The kid and I have been debating between the top 3 OT's in this class for a while. I rated them exactly the way they fell, but I don't see how you could go wrong with any of them.
Yep, I took Neal because Carolina is likely to be run-heavy or at least balanced if McAdoo wants to protect Sam Darnold. That makes Neal the top choice.
System fit is another factor. If I had the #6 with a different team, I very easily could have gone with Ickey.
Honestly the issue with Mac was that he never should have been hired. He wasn't ready to be a HC. I am not sure he was even ready to be an OC at the time he was hired for that job. It worked with him as an OC because Coughlin stood next to him and said "don't run that throw the ball deep!" Once the handcuffs were taken off his offense was functionally a shell, with no adaptation. Throw the ball to OBJ and hope he can break off a big play. When OBJ got hurt in 2017 the offense didn't work without him. They force fed Engram because they just kind of tried to make it work through him instead. Mac did rework Eli's footwork in a single offseason and I do think that by the time Mac became HC the Giants needed to be moving on not trying to figure out how to make one more run with him. But Mac was a bad head coach because he didn't know how to run a football team. Or how to discipline players or how to react when things got hard. But unless his offense has gotten quite a bit different -- Darnold still feels like a bad fit for what Mac generally does. He seemed like a weird hire when they made it, and I am guessing he got hired largely because he was the best candidate that was willing to take the job...
I have all three tackles rated very closely just as I did back when the choices were Thomas, Becton and Wills. I would have been very happy with any of them and seriously considered Cross as well.
Well this broke well for the Jets. The New York Jets select: Kyle Hamilton / S / Notre Dame @Tim WSH otc Backfield rebuilt. This team finished bottom 3-4 last year in coverage grades. Gardner/Hamilton should be a small upgrade
Carolina hiring Mac hit me as odd at the time too. Looking into them more to get a feel for the #6 pick, I got the clear impression that he was hired mainly to work with Darnold and fix issues with his footwork and his throwing motion. One cool article I saw noted that Mac rated Darnold as the 3rd best QB in the 2018 class - but that he didn't like the way Darnold threw and would have had a hard time taking him in the first round. (And he made that comment at the end of 2018 or in early 2019, in the offseason.) He believed then that Darnold had some issues with fundamentals but that those problems could be fixed. So I'm rolling with the theory that turning Darnold around is the main reason why they hired him. But... he still looks like Goober and Gomer's other cousin that the family never talks about.
A guy I am still on the fence about how high he should go. I don't think he's as good as the hype he's gotten. Tape is not amazing, just plain really good. Combine hurt him but not all of the negatives from the combine necessarily convert to in-game concerns. Still a solid player that should be worthy of a pick in the top half of the 1st round but there is a decent chance he could be drafted into a spot where he can't meet the hype.
The Vikings really needed to go defense with a CB, but the opportunity to grab WR, Wilson was too much to pass up at #12... especially with O'Connell and a new scheme offensively as well as on defense. Thielen is going to be 34, iirc and the WR3 is Osbourne, so maybe a baller at WR of Wilson's caliber is a perfect fit like Jefferson turned out to be. Anyway the opportunity was there so the Vikings jumped on it.
TRADE ALERT: Green Bay Packers receive: 2022 #13 overall Houston Texans receive: 2022 #22 overall, #59 overall and 2023 4th round draft pick.
