Category: NFL

Don’t know why I got my hopes up. Of course the Pats took a random guard at 23 and not the most dynamic college football player since Tim Tebow. Ravens will just take him at 25. Worst case scenario. Never convince yourself Bill Belichick will draft someone fun and splashy, it’ll save you a lot of disappointment.

Remember football? Remember the NFL? Remember the Super Bowl? I don’t. It happened so long ago I don’t even remember who the two teams were. Must have been a pretty boring game. Since it’s been roughly three years since the season ended, you know what that means- it’s time for the NFL Draft! Everyone’s (my) favorite way to spend 18 hours over the course of three days. While I’m afraid my typical wall to wall viewing experience will be interrupted this year (Avengers tomorrow night, bitchesssssss! Let’sss goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Also doing something special on Saturday), I’ll still watch the first round without distraction, which means it’s time to dive headfirst into this year’s draft class. So dust off your DVD of Draft Day and get settled in, it’s gonna be a long night.

Guys I Like

• Baker Mayfield- I’d be so upset if he went to the Jets. Not because I’d be worried, but because I know they’d ruin him.
• Lamar Jackson- He’s pretty much Hermes if Hermes was real and played football and was also being criminally undervalued.
• Quenton Nelson- The most foolproof player in the draft, which means he’ll be a huge bust.
• Bradley Chubb- Feels like the defensive version of Nelson. Can’t see him failing.
• Derwin James- Before the year he was a consensus top-5 pick, and now he’s dropping because his team had a bad year? I’ll gladly take him on my team.
• Roquon Smith- I have literally no data to back this up, but I feel like linebackers have a much higher success rate than most positions.
• Denzel Ward- Can he match last year’s crazy rookie corner production? I think so.
• Josh Rosen- The ultimate victim of too-much-predraft-analysis, I’m still on the Rosen train.
• Vita Vea- I just like his hair.
• Jaryd Jones-Smith- Did I just make him up or is he a real person? Tune in to find out.
• Sony Michell- Could easily see him dipping his toes into the “so underrated he’s overrated” pool.
• Brian Curran- Guy’s a winner, plain and simple.

Guys I Don’t Like

• Josh Allen- How many times have we seen this movie before? And teams still fall for it. He’s going to S U C K.
• Sam Darnold- Guy stinks.
• Saquon Barkley- Purely from a value standpoint. He’s a physical freak, but so are Kareem Hunt and Alvin Kamara. And they went in the third round.
• Marcus Davenport- When the last time a project d-end taken in the first round actually worked?
• Calvin Ridley- I think he’s like, 35 years old.
• Vontae Mack- His tweets are a little too distracting for my taste.
• Kolton Miller- Such an aggressively white millennial name.
• Natrell Jamerson- Another round of real or fake?
• Isaiah Wynn- Just kind of picked a name.
• Mason Rudolph- We really saying he’s good?

Guys I Want the Patriots to Draft

• Lamar Jackson
• Lamar Jackson
• Lamar Jackson
• Lamar Jackson
• Lamar Jackson

Guys I Don’t Want the Patriots to Draft

• Random offensive linemen who aren’t Lamar Jackson
• Literally anyone not named Lamar Jackson

Things I’m Thinking About Eating Tonight

• Pizza
• McDonald’s
• Wings
• The chicken fajitas I was gonna cook last night but there was a mix up with the gas company and our gas was turned off so if they fix it I could just cook tonight but it’s Draft Day, so why bother?
• Taco Bell
• These drunken noodles from this Thai place that I’m kind of addicted to.
• A ton of snacks

Best Things About the Movie Draft Day

• Sonny Weaver trading three first round picks for the number one overall pick, despite the fact that he admits seconds later that he knows nothing about the presumed number one overall pick.
• The fact that the supposed superstar coach is dead set on taking a running back in the top ten.
• A Wisconsin QB is the top prospect.
• The way the trainer let’s you know the Browns have a star receiver by telling the GM of the team that he’s a star wide receiver.
• That literally no one on the team went to Bo Callahan’s birthday party.
• The pregnancy and ashes subplots.
• The fact that an undersized linebacker would go number one in 2014.
• The fact that the Seahawks got worked over worse than anyone in history has ever been worked over.
• That a running back, a linebacker, and a punt returner was what convinced Coach Penn to stay, despite the fact that they still had Brian Hoyer Drew at QB.
• The fact that Ray Jenkins was excited to go to the Browns.

Teams That Will Definitely Have Good Drafts

• Cardinals
• Ravens
• Panthers
• Bengals
• Cowboys
• Lions
• Texans
• Jaguars
• Chargers
• Dolphins
• Patriots
• Giants
• Raiders
• Steelers
• Seahawks
• Titans

Teams That Will Definitely Have Bad Drafts

• Falcons
• Bills
• Bears
• Browns
• Broncos
• Packers
• Colts
• Chiefs
• Rams
• Vikings
• Saints
• Jets
• Eagles
• 49ers
• Bucs
• Redskins

Things to Do When It’s the Sixth Round and You Want to Stop Watching But You Can’t

• Try and find the next Tom Brady.
• Convince yourself that guard out of Howard is actually the steal of the draft.
• See if you can match Mel Kiper’s no-bathroom-breaks record.
• Think about finding more friends/hobbies.
• Become fluent in Mike Mayock-isms.
• Wonder where, if things just broke a little bit better for you, you would have been drafted.
• Get way too hyped for a season in which your team won’t win anything.

