Tuesday Morning Quarterback: NFL Draft Preview

Most basic is Tuesday Morning Quarterback’s Whiteboard Analytic of the NFL: In the current state of the game, there is having a franchise quarterback and then there is everything else combined. Quarterback long has been football’s most important position. The recent two decades of rules changes intended to encourage pass completions while discouraging hits on the guy in the pocket—thus preserving the owner’s economic investment in the QB—have made the quarterback more important still. Thursday’s first round is all but certain to reflect this.

The next factor is that the skyrocketing cost of veteran quarterbacks makes youth behind center attractive. The R*dsk*ns just gave $71 million in guarantees to veteran Alex Smith, who has complied just two postseason victories in 13 seasons. The Vikings and 49ers just awarded a total of $158 million in guarantees to veterans Kirk Cousins and Jimmy Garoppolo, who have, between them, a grand total of zero postseason victories. That’s $229 million into escrow for gents who are a combined 2-6 in the NFL playoffs.

Of the Smith, Garoppolo, and Cousins deals, at least one will prove a very expensive dud. Garoppolo, for instance, sure looked good on the handful of occasions he actually lined up—but that was also true of Brock Osweiler and Rob Johnson before they received huge contracts based on a very modest body of work, then flamed out.

By contrast, rookie quarterbacks drafted Thursday in the first round will sign contracts with collective-bargaining ceilings that guarantee them around $20 million to $35 million over four years, plus a team option for a fifth season at well below a successful quarterback’s market value. That’s a bargain compared to the amounts veteran free-agent quarterbacks command.

The next factor in Thursday’s likely stampede for QBs is that in the 2016 draft, the Rams and Eagles conducted mega trade-ups that violated NFL conventional wisdom about not surrendering high picks, and turned out to work really well. In the 2017 draft, the Texans conducted a series of moves to attain Deshaun Watson (Cleveland holds both of Houston’s initial choices this year as a consequence of its quarterback deals with the Texans) that turned out to work well, while Kansas City conducted a mega trade-up for Patrick Mahomes. The latter transaction cannot be judged because Mahomes hasn’t played much, but he has caused tremendous excitement among those who’ve seen him zing the ball at Chiefs’ practices.

Of course, that was then, this is now—but the fact that trading up for quarterbacks was successful in the two most recent NFL drafts is sure to influence this week’s draft. The picks Buffalo obtained in Kansas City’s trade-up for Mahomes may allow the Bills to conduct a mega trade-up, too, creating a chain-letter effect. This year, even Bill Belichick, who traditionally moves down by surrendering high choices for lots of low picks, has stockpiled high choices and may move up in search of Tom Brady’s replacement.

The final reason six quarterbacks may hear their names called on Thursday night is the players themselves. Let’s have a look-see.

Josh Rosen. Beautiful, gorgeous intermediate and deep sideline passes. Both Manning brothers won Super Bowls with perfection on the intermediate and deep sideline pass. Looks comfortable in the pocket; Brady and Aaron Rodgers have convinced the NFL that pocket passing is the way to go. If I were the Browns, and his health checks out, I’d make Rosen the first Jewish player chosen with the NFL’s number-one selection. (Bennie Friedman, one of the best football players ever, left Michigan for the pros in 1927, when there was no draft.)

Jim Mora, Rosen’s coach at UCLA, bad-mouthed the QB in order to shift blame for the 6-7 season that got him fired. But Mora is—what’s the word I am looking for?—an idiot. Mora is the guy who, on the final week of the 2005 NFL regular season, did not know that a tie would have put his Atlanta Falcons into the playoffs, totally botching endgame strategy as a result. The fact about the tie scenario had not been a state secret: It was on NFL.com, and Mora didn’t know it! The Falcons and Bruins learned, the hard way, not to trust Mora the Younger. Why should anyone trust Mora’s views of Rosen?

Sam Darnold. Yeah, the USC product fumbles some snaps. In the NFL, Steve Young fumbled 68 times. Darnold’s throws are both on target and “on time,” as scouts say: They arrive before safeties can react. College receivers get much more separation than pro receivers. The result is that some quarterbacks who seem unstoppable in the NCAA are stopped in the NFL because they don’t anticipate enough for their passes to be “on time.” Darnold’s are. Plus he’s cool as a cucumber, whatever that means.

