Super Bowl to decide final two picks … The 2023 season wraps up later this evening with the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs facing the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. And that means the final two picks in the 2024 draft – now less than 75 days away – selection order will be settled with the winner getting the 32nd (or final) regular pick in each round and the loser them 31st. The Super Bowl also marks the unofficial start of the very unofficial silly season of the draft process featuring plenty of smoke and mirrors. In fact, to some degree its already started. There has, for example, been something of a debate in Chicago since the end of season whether the Bears, who have the first pick overall courtesy of a 2023 draft trade with Carolina, should select USC QB Caleb Williams or stick with Justin Fields at QB and focus on building the team around him by trading down for more picks. And while the consensus around the league is that the Bears will be fact sit tight and select Williams, who has drawn comparisons to star Chiefs’ QB Patrick Mahomes, there is a bit of a buzz starting to grow that just maybe Williams would actually prefer to play in Washington his home town and could conceivably look to force a trade to the Commanders who have the 2nd pick. So far there is nothing tangible from the Williams’ camp, but his father did express considerable unhappiness with the whole draft concept back in the late summer when he noted that the player had been able to choose where he played at every step of his career to date, but would be told where to go once he reached the game’s pinnacle. Meanwhile, ESPN reported Dan Graziano is reporting that despite their rather apparent need for a franchise QB given the failed experiment with Mac Jones, New England is a candidate to possibly trade back from the 3rd pick overall again in search of additional picks. At the same time, there is a second rumor out there that the Patriots might actually be seriously thinking of staying addressing the QB situation in free agency, but still staying at #3 and selecting Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison, the consensus top non-QB prospect this year. As we said, less than 75 days to go. Hang in there!!
