The draft is just over a week away, so let’s get rolling with the latest notes …
• The New York Giants are going through the final pieces of preparation on the quarterbacks for the NFL draft, and as such they’ll close the loop on Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders this week with a private workout on campus.
Is this a reconsideration, given the late juncture of the session?
One thing that I think has made John Mara a good owner over the years is his willingness to ask good questions of his football people without being overbearing or interfering too much in football decisions (and, yes, I know the recent track record isn’t great). So, in this case, I see this, and this is just me talking, as If we’re going to pass on the quarterback position with a top-five pick, let’s be sure on it.
They’ve passed on such opportunities before with mixed results. Last year, they tried to trade up for Drake Maye, then passed on Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix to take Malik Nabers with the sixth pick. Two years before that, they twice passed on Kenny Pickett in the top 10. And the year before, they took Daniel Jones. In 2018, they took Saquon Barkley second with Sam Darnold, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson still on the board.
Add that up, and you’d probably say they were right once, wrong once, and the jury’s still out on last year’s decision.
Either way, with a decision this big, the more information they can get, the better. I seriously doubt it’ll cause them to pass on Abdul Carter or Travis Hunter with the third pick, in part because the vast majority of the NFL doesn’t see Sanders as worthy of a top-five pick. But it could mean, if Sanders starts falling, he becomes a more serious consideration, either in a trade up from 34—or if the Colorado quarterback simply falls into the Giants’ laps there.
Clearly, there are a very wide range of possible outcomes for Sanders next week. The Giants, in going through their process, plan on being ready for all of them.
(And, by the way, Sanders is just one of three QBs the Giants are traveling to work out this week, with trips to see Louisville QB Tyler Shough and Alabama QB Jalen Milroe also on the docket.)
• The Cleveland Browns’ decision to remake their quarterback room came in the fall, but they knew it wouldn’t happen without some restrictions. Such is the reality of having $46 million fully guaranteed sunk into an injured Deshaun Watson this year, with another $46 million fully guaranteed looming in 2026, and cap debt to wade through that dwarfs those figures.
So they had to be creative, and they have been in acquiring economical options such as Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco.
With Pickett, the math is pretty easy. Cleveland sent Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a fifth-rounder (No. 164) for Pickett, who has won 15 of his 25 career starts, is still just 26, and (here’s the key) is slated to make just $2.62 million in the final year of his rookie contract. Bottom line: Even if he’s the backup, he’s a bargain.
Then, there’s Flacco. His base pay for 2025 is $4.25 million. He has an incentive that lands him $500,000 if he plays 60% of the team’s offensive snaps, $1 million if he plays 70% of the snaps and $1.5 million if he plays 80% of the snaps—and those numbers double if the Browns also make the playoffs, maxing out at $3 million. He also gets $75,000 for each Browns win in which he plays at least half the snaps, giving him a max of $1.275 million for that incentive. And he can make up to $3.75 million in additional playoff incentives, and another $500,000 if he makes first- or second-team All-Pro.
Add it up, and he has $8.525 million in incentives, which takes the deal’s max value to $12.775 million. Now, to get there, the Browns have to go 17–0, win the Super Bowl, and Flacco has to be All-Pro. So chances are it’ll be considerably less than that, even if things go well. Which means chances are the Browns are probably spending between $10 million and $15 million for two experienced options on top of a potential draft pick.
What’s important to remember here is that none of this makes anyone a genius. These moves are very much a circumstance of the current brass’ creation—Plan A, B and C was for Watson to be the team’s long-term answer, and he hasn’t been.
So this is a decent place for Cleveland to be in with a little over a week to go until the draft.
• For what it’s worth, Flacco’s popularity in the locker room and performance under Kevin Stefanski in 2023 was a big factor in the team walking away from him last year. The Browns felt like they had to clear the decks to give Watson the best chance.
So Flacco’s return is further confirmation of what we already know.
If Watson’s going to revive his career, it will have to happen on different terms than he’s been used to—he’ll have to work his way up the depth chart without a recruiting ranking or his draft position buoying his candidacy. Maybe they’ll get a different result since what they were trying to do last year didn’t work.
