2020 Draft Discussion

[General_Failure]

They're getting a little too on the nose with this whole Bread and Circuses thing.

[phattymatty]

that sounds so stupid i might go to vegas for it.  i've actually done the draft in chicago , just happened to be there for work, and it's actually a pretty fun time. 

[Diomedes]

I was at Eli/Rivers' draft, whatever year that was.  Good time.  Never got into the actual hall again after that year, then they moved it out of NYC.

[PhillyPhreak54]

2004

Shawn Andrews draft

[ice grillin you]

I can see it now. The Eagles select a top WR and he drowns.

https://twitter.com/arashmarkazi/status/1219686221019959296 21

this is so good...

https://twitter.com/SurvivinAmerica/status/1219709368419147777

[Don Ho]

This is the 2020 draft correct?  1840 says hello.  Unless they're the gondola's from the Venetian and some dude is serenading them with 'O Sole Mio'.

[ice grillin you]

the gawds first mock is out...

21. Philadelphia Eagles
Tee Higgins, WR, Clemson

Philadelphia has to upgrade at wide receiver -- its two top pass-catchers in 2019 were tight ends Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert -- and the depth and talent in this class could set up perfectly for the Eagles to have several options here. At 6-foot-4, Higgins is the biggest wideout of the first-round talents, a jump-ball specialist and touchdown machine (25 the past two seasons). He's not super explosive like Lamb, Jeudy or Ruggs, but he'll box out cornerbacks in the red zone and pick up first downs, not unlike Alshon Jeffery, who struggled to stay on the field this season. The Eagles would have liked more from second-round pick J.J. Arcega-Whiteside in Year 1, and I still like his upside, but Higgins has No. 1 receiver talent. As is always the case for Philadelphia, this is another spot to watch for an edge rusher.

[ice grillin you]

21st picks in the draft since 1990...

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/play-index/draft-finder.cgi?request=1&year_min=1990&year_max=2019&draft_round_min=1&draft_round_max=1&draft_slot_min=21&draft_slot_max=21&pick_type=round&pos%5B%5D=qb&pos%5B%5D=rb&pos%5B%5D=wr&pos%5B%5D=te&pos%5B%5D=e&pos%5B%5D=t&pos%5B%5D=g&pos%5B%5D=c&pos%5B%5D=ol&pos%5B%5D=dt&pos%5B%5D=de&pos%5B%5D=dl&pos%5B%5D=ilb&pos%5B%5D=olb&pos%5B%5D=lb&pos%5B%5D=cb&pos%5B%5D=s&pos%5B%5D=db&pos%5B%5D=k&pos%5B%5D=p&conference=any&show=all&order_by=default

[General_Failure]

So draft a TE and don't be Cincinnati. Sounds reasonable.

[Diomedes]

Higgins sounds like what JJAW was supposed to be....I want a burner who will push Safeties back/make the field bigger

[ice grillin you]

I want a burner who will push Safeties back/make the field bigger

ruggs is the farging man but hes not gonna be there at 21 unless the planets align

[Don Ho]

Watched a lot of this guy at Colorado (I was forced to as half my family are CU grads, nephew head of the CU alumni Hawaii chapter).  Shenault was a beast on a very mediocre Colorado team:

Bleacher Report (Matt Miller) - Laviska Shenault, WR, Colorado

Speed on offense has to be the focal point of the Eagles' 2020 offseason. Yes, Greg Ward Jr. provided a spark, but he can't be the team's plan at WR1 moving forward. With Alshon Jeffery's body seemingly breaking down and Nelson Agholor regressing, this is a clear-cut top need. Laviska Shenault Jr. isn't your traditional wide receiver. He'll line up in the slot or in the backfield and has dominated with the ball in his hands. He's also a stockily built player at 6'2" and 220 pounds who defenders have a hard time bringing down in space. Whether he's compared to Percy Harvin or a college version of Sammy Watkins, Shenault is a proven playmaker who will finally give Carson Wentz a young receiver to grow alongside, as well as a player for opposing defenses to fear at wide receiver

[ice grillin you]

i dont think hes as explosive as percy harvin but i also dont get why so many people have towards the bottom of round 1 yet rave about him....i guess its the depth of the wr class

either way he would be a great fit with the eagles as hes a swiss army knife that doug can put all over the field

[ice grillin you]

great in depth piece on the in-exactitude of picking qb's...

Brandon Huffman has covered college football recruiting for almost 20 years. Busts, late-bloomers, blue-chippers who have become first-rounders and blue-chippers who have become flops, he's seen pretty much everything covering high school football. The Seattle-based national recruiting editor for 247Sports not only can recall what happened at the biggest prep games on the West Coast but also which college coaches were there in the stadiums to witness them.

Huffman was in the Tacoma Dome in 2012 when Skyline High's Max Browne capped one of the most prolific careers in high school football history, leading the Spartans to a win against Bellarmine Prep and its standout quarterback, Sefo Liufau. Then-USC head coach Lane Kiffin, along with Trojan assistants Clay Helton and James Cregg, were in the building too, Huffman says. Browne threw four touchdowns and finished his storied career with a 73.5 percent completion percentage, fourth-best all-time nationally. He had a 49-5 TD-INT ratio for his senior season.

