First, we take a look at the upcoming NFL draft, in which much seems unknown (aside from Trevor Lawrence’s destination). The high degree of uncertainty about players this year is partly the pandemic’s fault; scouts and evaluators have had fewer resources (not to mention fewer college football games) to judge prospects. But the varying fortunes […]
Projecting college receivers to the NFL is hard. For every hit (a Justin Jefferson or an early career Odell Beckham Jr.), there’s a miss (a Laquon Treadwell or an older, midcareer Odell Beckham Jr.). Still, it’s an important position to get right: Sets with three wide receivers are now the norm for NFL offenses, and […]
Graphics by Anna Wiederkehr The NFL has an obsession with speed. The love affair goes back at least as far as the 1960s, when former Raiders owner Al Davis carried out his fast-first philosophy. Davis brought on such game-breaking speedsters as would-be Olympic sprinter Willie Gault and all-world athlete Bo Jackson, a pixelated version of […]
In 2016, the Los Angeles Rams traded two first-round picks, two second-round picks and two third-round picks for the chance to draft quarterback Jared Goff. On Saturday night, they agreed to trade him to the Detroit Lions for quarterback Matthew Stafford — and as incentive, the Rams had to throw in two first-round picks and […]
Justin Fields’s impressive performance against Clemson in the College Football Playoff semifinals didn’t just wow football fans, it cemented his status as the consensus No. 2 quarterback prospect of this year’s NFL draft class. “Fields seemed to erase all the talk of his limitations with one of the gutsiest performances of the season,” wrote Yahoo’s […]