We’re in Indianapolis, and the college prospects are filtering in, too (team interviews start tonight with the linebackers), but this week at the combine is going to be about a whole lot more than the draft …
• The first quarterbacking domino could fall this week, with Derek Carr a free agent and Aaron Rodgers coming out of the darkness. As we reported this morning, Carr expressed to the Jets his desire to survey the landscape, and the Jets’ plan has been to do the same, but the mutual interest there is very real. On top of that, whatever decision comes from Rodgers could wind up greasing the skids for moves from other teams at the position, and the Packers—like the Jets—are staying loose with their quarterbacking plans.
And this week is important because those two teams, and the other 30, will be here.
So not only should we soon have answers on Carr and Rodgers, the market for guys such as Jimmy Garoppolo, Daniel Jones and Geno Smith could start to take shape in the skyways, hotel lobbies and quiet corners of the convention center in Indy. What’s more, what happens there certainly could (and probably should) impact how hungry certain teams in the top half of the first round are for Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, Will Levis and Anthony Richardson.
Which is to say Carr and Rodgers may be the first one we get answers on, but there’ll be plenty of meat left on the information bone after we have those.
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• As we mentioned in the morning column, a lot is going to be made of the first number in Bryce Young’s weight this week at the scouting combine—whether it’s a 2 or a 1. And after we find out, the rest of what Young will do will happen behind closed doors. He made the decision a while back not to work out here. But he will do the medical stuff and interviews with teams.
Does it matter that he’s skipping the workout? Yes and no.
Yes, in that it’ll make people wonder if the weight is artificial, with chances seemingly good that he’ll turn around and workout, but not weigh in, at his pro day. No, in that, well, his game is a little like those of his Alabama predecessors, Tua Tagovailoa and Mac Jones, in that his talents aren’t best displayed in that sort of setting.
“You already know the answer to [how he’ll handle the next few weeks],” an AFC exec said. “He’s gonna eat sushi and potato chips and sodium the night before and puff up and he’s gonna get that magical two-zero-zero, and then he’s not doing squat. But I wouldn’t, either, if I was him. The combine’s not for him, because he’s got a middle-of-the-pack arm. His game is not built for the combine. It’s built for playing ball.”
Indeed, it is.
• At the end of my conversation for the morning column with old NFL Network colleague Daniel Jeremiah, I asked for a player he might be higher on than everyone else.
His answer: “The two guys that I probably have higher than most would be the corner from Illinois, [Devon] Witherspoon. He’s not going to check every box in terms of the height and the weight but I just think he’s a great player, he’s super instinctive and he’s got unbelievable ball skills. I was around Asante Samuel with the Eagles and I think this guy’s a better version of him; he picked off a lot of balls. And the second one, I’d probably say [is Utah TE Dalton] Kincaid.”
• I also asked the same question to my old ESPN buddy Todd McShay.
His answer: “Zay Flowers, the receiver from BC. He’s the Energizer bunny. I went to camp in August, and talked to coach [Jeff Hafley], watched him practice, I saw it. He has energy like very few guys do, he’s quick in and out of his breaks, he plucks the ball out of the air on the run, he’s just a natural. And after the catch, he creates. He’s a little undersized, but he’s got a shot to be a great No. 2, with his speed, and how you can work him in the slot, and what he brings in the return game.”
• The linebackers are going to be first up for workouts Thursday, and Clemson’s Trenton Simpson and Arkansas’ Drew Sanders are two guys that people here are expecting to put on a show. The defensive linemen also work out on that first stadium day, and Jeremiah mentioned that undersized Pitt DT Calijah Kancey could well crush it, too, which will lead to some predictable parallels being drawn.
You, of course, have probably heard about this other undersized DT from Pitt.
“I don’t know where to put him; he’s so little,” Jeremiah said. “Of course he goes to the same school as Aaron Donald, so you get the ghost of Aaron Donald. You’d be scared to take him and maybe even more scared to pass on him.”
• The focus leading up to the franchise tag deadline, eight days from now, will be on Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, and rightfully so. But there’s another interesting aspect to this that everyone should pay attention to.
The lowest figure, outside of the kicker-punter number, is for running backs, at $10.09 million. That position is also where, by the time a player is eligible to hit unrestricted free agency (after four years), he generally has the least time left in the NFL and, thus, is the riskiest to do a lucrative long-term deal with.
Add those two dynamics together, and you can see where for the Giants (Saquon Barkley), Raiders (Josh Jacobs), Cowboys (Tony Pollard), Eagles (Miles Sanders) or Bears (David Mongomery), it would make some sense just to tag them for a year with plans to let them go after 2023. That’s also why, if I’m one of those guys, and I get tagged, I pull every lever to try and force the team to do a long-term deal. But in this case, with the realities of that position, the franchise tag could really be used as a hammer by a couple of those teams.
Don’t be surprised if it is.
• Carson Wentz was cut by the Commanders on Monday, bringing an unceremonious end to what could be his last shot as an NFL starter. Wentz’s problems in Washington were, very much, the problems he had at the end in Philly and Indianapolis—his accuracy was scattershot, the hits he’s taken over the years seemed to affect his presence in the pocket, and whenever storm clouds gathered for him, the rain would always follow.
The players in Washington liked Wentz, and he really tried to make it work. The coaches liked Wentz, too.
But, in this case, Wentz simply was who he was, and that calls into question where his career is going next. It’s hard to envision him as a backup somewhere. So is it possible he makes like Sam Bradford once did, and quietly walks away? People who’ve worked with him the past couple of years have said not to rule that out. But for now, his camp insists that he’s gonna do whatever it takes to keep playing.
• While we’re there, the Falcons won’t go as far as the Commanders have with Sam Howell—and say he’s in position, as it stands, to be the starter—but I’ll be watching what Atlanta does at quarterback with Howell’s draft classmate, Desmond Ridder, ready to roll in to his second NFL season.
Ridder did a lot on the field and off it to impress the Falcons, so if they can’t connect on a big swing at a quarterback, I do think the Cincinnati product gives them flexibility to stand pat with an economical young option (like Howell does for Washington) at the position.
There’s appeal to that, too, in how you can build around such a quarterback. So stay tuned.
• Could the Bears move the first pick soon? It’d be rare for such a trade to happen this early, but not unprecedented.
In 2012, the Rams dealt the second pick to Washington for the sixth pick, and first-rounders in the two years to follow, a little over a week after the combine. Both sides relayed afterwards that they were looking to be able to plan more effectively for the draft and free agency, and getting the trade done well in advance certainly helped, as did the fact that there was the clarity that year that the Colts would stay at No. 1 and take Andrew Luck.
There’d be similar benefits this year for Chicago and a trade partner to start working on a deal now. So I wouldn’t rule it out, after the Bears, and potential suitors for the first pick, get a good look at the quarterbacks in the draft this week.
• On that note—Jeremiah mentioned to me that based on the makeup of this year’s draft class, and since there really isn’t a Myles Garrett at the top, it may make sense for the Bears to drop further down in the top 10, in an effort to accumulate more capital both in this year’s draft and future drafts, which makes a lot of sense to me.
And whether they do it now, or a month from now, or not at all, because of all this, there’ll be a lot of eyeballs on Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus this week.