Browne had followed another prodigious QB at Skyline, Jake Heaps, also a five-star recruit who bounced from BYU to Kansas to Miami with modest results before a brief NFL stint. Early in Browne's high school career, he played with Kasen Williams, another five-star recruit who went on to play wide receiver at the University of Washington and then in the NFL. Huffman had been particularly impressed with how well Browne fared even after Williams left for UDub.

"Max had a bunch of slow 5-9 receivers, and he kept winning state championships," Huffman says. "He would throw guys open. He could throw the deep pass. He had this cool, calm collected feeling. It was this fast-break offense where they threw the ball a ton. He got rid of the ball so quick. I remember thinking that day, 'Max Browne is such a sure thing.' I was never more confident in a Washington quarterback than I was in Max."

The story of Max Browne and the rest of the 2013 quarterback class illustrates the challenge of recruiting rankings and the evaluation process that goes into the most complicated position in sports.

Neither Browne, who signed with USC, nor fellow five-star recruit Christian Hackenberg of Penn State nor any of those who were ranked among the top nine quarterbacks in that class stuck in the NFL, and only Hackenberg won a starting job at the school where he signed. But the class was still loaded with gifted quarterbacks. Three were selected with the first or second pick in the NFL draft — Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield and Mitch Trubisky — after coming out of high school ranked as the No. 21, No. 71 and No. 19 QBs in the class, respectively. The 2013 crop provides an ideal window into the inexact nature of scouting and projections and how the sport has changed since that year.

Joey Roberts, director of scouting, Elite 11: The domino that typically creates that ranking is a scholarship offer. Back then, you might have this 6-4 kid and if, say, Lane offered you at USC, that pegs you as a four-star right off the bat. You might not have started a game in high school, and there were several kids like that around that time — David Sills, Tate Martell. They'd go to a (Steve) Clarkson camp or Elite 11 (regional) camp, all of these camps and then the offers start flowing in. Then, there's this coming to Jesus, where we're Rivals or Scout or 247 and we have to put our stamp on this guy. It was also 2013 when the evaluation of the (college) scouting departments was very archaic and the idea of having legitimate grades on kids was foreign.

Max Browne, college football analyst, Stadium and Sirius radio; former USC and Pitt quarterback: I was 15 when I got my first offer. It was from (Steve Sarkisian) at Washington. I was kind of on the radar in the state of Washington before I even started just because I'm a guy that's replacing Heaps and then my high school team had a great 7-on-7 circuit the summer before my sophomore year before my first high school start. We won UDub's 7-on-7 tournament. I played really well and had receivers like Kasen Williams and Jordan Simone, and they just offered me after we won it all in that 7-on-7 camp.

Luke Del Rio, Washington taterskins offensive assistant, member of the Class of 2013, Elite 11 QB, Alabama, Oregon State, Florida quarterback: It just shows how hard it is to predict. You look at the top 10 guys, all of them were at the Elite 11 when I was there, and all were talented. Most, if not all, looked the part; big and strong, strong arm, could move. Christian and Max Browne were just like a notch above everybody. They were the biggest, had the best arms. They were fluid, and then you look at the circumstances that they went to. And I think this is where it kind of gets lost. People say, 'Oh, well we whiffed on getting that recruit right.' Well, I don't think it's that easy to just say that. There's so many moving parts with quarterbacks as far as the development goes. How many offensive coordinators did those guys have? How early do they have to play? Were they ready to play when they have to play?

Charlie Fisher, former Penn State QB coach in 2013: My first day on the job at Penn State was on a Wednesday. I'd just come from Miami of Ohio. We had a huge junior day that Saturday, and Hackenberg and Trubisky were both there. If Christian didn't come, we were going Trubisky. Mitch was a great kid too; really mobile, a dual-threat guy who had played at a high-level program in Ohio. They were almost carbon copy kids in terms of great family, great kids. Billy (O'Brien) had been recruiting and targeting both of them. Christian committed that Saturday. He'd left and got about a half-hour down the road and came back and committed to Bill.

Noel Mazzone, Arizona offensive coordinator, former UCLA OC/QB coach: It was a lot harder to evaluate guys then. You didn't have all the video and connections as you do now, and it was tougher back then to see those guys. You had to try and get them on campus to see 'em throw.

Del Rio: When I went to the (Elite 11) Oakland regional, it was super windy. Cooper Bateman (No. 4 among the 2013 QBs) was there. Jared Goff and Max Browne were also there, and they were really the only guys that could throw it through the wind. Jared, my God, it was like he was throwing a needle through the wind. It cut right through it. He and Max had the best touch I'd seen. And Jared was the best deep ball thrower.

It's different now because everybody has a trainer. Everybody has a speed coach. They're all so 7-on-7 driven, so they have so many reps by the time they get to that point. They can lie to you a little more I feel like, whereas (around 2012) that was just starting. I remember I had three or four 7-on-7 camps my junior year, and that was like a big deal. That was a lot. Now, it's year-round.

Mazzone: The hardest thing is not to just live off 247 and Rivals and what they feel about the guy.

Huffman: We were the first one to rank Goff as a four-star. He only had offers from Cal, Boise and Oregon State. He was super skinny, but when watched his film, you could see this guy can really throw, and at the regional camp, he threw the ball really well.

Bateman got rated high because Scott Kennedy (Scout.com's director of scouting at the time) fell in love with him, and he was the final judge and jury for Scout. Bateman had like eight D1 guys on his team in Utah. They were loaded, but he put up very pedestrian numbers. He passed the Scott Kennedy eye test, though. He's big and he was a really good athlete and had good testing numbers. He just couldn't throw very well though.

