Showboat

I think that Carroll is a good coach and good coaches figure out how to use talented players. Arguably, Jimmy Graham was past his prime when he went to the Seahawks (and he was certainly not even close to being the best player on those Seahawk teams). Bowers is possibly the best offensive player on the Raiders (and certainly their best receiver). While guaranteeing a #1 TE finish is a fools errand, Bowers is certainly in the top tier of TEs. I would not be worried.

At this point, seeing Nabers taken in the bottom half of round one seems a bit high but there is certainly value to be had if he drops. The tricky part is figuring out exactly when to pull the trigger on him. The toe stuff goes back to college and it didn't seem to affect him much last year - it all may just be the Giants being overly cautious and creating an excuse for reducing exposure to another potential concussion. It may also be a ploy like Tom Brady's elbow issue he had for 15 years.

I would have swung for the fences with CMC and Henry at the turn.

Sometimes you shouldn't blindly follow your personal projections either. While CMC certainly has a reasonable shot at being the #1RB, the age and durability risk is what has driven his ADP down to the bottom half of the first round. Why take on that risk at #2? Trade down if that's allowed, otherwise taking him at #2 just allows someone else to get better value in the bottom half of round 1.

Winning a Super Bowl and having one of the best rushing seasons ever puts a bit larger target on your back.

The other risk with Barkley is that teams now have an entire season of film to see how the Eagles were able to get him free. I was continually amazed at how easily he was able to roam through defenses last season. It could be that the Eagles were just more talented, but everyone is now another year older and you've got to think that teams are going target stopping Barkley. Every season is different and eventually defensives adjust to counter the latest offensive success. To assume last season's production will simply be repeated is foolish. In fantasy football, nothing is a slam dunk, so as mentioned earlier, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider taking players like Gibbs, Bijan, JJ and Chase ahead of Barkley. I think those are the consensus top 5 in most drafts. There is true value to be leveraged if any of those five somehow drop into the bottom half of the first round.

To be fair, last season he often wasn't getting touched until hitting the third level (and sometimes not even then ).

Anybody concerned about the holdout? Probably a nothing-burger if resolved in the next week or two, but it could have an impact if it extends deep into camp. Both Lamb and Chase had sluggish starts after holdouts last season.

The offer is certainly reasonable, but I'll stand by my original response - acceptance by the other team depends on what they think they can get in the draft at the QB position (as well as their opinion of Mayfield). Some (and I think at one time you were one) have suggested that Mayfield is just a mediocre QB. The crystal ball question being: was last season Mayfield's career year that he will never again equal or will he be able to build upon it becoming an elite (or at least borderline elite) franchise QB from here on out.

Hmmmm. I didn't think he would be able to keep both Barkley and CMC (or Taylor). My understanding was that Barkley was being traded in some other deal and he'd be keeping CMC and some other lower cost player. My response was from the other team's perspective.

That provides a bit more info. If it is only required to start 1 RB, not sure why the other team would do the trade. They can keep a solid WR group with CMC and focus their draft on QB and RB/WR depth.

It also kind of depends on if there are escalators on keeper values. In that case, it might not be worth keeping JT more than one year. I'd rather take my chances on CMC (and his lower keeper cost) and a fairly decent set of receivers. Whether the other guy accepts the trade probably depends on his chances to draft a QB.

The Commish ought to be able to define the position(s) a player is eligible for. If he plays a few snaps/per game on D he shouldn't be allowed to be started at CB, but if snaps on offense and defense are comparble, I could see allowing him to start at either position. I would be careful relying on platform defaults because they don't always get updated in a timely manner. There have been other past players such as K.Stewart and more recently Taysom Hill who were elegible as WR or TE on many ff platforms even when they were literally their teams starting QB. Stuff like that ain't right.

Sometimes, I think it's an ego thing and the head coach is just trying to do too much. With the bloated coaching staffs these days, surely there is some BS quality control coach available to monitor time management during the game and tell the HC when to take a time out.

Maybe - but these days with all of the NIL payments a lot of the college stars have plenty of money. There used to be a prevailing school of thought in the NFL to not sign rookie contracts until just before camp becuase giving a young kid a lot of money and a whole summer of idle time was just asking for trouble.