GM knows pressure is on

pick, saying in his own Thursday presser that he’s “absolutely” still considering Penn State running back Saquon Barkley first overall. And this all happened as The Ringer reported that the Browns even had discussed taking a QB at both one and four. Sitting in the middle of it all is Gettleman, a 67-year-old who finally has his dream job and is getting a kick out of how much speculation there is about what he might do in such a critical spot.

“Like it? I love it,” Gettleman said with a smile of all the noise about what he might do. “Are you kidding me?”

It’s beginning, however, to not feel too much like a mystery.

Gettleman said himself: “When I was a little kid, every time I lied, I got caught. And when I was 7 years old, my father kicked my butt and I haven’t lied since then.”

And he’s clearly no poker player, because when he was asked about Marshall’s release, he didn’t even need to confirm it. His face was a dead giveaway. So is his affinity for Barkley,

a player he once again called “a tremendous talent.”

Unforgettably, at the NFL owners’ meetings Gettleman referenced former 1995 No. 1 overall pick KiJana Carter, another star Nittany Lions back, as an example of the kind of talent worthy of a high selection — despite the fact that the pick was a bust when injuries derailed Carter’s career.

“You can’t draft anybody with the second pick hoping (he’ll be great),” Gettleman said then. “Listen: Ki-Jana Carter was the first pick of the draft back in (’95) ... Ki-Jana Carter was a great college football player who was on his way to having a great pro career, and he blew out his knee. You can’t account for that. You just can’t account for it. Some guys just are injury busts. It happens.”

Gettleman could go the quarterback route, too, but his body language, tone and waffling on the topic suggest his feelings are simply stronger for the top position players of this draft than the QBs. Maybe he’ll surprise us all.