Bateman began his college career at Alabama and threw two touchdowns in two seasons as a reserve before transferring to Utah, where he didn't play. Most of the top 10 QBs also didn't stick with the original schools that signed them. Shane Morris, the No. 3-rated quarterback, committed to Michigan in the spring of his junior year of high school. He didn't throw a touchdown pass in four seasons with the Wolverines before transferring to Central Michigan, where he threw 27 touchdowns and 17 interceptions in his senior year and led the Chippewas to an 8-5 season, its most wins in eight years.

Roberts: He was such an early Michigan commit and he already had this social media presence with that big Michigan fan base; had some fans saying, 'You're our savior; you're the next great one.' It was like a 24/7 press conference you've got now with the onset of Twitter. He'd got a blue checkmark. The cart went in front of the horse. He could throw it a country mile; he could rip it. He was a good kid. He was just a victim of the way it all intersected in one way with the recruiting rankings, the huge fan base and social media.

Yogi Roth, Pac-12 Network football analyst, Elite 11 coach; former USC assistant QB coach: I loved Shane. He was an awesome kid. I remember his Twitter profile picture was of him and Erin Andrews. He was one of the first of these kids who really had to deal with the pressure of message boards and social media for the first time. That to me was one of the biggest catalytic moments for me as an evaluator in 20 years in major college football. It would force guys to seem as if they loved the craft because they were loved up (on social media) and how they felt it. This guy was living in two worlds — one is the reality when you walk into the facility versus the one that is the perception. That's not that fun when you haven't developed emotionally and your brain hasn't fully developed. In our eyes, it tore up Shane.

Shane Morris, NuVasive medical sales, Chicago; former Michigan and Central Michigan quarterback: It was one of the first years that the Elite 11 got put on ESPN as a TV show. Instagram and Twitter were just becoming a thing. It was different for us, vastly different. You have 20,000 followers on Twitter, thousands of followers on Instagram and you're 16, 17 years old. It's a lot.

As a high school kid, you're put in the spotlight, and it's just so different. There wasn't really a precedent or a standard set for it. You're accessible to everyone in the world really. Coaches tell you to stay off social media and don't look at the messages people send you, things like that, but you see 'em. You see everything. It's difficult not to think about it. As a 17-year-old kid, you want people to like you. You want to be loved. It has an effect on you. All these Michigan fans or from these respective schools are telling you how great you are, how you're gonna win a Heisman. You're gonna win four national championships and then your head gets big. You get blown up and you think things are gonna be a lot easier than they actually end up being.

Looking back at it, it is ridiculous. You're defined by your stars and how many offers you have. You're obviously a football player, but we're all so much more than that.

New Jersey native Kevin Olsen, the No. 5 QB, went from Miami to Riverside City College to Charlotte and dealt with several off-field issues. Troy Williams, the No. 6 QB from Southern California, signed with Washington, played sparingly and finished his career at Utah.

Huffman: I was 100 percent sold Troy was gonna be the dude. I felt like USC and UCLA made grave mistakes not going after him. He was a winner. Crenshaw and Dorsey were the powers in the city. He beat Poly when JuJu (Smith-Schuster) was a junior. Troy shattered every city section record, and they were hammering people. He played a lot of 7-on-7 and won the national championship. He was awesome everywhere he went in 7-on-7. Had a decent arm, was just so smart, could sit back in the pocket and make reads. He was athletic. I thought he was kinda like (2020 No. 1-rated QB) Bryce Young is.

But I think he had one start at Washington, and it was in like a windstorm against ASU. He had four snaps fly over his head. He looked awful. He just looked rattled.

Brice Ramsey, the No. 7 QB, threw four touchdowns in four seasons at Georgia.

Roberts: In person, Brice Ramsey looks great. He's 6-3. Strokes it (throwing). Unbelievable kid. But he came from like a Wing-T/veer offense, where every throw was either a slant or a go-route and that's it. He probably only had about 150 reps and that's it. The Air Raid guys are getting an absurd amount of reps. In the pros on must-pass situations, when the whole stadium knows he has to thread the needle, (Patrick) Mahomes can do it because he's done it so many times before. There was no sophistication in Brice's offense, but he'd won a lot of games and Mark Richt offered him early.

Cody Thomas, the No. 8 QB, threw two touchdowns in his career at Oklahoma, which included him backing up Baker Mayfield for one season. Asiantii Woulard, the No. 9 QB, was the MVP of the Elite 11 in 2012 after playing wide receiver in his first two seasons of high school. He signed with UCLA but didn't get into any games with the Bruins in two seasons and then transferred back home, where he was a reserve at USF. He finished his career at Division II Clarion (Pa.), where he threw seven touchdown passes in 2017.

Browne: Going into the Elite 11, he wasn't really on anyone's radar. That week, you definitely felt like he was kind of a coach's favorite for those three days but he never really was on anyone's radar before or after that, to be honest.

Mazzone: We'd just got there (to UCLA). We didn't have a quarterback. George Whitfield and Trent Dilfer called me from Elite 11 about Asiantii. Ever since then, before I take a guy, I gotta see him in person.

