The last piece I wrote was for Russell Street Report and it was a potential, Raven-like approach to the first two days of the 2021 NFL Draft that would see us take four prospects on day two that I believe, play like Ravens on film. My piece was predicated on us having ONE pick in the first round and trading back off that pick to acquire more picks in what I believe to be a loaded day two this year. It was surely this that tempted fate and caused our favorite Right Tackle to be traded to the Kansas City Chiefs on Friday. Giving us two picks in the first round this year and a chasm of a gap to our next pick in the 90s, in a draft where I believe the sweet spot for talent is right in the middle of that pick desert for us.

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.

Chasing Marshal Yanda could be a little foolish – the juice isn’t worth the squeeze when the juice is made up of Danny Watkins, Forrest Lamp and Germain Ifedi. Yanda is like the little passion fruit cup you float on top – sure it’s delicious, but was it worth it when you have to drink three Jeremiah Poutasi’s to get to him?

Having studied other team’s draft histories, I have noticed that patterns start to emerge that betray a little, what types of players different teams are looking for and what they are want to do on draft night. In the same way that teams study play-calling tendencies before a game, we can begin to evaluate team’s drafting tendencies when considering whether to trade up and above them or to play out scenarios on who might be there from our board when we pick.