I think Reiff could jump into top 5... and I have an odd feeling that Claiborne will be out of it.
I'd bet the house against it. Top 3 are going to be Luck/Griffin/Kalil. Then the Browns take Claiborne/Richardson/Blackmon, because they have LT covered with Joe Thomas. Then the Bucs take Claiborne/Richardson/Blackmon, because they have LT covered with Penn. LT isn't a need in Tampa. RT is, but who spends a top 5 pick on a RT? Nobody. Reiff isn't a top 5 prospect anyway.
Yea, I googled Manningham to the Bucs after I read your previous post, I havent been up on our offseason plans. I totally expect to land some FA's land with uur GM, Mark Dominick, feeling the heat after cleaning house and seemingly scrapping the "build through the draft and disregard FA" approach. With you having to spend a certain amount and us having a bunch of money we really dont have a choice but to pick up some veterans. Hope we can land Brandon Carr.
We're gonna load out pockets with 2nd tier FAs this year. We don't give enough of a signing bonus to attract big time FAs. We lost out on Fat Albert because we offered him $100 mil with no signing bonus. We signed Black and Davin with guaranteed YEARS to start the contract, with no signing bonus. Regardless of Dom realizing the error of his ways, we still need to give out signing bonuses to get FAs here. That comes out of the Glazers' pocket, and they aren't mandated by the league to spend anything, like they are with cap space. So they can continue to be tightwad bastards, and we'll get all the 20th-50th best players on the market that we can handle.
Doubt it.
They will get a couple firsts and a third.
By so openly shopping the pick they are actually devaluing it.
"We don't want to draft here, please give us MOAR picks" doesn't seem like a great strategy to me.
If Blackmon runs like shit then the pick becomes even less valuable.
I couldn't disagree more. They don't stand to gain anything by letting teams think they could stay at #2. They won't take Griffin there, so who among Cleveland/Washington/Miami/Seattle, etc would care? By letting it be known that they are shopping the pick, it creates an illusion that Cleveland is bidding against Washington or Miami, even if they aren't. It doesn't make their leverage any LESS valuable, because the leverage isn't the pick. It's Griffin being a 100x better option than over-paying for Flynn and praying he's good outside of GB or drafting shit-ass Tannehill and acting like he has similar upside. There's MAYBE 3 good options at QB this off-season: Griffin, Flynn, and Manning. Luck being already spoken for. There's more than 3 teams that really need a QB. So it puts the pressure on to get Griffin.
And again, Floyd (as you of all people should know) has put up a very strong Combine. After him, Hill put up a huge Combine, Randle has become a hot name, Sanu is out there. It shouldn't be Blackmon or bust for them. They could get Floyd and a 2nd this year, and a 1st/3rd next year. The drop-off from Blackmon to Floyd isn't much, and they can still get a nice package just because a team doesn't want to lose Griffin to another team. Their leverage should in no way be tied to Blackmon's stock, and if he runs a bad time, he could fall further, and open them up to be more able to risk him dropping to the Skins pick or the Dolphins pick.
Griffin has solidified his worth to teams interested in a QB. That's all the Rams need at this point. They'll get a good haul, and have options. Nothing that they say at this point can lessen any of those things.