The immeasurables to me are more immeasurable the older I get. You gotta be accurate and you gotta be a great decision-maker, but you also gotta have all those immeasurables. A guy can be 6-4, can throw it the length of the field, can run and jump, but when the lights come on, can he really do it? With him, as soon as there were 22 guys on the field, everything moved way too fast.

Roberts: We (the Elite 11 coaches) say what we thought he could be and you fell in love with the physical traits: In a T-shirt and shorts, he threw the ball and it was beautiful. You fell in love with the story, but it was such a small sample size. He simply didn't have enough reps. He might've thrown less than 500 passes in his high school career. If he only has 300 or 400 reps in high school, you're really swimming upstream. Then, he gets in a room (at UCLA) with guys like Brett Hundley and guys that are processing at a higher level.

The No. 10 guy, Ohio State's J.T. Barrett became a three-time captain and three-time All-Big Ten player. Barrett, listed at 6-2, 205, was ranked as the second-best quarterback in the state of Texas behind Thomas. Mayfield, the future Oklahoma Heisman Trophy winner, was ranked No. 11 in the state.

Shane Morris: I was at the regional in Dallas with Baker. He was in the main group, but no one knew who he was, and look at how things panned out. He's a Heisman winner. It's insane how it works.

Roth: I remember Baker from the Dallas regional. He was really accurate, and that's a unique trait, but you couldn't tell the heart that he had or the competitor he was. We thought the other guys had higher ceilings and higher floors, and obviously we were wrong. Then, I was at the Heisman (in 2017, the year Mayfield won it.) There was a table for all three candidates, Baker sees me and his eyes light up. 'Hey Yogi! I remember that day. I remember you (ran) the two-minute drill and you guys didn't choose me. I never forgot that.' He was cool about it and we laughed. Things like that obviously drove him. Clearly, his body had changed dramatically, and as evaluators we changed also.

Roberts: With Baker, I think people thought, 'There's no way a 6-foot or under kid will make it (in the NFL).' Russell (Wilson) hadn't quite hit yet. I think with Kyler (Murray), Baker and Russell it became acceptable in the NFL world. But back then, it was, 'I need Max Browne, Christian Hackenberg. I need 6-foot-4 because they wanted Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers.' Andy Reid said it best when he said the NFL is five years behind college football, and college football is five years behind high school.

Eric Morris, head coach at FCS Incarnate Word, former Washington State inside receivers coach: I watched Baker in the spring. He could make every throw. He could really rip it. I loved his moxie. They practiced early in the morning. There were other college coaches also out there. Some kids get nervous. He didn't care. Had great energy. He was probably 5-11 or so, but it wasn't an issue to me. I'd just got done coaching Case Keenum at Houston, and he'd broke all sorts of NCAA records.

I called Mike (Leach) and said, 'This is our guy.' But Baker didn't really want to go that far away for school. We couldn't get him to come on a visit. (Tyler) Bruggman (from Arizona) was probably our next guy and he wanted to come.

Huffman: Bruggman was the dude. ASU was trying like hell to flip him.

Bruggman, the No. 29 QB in the class, was from Phoenix and bounced around to five schools without ever playing in an FBS game, going from Washington State to Louisville to Scottsdale Community College to Montana State (where he threw for 19 touchdowns in nine games) to Texas A&M (where he didn't get in a game).

Del Rio: Oklahoma State had Todd Monken (as offensive coordinator), he went to Southern Miss (as head coach). He said, 'Hey, I want to bring you with me. You'll start right away. We have nobody.' I didn't go, so they offered Nick Mullens (ranked No. 154 in the 2013 QB class). Well, he broke every single record there (and started eight games for the San Francisco 49ers in 2018). It's funny, the dominoes that fall.

Roth: When we got to the Elite 11, Goff almost won the MVP. I think he missed on an out route in 7-on-7. He could really deal, though. He wasn't fazed at all. He was so laser-focused, and he's got an edge to him. There is this 'I'm gonna prove you wrong' side to him. We missed it that year in who we were enamored with and the potential.

Browne: I always remember he was not the highest regarded for Elite 11 rankings guys, but I think everyone was like, 'Hey, this kid can play.' I don't know if anyone thought number one pick in the NFL Draft, but his trajectory and how it's played out for the past five years or so doesn't surprise me.

Del Rio: I was more looking at temperament (sizing up the other Elite 11 QBs). I wanted to see, what's the reaction when they make a bad throw? What's the reaction when they make a great throw? When we go into that simulated two-minute drill, are they playing the same? Are they just as accurate? Do they kind of freak out? And then just talking to them when we're not at practice. Josh Dobbs (the No. 12 QB among the 2013 class), Jared Goff, they were the same dude the whole weekend. No matter what we were doing, same guy.

Roth: Max was ridiculously smart. He's tall. He defined everything you want from the position. He was the Peyton Manning of the group. He and Hack looked the best. They looked the part.

Browne later won Gatorade National Player of the Year, and his commitment to preceded the 2012 season when the Trojans began the year ranked No. 1 with senior Matt Barkley touted as a Heisman candidate. Kiffin's team finished the season unranked at 7-6.

Browne: I came in with the mindset that I was going to replace Matt Barkley and start from day one because that's what he did when he was the Gatorade National Player of the Year.

