No more gimmies at top of draft order … While almost nothing has been settled in the early selection order for the 2022 draft with just two weeks to go in the schedule, if there are, in fact, going to be any major shifts between now and the end of the season, it will almost certainly require a major upset or two as just about every team currently sitting on an early pick has a somewhat difficult remaining schedule. The one thing that we can say with some certainty is that it does appear that Jacksonville and Detroit will have the first two picks in some order. However, for either team to have any chance at all of dropping out of the top two picks, they would have to win both their remaining two games. Jacksonville, for example, finishes the season playing at New England and then hosting Indianapolis, two teams that are in the thick of the playoff hunt. Meanwhile, Detroit does get to play at struggling Seattle this weekend, but then wraps up the campaign hosting top-seed Green Bay. Same story for Houston and the NY Jets that moved into a tie with the Giants for the 3-4-5 picks with wins last weekend, but stayed at the 3-4 picks as they still have significantly weaker SOS numbers than the Giants. And again moving up will be tough as the Texans close out their season with a road game at San Francisco and a home date with Tennessee, while the Jets finish with Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs in town this weekend and season finale in Buffalo. There is something of an interesting game in this regard this weekend as the Giants play at Chicago; the Giants, of course, also own the Bears #1 pick this year – currently #8 – so in an odd way, at least for this week ‘control their own destiny!’
