It’s starting to feel like summer with warm weather and Spring Break beach trips. Summer break is a sacred time for letting loose, savory barbeques, lazy days at the pool, beach trips, and doing absolutely nothing yet loving every second of it. With summer and its glory fast approaching, so is a great moment in the football world: the annual NFL draft. Summer celebrations (and tribulations) may have more in common with the NFL Draft than meets the eye. Let’s take a look at the parallels between draft situations and summer elations.
That crazy pool party while the parents are out of town
Imagine this, a friends’ parents are out of town, they have the big house with a pool, and they hit up all their friends to get together for a crazy party. Sounds fun, exciting, and exhilarating right? It probably will be, but no doubt there’s going be to be second thoughts about the drinks and shenanigans that went on. Criticism may arise and the high will subside fast if everything falls apart. This is what it will be like for the Cardinals if they draft Kyler Murray number one. Rosen has the anticipation and accuracy to be a solid franchise quarterback going forward. I simply wouldn’t call the team Rosen had around him a sufficient supporting cast. Arizona undoubtedly had one of the worst offensive lines if not the worst during the 2018-2019 NFL season along with their best receiver being 35 years old. Furthermore, no tight end is worthy of any notoriety on the Arizona roster. Kyler Murray may be an exciting prospect to add to the Cardinals, providing a flashy franchise quarterback, however they are better suited to trade down and get a plethora of picks from a team such as Oakland. Furthermore, getting a generational defense talent in Nick Bosa could be much smarter than gambling on a franchise quarterback with one already on the roster.
Trip Abroad
This section is pretty straightforward as a trip abroad for summer break is an exciting venture into paradise. There really is no other better feeling during the summer than sitting on an exotic beach with no responsibilities or cares in the world. Ultimately, this is what it would be like for the Raiders to go all defense in the first two rounds while double dipping at cornerback with the number 24 and number 27 picks. If Oakland is able to net a dominant defensive lineman at number four a la Quinnen Williams, Josh Allen, or (in a far fetched dream land scenario) Nick Bosa, and manage to grab two of Byron Murphy, Greedy Williams, and/or Deandre Baker at 24 and 27, they just may have a young and exciting defense to build off of. Cornerback has been dry in Oakland for a long time and grabbing two of the top three cornerbacks in this draft in the first round would provide a special secondary for the future. If Oakland does in fact grab a young and playmaking cornerback duo round one and add pass rushers with their first pick in round one and two, they’ll have a seriously exciting and young defense to bring to the bright lights of Las Vegas in 2020.
Swimming in the amusement park wave pool
Amusement park wave pools have never been sanitary and always quite terrifying to be completely candid. Thousands of kids each day swim in those wave pools and yet almost none are seen leaving to use the bathroom, think about it. The very cautious and squeamish feeling that arises when approaching those waves of bacteria is how it would feel for the Giants to neglect drafting quarterback at number six in this year’s draft. Eli Manning simply is not the answer at all whatsoever and if the Giants don’t want to be blatantly tanking yet again in a full blown rebuild this season, they would be highly advised to go quarterback as early as possible. There are situations where neglecting quarterback would make sense, but only in very specific scenarios where Gettlemen knocks it out of the park. New York may not have another chance to grab a quarterback of the future this high with infinite demand mounting for Tua and Lawrence in the upcoming drafts, it would certainly be a top two pick or bust if the Giants wanted a franchise quarterback in future drafts.
Summer nights
Overall, when people think of the great summer vacation times, days at the pool, playing sports in the sun, picnics in the summer weather, barbeques, sports games, and beach vacations come to mind. However, the unsung heroes of the summer are those summer nights when the air cools down and the stars come out. That’s when a lot of my most fond summer memories come from as it’s just relaxation in a cool summer evening with not a care in the world. Similarly, there will be some unsung heroes in the upcoming draft in valuable sleeper prospects. Ultimately, my two most notable sleeper value picks in this draft include Vanderbilt cornerback Joejuan Williams and UMass wide receiver Andy Isabelle.
Joejuan Williams is a 6’4 cornerback who weighs in at 215 pounds while having the ability to smother receivers with his size and frame. Williams is aggressive on the ball both in air and on the ground with an aggressive overall play style. Furthermore, his change of direction and agility is pretty solid for a guy his size with a smooth backpedal and flipping of the hips. A deadly combination of size, length, hand speed, agility, fluid movement, and aggressive play style with plus ball skills makes Williams an extremely intriguing cornerback option in round three of the draft. Williams simply needs to shore up his tracking of the ball downfield with his back to the quarterback as this deficiency often leads to giving up big plays, as well as being more patient and well timed in his jams while in press coverage.
Andy Isabelle overall provides a very well rounded and explosive slot receiver prospect in April’s draft. Isabelle runs extremely sharp routes with the ability to stop on a dime and reaccelerate out of his breaks with blazing speed and explosive twitch. Furthermore, Isabelle has a competitive fire in him that you look for in an NFL wide receiver and it shows up on the field with plays where Isabelle will willingly throw himself into blockers in the run game. The innante ability to create separation deep and underneath, understand leverage in his routes, and still maintain sharp routes and cuts throughout his progressions provides a deadly wide receiver prospect when that’s combined with speed shown in his 4.31 40 yard dash time. Yes, you read that right. He ran a blazing 4.31 40 time on top of all that. Lastly, Isabelle is extremely elusive, shifty, explosive, and slippery after the catch. Often times Isabelle will literally bounce off tacklers and run for another ten yards while also being able to run right past defenders and put them on the ground with moves only a running back should possess. So if he is so explosive, precise, high IQ, and shift in his routes with blazing speed and magnificent running back type skills after the catch, it can be asked why he isn’t a unanimous first round pick. Well, he’s only 5’9 and 188 pounds. This restricts Isabelle to a slot role in the NFL with no prospect of extended work as the outside receiver in an NFL scheme. However, Isabelle provides an extremely promising slot receiver option in round three through four of the NFL draft.
Conclusion
With the NFL draft quickly arriving and months of prospect analysis by me personally, there are a handful of draft scenarios to cover and there’s no way I could cover them all without boring most viewers. Leave a comment down below what you want to see your team do come late next week!
Good writer! DNM