Which Avengers Would Make It in the NFL?

• Literally all of them.

Why Hasn’t There Been Another Pokemon Football Draft?

• Because I forgot about it until right now and it’s too much work to get it done before the draft.
• I should do round three, though. Third Gen is probably the most top end talent of any class.

On A Scale of 1-10, How Hyped Are You For the 2018 NFL Draft?

• 12

source– Former LSU running back Derrius Guice said in an interview Wednesday that one NFL team asked about his sexuality and another inquired if his mother was a prostitute at the NFL Scouting Combine that concluded earlier this week. 

‘’It was pretty crazy,” Guice said in an interview on the SiriusXM NFL show Late Hits. “Some people are really trying to get in your head and test your reaction. … I go in one room, and a team will ask me do I like men, just to see my reaction. I go in another room, they’ll try to bring up one of my family members or something and tell me, ‘Hey, I heard your mom sells herself. How do you feel about that?’ “

So this is the big story in the NFL right now. Happens every year. Some prospect gets asked an outlandish, very inappropriate question by an anonymous scout. This time, it’s LSU running back Derrius Guice being asked if he’s gay and if his mom’s a prostitute. In years past, there was Dez being asked if his mom was a hooker, various people being asked when they lost their virginity, what type of underwear they prefer, whether they’d want to play for the Browns, and other intrusive, personal questions no one should have to answer in a job interview. These questions are so uncalled for, in fact, that it makes me think that the coaches and scouts have agreed to ask these questions as a way to find who’s more likely to run to the press whenever something goes wrong.

Think about it: do you want Dez Bryant or Derrius Guice on your team? I don’t. He’s got distraction written all over him. What happens in the locker room/combine interview room stays in the locker room, man. I guarantee whatever team drafts him is gonna have some “anonymous player” leak issues. If he runs to the media every time someone insinuates his mom is a prostitute, what’s gonna happen when he gets called out in a players’ only meeting? A piece in the Players’ Tribune? No thanks. I’ll take the guy who internalizes the weird questions and swallows his feelings like a real man. Think it’s a coincidence scouts didn’t ask Jason Witten if he thinks his mother is attractive?

Listen, the NFL is a brotherhood. We all know this. Everyone gone through this process: you work out in your underwear while older men eye you up and down, then you get asked weird questions to see if you’re mentally tough enough to keep your mouth shut. It’s not that hard. Guice is a talented player, but why should anyone draft someone so fragile? What do you think Mike Singletary would think about players who leak their combine questions?

Enough said. Respect the combine process, dammit.

It’s tradition that after every NFL season, independent bloggers all across the country (and I guess some in other countries, but why on earth would you ever want to care about football if you don’t live in America?) submit their own incredibly valued thoughts on who should win the various awards. The rules of casually writing about sports dictate that I make my picks before the NFL Awards Show on Saturday night lest I risk expulsion from this powerful, rich, and diverse community, so my hands are tied. I’ve got no choice but to post this. I was going to wait until Friday, but this Super Bowl buildup has been so boring I just decided to do it today. I suppose boring is better than another fabricated cheating scandal the league creates for the sole purpose of taking away Patriots draft picks and ruining their reputation (please keep telling me the NFL is rigging games for them, pleeeeeeeeeeeasssssee keep telling me that), but it’s still been boring as hell. There hasn’t even been any minor trash talk. I’m almost wishing the Pats had lost so Jalen Ramsey could provide some entertainment. Guess I’ll have to make my own entertainment by handing out the Brian’s Den NFL Awards.

I always hate when leagues postpone the awards so long after the regular season ends. I’ve pretty much already forgotten everything that happened this season already! Did anyone but the Pats and Eagles actually play a game? I assume the Browns were terrible, but that could be any year. Stop trying to make sports award shows a thing and just hand them out before the Wild Card round so we can be done with them. Forcing me to watch (just kidding, I won’t watch. Probably) another long, terrible awards show just to find out Aaron Donald is good is cruel and unusual punishment. Anyway, since I don’t remember this season anymore, this is all just straight from the gut. Luckily, my gut is never wrong.

Offensive Rookie of the Year- Alvin Kamara, New Orleans Saints

Kareem Hunt is also an acceptable answer, seeing as how leading the league in rushing as a rookie is typically considered to be a good thing, but, factoring in kick return yardage, Kamara actually had more all-purpose yards and more total touchdowns than Hunt. He’s also one of the rare players that actually make football fun again. He’s a freak athlete that can take it to the house in literally any situation, and, seeing as how he had over 100 fewer touches than Hunt, I’d be willing to bet Kamara will be the one we still talk about five years from now. Kamara had a special, special season and is one of the reasons Drew Brees fought off Father Time for another year.

