NFL Draft Rumors

[HappyDays]

I swear we had this thread last year, to track all of the general rumors leading up to the draft.

 

Here's a few this week from Charlie Campbell who has been on point with the info he's put out before:

 

https://walterfootball.com/nflhotpress/article/2022-NFL-Draft-Week-Rumors-Monday

 

Quote

From following up with sources, it sounds like it is a 50-50 proposition between Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson or Georgia defensive end Travon Walker being the No. 1-overall pick. Some people in the Jaguars organization prefer Hutchinson, while it is widely believed around the league that general manager Trent Baalke prefers Walker. Stay tuned as the Jaguars are taking this decision down to the wire.

 

Quote

Toward the very end of team draft meetings, general managers get the final medical reports from team doctors, which can shake up some draft boards. WalterFootball.com has learned from team sources that some teams have medically flunked Alabama offensive tackle Evan Neal. The exact nature and concern of the medical issue was revealed to Walter Football, but out of respect for Neal's privacy and to maintain the teams' discretion, we won't disclose the details. These medical exams are subjective, however, so while Neal was flunked by some, sources from other teams shared their organizations had given him a passing grade.

 

Neal is a consensus top-10 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, so if by chance he slides out of the top 10, the reason for will be the medical situation.

 

Quote

Another early-round offensive tackle who was flunked medically by some teams and removed from their draft-able board is Central Michigan's Bernhard Raimann. As with Neal, we will respect Raimann's privacy and team discretion to keep quiet on the exact nature. Raimann was a projected second-day pick by teams prior to the the medical reports coming in, and these medical concerns could cause Raimann to slide.

 

Quote

A few other players who were flunked medically by some teams were Clemson wide receiver Justyn Ross and Penn State cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields. Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker has some medical red flags, but they were not significant enough to get Walker flunked medically and dropped off boards.

 

Quote

Michigan slot cornerback/safety Daxton Hill has been on the bubble of the first round throughout the draft process. Hill might slide to the second day, and a big reason for that would be poor interviews. Team sources from franchises that were excited about Hill said those conversations went so poorly they ruled Hill out. They worry about mental makeup issues and feel taking him in the early rounds is too risky.

 

Quote

Another defensive back on the bubble of the opening night of the 2022 NFL Draft is Florida's Kaiir Elam. While Elam really helped offset speed concerns with his combine 40, an issue that is weighing Elam down with teams is terrible tackling. Sources from a handful of teams all say they like Elam's coverage ability and his size, but they feel that he shows a serious and alarming lack of physicality when he tackles. They hate how soft he was as a tackler, and that has been a tough pill to swallow for teams that are in need of cornerback help. Former college teammate C.J. Henderson was viewed as soft and a poor tackler. Henderson has been a big disappointment as a pro and was a bust for the Jaguars as the ninth-overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Teams are worried Elam learned the lack of physicality from Henderson, and that could lead to problems for Elam in the NFL.

 

The note about Daxton Hill is the most intriguing to me. I thought he would be a strong candidate to be our pick at 25. But if he has concerns about his mental makeup he won't have a 1st round grade from Beane.

[gonzo1105]

None of this is surprising to me except for the Hill thing like you said. I have been reading that Walker was going to go # 1 and I believe he will. Hutchinson is a really overrated prospect in my opinion. I think that Jermaine Johnson and Thibodeaux are both better than he is and I would actually like him right there with Walker as # 4 or # 5 on the board. Obviously, Thibodeaux has his own scheme and personality concerns as well.

 

Evan Neal, I have had as my 3rd OT even before this news about his medicals. Cross is a cleaner more upside LT than he is and reminds me of last year when people thought I was crazy because I wanted Rashawn Slater over Penei Sewell. 

 

Ross almost quit football because of injuries. Elam to me is a 2nd round prospect and more of a mid 2nd rounder than high 2nd rounder. His tape is inconsistent. If you watch him Jameson Williams tape you'd think he was the best DB in the draft but he doesn't tackle, he's inconsistent in coverage and doesn't track the ball well. 

 

 

[HappyDays]

 

[Warcodered]

sounds like a medical info dump.

[gonzo1105]

3 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

sounds like a medical info dump.

