DCOrange

No and no. The earliest I've seen Jacobs mocked before this is in the mid 20's. Hockenson definitely has some fans but for the most part, he usually goes in like the 25-40 range. For what it's worth, I think Charlie Campbell had Taylor going #5 in his latest mock. Him being in the top 10 is an outlier opinion right now but it's not really crazy.

For what it's worth, Charlie Campbell's latest mock has 4 QBs going in the top 11. Haskins and Jones at 6 and 7 to the Giants and Jags, Lock to the Broncos at 10, and Kyler Murray to the Bengals at 11.

I watch 3-6 games of each prospect when I'm doing it and I've recently started charting throws as well rather than just eye-balling it. Of the three that I've charted so far (Lock, Jones and Haskins), Haskins came out the lowest in terms of his ball placement and timing. I think Haskins has slightly more potential than Jones, but Jones is so polished already. Jones seems to always have a plan on each play; for example, he recognizes blitzers and knows exactly where his hot read is. He gets the ball out quickly and on time basically every play. Haskins shows flashes of that, but he's just not nearly as consistent at this point in time. You also see Haskins' mechanics fall apart when pressure is coming. I think Jones is a much safer pick and I don't think his ceiling is much lower either. As for Lock, he's a work in progress in terms of making full-field reads, but the potential for him is sky high. His arm strength isn't Josh Allen levels but it's very good. His accuracy is much better than the media gives him credit for IMO; last year, his adjusted completion % was right in line with all of last year's 1st rounders with the exception of Baker (who was ungodly higher than everyone else) and Allen (who was significantly lower than everyone else) and his percentage of "big-time throws" per PFF was significantly higher than everyone else (with the exception of Baker who was very close). And I think he's shown improvement this year too. He needs more development than Haskins and Jones but I think he has a significantly higher ceiling than both of them. And like I said, I'm not sure about Kyler yet as I haven't watched any full game clips; just watched a few of his games on TV as they were happening, but just from that, you can tell he has the arm strength, probably at least on par with these guys in terms of accuracy, and he's an insane weapon as a runner. I wouldn't be shocked if Kyler ends up being my #1 QB when it's all said and done but like I said, I haven't REALLY started scouting him seriously yet. Beyond those guys, the others that I've finished scouting are Herbert and Shea Patterson (both returning to school), Clayton Thorson, and Ryan Finley. I have Thorson graded as roughly a 4th round pick and Finley on the border of a 5th or 6th.

Isaiah Stewart announcing his college decision on Sunday. As far as I've heard, Washington is the expected choice at this point, but fingers crossed we pull it off somehow!

Personally, I have both Daniel Jones and Drew Lock graded higher than Haskins. I haven't graded Kyler Murray yet, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm guessing he'll end up with a higher grade as well. Lock is my #1 guy right now and he's just a tick below Josh Allen on my grading scale (who was my #3 QB last year). Lock and Jones both have higher grades than I gave Josh Rosen last year; Haskins is closer to being a 2nd round prospect than being on par with last year's 1st rounders IMO. I think all 4 of those guys have a legitimate chance to be taken in the first round depending on how this offseason goes.

I think that would be a fine exercise too, but I think listing the top 9 is effective too because again, it's basically saying "No matter how the draft falls, we should get one of the players on this list". As far as my personal top 9 for the Bills goes (assuming no trade down), I would go with: Quinnen Williams Nick Bosa Josh Allen Ed Oliver Devin White Cody Ford Rashan Gary Greedy Williams Clelin Ferrell

The point is that you're guaranteed to have at least one of them available at your pick (if they don't trade down).

2018: Josh Rosen (had Allen going 5th where Buffalo tried to trade up for him though). Also said he thought a trade up for a QB was likely, but he just doesn't include trades in his mocks. 2017: Haasan Reddick - he thought Buffalo would add speed to the LB core. Once again Buffalo traded the pick, which is something he just doesn't do in his mocks. 2016: Corey Coleman - He thought Buffalo needed a pass rusher but that it was too early for any of the remaining guys (he had Shaq going 11th) Beyond that, it looks like the links are all broken now.

