NFL Draft Drama

The time has come once again for another exciting edition of NFL draft drama!  You may remember during last year’s regularly scheduled NFL draft drama we were discussing two quarterbacks by the names of Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota with a healthy dose of what are those crazy Philadelphia Eagles going to do next!  The names have changed but the plots stay the same, so let’s get into it.

Last season the big headline was what is Chip Kelly willing to give up in order to get Mariota, the supposed quarterback of the future.  Now, as you know, there was no trade that happened as Chip decided our first round picks for the next hundred years, two Pro Bowlers, and a cheese steak were more than he could get away with to move into the number two position in the draft.  However, this season, we see the impossible become possible.

I get ahead of myself, but hey, back story, it’s important.  Along comes a familiar face by the name of Howie Roseman back at the helm after having control stripped away.  The always off-season entertaining Eagles and good old Howie have made a bold statement.  Before we talk about that, let’s discuss the first crazy draft pick trade, this is what we call foreshadowing.

Football fans were shocked when news came out about the Los Angeles Rams trading for the number one overall pick with the Tennessee Titans.  Anyone else have a hard time saying LA Rams?  It feels so wrong coming from my mouth and fingers (that’s what she said), but I guess we’ll get used to it when we actually see them play in LA.

In this trade, the Rams gained the number 1 overall pick this season and so the trade wasn’t called rape, they also received the number 113 pick (fourth round) and the number 177 pick (sixth round).  In exchange for this LA gave Tennessee their first round pick (number 15), two second round picks (numbers 43 and 45 and might I add one of those was the pick they received from the Eagles in the Nick Foles/Sam Bradford trade last season), a third-round pick (number 76), and in next year’s draft the first round and third round pick.

For whatever reason when this trade occurred none of my little vibrating alerts went off, or maybe I’ve just become desensitized to vibration and I missed it, but in any case, the first I heard of this trade was on Facebook.  Now, in case you don’t know this, and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but a lot of people post fake news and satire pieces on Facebook and the poor ignorant public is none the wiser and passes these entertaining but entirely inaccurate news stories off as fact.  Shit you not, I’ve seen people up in arms over things posted on The Onion and spouting the articles as biblical truth.  Do they not teach satire to kids today?  Seriously, any English teachers reading, pay attention and do a special lesson plan on modern satire usage, it’s much more valuable to today’s kids than iambic pentameter and this is coming from a fan of the bard.

So anyway, when I first saw this trade listed I laughed and thought it was fiction.  I went to my fact checking archive (i.e. Google) and verified from several reputable sources and then just to be thorough, I made sure Adam Schefter had tweeted it.

My thoughts?  Good for the Titans.  They reamed the Rams so hard in the ass that they ended up on the West Coast.  I’ve said all along, this year’s quarterback draft class is pretty weak in comparison to last season and I stand by that no matter how much I’m going to contradict myself later once the season starts.  To be fair, though, Jared Goff is probably the most athletically gifted and closest to NFL ready quarterback that we will see in the next two years so if you’re desperate and don’t want to deal with someone’s reject, I guess there was no choice.

This may say something about this year’s draft class to back my claim up.  Cleveland did extensive scouting in their perennial search for the next quarterback whose career they can ruin and instead of drafting yet another one that this city will drive straight into a bottle, they opted to pick up RG3.  Yeah, bum knee, cocky son of a bitch, third string last season, you know, that RG3.

Little history lesson since it seems so topical.  In 2012, the Rams (when I could still call them the St. Louis Rams) were involved in another high-profile episode of NFL draft drama.  This time, the tables were turned and the Rams had the coveted second overall pick.  The Washington Redskins were in need of someone to help them stay out of the basement of the NFC East division and thought that guy was RG3.  In order to move up, Washington gave away not one, not two, but three first round picks and one second round pick.  The Rams kept up the wheeling and dealing and turned those bonus picks into more picks by trading down with other teams.

