The 2026 Draft Thread - 1st Round - 7th overall

Watched some Senior Bowl Prospects highlights (yes, youtube highlights - they actually tell you a good chunk of the story but the context matters... but it gives you an idea on a prospect... I'll dive in to some of the more intriguing ones later. Here are some that I had some intrigue with: (Note: I've only done through the Indiana on the alphabetical roster listing and there wasn't much out there for some of these guys)

QB:
Sawyer Robertson, QB, Baylor

Tight End:
Josh Cuevas, TE, Alabama
Tanner Koziol, TE, Houston

WR:
Josh Cameron, WR, Baylor
Ted Hurst, WR, Georgia State*
Elijah Sarratt, WR, Indiana

OL:
Parker Brailsford, C, Alabama
Kage Casey, LT, Boise State
Jake Slaughter, C, Florida
Keylen Rutledge, RG, Georgia Tech
JC Davis, LT, Illinois

DL:
Tim Keenan, DT, Alabama
TJ Parker, DE, Clemson
Anthony Vincent, DE, Duke*

Secondary:
Treyden Stukes, CB, Arizona
Hezekiah Masses, CB, Cal*
Daylen Everette, CB, Georgia*

LB:
Xavien Sorey, LB, Arkansas
Jack Kelly, LB, BYU*

* - denotes player I'm shocked hasn't gotten more hype

Of this group, Anthony Vincent is probably the guy that I liked most followed by Hezekiah Masses. Again, these are from highlight reels. There may be better players or these guys may not show up for long portions of time... but from what it looks like these two show up every down. They have the total package.

Obviously Sarratt is here, Everette.

Jack Kelly is a later round LB type.

I REALLY like Ted Hurst - only thought is if his competition level made him look superhuman. We'll find out in Mobile.

Unfortunately a lot of the draftnik community created cutups are gone. So there's a lot less non-highlight cutups than before, sometimes that's all we've got.

You've got me curious about Hezekiah Masses. I always like looking at corners in the draft.
 
I think you are taking my Freeney comparison WAY too literally.

He's NOT Dwight Freeney. He has Freeney traits. His get off, bend and arm length are all similar.

Oh sure, I definitely was and I knew you weren't doing a 1-to-1 comp like that too..but then I also started rambling on the comparison in general.
 
Unfortunately a lot of the draftnik community created cutups are gone. So there's a lot less non-highlight cutups than before, sometimes that's all we've got.

You've got me curious about Hezekiah Masses. I always like looking at corners in the draft.
He kind of reminds me of Forbes a little. A little bigger and seems to be a ballhawk with good cover skills. 6-1 185ish
 
Unfortunately a lot of the draftnik community created cutups are gone. So there's a lot less non-highlight cutups than before, sometimes that's all we've got.

You've got me curious about Hezekiah Masses. I always like looking at corners in the draft.

Wow, is DraftBreakdown.com gone? What a loss for the community
 
Dwight Freeney ran a 4.48 40yd, I don't think Bain runs that. Freeney had a dominant spin move which I don't think Bain can pull off. He's not that athletic.

Going to be honest I see Bain as more of a 7 or 8 sack a year guy with plus run defense. His bend is a key asset in not totally ditching his pass rush lane either. I'm hoping he can pull a Ryan Kerrigan at times by being around the action enough for cleanup sacks caused by other pressure.

If I recall, Freeney kind of sucked against the run, which Bain should be much better at.

I'm fully with SIP that the arm length is scary and should create pause. I think because of that I would go Love over Bain if both are there.

For the record, I think Keldric Faulk's yearly sack output is likely a smidge lower than Bain's. I think we could get Faulk in a trade back though, so he is tempting from that perspective.

Bains 40 yard dash is not going to be anywhere near that. However Bain's first step acceleration is excellent for a 270 pounder, I think in the 90 percentile according to in game tracking data. However, his top speed I think was like in the 44 percentile for edge prospects over the last 15 or so years (or however long they have been using the in game tracking data).
 

I have no idea how good or bad Gribble is. I do know that by and large the drafts we have had since 2002 have not been amazing so it's hard to feel alarmed about this defection.
 
I have no idea how good or bad Gribble is. I do know that by and large the drafts we have had since 2002 have not been amazing so it's hard to feel alarmed about this defection.
Agreed. Gribble was not one of APs guys per say. It allows AP to continue to build his scout team and the draft is supposed to be one of his so-called super powers...or so we hope
 
One would think that the fact that AP kept him in that position is not because he didn’t have the time to change it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Director of College Scouting sounds like an important position to me…but what do I know?
 
One would think that the fact that AP kept him in that position is not because he didn’t have the time to change it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Director of College Scouting sounds like an important position to me…but what do I know?
Absolutely agree. And choosing now to move on is really odd timing. My guess is Gribble opted out. Not the other way.
 
... or it could be the exact opposite.

It could be that after working with Gribble for two years, Peters got his measure of the man and let him know that he would be not renewing his contract when it expired. After all, what's more likely... that the Redskins have had a genius in charge of college drafting for almost the entirety of the Snyder years or that Peters is a boob that no one wants to work for?

But yeah, his title, Director of College Scouting caught my eye. Then, I was equally surprised that he's been here since 2002 and survived the Cerrato, Bruce Allen, and the Marty front offices. He's either very competent or very good at basically being the guy everyone likes/fails to notice.
 
I think he left the team not that he was released.

If it were the team’s decision the timing is hard to explain.
 
I think he left the team not that he was released.

If it were the team’s decision the timing is hard to explain.
Yeah, but we know sometimes those things are more about niceties than realities :)
 
Yeah, but we know sometimes those things are more about niceties than realities :)
So letting your director of college scouting, with notes on our draft, leave for another job 2ish months before the draft makes sense to you?
 
So letting your director of college scouting, with notes on our draft, leave for another job 2ish months before the draft makes sense to you?
Ouch, good point. Yuck
 
I have no idea what this means considering the context. Help?
Sorry.

It's possible that Gribble was told his contract was not going to be renewed when it expired and he should begin shopping his resume. When he found a position, the team then announced he was leaving. It's kind of a corporate face-saving measure where you don't have to fire a guy and make a guy look bad, but you still move out the person you want to.

Now, it could be exactly the opposite. Maybe Gribble thought that the Front Office was so much more competent and the work environment so much better under Rivera and Bruce Smith that he wanted to get the hell out of this organization and this was the chance he took. I don't know. As I said from the start, I have no idea how good he was at his gig.
 
So letting your director of college scouting, with notes on our draft, leave for another job 2ish months before the draft makes sense to you?
Maybe?

I mean it's not like it's March or April. It's not like the draft board is set. I mean the combine hasn't happened yet, the team has interviewed almost no draft prospects, and I don't think most of the measures we use to finalize our draft have occurred. Like I said in a different thread... We're still in the 2025 season. The Championship games are today. The Super Bowl hasn't happened. Technically, the league isn't even in its offseason.

So yeah, maybe if you're going to make a move this is one of the better windows.
 

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