Baker Mayfield. Scouts say that at 6-1, he’s too short. Russell Wilson and Drew Brees were “too short” and both won the Super Bowl. A worry about Rosen is that he’s not emotional enough, not the kind of guy who can’t sleep at night when his team loses. This is no problem with Oklahoma’s Mayfield. Playing style, passion for victory—Mayfield has a strong chance of being the next Brees.

What you gotta love about Mayfield is that he wasn’t recruited out of high school despite 67 touchdown passes versus eight interceptions at Lake Travis, a high-profile program in football-crazed Austin, Texas. Mayfield walked on at Texas Tech, and was told to hit the road, Jack. He proceeded to throw 117 touchdowns versus 20 picks at OU.

The red flag is that Mayfield has always been in the spread-option offense that is all the rage in Texas prep ranks and in parts of college ball. The spread-option hasn’t worked in the NFL. What the quarterback sees and how he reads what he sees (his “progressions”) are super-simplified in the spread option, compared to a pro-style attack. Darnold and Rosen played in pro-style offenses both in high school and in the Pac-12; pro-style experience is a big plus for them versus Mayfield.

Lamar Jackson. Last year Deshaun Watson slid to the 12th player chosen because many touts misunderstood him as a zone-read quarterback, and the zone-read is stone-cold as an NFL base offense. Watson was not zone-read, but rather is a jitterbug quarterback, this column’s term for the playing style that Michael Vick invented in high school. Vick would scramble from side to side in what appeared to defenses to be a broken play; then tuck the ball and sprint forward as if he has decided to run; then at the last instant launch a deep pass, which had been the plan all along.

Watson excels in this style, leaving many NFL clubs sorry from passing on him in 2017. Jackson, out of the University of Louisville, also excels at the jitterbug: The essence of his game is the deep pass launched just as he seems to be about to cross the line of scrimmage. This style reflects, from Jackson, both athletic ability and mental discipline. If he’s available in the mid- to late-first round, Jackson would represent outstanding draft value.

Mason Rudolph. “Looks the part,” as scouts say—tall, handsome, with a bearing that says I-am-a-quarterback. His passes tend to flutter, which is OK in college but an issue at game speed in the pros. In many years he’d be the guy that some team hopes to sneak away with in the second round. A run on quarterbacks could get the Oklahoma State signal-caller into the first round.

Josh Allen. You gotta love that Allen received no Division 1 recruiting offers. He grew up in a farming town near Fresno, California, and not even Fresno State was interested. He eventually landed at the University of Wyoming. On Thursday night, Allen will join Carson Wentz, Haasan Reddick, Khalil Mack, and Eric Fisher as recent high number-one NFL choices that no Power Five football factory wanted.

Because of so many parallels to Wentz, Allen could go to Cleveland at first overall. Like Wentz, Allen is tall, has a Greek-god physique, and played in the upper Rocky Mountain region for a program that was never on national television. (Though, Allen did take a bow in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.) Allen even played at Wyoming for Craig Bohl, the same guy who was running North Dakota State when Wentz arrived.

Draftniks complain that Allen completed 56.2 percent of his passes, versus 60.9 percent for the other Josh, Josh Rosen. Had Allen thrown at 60.9 percent in college he would have completed one additional pass per start – good, but hardly decisive. Worrisome to TMQ is that Allen performed in an old-fashioned vanilla college offense: In 2017, Wyoming coaches called 446 rushes versus 348 passes.

Cleveland holds the initial choice, and its new general manager, John Dorsey, held the initial choice once before, at Kansas City in 2013. Dorsey used that pick on Eric Fisher, who like Allen played below the Power Five, in Fisher’s case at Central Michigan.

The big argument in Allen’s favor is his velocity. In recent seasons, pro scouts have had a love affair with radar guns that determine the miles per hour as a throw leaves a quarterback’s hand. Scouts liked Mahomes last season because he tested at 55 MPH. At the 2018 Combine, Allen threw 62 MPH and did so in both directions—that’s “warp speed, Mr. Sulu.” Velocity is no warranty: At his combine, Logan Thomas threw at 60 MPH, and now he’s a backup tight end. But Allen’s awesome velocity number may propel him to the top of the draft on the theory of most-potential.

