The story of Friday afternoon will be whoever stops the slide of Kentucky quarterback Will Levis, and I’ll get on my soapbox a little with this one.
The way I see it, the reality of his situation right now isn’t far off from where the league’s been on him all along. If you go back to my column on assessing the quarterback class through the eyes of NFL coaches, there were a few concerns through March and into April. If you’d asked me 10 days ago, I’d say a fall out of the first round was definitely possible.
Then, something weird happened. About a week ago, the narrative flipped. Suddenly the Colts, at No. 4, were connected to him by a number of teams I was talking to. Stories about the impression he made at the Manning Passing Academy made the rounds in NFL circles. I couldn’t remember a case like this one—where the way a top prospect was being talked about turned so quickly, without any sort of event happening to materially change things.
Turns out all that smoke was, well, just smoke. The truth remained where things were all along. The effort to change the narrative, wherever it came from, only made Levis’s fall seem like it was from the top of the Empire State building, when it may have been more accurate to characterize Thursday night as Levis stumbling off a step stool.
Which really sucks only for Levis himself.
(Also, hopefully people stop putting so much stock in betting odds and Reddit posts.)
• That said, a good opportunity could come of this for Levis on Friday, and there are people who believe some team is going to get a steal in the second round.
Kentucky OC Liam Coen, who coached Levis in 2021, touched base with me via text Friday morning, saying, “Whoever gets this kid is going to get the steal of the draft. I can’t imagine him having to wait around long.”
We’ll see. By 11 a.m., the Steelers had talked to four teams about their willingness to trade the 32nd pick. Whether anyone would move up for Levis remains to be seen, but there are a couple of teams near the top of the round that might make things interesting. Coen worked for the Rams last year, so presumably they’d have good information on Levis. Ditto on the Seahawks, with Coen being very close with Seattle OC Shane Waldron, who was responsible for bringing Coen to the Rams’ staff during his time there.
Three of four teams at the start of the second round (Pittsburgh, Arizona, Indy) presumably won’t take a quarterback that high. That leaves Detroit at No. 34, ahead of the Rams at No. 36 and the Seahawks at No. 37. After that, there’s the Raiders at No. 38, Saints at No. 40 and Titans at No. 41 (it was mentioned in one of Thursday’s stories that Mike Vrabel’s meeting with Levis went well), with Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker also potentially going in that range.
Should be interesting.
• Jalen Carter’s slide stopped at No. 9 with the team the Georgia star was most connected to: the Eagles. Due to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing last month in connection with a fatal crash in January, questions arose around Carter. But Philly’s belief is that it has the infrastructure in place to get Carter headed in the right direction—he’ll enter a D-line room with cornerstones Brandon Graham and Fletcher Cox (24 years of NFL experience between them) and veteran position coach Tracy Rocker, who once worked at Georgia.
He’ll also have former Georgia teammates Jordan Davis and Nakobe Dean, two of the Bulldogs’ leaders in 2021, alongside him. As second-year players, they won’t be responsible for bringing Carter along—but their presence certainly won’t hurt.
All right, with that established, how much money did the off-field questions cost Carter?
Based on how the draft fell, my belief is Carter would have gone third as the best nonquarterback had his status not been clouded. The third pick this year is slated to sign a fully guaranteed, four-year deal at about $38.2 million. As the ninth pick, Davis will get a fully guaranteed, four-year deal at around $23.5 million, losing close to $15 million as a result of the character concerns NFL teams harbored with him.
That said, he’s going to a place that’ll give him the very best chance to succeed—and make up for what he lost on a second contract.
• Everyone loved Illinois CB Devon Witherspoon heading into Thursday—he was this year’s version of Trent McDuffie, the one guy who absolutely crushed it throughout the predraft process. So what Seattle saw in the tough, smart, competitive, sticky, team-captain type really doesn’t need much explanation.
What does, though, is simply that they’d take him in the first place.
Witherspoon is 5'11" and 181 pounds, which makes him a far cry from the long-limbed, tarantula-type corner that Seattle’s often favored. He’s not like Richard Sherman or Brandon Browner were, nor is he like Tariq Woolen or even Coby Bryant are.
So why now? I asked some people there, and got an interesting answer: It’s not about the Seahawks’ defense so much as it is about where the league’s gone in general. Everyone is more versatile on offense, so you have to be more versatile on defense, and able to toggle between man and zone. And that often means, instead of having molds for players at certain positions, you need ones who can match up across the board—which is why you’d build your corner room like a basketball team, with players of different profiles.
Dan Rainville/USA Today Network
• I had three players in the first round of my mock who fell out of the first round: Levis, Penn State CB Joey Porter Jr. and Notre Dame TE Michael Mayer. I’d say the fall of Mayer surprised me the most, and my guess would be he’ll go early Friday night. As my mock indicated, I’d heard Green Bay really liked him, so I could see the Packers, who pick 42nd, making a move up for him.
As for Porter, he’s been a polarizing prospect through the process, with questions on his ball production and ability to stick with receivers down the field. But I think if the Steelers get stuck at No. 32, they could take the son of their old star pass rusher (he was in a clump of players they liked at No. 17, before trading up, that included Maryland CB Deonte Banks and Georgia OLB Nolan Smith).
• If your team has a strong connection to Alabama coach Nick Saban, I’d keep an eye on Brian Branch on Friday. I heard Saban has raved about Branch to teams, the same way he did for Xavier McKinney a couple of years back (and that one worked out nicely for the Giants).
Branch is an interesting safety/corner type who’ll be able to play the nickel spot right away and has a great head for the game.
• A couple of interesting names to watch Friday, in terms of how far they fall, will be Ohio State OT Dawand Jones and Georgia CB Kelee Ringo. Both are supremely talented, but their football character has been questioned through the process (Jones with his weight, Ringo with an entitlement issue). With each, there’s a very real high end and downside.
• Porter and Ringo headline a strong group of Day 2 corners, which also includes K-State’s Julius Brents, Michigan’s DJ Turner, and South Carolina’s Cam Smith (and Branch, too, if you see him as a corner rather than a safety).
• Lots of good tight ends are still around, too, as was advertised predraft, with only Utah’s Dalton Kincaid gone. Mayer, Oregon State’s Luke Musgrave and Georgia’s Darnell Washington, among others, could present great value for someone Friday.
• Reminder: North Carolina WR Josh Downs had zero 30 visits, which is a sign of how solid teams were on him both from a character and medical standpoint. He’s a Day 1 slot receiver for someone, and, because of his makeup, I’ll be interested to see where he lands. He’s been linked to Buffalo, though they sort of filled that slot position with Kincaid in the first round.
