It’s NFL Draft Szn and that means it’s Mock Draft Szn – and when CBS Sports’ Will Brinson jumped on with the Junkies Tuesday morning, the first thing they had to ask him about was the Troll Mock Draft he did last week where he had Will Levis going No. 1 and the Commanders taking edge rusher Nolan Smith with the caption “Under no circumstances will Daniel Snyder allow his young quarterback to be helped, no sir, not as he's in the middle of selling the team.”
“I’ve been wanting to do that for like five years, but it’s kind of hard to do it, because you piss off every single fan base in the NFL!” Brinson laughed. “Inevitably even in a real mock you upset one or two fan bases – and then in this one I had a bunch telling me that’s what they wanted to do!”
When it comes to mocking a real draft, though, Brinson’s feeling Bryce Young at No. 1, as he was -1000 on Monday in the odds to go tops overall.
“Any draft odds are all completely a reactionary market, not a predictive market whatsoever,” Brinson explained. “To me, Bryce Young is the guy. The entirety of the C.J. Stroud stuff was based on Frank Reich’s past proclivities, but the primary factor is that (Panthers owner) David Tepper reportedly loves Bryce Young, even if Frank Reich has the final decision. I think Reich likes Young a lot, but I will almost guarantee you the move up to No. 1 was driven by David Tepper.”
In a surprise, Brinson has Houston taking Young if he’s there at No. 2 but going defense if he’s not, because they have the No. 12 pick as well and may not love any of the other top quarterbacks – and they might not even go signal-called then?
“They can say we’ll see who’s available at 12 and trade up if we need to,” Brinson said. “Or, they can just take the best players that fir other needs to bolster their roster, because if you think about it, if the Colts and Panthers and all these other teams that need quarterbacks take one this year, then next year, there’s a lot less competition for Drake Maye and Caleb Williams.”
Bish flat out said “that would be real ballsy,” because there are indeed quite a few teams that need a QB, and the alternative isn’t great.
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“You’re risking not getting a guy like Stroud thinking Levis or Richardson may fall, and if not, you’re going back to Davis Mills?” Bish asked. “Good luck with that!”
“It’s interesting that the draft is all about information, but there’s less information trafficking and info coming out from these teams now,” Brinson replied. “These younger GMs keep things closer to the vest, and the last few years, we’ve had a lot of teams with multiple first-round picks, which affects the amount of information coming out.”
Brinson also believes that the drafts post-pandemic have been a little different on both ends of the player spectrum – forcing good players out earlier and giving the next tier extra time to shine.
“Prior to 219, there were always 20-plus prospects who graded 6.7 or higher, which is an NFL starter,” Brinson said, “but in 2020 it was 15, and then in 2021 it was like 11, and so on. Part of that is the guys who were really good bounced out as quick as they could, and part of that is guys got that COVID year and hung around a little longer to boost their profile, so there’s just not as many studs as in years past.”
And considering you never know what could happen, Bish had to ask about another mock draft done by someone else that has the Commanders trading up to take Anthony Richardson.
“I don’t see how Washington is going to do that – the team just sold, who is going to do that and piss off their future bosses that quickly?” Brinson laughed. “If I was Washington I’d be hesitant to move up the draft board knowing new ownership is going to be looking at making personnel decisions – and I think people are also probably overvaluing how much teams like the Lions and Seahawks might look at a QB.”
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