If Allen does go first overall, he will become the third #1 selection in the last six NFL drafts, joining Fisher and Jared Goff, who did not get five stars from Rivals.com, the holy writ of football recruiting.

In other draft news, play the Tuesday Morning Quarterback NFL draft drinking game! Take a drink every time a network announcer says, “I really like this pick.

You’ll be inebriated soon, as every NFL Network and ESPN announcer really likes every pick by every team. Fox announcers who join the live coverage this year are likely to really like picks, too.

Be wary of the Tuesday Morning Quarterback NFL draft drinking game during the late rounds on Saturday, when the picks come three minutes apart. You’ll be pouring nonstop, as announcers pretend they have extensively studied film of unknown nickel linebackers from Division-2 schools, and other chaps relegated to Saturday.

Announcers extol almost everyone drafted because the announcers (whether male or female) are house men. Their job is to keep the audience excited, by creating an illusion that every player chosen is a future star. At some juncture this week, the podium will say something like, “With the 181st pick of the 2018 draft, the Chicago Bears select Folorunso Fatukasi, defensive tackle, Connecticut.” All the announcers will pretend to be intimately familiar with Fatukasi’s tape, and all will predict for him stardom.

A more selective draft drinking game involves a shot each time a network announcer says the gentlemen just chosen should have been drafted higher. This happens every third selection or so. If a third of players chosen should have gone higher, then a third of the ones already selected must have gone too high. But since every player already drafted was greeted by “I really like this pick,” who, exactly, were the guys chosen too high? They should have elicited an ESPN or NFL Network response of, “Jeez, what a dumb pick.”

A third possible drinking game is to knock one back every time a head coach or general manager says of the player just chosen, “We couldn’t believe he was still there!” In a couple of years, everyone will know why he was still there.

Beware the Mega-Trade. Draft-day mega trade-ups are generally seen as panicky moves. Most mega-trades backfire. Consider the six number-one draft choices and two number-twos recently thrown out the window in panicky trade-ups for Robert Griffin III, Sammy Watkins, and Morris Claiborne.

The Eagles and Rams are a recent exception to this rule, coming out ahead on the draft-day trade-ups that landed Goff and Wentz. Both teams gave such a king’s ransom that the Rams and Eagles were considered doomed to the cellar for years. Instead LA/A reached the postseason and the Nesharim won that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about.

Because the Whiteboard Analytic increasingly rules the NFL, a mega-trade to acquire a quarterback at the top of the first round can make sense. The Bills and Jets have already conducted princess-bride trades to improve their positions in the first round; some team is sure to add a kings-ransom move.

Beyond the mega-trade that landed Goff, the Rams have splurged liberally with draft choices. The result is that they go into this year’s event with no first- or second-round pick, and they’ve already spent their number-two in 2019, too. Since 2013, the Rams have invested four number-one selections, four number-twos, and five number-threes in quarterbacks and wide receivers; that is, 13 of their last 18 premium choices on just two positions. This should have denuded the roster, yet LA/A has a pretty solid lineup, plus a clear salary cap for 2019.

Our Hands Are High/Our Feet Are Low/Into the Courthouse/Our Lawsuits Go. Lately the mainstream media have been paying attention to the NFL taking advantage of its cheerleaders. Posing for swimsuit calendars is not exploitation, that’s an adult’s free choice. Paying cheerleaders next to nothing, while imposing on them lifestyle restrictions ranging from spurious to sexist, definitely is exploitation.

A commentator recently wrote, “The scantily-clad dancing girl has a long history as integral to entertainment in theatrical arts as well as sport. It is, however, objectionable if everyone involved in an NFL contest is making buckets of money, except for the cheerleaders.” Wait—that wasn’t recent, it was me nine years ago, in an ESPN article headlined CHEERLEADER EXPLOITATION.

Nine years ago. Tuesday Morning Quarterback long has pounded the table for the notion that NFL cheerleaders are mistreated. Academics, pundits, and the MSM haven’t shown much interest. Perhaps this is because the problem is small from society’s standpoint: There are fewer than 1,000 people on pro football pep squads. Or perhaps this is because the fact that there are pretty girls who want to prance in miniskirts just does not fit into the mental computer of gender theory.

