HappyDays

With the 28th selection, the Bengals select Emmanuel Forbes, CB, Mississippi State. Make that two years in a row we've drafted a DB in the 1st round as we work to rebuild our secondary from the ground up. We like the upside of second year player Cam Taylor-Britt, but Chidobie Awuzie is recovering from a torn ACL and is on the last year of his contract anyways. We will regularly have to face off against Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes in the playoffs so we can never have too many CBs. Forbes has prototypical length and great football intelligence. He holds the title for most pick-sixes in FBS history, which is a testament to his ball skills and instincts. We feel that he can step in right away and help the team this year and beyond. The Saints @Virgil are on the clock.

Believe me or don't - I have a source that knows this coach personally. This is word for word what my source told me Lee told them: "He said he has a friend who knows someone who works for the Bills. He’s been fed info that has hit before. And he said he was told DHop will be a Bill tomorrow. Unless a team poaches him." My takeaway - take this with a huge grain of salt. We're about four degrees of separation away from the original source. Also that last line is leaving quite a bit of room to be wrong.

Allen also likes guys that get vertical separation so he can throw bombs downfield.

Awesome. We get a WR with elite traits instead of a RT only with slow feet. What boggles my mind is how anybody could hate that outcome.

This guy may just be a master troll, but for those who follow his words here you go.

Then take the 2nd round talent at a game changing position. There are several edge rushers still on the board. Jalin Hyatt is available even though he isn't listed as an option. The drop off from one of those edge rushers or WRs to the same position group at pick 59 is going to be a lot more than the drop off from Schmitz to one of the centers available at pick 59. Humphrey was a bottom 2nd round pick. Are you saying we should have taken him in the 1st over Rousseau? No way I would make that trade even today. Linderbaum is a solid player, on a team that is massively deficient at skill positions and has needs all along the DL. There's also the unwritten assumption that Schmitz will become a good player. That isn't necessarily true. Again I'm fine with the player if he's drafted at the appropriate range of his value. As it is I'm not a fan of 24 year old rookies, and for some reason there's a bunch of them in the draft this year. A 24 year old at a less valuable position is a really poor use of a 1st round pick IMO.

To me this would be a very uninspiring 1st round pick. A 24 year old rookie who has only ever played center. I would rather let Bates take over at center in 2024 than reach for one in the 1st round. Schmitz is a player I would be fine with at pick 59.

I don't know, Beane seems to value arm length. I know they drafted Shakir last year but that was a day three pick. Not sure he'd spend a 1st round pick on a player with such a severe physical limitation.

Sure, but I think people have a tendency to way overthink this stuff. It happened with DK Metcalf too. "We don't know if he can run every route." Well, turns out he's pretty damn good at the ones he does run. Hyatt can run lightning fast, he tracks the deep ball very well, he has good hands, he's competitive on the field, he has proven production against top college defenses. Sounds like a no brainer to me. But again, "we don't know if he can run every route." Take the obvious pro traits and figure out the rest.

"Run stops" is a PFF metric. It isn't just the number of tackles you make on a run play. This is their definition: "PFF describes a ‘stop' as an offensive gain on first down that is kept to less than 40 percent of the line to gain, less than 50 percent of the line to gain on second down and any third- or fourth-down play kept without a first down or touchdown." By their metrics Rousseau led all edge rushers in total run stops and run stop percentage in his rookie season.

That top speed statistic is intriguing. I was disappointed by his 4.40 40 time. But maybe he is just a little slow to accelerate. I've come back around to loving the idea of Hyatt at pick 27. He needs to eventually develop a lot more route concepts to prove worthy of that high selection but even as a rookie I think his current skill set fits really well into this offense.

Your post proves the opposite of the point you're trying to make. Other than DK Metcalf (and Diontae Johnson, who doesn't belong on this list), all of these players were drafted well before pick #59. And Metcalf didn't fall because of talent, he fell because of a medical red flag. There's usually a big run on WRs from pick 33 to 50. It's the kind of premium position where by the time you get to round 3 you're already looking at round 4 grades on your board. So the reality is that in the area the Bills are picking in the 2nd round, it's usually a dead zone for WR talent. And as long as Allen is in his prime it's hard to imagine us picking much higher than #59. So if we ever want a true game changing player at the position on a rookie deal we will either have to draft one in the 1st round or get lucky with a random day three prospect. Your example Christian Watson is actually a good example of what I'm saying - he was a 2nd round WR that the Bills would have had to take in the 1st round to have a chance at him.

Is that a fact? Diggs is in a league of his own. Corey Davis and Gabe Davis are the same caliber of player. Allen Lazard is fine. Mecole Hardman, fine. Meh. They're maybe equally talented WR corps with opposite problems - the Bills don't have enough good talent behind Diggs, the Jets have a lot of good talent but nothing top tier (unless Garrett Wilson steps into that stratosphere this season, which is possible). The Jets defense is for real. But people are way overrating the talent they have on offense. Still question marks on the OL, they don't have a true difference maker in their skill positions, Breece Hall may not be the same player until 2024. It isn't a totally solid group. Just a lot of potential with a wild card at QB.

I have to ask anyone who places Burrow over Allen, have you watched his last two playoff losses? He didn't play very well against the Rams. Against the Chiefs he threw up two stupid balls to no one that got intercepted. Both of those games were there to be had if Burrow played better. I find it weird that no one ever talks about this and he just gets a pass.

Oh jeez I just looked at the full mock, he has Luke Musgrave going 28th overall?? I don't know if that's so crazy that it must be possible, or if it's just crazy. I guess after Payton Turner and Cole Strange anything is possible.

I just can't excited about a slot only WR in the 1st round. It's an easy role to fill. The Chiefs got JuJu Smith-Schuster for basically $4 million. We got Beasley for $7.5 million AAV in his prime, and he was easily the best slot only WR in the league at his best. I wouldn't take Beasley even in his prime for a 1st round pick. He played a valuable role but not THAT valuable. That's the ceiling of what Downs could give us. No way I'm happy with that pick.

I'm totally on the fence about how this move makes me feel. I could see it making the Jets a really scary Super Bowl caliber team. I could also see it crashing and burning and leading to a total house cleaning at the end of the season. And anything in between.

This is quite the steal. Personally I believe Houston will take Tyree Wilson at #2. DeMeco Ryans wants his Nick Bosa for his new team. Wilson is as close as you can get to that kind of prospect, just not as refined as Bosa coming out.

No way this is true... right? If you assume Robinson and Gibbs are both 1st round picks, this would mean only one WR drafted in the 1st.

So I do see pass rushing DT specifically as a premium position, although I understand traditionally it isn't seen that way. I just think in this day and age the best way to disrupt a QB is pressure up the middle.

DL could certainly be the pick at 27. Not because it's a glaring need though. Because DL is ALWAYS a need for every team all the time, and it's a premium position that has a huge impact on each game, and this draft in particular appears to have a lot of DL that fits into the late 1st/early 2nd grade bucket. It isn't likely that any one offensive player is going to be sticking out on the board at 27. It might be a scenario where we either draft DL, or reach down a full round grade just to pick offense for purported need. No question in my mind I'll take the highest graded player at a premium position every time in that scenario.