donovan peoples-jones

what could have been [Eric Upchurch]

The gap.

This is a fascinating question. I'm going to leave out guys who saw their careers derailed by injury (Antonio Bass, Tarik Black) and also guys who the recruiting industry airballed on (Kevin Grady, Derrick Green) and limit this folks who clearly had something to offer and did not get to display it for whatever reason:

  1. Devin Gardner. Gardner looked like a Heisman contender at certain points (ND UTL II, the two point conversion game against OSU) and was battered to pulp by the worst pass protection of all time at all other points. Not too hard to see him in the NFL if he hadn't ascended to nirvana in the middle of an MSU game.
  2. Ernest Shazor. Electric hitter, five star recruit, repeatedly ran the wrong way at incredible rates of speed. He must have had some personal issues because he went from a projected second-round pick to completely undraftable in a couple months in which no football was being played.
  3. Donovan Peoples-Jones. Five star wide receiver with massive athletic talent who saw his QB exit the pocket repeatedly and avoid downfield shots even when they were blitheringly wide open. Might as well file Nico "60 targets" Collins in here too.
  4. Denard Robinson. Had just established himself as the most electric player in college football when Brady Hoke came in and brought in a guy who wanted to put him under center. Nerve injury had a lot to do with his late-career fade, too, but seeing Denard run a waggle will remain a crime against man and panda forever.
  5. Evan Smotrycz. Smotrycz was coming off a 53/44 shooting year and was a career 41% three point shooter on ~200 attempts when he decided to transfer to Maryland. A major reason for this was the fact that he got drafted into playing a bunch of center, which he openly loathed. He ended up being redundant with Jake Layman at Maryland and faded into being a bench player as a senior. There's an alternate Smotrycz history where he gets to be a stretch four under Beilein for four years and has an absurdly efficient statline as an upperclassman.

Protests?

That's impossible to project but I do feel like that day is coming closer every year. Getting garbage meals while quarantined in a hotel so that everyone except you gets paid buckets of cash does seem like a potential tipping point. At some point a team is going to realize that they have a considerable

I've advocated for teams to adopt a mini-boycott where they don't play for 15 minutes—and if the network cuts to commercial the counter starts over. That would be a wake-up call that could escalate if necessary.

[After THE JUMP: ravoli rebels]

three for three [Patrick Barron]

This Week's Obsession:

Ten Michigan players were drafted and everyone's angry about it. Where do you fall on the "everything is fine" vs "panic and run around screaming" continuum?

Ace: Should we explain why people are angry? I’ve stayed off the internet this weekend and had no idea this was a thing.

David: Yeah, I missed why everyone is angry, too.

Brian: There's a combination of things.

  1. Josh Uche went in the second round and Michigan took heat for his low snap counts
  2. Michigan had the same number of draft picks as OSU and got nuked for the second consecutive year
  3. Bleed-over recruiting anger because the first round was 24 four or five star players and M hasn't recruited a four star defender.

Seth: Without looking I'm going to guess the responses to today's hello post for a 3-star cornerback from one of the biggest schools in the country will tell you all you need to know about the current fan zeitgeist.

Brian: So this weekend was a resurgence of the fanbase schism. Fun! But also what else we gonna talk about.

Ace: Ah. So the draft bit I think is most worth pointing out in this context is that, despite Michigan getting ten players off the board, Shea Patterson very much wasn’t one of them.

David: That's a very big point...I don't even think he signed a FA deal, yet?

Ace: He has not.

Brian:

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┻┳| •.•)  maybe the charting guy was

┳┻|⊂ノ     right about patterson

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Seth: Neither was Lavert Hill for whatever that's worth. This doesn't so much apply to Shea, but sometimes there's no accounting for NFL taste.

Ace: Hill got snatched up within hours (possibly minutes?) of the draft ending. Also: quarterback is a very important position.

David: Yeah, McKeon signed right after well...so, 12/13 guys had an NFL team by Saturday night.

