Going Commando

The biggest question for me is about speeding up his decision making and getting the ball out faster. Everyone misses throws. Mahomes dirts a bunch of ugly passes every game. What matters is making big plays and keeping you team alive even when you're not sharp that day. But being late on throws is a chronic issue for Jayden that can lead to a dysfunctional passing game, and I don't think evaluators really acknowledged how long he stood in clean pockets waiting to throw last year, and how playing like that doesn't translate to the NFL. He is going to have to play with so much more urgency and decisiveness in the NFL. Especially behind a lower tier pass pro line. My fear is that it's deeply ingrained habit for him, because he was even late on throws at his Pro Day throwing session. He's also got to get a lot better at playmaking under pressure. He has to be able to deal with free rushers because we don't have the weapons to keep seven in coverage, and our OLs lose. We aren't going to be able to build a wall in front of him next year, here are going to be a lot of bad pockets, and he can't become a 1-2 run QB.

He's going to need a lot more than that. He also needs a great OL to make plays from the pocket. Tyler Biadasz and a back up guard aren't going to get it done. I don't understand how we can have gone through another whole regime and Terry McLaurin is still our only serious weapon on offense. And our line got way worse. We should have lucked into more than just Sam Cosmi in five years of trying to build the offense.

Aiyuk is one of the best receivers in the NFL and he broke Jayden in at AZ St. We have **** tons of money and no elite players to spend it on. I think a trade for Aiyuk makes sense, but no way I'd give up next year's first.

I think the Patriots are going to draft Kingsley. They had him in for visits.

I'm suspicious that we heard so much about them because the Giants desperately want Drake Maye and have fed a mountain of bull**** groupthink to a draft media that is incompetent and unable to see through it.

I think we're in the Wild West phase of NIL spending, and that it will normalize and deals for QBs won't grow exponentially. First off, NIL earnings will never really be able to compete with NFL contracts because CFB just doesn't generate more money than the NFL. The NFL is the most profitable entertainment business in the world, and generates and splits revenue between 32 strong brands. I think I remember reading that CFB generated just under 6 billion in revenue two years ago, compared to the 18 billion for the NFL. And CFB's revenues aren't going to explode if the sport travels further down the path of uncompetitiveness. Six name brand programs can't out-earn the NFL. I think boosters are also going to stop being so liberal with NIL money once they see how little return they're getting for their investment. If I'm a Texas booster, I'm not going to keep paying Arch Manning 5 million a year to sit the bench, and no NC to show for all of the money spent. Lastly, I think CFB is going to eventually come up with a roster spending cap and revenue sharing system that will have the ultimate effect of limiting QB NIL deals. Nobody wants to see the sport become a contest between UT, A&M, Ohio State, and Michigan outspending each other to determine championships.