Instead, Kiffin named Cody Kessler the starter but also worked in Max Wittek. The Trojans open 3-2 and Kiffin gets fired infamously on the tarmac at LAX. By 2015, Browne's redshirt sophomore season at USC, he had four different head coaches — Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, Steve Sarkisian and Clay Helton. Browne didn't make his first start at USC until the opener of the 2016 season. Against No. 1 Alabama. It was a slaughter, 52-6. Brown rebounded in Week 2 to lead USC to a 45-7 win against Utah State. But the following week the Trojans got hammered 27-10 at No. 7 Stanford, and with pressure mounting on Helton (a head coach some USC fans never wanted to get the job) opted to turn to promising redshirt freshman Sam Darnold.

Huffman: That night against Alabama, it was, 'OH-MY-GOSH, deer-in-the-headlights, he'd never seen pressure like this before.' He looked paralyzed in the pocket. He's not ready for this. Then against, Utah State, he didn't look all that spectacular and then he played at Stanford, and it was, 'Oh my gosh, he's not that guy.' I'd never really saw how immobile he was because he didn't get much pressure in high school.

Roberts: In high school, he'd dominated lesser competition and put up unbelievable numbers. Then, at USC, there's the coaching changes and all of these things, and he gets pushed by Sam, the third pick of the draft, who's breathing down his neck. If you'd dropped Max in at Washington State with Leach, he probably throws for 4,000 yards and he might be in the league right now.

Browne: When I look back on my own career I always wonder, did the expectation to play day one — and then when that did not happen — did that wear on me? I think there's probably an element of that as well. It was about four calendar years to my first start. My gauge of pressure and executing and seeing live bullets was really only on a practice field. I probably was a guy that could have benefited from a little bit of trial by fire kind of thing.

Del Rio: Max waits his turn and does what every coach wants his player to do: Don't leave, stay here, learn the system, get bigger, stronger, faster, all that. He could have easily jumped ship after a year realizing Cody Kessler was going to start all those years, and it might have been different.

Huffman: I think that does make a huge difference of which team he gets to play first. I think that's why so many schools play these FCS schools early. They want their guys to get into that groove. I think if his first start was against Hawaii or UNLV, everything plays out completely differently.

Darnold developed into a Heisman candidate, leading USC to a Rose Bowl win in 2016. Browne left as a graduate transfer for Pitt, where he won the starting job, faced two Top 10 opponents in the first three games and then suffered a season-ending shoulder injury that essentially ended his playing career. Some have speculated that maybe Browne's recruiting stock was inflated because of where he played in high school, similar to two other recent five-star Seattle area QBs, Heaps and Jacob Eason.

Browne: I really don't think that was the case. If you look at guys like Budda Baker and Myles Jack, they came from the same area, played even worse competition, and their transition was seamless. I think when you look back at myself and maybe Jake, to a little extent, we're both guys that worked really hard at a really young age. We may have tapped into our ceiling at a younger age. Having played with a Sam Darnold, who was one of these guys that are raw, and then you start getting into coaching because he picked up football later, then he has more room to grow. And maybe I didn't have that room to grow, for lack of a better term. But I genuinely believe that if you're in a different circumstance, the narrative around my career could be a lot different than where it's at right now in 2020.

The other five-star QB recruit in the class seemed to have ample reason to bail on his college choice before he even started his senior year of high school. Hackenberg had committed to Penn State in February 2012. Five months later, on July 23 – 11 days after the Freeh Report came out — the NCAA dropped heavy sanctions on the school that included a $60 million fine, scholarship reductions from 25 to 15 for four years and five years of probation.

Adam Breneman, former four-star Penn State tight end: It was just a crazy time. We knew something was gonna come done. Coach O'Brien had called me the day before saying it's not gonna be good but at the end of the day as long as we can play on television, we're gonna be fine.

Christian Hackenberg, former Jets and Penn State quarterback: It was literally the last day when I landed from home L.A. into Richmond, my dad and I turned on the radio on the way home and that's when everything dropped. But there was speculation moving into that. I was one of the last flights out (from Elite 11), so I was sitting with Trent (Dilfer) and Joey and my dad at Redondo (Union) High School. It was just one of those things where it was sensory overload for me, because when I made my college decision, it was predicated on a lot of things, but for me, I had a unique perspective with my high school coach. He made me sit down and write out everything that I wanted. So like from the time I was a sophomore in high school, when I got to Fork Union (Military Academy), I had a plan of what I wanted to get out of college, the type of system that I felt would give me the best chance to be successful and ultimately go on to the NFL and do that at a high level.

It was the Wild West there for a little bit with the phone calls, it was Twitter, direct messages, all kinds of stuff. People who I looked up to and value their opinions were talking to me about being open-minded to some things. It was pretty crazy for me. Having made such an informed decision, I felt, and then having something that was kind of out of my control happen.

Roth: Every coach in the country was calling Christian to de-commit when the sanctions dropped.

Breneman: I was living in Harrisburg, which is Penn State country, and TV trucks are showing up at my house. Every station in the country was covering the Penn State scandal. We're 16, 17 years old. It made us grow up real fast.

We had a tight-knit class, Christian, me, Garrett Sickels, Brendan Mahon, Andrew Nelson. Ryan Switzer was silently committed to Bill O'Brien. Will Fuller, who plays for him now with the Texans, was a Penn State commit. Our immediate thought was, where could we all play together? What school could we all go to?

