NFL Mock Draft: Picks 1-10

Rick Scuteri/Associated Press

It’s the most wonderful time of the sports year. March Madness is in full swing, MLB’s Opening Day is right around the corner, in case you couldn’t tell, and NFL Draft season is finally upon us. This article will focus on the latter proposition.

In this post, we’ll take a look at picks one through ten. There has already been one trade within these ranks, and in this article, we’ll raise the possibility of another hypothetical one.

So without any further ado, here is a first look at the top ten picks of next month’s NFL Draft.

1. Cleveland Browns

Josh Allen (QB/Wyoming)

Measurables are a surefire way to get NFL teams to salivate over your talent.

Want a guy who’s 6’5″, 230 pounds and can throw the ball 80 yards on the fly? Josh Allen’s your man. Allen has all of the arm talent of the league’s best quarterbacks and easily has the biggest upside of any signal-caller in this draft. But now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the negatives.

Against two Power 5 opponents last season (Iowa and Oregon) Allen was less than impressive. He went 33-of-64 for 238 yards and three interceptions in those two games, and he only completed 56% of his passes last season. He is talented enough to make any throw on the field, but he also makes some horrendous decisions and misses some easy throws.

Now, of course, we need to acknowledge the changes the Browns have made in both their front office structure and roster in the past few weeks and months. The team has added quarterback Tyrod Taylor, wide receiver Jarvis Landry, cornerback Demetrious Randall, and wide receiver Brandon Coleman. Cleveland’s new general manager, John Dorsey, seems to have a clue as to what he’s doing, and that’s already an improvement over most previous Browns’ front offices. Fans of the team — who, at this point, probably feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football — are rightfully getting excited over a unit that still shouldn’t be good enough to compete for a playoff spot.

If the team takes Allen here, he likely would not be Cleveland’s Week One starter. That honor would belong to Taylor, a perfectly fine and competent NFL quarterback that the Buffalo Bills decided to bench for Nathan Peterman in November of last season. Taylor will protect the football and give the Browns mobility out of the pocket, and he’ll be far better than anyone Cleveland trotted out at quarterback last season. Allen doesn’t look like he’s ready to play next season, and the Browns, as crazy as this sounds, have the best personnel (head coach Hue Jackson, offensive coordinator Todd Haley, and Taylor) for him to learn from.

An NFL team will talk itself into Josh Allen early in the first round of the draft, even though he’s only the third or fourth-best quarterback available at the top spot. If Dorsey decides that Allen is the Browns’ quarterback of the future, he may very well pull a Lucy on the entire city of Cleveland.

And Browns fans might let out a collective “oh, good grief” in response.

2. New York Giants

Saquon Barkley (RB/Penn State)

Saquon Barkley is a once-in-a-generation talent.

He rushed for 1,000 yards in three straight seasons at Penn State, and that is hardly the only upside he brings to the table. He is a running back with shiftiness the likes of which we have not seen in some time, and he also has strength to boot; he weighed in at the Combine at 233 pounds and did 29 reps on the bench press. He also ran a 4.4 40-yard-dash and had two kick return touchdowns last year.

The guy has it all. He’ll run you over. He’ll jump over you. Sometimes, he’ll do both on the same play. He also has enough speed to run around you.

The Giants were the most disappointing team in the league last season. A year that started with high hopes and championship aspirations quickly turned into a 3-13 season and the #2 overall pick. While the team should start seriously thinking about replacing quarterback Eli Manning, their priority here should be to get the best player available.

And with Barkley, he’s not just the best player available. He could be the best running back we’ve seen in several years.

When I watch Barkley play, he reminds me equally of Eric Dickerson and Marshall Faulk. He’s that good. Here’s to hoping the Giants make the right choice if Barkley is available with the second pick.

3. New York Jets (from Indianapolis Colts)

Josh Rosen (QB/UCLA)

Josh Rosen is the best quarterback in this year’s draft class. He’s also not for the faint of heart.

