April is NFL Draft month. This April the draft starts on Thursday, April 25 and runs until Saturday, April 27. We’re mainly concentrating on the NFL Draft in the weekly updates from now until May, but that doesn’t mean other news doesn’t happen in the league that never sleeps. Read the April 5, NFL Update!
Check out NFL updates for this week and be sure to keep checking the latest Super Bowl 54 odds at MyBookie!
NFL Updates of the Week – April 5th Edition
Everything in the NFL Draft Hinges on What the Cardinals Do With the First Pick
The Arizona Cardinals have the first pick in the draft. Everything, we mean everything, hinges on what the Arizona Cardinals decide to do with the first pick. Right now, most every NFL Draft analyst in the world believes the Cardinals go with Oklahoma Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Kyler Murray.
Kliff Klingsbury, the Cardinals new head coach, started recruiting Murray when he was a sophomore in high school. Not only that, Murray fits better with Klinsbury’s system than current Cardinals’ quarterback Josh Rosen.
So, it appears that the draft analysts are right…right? Maybe, not. It’s rare to find a talented DE like Ohio State’s Nick Bosa and in the long-run, a DE could be more valuable than taking a flyer on an undersized quarterback like Murray who has all the physical tools, but maybe not the football knowledge required to immediately help a team like Arizona.
Not only that, but Bosa’s so gifted that plenty of teams could be calling the Cardinals offering the mortgage on the farms to move up so that they can grab the first pick. This is the first time in history Zona’s ever had the first pick in the draft. They don’t want to blow it and they don’t want to waste the leverage they’ve got. Let’s not forget that the Desert Birds drafted a quarterback in Round 1 last year. Do they really want to waste that pick by drafting a QB again in Round 1 this year? One that’s unproven no matter what the stat sheet says?
Russell Throws Down the Gauntlet
Russell Wilson has a year left on his deal, but he’s only giving the Seattle Seahawks until April 15, that’s 10 days, to hand him a contract extension. If the Seahawks hand him a contract extension by April 15, he’ll likely be he highest paid player in the NFL. If the Seahawks decide to play hardball and don’t hand him the extension, he’ll probably be the highest paid free agent in NFL history after this season.
Russell’s doing what brilliant businessmen do, using leverage. It’s easy to see Russell’s leverage. He remains one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL while also remaining one of the league’s most visible players. He’s won a Super Bowl and would turn any team on the cusp into a Vince Lombardi Trophy contender overnight. By all accounts, he’s also a great presence in the locker room.
Seattle should budge, that’s the consensus thinking, but if they don’t, every team in the NFL who doesn’t have a young superstar quarterback, especially teams like the Steelers, Patriots, and Saints, will want to woo Russell to their city. Yep, leverage.
Next Team with the Most Power are the Oakland Raiders
After the Arizona Cardinals, the team with the most power in the NFL Draft is the Oakland Raiders. We’ve discussed in length how Jon “The Genius” Gruden has taken the Raiders from one of the worst teams in the league to an AFC West Division contender in only a few months.
Coaches like Gruden have the magic touch. That’s the only way to describe it. In any case, Genius Jon also has three Round 1 picks that he can use to further his goal of NFL domination. 2-of-3 picks happen later in the first round, though. We should expect Gruden to trade two of the picks to move up into the Top 10, giving him two Top 10 picks that he can use to turn the Raiders into a Super Bowl contender.
Oakland’s only two, maybe, three players away from being really good. Gruden will search for those two to three players on April 25.
Have a great week!