Coach O'Brien said, before you guys do something, make sure you come see me in State College and let's talk face to face. That Saturday, a bunch of us went up there to see him with our families. He said, 'If you want to leave, I get it. Not many guys here are gonna leave. If you come here, you will have a legacy here. You'll have a chance to do something bigger than yourself and bigger than football.' He then left us alone to talk about it. Christian's dad spoke. Garrett Sickels' dad, who is this big manly guy, started tearing up and said, 'We love this place.' It was very emotional. After that we stopped talking to other teams. That week felt like two months.

Del Rio: Him and Adam Breneman kind of kept that class together and actually gave them a fighting chance. I mean, talent-wise, they should have won three or four games.

Breneman: Everyone was saying Penn State was dead. That community was broken. A lot of people were like, 'What the hell are you guys doing (going there)?!?' I give Bill O'Brien so much credit. The fact that he was able to get guys like us to still go there. We weren't going there to win championships. We were going there to play for Bill O'Brien.

Hackenberg: I was excited about being able to play for a guy that just got done coaching Tom Brady. We had a good team with some really good older guys around me.

Fisher: He got there in June and had a lot to process mentally. That was what jumped out at me; how quickly he learned that system. We didn't shave much back for him in that first game. We played Syracuse at the Meadowlands on ABC. He was such a bright kid. Took a lot of great notes. He was fearless. If he made a mistake, it didn't rattle him.

His freshman year was special. I saw it every day. I used to marvel at what that kid had on his shoulders. Our staff was hanging a lot on that kid, not to only save that program but to be the face of it. He deserves his due. What he did in the time, it was a very unique time. Basically, the NCAA tried to kill that program. Everybody was counting on him to save the program. He was the marquee name for wins and losses, and recruiting, and he stood up to that challenge. How in the heck is this kid doing this when there's 107,000 at Beaver Stadium and the 600,000 alumni counting on you to get this done?

In 2013, Hackenberg completed 59 percent of his passes, threw for almost 3,000 yards and had 20 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He was voted the Big Ten's freshman of the year. Penn State, which was down to just 61 scholarship players, finished 7-5, punctuating the season with a win at No. 14  and 24-point favorite Wisconsin. Hackenberg went 21-of-30 for 339 yards and four touchdown passes in the game. That performance was a springboard to all sorts of future first-pick-of-the-NFL draft chatter. That offseason O'Brien left State College to become the head coach of the Houston Texans and James Franklin, the Vanderbilt coach, took over as the Nittany Lions' scholarship numbers continued to dwindle.

Early in Hackenberg's sophomore season UMass coach Mark Whipple, a former NFL quarterback coach with the Steelers and Browns, predicted before the Minutemen faced the Nittany Lions that the Penn State QB is going to be the first player picked in the NFL draft. "If he could come out this year (after his sophomore season)," Whipple said, "he'd be the first player picked. He's just got it all."

Breneman: We'd been through a lot as young kids when O'Brien left. Christian was gonna have three years with O'Brien, who was like a second father to us. When he left, it was hard for a lot of us. It was hard to accept change. I think there was a locker room that had a wall up, 'You don't know what we've been through. We're already doing it the right way.' It was a lot to be open to James Franklin and a new way of doing things and a new offense. That's where you saw the change happen. Eventually, Franklin was able to tear those walls down and say, 'Let me in.'

Del Rio: Christian went to Penn State and played as a true freshman, and whenever I watch them it's like he's getting hit practically every play. So, you're thinking, 'That's awesome that he gets to play right now — I just want to get a chance to play some time my career — but is this really good for him? Is this really helping him right now?' It's hard not to get gun shy and create bad habits when you're playing the game on your back.

Hackenberg: I think as my sophomore year progressed and my junior year progressed, I felt like that weight (of the expectations) got heavier, just because I started to understand how big it was. I can understand the different things and my mind tends to wander and think through scenarios and stuff like that. The more time I got in it, the more time I was in the middle of that spotlight, and the circumstances around me changed. We graduated a lot of guys after my freshman year. We were only playing with 48 scholarship guys. My sophomore year 70 to 80 percent of the roster is loaded with redshirt freshmen, true freshmen or true sophomores. We knew how young the team was and trying to get back from the hole.

Breneman: Obviously, in his sophomore or junior seasons, the offensive line couldn't block, the receivers weren't playing well and he was clearly frustrated. It was hard. It was just a lot. I think he lost some confidence with who was around and maybe how he was getting developed. He wants to be great so bad, I know that killed him to not be playing that well and not winning games. Everything Christian did was magnified.

Hackenberg: After like the third game of my sophomore year, stuff started to get difficult. People started picking up on what we were doing offensively, and the youngness of that team kicked in. That's where everything started to spin around in a whirlwind, from expectations to the reality of the situation. I was always good at tuning all that stuff out, but there does become a point in time where the situation at Penn State, in terms of the sanctions, everything is going on and 'This kid supposed to come in and save the program' but the reality is we're playing with a bunch of kids in the Big Ten. You go from playing so well with a guy that you trusted and had put all your trust into as a 17-year-old kid, and then he leaves and it's a whole new scene and all of those voices started to get louder.

In his three seasons at Penn State, Hackenberg was sacked more than 100 times, with 80 of those sacks coming in his final two years with the Nittany Lions. His completion percentage dropped from 56 percent to 53 percent. Whether Hackenberg's accuracy issues should have always been a concern or whether they materialized after he picked up some bad habits while trying to cope with the mounting pressure he was under on the field and off is a meaty topic.