To be clear, his off-field distractions have nothing to do with the legal sort. He hasn’t been arrested and many of his extracurricular troubles are of the inane, albeit concerning, kind. Rosen’s greatest hits at UCLA include wearing a “F— Trump” hat on one of the President’s golf courses, taking multiple shots at the NCAA, and, my personal favorite, putting a hot tub in his freshman dorm. Of course, these things are, in the grand scheme of things, not that important and, in the case of the hot tub, legitimately hilarious. However, to be the face of a franchise, you need to bring as few distractions along with you as possible.

Several teams are looking for a franchise quarterback in this draft. And gee, what team is most likely to inherit a total circus in the largest media market in the country? That’s right, it’s the New York Jets!

The J-E-T-E, Jets thought they had their quarterback with Geno Smith, just four years after thinking they had their guy in Mark Sanchez. The Jets’ history is a Sistine Chapel of awful draft picks, perhaps none more glistening than their 1997 draft, when they traded out of the first overall pick — which later became Hall of Famer Orlando Pace — then traded down the board again and out of the sixth pick, which the Seahawks used to select future Hall of Famer Walter Jones. In the span of six picks, the team fumbled their way out of two of the best offensive linemen in history and stumbled into James Farrior, who left the team after five seasons and played most of his career with the Steelers. And the mastermind behind all of that was none other than Bill Parcells!

Anyway, Rosen is the best quarterback available at three and could go a long way towards fixing the Jets’ quarterback issues. He, like Allen, can make any throw on the field and has decision-making concerns, but Rosen is far more accurate than Allen and can be plugged into the starting lineup for Week One. The Jets could also take Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield if Rosen gets taken before their pick here. More on Mayfield later.

For now, the Jets look to fix their years-long quarterback nightmare, but they’ll have to take a hot tub and some distractions with them if they do.

4. Cleveland Browns

Minkah Fitzpatrick (CB/S/Alabama)

In the eyes of many, Minkah Fitzpatrick is the best defensive player available in this year’s draft. He’s also one of the safest choices this early on.

He has a very high football IQ, which is most easily translatable in his ball skills as a safety at Alabama (he nabbed six interceptions last season) and is a very versatile defender as well. The Browns, provided they take Fitzpatrick, can plug him in as a safety, slot corner, or even an undersized linebacker in certain situations.

In my view, the Browns could use more help at corner than at safety, as the team drafted Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers last season and acquired Randall from the Packers two weeks ago to cover the other safety spot. Fitzpatrick is a rock-solid defender who would likely be able to get immediate playing time for a defense that surrendered the second-most points in the league last season.

Another option for the Browns with this pick would be an offensive lineman, likely Notre Dame’s Quenton Nelson, to shore up their offensive line after the retirement of Joe Thomas. However, Fitzpatrick is the best player available with the fourth pick, and my bet is that Dorsey, the general manager of a team that still has a lot of needs, will simply grab the most talented player available and take his chances.

5. Buffalo Bills (from Denver Broncos) NOTE: This trade is simply a proposal; it hasn’t actually happened and the Broncos are still the owners of the fifth pick as of now.

Baker Mayfield (QB/Oklahoma)

A trade involving the Broncos at five makes sense; the team signed Case Keenum, mainly based on 14 starts last season, to an $18 million deal earlier in the offseason and no longer need a quarterback, unless they want to be the Chicago Bears and pay Keenum that money to back up an unproven rookie. Therefore, we pivot to a team that does need a quarterback: the Buffalo Bills.

Enter Baker Mayfield.

The 2017 Heisman Trophy winner was penciled in as my number-three quarterback before the NFL Combine, and his impressive performance there coupled with Sam Darnold’s confusing and perplexing decision not to throw at that venue bumped him up to number two. The problem here, though, is that many are ragging on Mayfield for only being 6’1″, and while those concerns are valid, they also completely discount the existences of Drew Brees, Russell Wilson, Fran Tarkenton, and Johnny Unitas, all of whom either are or were shorter than Mayfield and still had wildly successful careers. Mayfield should not be compared to those men, but he can definitely succeed in the NFL.

Beyond his success in college, he is an accurate passer who has improved his deep ball tremendously and is also mobile enough to extend plays with his feet. He has several flaws (poor feel for the rush in the pocket, suspect footwork) but he can work through those and be successful in the NFL. And even though Mayfield brings his own baggage (most significantly, a DUI last February) he looks better and better the more you watch him on tape.

