This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Goooood morning, Winners! Welcome back to the Morning Win. Thank you so much for reading today. I appreciate you giving us a bit of your time.
The NFL draft is finally here. Many of you have been waiting for this day for a long, long time. I hope your team does the exact thing you want it to do. It probably won’t, but hey! There’s still hope.
Me personally? I’m only rooting for a timely process. That starts with the Chicago Bears, who hold the first overall pick.
Given that, I have a request for GM Ryan Poles and company: Pick Caleb Williams already, you cowards. Get it over with.
Obviously, the draft hasn’t started just yet. It won’t until 8 p.m. ET tonight (SIGH). But let’s be real — we all know who the Bears are picking here. It’s Williams. It’s always been Williams. We’ve known since, basically, September. Once Chicago traded Justin Fields, it was a wrap.
RELATED: Caleb Williams liked a video of Bears fans chanting his name
Yet, for whatever reason, Poles was out here trying to be cute with his pre-draft press conference. “We know what we’re going to do, but everyone is going to have to wait until Thursday to go there,” he told reporters.
Hey, Ryan. Buddy. I’ve got a newsflash for you: WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING, TOO.
Most of us have probably known what you and your team were doing for longer than you have. While y’all were hemming and hawing over where to trade Justin Fields, we wondered why you were still playing these silly games.
This is the worst-kept secret in the NFL. Just announce that you’re drafting Williams already. There’s no need to take more than two minutes to do this. If it takes the entire 10 minutes allotted for the pick, I will riot.
We’ve all got things to do and I need to hurry up and get to my team’s pick. Let’s get a move on, Chicago.
DON’T MISS A BEAT: Follow USA Today’s NFL Draft live tracker to stay updated on the latest news, mock drafts, expert picks and real-time pick analysis during tonight’s action!
Dive Deeper on the NFL Draft
Good reads from the staff at For The Win ahead of tonight’s action:
— Here’s Christian D’Andrea with our latest NFL mock draft ahead of all the action tonight.
— Five bold predictions for the NFL Draft from Cory Woodroof
— The 13 prospects attending the NFL Draft in the green room from Charles Curtis
— Prince Grimes has a top-10 NFL mock draft based on consensus betting odds for you.
— Six NFL prospects sliding down draft boards that could be steals from Christian D’Andrea
— The pressure a potential 6-quarterback first round puts on bettors from Ben Fawkes
The spotlight is yours, Detroit
For the last decade, the NFL draft has moved from location to location every year. Detroit is in the spotlight this year and, well, the city’s got a lot riding on this one, writes Ken Belson of the New York Times.
The city declared bankruptcy a decade ago, as the real estate market crash led to thousands of homes being abandoned and the automotive industry, which drove the city’s economy, was still on the road to recovery after its collapse.
Since then, Detroit has been on the up-and-up. There are still problems, of course, but it’s recovering. Belson writes the draft may perhaps be a springboard to hasten that recovery a bit more:
“Detroit hosted the Super Bowl in 2006, as a reward to the Lions for moving into a new stadium. But city officials expect that being the site of this year’s draft, which begins on Thursday, will provide an economic jolt, though how much of one is unclear. They also hope the three days of exposure on television showcases the city to fans who might not otherwise visit. Detroit, they say, is not the Detroit of a decade ago, when the city was bankrupt, tens of thousands of homes had been abandoned and the automobile industry was pulling out of a long slump. Since then, new hotels, businesses and residents have flooded downtown; unemployment has fallen; and the city’s debt has returned to investment grade.”
Of course, there are doubts about how much of a boost the draft — and other events like it — would provide for the city’s economy.
Ultimately, money generated will probably be spent just to host this event. Belson writes that road closures and increased security eat up that cash.
But this is Detroit’s moment to show the world how far it’s come since hitting rock bottom. In the end, that’s a good thing.
READ MORE: The NFL Draft is like the Super Bowl for Detroit
Meet the man who makes the fastest NFL players faster
Each one of the athletes you see picked today in the NFL Draft is one of the best athletes in the world. But they all won’t make it.
In the NFL, you win on the margins. Each second and every inch matters. Running a sub-4.3 40-yard dash could be the difference between being drafted in the second round or the fifth round. Most of these guys cut it that close.
That’s where Tony Villani comes in.
Villani is the founder of XPE Sports — a training facility where some of the best names in the game have come to get better over the last 22 years. Travis Kelce, Tariq Woolen, Anquan Boldin, Mark Ingram and so many more have come through those doors.
Through his speed training program, he helps the fastest players in the NFL become even faster. We got to fly down to Florida and chop it up with him to see how it all works.
He makes his strategy sound simple. “When people run a [40-yard dash] at 25 miles an hour, they get to 15 miles an hour at the first 5 yards,” Villani told For The Win. “They spend the next 35 yards getting the next 10. Training that explosive force into your form and doing it inside and tracking it…It’s so easy. We call it ‘get fast, fast.’ It’s not hard.”
WATCH: Watch Villani’s work with his latest crop of NFL hopefuls here
Quick hits: We need more from Nike after Caitlin Clark … Mookie Betts is the best … and more
— Meghan Hall wrote this awesome piece on Nike’s sneaker deal with Caitlin Clark and how it needs to lead to more from the brand on women’s hoops.
— Mookie Betts continues to be the best of us. Andrew Joseph has more here.
— Here’s Charles Curtis on how Kool-Aid McKinstry got his dope nickname.
— Here’s Charles again with the order of the first-round of the NFL draft. You know, for organizational purposes.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading. Hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter! TMW will be out tomorrow, but there will still be plenty of great content on the site for you to tap into. Happy NFL Draft day! Talk soon.
Peace.
-Sykes ✌️
