2024 NFL Draft Takeaways: Latest Buzz, Rumors, Medicals and More

Why Marvin Harrison Jr. did the right thing by not working out for teams, NIL’s impact on the draft, prospects with questions after physicals, an interesting point on Jayden Daniels and the Commanders’ trip to Topgolf.

Harrison met with nine teams at the NFL combine and asked if they needed to see anything at Ohio State’s pro day, and they all said no. / Brooke LaValley / USA TODAY NETWORK

Things to mull over with just more than 72 hours to go before the first round of the 2024 NFL draft …

 

Marvin Harrison Jr. did the right thing. We shed light on the Ohio State star’s approach to the pre-draft process two months ago before the combine. And the truth is the wheels were set in motion even before that.

 

The messaging at the Buckeyes’ 2023 pro day with C.J. Stroud and Paris Johnson Jr. regarding Harrison was this: Get a look at him now, because he may not do this again.

 

Harrison dazzled everyone that day, to the point where he stole some of the spotlight from two top-six picks who wound up being among the top two or three rookies in the NFL last year. One scout who was there told me a day or two later that Harrison looked as smooth as a sports car moving down the field (It was still months before Fox’s Gus Johnson dubbed him “Maserati Marv” to be clear), and under Stroud’s throws.

 

Some more from that day? Here were some of the quick text reactions I got from evaluators on the ground that I compiled from that day …

Some early reactions I gathered from NFL coaches and personnel guys who were at Ohio State Pro Day, on WR Marvin Harrison Jr. ...

💥 "Incredible."
💥 "Really impressive."
💥 "Unfortunately not draft eligible."
💥 "He looked like a dude."
💥 "Lol"

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 22, 2023

 

And then, Harrison decided he didn’t need to elicit those oohs and ahhs again. He won the Biletnikoff Award in the fall, despite the Buckeyes’ dropoff at quarterback, and posted nearly identical production (67 catches, 1,211 yards, 14 touchdowns, plus a rushing touchdown, in 2023; 77 catches, 1,263 yards, 14 touchdowns in ’22), even though he sat out Ohio State’s bowl game in ’23.

 

As we explained in February, Harrison made the decision, in conjunction with his dad, to prepare for the football season rather than Olympic testing, which leveraged all he’s accomplished as a collegian since few guys can afford to skip over the process. He met with nine teams at the combine and asked if they needed to see anything at Ohio State’s pro day, and they all said no. So he did “30 visits” with the Arizona Cardinals and the Chicago Bears, and that was that.

 

Now, we’re three days away from the draft, and he’s still most likely to be the first receiver, if not the first nonquarterback, to get drafted.

 

So in the end, Harrison lost nothing by doing it this way. And by working out with the Ohio State strength staff to prepare to play football, he should be ready to hit the ground running at rookie minicamp and OTAs in the coming weeks.

 

So it was the right move. My guess is the team that takes him will appreciate it, too.

 

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NIL and the transfer portal have had a very real effect on the draft. As I wrote about in my team needs column, the number of underclassmen declaring this year was incredibly low—just 58. That’s three years after the number hit an all-time high (130), and capped a five-year run where the number was in triple digits annually.

 

The NIL era in college sports began in 2021, and changed everything about major college football.

 

At a baseline, the combination of NIL and the portal has set off bidding wars for players and, in turn, created options for guys looking to get paid for their services. No longer does the prospective sixth-round pick have to leave the college game to get his money. So in a lot of cases, those guys are returning to school, collecting as much cash as they can for the extra year, and getting another season of tape for the NFL in the process.

 

In that way, it’s actually really healthy. In the case of quarterbacks such as Jayden Daniels, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix, it’s allowed them to have what amounted to multiple college careers, with each of those guys having been multi-year starters at multiple Power 5 schools. In so many other cases, it’s allowed a kid who probably shouldn’t leave school to stay.

 

There’s downside, for sure, and all of this could use more regulation. I don’t think anyone wins when a guy is jumping to four schools in five years. Not the schools, the football programs or the players. And that’s why it’s important, as I see it, to find a way for the schools and conferences to negotiate some guardrails with the players.

 

That said, it’s not helping the depth of this year’s draft class. Day 3 will be barren with talent, relative to what it was a few years ago, which will impact the earlier rounds by making it more difficult to use those picks to trade up or down.