The Buffalo Bills signed A.J. McCarron earlier in the offseason but are still in the market for a quarterback. Making a splash move up to the fifth spot in the draft will get them the second-best one in this year’s rookie class.


6. Indianapolis Colts (from New York Jets)

Bradley Chubb (DE/NC State)

The Indianapolis Colts did a very smart thing by trading the third overall pick to the Jets. Chubb is the top defensive end coming out of college this year and could be a game-changer for one of the league’s worst defenses a season ago. With the team likely getting Andrew Luck back off his shoulder injury, the Colts should look to improve their defense. Because they don’t need a quarterback, Indianapolis could afford to trade down in the draft and get several later-round picks to draft more talented defensive prospects. The Jets, who do need a quarterback, were willing to surrender these picks in the name of getting one, and the Colts should look to use them on an ailing defense. Chubb, who may have been taken by Indy with the third pick, anyway, can make an immediate difference for Indianapolis.

He posted the highest vertical jump among defensive ends at the Combine (36 inches) and at 6’4″ and 270 pounds, he is someone the Colts could plug into their starting lineup immediately. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the only team that got fewer sacks than the Colts did last season and the team’s pass rush was the weakest link on a defense that ranked 30th in points allowed.  In that regard, Chubb can make an impact from day one, as he put up back-to-back seasons with ten sacks his last two years at NC State.

Bradley Chubb is a top-five player in the NFL Draft and if he is still available with the sixth pick, the Colts would be foolish to go in another direction.

7. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Denzel Ward (CB/Ohio State)

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a truly horrendous defense last season.

The team’s defense was last in the league in total yards, passing yards, and yards per play. Things went south quickly for the Buccaneers in 2017, as they finished 5-11 after a 2-1 start. The offense still has plenty of talent; while Doug Martin left to sign with the Raiders, Tampa Bay still has Jameis Winston, Mike Evans, and tight end Cameron Brate. Where they truly need help is on defense.

Denzel Ward can help the Buccaneers improve on that side of the ball. Ward led all corners at the combine in 40-yard-dash time (4.32), vertical jump (39.0 inches), and broad jump (136 inches). While he is just 5’10” and naturally gives ground to taller receivers, his athleticism and talent make up for his challenges in stature.

While Ward may not be enough to salvage the Buccaneers’ defense, he will help a secondary unit that gets the pleasure of facing Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, and Cam Newton twice a year. He’s the top cornerback coming out of college, and he’ll look to do what Marshon Lattimore did coming out of Ohio State in 2017; win Defensive Rookie of the Year and greatly improve a previously horrific defense.

8. Chicago Bears

Quenton Nelson (G/Notre Dame)

The Bears have a new head coach.

Matt Nagy comes over after serving as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator for the past two seasons. The Bears, under his leadership, may have something going for next season; the team has signed wide receivers Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel from the Jaguars and Falcons, respectively, and will hope for improvement in quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s second season. However, the team lost guard Josh Sitton to the Dolphins in free agency and should look to protect Trubisky at all costs.

The way they can do that is by taking Notre Dame’s Quenton Nelson, the best offensive lineman on the board, with the eighth overall pick.

Nelson stands at 6’5″ and 325 pounds, and his athleticism should make him ready to start as soon as the season begins. Nelson played guard on the left side of Notre Dame’s offensive line last season alongside Mike McGlinchey, and the Irish had arguably the best offensive line in the country because of that combination. The Bears have made some questionable decisions under GM Ryan Pace, but they are having an objectively good offseason. They signed Robinson, Gabriel, backup quarterback Chase Daniel, and even the guy who threw the touchdown on “Philly Special”. I bet you had to look up who that was.

But anyway, Nelson is tied for the second-highest grade on NFL.com’s draft tracker; he sits behind only Saquon Barkley in that category. Nelson is another safe bet for a team looking to contend in a talented NFC North next season.

He’s the best fit for the Bears, and they should look to scoop him up with the eighth pick.

9. San Francisco 49ers

Calvin Ridley (WR/Alabama)

The 49ers have found (and secured) their quarterback of the future.

