2018 NFL Draft

[eagle eye]

Two weeks from today the 2018 NFL draft will be a matter of historical record and NFL teams will be scrambling to sign what are termed priority free agents - guys who did not get drafted for whatever reason but are true free agents who can sign with any team of their choosing. Dallas has almost always had some success with these signings going as far back as Drew Pearson and Cliff Harris, both UFA's who had a lot of success in their careers and a major impact on the Cowboys. More recently Tony Romo, Ronald Leary and La'el Collins join the list of successful Cowboys signings. But, this isn't about the Cowboys or even UFA's, it's about the draft itself. There is the usual yackety-yak about who needs a QB and which QB will go first. It's rare for a position player to go first in the draft and the last non-QB to go first overall was Cleveland's Myles Garrett just last year but it's definitely the exception rather than the rule over the last 2 decades. Since 2000 a non-QB was drafted first overall only 6 times and two of those were made by Houston taking Mario Williams in 2006 and Jadaveon Clowney in 2014. Cleveland has the first pick in the draft. A spot they have owned over the last few years but they only used that first pick once when they took Garrett last year. All of the Browns first round draft choices over the last 15 years have been ill conceived bad decisions for the most part. The Rams took Jared Goff two years ago while Cleveland passed on drafting Carson Wentz. Ouch. The turnover in the Browns front office has been as unstable as it gets with a string of one-and-done coaches and GMs. The Browns actually have the same GM and head coach for the 2nd year in a row and that's a start. They also have about a million draft picks acquired via their own futility and some pretty good trades (excluding the Carson Wentz thing) so the question that must be asked, will this be the year that Cleveland actually doesn't something in the draft? Odds are not good but if you look at their offseason they went hard at wide receiver in free agency led by the acquisition of former Dolphins WR Jarvis Landry. They also signed Jeff Janis and Larry Pinkard. They gutted their QB room by getting rid of Deshone Kizer, Cody Kessler and Kevin Hogan via trades. They restocked the room with Tyrod Taylor in a deal with Buffalo and they signed Drew Stanton, formerly of Arizona. Neither is a franchise QB and Cleveland is expected to use that 1st overall pick on one but no indication on which of the top prospects are on the Browns radar. The main teams people root for in this area don't have a lot of root for draft-wise because the Cowboys have just one first round pick to go with one each in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Houston has no 1st or 2nd round picks because that is what it cost them to move up to get Desean Watson. They do have 3 picks in the 3rd round but that is about 3 hours into the 2nd day of the draft. No, Cleveland is the one to watch with 5 picks in the first two rounds (1, 4 in the first and 1, 3, 32 in the 2nd) that is unless they trade them away.

[eagle eye]

The first round of the NFL draft didn’t offer too many surprises but there were a couple. Like Cleveland taking Baker Mayfield over USC QB Sam Darnold and coming back 3 picks later opting for CB Denzel Ward instead of DE Barry Chubb who went to Denver with the next pick. Ward is the highest rated CB in the draft but Chubb was considered the best player in the whole draft. I guess both teams are happy today we’ll see how they feel in December. Maybe the best GM in the NFL is Baltimore’s Ozzie Newsome. He was a Hall of Fame TE for the Browns and he has forged a HOF career as a personnel man for the Ravens. Apparently this is Newsome’s final draft as he is retiring from the game after over 4 decades. He did some fancy wheeling and dealing last night that ended up with Baltimore getting QB Lamar Jackson from Louisville (the 2nd ranked QB in the draft on many boards with the 32nd, and final pick in the first round as well as the top ranked TE on many boards, Hayden Hurst from So Carolina. The 2nd and 3rd rounds of the draft are tonight beginning at 6 PM.