I just can't see the Redskins, who currently are projected to have just $16 million in cap space making a move to bring in Foles/Flacco for $20 million per year on top of paying Alex Smith $20 million. That would be an insane amount of money to spend on what would likely amount to below average QB play. I think drafting someone is basically their only option at this point. The fans have already completely turned on the organization and them trying to roll out Colt McCoy or spending a combined $40 million on below average QBs will only cause even less fan interest. The only way I really see the Redskins making a play for someone like Foles is if the market ends up being dry and he's forced to accept like $5-10 million per year instead.

I think we may ultimately see 4 QBs in the first round again this year honestly. Wouldn't be shocked at all if all of Haskins, Kyler Murray, Daniel Jones, and Drew Lock go in the first. Should be interesting; seems like teams are much higher on Haskins than I personally am, but I think I'm higher on Jones and Lock than most are.

I don't think it's "may" personally. Living in the DC area, I think it's pretty obvious just based on the attitudes around here that the Redskins will likely be extremely desperate to make a splash of some sort, whether that's trading for a guy like Antonio Brown or, more likely IMO, trying to move up to take Haskins, who brings triple value to the Redskins as: A legitimately good QB prospect (even if I think he's overrated) A cheap QB while they're stuck paying Alex Smith to not play football A local kid that can excite the fan base Kyler Murray could be an option for them as well as he would undoubtedly bring excitement to the team, but I'm not sure they'll want to go that route after watching RGIII's leg fall off.

In the case of Army, I would bet it's hugely influenced by TOP. With the NFL, I'd generally look at yards/points per possession as a gauge of how good a defense is, or also something like DVOA. Unfortunately I don't know if any of those are available to the public for college teams, so all I can go on is points allowed per game. Regarding Clemson/Alabama: Clemson: 67th (3 top 30 defenses and 3 outside the top 100) Alabama: 65th (5 top 30 defenses and 6 outside the top 100) Oklahoma: 63rd (2 top 30 defenses and 1 outside the top 100) People think of the Big 12 and think of the outrageously high scoring games, but on the whole, they don't give up as many points per game as you'd expect. None of the Big 12 teams that Oklahoma played ranked outside the top 100. The average ranking of the Big 12 teams they faced was 66th. The average ranking of SEC teams Alabama faced and ACC teams Clemson faced is 50th and 79th respectively. Bama and Clemson each faced two conference teams that were ranked outside the top 100. If more data were available, I probably wouldn't use this same method to measure how good the defenses are that Kyler faced for example, but I think the overall point of this is that Big 12 teams aren't actually allowing a million points every game like the media would have you think; it's just that Oklahoma is that ridiculously good offensively that they're able to turn basically every game into that regardless of the opponent. Edit: Put another way: Oklahoma's opponents allowed an average of 27 points per game. Oklahoma scored an average of 48 points per game against them; their opponents allowed almost twice as many points as usual against Oklahoma. All of these defenses would probably be ranked decently better if they didn't play Oklahoma. For example, if you take the two Oklahoma games out of Texas' record; they would move up from the #57 defense to #40. Against everyone else, Texas allowed 23 points per game. Oklahoma scored 39 and 45 points against them this year.

I'm not sure about this year, but I looked into this when I was scouting QBs for the Bills last year. The defenses that Oklahoma faced the last year with Baker Mayfield, were on average, 63rd in the country. The only QB prospect that faced tougher defenses on average was Lamar Jackson at 58th. Baker faced 6 top 30 defenses that year while the next closest QB faced 4 (Lamar and Mason Rudolph, who was also a Big 12 QB). Edit: Looking at this past season's schedule, they once again faced, on average, the 63rd best defense, though only two top 30 defenses (Alabama & Army). So in terms of facing elite defenses, it's hard to say how many Jalen Hurts might face, but in all likelihood, he'll face better defenses on average than most other QBs.