Reworked a few position rankings to better match up with my gut takes. WR and S specifically. Then I came up with this tier ranking for the QBs: Tier 1: 1 - Williams 2 - Maye Tier 2: 3 - Daniels Tier 3: 4 - Penix Jr 5 - McCarthy Tier 4: 6 - Nix Tier 5: 7 - Rattler Tier 6: 8 - Pratt 9 - Milton Those tiers are based on how speculative I think the QB prospect is, and I made breaks in my Big Board where cliffs in prospect quality happen, and the speculative QB tiers become appropriate to draft. This is my final, no-hindsight top 100 Big Board: 1 - Caleb Williams 2 - Drake Maye 3 - Brock Bowers 4 - Malik Nabers 5 - Marvin Harrison Jr 6 - Jared Verse 7 - Rome Odunze 8 - Taliese Fuaga --- (Tier 2) --- 9 - Jayden Daniels 10 - Dallas Turner 11 - Laiatu Latu 12 - Quinyon Mitchell 13 - Nate Wiggins 14 - Brian Thomas Jr 15 - Olu Fashanu 16 - JC Latham 17 - Cooper DeJean 18 - Blake Corum 19 - Cooper Beebe 20 - Kingsley Suamataia 21 - Byron Murphy 22 - Joe Alt 23 - Darius Robinson 24 - Amarius Mims 25 - Johnny Newton 26 - Terrion Arnold --- (Tier 3) --- 27 - Michael Penix Jr 28 - JJ McCarthy 29 - Xavier Legette 30 - Graham Barton 31 - Ladd McConkey 32 - Kool-Aid McKinstry 33 - Troy Fautanu 34 - Jackson Powers-Johnson 35 - Chop Robinson 36 - Jordan Morgan 36 - Payton Wilson 37 - Tyler Nubin 38 - T'Vondre Sweat 39 - Kamari Lassiter 40 - Edgerrin Cooper 41 - Kris Jenkins 42 - Troy Franklin 43 - Bralen Trice 44 - Sedrick Van Pran 45 - Austin Booker 46 - Jonathan Brooks 47 - TJ Tampa 48 - Braden Fiske 49 - Kiran Amegadjie 50 - Jonah Elliss 51 - Zak Zinter 52 - Christian Haynes 53 - Keon COleman 54 - Audric Estime 55 - Trey Benson --- (Tier 4) --- 56 - Bo Nix 57 - Ricky Pearsall 58 - Ben Sinnott 59 - Mike Sainristil 60 - Cole Bishop 61 - Max Melton 62 - Junior Colson 63 - Patrick Paul 64 - Jeremiah Trotter Jr 65 - Blake Fisher 66 - Mason McCormick 67 - Jamari Thrash 68 - Roman Wilson 69 - Cedric Gray 70 - Malachi Corley 71 - Chris Braswell 72 - Renardo Green 73 - JaTavion Sanders 74 - Tyler Guyton 75 - Dadrion Taylor-Demerson 76 - Caedan Wallace 77 - Roger Rosengarten 78 - JaLynn Polk 79 - Jarrian Jones 80 - Sione Vaki 81 - Ennis Rakestraw Jr 82 - Tykee Smith 83 - Marshawn Kneeland 84 - Michael Hall Jr 85 - Beaux Limmer 86 - Cade Stover 87 - Zach Frazier 88 - Jacob Cowing 89 - Malik Washington 90 - Isaiah Adams 91 - Johnny Wilson 92 - Kam Kinchens 93 - Tez Walker 94 - Khyree Jackson 95 - Elijah Jones 96 - Brandon Dorlus 97 - Xavier Worthy 98 - Jalen McMillan 99 - Javon Bullard 100 - Kendall Milton

I'll chime in too and say Suamataia for me. He's the highest one on my board of the three.

That was more of a list where i noticed I was a lot higher on X player than the mock draft consensus, more so than guys I would definitely bang the table for. Most of them are the ones I either drafted in the Mock Draft, or would have if they'd been there. That's the only dibs I call on players. If I were to simplify my list to just a few of my absolute favorite players in the class, the ones I literally hope the Commanders draft, no question that this would be it for me: - Drake Maye - Blake Corum - Jared Verse (I'd trade both seconds if he fell into range) - Cooper Beebe - Jamari Thrash - Kingsley Suamataia - Sione Vaki Taking Tykee Smith over Vaki in the mock draft is one of my early regrets. I didn't realize how good he was until after the picks were in. Georgia players are much higher on my radar because I live in Georgia and football season is nothing but UGA here.

My bang the table list: QB - Drake Maye RB - Blake Corum, Audric Estime, Kendall Milton, Tyrone Tracy WR - Jamari Thrash, Jacob Cowing TE - Brock Bowers OT - Taliese Fuaga, Kingsley Suamataia, Caedan Wallace, Ethan Driskell IOL - Cooper Beebe, Sedrick Van Pran, Zak Zinter, Mason McCormick Edge - Jared Verse, Bralen Trice, Laiatu Latu IDL - T'Vondre Sweat, Brandon Dorlus LB - none CB - Jarrian Jones, Chau Smith-Wade S - Sione Vaki, Tykee Smith These are players that I am meaningfully higher on than the consensus. The variance gets finer and more meaningful earlier in the draft. For instance everyone likes Maye, Bowers, Verse, Fuaga, and Latu in the first round, but very few are putting them as high as they deserve IMO. I've got Maye #2 in the class, Bowers #3, Verse #6, Fuaga #8, and Latu #10.

I placed him high because he showed out at the SB. It's a pure upside projection because his film is garbage, even as a sixth year senior. The edge class gets really speculative after that Elliss/Trice/Booker tier in the third round, and even Booker is a pretty speculative prospect. The SB weighed pretty heavily for me this year. It's the reason I placed Kneeland so high on my board, because I thought his film sucked too, which was surprising and disappointing because his PFF score was so good. It's also the reason I left Adisa Isaac off. His film was meh, but he spent SB week getting destroyed on every rep. Couldn't match up with anybody, so that plus his Achilles injury puts him in UDFA territory for me.