But if mistreatment of women can be ignored even when it happens on national television—the mistreatment not being the outfits, rather, the sub-minimum-wage pay plus ridiculous conditions of employment—what should we suppose about the kind of mistreatment of female employees that happens where no one sees anything?

All this is separate from the question of whether cheerleaders actually cause the crowd to cheer more. Professional football, America’s favorite sport, celebrates violence on the field; along the sideline, the cheerleaders celebrate a sort of corporate-approved ersatz sexuality. Amusing violence, superficial sex appeal—no wonder the NFL is popular!

Everybody’s Above Average. When the 2018 sked was released last week, ESPN predicted every team’s final record. The predictions add up to 289 victories—256 is the mathematical maximum. Only six of the 32 teams were predicted to finish below .500.

This is an aspect of the house-man phenomenon. ESPN’s NFL beat reporters want to create an illusion that almost every team will have a fantastic season. Actually, by Thanksgiving, half the league’s clubs will be lying on their sides in flames, like the battleship Suvorov at Tsushima Strait.

World’s Shortest Mock Draft. Oakland Raiders (from Knicks, projected trade). Chukwudiebere Maduabum and DeAndre Liggins.

Initially chosen by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2011 NBA draft, Maduabum has been traded to Denver, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Houston, Detroit, and Cleveland, but never actually appeared in an NBA contest. Currently he laces up his sneaks in Japan for the Ibaraki Robots. Liggins has been on seven NBA rosters, two NBA developmental clubs, and laced up for Krasny Oktyabr of Volgograd. In the last 12 months alone Liggins has been waived by Cleveland, claimed by Dallas, traded to Houston, traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, traded to Atlanta, waived by Atlanta, waived by Miami, waived by Milwaukee, and signed by New Orleans. Once Liggins was traded twice on the same day.

As for the Knicks, at last June’s NBA draft, Phil Jackson promised the team’s long-suffering faithful a “winning-type situation.” This season the Knicks finished 29-53, which perhaps meets the criteria of “winning-type.” After Jackson was cashiered, new management somehow managed to move Carmelo Anthony. To the immense relief of Houston Rockets fans, Anthony went to Oklahoma City. There he has averaged 1.3 assists—which means that contrary to popular belief, Melo does actually give the ball up once per game.

Best Pre-draft Deals. The transaction that sent Brandin Cooks from the Patriots to the Rams works out to the 32nd choice of the 2017 draft (what New England paid a year ago to obtain him from New Orleans) for a one-season rental (Cooks gained 1,082 yards for the Flying Elvii in the regular season) and then the 23rd choice in 2018. That is, the Patriots enjoyed Cooks’s services and improved their next first-round draft selection in the process. Maybe New England also got its security deposit back.

At the Super Bowl, Cooks departed early with a concussion. It’s amazing to think that New England gained 613 yards on offense with its speed receiver missing most of the contest. Was Cooks going out a reason the Patriots lost? Three years ago after the New England-Seattle Super Bowl, Bill Belichick was heavily criticized for not taking Julian Edelman out despite a hard helmet-to-helmet hit that left the receiver woozy; Edelman went on to score the winning touchdown. Maybe it’s a sign of progress that even a win-at-any-cost coach will no longer leave a concussed player on the field in a critical game.

Pre-draft, Buffalo received the equivalent of second- and third-round picks for Tyrod Taylor and Cordy Glenn, who the Bills were likely to waive for salary cap reasons. (Taylor was attractive to Cleveland because the Browns 2.0 acquired his contract, which pays less than that of many NFL starting quarterbacks.) Since taking over a year ago, head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane have traded numerous starting players for draft capital, as well as cleared Buffalo’s 2019 salary cap so that, assuming a franchise quarterback is obtained this week, the future Bills will have the financial ability to surround him with talent.

Netting several deals and eliminating minor picks, the Rams traded Robert Quinn, Alex Ogletree, and a second-round draft choice for Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib, and a fourth-round selection. Reliable man-to-man corners were essential to the funky defenses Wade Phillips employed at Denver to win a Super Bowl, and now LA/A has reliable man-to-man corners for Phillips to scheme around.

