With the pro day circuit winding up, pre-draft focus switches to the pre-draft visits teams are allowed to host. Every team is permitted to bring in up to 30 out-of-town prospects to their facilities for interviews and medical tests, although on-field workouts are not allowed. And while there is no known direct correlation between the players teams bring in for these picks and the their actual picks there can be some information to be gained just by which players teams are bringing in. What does it mean, for example, that Dallas will have the top 6 QB prospects for this year’s draft – Carson Wentz, Jared Goff, Paxton Lynch, Connor Cook, Christian Hackenberg and Dak Prescott – all in for visits this week. And that’s after the Cowboys had previously worked out all 6 at their respective schools. The Cowboys are known to be looking for a young to eventually replace Tony Romo, but were thought to be inclined to wait until the 2nd day of the draft rather than invest the 4th pick overall in a player who might not play a down for 2-3 seasons. In that sense, checking out the second-tier prospects like Cook, Prescott, Hackenberg, and even Lynch, but the interest in Wentz and Goff is a little perplexing as they are clearly top 5-10 candidates. Indeed, it is very likely that if the Cowboys really wanted Wentz, and maybe Goff, that they could actually even have to trade up from #4. Of course, the Cowboys could just be doing due diligence, but that’s a lot of due diligence. Meanwhile, Jacksonville, which has the 5th pick overall, will have 9 players in for visits over the next couple of days including top 5 prsopects DB Jalen Ramsey, DE Joey Bosa and OLB Myles Jack each of whom figures to be in play at #5. Indeed, if Tennessee as expected takes OT Laremy Tunsil with the first pick and Cleveland grabs a QB at #2, then it is very possible that the Jags pick could come down to whichever of those three players was available when they got on the clock. The other players the Jags will have in this week include OT Ronnie Stanley, along with ILB Reggie Ragland, CBs Vernon Hargreaves and Eli Apple, all of whom are legit top 15-20 prospects and second day DTs Chris Jones and Kenny Clark. Of note, of the 9 players the Jags are having in for visits this week, 8 are defensive players, with OT Stanley the only offensive guy.
