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2018 NFL Draft News & Rumors

Latest On Josh Allen

April 26th, 2018 at 4:36pm CST by Sam Robinson

While it’s not quite blowing up like the Laremy Tunsil bong incident two years ago, the draft status of Josh Allen has become a key storyline in light of the unearthing of controversial tweets from the quarterback’s high school days.

Some league insiders believe this discovery will be a factor regarding Allen’s introduction to NFL life, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes. As for where the Wyoming-honed passer lands, a source informed Florio that if Allen tumbles past the Nos. 5-6 territory, then the passer and CAA (his representation) should start getting nervous.

Allen’s attempted to get in front of this story Thursday, indicating he thought he’d gone through his Twitter account last year. Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reported this account was vetted in January.

“I had even typed in keywords to see if anything I had tweeted popped up that I needed to clean up, but nothing like these came up or I just missed them,” Allen said, via Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com. “My agency went over any past social media, and these didn’t come up after I did the search.”

While this is not exactly the same situation that Riley Cooper found himself in years ago, with Allen being in high school when these tweets containing racially insensitive language were sent, it’s become a key component on a big day in the 6-foot-5 quarterback’s life.

“If I could go back in time, I would never have done this in a heartbeat,” Allen said. “At the time, I obviously didn’t know how harmful it was and now has become. I hope you know and others know I’m not the type of person I was at 14 and 15 that I tweeted so recklessly. … I don’t want that to be the impression of who I am because that is not me. I apologize for what I did.”

Allen said some of these tweets could have been sent by friends, with the Firebaugh, Calif., native telling Mortensen he and his friends occasionally took each other’s phones and sent tweets. One NFL team said with a top-five pick told Schefter its brass didn’t know about the tweets and had heard “nothing but positives” on Allen, who said no teams have reached out to him about them. However, a report earlier today indicated Allen and his camp had contacted teams with high draft picks about this controversy.

“That’s my plan — to show the type of person I am now,” Allen said, via Mortensen. “Whatever team picks me, they are going to get that from me. I will set the record straight for any team, any teammate, the media, and I think once they meet me and they’re around me, see how I act and how I think, that it’s not going to be a problem at all.”

Giants Could Still Trade No. 2 Pick

April 26th, 2018 at 4:08pm CST by Zachary Links

A trade of the No. 2 pick is still a possibility for the Giants, sources tell Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com (on Twitter). If they keep the No. 2 pick, Penn State running back Saquon Barkley and NC State defensive end Bradley Chubb are viewed as the favorites to be selected. However, the potential presence of USC’s Sam Darnold could change things.

The Giants – and those around the Giants – would have better clarity on their plans if they knew what the Browns were planning to do with the No. 1 overall pick. The Browns have left everyone around the NFL guessing and no one knows for sure if they’ll go with Darnold, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, or perhaps even Wyoming’s Josh Allen. At this point, the entire world might find out the identity of the top pick together when commissioner Roger Goodell takes the podium tonight.

On paper, selecting Sam Darnold as Eli Manning’s successor would be a huge win for the G-Men, but they are reportedly less than enamored with this year’s QB crop. If the Giants are willing to pass up a chance to select Barkley or Chubb, they could net a tremendous haul to swap places with a team dead set on landing a QB.

2018 NFL Draft Primer

April 26th, 2018 at 2:52pm CST by Zachary Links

After weeks of anticipation – or months, if your favorite team was eliminated early from playoff contention – the 2018 NFL draft finally gets underway tonight in Dallas. Pro Football Rumors will have you covered for the entire three-day event, passing along all 256 picks, along with all the trades, news, and rumors that come along with the draft.

While ESPN and NFL Network reporters typically don’t scoop teams’ draft picks before they’re announced on the TV broadcast, writers from other outlets have been known to report picks a few minutes before they’re officially announced. If and when that happens this year, we won’t be “spoiling” picks ahead of time on our social media accounts, so if you want to be kept in suspense until commissioner Roger Goodell makes his announcements, you’re safe to follow us on Twitter or Facebook without having to worry that those surprises will be ruined.

However, if a trusted reporter does get word of a pick before it happens, we’ll be passing it along on our site. So if teams’ picks are being reported ahead of time, and you want to know them immediately rather than waiting for an announcement from Goodell, be sure to refresh ProFootballRumors.com early and often tonight. Our post recapping the first-round results will be updated with teams’ picks as soon as they’re reported, even if that happens before they’re formally announced on ESPN.