Trump Said He’d Drain the Swamp, Instead the Level Keeps Rising. Lately there’s focus on EPA administration Scott Pruitt’s many failings: his gigantic taxpayer-funded security detail for a family trip to Disneyland, his poor job of running the agency, and of course the $43,000 Cone of Silence in his office.

Two weeks ago the New York Times correctly ascribed this to Pruitt wanting “to be treated as if he’s president.”

TMQ had that point six months earlier: “The large security detail around EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is not to protect him from enraged wetlands ecologists, rather, to make him seem like a little pasha—allowing him to speed through stoplights in a motorcade, to cut to the heads of lines and receive the ‘make way, make way’ treatment from mere citizens.” The preposterous Cone of Silence is to suggest to visitors that Pruitt is so ultra-important he needs a Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility in order … to what? Perhaps to prevent Chinese spies from eavesdropping on discussions of PM2.5 rulemaking promulgations.

It’s bad enough that his predecessor, Obama-period EPA boss Gina McCarthy, had multiple security guards as she rode in an SUV motorcade to appearances at which she wagged her finger about other people wasting gasoline. Pruitt doesn’t so much as pretend his battalion-sized armed detail and his 12 MPG oversized Suburban with bulletproof modifications are for any purpose other than making him seem like a royal. As taxpayers provide Pruitt with an aristocratic lifestyle, nothing happens on what ought to be the EPA’s priority: revising environmental laws, most of which are 20 to 50 years out of date, written for conditions that no longer exist.

Pruitt is a phony, yet hardly the only government official who has taxpayer-funded security details in order to be treated like a head of state. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, a Democrat, recently resigned after admitting an affair with a taxpayer-funded bodyguard during a taxpayer-funded trip to Greece. Forget the affair; why does the mayor of a Tennessee city need a taxpayer-funded bodyguard when visiting a nation where not one single person will recognize her? And this is assuming the trip itself was not a pure junket.

The Baker Mayfield Rule. When Mayfield transferred from Texas Tech to Oklahoma, initially the NCAA said he’d have to sit out a year—even though he’d never received a Texas Tech athletic scholarship. Eventually the NCAA relented, but then the Big 12 said he had to sit out a year for the sin of transferring within the conference. Imagine if a medieval history major transferred from one college to another and was told she would have to wait one year before taking classes in her major. The Big 12 now will allow player in Mayfield’s situation to take the field immediately, a minor reform made solely to prevent bad public-relations, not because it was the right thing to do. That this whole kerfuffle happened in the first place is yet more proof that Division 1 bowl sports programs want to restrict athletes so the schools get all the money while the players get all the injuries.

Incredible Insider Info. Here is what your favorite team needs in the draft: QB, RB, OT, OG, C, WR, TE, DT, DE, MLB, OLB, CB, S, PK, P, LS. How do I know this without knowing who your favorite team is? The NFL combines large rosters with a Darwinian environment; even the best clubs require reinforcements at every position every year. Your favorite team may also need an EDGE. At the same time the position term “wing” has become fashionable in basketball, the position term EDGE—always capitalized—has caught on among draftniks.

As regards every team needing every position, consider the defending champion Eagles (and how strange it is to type those words!). Philadelphia has a deep roster, yet it could use a good rookie practically everywhere. The Eagles possess the league’s best quarterback lineup card—and don’t be surprised if they draft a quarterback, since Nick Foles holds a contract option to become a free agent next winter.

That every year every team needs fresh blood at every position is the primary argument for drafting the best player available, rather than drafting to fill slots. Trouble is, at this stage nobody knows who the best available player available is.

Puzzling Pre-Draft Trading. Going into the 2017 season, Miami’s marquee names were Jarvis Landry, Ndamukong Suh, Mike Pouncey, and Jay Ajayi. Now all have departed, for a net of just two selections on the third day of the draft. Note that Suh arrived at the Marine Mammals signing a “six year, $114 million” contract that lasted three years and paid $58 million—another example of TMQ’s contention that the non-guaranteed part of NFL contract numbers should be placed in quotation marks.

Midway through the 2017 season, the Browns offered second- and third-round draft choices for A.J. McCarron; in Ohio they’re still arguing about which side botched this proposed trade. Then in the offseason, when McCarron became a free agent, the Browns passed on signing him without having to offer any compensation. Huh?

