the Pack refuses to trade him?
Quit football and give up several dump trucks worth of money. He already has many container ships of money and he could fall back as (if not permanent, perhaps as a guest) host of Jeopardy!
Deliberately play bad (take the snap and just stand there until sacked) I don’t see him doing this.
New Orleans Saints — Payton Turner (defensive end, Houston)
Green Bay Packers — Eric Stokes (cornerback, Georgia)
Buffalo Bills — Gregory Rousseau (edge rusher, Miami of Florida)
Baltimore Ravens — Jayson Oweh (edge rusher, Penn State)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Joe Tryon (edge rusher, Washington)
Some thoughts:
Packers reached more than a short person at a extra tall cabinet store. Eric Stokes is fast. Yep. He’s fast. He may become another Sam Shields, but Shields was an undrafted free agent, not a 3rd round prospect drafted in the first. On the upside, he’s got experience, and one thing Gutey can do well is draft DBs. Jaire Alexander. Darnell Savage. Sure there’s also Josh Johnson and Josh Jones, but we can hope he’s correct here. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to give Gutey the benefit of the doubt anymore. Horrible value and a bad pick.
Kudos to the Bears. Didn’t overpay to move up and selected the second best QB in the draft in Justin Fields. I’m hoping he’s more v. Alabama and Northwestern than v. Clemson when he plays the Pack. Great pick. Bastards. The Vikings too drafted well this round, getting extra picks to trade down and still getting great value with the #3 OT at pick 23. And the Lions drafted the best OT possible. The rest of the NFC North got a lot better. Bad for the Pack.
John Gruden does it again. He’s a gift that just keeps giving. In a position to get any of the top pass rushers in the draft, he instead reaches horribly to grab an average player on a great team and a “your guy”. He’ll be fine, I think. But fine at pick 17 isnt good enough. At least he recognized that his gutting of their O-line this offseason needs to be addressed.
Reunited and it feels so good. Burrow gets Chase. Tua gets Waddle. Even Hurts got Smith. They’re getting the band back together.
Pats waited and still got a solid QB prospect. Good for them. Jerks.
Interesting to see two teams grab RBs in the first round. While I love Najee, I have a hard time justifying spending a first round pick on such a replaceable position.
Lots of draft, and talented players, left to go. Should be fun.
I was pretty set on the thought that whatever the Bears did it would be the wrong choice but it looks like it’s actually the opposite. In fact, they may have gotten the best QB in the draft:
I am seeing some post-hoc analysis about the Pats pick of Mac Jones and they strike me as entirely “hindsight is 20/20” type stuff. For example, Scott Pioli (formerly of the Patriots) tweeted: “Patience is very important and a very underrated part of the game & draft. Bill B followed a very important draft concept ‘let the draft come to you.’” And sure, in hindsight, it looks great. You give up nothing and get an excellent prospect that you’ve been targeting, that fits your system, and at your most important position of need.
But what if someone other than the Jets had traded up to 14 and grabbed Jones ahead of the Pats? The analysis would almost certainly be along the lines of: “QB of the future available one spot up but Belichick unwilling to move to get him” and other “missed opportunity” takes. Seems to me that the Patriots just got lucky here more than than anything else.
In other random thoughts, I expect the Patriots will do a lot of trading down today and tomorrow, giving up picks this year for future draft picks. They brought in so many free agents and paid them handsomely, there’s just not that much room on the roster.
Then the Pats would have drafted the next highest player on their board. That’s the great thing about not chasing guys and trading up, you can still get another player without giving up future resources.
They certainly got “lucky” with how things fell, but no one can cotrol what kind of “hot takes” people ar going to post. You either trust your board or you don’t.
And Mac Jones, while a good prospect, doesn’t appear to be a sure thing elite QB. He has a pretty high floor and very good college production, but he was never considered a can’t miss, stud QB.
In general, I completely agree with this and it is most often what the Pats have been doing in the draft. But in this particular situation, with a very strong need for a legit prospect at QB and their highest pick in the draft in over 20 years, it really would have been a missed opportunity not to come away with one of the top 5 rated guys.
Anyway, not a big deal, just some analysis I read that seemed overly praising.
On the other hand The Ringer gave the Pats a grade of C+. (With the caveat that grades at this point are silly, but I still read 'em!) It will give us a more interesting preseason than usual in Patriot Nation. Sports radio is giving itself a coronary; they’ve been harping for months about how the Pats need a QB in the draft and now complaining that it’s Jones.
