Quote of the day
“I have to say yeah.” - Laremy Tunsil when asked if there was an exchange of money between he and his coach. Not the best thing to say right after you get drafted.
About last night . . .
What happened to Laremy Tunsil last night?
If you missed it, this will catch you up. The short version is that somebody went to some great lengths to sabotage his draft with things from his past. The leading rumor candidate is this is the work of Tunsil’s stepfather, a man who Tunsil beat the shit out of for allegedly assaulting Tunsil’s mom. Suffice it to say it’s just a weird situation capped off by a weird night. It sucks for Tunsil, who had the biggest night of life ruined, but man was it kind of amazing for the rest of us. I mean, if it would have just stopped at “tweeted out a video five minutes before the draft of himself taking a rip out of a gas mask attached to a bong” that would have been an amazing enough story. But to have it continue with the Instagram hacking after he was picked followed by an admission he was paid by a coach? Holy shit. Clearly someone told him to be honest and forthright with his answers when he faced the press, they just didn’t realize that the press would also be armed with screenshots of text messages that made Ole Miss look like SMU. Not that anyone was really surprised by it, but still.
Ok, but other players were drafted, right?
Some stray thoughts:
- The Lions took Taylor Decker, which is fine. He’s a good player who had a really good career at Ohio State. There are probably some legitimate concerns about how Ohio State runs its offense and what it asks its linemen to do, and how that will translate to the NFL, but he certainly has the size, skill and mean streak necessary to play offensive line for a long time in this league.
- Back to Tunsil (sort of) for a minute. The players who benefited the most from his fall? Joey Bosa and Ronnie Stanley. The Chargers were pretty clearly spooked and took Bosa at No. 3, which changed the landscape of the draft (the tweet changed the landscape, actually, but this was confirmation). Stanley also became the top tackle, and went No. 6 to the Ravens, who completely took Tunsil off their board. Yes, the team that has canonized a man who was closely tied to a murder, passed on drafting a college kid that smoked weed.
- There’s still plenty of talent on the board, led by UCLA linebacker Myles Jack. His knee injury is clearly scaring teams, which sucks for him, but is going to really be amazing for the team that winds up taking a chance on him. A’Shawn Robinson, Jarran Reed and Reggie Ragland are all still available from Alabama’s defense, as is their gi-normous running back, Derrick Henry. With Robinson and Reed still available, the DT board remains stacked, which means teams took a look at it and realized they could get real value later. They were right. Clemson corner Mackensie Alexander is also available, and Paul will wet his pants if the Lions draft him in the second round.
Wait, did they actually play sports last night?
Yeah, the Atlanta Hawks beat the Boston Celtics for the right to lose to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavs next round. We did not watch. You did not watch. Hawks and Celtics fans didn’t watch. Nobody watched.
And the Capitals took game one over Pittsburgh and it seems like it was a really good game. Again, we didn’t watch it. But it went to overtime! So it was probably really exciting. TJ Oshie had a hattrick. Honestly, why do other sports leagues even have games the same night as the first round of the NFL draft? Don’t they know how addicted this country is to football? And it has been a long time since we’ve had real football things to chew on. The draft is like the bender an addict goes on after he or she has to be clean for a month in order to pass a drug test for a new job. Yes, that means the NFL draft is exactly the same for fans as it is for about half of the first round picks.
They probably played a bunch of baseball, but [checks calendar] it’s not even May yet.
Things to read today
Jim Harbaugh 1, SEC 0. This whole satellite camp thing was dumb, and now it’s over. Probably. OK, definitely not completely over.
In case you needed more on Tunsil
Dan Wetzel provides it here. God, this 30 for 30 is going to absolutely amazing.
The best of the rest
The drafted started with a bang . . . or, rather, a smattering of boos.
The Tunsil tweets started *rolling* in.
:)
Big fan of the Lions’ new GM
This is a sad picture
This is a good tweet
Corey Coleman: Professional lion
Urban Meyer being uncool will never be uncool
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