I left the Murphy brothers off my list because I didn't watch them. I only watched Latu and they didn't go the to SB, so I never developed a take on them. There were a couple of guys who would probably have made the list if I'd had time to watch them. Gabe Hall, Ainias Smith, Edefuan Ulofoshio, etc. I leave off players who I don't form takes on, because I'd rather not shoot in the dark. I usually only focus on top 100 players because I find it difficult to go deeper than that, but this year I went 20 deep on the positions I spent the most time on.

Let someone reach for him. I've been going back through the the tackles, rewatched the SB practices, and he just isn't as good as Fuaga, Morgan, and Suamataia. Fuaga absolutely shut it down, he's a top ten pick and the OT1. Even Guyton had better reps, although he still had some turd reps that were in character. That guy either dominates his rep or gets utterly destroyed in the first two steps. Paul looked like a JAG and spent a bunch of the week holding. He's traitsy and his in game film is better than his practice week, but he's absolutely not a first round caliber player. He's in that late second, early third round mix with Blake Fisher and Roger Rosengarten and Caedan Wallace. I think he'll be there at 40 but I don't think he'll be anywhere close to BPA. Not even sure he would be at 67.

I've got him sixth overall on my board. I think he and Turner are the two elite defensive players of the class. I'm almost there on Quinyon and Latu, but not quite.

Here are my defensive position rankings. I keep moving people around, so I'm just going to post them and be done with it: Edge: 1 - Jared Verse 2 - Dallas Turner 3 - Laiatu Latu 4 - Darius Robinson 5 - Chop Robinson 6 - Bralen Trice 7 - Austin Booker 8 - Jonah Elliss 9 - Chris Braswell 10 - Marshawn Kneeland 11 - Myles Cole 12 - Nelson Caesar 13 - Javon Solomon 14 - Jalen Green 15 - Mohamed Kamara 16 - Eric Watts 17 - Brennan Jackson 18 - Jalyx Hunt 19 - Xavier Thomas 20 - Braiden McGreggor IDL: 1 - Byron Murphy 2 - Johnny Newton 3 - T'Vondre Sweat 4 - Kris Jenkins 5 - Braden Fiske 6 - Michael Hall 7 - Brandon Dorlus 8 - DeWayne Carter 9 - McKinley Jackson 10 - Marcus Harris 11 - Ruke Orhorhoro 12 - Jordan Jefferson 13 - Justin Eboigbe LB: 1 - Payton Wilson 2 - Edgerrin Cooper 3 - Junior Colson 4 - Jeremiah Trotter Jr 5 - Cedric Gray 6 - Marist Liufu 7 - Nathaniel Watson 8 - Tommy Eichenberg 9 - Trevin Wallace 10 - Kalen Deloach CB: 1 - Quinyon Mitchell 2 - Nate Wiggins 3 - Cooper Dejean 4 - Terrion Arnold 5 - Kool-Aid McKinstry 6 - Kamari Lassiter 7 - TJ Tampa 8 - Mike Sainristil 9 - Max Melton 10 - Renardo Green 11 - Jarrian Jones 12 - Ennis Rakestraw 13 - Khyree Jackson 14 - Elijah Jones 15 - Caelen Carson 16 - Cam Hart 17 - Kris Abrams-Draine 18 - Andrew Phillips 19 - Chau Smith-Wade 20 - Nehemiah Pritchett S: 1 - Tyler Nubin 2 - Cole Bishop 3 - Dadrion Taylor-Demerson 4 - Tykee Smith 5 - Kam Kinchens 6 - Sione Vaki 7 - Javon Bullard 8 - Kitan Oladapo 9 - Jaylinn Simpson 10 - Jaden Hicks 11 - Calen Bullock

Here's the last of my offensive position rankings. QB and TE. QB: 1 - Caleb Wilson 2 - Drake Maye 3 - Jayden Daniels 4 - Michael Penix 5 - JJ McCarthy 6 - Bo Nix 7 - Spencer Rattler 8 - Michael Pratt 9 - Joe Milton TE: 1 - Brock Bowers 2 - Ben Sinnott 3 - Ja'Tavion Sanders 4 - Cade Stover 5 - Jared Wiley 6 - Jaheim Bell 7 - Erick All 8 - Tip Reiman 9 - Dallin Holker

I'd trust my medical team to help make the call on his recovery, but it's definitely possible that he makes it back perfectly fine from his injury. He's said there is a chance he'll be ready for rookie minicamps. I'd expect him to be available by TC.

You're going to outlive us all my friend. You'll be arguing about whether or not the fourth generation cyborg Manning is elite.