Everyone is a lot higher on Jenkins than I am. He’s certainly a mauler in the run game, but I’m concerned about him in NFL pass protection sets and his effort. They gave up quite a bit for him, but, a consensus well ranked player with good value and at a position of need, Bears fans should be happy.
Pace continues to use resources to trade up to get “his guys”. I don’t think that’s a viable long term strategy (see Mitchy T.), but if the guys work out, it’s great. If not, Pace will continue to hamstring the Bears.
Other thoughts:
I hate the Packers draft so far. They’re drafting players a round or two before where they’re consensus rank is, I’m not a huge fan of the players, and there were better options available when they picked. The only real positive is that they’re drafting at positions of need: CB, Center (to replace Linsley), and slot WR. They are, as they are wont to do, ignoring the LB position, which is yet another mistake. Had the Packers come away with Terrance Marshall (or Jeremiah Owusu Koramoah), Creed Humphrey, and Paulson Adebo, I’d be loving it. But they didnt, and I don’t. But they know more than I do.
Drafts I love so far:
a) Chargers: Slater and Samuel were incredible value and very good players. Palmer is good value and has some nice upside. Plus they now have a guy named McKitty. How can that be a bad thing?
b) Browns: Newsome at 26 was a fantastic pick and value (fuck them I wanted him for the Pack). Owusu-Koramoah could be the best value in the entire draft. Schwartz I don’t like much, but he’s fast as hell, which gives Cleveland something they really needed at the WR position.
Drafts I hate:
a) Packers: See above.
b) Steelers: Drafting a RB in the first round is a no-no, the player would have to be a generational talent and have a longer than average career to make it worth it. I’m not a fan of Freiermuth and I was shocked they didn’t go O line with Mayfield, Humphrey, Christensen, and Davis all available. Green could become a starter, but I’m not a fan either.
c) Dolphins: I’m likely off the reservation with this because a vast majority of what I read has most everybody loving the Dolhins draft. But to me, with the draft capital they had, they should have done much better. I’m not a Waddle, nor a Phillips fan, and most everyone else they drafted was a reach.
I’m surprised the Seahawks didn’t trade back for more picks, because they often do that any year and this year they only have three total. But they grabbed a WR in the 2nd round so they must really like him. And while they have a great tandem of receivers (maybe the best in the NFL) they don’t have a legit 3rd, even David Moore who was a serviceable 3rd is gone. So getting a WR was a good move.
Rumors are that the Rams were going to get him and Seattle stole him. Sorry Stafford!
I really like that Jenkins pick. And again, the trade value doesn’t feel like it was too much. Pace is definitely drafting to try to save his job, but he’s not overpaying which is good. I expected to be super angry about him spending draft capital but going by the consensus the two players he got are major value picks and he’s not spending a lot in the way of future picks to do it. A first obviously is big, but that’s sort of essential here.
Jenkins tape is incredible. Haven’t watched all the other OTs but several “experts” had him as the #2 OT and neck and neck with Sewell in some cases. He looks the part both statistically and on film. Probably 50% of the mocks had the Bears drafting him at 20 and most Bears fans were pretty pleased with the idea.
Not having a 3rd or 4th is pretty scary as Pace has really made hay in those rounds for most of his tenure, but with 3 6ths hopefully we can fill in some quality depth at WR and CB.
So long as Fields is closer to the guy in the Clemson game and less the guy in the Bama game, the Bears offense got a lot better this weekend.
I’m sorry, but you’re on a island with this opinion. Effort? Are you nuts? Pretty much everyone is calling him a sociopath on the field. He’s given up 2 sacks in his entire college career.
The fact that Trask and Mond went ahead of Mills is interesting. Can’t say I studied the tape so I’d be talking out my ass, but when thinking about the Bears options pretty much everyone had Mills way ahead of those two.
I was always a little surprised with the hate that Trask got considering how successful he was and how good his deep balls look. I know he’s not nimble but that’s not a great reason to crush the guy. His fit on Tampa with Ariana and Brady is kind of amazing.
I found it sort of weird that the ESPN announcers all seemed caught off guard that Houston took a QB early. Talking like Watson’s situation is still the presumptive QB for the Texans and that the news thus far are merely rumors. Not a great look ESPN. It would have been more newsworthy if the Texans didn’t take someone and signaled Watson is still their guy.