 

So you take the good with the bad on this one, I suppose. My guess, though, is the NFL is pretty happy to have a flood of players who shouldn’t ever have declared slowed way down.

 

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I have a pretty interesting story to share from my calls this week that might just inform you a little bit on a relevant draft philosophy. This one’s from 2008, from the draft room of a successful team that had a successful, respected general manager. The subject, at the time, was LSU three-technique defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, who was widely considered one of the two or three best defensive prospects in that year’s class.

 

A group of younger scouts were all-in on Dorsey, but the GM was not.

 

“How many sacks did he have again?” the GM asked.

 

The GM’s point, and that particular team’s philosophy, held that sacks were a statistic that generally carried over to the pros. More often than not, a guy who couldn’t close on the quarterback in college wouldn’t suddenly gain the ability to do so in the pros. Dorsey, for his part, had just 15 sacks in four years at LSU. His high was seven as a senior. Prior to that, he’d never had more than three in a season. He, of course, didn’t come close to living up to his draft position (fourth) in the NFL.

 

The best example of that dynamic going the other way may be Terrell Suggs, drafted in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens in 2003. He ran a 4.84 40-yard dash before the draft that year, which is part of the reason why he was available with the 10th pick. But he’d set an NCAA record for the sacks the previous fall with 24, and that translated to the NFL. He had 12 sacks as a rookie, and finished his career with 139, good for eighth all-time. A more recent example would be the season Will Anderson Jr. just had (seven sacks) after being knocked for his measurables last year.

 

So with that in mind, it’s worth mentioning that UCLA’s Laiatu Latu—who a lot of high-end evaluators have told me has the best tape in this year’s edge-rusher class—was the leader among Power-5 players in sacks last year (13). If it were only that simple …

 

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Latu's neck condition was flagged during his physical. / Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Latu is one of a number of prospective first-rounders medically flagged by teams. Here’s a quick cheat sheet for you on players with questions after their physicals, even if some of those questions won’t change their draft status much.

 

• Latu’s neck condition is going to be a disqualifier for some, but not all teams. He was medically retired by the University of Washington, which forced his transfer to UCLA. You’ll remember that in 2018, Leighton Vander Esch came into the league with a neck condition. A really solid linebacker when he played, and the Cowboys’ first-round pick that year, Vander Esch missed significant time in four of his six seasons, and retired after being limited to just five games in 2023.

 

• Both of LSU’s star receivers, Brian Thomas Jr. and Malik Nabers, have issues with their left shoulders. The risk here is considered relatively minimal—in both cases, there’s a chance the player may have to have the shoulder surgically repaired after the 2024 season. Bryan Bresee, the Saints’ first-round pick last year, had a similar situation with his shoulder coming into the draft last year.

 

• Penix is a big one because he’s had multiple ACL tears and multiple shoulder surgeries. Exacerbating the problem, in the eyes of teams, is that he’s not an overly big-framed person, meaning he might prove to be more susceptible to additional injuries in the NFL, especially with the hits he tends to take in the pocket. Conversely, he made it through his two seasons at Washington without missing time.

 

• Washington OT Troy Fautanu’s knee was flagged. That one was described to me as the sort of issue that shouldn’t be a problem in the short term, but could wind up impacting his longevity in the pros (though his high football character is a factor in making teams feel like he’ll do all he can to take care of it, and give himself the best chance).

 

• Georgia WR Ladd McConkey’s situation is similar to Penix in that he’s dealt with a mountain of injuries, and he’s not overly big (185 pounds). So the concern is how his body holds up with the hits coming from bigger, faster players in the NFL.

 

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If the Commanders pick Daniels, they will have to weigh how much they want him to be a part of the run game. / SCOTT CLAUSE/USA TODAY Network / USA

Someone raised an interesting point on Daniels to me that I’d never heard before. We were discussing that to get the most out of the quarterback, you’d have to involve him in the run game, which would result in putting wear-and-tear on him that wouldn’t exist with other quarterbacks.

 

Of course, there are plenty of examples out there of it shortening the prime of certain guys.

 

But I hadn’t ever heard someone say that it could actually be a problem late in individual years with these quarterbacks, which I found pretty fascinating.

 

The theory goes that if a guy is worn down and beat up toward the end of the year, his throwing mechanics and fundamentals will suffer for it. That, of course, can adversely affect his accuracy and, by extension, his team’s ability to perform from a deficit or in long-yardage situations, and there are more of those, naturally with tougher opponents.

