FanPost

The Finalized Splash of a Lifetime

For a while I have been at a conundrum. I am the type of guy who wants to always have their cake and eat it. So I while I have avidly wanted Manziel, I still wanted to trade down and acquire more value before taking him. This, however, would only make us lose our leverage and give other teams like the Browns and Jags a chance to bring Manziel in and excite the entire franchise. The risk seems to high to leave the entire game plan for our draft in their hands. What helped me to finalize my decision is knowing that the Texans are in an even bigger crisis. There is no way that they will take any player over Clowney and lose out on the immense value they could have gotten for him no matter how much they want someone else. I see them conceding and allowing the Falcons to come up and draft him at 1. They realize that there is a very good chance that as many as 5 QB's will be taken in the first round if we start the rush on them early. They will want to have ammo to ensure they can trade back up into the first or go for someone like Ryan Mallet if needed. Now at 6, they will either draft Khalil Mack or the best QB available.

Thus, I am sticking to what I have been saying for months and have the Rams taking Johnny Manziel at 2 to catalyze the entire draft in our favor. This will incite a QB frenzy where Bortles will have to either go 3 to the Jaguars or 6 to Houston. This puts more pressure on Minnesota to take Bradford at an even higher price because they know they will be reaching on any other QB in the top 10 with the top two now gone. Bradford will now go to the Vikings for the number 8 pick. While some of our later rounders will be shuffled around and/or traded, the conditional pick based on his performance this upcoming season will be the main bait the Vikings will jump on. Otherwise, we will have trade partners like the Titans or Browns who will be eager to take on such a player, rather than take risks with Bridgewater or Derek Carr. This bidding war will give us back some of the value we would have gotten had we traded back from number 2.

We will then proceed to trade up with Tampa Bay at 7 for a 3rd rounder this year and next year. They will prefer to make their receiving core more multifaceted with someone like Odell Beckham, who can also be a key cog in the return game. With Khalil Mack, Greg Robinson, and Sammy Watkins being the other 3 picks with Clowney, Manziel and Bortles, we will now have the next 2 picks to complete the A&M Trifecta.

1 (2) - QB Johnny Manziel

1 (7) - OT Jake Matthews

1 (8) - WR Mike Evans

2 (13) - TE Troy Niklas

4 (13) - RB Bishop Sankey

5 (13) - DT Caraun Reid

6 (22) - FS Jerome Couplin

7 (2) - WR L'Daimian Washington

7 (17) - LB Tosan Eyetsemitan

7 (18) - QB Jeff Matthews