With that in mind, here’s some info to get you prepared for the 2018 draft:

Jets Coaches Making Push For Josh Allen

April 26th, 2018 at 1:51pm CST by Zachary Links

Jets coaches are making a late push for the team to draft quarterback Josh Allen, Matt Miller of Bleacher Report (on Twitter) hears. Thus far, there hasn’t been a lot of talk connecting the Jets to the Wyoming product, so this would represent a change of thinking in Jets headquarters.

Sitting at No. 3, the Jets have been preparing themselves for a decision between Baker Mayfield and Josh Rosen. However, growing buzz about the Browns selecting Mayfield at No. 1 has thrown a wrench in those plans. If Mayfield is off the board, the Jets will have the once unexpected opportunity to select Sam Darnold at No. 3, but it sounds like Jets coaches may prefer the arm strength of Allen.

The Jets were believed to be the team that did the most work on Allen last season, being the only team to trek to Laramie, Wyo., to work out the 6-foot-5 quarterback. But as of late, they’ve been linked most to Mayfield and Rosen. Reported concerns about Allen’s accuracy issues have attached themselves to the Wyoming-honed passer, but with Mayfield possibly set to finish off a major pre-draft rise, Allen going to the Jets at No. 3 wouldn’t qualify as an earth-shattering surprise.

This comes after some tweets from Allen’s high school days paint the passer in a bad light, but it doesn’t sound like some of the teams with QB needs are going to hold that against him.

Darnold has long been a Jets target, but the organization apparently did not believe the USC passer would fall to No. 3. The signals that such a drop could occur caused the Jets to schedule more face-to-face time with Darnold, so him being there and the team still going with Allen would be a notable event.

Saints Looking To Trade Up In NFL Draft

April 26th, 2018 at 9:45am CST by Zachary Links

The Saints have “made plenty of calls about making a big leap up” from their No. 27 pick, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. It’s not clear who the Saints are targeting, however. 

Rapoport wonders aloud if the Saints might be doing due diligence in case a certain player, perhaps a quarterback, falls on draft night. Usually, an aggressive move up the board is done to secure a QB, so the Saints could be eyeing one of this year’s top QBs as a successor to Drew Brees. In any event, they’ll be well-prepared to move up if their desired target slides.

The Saints don’t have a ton of ammo to make a trade since they sent this year’s second-round choice to the 49ers last year in order to select running back Alvin Kamara. The Saints’ next pick doesn’t come until the third round (No. 91), so they may have to dip into next year’s draft in order to make an aggressive move.

Josh Allen Caught In Twitter Controversy

April 26th, 2018 at 9:34am CST by Zachary Links

Two years ago, Ole Miss offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil slid down the draft board after a video of him smoking from a gas mask bong surfaced on Twitter. This year, it’s possible that another Twitter controversy could affect Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen. Multiple tweets from 2012 and 2013 have been unearthed in which Allen uses racially insensitive language, as detailed by Ryan Young of Yahoo Sports. 

There’s also a questionable tweet from 2013 in which Allen responds to a question asked of him by AskFM. When asked “Why are you so white?,” Allen responds, “If it ain’t white, it ain’t right!” Allen has since told teams that the tweets in question were in reference to TV shows, movies, and songs.

Allen spoke with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith late Wednesday night to apologize for the tweets, saying that he was young and dumb. It remains to be seen how the tweets will affect Allen on draft night, but a team with a top-five draft pick told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that it knew nothing about the tweets and that it had “never heard anything but positives” about the QB.

Allen has been projected to go as high as No. 1 to the Browns in recent days and it was widely expected that he would be selected no later than No. 5. Now, everything appears to be in flux for the talented passer.

Browns To Select Baker Mayfield No. 1?

April 26th, 2018 at 8:51am CST by Zachary Links

With hours to go before the NFL Draft, the identity of the No. 1 pick remains unclear. There is increasing chatter from head coaches and GMs that the Browns will select Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. This comes after weeks of reports identifying USC’s Sam Darnold and Wyoming’s Josh Allen as the only real candidates for the selection. 

