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What is the point of all of this?
The news cycle during the month leading up to the draft has become ridiculous.
All these people writing stories centered around so-and-so’s mock draft. Why would somebody guessing on who each team might pick be a story?
Look, it’s fun to read mock drafts, but why write stories about them? These people don’t know what these teams are going to do, and do you really think they are telling anybody who they are going to pick? Give me a break.
“Nobody is telling the truth,” said former NFL GM Mike Lombardi on his GM Shuffle Podcast. “They are leaking false information out of their draft rooms.”
And also don’t read too much into player visits to team complexes before the draft. Totally overrated. Do you think teams would make it that obvious? “Hey everybody, this guy is visiting our complex, so that means we are going to pick him!” Of course it’s possible that one of the players who visits will be picked by a team they visited, but nobody is making it that obvious.
So all these people telling us who the Jets are interested in, they are talking out of their butts.
I will throw names out there like Sauce Gardner and Kayvon Thibodeaux, but nobody from the Jets is telling me that.
When you will hear the Jets like a player, I can assure you that isn’t coming from the Jets, but from the agent, or a reporter just claiming they “like” a player, and sometimes that is based on the assumption they like the player because he’s a great prospect – it’s just logical guessing.
There has been an assumption that the Jets have no chance at Michigan defensive end Aiden Hutchinson at four, but who knows? It’s possible he could slip.
“Hutchinson is a guy that doesn’t really jump out to you,” Lombardi said. “If you study the Georgia tape and really study that tape, he doesn’t play to the level that he needs to play to be the first overall pick of the draft.”
So maybe Jacksonville picks Georgia DE Travon Walker at #1. Who knows?
And all these people talking about 3-5 quarterbacks going in the first round, that is insane.
You could make the argument that none of them belong in the first round.
So many media mock drafters love Liberty’s Malik Willis, and have him high in the first round. Not sure if teams view him the same way. You are going to pick a 6-0 QB, from Liberty, who didn’t play well when they stepped up in competition, in the top 10? How does that make any sense?
What is with the media and Willis? Weird.
We will find out in a couple of weeks who these teams pick.
It’s best in the run-up to the draft to have fun with mock drafts, but don’t act like they are newsworthy. It’s total guesswork and these teams aren’t telling people what they are thinking.
“Nobody is leaking information out of the draft room,” Lombardi said.
Can’t wait until the picks start coming in, so we can leave the fantasy land of the meritless speculation.
April 14, 2022
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