Defensive Rookie of the Year- Marshon Lattimore, New Orleans Saints

Decent draft for the Saints I guess. This is honestly the only award with more than one legitimate candidate, and if you ask me tomorrow I’ll say there’s no question Tre’Davious White is the clear DROY. Cornerback play is so difficult to judge, and the fact that two rookies consistently ranked in the top five on PFF’s positional rankings all year tells you all you need to know. Lattimore gets the edge because, without actually doing any research (what, you think I’m a professional or something?), I’m going to say he had to face a tougher schedule of wide receivers. And he plays for a real franchise.

Coach of the Year- Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams

There’s no one that disagrees with this, right?

Comeback Player of the Year- Keenan Allen, Los Angeles Chargers

I’ve always been a Keenan Allen guy, so I was quite happy to see him stay healthy for a full season for once. The guy’s just money. He’s always had the talent and is always productive when he’s actually healthy, he’s just had the worst luck of all time. People forget how good he really is (I know everyone knows he’s good, it’s called building a straw man to prove a point. Read a book about sports debating one time). And now you can’t call me a homer because I could have easily just picked Gronk.

Defensive Player of the Year- Aaron Donald, Los Angeles Rams

You can keep your Harrison Smiths and your Calais Campbells, I’ll take one of the five greatest defensive players of all time who may or may not have reached his prime yet.

Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year- Tom Brady, New England Patriots

It always felt asinine to me when different people won MVP and offensive player of the year. With the notable exceptions of Alan Page, Lawrence Taylor, and Mark Mosely, every MVP has played offense. So how can someone be recognized as being the best and most valuable player in the league but not be the best offensive player in the league? How does that make sense? Trick question- it doesn’t. So, assuming my pick plays offense, my MVP and OPOY will be the same person. I love Aaron Donald. As I said, he’s one of the five greatest defensive players ever. He’s not MVP. So that leaves the offensive frontrunners, so let’s go process of elimination. Antonio Brown is the best receiver in the league by a wide margin. You put him on the Browns and they still win precisely 0 games. Todd Gurley is a special player who had an awesome season. If you think he’s more valuable to his team than the top QBs you’re an idiot. Quarterback is the most important position in the NFL, and probably all of sports. Period. A great QB is worth more than virtually the entire rest of the roster put together. Yes, going from Jeff Fisher to McVay was a massive coaching upgrade that helped every offensive player, but do you think it was a coincidence that Gurley was terrible last year and good this year, mirroring the development of quarterback Jared Goff? I think not. A quarterback should pretty much always win MVP, regardless of how much you dislike him. So, all that remains are Tom Brady and Carson Wentz, who, despite missing the last three and a half games of the season, is still generating MVP buzz and was talked about as a lock before the injury. I know the playoffs shouldn’t factor in and that the voting already happened, but holding the awards after the playoffs happen mean that, you know, everyone sees the playoffs, so they factor in. And it completely locks up both awards for Brady. Down 10 in the fourth quarter against the best defense in the league without Gronk, Edelman, or any semblance of a run game, Tom Brady singlehandedly beat the Jaguars. It was literally 100% Brady. The Eagles completely dominated the second best team in the NFC without the supposed league MVP. Nick Foles played one of the great games by a quarterback this season. You know how many people can do Brady’s job? At age 40? You know how many other QBs would have won last Sunday under those circumstances? None. Zero. Not one other player in the NFL can do what Brady does. Apparently just about anyone can do enough of what Carson Wentz does to win games by a million. And people are asking who’s more valuable? I get people hate him and are upset that he’s still the best player in the league, but Brady is still the best player in the league. And because everyone’s got such an axe to grind with the Pats, he’s got two MVPs. Think about that. The best quarterback of all time, on the precipice of a completely unprecedented sixth Super Bowl win, has won two MVPs. We should be embarrassed at that. The country as a whole is so bitter and so desperate to get the Pats out of the way that we let Matt Ryan win an MVP. We let Peyton Manning win a thousand MVPs before losing in the first round every year. We give Aaron Rodgers MVP love like it’s going out of style, and the only team that he ever did anything with was probably his worst. Tom Brady has failed to win ten games in a season twice in his career, the most recent time happening in 2008. When he threw 11 passes before blowing out his knee. He’s missed the playoffs one time in a year where he started every game. One. Time. He’s top five in every meaningful passing stat. He’s arguably the most clutch athlete to ever live. He’s never had anything resembling a disappointing season and is always the best player on the best team. And he has two MVP awards because everyone is jealous of the fact that the Patriots have figured out a way to stay excellent in an era meant to prevent such dynasties from forming. Think about that for a second. You, yes, you reading this right now, have let your blind, irrational rage prevent you from enjoying a remarkable career that will certainly never happen again. You let your ravenous desire for new blood in the AFC control your mind, and now you believe that a league that lead one of the most egregious witch hunts in the history of mankind against a shining example of integrity, perseverance, competitiveness, and work ethic is now rigging games to have that same man succeed. Think about the fact that, after Sunday, Tom Brady will have played in the Super Bowl more often than Drew Brees has made the playoffs. Think about the fact that the greatest player in NFL history has two MVPs. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself. Because I certainly am.