 

A relevant stat, then, from my quarterback column on Friday was one team’s research showing Daniels only threw 16 times in scramble situations as an LSU senior. Which was to say that when Daniels pulled the ball down, he was almost always going to run.

 

“If you watch 20 scramble plays of Caleb Williams and 20 of Jayden Daniels, they’re polar opposites,” says an NFC offensive coordinator, when I apprised him of that statistic. “Caleb’s going to throw it 15 out of the 20 times, and Jayden’s going to run it 15 out of the 20 times.”

 

It does make you wonder if this dynamic has impacted Lamar Jackson late in the year in Baltimore, and certainly adds another layer to how you might view Daniels.

 

Or at least it did that for me.

 

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The Washington Commanders’ trip to Topgolf is no reason to be alarmed. Yes, I understand why it’s a big deal. As part of a group of 22 prospects coming in for their 30 visits, Washington had four quarterbacks—Daniels, Penix, J.J. McCarthy and Drake Maye. And, no, every team in this position would not do it this way.

 

The Bears, for that matter, didn’t. Caleb Williams was one of six prospects on a 30 visit when he was in Chicago earlier in the month. Five of them went to dinner with some coaches at Eddie Merlot’s in Lincolnshire. Williams was with team brass, and some veteran players that night at Sophia Steak in Lake Forest. Clearly, they wanted a closer look at Williams, and got it by creating a more intimate itinerary.

 

So why go the other way?

 

Well, for one, the San Francisco 49ers do things this way—they had their annual mass visit the same day the Commanders did (the last day for 30 visits)—and Washington GM Adam Peters came from San Francisco. And for what it’s worth, the 49ers have been lauded for having one of the league’s strongest locker rooms, and they believe this process is part of the puzzle in assembling that sort of crew.

 

Second, it generates the chance to see the guys around their peers. Who do the other players gravitate to? Who comes off as natural? Who’s forced? Who’s genuine and real when their guard is down? All of those questions can be answered in those settings. And having Topgolf as part of it created a competitive element, too.

 

Third, the Commanders did get their one-on-one time with the guys. They met with all of them at the combine. They did the allowable Zoom calls. They did dinners and meetings at and around the pro days of each. So at this point, there wasn’t a ton left to grill them on. Even still, during the 30 visit, the brass did take the time to meet, again, with each of the quarterbacks individually.

 

So in the end, I don’t think doing it this way was a big deal, one way or the other.

 

You should, if you’re Washington, know these guys plenty well enough by now. And I think the Commanders really do.

 

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The Lions unveiled their new uniforms last week, including a black alternate. / David Rodriguez Munoz / USA TODAY

The Detroit Lions got their uniforms right—just after the New York Jets did. I’m a sucker for old school, and that’s what we have here. The Jets went full-time to the New York Sack Exchange era jerseys, which I can appreciate. And Detroit’s feel, to me at least, like a sleek, modernized take on the Barry Sanders jerseys of the 1990s.

 

“The main thing is we wanted to honor our colors with a modern twist,” Lions president Rod Wood told me Sunday night. “We’d tired of the gray jerseys. And with the home jerseys, we wanted to go back to the block white numbers. The current ones looked cool, too, but it was hard to see the numbers if you were sitting in the stadium. So this was a way to honor the past and make them better for the fans.”

 

The team also made the inside collar blue (signifying Detroit’s blue-collar ethos, and took the striping off the pants, which Wood says will allow the team to mix and match jerseys with different sets of pants. The alternate jersey, as Wood has said, follows through on the president’s promise to bring the blacks back once coach Dan Campbell won a playoff game. Campbell wore an alternative black jersey as a Lions player nearly two decades ago.

 

It’s fair to say, too, that they’ve gone over well. The Lions did more than $1 million in sales between the stadium store and online purchases the night the jerseys were unveiled. And shoutout to Campbell—5,400 black jerseys sold at the team’s pro shop alone on the night of the release.

 

Now, all the Lions have to do is keep winning.

 

The Denver Broncos will unveil their new uniforms today, and the Houston Texans show theirs off Tuesday.

 

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Josh Allen’s comments are encouraging to see if you’re a Buffalo Bills fan. Simply put, in an offseason with a lot of upheaval, he’s taking on the responsibility of steadying the ship in a way not all quarterbacks do.

