What you need to know about the NFL Draft. Plus, the QB carousel slows (Baker? Jimmy G?) and the sad, new overtime rules.
Due to an absurd second wave of free-agency news, NFL draft season was delayed. It officially starts… now. Conor and Gary dive into the biggest storylines of the draft. That starts with examining the claim that it’s not a particularly good draft, and what effects that could have on the teams (most of them) that wouldn’t mind getting the heck out of Round 1. As always, any first-round shuffling will be quarterback centric—a look at the five potential first-rounders among this class of passers.
Speaking of quarterbacks, a discussion of this year's round of QB musical chairs, which seems to now be frozen in place. Is someone going to get Baker Mayfield (and how badly did the Browns screw this up)? Or Jimmy Garoppolo? And what to make of the presumed QB vacancies in Carolina and Seattle?
Finally, a fittingly underwhelming discussion of the underwhelming new overtime rules.
Have a comment, critique or question for a future mailbag? Email themmqb@gmail.com or tweet at @GGramling_SI or @ConorOrr.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The MMQB NFL Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Gray Gramling: What we’re going to do is give you a broad view of the draft on this show. And as we go on over the next couple of shows we are going to break down some position groups, break down lots of outrageous takes... we’ll see how it goes. And of course, in a couple of weeks have our mock draft series. But we are starting this by getting you all amped for the draft by pointing out that this is maybe not a very good draft. There’s just not a whole lot at the top that’s getting anyone very excited.
Conor Orr: Yeah, and what was interesting is this is a better version of the 2013 NFL draft, right? Every eight or nine years, we get one of these drafts where there’s just no quarterback. But instead of this being 2013 in the fact that everyone’s like, Oh God, nothing good is going to come of this. It’s like, no, this is actually a really good draft for teams that need depth defensively. Like, if you’re a team that is hurting defensively, you need to get a cornerback, you need to get a linebacker and you need to get somewhat of a premium edge rusher or an edge rusher that can start right away, you can accomplish that in the first three rounds of this draft. And that’s kind of been the sense from the executives that I talked to at the combine. So while it is crappy on its head, you have to dig a little bit deeper there. It’s almost like you’re walking around with your metal detector over a landfill, and then you dig in there and there’s—I wouldn’t say gold, but maybe some old buffalo nickels, you know?
Gray Gramling: And this kind of goes without saying, but if you follow the NFL you know this is true: The guys at the top don’t always end up being great and sometimes guys further down do end up being great. I mean, you can look back at J.J. Watt, Aaron Donald, T.J. Watt. Like, those guys were first-round picks, but not seen as elite and they ended up being all-time greats. But... yeah, that’s kind of what you’re looking at. There’s not going to be that trade-up demand. Everyone, every year, wants to trade down and trade the first round and collect as many picks as possible. But there’s no real reason for anyone to come up this year because unless you really fall in love with one of the quarterbacks—and we’ll get to them in just a moment—there’s no one else there you’re coming up to get.
