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2017 Draft Prospects Thread

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1. What is this rule about "local" kids not counting for visits? That sounds extremely dumb IMO
2. That's more first round WRs than I expected to meet with
 
The Wizard of Moz said:
1. What is this rule about "local" kids not counting for visits? That sounds extremely dumb IMO
2. That's more first round WRs than I expected to meet with
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This is from PFT:

Players who attend college or reside in a club’s “metropolitan area” can be given a physical examination without counting against the 30-player limit, unless the club provides transportation for the visit. Also, a player who attends college or whose hometown is in a club’s “metropolitan area” may be timed and tested at the club’s facility, as long as the club does not provide transportation.

“Metropolitan area” is defined as contiguous suburbs. There isn’t a 25-mile, 50-mile, or any other type of mileage radius rule. The league office uses the 2011 Rand-McNally Road Atlas to determine the metropolitan area of a city.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...-the-rules-regarding-pre-draft-rookie-visits/

Then, also this:

The Browns didn’t send coach Hue Jackson or executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown to North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s pro day workout earlier this month because they planned to hold a private workout with him at another time.

They won’t be traveling to North Carolina for that workout either. Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that Trubisky will work out for the Browns at their facility on Friday.

Players typically aren’t allowed to work out during their visits to teams leading up to the draft, but there’s an exception for prospects who went to college or grew up nearby. Teams have a day set aside for those players to visit each year and Trubisky, who grew up in Ohio, will be part of the contingent in Berea on Friday.

The exception for local prospects also means that Trubisky’s visit doesn’t count against the limit of 30 that the team is allowed before the draft.
 
Soda said:
I thought it was proximity to the facility that helped Mitch. I see Conley is from Massillon and Hooker is from New Castle (PA). My question is can Marshon Lattimore visit without counting against the 30.
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The Wizard of Moz said:
1. What is this rule about "local" kids not counting for visits? That sounds extremely dumb IMO
2. That's more first round WRs than I expected to meet with
Click to expand...

Lattimore would definitely qualify as a local kid. It does appear that Ohio State, Kent State, and Akron are also qualifiers under the new rule for Cleveland. The below piece is an interesting read, and pretty informative. I included the text for those that do not have The Athletic subscription.

Here's Zac Jackson's piece from The Athletic:

Browns get Trubisky, some Buckeyes in Berea on Friday

by Zac Jackson, Thu, March 30th


Exactly four weeks from the start of the 2017 NFL Draft, the pre-draft process is finally in the home stretch.

The Browns are going to continue to stay quiet in regard to their plans, but they’re apparently having a busy couple of days. Per Cleveland.com, the Browns conducted a private workout on Thursday with former Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson. On Friday, they’ll get an up-close look at former North Carolina quarterback Mitchell Trubisky as part of their local prospects workout.

The local prospect workout is for players who grew up within a 50-mile radius of Cleveland or played for one of three designated FBS programs in the team’s region. While that workout annually gives a lot of long shots a chance to impress the hometown team, it’s not often that a quarterback like Trubisky gets to throw inside the team’s walls. The new rule linking three FBS programs to a team means all prospects from Ohio State, Akron and Kent State can participate, too, and former Ohio State safety Malik Hooker told WKNR in Cleveland on Thursday that he’ll be at the Browns’ facility Friday.

Each NFL team gets to host 30 prospects on formal pre-draft visits for chalk talk, fancy dinners and face time with position coaches and other team employees. By rule, those visits can’t include physical workouts. Because the Browns get to host Trubisky, Hooker and any other Ohio State player who chooses to attend on local prospect day, they can save some of those 30 visits for other prospects.

Specifically with quarterbacks, a Browns employee told The Athletic earlier this month that the Browns prefer the private workout route over attending pro days because the team prefers “a controlled environment.” At a pro day, the player, his agent and college coaches can script the throwing part of the workout. In a private workout, the Browns’ offensive coaches design drops, throws and terminology for the quarterback and can decide what they want to stress — and how much they want to stress the prospect, physically and mentally. It’s about control, and a private workout allows the Browns to simulate a practice environment.

The Browns previously held private workouts with quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of Texas Tech and DeShone Kizer of Notre Dame. By nearly every account, Watson, Trubisky, Kizer and Mahomes are, in some order, considered the top quarterbacks in this draft. A fifth who’s been mentioned as a possible top-40 pick, Davis Webb, was coached by the Browns’ staff at the Senior Bowl in January.