 

“I think it’s an opportunity for myself to grow as a leader and to bring along some of these young guys and new guys that we’ve brought into our team,” Allen said Thursday. “That’s an opportunity, frankly, that I’m very excited about. It’s something that’s going to be very challenging, but I’m very willing to do it. It’s just kind of crazy to think that I’m going into my seventh season. ...

 

“But, again, it’s just another opportunity for me to go out there and be the guy that I’m supposed to be and the guy that I believe I am, and I’m going to need guys along the way."

 

Stefon Diggs, Mitch Morse and Gabe Davis are gone on offense. Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer and Tre’Davious White are gone on defense. With them goes a lot of institutional knowledge. And in a case like this, the quarterback picking up the baton is huge.

 

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Bill Tobin should be remembered for a lot more than his on-air jousting with ESPN’s Mel Kiper—as fun as that was. At the time, Tobin was running his first draft as the Colts GM. The squabble was over his decision to draft Trev Alberts over Trent Dilfer. What you might forget is that three picks earlier, he’d taken Marshall Faulk, and three weeks before that he’d signed Jim Harbaugh.

 

Point is, he was right a lot, and was again two years later in drafting Marvin Harrison (giving him two Hall of Famers in three drafts with the Indianapolis Colts), which preceded Harbaugh’s Captain Comeback run to the AFC title game.

 

The Colts collapsed the following fall, which led to Tobin’s ouster, but he never stopped work, going to the Lions after that, before settling into a long-term role scouting for his son Duke, the Cincinnati Bengals’ director of player personnel. Duke would often say that the Bengals were so fortunate to have his father as a resource, as would a lot of other folks who filtered through there over the years.

 

Tobin passed away last week at 83.

 

The scouting legend really made his bones before the American public met him in that live TV clip, as an instrumental piece of the Bears scouting department from 1975 to ’82. His first year, Chicago took Walter Payton with the fourth pick, and a decade after that, Tobin had grown into a vital piece of the staff that assembled one of the great teams of all-time, the ’85 Bears.

Best to Duke and the Tobin family. Hope they can all find some peace in his memory.

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The Jaguars are working on an extension for Lawrence. / Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports

It’s draft week, so these takeaways are just the start. But we’ll get out of here the same way we always do, with the quick-hitters …

 

• I’ll be more concerned with the Dak Prescott situation when it’s training camp and there’s still no contract done with the Dallas Cowboys. At that point, it’s fair to say all this would take on a different context.

 

• I'll be interested to see if the Los Angeles Rams, finally carrying a full complement of picks, take a quarterback on draft weekend. Matthew Stafford’s 36, and I don’t know if I see him going deep into his 30s given the toll the game’s taken on his body.

 

• Patrick Mahomes’s practice of taking his skill guys to Texas for the first couple of weeks of the offseason program is brilliant on Mahomes’s part, and the Kansas City Chiefs’ part. It’s his third year doing it, and the coaches appreciate how it helps the players hit the ground running when they arrive for Phase II of the offseason program.

 

• The Jacksonville Jaguars are smart to get going on Trevor Lawrence’s extension now. It’s not going to get cheaper, and he’s been good enough to commit to over the next few years (easy for me to say when it’s not my money).

• Ditto for Jared Goff in Detroit.

 

• It’s hard to believe a year ago that the Broncos stood firm on wanting a first-rounder for Jerry Jeudy and a second-rounder for Courtland Sutton. It’s also a good example of how waiting for a market to materialize on a player isn’t always good business.

 

• A fun quarterback comparison that I didn’t use in my Friday column because I was afraid it’d fly over younger people’s heads—Rich Gannon for Bo Nix. An offensive coordinator gave me that one, and I really, really like it.

• Between the New England Patriots documentary and last week’s ESPN story, I’m not sure Robert Kraft’s Hall of Fame bid is in the best shape right now. The perception that he’s campaigning for it surely doesn’t help with voters, especially when you have the option to vote for someone such as Mike Shanahan.

• I would never speak in absolutes when a quarterback’s got an injured throwing shoulder. Which, I presume, is why the Browns are being so careful in how they’re talking about Deshaun Watson.

 

• The Rams are still the best fit for Zach Wilson (who’s stayed away from the Jets offseason program).