NFL Draft: Let the craziness begin
Every year, fans and pundits alike celebrate the draft season with a bevy of mock drafts from all corners of the internet. We see mock drafts come out daily. We see them come on an hourly basis once we hit April. By the time the actual draft rolls around, it feels like we have seen every possible combination.
Then, the draft begins and a trade happens, and everything goes to complete hell. Compound that with the Browns taking a surefire bust, and we’re off and running.
This spring, we see the same song playing out with different characters. The mock drafts have once again been out in full force, breathlessly telling you which players are going to land on your favorite team. In reality, most of them are with good intent but bad accuracy, because who can really tell?
The Cleveland Browns hold the first and 12th-overall picks in the draft, and everybody believes they should take Myles Garrett. Yet there has been plenty of smoke that Cleveland might take Mitchell Trubisky, the one-year starting quarterback out of North Carolina, instead. Of course, the Browns would be the franchise that takes a guy with the ceiling of Jim Harbaugh with the top selection of a loaded draft, instead of Garrett, who many believe can be the next Von Miller.
Regardless, we’re going to have some insanity break out, and that’s half the fun. This is the first draft for San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch, who holds the second pick. What are his plans? What will his strategy entail? Then we have Ton Coughlin at least sharing the controls with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Many believe they will select Leonard Fournette out of LSU. With Coughlin having a say, would the team move on instead from Blake Bortles and go rogue with Patrick Mahomes or Deshaun Watson? It seems nuts, but that’s what we’ve seen over the years.
Let us never forget the draft of Christian Ponder, Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert.
Come Thursday night, some teams are going to get much better. Some are going to set themselves back for years, missing on a Hall of Famer to take a complete bust. Some teams will get it right, and still end up haunted by an injury or something else out of their control. This is the draft, for better or worse.
Hopefully most teams get the picks correct, and give their fans something to be hopeful about moving forward. Yet, we know many won’t, so here’s to at least being exciting over the next three days. After that, it’s a long haul until training camp.