Mayfield won the Heisman Trophy in 2017 and led the Football Bowl Subdivision in completion rate by connecting on 70.5% of his throws. He also set a single-season record by averaging 11.5 yards per pass and threw for 43 touchdowns against six interceptions. Still, questions persist about his build and character. For his part, Browns GM John Dorsey has shrugged off questions about Mayfield’s height and his behavioral red flags.

Mayfield going No. 1 would be a surprise, but there is no real consensus on any of this year’s top quarterbacks. Darnold and Josh Rosen were long touted as the best QBs in this year’s crop, but both players are coming off of rocky seasons that potentially exposed their flaws. Allen, meanwhile, doesn’t have a great on-field track record to match the hype of his arm strength.

So far, Dorsey has kept the identity of the draft pick close to the vest. It’s possible that we won’t know the identity of the No. 1 overall pick until it is read by Roger Goodell on Thursday night, and that will make for some serious drama.

Browns Shopping No. 4 Pick

April 25th, 2018 at 5:32pm CST by Ben Levine

Could the Browns use the No. 4 pick as ammunition to acquire even more selections? That might be the case, as ESPN’s Adam Schefter (via Twitter) reports that Cleveland has shopped the pick.

Cleveland would presumably have a number of suitors, as several teams are reportedly looking to move up in the first round, including the Packers and Cardinals. There were whispers that the Bills could pull off a deal for the Giants’ second-overall selection, but reports indicated that Buffalo wouldn’t “sell out” to acquire the pick. If the Bills were indeed interested in trading for that Giants pick, they could perhaps switch their focus to the Browns’ fourth-overall pick, although that’s merely speculation on my part.

What would it take for a team to acquire the Browns’ pick? We can somewhat refer to the trade that the Jets and Colts pulled off last month. Indy ended up sending No. 3 to New York in exchange for a first-rounder (No. 6), a pair of upcoming seconds (No. 37 and No. 49), and a 2019 second-round pick. It’s uncertain if the Browns could receive a similar package for the fourth pick, although suitors may have a bit of leverage. After all, we learned last week that the Broncos would move the No. 5 pick for the right price.

The Browns originally acquired the No. 4 pick from Houston in a draft-day deal that allowed the Texans to select quarterback Deshaun Watson. Cleveland currently has five selection in the first two rounds, including the top-overall pick.

Packers Looking To Move Up In First Round

April 25th, 2018 at 4:26pm CST by Ben Levine

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst may be looking to make a splash during his first draft. NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reports (via Twitter) that Green Bay is among a handful of teams that are “plotting a potential trade up…for a top-tier talent.” The team is currently armed with the No. 14 pick in the first round.

Recent reports have connected the organization with several notable defenders. We heard earlier this week that the Packers were eyeing Virginia Tech linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, although the report indicated that the team would likely have to move up to select the versatile prospect. In Daniel Jeremiah’s recent top-50 list, Edmunds was ranked sixth overall.

The team has also been connected to Georgia linebacker Roquan Smith, another player who would likely necessitate a trade. Smith was listed eighth on Jeremiah’s new top-50 rankings. While the Packers have Clay Matthews, Nick Perry, Blake Martinez, and Jake Ryan slotted in as their starting linebackers, Smith and Edmunds’ versatility could make a trade worthwhile.

Of course, considering the Packers’ depth at linebacker, they might be looking at other positions. The team could presumably be targeting defensive end Bradley Chubb if he manages to fall a bit in the draft. The could also target the top cornerback prospects, a grouping that includes Denzel Ward, Mike Hughes, and Jaire Alexander.

Including the 14th selection, the Packers have 12 picks headed into this weekend’s draft. The team doesn’t have any extra first-, second-, or third-rounders, but they do have a pair of fourth-round picks and three fifth-rounders.

NFL Draft Rumors: Browns, Price, Broncos

April 25th, 2018 at 2:55pm CST by Zachary Links

The Browns‘ No. 1 pick remains a mystery to everyone, including head coach Hue Jackson, according to Robert Klemko of The MMQB (on Twitter). He also adds that Dorsey has already made his determination, contrary to what has been leaked to the press.

On Wednesday morning, it was reported that the Browns are likely to select either Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen or Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield. Of course, that could just be a smokescreen as many still believe the Browns will take USC’s Sam Darnold.

Here’s the latest NFL Draft buzz:

 

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