2025 NFL Draft • Page 5

Okay so journalists deserve to make money or whatever but having a mock draft behind a paywall is offensive IMO

 

I know you can get around it it's just a principle thing

Mocks are too stupid to cost money

 

fully agree

 

depends how big the difference in skill at each position. If he really is a shutdown corner but would only be a supporting cast WR then yeah the shutdown CB still probably makes more

 

maybe not overall, but the guys who are consistently elite year in and year out like a Patrick Surtain II should be valued THAT much more by their teams in that case.

 

idk if there’s a ton of precedent for players being elite at that position for a 5 year span past their rookie deal in the current era

as a random example, the 2020 1st and 2nd AP All-Pro teams have (age at the time in parentheses):
WR: Davante Adams (28), Stefon Diggs (27), Tyreek Hill (26), DeAndre Hopkins (28), Justin Jefferson (21), DK Metcalf (23), Calvin Ridley (26), Cole Beasley (31)
CB: Xavien Howard (26), Jaire Alexander (23), Tre’Davius White (25), James Bradberry (27), Bryce Callahan (29), Darious Williams (27)

the WRs aged a LOT better. Howard really struggled towards the end of his deal and is now a stinky FA, White got hurt, unceremoniously cut and is now one of the worst CBs in the league and benched with LAR, Badberry has his own nickname to reflect how bad he is now, etc. Jaire Alexander is the only one of those guys I’d want on my team in 2024 and he’s the clear outlier playing most of that period on his rookie contract, so you wouldn’t need to pony up. Aside from the silly Cole Beasley inclusion and the Ridley gambling saga and now disappearance in TEN, I don’t think anyone would argue with their investment through 2024 on any of those WRs, even though most were on the older end

 

to be clear, I’d still pay Surtain, because having good football players >> not having good football players and there’s very few of those in Denver right now, but I also think it’s more likely that he’s bouncing around on one year prove it deals in 2029 than it is that he’s still at the position’s elite

maybe would consider a HUGE offer for him, but that needs to be a wild, indefensible offer from a bad, reactionary front office (like Davante Adams to LV), and would have to sell HIGH

but really, the key at CB is to be the one who drafts Surtain a lot moreso than it is to be the one who signs/retains/trades for him. Keep taking home run swings for elite talent at CB early in the draft because they’re huge hits when they hit

 

Really good points for sure, changed my mind on a couple of these things. Even Jalen Ramsey stayed "good" but was honestly only elite for like 2 years in JAX and maybe 1.5 years in LAR.

One thing I would say however is there's another dynamic with the receivers - sometimes it says a lot about where you are as a franchise if you sign an old WR to a lot of money. I know I just pounded the table for the Jags to do the same thing but I would actually dispute, for example, the investment of the Raiders into Adams or the Titans into Hopkins, considering the context that they needed a WR for a rebuild but proceeded to not prioritize the QB position at all. You can't be going for a $30 million, aging WR if you got fuckin Gardner Minshew and Will Levis throwing them the fuckin ball lol, that's just bad investment follow-through no matter how good they still potentially are. Not everyone is Larry Fitzgerald and can keep a good attitude being thrown shitty, dumb passes that risk turnovers and injury all day.

 

with CBs it's the opposite, teams that sign CBs to a shit ton of money do it because they're ready to compete and they can't afford to let a lopsided one-on-one matchup dictate how they run their defense in the playoffs. It's really a shame it doesn't pan out for teams like the Eagles cause it's not like they haven't fuckin tried and weren't in a good position to be spending on top talent.

 

Lions are trying SO hard to be good at corner and they fuckin can't lol

 

Apparently Hunter was whining about Jeanty being the Heisman favorite because "imagine if I got that many touches" so he should say fuck the money and declare as a RB to prove it

 

completely agree — the LAR all-in worked so well because they acquired Ramsey and knew they had about a 2 year window of elite play to capitalize on, *did it*, and then got TF out on him as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so

 

agree on Raiders, they’re a total mess and these past few years have been a very predictable outcome. neutral on Titans

for the Titans, I’m sympathetic to the mindset that they need to put Levis in position to succeed with strong weapons to get a read on if he’s the guy. Unfortunately for them, they did that and he is, in fact, not the guy, and now they need to pivot fast this offseason if he doesn’t completely change their minds by then. I would have liked if they were more aggressive on taking their QB dart throw rather than passively taking Willis when he fell in the draft and then the next year, passively deciding that Levis was not worth their first but was somehow worth going all in on constructing a roster around anyways when he was still there on day 2. I chalk their current scenario up to that more than a cut and dry “they signed vets to surround a stinky QB”

 

to be fair, I don't think I'd say Ramsey is elite anymore, but he is still damn good.

 

last point, for the Jags, I am jealous that yall sitting in complete dysfunction right now could very well mean you are actually now in position to get your alpha WR in the draft that you’ve been pounding the table for to pair with BTJ. If Trev gets to throw to BTJ and McMillan/Hunter for the next 3 years and doesn’t take off and this little blip doesn’t open up a little window of contention for yall once you fix all the easy looking fixes like cleaning house on the coaching staff and hopefully FO if it gets as bad as it currently looks, we are officially out of excuses for him.

 

I agree - and his late 20s production is on the very upper end of outcomes for elite CBs. Like the thought process for LAR, happy for MIA that it hasn’t aged terribly for them (yet)

 

Ugh Will Johnson got hurt today. There are gonna be zero healthy CBs by the time it’s draft SZN

 

Why do people not like Jaxson Dart

 

I don't know!

 

It really doesn't make sense to me

 

anecdotally confirming this from yesterday’s game - dude was noticeably good on Sunday

 

I want to see him stay good as SEC play continues, but I like him. Sub-60% completion percentage once the schedule switches from Wake and Georgia Southern to LSU and South Carolina isn’t the most ideal thing, but I’d also be lying if I said I watched those full games and have an opinion as to why that happened

 

Nice for KC