The Seahawks are at the end of a talent cycle, which implies an unpleasant rebuilding season in 2018. In recent months the Blue Men Group said good-bye to Richard Sherman, Michael Bennett, Jimmy Graham, Paul Richardson, and Sheldon Richardson. The latter cost Seattle a second-round draft choice, plus Jermaine Kearse, to rent for just one season; Seattle traded for Richardson knowing his contract was about to expire, then failed to resign him. (He’s now with Minnesota.) Moves this like lead to unpleasant rebuilding seasons.

Network Executives Should Travel Back in Time to 1969 and Not Cancel Star Trek. Hollywood loves time travel because, as this column notes, not only do time travel plots not need to make sense—they can’t make sense, which lifts a burden from the scriptwriters.

Right now there are two time-travel shows on network primetime, Timeless on NBC and The Crossing on ABC; a time-travel series on Netflix, Travelers; and on the numerous DC-branded superhero shows of the CW Network, time travel is as easy as catching a cab.

Though time travel is extremely difficult to imagine—the problem isn’t how to build the time machine, the problem is that there are no alternative-time universes to travel to—at least within the shows, premises should be consistent.

Both The Crossing and Travelers concern men and women from the 23rd century using a time machine to come backward to our moment in hopes of preventing horrible future dystopias from developing. In both shows, people from the future talk exactly like modern-day southern Californians. Imagine if you traveled back in time two centuries and spoke using the 2018 vernacular! More telling, neither series has any truck with time-travel paradoxes.

Since, from the standpoint of the future, whatever the time-travelers did in the present has already happened—happened long ago—the future would already reflect any alteration of the past. If anyone time-traveled to the 21st century to stop events that led to a 23rd-century dictatorship, everything would happen the instant the traveler stepped into the time machine, with all the impacts of the time-travel already incorporated in history books. If the dystopia still existed, then it would be obvious the time-travel project failed. If the dystopia instantly vanished, there’d be no reason to step into the time machine in the first place, and then—well, like I said, time-travel plots are popular with the studios because they can’t make sense.

On Timeless, the characters possess an invisible time machine (no one in the past ever notices it) yet don’t know about holsters, or stuffing handguns into their waistbands. But at least Timeless, the best network effort ever in the time-travel genre, tries to grapple with paradoxes. Plus the series is full of references to quirky facts of genuine history. Our heroes encounter Wendell Scott, one of the first African American NASCAR drivers; they meet Ernest Hemmingway when he was a drunken young reporter in Paris; they must cooperate with Ian Fleming when he was a British spy during World War II.

Whenever our heroes return to the present on Timeless, anything they did in the past has already happened—in fact happened long ago, and characters of the present have no memory or records of things the people who were in the time machine consider to have been correct history. When the good guys come back from meeting Fleming, they find there has never been a James Bond movie—Fleming’s brush with time travelers made him into a science-fiction author. For convoluted reasons, the time machine goes back to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, and alters the famous events there. When the characters return and report, “We stopped the Salem Witch Trials,” people in the present have no idea what they’re talking about. One asks, “Don’t you mean the Salem Women’s Rebellion?”

Of course if our heroes change the past enough, they might create circumstances in which the time-machine project never began. This could make a nice cliffhanger if the series is renewed.

Trading for Contracts. Every year around this time NFL teams make seemingly trivial transactions to obtain little-known players.

For instance, the Patriots flip-flopped late draft selections with Cleveland in a trade netting the Browns just slightly more than nothing and New England defensive back Jason McCourty. Sportsyak thought Bill Belichick wanted Devin McCourty’s twin. What Belichick really wanted was Jason’s contract, which has another season to run just at about the league minimum.

Third-string quarterback Kevin Hogan was dealt from Cleveland to the R*dsk*ns for a flip-flop of late-round draft picks. This transaction netted a slight gain for Cleveland—basically, it was a $10 bill left on the bar for a $5 beer—but was better from the Browns’ perspective than simply placing Hogan on waivers.