Also sounds like it’s getting close to the draft and people want people to drop time too

[glazeduck]

Just now, gonzo1105 said:

Also sounds like it’s getting close to the draft and people want people to drop time too

Yep, there's absolutely reasons for these things being leaked...

[SCBills]

Pretty sweet draft..

 

No elite QB's and all the good players are injured or medically flagged. 

[Patrick Duffy]

13 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

Also sounds like it’s getting close to the draft and people want people to drop time too

Yup, they will do these types of things to get any advantage possible to increase the chances to get the guy they want

[HappyDays]

21 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

Also sounds like it’s getting close to the draft and people want people to drop time too

 

Eh I don't think NFL teams feed info to Charlie Campbell and expect that info to drop players they want. Teams are going to trust their own medical staff first. This is just info he gets from talking to scouts and front office personnel he knows around the league. We all know the Bills have an airtight operation but most teams do not.

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by HappyDays

[H2o]

I trust our medical staff, if no other. If we pick a guy, that means Beane/McDermott/Peg's are comfortable all the way around. I'd love to see Devin Lloyd fall into our lap if there are no medical issues. 

[filthymcnasty08]

Elam can't tackle....no way Beane makes him a Bill.  

[PetermansRedemption]

19 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Pretty sweet draft..

 

No elite QB's and all the good players are injured or medically flagged. 

Absolutely, horrendous draft IMO. No good QBs and no elite talent anywhere. What a year to have a top 5 pick. What a year to be Detroit. You need a QB and it would be a massive reach to draft one high in this draft. Should make for an entertaining Thursday night though. No way to predict how this one is going to fall. 

[GunnerBill]

35 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

None of this is surprising to me except for the Hill thing like you said. I have been reading that Walker was going to go # 1 and I believe he will. Hutchinson is a really overrated prospect in my opinion. I think that Jermaine Johnson and Thibodeaux are both better than he is and I would actually like him right there with Walker as # 4 or # 5 on the board. Obviously, Thibodeaux has his own scheme and personality concerns as well.

 

Evan Neal, I have had as my 3rd OT even before this news about his medicals. Cross is a cleaner more upside LT than he is and reminds me of last year when people thought I was crazy because I wanted Rashawn Slater over Penei Sewell. 

 

 

Interesting I disagree with you on the edge guys, but agree with you strongly on the tackles.

 

I don't even have a first on Walker, I think his tape is really underwhelming and from what I hear it is not a case of "teams always loved him and the draft media just took time to catch up". From what I understand teams were still seeing him as a late day 1 guy when he lit up the combine. It is a case of people re-interpreting his tape through the prism of what they saw in Indy IMO. I still need someone to convince me there is a way for him to win on the edge in the NFL. If someone wants to sell me on him being a true 1st round grade (I have a high 2 on him, though he is in my top 32) then they have more chance if they want to make a case that he should be seen as a 3 tech than they do persuading me he can be dominant edge rusher. I feel you a bit on Hutch being overrated because when I put his film on I don't see a #1 overall player. But he ends up there or thereabouts in this class by default for me because I don't really see anyone worthy of #1 overall.

 

I have Neal OT3 too. Cross is the best tackle in this class. I started with tackles this year and I have felt this way since January. It does seem as though in the last couple of weeks the buzz around Cross as a potential top 5 pick has picked up so maybe he is a case of draft media lower than teams. I actually had Slater and Sewell very close last year. I loved Sewell, but I could see the argument for Slater too. Slater was better as a rookie, but Sewell came on really strong down the stretch (admittedly playing right tackle when Decker got healthy). I still think both of those guys are going to be cornerstones. I liken my view on Cross to my view on Tristan Wirfs two years ago when I had him as my #1 tackle and others were banging the drum for Thomas and Wills. 

 

As for the draft rumours I have heard in the last week from reasonably credible people:

 

1. Kenny Pickett will be the only Quarterback taken in round 1.

2. Kyler Gordon will be the first Washington corner off the board.

3. Tyler Linderbaum will not go day 1. 

 

 

[billybrew1]

Hearing a lot of teams that have high second round picks are looking to move up into the first round to jump Tennesee and Detroit at 32….

that bodes mucho grande for Buffalo that could use that extra third round pick or package both thirds up into the second round.

Or even pick 57 &  89 up high into the second to nab someone…. We could end up with picks 34, 44 and the third we got in the trade down….We’d have a dynamite draft that way, imho….

