No shock that NFL Draft talk is heating up especially surrounding the top picks and top quarterback prospects.
There is a debate as to whether or not the Bears keep the 1st overall selection but there is not currently much debate as to who will be that 1st pick. USC’s Caleb Williams (-1000) is the heavy favorite to go #1 at DraftKings.
The boys of Bet the EDGE discussed the top of the draft board earlier this week.
Drew Dinsick (@whale_capper) looks at the Bears’ current roster and thinks the play for them is obvious.
“Expecting that the Bears have now fortified their talent enough, particularly on the defensive side of the ball and have started to have enough draft capital in this draft that this is probably the last bite they have of the apple of taking a quarterback and developing him on a rookie deal I think makes the kind of calculus on this very straightforward. If the Bears are in any way doing the numbers themselves they realize this.”
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The sweat begins with the Washington Commanders and the 2nd overall pick in the Draft. UNC’s Drake Maye (-115) and LSU’s Jayden Daniels (+105) are vying for the honor.
Dinsick at the moment is leaning Maye.
“Who knows exactly how good Drake Maye will be. But I think it’s fine to expect ultimately that the Commanders are going to land there in terms of taking him as a prospect just because there’s a little bit more certainty with him presumably as far as pocket passing than Jayden Daniels, but it’s tough to say that with a strong conviction considering I don’t really do a ton of evaluation of players at the college level. Drake Maye as your current favorite for number two is fine, but I think that’s probably a very soft market.”
Read More: Eric Froton’s NFL Mock Draft 1.0
If the Draft sees quarterbacks go 1-2-3, is the Draft’s generational wide receiver prospect Marvin Harrison Jr. (-650) destined to be the 1st non-quarterback drafted (-650)? Or is Malik Nabers (+750) gaining some steam in the market? And do the Cardinals draft Harrison (-225) or do they trade out of the 4-hole?
There is plenty of noise about this in NFL circles according to Dinsick.
“I do know that the Cardinals are…intrigued to try to give up that 4th pick…(however) they are very needy in the wide receiver position. Obviously, that is a very clear position that they are going to be evaluating. There are people though that say that the gap is a little bit smaller (between Harrison and Nabers) than originally thought. There are people that have questions about Marvin Harrison Jr.’s speed, and he’s not going to run (at the Combine).”
Jay Croucher (@croucherJD) jumped in on the Cardinals’ future.
“Lance Zierlein of the NFL Network said that he believes there will be teams who do rank Malik Nabors ahead of Harrison on their board. So potentially some scope for it to get weird. Also, if the Cardinals do draft, Marvin Harrison and he is as good as advertised, they kind of become an interesting team in some futures markets because that offense was really good when Kyler Murray came back. The defense isn’t great, but there’s more scope for defenses to get good in the offseason or season to season than there is for offenses to magically do that. If are you looking at like longshot Coach of the Year candidates like Jonathan Gannon (+2000). That team won four games last year…wouldn’t be shocking to me if that team did have a bit of upside and was able to make a 6-7 win improvement.”
As the boys discussed earlier in the week, betting on the NFL Draft is about combing through the noise and collecting as much credible information as possible. However, even with credible information the event can be a sweat.
*odds provided by DraftKings
