Arena The Official NFL Discussion Thread (Now Featuring Time's Person of the Year, Taylor Swift!)

But if the draft class is as weak as everyone says, they're shooting themselves in the foot if they reach for a QB at #1. They're probably better off taking the best player available first, then grabbing a QB in a later round (Joe Flacco and Russell Wilson were 2nd round picks, after all) and acquiring a veteran also.

 

If the Chiefs are smart, they'll trade down, get more picks and get a QB in the late first/second round (The QB class sucks this year so they'll be there), or perhaps trade for Matt Flynn and some draft picks.

 

Because we've seen other teams reach for QBs in years where the draft class is weak and get burned. Remember Sanchez? Leinhart? Quinn?

 

I'm sure that this draft will produce a quarterback in the 2nd or 3rd rounds who will be generally agreed upon as a good quarterback, and the Sport's Illustrated's Peter King will talk about how how the Chiefs passed on him three times. Hindsight being 20/20 and all.

 

The trouble is we can't trade down too far because there are a lot of teams pretty desperate for a QB.

I have a question... who is worthy of a #1 overall?

But yeah, it's just the Chiefs luck to finally have the #1 in the wrong year. Meanwhile, the Colts got to draft Andrew Luck after their only one bad season in forever. Ugh.

 

Its funny that you bring up Luck since he's not considered the best QB of last year by any of the analysts.

 

No, he's not. And if I'd had #1 last year I said then I'd draft RGIII anyway. I'm just saying, one team who's had a great QB for a long time having one bad year and intentionally tanking so they can draft another good QB is super lame and lucky. The Chiefs haven't drafted a successful QB since Len Dawson. And we haven't ever had a #1 overall. Just our crappy luck to have it when no one great's coming out.

 

I'd try to trade down to 5 or 6. I'm not a fan of Smith, let the Eagles draft him and draft Barkley instead. I like him more, he seems to have the mental stuff down unlike Geno.

 

Yeah, but then there's going to be the injury questions about Barkley. But yeah, Barkley's probably better prepared mentally than Smith is.

 

I definitely don't want to draft Barkley as high as we'd need to. Every USC QB of the last 10 years has been a bust in the NFL. Their stats and performance is greatly enhanced by having a lot of good players around them at USC. I have come to firmly believe they are frauds.

 

As fradulent as Manti T'eo and his girlfriend?

 

The Farve withdrawal must have been too much for some news outlets.

Former RB Thomas Jones to donate his brain.

Jags have a coach

Broncos pick new OC

Ryan Leaf goes to prison

Edit: Going back to solojones question of who is worthy of a #1 pick, I'm not sure I can think of a specific player given that nobody really stands out to me this year other than the mediocre QBs, but given the number of good defensive players that are leaving, I'm probably going to agree with Kiper in the sense that it'll be a defensive player this year. I suspect the upcoming Combine will make things a bit more clearer as to who's going #1

 

Does this mean you're willing to pay my way to New Orleans so I can sneak into Media Day during SuperBowl week?

 

They never "intentionally tanked" anything. They genuinely sucked without Manning, as it was obvious that Polian constructed a team that had a ton of deficiencies that Manning was good enough to cover up.

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And Arains is going to the Cardinals. I've never had a reason to dislike that franchise until now.

 

Oh please, they basically put people on IR if they got the hiccups.

Sorry, I can't respect a draft opinion that comes from Kiper. He's a joke. Besides, one would assume from Te'o being the top regarded defensive player that uh... either the whole class is weak or he is just insanely overrated. Guy is a 2nd rounder at best.

But yeah I am definitely anxious to see how the combine goes.

 

Luke Joeckel is a stud that you can build a line around. If I'm at number 1 on the board that's my guy.

Te'o is projected to go 8, 9, 10 in the first round by a lot of guys. Hardly the best defensive player in the draft. This whole mess with the girlfriend could drop him even lower.

 

You know, up until yesterday I thought I'd really had heard it all in terms of crazy sports stories. This whole thing with the fake girlfriend just boggles me.

Edit: and yes, it's definitely going to torpedo his draft stock.

 

Really? As someone who posts on the JC, you really find stories of people being fake girls online totally unbelievable? You clearly don't know your JC lore.

 

Oh yes, because girls don't exist on the Internet.

Seriously, it's not that I don't believe a hoax like though this couldn't happen, I'm just boggled that a football player would actually feel the need to fake a girlfriend and then make up a story of her dying in a car accident. I mean there are better ways of trying to get ESPN's attention and a Heisman.

 

Did you even read the story? He didn't make it up. Some other people did and pretended to be this girl online and on the phone. They faked him out. He thought she was a real person who had really died.

Now I finally understand why you just post links and headlines without comment. I was wondering why you said you thought it would hurt his draft position. If you can't even be bothered to read and comment on a story, why are you posting it?

Edit: Also yes people have faked being women whom other people e-dated here. There have also been users that some of us were friends with who faked their death. So it's really far from abstract or surprising to me, sadly.

 

When the story first came out and even yesterday, there was still a lot of doubt over whether he was in on it or not, and given all the other recent news involving liars and cheaters; forgive me if I'm just a cynical ***** who thinks nearly everybody in sports is a liar these days.

 

It just sounded like you hadn't read your own article that you had posted, which is confusing is all I'm saying.

 

She read the headline. Wasn't that enough?

 

I personally like the conspiracy theory ending to the story in Bill Simmons Mailbag:

Bill Belichick spending the past few years creating Manti's fake dead girl, then hiring someone to play her on the phone, with the ultimate intent of wounding Manti's draft stock enough that he'd fall to the bottom of the first round of the 2013 draft … right to the New England Patriots.