[Logic]

https://www.si.com/nfl/2022/04/25/mmqb-nfl-draft-preview-rumors-32-teams-jaguars-shad-khan

Albert Breer's entire column today is draft rumors. He talked to a bunch of pro scouts, and his article includes draft rumors for every team, plus rumors about players specifically. 

It's worth taking the time to just read the whole thing, but here are a few snippets:

Buffalo Bills

First round: No. 25
Total picks: 8
Needs: CB, WR, LB, OT, S, RB

What you need to know: The Bills’ roster might be the NFL’s most well-rounded, and so Buffalo’s going to be able to use most of its picks to work on needs a year or two out and build depth across the board. One spot that’s been pointed out pretty consistently as a need is corner. And I’d heard the Bills connected to Stingley at one point, with the thought of his being around fellow LSU Tiger Tre’Davious White, but I don’t think Stingley falls to a point where moving to get him would be realistic for the Bills. So someone like Washington’s Kyler Gordon might make sense here. Or they could grab a back, like Iowa State’s Breece Hall, as a luxury pick, since they don’t have many holes to fill.

• Dean’s medical has come up with a few teams. There’s nothing disqualifying in there (he’s had a shoulder labrum repair, he’s got tendonitis and tearing in his knee, plus there was a pec and groin issue before his pro day … and there’s a laundry list beyond just that), but there’s plenty to sort through. And it’s making some wonder how, as a smaller linebacker, he’ll hold up in the NFL. Here’s hoping Dean does, because he’s a blast to watch.

• Utah’s Devin Lloyd is another player with some medical questions. I don’t think his age is helping him either.

• Is Hall a back worthy of going in the first round? I had one exec I trust sum him up like this, “You could put a highlight tape together that says yes.” Another said he views him as a poor man’s Johnathan Taylor.

• I’ve asked a lot of people to compare Pickett to Patriots QB Mac Jones, because I heard the two compared a lot during the college season. Does it work? Kind of. Both are really football smart and good leaders. Pickett’s a better athlete. But where Jones separates himself is with his accuracy—I had one coach tell me Jones’s special trait is that he maintains it deep into his progressions, where most young quarterbacks can’t get past their first read. Pickett might not have that quite to the degree Jones did coming out.

• I’ve said it a few times now, and I’ll say again that I think there’s a good chance Georgia’s Lewis Cine will go before Michigan’s Daxton Hill. Why? Cine’s got a ton of upside, and is a killer as a hitter. And Hill isn’t as versatile as some have made him out to be—he was really more just a nickel corner than a movable piece in Michigan’s defense. Which has been reflected in how his meetings with teams have gone.

 

• As I’ve said, Cross is very well-regarded in NFL circles—and by some as the best player in the draft. The downside? Well, it’s the offense he comes from. I’ve had a couple people joke about having Andre Dillard PTSD in assessing another Mike Leach tackle. So I turned over some rocks on that comp. The biggest difference between the two, as it was told to me by a few guys, is that Cross has much better core and lower-body strength.

• I had an NFC coach says this to me on Stingley: “Take the 2019 tape, plus the practice tape from that year against Ja’Marr [Chase], and he’s the first pick in the draft.” Which makes, for teams, one question an important one in assessing the star corner: Just how big a mess do you think coach Ed Orgeron’s program was the last two years, and how much of a factor was that in the return on Stingley’s last two years in Baton Rouge being so minimal.

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Logic

[glazeduck]

18 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

Kenny Pickett will be the only Quarterback taken in round 1.

I could see this being true in an "on paper" sense, but I just don't see any way, given the extra contract year, some team doesn't jump up to take Willis in the late 1st as his absolute floor. He's too toolsy to not and he's the kind of guy you'd reeeeally want that 5th year flexibility with...

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, glazeduck said:

I could see this being true in an "on paper" sense, but I just don't see any way, given the extra contract year, some team doesn't jump up to take Willis in the late 1st as his absolute floor. He's too toolsy to not and he's the kind of guy you'd reeeeally want that 5th year flexibility with...

 

Oh I agree. That rumour was interesting to me because it came from someone very well connected to a team that has their Quarterback (and it is not the Bills) which leads me to think it isn't a lying season thing. Now of course it would require him to know what 31 other teams are doing to be definitive but in principle it is someone who doesn't just spitball.