Brian: Princeton's QB signed with Cleveland.

[Hit THE JUMP for, eventually, a rundown on where Michigan's players went in the draft, plus more of this.]

Cesar Ruiz is M's best bet at a first-round pick [Eric Upchurch]

I've never been more excited for the NFL Draft.

This has little to do with the players involved, nothing to do with my on-again off-again relationship with the Detroit Lions, and everything to do with the fact that 32 NFL GMs—by and large the aging dads who need their children to log in to Netflix—will be attempting to conduct the entire draft via a remote group-chat setup. By now, many of us have experienced the pitfalls faced by inexperienced Zoom/Hangouts/Skype users. The tension just to see if picks get in on time is going to be incredible.

Godspeed, computer folks.

There are other compelling reasons to tune in besides gawking at technological train derailments. Michigan looks poised to have as many as nine players selected over the next three days, including two who could go in tonight's first round.

The First-Round Candidates

can't teach this bend [Bryan Fuller]

Cesar Ruiz entered the draft a year early after a rock-solid college career at center. Like his play, his draft projections are very consistent. He's the #31 player on The Athletic's consensus top 300 big board and most mocks I've seen have him going in the last ten picks of the first round. ESPN's Mel Kiper expects him to go somewhere in the 20s and his final mock sends Ruiz to the Patriots at #23. As NFL.com's Lance Zuerlein says, his ability to play multiple spots on the interior line could help him get into a starting lineup early in his career:

Athletic and tenacious with the combination of skills and technique to fit into a variety of blocking schemes on the next level. Ruiz wins early with initial quickness and fast hands into first contact. He works to convert early advantages into wins. He's consistent in securing down-blocks and has the athletic traits to become a second-level factor. He'll give some ground to power rushers and needs help against wide-bodies, but the tape checks out. Ruiz has early starting potential and should develop into a good pro with guard/center flexibility.

Ruiz is Michigan's best bet to get his name called tonight. He's projected as the first interior lineman off the board. Since 2000, there's been only one draft (2017) in which the first round passed without an interior OL selected.

On the other hand, Josh Uche is one of the draft's bigger wild cards, which befits his time as a Wolverine. Unfortunately, a lot of Uche's draft uncertainty comes from perceived mis- and under-utilization in Don Brown's defense. Here's a scathing scout take via The Athletic's Bob McGinn:

“He was so underused there,” one scout said. “With his ability to bend the edge it’s ridiculous. He can affect the quarterback from a bunch of different angles. Michigan really did this kid a disservice. For as versatile as this kid is he should never leave the field. He can run. He can cover. I thought he was the best defensive player in Mobile besides (Javon) Kinlaw. He’s super conscientious. He would have run high 4.4s, low 4.5s and jumped close to 40. All that stuff people don’t know.”

The next scout quoted believes Uche is a 3-4 outside linebacker at the next level; I agree. The third scout produces an all-time "did you watch the right guy" quote [emphasis very much mine]:

“Little guy,” said a third scout. “He’s not a very good athlete. Nothing against the run. No burst as a pass rusher.

That's up there with "Devin Bush lacks sideline-to-sideline speed." I mean...

...what in tarnation?

Anyway, Uche is the #62 player on the consensus top 300, but he sneaks into the back end of a couple first-round mocks—The Athletic's Dan Brugler projects him at #27 to Seattle. He may go tonight if a team with the right system finds his potential too tantalizing to pass up; he may fall into the second round (as he does on The Ringer's mock) or even the third if the lack of film and positional uncertainty scares teams away in a year there isn't a lot to go on.

[Hit THE JUMP for seven more players with a solid chance to be picked plus more roster candidates.]

i'm going to try to make any ludicrous 3-pointer SNACKS, let's make fetch happen

bah

Someone create a Drake Johnson/Stephen Spanellis podcast next year please 

it was not, after all, in the face

in the face, again

ah crap now i have hope 

bombs over bloomington

just when i think i'm out they pull me back in

keep doing that, please

speed in space is here