Yeah I think he'll be there at 67. His injury kept him from building up his stock during draft season. I think Beebe might still be there at 67 too, but my best guess is he goes in the 50s. If we miss out on the Kingsley/Morgan/Barton shelf of OTs at 36, there will still be lots of BPA opportunities at IOL on day 2. I like a draft where we trade down from 36 or 40 to get into the 50s, draft Beebe, then use a third on Zinter. IMO that puts our best OL configuration at Wylie, Beebe, Biadasz, Zinter, Cosmi going from left to right. And I think that line could be dominant. Really good group to run the ball with and help our young QB out, much like Dallas did in the early days with Dak. Corum is going to get picked in the third round IMO. I think all of the RBs this year are getting discounted by at least a round compared to where they would normally go. Corum's age and tiny size put his absolute draft ceiling in the second round, and he's much more likely to go in the third. A Beebe/Corum/Zinter string of picks would make me happy, and still leave a pick to get someone like Bralen Trice in the third following the trade down for Beebe.

Rosengarten at IOL6 ahead of McCormick. Barton would be IOL2 behind Beebe for me. Morgan would be IOL3 behind JPJ. I think Morgan stays at OT though. I also would be surprised if a team kicks Rosengarten inside given his speed. Usually you want your fast guys who may not be as powerful on the outside. Ultimately, these guys will have to play where the starting jobs for their next teams are, so you can't really tell where they will end up. I would just expect there to be more OT job openings.

I'm revising my IOL rankings. Went back and re-watched some cut ups and ended up moving a couple of players around. Moved Frazier and Zinter and Beebe and Van Pran up. I liked Frazier's film a lot more this time, and I'm seeing more of the optimistic takes about him better now. Moved Zinter way up too. One of the byproducts of watching Corum so much is that Zinter really shines. He's a dominant run blocker and he's got a fantastic anchor. I think he, Beebe, Van Pran, and JPJ constitute the four elite IOLs of the class, and all have second round value. IOL: 1 - Cooper Beebe 2 - Jackson Powers Johnson 3 - Sedrick Van Pran 4 - Zak Zinter 5 - Christian Haynes 6 - Mason McCormick 7 - Beaux Limmer 8 - Zach Frazier 9 - Christian Mahogany 10 - Kingsley Eguakun

Nobody with options is excited to play here. That's the hard truth about this franchise. A current player doesn't care if we might finally be a nice place to play, with top notch facilities and a fully resuscitated brand in 5-10 years. Teammates come and go every year, and we don't have any name brand studs on the entire roster anyway. It's going to take a lot of time and improvement before this place becomes somewhere players want to play.

Yeah. There's no advantage for us in leaking our picks either. Last year the Texans were cagey about picking Stroud up until they were on the clock because they didn't want Carolina to know they liked Stroud over Young. If we come right out and advertise we love Daniels or Maye, then maybe Chicago starts taking a second look at them. And that's not something we want. There is only downside in revealing your picks before you are on the lock.

What?? Don't you need one of those to bend your knee?

I think Corum is one of the exceptional players that catches both the analytics and traditional eye test scouting people napping. His age is a long term issue, but it also means that he's probably going to be good immediately. And not just by rookie standards, but potential top five back standards if he ends up on a team like San Diego or Dallas where there is a major workload waiting for him. I remember seeing a stat earlier in this thread about how bad his yards after contact/forced missed tackles ratings were compared to other backs in the class, and thinking to myself "something doesn't feel right about that." What was going on finally clicked for me when I watched his magnificent 15 minute long career highlight video: His running is so phenomenally good that defenders aren't even getting into position to attempt a real tackle on him. Whether they are unblocked in the hole or at the edge. He's one of the most unique outside zone runners I've ever seen at the college level, and certainly one of the best at following downfield blocks. I have never seen someone so comfortable and efficient at cutting back or even reversing field on outside zone runs before. That's just not done in D1 football and up, and it's so next level to me. And when it comes to backfield creation, he presses the hole so well, that plays where normal good runners have to do something creative to make the first guy miss don't even typically come up for him. And yet he never runs up the back of his blocks. It's ridiculously good pace and timing--God given instincts and quickness. He is so good, that I'm struggling to explain to myself why I'm resisting putting him in my top 20. Guys who make high level football look easy, like they're playing Pop Warner at the Power 5 level are special. Sometimes you just need to turn your brain off and enjoy a special player, and that's what I think needs to be done with Corum. He had a team visit with New England. I think there is a good chance he goes at 34. Yes, there is a big chance that New England comes away with Drake Maye and Kingsley Suamataia.