From Washington’s perspective, the team was trading not so much for a player as for a contract. A third-year gent, Hogan has a season remaining on a deal that’s a tad above the minimum, then in 2019 will be what the NFL calls, in a wonderful oxymoron, a “restricted free agent”—on paper able to test the market, but possessing no bargaining leverage. The deal brings the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons two seasons of a scout-team quarterback bound to the team cheaply by the standards of quarterback contracts, freeing cap space for starters. Had Washington waited for Cleveland to waive Hogan, there would have been modest competition for his services, and Washington would have had to offer a signing bonus. Trading for his contract obviated this need.

In other cases, teams leave a 10-spot on the bar for a $5 brewski as part of a larger transaction. Pre-draft, the Giants sent Jason Pierre-Paul and pick #102 to City of Tampa for a third-round draft choice and pick #108. The slight flip-flop of #102 for #108 allows the Buccaneers to tell season-ticket holders they drove a hard bargain. But the difference between the picks is essentially a gratuity—“here you are my good man, here’s your glove-wearing defensive end, and I’ve thrown in a little something for your trouble.”

The G-Persons ended up stuck with $15 million in salary cap charges for Pierre-Paul in the current season—that is, $15 million assessed against Jersey/A while the gent plays somewhere else. The former Giants’ contract is yet another example of how many NFL deals, which are mostly not guaranteed, should be placed in quotation marks.

A year ago, Jersey/A signed Pierre-Paul to a “four-year, $62 million” agreement that lasted one season in New Jersey and will last one more in Florida; then City of Tampa will tell Pierre-Paul to take a pay cut or be waived. The “four-year, $62 million” contract was negotiated by Jerry Reese, since cashiered as the team’s general manager; new general manager David Gettleman wanted to make sure everyone knew this was a bad deal by Reese, as part of setting expectations low. (“You can’t possibly expect us to win this season after the mess I inherited,” etc.) The departure of Pierre-Paul leaves Eli Manning as the sole Giant remaining from the 2012 title team.

Woof! Woof! Monday Night Football Schedule Announced. For about the fifth consecutive season, the NFL’s newly announced schedule offers a much stronger slate to NBC on Sunday nights than to ESPN on Monday. NBC gets five contests that pair two clubs that both made the postseason last year; Monday Night Football gets only two such pairings. NBC gets two playoff rematches (Steelers versus Jaguars and Saints versus Vikings). ESPN gets no playoff rematch, but the woofer Giants at 49ers, 2017 combined record 9-23.

Of course by midseason, there may be a total remix of teams that are playing well or poorly. All that can be known when the schedule is composed is who played well or poorly in the previous year, plus which franchises traditionally command national excitement. The latter are the Broncos, Cowboys, Packers, Patriots, and Steelers. NBC gets 12 total appearances by this marquee group; ESPN gets six appearances.

The Monday Night Football slate consistently is inferior to games on Sunday Night Football despite ESPN paying the NFL about double what NBC pays. A decade ago, NFL owners tried to use NFL Network to knock ESPN out of the pro football telecasting business. They failed, and since then have taken out their frustrations by trying to undercut the organization that calls itself The Worldwide Leader. NFL owners further dislike ESPN because it covers, if fitfully, the downsides of athletics; NFL coverage by CBS, Fox, and NBC occurs strictly on bended knee.

Thus the NFL schedule-makers’ running attempt to make Monday Night Football look bad. This doesn’t happen by accident, rather, has been a conscious policy of the league’s ownership class. But the NFL is cutting off its nose to spite its face as ratings and general interest in pro football continue to decline. Having strong games, instead of clunkers, on Monday nights might shore up interest, but NFL owners are too short-sighted to consider this.

Your columnist benefits, though. Monday night contests are so often irrelevant to the standings that I can finish TMQ on Monday afternoon, assuming no one will care what happens on Monday night. I’m rarely wrong.

Draft Day Trivia. Who are Duane Bickett, Derrick Burroughs, Ron Holmes, and Ethan Horton? Players drafted ahead of Jerry Rice. Who is Eddie Brown? A wide receiver drafted ahead of Jerry Rice.

It’s Only a Matter of Time Until the NFL Draft Becomes a National Holiday. This year’s first round will air on ESPN, Fox, NFL Network, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. For later rounds, ABC kicks in as well. This is roughly the same degree of TV coverage granted to the 1969 Moon landing.