[glazeduck]

8 minutes ago, Logic said:

• I had an NFC coach says this to me on Stingley: “Take the 2019 tape, plus the practice tape from that year against Ja’Marr [Chase], and he’s the first pick in the draft.” Which makes, for teams, one question an important one in assessing the star corner: Just how big a mess do you think coach Ed Orgeron’s program was the last two years, and how much of a factor was that in the return on Stingley’s last two years in Baton Rouge being so minimal.

 

These are the components that make the draft such impossible calculus to truly crack. It's not enough to rank players incorporating myriad athletic testing benchmarks (each with varying degrees of correlation/causation to success by position); body size/shape/growth potential/health/etc.;  personality/psychology/motivation/background/entourage/cultural fit/etc.; scheme fit; value; immediate production vs. long-term potential; quality of competition; quality of tape, etc. The entire context from where the player is coming from needs to also be used as a lens from which all of the rest of this is viewed...

 

In this case, without question, true freshman (!!!) Stingley is one of -- if not THE -- best prospects in this draft, but that only leads to a bunch of new questions as to why he wasn't the following 2 years. Part of me wants to use my Christian Watson logic of "if he were really that good, you'd think that talent would shine through" and offset all of the deficiencies of these last 2 years, but another part of me looks at the general success crater from a blue blood school like LSU and can embrace the fact that there was probably a lot of suck around that program...

[glazeduck]

11 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Oh I agree. That rumour was interesting to me because it came from someone very well connected to a team that has their Quarterback (and it is not the Bills) which leads me to think it isn't a lying season thing. Now of course it would require him to know what 31 other teams are doing to be definitive but in principle it is someone who doesn't just spitball.

That's interesting. 

 

Not gonna lie, given our success in developing Josh, I wouldn't hate taking Willis at 25 purely as a developmental asset  (not actually advocating for it, for the record...)

[gonzo1105]

38 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Interesting I disagree with you on the edge guys, but agree with you strongly on the tackles.

 

I don't even have a first on Walker, I think his tape is really underwhelming and from what I hear it is not a case of "teams always loved him and the draft media just took time to catch up". From what I understand teams were still seeing him as a late day 1 guy when he lit up the combine. It is a case of people re-interpreting his tape through the prism of what they saw in Indy IMO. I still need someone to convince me there is a way for him to win on the edge in the NFL. If someone wants to sell me on him being a true 1st round grade (I have a high 2 on him, though he is in my top 32) then they have more chance if they want to make a case that he should be seen as a 3 tech than they do persuading me he can be dominant edge rusher. I feel you a bit on Hutch being overrated because when I put his film on I don't see a #1 overall player. But he ends up there or thereabouts in this class by default for me because I don't really see anyone worthy of #1 overall.

 

I have Neal OT3 too. Cross is the best tackle in this class. I started with tackles this year and I have felt this way since January. It does seem as though in the last couple of weeks the buzz around Cross as a potential top 5 pick has picked up so maybe he is a case of draft media lower than teams. I actually had Slater and Sewell very close last year. I loved Sewell, but I could see the argument for Slater too. Slater was better as a rookie, but Sewell came on really strong down the stretch (admittedly playing right tackle when Decker got healthy). I still think both of those guys are going to be cornerstones. I liken my view on Cross to my view on Tristan Wirfs two years ago when I had him as my #1 tackle and others were banging the drum for Thomas and Wills. 

 

As for the draft rumours I have heard in the last week from reasonably credible people:

 

1. Kenny Pickett will be the only Quarterback taken in round 1.

2. Kyler Gordon will be the first Washington corner off the board.

3. Tyler Linderbaum will not go day 1. 

 

 

maybe I worded it poorly. I don’t think Walker is the best DE in the draft. Just was reiterating that I am of the belief he is going # 1 overall. 
 

My DE Rankings are: 

Thibodeaux

Johnson

Hutchinson

Mafe/Walker

 

I am an FSU fan, and I may be bias but Jermaine Johnson is a complete DE. His knock is his one year wonder and he’s knocked for his run ability. I didn’t see that this year. When he was ranked as the 6th or 7th best DE in this class, I thought that was crazy