After trading a second-round pick to the Patriots for Jimmy Garoppolo and going 5-0 with him as their starter, the team inked Jimmy G to a five-year, $137.5 million deal that, at the time, made him the highest-paid player in the NFL. After a 1-10 start, the team finished the year with six wins and will look to build around Garoppolo to compete for a playoff spot in the very near future.

Adding a wide receiver like Calvin Ridley would be a big boost to the Niners’ offense. Ridley is the only receiver in this draft class with the complete combination of speed, route-running ability, and hands. I actually like the upside of receivers such as Oklahoma State’s James Washington or SMU’s Courtland Sutton more than Ridley’s, but the Alabama product is the safest choice out of this year’s wide receiver class.

He would add to a receiving core whose best receiver, as of the moment, is Marquise Goodwin. Ridley would become a solid second receiver opposite Goodwin’s speed on the outside. The 49ers have their franchise quarterback, but they need to surround him with talent at the skill positions in order for them to have sustainable success on offense.

10. Oakland Raiders

Roquan Smith (LB/Georgia)

This one just feels right.

Roquan Smith is the best linebacker in the 2018 Draft, and a gap of about three-and-a-half-miles separates him from the number-two choice. Smith’s tape doesn’t “pop”; it explodes. He’s an athletic linebacker with a nose for the play, as he’s often involved in pass coverage or making a tackle. He won the Butkus Award as the nation’s best linebacker this past season and ranked in the top ten in the country in total tackles. Smith has it all; his one weakness is that he is undersized (6’1″, 236) but he compensates for that with elite effort and tremendous discipline.

The Raiders, who were one of the worst defenses in the league a season ago, could use a little of both.

Smith is versatile; he could help the Raiders, under new (old?) head coach Jon Gruden, in pass coverage and in the run game. He’s a slightly underrated prospect; I have him in the top five and he should be taken by a team in the top ten next month. The way things look right now, that team is the Oakland Raiders.

Smith would be a tremendous help for a team looking to jump back into contention in the AFC West. He’s also one of the best players in this year’s draft, and he would be an absolute steal for the Raiders at ten.



The NFL’s Hard Knocks Problem

David Kohl/USA Today

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are currently being featured on HBO’s annual Hard Knocks series. The show takes a look at a different team’s training camp exploits each year and has aired intermittently since 2001, when the then-defending-champion Baltimore Ravens starred on the show. The series provides access you can’t find almost anywhere else, from meetings with players and coaches to the day-to-day minutiae of being on and running an NFL team.

Hard Knocks is a good show and almost always an entertaining watch. The high point in the history of the series was undoubtedly in 2010 when the New York Jets, led by head coach Rex Ryan, were on the show. The most legendary scene in that year was this speech from Ryan in which he called out his team’s lack of leadership, said, “I’m not a great leader”, and ended his diatribe with “let’s go get ourselves a g–d—- snack”. The speech is, simply put, one of the funniest things I have ever seen. And that’s not the only hilarious/ridiculous moment the show has spawned; Hard Knocks has given us Ryan Mallett blaming his alarm clock for his lateness, Vince Wilfork’s overalls, Chad Ochocinco, and, possibly most unforgettable of all, Antonio Cromartie floundering to the finish line of barely naming all of his children (at the time). In 2010, he had eight kids and he’s had another five since then. Antonio Cromartie now has thirteen children. More importantly, Antonio Cromartie is just 33 years old.

You would figure that with all this, Hard Knocks is the occasionally serious laugh factory that keeps on giving. Unfortunately, though, that’s not all there is to the show; in fact, it sometimes shows the dark side of football training camp. This was never more evident than in this past week’s episode.

Some background: in the 2016 NFL Draft, the Bucs traded their third and fourth-round picks to the Kansas City Chiefs to jump to the 59th pick in the draft and select Florida State kicker Roberto Aguayo in the second round, making him the earliest-selected kicker in the draft since 2005. The team, clearly not following the fantasy football precept of waiting until the last round to take your kicker, likely based their decision on his college career, one in which he made nearly 90% of his field goal attempts over three seasons. That success, however, didn’t quite translate to the pros.

