Then I got a coach who finally got me, who knew that he couldn’t just tell me to believe it and it will happen, like some dodgy superhero wisdom. He told me that the reason some coaches preach belief in yourself, is because it drives guys to run as fast as they can, headlong into the immovable object. Then he told me the formula all good coaches who tailor their advice, tell the thinking man’s football player. Force equals mass times acceleration.

We’ve all done it. Ran a mock draft on PFF or The Draft Network, check the predictive board to see which group of players is likely to be taken next, and calculate that we can forego taking that guy we love until the 5th round. We can sit tight at our spots and execute advantageous trades based on the deviation the simulators have baked in, and not worry about other opportunistic teams trading above us to take guys we might potentially like. We are the only team allowed to trade on the board. Maybe we have a go six or seven times, maybe post version 6.2 to twitter as we got Devonta Smith to fall to 27 that time.

Having said that, as with every single draft year, many receivers have been mocked to us over recent months. Like every year, after I’ve worked through most of my evaluations, I find myself going back to watching potential late first round receivers. From Hakeem Nicks, to Devin Smith to AJ Brown himself, I’ve had my favourites going way back but they read like a crapshoot.

When you look at both trades, I think they’ve ultimately made the front office a little gun shy of trading back out of the first round entirely from the 20s. Kindle and Upshaw did not meet the standard of a Ravens number one pick