Fisher: I certainly didn't see that when I had him. Gosh, he threw some great balls. I think as the sanctions dug in at Penn State, it got tougher. He took a lot of hits, and I think that affects any quarterback in a major way. When I hear people say his accuracy suffered or they needed to fix his throwing motion, I say I coached quarterbacks my whole life.  I shake my head at that thinking. The ball came out clean, fast, and he was accurate. He had a great motion, but when you start to get hit a lot, your eye level drops and you start seeing things that maybe aren't there. You start trying to be too perfect with ball placement.

This is true at any level of football: You want to affect the quarterback, hit him and keep hitting him. It can affect anybody's confidence.

Del Rio: If you hit somebody enough in the game, their eyes drop. I mean, everybody's eyes dropped. It's just how many times you have to hit them to make their eyes drop. Well, sometimes it's one. Sometimes it's 15. Tom Brady can keep his eyes up for a really long time through a lot of hits. But even him, he will drop his eyes after 12 or the 13th hit. No one likes getting hit. You're really defenseless. You're almost throwing into hits. It's different. You're not really bracing yourself a lot of time.

The biggest one that everybody draws from is (former No. 1 overall pick) David Carr. He was very talented but he was getting sacked over five times a game. It affects you. It changes you. It'll form new habits. David Garrard, when we were in Jacksonville, at the top of his job, he's a right-hand quarterback and if it was a five-step, he would kind of navigate to his left because our right tackle was having a bad year. He didn't even know he was doing it. He was just trying to buy himself more space, and so (defensive end) Mario Williams, who's on the left tackle, doesn't have to go as far now.

Hackenberg: You're so worried about making sure that we're just going to win this week and we're going to keep treading water given the whole situation that you lose focus on making sure that you're doing everything you can to make sure that you're not developing bad habits because you're getting sacked 50 times a year and you know, you're getting hit multiple, multiple times a game and you're in third and long all Saturday and it's affecting everything.

I felt like for me, the latter part of that outweighed my own personal growth.

Fisher: He's a great quarterback. We didn't miss on Christian Hackenberg. What he did and what he accomplished — he fit O.B.'s system to the max, the New England system to the max, under center, play-action, using the mental capabilities and the shotgun passing game. He was just a tremendous fit for the system. It was a match made in heaven. He's a fabulous kid. You talk about staying loyal and true to his words. I tip my hat to the kid. His loyalty in this day and age, when kids want to jump in the portal because it seems like it's never good enough. I have great respect for him and his family.

Hackenberg: Going into my sophomore year, I didn't even think about transferring because I felt like I had stayed there now through the storm, and I needed to ride that out. I felt like I owed it, not to the program, not to the game of football, but I owed it to Penn State and everything that that whole school and alumni base had been through. I was willing to sacrifice the little things I needed to do in order to make sure that that was going to continue to be a thing in order to make sure that Penn State had three winning seasons when everyone had written us off and thought that the whole program was going to die.

Todd McShay, NFL draft analyst: He definitely had talent. There's no question about that. I do remember him taking a pounding, and confidence is so important playing that position. And, once that starts to go it can mess with everything else, but even prior to that, his mechanics were kinda all over the place. I think if he stayed with a coach like Bill O'Brien and continued to be developed properly, he had a chance to be really good.

As Hackenberg's NFL draft stock became a storyline and his struggles seemed to overshadow the team, it was tough not to wonder if the former five-star quarterback had lost some confidence in his abilities. But the mere acknowledgment of such a thing is at odds with a position, and really an identity, that seems to be predicated on never blinking.

Max Browne: You would have never got that out of me if you asked me that in 2016 or in '17, but looking back? I think so. In the back of my mind, I genuinely, genuinely believed I always could get it done. But I think when you just haven't played in years, there's an element of like, yeah, you start analyzing all the factors at play. Looking back, I think there's definitely an element of that when you haven't proven it, you start doubting a little bit, not a lot, but just a little bit for sure.

Shane Morris: My sophomore year against Minnesota, I didn't play well at all, and things got overshadowed because of the concussion I got in the game. I also had a high ankle sprain. It's all over social media and the news outlets. "Good Morning America" is at my house, trying to interview my parents. The thing was out of control, and it wasn't handled well by anyone. It was just so much for me personally.

I went to talk to a sports psychologist to express my feelings on things, and that helped me tremendously. Them telling you how to deal with the pressure, the negative press when things aren't going your way. People really don't understand that as a quarterback, you're put under so much pressure, so much scrutiny when you have all of these high expectations that everyone else puts on you when you're 17 years old about how you're gonna start for three years, win championships, make it to the NFL. And when that doesn't happen, that's a turning point in your life, and it's hard to deal with mentally.

Browne: I post a lot of stuff on Instagram (now), and it scares the shtein out of me when I see these guys at 16 who are getting hyped up, and I can't blame them for thinking they're gonna be the next Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes or whatever, but the numbers aren't there. Before with no social media, if you got recruited, you were brought up like two stories high, and if you fell, it was like you sprained your ankle type thing. Well, now with social media, you get brought up like 30 stories, and if you fall, it breaks kids. It's crazy. I get DMs all of the time from guys who are struggling, like real-life depression and all of that stuff.

When I see these recruits at 15, 16 years old — I get it. I can't blame the coaches for offering the kids. I can't blame the kids for buying in and thinking they're gonna be the next big thing. But when I see the parents, buying in and living vicariously through those kids, it makes me shake, because it often ends closer to my side of the story than to Jared Goff's side of the story.