Keep your eye on the early second round, which airs Friday evening. Last year, the first five selections in the second round were traded. There’s an entire day between the end of the first round and the onset of the second, which gives teams time to reshuffle their boards and make trade offers.

Plus there’s always someone that scouts realize should have gone in the first round but remains available in the second, leading to a scramble to obtain a high second to snag that guy. Last year the scramble was for the second choice of the second round, used to snag offensive tackle Cam Robinson, who would help the Jaguars reach the AFC title contest. One reason the 2017 Jacksonville squad had a stout offensive line, while the 2017 Seahawks offensive line was porous, is that Pete Carroll traded away the choice Jax would use on Robinson, in order to obtain a trivial late-round selection for the Blue Men Group. By the middle of the 2017 season, Seattle was desperate for offensive tackles. Had Carroll simply played with the hand he was dealt and chosen Robinson, the Seahawks season might have unfolded very differently.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Make a Living Predicting the NFL Draft? Only in America! Tuesday Morning Quarterback believes that after Joe Namath, the most important person to the development of contemporary NFL mania is Mel Kiper Jr. He took a childlike, and somewhat childish, behavior of millions of American men, and not an inconsequential number of American women—poring over info about NFL draft prospects—and made it respectable. Made it a way to make a living! Only in America.

Years ago TMQ had a running item called Mel Kiper Watch that tracked Mel’s numerous, mutually contradictory predictions. This season he’s predicted that the Giants would draft Sam Darnold, and also that they would draft Saquon Barkley, and also that they would draft Josh Rosen, and also that they would draft Bradley Chubb. Assuming any one of these things happens, Mel will say, “I predicted it!” In this respect, draftniks are like political consultants and economists: They make wide ranges of mutually contradictory predictions, and then whichever one comes true is the only one they’ll talk about.

This Year’s TMQ Draft Fav. Tuesday Morning Quarterback is rooting for linebacker Leighton Vander Esch of Boise State to make the first round. Not only did he spend his callow collegiate years playing on blue turf; growing up in rural Idaho, he played 8-man football in high school.

Three Cheers for ‘Nova. Jay Wright, head coach of the Villanova Wildcats, winner of the men’s college basketball title, isn’t just the head coach, he is the William B. Finneran Endowed Athletic Fund Head Coach.

Wright to player: “If the defender looks the wrong way, immediately cut backdoor.”

Player; “Whatever you say, William B. Finneran Endowed Athletic Fund Head Coach.”

Ravens Drop Under the Radar. Since winning the Super Bowl in 2013, Baltimore has reached the playoffs only once. A core reason is that the draft magic possessed by general manager Ozzie Newsome has worn off. Recent Ravens’ number-ones have been spent on busts such as Matt Elam and Breshad Perriman; other high picks have been spent on Timmy Jernigan, who seemed instantly to get better when he left Baltimore for Philadelphia, and Maxx Williams, whose primary achievement so far is the spelling of his name. Ravens faithful do not want to hear this, but this team needs a housecleaning.

Left Wingers Are Snowflakes, Right Wingers Are Balloons. Fox News host Laura Ingraham claimed victimhood—how snowflake of her!—when some advertisers cancelled after she ridiculed a minor associated with the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting. Ingraham joins other right-wing talkers, including Rush Limbaugh, who have claimed victimhood when advertisers dropped them. Perhaps the far-right equivalent of the snowflake should be called the balloon—pops under the slightest pressure.

Ingraham, Limbaugh, and other balloons extol the free market as a source of liberty and prosperity, which it is. But when market forces turn against them—advertisers are free to choose where their placements run—they say it’s unfair and claim grievance. Believing that free-market forces should apply only to other people is classic two-facedness.

Best Move of the Offseason. Frank Reich hired as head coach of the Colts. Reich was the quarterback for two of the most impressive comebacks in football annals: University of Maryland coming back from a 31-0 deficit versus top-10-ranked University of Miami, and the Bills coming back from a 35-3 second half deficit in the playoffs, versus the old Houston Oilers. Last season the Colts stumbled in at 4-12. Now Reich is their coach. Expect a comeback!

Next Week. Network producers tell on-air personnel that with the draft over, they can stop saying, “I really, really like this pick.”