• The Miami Dolphins’ decision to allow Jalen Ramsey to seek a trade is what we were alluding to eight days ago in the takeaways—where the time has come for the Dolphins to start retooling their roster around younger players. Ramsey was one of three players, joining Tyreek Hill and Bradley Chubb, that we’d mentioned as older and expensive. At the time, Hill struck me as the most tradeable. That might’ve changed with last week’s allegations.
So that leaves Ramsey as a potential chip. The Dolphins have already paid a $4 million roster bonus, which lessens the financial load for a trade partner. But there’s still $21.1 million for 2025—an $18.98 million option bonus, a $1.255 base salary, $765,000 in per-game roster bonuses and a $100,000 workout bonus—remaining.
That said, with his 30th birthday in October, he can still play.
“Still has a couple years on him,” texted one rival pro-scouting director. “Can play inside, too. Still has the athletic ability and speed to play man. His ball production has dipped some, but still can cover.”
Which is to say he can still be an asset, and the key will be how other teams value him. If the Dolphins are willing to take on more of his 2025 money, I’d say he becomes more attractive, and they’d stand to get a better return.
But it’s a tough one, in general, because Ramsey would be a stopgap for someone rather than any long-term answer and an expensive one.
• One leftover from my conversation with Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell was the insight he gave me on how he builds an offense for his quarterback. We referenced it in the column. I figured this would be a good place to bring the more fleshed-out quote on his philosophy.
It came out in response to a question I asked about how close J.J. McCarthy was to Sam Darnold performance-wise when he went down in mid-August.
“The difference was just Sam’s experience, and being able to really hone in on what Sam was most comfortable with from his previous experiences, and the vision we had for Sam,” O’Connell said. “Our offense is really set up in a way where we can build things to be quarterback-friendly, but yet the quarterback has to have ownership of those things. And when they do, it becomes a completion-based offense, where they just have to simply rhythmically do a lot of the same things, albeit on different plays and different principles.
“But they’re doing a lot of the same things consistently, from body mechanics to even a mental standpoint, in regards to, What are we really trying to accomplish on one given play? There are a lot of things that carry over from play to play in regards to just playing the quarterback position.”
So, in other words, it’s easier to build that sort of offense for a quarterback with a track record. And that also underscores the challenge ahead for the coaches with McCarthy in building an offense for a quarterback who doesn’t have one.
• I feel like this should be said since Georgia’s had a raft of players with red flags come out over the past few years—the Bulldogs’ high-end prospects this year are very clean from a character standpoint. Prospective first-round LB/DE Jalon Walker, DE Mykel Williams and S Malaki Starks, in particular, are seen as good guys who’ll assimilate quickly into whatever teams wind up picking them.
• With the deadline looming May 1, only one fifth-year option for 2022 first-rounders has been picked up. That was former first pick Travon Walker (Texans CB Derek Stingley Jr. was extended before Houston had to pick up the option). So what gives? There really isn’t a huge motivator to pick these up early. In some cases, extensions are being worked on, and in other cases that are more borderline, teams might want to see how the draft plays out before fully guaranteeing an eight-figure lump sum for 2026.
• Carter’s an excellent prospect who’s drawn comparisons to Micah Parsons and Von Miller, which helps to color why teams in the top three wouldn’t move out of those spots, given the dearth of blue-chippers beyond Hunter and Carter. That said, one issue some teams have with Carter is his low lean-body-mass number. Being on the lower end in that area can sometimes be a predictor for injuries, and Carter’s currently managing foot and shoulder issues that don’t necessitate surgery now, but could be problems down the line.
• The New Orleans Saints have done a lot of work on Jaxson Dart. I don’t know if it puts him in consideration with the ninth pick, or somewhere on Day 2. But a year after the Denver Broncos reached for Bo Nix at 12, and that worked out, I know not to ignore the logical connections that certain players have to certain teams.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why the Giants Are Holding a Private Workout for Shedeur Sanders.