Didn't see it posted yet, but Mel Kiper has released his first mock of the year: http://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2019/insider/story/_/id/25773312/2019-nfl-mock-draft-mel-kiper-first-round-pick-predictions-rankings-draft-order Nick Bosa Josh Allen Quinnen Williams - Jets Greedy Williams Jonah Williams Dwayne Haskins Cody Ford Devin White Rashan Gary - "Could the Bills get their Kyle Williams replacement here? At his peak, the 6-foot-6, 283-pound Gary is a menace who makes offensive linemen look foolish, but you'd like to see him do it with more regularity. Gary could play end or nose guard in a 3-4 defense or tackle in a 4-3. Buffalo could look at centers or guards here; improving the interior of the offensive line should be a priority." DeAndre Baker Jawaan Taylor Clelin Ferrell Kyler Murray - Dolphins Ed Oliver Jachai Polite Brian Burns Jeffery Simmons Greg Little TJ Hockenson Devin Bush Oshane Ximines AJ Brown Byron Murphy Marquise Brown Montez Sweat Dexter Lawrence Irv Smith Jr. Christian Wilkins Daniel Jones - Patriots Dre'Mont Jones Deionte Thompson Parris Campbell

One of the Bucs writers clarified that Arians did say that they drafted him, and that Arians is 100% correct. They drafted Sanders and Antonio the same year lol

Yeah, I would defer to him on that. Likewise with the Alabama RBs.

Charlie Campbell from WalterFootball has been saying this for awhile too. From December: http://walterfootball.com/nflhotpress/article/Teams-Project-Jonah-Williams-in-Mid--to-Late-Round-1

McCoy's ability to get off the ball might be his biggest strength. McCoy is the pass-rushing specialist who happens to also be decent against the run but they play completely different roles. Star is only on the field to try to free up space for others to make plays. McCoy is the one that Tampa relies on to make the plays. Edit: This article was literally from just before this season in which they proclaimed that McCoy has the quickest first step among defensive linemen in the NFL lol. I don't know how you could possibly think that Star has a quicker first step. Are you thinking of a different Bucs player? I'm genuinely confused. https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bucs/2018/08/31/bucs-gerald-mccoy-youre-going-to-miss-me-when-im-gone/

He's literally the opposite type of DT from Star. McCoy has more sacks in the past two years than Star has in his entire career and McCoy even missed 3 games in that stretch.

Yep. For that reason, I think I'd actually prefer to target McCoy in a trade rather than signing him after he's cut. If Tampa is willing to just take a Day 3 pick for him, Buffalo has those in spades this year and his contract as currently constructed is basically a series of three 1-year deals, so once it comes time to re-sign the young guys or once his play starts to really decline, you can cut him and get the full $13 million per year back.

Kinda crazy but I think they were dead last in TOs the year before and #1 or #2 this year

I don't think that's the case, but we'll see if this actually comes to fruition. I'm guessing McCoy will sign elsewhere anyways but who knows

Mentioned it in here...I follow the Bucs very closely. He's still a very good DT and I have no doubt that he would be an upgrade over Kyle in the pass-rushing DT mold in the short-term. I do think there's a question to be answered about whether or not you really want to be spending roughly $30+ million at the DT position between Star, McCoy, and Jordan Phillips though. Buffalo certainly has the cap space to do it if they want and I'm sure McCoy would only be a short-term solution so it might make sense, but that's a very high % of the cap to pour into the interior D-Line.

I agree. And to be clear, I don't think he's a great DC. I just don't think saying that they were the 30th ranked defense this year is really accurate; they were probably roughly average or maybe slightly above and I think that's more or less where they should have been with their personnel. If the Jets can bring in talent, Gregg can at least get them playing at a solid enough level IMO. He's just a decent coach IMO.

They were 13th in terms of both points and yards allowed on a per drive basis. #9 in yards allowed and #27 in points allowed on a per drive basis the year before. They were #30 and #31 respectively the year before Gregg arrived.