Last season, Aguayo ranked dead last in the league in field goal percentage as he went just 22-of-31 with no made field goals past 43 yards; he also missed two extra points. To make matters more interesting, Tampa Bay signed former Jets kicker Nick Folk in the offseason to challenge Aguayo after his disastrous 2016 campaign. Folk is a ten-year pro who has made at least 80% of his kicks in each of the last four seasons. Folk is a better kicker than Aguayo and he was clearly brought in to push Aguayo and ultimately steal his job, assuming the latter’s fortunes didn’t change in a hurry. And after Aguayo missed an extra point and a field goal attempt in the team’s first preseason game against the Bengals, the outcome became clear for all parties; Aguayo was going to be released.

And, because of the presence of HBO’s cameras, one of the worst days of his life was about to be watched by millions of Americans.

On Tuesday’s episode of Hard Knocks, Aguayo learned his fate in a heartbreaking moment between player, coach, and general manager. The team’s GM, Jason Licht, explained to Aguayo that he needed to make more of his kicks to be of service to his team. No, really.

The good news for Aguayo is that he was acquired by the Chicago Bears after Tampa Bay cut ties with him. And, to be fair, Aguayo was likely compensated for his being featured on the show; NFL Films, the production arm of Hard Knocks, has paid certain players who appear on the show dating all the way back to 2001. But still, the only people who didn’t watch Aguayo get fired either weren’t interested or didn’t have basic cable.

And even those people may have had the chance to see it because the NFL’s Twitter account proudly trumpeted the video of his release to only, let’s see, 23.9 million Twitter followers.

In fairness to the league, the NFL is not necessarily in the real world and has never pretended to be. After all, this is the same league that suspended Josh Brown for one game after he admitted to abusing his wife but banned Josh Gordon indefinitely for substance abuse violations. That’s not to defend Gordon’s actions, but it’s not like the league operates like any other company would in this type of situation.

But let’s say we were dealing with a real-world enterprise here. Let’s say that a McDonald’s employee was fired for inconsistent performance and cameras caught everything on tape. Let’s then say that in addition to a TV show airing the employee’s ouster, the McDonald’s Twitter account proudly tweets a video showing the same scene as the show. That would be pretty embarrassing for the employee, right? It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, but it’s not necessarily unlike what happened with Aguayo and many other members of the team who have been cut in the first two episodes of the show.

And yet, scenes like Aguayo’s demise make me want to watch Hard Knocks. Think about it: two men are signed to the active roster and you absolutely know that one of them is not going to make it to the end of camp with his job. The other will win the starting job but is not guaranteed success and will face continued scrutiny from the media and his team. If the Oscars were like that, I’d watch.

Here’s the problem, though: getting fired is a humiliating, degrading experience and having cameras around to capture it and display that to people around the world can’t help, either. Getting traded is a similar ordeal; one of the most memorable moments in the history of Hard Knocks came courtesy of the Miami Dolphins in 2012. Near the end of camp, the team traded cornerback Vontae Davis to the Indianapolis Colts for two draft picks. The seminal moment of the show’s seventh season was general manager Jeff Ireland telling a dazed, confused, and possibly blindsided Davis about what had just transpired. Davis has since turned in five excellent seasons with the Colts, but the scene was completely cringe-worthy and difficult to watch.

This is also a discussion that goes beyond Hard Knocks; Amazon’s original series All or Nothing is a behind-the-scenes look at an NFL team during the regular season. Season 2 of the show was filmed last season with the Los Angeles Rams and it showed Jeff Fisher’s firing on December 12 of last year. Like the Aguayo and Davis clips, watching Fisher explain to his assistants that he’s just been canned is awkward. And, like they did with Aguayo, the NFL’s Twitter account used a grown man losing his job as an opportunity to plug a TV show. Lovely.

Just so we’re on the same page here, I’m not telling you not to watch Hard Knocks or, for that matter, All or Nothing. Frankly, I watch the former because it’s good television and it gives us a look at the inner workings of a team that we would not otherwise receive. I’m not even suggesting that HBO and NFL Films shouldn’t have shown Aguayo getting released; while you know what the outcome is going to be, the tension and drama surrounding the occasion plainly cannot be replicated.

But when you watch the show next week and beyond, think of the players as human beings instead of numbers that will be quickly removed from the Buccaneers’ training camp roster.