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Myles Garrett, the defensive end from Texas A&M, will be the first player selected by Cleveland when the NFL draft commences Thursday night in Philadelphia... barring, of course, a crazy confluence of events that could probably only materialize around the Browns.
Sure, there are rumblings that team brass are still debating whether to shock the world and use the top pick on North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. I can’t quite buy that one, quarterback or not. Trubisky is not Andrew Luck or Jameis Winston.
But it’s draft season – when smokescreens, innuendo, rumors and disinformation are sprinkled into the mix with 40-yard dash times and Wonderlic scores.
Let’s just say there’s probably no prop bet in Las Vegas linking Trubisky and No. 1.
Besides, for weeks – long before draft savant Warren Sapp chimed in to dog Garrett’s work ethic – the experts have pretty much agreed on one thing about this year’s crop: The Aggie pass rusher who killed it at the scouting combine is the biggest prize. (Conventional wisdom accurately predicted JaMarcus Russell would be No. 1 in 2007, as much as the Oakland Raiders would eventually wish they’d picked Calvin Johnson instead, so let’s not put Garrett in the Hall of Fame just yet.)
In this case, though, the intrigue starts with the San Francisco 49ers’ selection: Who’s No. 2? Haven’t seen a prop bet for that, either. Touted for its defensive depth, this draft is as unpredictable at the top as any that I can recall, going back at least a couple of decades. It’ setting the stage for a flurry of trades, surprises and more second guessing than usual.
After all, new Niners general manager John Lynch said during his pre-draft press conference Monday that he will listen to offers for the second pick into Thursday, and that the phone has been ringing. He didn’t exactly co-sign an NFL Network report that contended the 49ers are “strongly considering” a quarterback – Trubisky or Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, you’d think – but he didn’t deny that it’s a possibility, either.
He also said it was fair to conclude that they have narrowed the options to two or three players, identities undisclosed.
“Sometimes,” Lynch said at one point during his briefing, “if you can be transparent, that’s the best poker you can play.”
The past two years, quarterbacks went 1-2 at the top, and you knew it was coming – though I’m not sure that the second player taken a year ago, Carson Wentz, won’t have a better career than Jared Goff. The win-win combination of Winston and Marcus Mariota kicked off the 2015 draft.
Now it seems quite possible that a quarterback won’t get picked in the top five for only the second time since Y2K, even though Clemson coach Dabo Swinney warned teams of passing on Watson, whom he deemed the “Michael Jordan” of the draft.
The guesses about what Lynch will do, teamed with rookie coach Kyle Shanahan, run the gamut.
ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. slotted Stanford defensive end Solomon Thomas to San Francisco, while his colleague, Todd McShay, declares that Ohio State cornerback Marshon Lattimore will be the 49ers’ pick.
Other mock picks include NFL Network’s Charley Casserly predicting LSU running back Leonard Fournette, while USA Today’s Nate Davis agrees with NFLN’s Bucky Brooks that the choice should be LSU safety Jamal Adams. Count MMQB’s Peter King and NFLDraftScout.com’s Rob Rang on the Thomas tally.
And that’s the beauty of mock drafts, which are always subject to being busted by trades.
Yet the way it’s shaping up this year – from No. 2 on down, and with more medical red flags among top prospects than usual – more mock drafts are in danger of being mocked than usual.
NFL teams conduct their own mocks, part of the pre-draft preparation that supplements building the draft boards that rank players and to project inevitable communication with potential trade partners. Yet clubs pay attention to the mock drafts outside the building, too – even if merely for entertainment purposes.
“It’s funny,” said Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn, “because I think some are fairly accurate, and some are like completely not even close.”
Which sounds a lot like the hit-or-miss nature of the draft.
Quinn, currently holding the 21st pick in the first round, surely takes mental notes on whom pundits project to the Lions.
“Everyone else knows except for me,” he said.
Given the uncertainty this year, seems nobody really knows how things will go.
(USA Today/TNS)