Maybe the Rams gave up so many picks this year because they were tired of having so many after years of trading down and receiving more with the extra Redskin picks?  The moral of the story, however, is Cleveland would rather take the most expensive mistake of 2012 and trade away their number 2 pick than to draft one of the quarterbacks in this draft class.

This brings us full circle back to Howie Roseman.  All off-season Howie had been praised as conservative, smart, and safe.  Roseman re-signed most of our favorite players, got rid of Chip’s crap, brought in a few smart acquisitions, and in a nutshell has been doing a good if not slightly boring job.

April 20th rolls around, get it, rolls, yeah, I know punny.  Let me share my theory on what went down in Philadelphia on this fateful day.

We set the scene.  Howie Roseman is sitting in his tastefully decorated office in front of his computer taking a rare minute away from staring at dollar signs on player contracts.  In this break from worrying about the team’s money, he opens his social media account.  Some distant younger relative that Howie is only connected with because it makes his mother happy has posted something about how 4/20 is national smoke pot and get stoned day.  Howie, having never been a popular guy in school, has been reading all week about how everyone says he is being safe and smart in the off-season, this stirs up long-buried insecurities about being called a pussy who never does anything fun.  Howie is sick of being stereotyped and decides it’s time to show everyone what a rebel he really is.

Howie proceeds to call his secretary and says, “Get me Randy Gregory on the line!”  There is a conversation about allowing a free sack (hee sack, I’m being punny again) on Bradford (Howie does not mean any of this, but he is a charmer that Howie and tells people what they want to hear in order to get what he wants) in exchange for contact information for where to purchase one unit of marijuana in Philadelphia.  Seeing a hilarious and possibly beneficial opportunity, Randy Gregory delivers a name and number and informs Howie he will get him a “hook-up” and a couple hundred will cover it.

Howie meets the dealer in an alley and hands over two hundred dollars in exchange for what he is told is an eighth of marijuana which was nicely rolled for him in what was called a fatty joint.  Howie proceeds to the hippie store to buy some patchouli incense because he is no dummy and has read about these things in books.

Howie lights his incense, puts on youtube’s best of Pink Floyd and smokes his joint.  About a half hour later, in West Philadelphia stoned and dazed, he once again calls his secretary, he giggles and calls her something delightfully derogatory like sweet cheeks and says, “Get me tacos!  I want to do something crazy!  Get me whatever schmuck is in charge in Cleveland!”

And that is the story all about how our draft was flip turned upside down.

So Howie trades our number 8 overall pick, their third and fourth round pick this year, next year’s first round pick, and the year after second round pick.  Sounds like putting a lot of confidence in LA’s scraps, because they have said that’s what they’re doing with it.  Whomever is left of the top two quarterbacks, Jared Goff or Carson Wentz, is who Howie has said they are targeting.  This will most likely be Wentz.

Goff and Wentz are pretty evenly matched on the field.  Goff is slightly more starter ready whereas Wentz will benefit from some grooming behind Sam Bradford or Chase Daniels.  I can’t see both quarterbacks being kept, it doesn’t make financial sense and one thing is for certain, Howie likes to make financial sense.  The upside to Wentz is he shows greater leader potential.  He has aced all of his interviews and scored the highest of the quarterbacks on the Wonderlic test (Wentz scored a 40 and Goff scored a 38) if you put any stock into that.  Being a ginger, Wentz has that whole no soul thing going for him too.

Cute side note, did you know, the top sperm bank in the country no longer accepts sperm donations from gingers?  True story, Google it, I guess no one wants a soulless child running around.  Personally, if he can throw an accurate football I don’t care, although aesthetically there is something very cute about Goff and his California boy vibe.  Not my usual type, but hey everyone has those random deviations.

So what next?  It seems Howie is aware his job is on the line this year and has taken a go big or go home attitude after starting so safe.  Perhaps he learned a lesson from Sam Hinkie of the 76ers.  Speaking of, before this piece becomes as long as the Hinkie letter (great bedtime reading material by the way) I should bring it to a close.  The draft is just a few days away so be sure to stay tuned for all the latest NFL draft drama, there is always sure to be more.

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