This week in the Checkdown, our plans for a nice leisurely look at a few issues were blasted out the water by the Tennessee-Los Angeles trade on Thursday. We’ll look in a bit more depth at that next week, because this week we also want to talk about the draft’s QBs, the latest in the Josh Gordon reinstatement saga, and look at fifth-year options for 2013 1st round picks.
Titans Trade Out of #1 Pick, Rams Give Up The House
Thursday was blockbuster trade time in the NFL, as the LA Rams gave up a bucketload of picks to the Titans for the honour of picking 1st overall in this year’s draft. This came in a bit late for our weekly roundup, so we’ll cover it more next week, but despite what the Rams are saying, they will have one player in particular in mind for that number 1 pick, and it’s probably a Quarterback, either Carson Wentz or Jared Goff. We’ll have a look at what this means for everyone next week.
1st round QBs
SB Nation’s Dan Kadar believes Jared Goff “is the better quarterback right now”. Before Thursday’s trade, he thought that one of the consensus top two QBs will go to Cleveland and the other to the 49ers at pick 7 with Paxton Lynch to the Bills at 19. With LA trading up, the main uncertainty is whether Cleveland will take a QB at 2.
When Wentz has “a clean pocket and room to work, he can really show it off” says Robert Mays, but he relies on scheme to get that space, and “struggled when he had less space”, whereas Goff is “adept at controlling safeties with his eyes” and “navigates the entire pocket”. Jason La Canfora at CBS says the Browns agree, and that “the fact that Wentz did not face the caliber of competition you would prefer and is a late-bloomer has them concerned”.
One of Goff’s strengths is his deep passing, notes ESPN’s Sharon Katz, completing “45.6 percent of his passes longer than 20 yards in 2015” (compared to 24.2 from Wentz), but “took more than 99 percent of his snaps from the shotgun or pistol in his career”. Wentz has the size and athleticism of “a prototypical NFL quarterback” but struggles under pressure – “when under duress in 2015, Wentz completed 28.9 percent of his passes and converted a first down 15 percent of the time”.
However, Pat McManamon states “Wentz has become the favourite of the analysts, mainly because of his potential”, although does note that “Goff is the best passer in the draft”, and Hue Jackson admires his “poise under pressure”. Mel Kiper believes Wentz will be first off the board, despite not being “the top QB on my board”. Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski agrees, saying “he appears destined to be the first quarterback selected”, and the potential outweighs the drawbacks, particularly as this QB class has no standout.
Further down the draft are a QBs such as Lynch and Connor Cook, projected as second round talent by ESPN, but who may be picked sooner due to the importance placed in a signal caller – “it’s a quarterback-starved league” says Steve Muench. Lynch has the physical tools and “can be somebody’s quarterback in the next few years”, but lacks experience and hasn’t displayed ideal intangibles, whilst Cook has “good starting experience and success in a pro-style offense”, but displays sloppy footwork alongside leadership concerns.
Essentially – do you believe in Goff’s intangibles? Or do you trust your coaches to get Wentz up to speed and get his athleticism on top? Or double down on the latter theory, and take Lynch later on? There is no consensus at the moment, but with LA trading up on Thursday, it looks like one of these QBs will go first pick.
Josh Gordon
The Cleveland Browns’ exceptionally talented but suspended wide receiver Josh Gordon has reportedly had his request for reinstatement denied, following a failed drug test containing marijuana and dilute.
Mike Tanier of Bleacher Report thinks Gordon’s getting a raw deal from the NFL – “he is like many NFL players, in that he has no privacy when it comes to drug testing”. The timing of the leak seems to be related to increasing calls on the NFL for a decision on Gordon’s reinstatement, indicating that these “leaks are becoming more strategic, calculated”.
SI’s Doug Farrar believes it’s time for a change in policy regarding marijuana anyway – especially as marijuana has been shown to “help people in two areas of common concern to every NFL player—pain management and the effects of head trauma”. The drug is now legal in many states in the US, but the NFL remains steadfast it its policy, resulting in many players (such as NE’s Chandler Jones and Seattle’s Derrick Coleman) turning to potentially more dangerous synthetic equivalents in the belief that they “will pass through drug tests where regular marijuana will not”. The prospect of change is slim for the time being, as “expecting Goodell and his current medical cronies to switch their view on this may be a fool’s errand.”
For a wider look at performance-enhancing and recreational drug testing in the NFL, give our piece from February a read.
Fifth-Year Options
The first fifth-year option pickups are starting to trickle in, with Tyler Eifert and probably Star Lotulelei joining Kenny Vaccaro. For those not in the know, under the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement, all first-round picks have a fifth-year option inserted into their rookie contract, which a team can pick up after three years. It essentially means those players are under contract for two years, giving everyone plenty of notice and incentive to get to work on longer term contracts, or to give players one last chance to prove they’re long-term contract worthy. Contracts are worth an average of what good players at that position earn. For example, Kenny Vaccaro was the 15th pick in the 2013 draft, and will earn an average of what the 3rd through 25th best paid safeties in 2017 earn.
Teams have until early May to pick up fifth-year options. These are only fully guaranteed in case of injury, so a fit player who has a bad 2016 can be released in 2017 at no cost to the club and no security to the player.
As far as who’s likely to get their options picked up goes, Philadelphia’s Lane Johnson already has his big extension so there’s no option left to pick up, while at the other end of the scale Indianapolis cut Björn Werner, leaving no contract for there to be a fifth-year option on. Expect players like Desmond Trufant, DeAndre Hopkins, Sheldon Richardson and Sharrif Floyd to get their options picked up, while players like Matt Elam, Dee Milliner and Barkevious Mingo will probably go without. It’s a good indicator, three years into their career, which of the first-rounders are looking like good players in future, and which are seen as busts.
The Long Snapper 