Trubisky worked out for the Jets, who hold the No. 6 overall pick, on Thursday. Per Albert Breer of the MMQB.com, the Jets previously held private workouts with Watson and Kizer and still plan to hold private workouts with Mahomes and Webb. Earlier this week, we outlined the possibility that the Jets could be the only team before the Browns choose at No. 12 to select a quarterback.

***

Hooker can’t actually work out Friday because he’s recovering from surgeries to repair a shoulder issue and a sports hernia. In his WKNR interview, he said he feels “pretty good” about his rehab process although he recently just started running again and said he’s two weeks away from participating in football drills. Hooker said he has “no soreness” and aims to be at 100 percent by June or July.

Besides medical re-checks that Hooker and other injured players go through, the private workouts and the visits are the last piece of the pre-draft puzzle. The work and the grading should be about done so, ideally, information gleaned from these meetings would serve either as a tiebreaker of sorts in a draft-room argument or a closing statement if the Browns were to discuss something like a trade-up or another potential Plan B-type scenario.

Hooker, for example, isn’t likely to still be available when the Browns pick at No. 12. If they believe he’s a top-flight prospect, Hooker making a strong impression when he visits could cause someone in the draft room to campaign for the Browns to move up to try to select Hooker. The Browns can’t control what the teams holding Pick Nos. 2-11 do with their picks, but they do have the assets and flexibility to go and get just about any player whom they want to. That doesn’t just go for the first round, either.

***

The rule change involving the annual local prospects workout is minor, but allowing the Browns to have Ohio State prospects work out in their facility could be significant, now and into the future.

The change was made to address a perceived competitive advantage. In the past, for example, the Saints could have LSU players work out in their facility and the Dolphins could have University of Miami players in their facility, but the Browns didn’t have any FBS programs within the 30-mile radius, which was the distant of the old rule.

The Browns likely won’t release a list of participants in the local workout, but former Toledo running back Kareem Hunt went to Willoughby South High School and would qualify within the 50-mile radius; same for Toledo tight end Michael Roberts, who went to Cleveland Benedictine High School. Former Michigan linebacker Ben Gedeon (Hudson) can also attend, and under the new rules, so can former Kent State and Ohio State cornerback Najee Murray and former Akron wide receiver Jerome Lane Jr.
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With Cleveland being able to work-out Ohio State players privately year-after-year without counting toward their visit total, that's pretty nice. Especially since you can have multiple come in at a time. With that degree of talent from one university, that makes us more fortunate than most NFL teams, I would imagine.
 
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thedarkness2332 said:
With Cleveland being able to work-out Ohio State players privately year-after-year without counting toward their visit total, that's pretty nice. Especially since you can have multiple come in at a time. With that degree of talent from one university, that makes us more fortunate than most NFL teams, I would imagine.
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thedarkness2332 said:
With Cleveland being able to work-out Ohio State players privately year-after-year without counting toward their visit total, that's pretty nice. Especially since you can have multiple come in at a time. With that degree of talent from one university, that makes us more fortunate than most NFL teams, I would imagine.
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It would be nice if we actually took advantage of it for once and drafted one of them.
 
thedarkness2332 said:
Lattimore would definitely qualify as a local kid. It does appear that Ohio State, Kent State, and Akron are also qualifiers under the new rule for Cleveland. The below piece is an interesting read, and pretty informative. I included the text for those that do not have The Athletic subscription.

Here's Zac Jackson's piece from The Athletic:



With Cleveland being able to work-out Ohio State players privately year-after-year without counting toward their visit total, that's pretty nice. Especially since you can have multiple come in at a time. With that degree of talent from one university, that makes us more fortunate than most NFL teams, I would imagine.
Click to expand...

It essentially sounds like teams will have the freedom to freely interview/get to know kids from local programs and who live locally. Now I am not sure how much it will effect who teams actually draft, but they will likely know the local players a lot better than anyone else.

Now I am guessing teams like Jets and Giants will have almost the same colleges/kids that they could interview as well. I mean at the end of the day it may not effect who people draft, but it will help kids get drafted to a local team/get them NFL invites by the local teams
 
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The Browns need to draft a tight end who can block first and be a matchup problem second.

There are a few in this draft, but David Njoku is not currently one of them. Though I do feel he's got potential as a blocker.
 
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