Too much analysis leads to paralysis … We have joked over the years that there almost always comes a moment in the draft process when one realizes that we have hit that phase when in fact too much analysis leads to paralysis and it really is time to just get on with the picks. In fact, we may very well have reached that point in the 2024 draft process some time ago. This is the time of year when team personnel begins to rub their eyes and blink hard. The cut-ups and numbers start to blend together as you try to identify the best player among clusters.NY Giants Joe Schoen kind of confirmed that at his pre-draft last week when he indicated that he will quite literally be sending the Giants’ staff home this weekend for a couple of days off to clear their heads and get ready for next week. Schoen also indicated that he will call most of the other GMs around the league by the end of the week just to ‘touch base’ to try and get a feel whether they were amenable to trade up or down, although he suggested he didn’t expect much to happen in a concrete fashion much before Thursday. Meanwhile, over in Denver, Broncos head coach Sean Payton confirmed that he and GM George Paton are going thru much of the same exercise as they’ve had conversations with every team ahead of them in the draft order as well as many of the teams behind just to get a feel for other teams’ willingness to jump up.
And speaking of Denver, the buzz around the league this weekend is that the Broncos could be back in the mix to trade up for a QB in this year’s opening round – they currently have the 12th pick – but Payton was pretty clear it would only be for a guy they felt had real potential to transform the team on the field, but that he would like the Broncos to be ‘aggressive.’ At the same time, there are whispers out there that nobody should be surprised if Washington’s Michael Penix doesn’t make it to the mid-point of the first round. Just 5 days and we can all stop speculating! Hang in there.