Hackenberg: That's a really tough question, man. I've always prided myself in my work ethic. I'm a pleaser. I'm like a golden retriever. Like if a coach tells me to hunt in a certain direction and that he believes that that's the best thing for myself in the team and for myself to be the player that they think I can be, I'm going to do that until I can't do it anymore. And the hard transition for me was when I didn't really have that type of guidance. I think that's kind of when the game becomes a business.

The New York Jets took Hackenberg in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft with the 51st overall pick. That year, just four seasons after the NCAA handed down its sanctions, the Nittany Lions won the Big Ten title. They have won 42 games in the four years since he left State College.

Breneman: When Penn State won the Big Ten in 2016, I was playing for UMass and Christian was in the NFL. O'Brien shot us a text: 'Just so you know that without you two, this would've never have happened.'

It is crazy to think about that Penn State is where it is now less than a decade later. Christian is a humble guy. He is the one who held that place together. Without his leadership and the hope he gave people ... I don't think he gets enough credit. It goes back to what he did and also goes to the job that James Franklin has done.

Hackenberg: For me, even if it was a bit of a martyr-type situation in terms of my personal career and everything that I wanted to do, I'm okay with that. Seeing that happen a lot quicker than I think anyone expected, that's something I am very proud of and not just for myself, but my teammates, is something to be extremely proud of what we did, given the circumstances and the expectations of what was handed to us.

Hackenberg spent two seasons on the Jets roster before brief stints with the Raiders, Bengals and Eagles, but he never appeared in an NFL game. He did start three games for Memphis in the AAF but didn't throw a touchdown pass. He says he still hopes to get back to the NFL. He spent last fall working on completing his degree in strategic communications and also trying to clean up some bad playing habits by shortening his release and refining his footwork. In the eyes of some folks in the NFL, Hackenberg, like Browne, didn't quite have the traits the league demands now.

McShay: We all get caught up in high school rankings, but how do you even decipher who is what? I know there is all of the Elite 11 stuff, and you get to see kids a lot more than previously but still; I know how difficult it is to evaluate a quarterback going from college to the NFL, and I've made plenty of mistakes. Everyone in the league has. Part of it is just where a guy ends up going, what is his situation, who is coaching that player, and if he needs time, does he have time to develop?

With Hackenberg, I think he got a feel for what he could be, and it wasn't any more, and he started to lose confidence. I also think O'Brien was responsible for masking some of his weaknesses, and, if we're being honest, Bill had several opportunities with some pretty dire QB situations in Houston to bring him in if he really believed in him, and that didn't happen.

Daniel Jeremiah, NFL Network draft analyst, a former scout with the Ravens, Eagles and Browns: The one thing that stands out to me about those top-ranked guys (from 2013) with Browne and Hackenberg was that there's no play-making ability to those guys. They're purely throwers, whereas the Trubiskys and the Mayfields, those guys are more play-makers than just pure throwers. We've seen that morph into importance at both the college and NFL levels over the last five to seven years. (NFL Network analyst) Bucky (Brooks) used to a great line on our podcast the other day, he said, 'We used to look for shooters and now you're looking for the scorers.' I think that was an accurate way to describe it, where you used to look for throwers and now you look for play-making ability. The goal is just to get the ball into the end zone. I think some of those guys were just limited.

Goff is not as robotic. He's more loose and reactionary than more of a paint-by-numbers style. I don't think he's necessarily running to be a play-maker, but he can create a little a bit more in the pocket. He's more loose and fluid.

Del Rio: I heard (taterskins quarterbacks coach) Ken Zampese, who I'm actually working with now, put it to me a great way about evaluating quarterbacks. 'It's like looking at a house. You can see what the house looks like. And you can see how many rooms and bedrooms and bathrooms, what the kitchen looks like and the amenities and all of that, but you don't know the neighborhood or what's inside the walls and all of that until you live there.' Same thing with quarterbacks. Physically, you can go, 'Yeah, that guy looks awesome.' But you don't know what type of quarterback he is until he's actually playing, winning and losing games for you.

Jeremiah: I don't know the right terms. I use reactionary skills. There's a play in the Super Bowl with Mahomes on 3rd and 5. As he's dropping back, he peeks to his left because he knows Nick Bosa is one on one with (Eric) Fisher. Just as Bosa is starting to win, Mahomes starts to escape away from him. Bosa dives and just nicks his heel but doesn't get him. That wasn't waiting for Bosa to get within a couple of feet and feeling him and leaving. That was just his reactionary knowing, 'OK, he's beat right now and there's no hesitation, Go!' That little period of time is the difference between a two-yard loss or him getting the first down on a third down in the Super Bowl.

I was doing (an evaluation of) one of the LSU linemen yesterday. It was (Joe Burrow) seeing a crease and no hesitation and taking. It was, 'This is what the defense has presented to me and Boom, I'm taking it!' There's no pause to it. I write down reactionary greatness vs. being robotic. Man, that's now the way it's played. You gotta be able to react.

Mazzone: The NFL spends millions of dollars of in-depth scouting, and they get it right only about 20 percent of the time. Finding a good quarterback is like finding a good wife. You just gotta get lucky sometimes.

[Don Ho]

Good shtein!  Thanks for sharing.