What?!?! A Draft edition??? But FMQB doesn’t watch college football! This years draft was historic, and crazy, so I felt I needed to address some of it. This is a Triple-Purpose episode, to also look back at my 2017 predictions and the crazy Free Agency that happened in March. Plus, to catch up on a few memes since we last spoke 3 months ago.
Bumbling Browns:
I am shocked, SHOCKED at the Baker Mayfield pick, for several reasons. First, it came out of nowhere with Darnold supposed to be #1 the weeks going into it. Second, Baker Mayfield is Johnny Manziel 2.0, and that experiment ended horribly. Third, Josh Allen has a better arm and Josh Rosen is the most NFL ready QB. Mayfield easily could have been the 4th QB taken this year. Fourth, Mayfield has off the field issues and is short. People are comparing him to Brett Favre though, only time will tell. I will say this, 4 years ago he didn’t have a college scholarship and now he’s #1 overall. He must either have talent or know how to work his butt off to make that much of an improvement.
In addition to that one pick, why the heck to you take Denzel Ward at #4? He wasn’t on anybody’s top 10 list even. So why not take Saquon Barkley #1, the Giants wouldn’t take a QB, which means you have a top 2 QB at #4 (and very likely Mayfield anyway). They should have traded down in that spot for a QB hungry team and gotten way more.
More Surprises:
- Why did the Cardinals sign Sam Bradford to a $20M deal if they were going to trade up to get Josh Rosen? Seems like a waste.
- Holy crap are the Raiders stacked at WR now! Carr will have his choice between Jordy Nelson, Amari Cooper, and Martavis Bryant on every play.
- What happened to the Patriots interest in Lamar Jackson? They passed him over at 23 and 31.
- For that matter, why did the Ravens sign RGIII and then go up and get Jackson?
- The Broncos will be scary on defense this year, Von Miller and Bradley Chubb could be a wicked duo
Uneven Trades:
It was weird to see how uneven the trades were this year. I know GM’s have a scorecard (i.e a 15 is worth so many points, and a 7th rounder is worth way less, so you can pair them together to get even trades). But to move up 5 spots the Bills gave up two 2nd round picks to the Bucs, but 6 spots later, they gave up only a 3rd to move up 6 spots. And then the Packers seemed to make a killing by going back 13 spots but picking up another 1st round pick. Just didn’t seem like there was any consistency with them.
Thank you ESPN for not leaking who #1 was. For years they had their cameras aimed in the green room, and whenever a player would get a call, they’d announce them as the pick even though we wouldn’t know for sure for another 3 minutes. Pulling away and letting Goodell announce it truly makes it must see TV.
Draft Predictions:
Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen will be the “busts” of this draft class. Baker Mayfield will be crushed by the organization around him, and Josh Rosen will be Jay Cutler 2.0; bad attitude and no leadership. Josh Allen will see moderate success, taking the Bills to the playoffs a couple times but never winning (think Matthew Stafford type success). The Jets won the QB battle and he’ll have them relevant in 2 years. Saquon Barkley and Ezekiel Elliot will fight for 1st and 2nd in yards for the next 5 years. Lamar Jackson will go down as the 2nd best QB of this class. Still, I bet this draft class is talked about in a 30 for 30 twenty five years down the road, just like the 1983, 1998 and 2004 ones are today.
Roger Goodell:
It’s almost becoming a laughing stock to see Roger Goodell get booed. He tried to prevent it this year by having Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Jason Witten come out with him and toss footballs to fans. As soon as he addressed the booing by saying “C’mon, you’re going to boo these 3 Cowboy legends?” the booing got louder! Maybe I was naïve as a kid, but I would get excited to see Paul Tagliabue come out.
Stat of the Week:
For the first time in the Draft era, 4 QB’s were taken in the top 10.
Stat of the Week #2:
Baker Mayfield is the first college QB to walk on to a team his freshman year, and be selected with the #1 overall draft pick.
Highest Paid NFL Players:
- Kirk Cousins, 0 playoff wins, has never won more than 9 games in a season
- Jimmy Garrapolo, has started 7 games in his entire career
- Matthew Stafford, 0 playoff wins
- Derek Carr- 0 playoff wins
#’s 5, 7, 8 and 9 each have one Super Bowl win. 10 and 11 have two rings, and Brady is #15 despite winning 5 and making 8 of the last 17 Super Bowls.
- With is new contract, Jimmy Garrapolo will earn more in 5 years ($137.5M) than Tom Brady earned in his first 14 ($135.4M)
*Full disclosure, I wrote this before Matt Ryan’s monster deal. Still, he’s 4-6 in the playoffs
Quotes of the Week:
“Bacon Mayfield and Lama Jackson” Adam Schefter
Exciting Free Agent Moves so far:
It was a busy and exciting free agency back in March, it definitely felt like more big names were being moved than previous years. The Patriots core seems to have fallen apart
- Sam Bradford to the Cardinals
- Case Keenum to the Broncos
- Alex Smith traded to the Redskins
- Jarvis Landry to the Browns
- Jimmy Graham to the Packers
- Brandin Cooks, Ndamukong Suh, Aquib Talib, and Marcus Peters to the Rams
- Frank Gore, Danny Amendola, and Robert Quinn to the Dolphins
- Kirk Cousins to the Vikings
- Jordy Nelson, Doug Martin, and Martavis Bryant to the Raiders
- Richard Sherman and Jerick McKinnon to the 49ers
- Malcolm Butler to the Titans
- Adrian Peterson and Dez Bryant are notably unemployed
A look back at 2017 predictions:
- Rookie of the Year: Predicted Christian McCaffrey and Reuben Foster. Both got votes, but it was Alvin Kamara and Marshon Lattimore
- Blake Bortles last year as a starting QB (whoops, took his team to the AFC Championship game and signed a new contract).
- Cutler leads Dolphins to the playoffs (give me crap about this one, it’s ok)
- Jets get the #1 pick (not that 5-11 is good, but it’s better than most people thought)
- Alex Smith starts all 16 games (nailed it, and he still got ran out of town)
- Osweiler is starting for the Broncos by Week 9 (point of this one being that Trevor Siemien was NOT the guy. It was week 13 for the record)
- DeShone Kizer surprises the league and the Browns, better stats than Deshaun Watson (yeah, oops)
- Jared Goff shows some promise, more TD’s than INT’s (definitely got this one right, in fact underestimated his year 1 to year 2 progression by a lot!)
- Carson Palmer’s final year, same with Fitzgerald (1 right, the other was dang close
- Ty Montgomery a Top 10 RB in the league, breaks 1000 yards (273 yards, but in my defense he missed over half the season).
- MVP- Aaron Rodgers (once again, injuries defeated me)
- Records: A little rough last year, I had 2 that were spot on and 6 that were only one win/loss off. I also had the Eagles and Saints getting last place in their divisions…
- Playoffs: 4 of 6 in the AFC, only 1 of 6 in the NFC, ouch!
- Super Bowl: I had the Pats in it!
Watching the draft, seeing big free agent moves, and writing this gets me SO excited for football season. Only 4 months away…
Meme of the Week:
Meme of the Week #2: (Read the stuff on the left too): Credit Chris Kuck
Meme of the Week #3:
FMQB 