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

[Chris]

That’s a lot of speculation and conjecture. 🙂

Personally I’m more of an Occam’s Razor type of guy.

 

[burgold]

That’s a lot of speculation and conjecture. 🙂

Personally I’m more of an Occam’s Razor type of guy.

lol... My Occam's Razor suggests that a guy who's been behind our drafts since 2002 can't be great at his job because we've had so few good drafts over the last 24 years.

But yeah, it's possible after 24 years in Washington he just wanted out. That working under Peters was so much worse than working under Rivera, the Marties, Bruce Allen, and Vinny Cerrato that he decided he needed to get out of Dodge now.

 

[DWinzit]

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.

It really is a bad time. Teams know their weaknesses and have been watching college games and especially the college playoffs building files on all the prospects.

Also the Est West Shrine Game is Tuesday and the Senior Bowl Sunday both having their practices over the days prior

 

[Conn]

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.

They’ve been working on these prospects all season, and scouting department changes almost always happen after the draft for that reason, even if people are being fired or released.

This is very unusual. I don’t know why you feel the need to type paragraph after paragraph speculating why it might not be.

Us letting him move home and continue his career under a new staff in PIT where his experience would be valued, that wouldn’t be weird. Common courtesy type thing. But that would happen after the draft. That isn’t what this is at all. This is abnormal, especially for a position as important as the one he held.

 

[Chris]

Or…maybe he just wanted to go ‘home’. 🤷🏻‍♂️

From Keim’s tweet-

“Gribble joined Wash in 2002 but is from Pitt, played and coached at Duquesne and spent 2 years in Steelers scouting dept.”

 

[Conn]

Or…maybe he just wanted to go ‘home’. 🤷🏻‍♂️

From Keim’s tweet-

“Gribble joined Wash in 2002 but is from Pitt, played and coached at Duquesne and spent 2 years in Steelers scouting dept.”

Happens all the time, even lateral moves are more common in scouting types than coaches—but after the draft. This is unusual

 

[HTTR]

Apparently Pittsburgh thinks this is a good time to make a change.

 

[Conn]

I guess, but then the question is... when is a good time or is there ever a good time?

The time in this profession is after the draft, almost always. Even when a new GM comes in and cleans house, he doesn’t do it until after the draft. He works with most of the existing scouting staff because they’ve been working the prospects all year and “his guys” aren’t free here either, they’re with other teams.

Actually, another weird exception was actually us getting Newmark from the Lions in February that year before the draft. So maybe with these higher-up guys who have been with organizations for 20+ years, there are more exceptions.

But it’s definitely not standard operating procedure

 

[KDawg]

Apparently Pittsburgh thinks this is a good time to make a change.

Sure. Adding him doesn’t hurt them.

He has notes on the draft class and has been actively working it as a leader of the collegiate scouting department.

They wouldn’t complain having another voice.

 

[Conn]

Apparently Pittsburgh thinks this is a good time to make a change.

It’s not really up to Pittsburgh, he had basically an executive-level role here. It’s not like they’re promoting him to GM. We had to let him take the opportunity, and clearly did

 

[HTTR]

Sure. Adding him doesn’t hurt them.

He has notes on the draft class and has been actively working it as a leader of the collegiate scouting department.

They wouldn’t complain having another voice.

Gotcha. That fair. I thought they had replaced someone not just added

 

[HTTR]

It’s not really up to Pittsburgh, he had basically an executive-level role here. We had to let him take the opportunity, and clearly did

Don’t think we’re gonna miss him much regardless. Surprised we kept him on board in the first place considering the track record. Perhaps he was under contract and they had to pay them anyway so why not. But he may not have been given much of a role under Peters

 

[Conn]

Don’t think we’re gonna miss him much regardless. Surprised we kept him on board in the first place considering the track record. Perhaps he was under contract and they had to pay them anyway so why not. But he may not have been given much of a role under Peters

I doubt his role was just a title, that’s a big title. Gribble is one of those dudes who always had positive spin put on his name through various regimes, like he was a respected personnel guy with bad bosses through the years. But never good enough to be hired away as a GM, I guess. Impossible for us to really know though

As an example, Kyle Smith was one of those guys here, McVay of scouting seemingly, and still has a positive rep in his new home (ATL I think? If he’s still there) but clearly hasn’t made the leap to GM like some thought he would. Overhyped? Maybe. Probably just another instance of us only having a tiny window into the inner workings of these sorts of FO jobs, through beat reporters and “reputation”. Who knows

 

[RWJ]

 

[HTTR]

I doubt his role was just a title, that’s a big title. Gribble is one of those dudes who always had positive spin put on his name through various regimes, like he was a respected personnel guy with bad bosses through the years. But never good enough to be hired away as a GM, I guess. Impossible for us to really know though

As an example, Kyle Smith was one of those guys here, McVay of scouting seemingly, and still has a positive rep in his new home (ATL I think? If he’s still there) but clearly hasn’t made the leap to GM like some thought he would. Overhyped? Maybe. Probably just another instance of us only having a tiny window into the inner workings of these sorts of FO jobs, through beat reporters and “reputation”. Who knows

Ironically, I was just reading yesterday that Kyle Smith was hired by the Dolphins as assistant GM. Lateral move. Not sure how they felt about him, but they just hired a new GM rather than promote him.

 

[method man]

I doubt his role was just a title, that’s a big title. Gribble is one of those dudes who always had positive spin put on his name through various regimes, like he was a respected personnel guy with bad bosses through the years. But never good enough to be hired away as a GM, I guess. Impossible for us to really know though

As an example, Kyle Smith was one of those guys here, McVay of scouting seemingly, and still has a positive rep in his new home (ATL I think? If he’s still there) but clearly hasn’t made the leap to GM like some thought he would. Overhyped? Maybe. Probably just another instance of us only having a tiny window into the inner workings of these sorts of FO jobs, through beat reporters and “reputation”. Who knows

I think Kyle Smith’s issue is there have been reports he has a prickly personality and doesn’t know how to play the internal politics game. Remember he apparently lost his cool in the draft room with Snyder around when they took Haskins. Ron also couldn’t wait to get rid of him despite having a great offseason in the lead role in 2020. His dad had a reputation as a tough guy to get along with too.

 

[Bulldog]

Anyone would get angry at Snyder's childish protestations of knowing what was best for the team in terms of personnel

As it turns out the rest of the organization he hired behind the scenes didn't have much greater sense of morality or fairness either.

Any SANE person got off the merry go round.

 

[method man]

Anyone would get angry at Snyder's childish protestations of knowing what was best for the team in terms of personnel

As it turns out the rest of the organization he hired behind the scenes didn't have much greater sense of morality or fairness either.

Any SANE person got off the merry go round.

Not saying I blame him but guys that get GM jobs also tend to be good politicians (Bruce being the perfect example)

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

Back to the draft talk I'm pretty convinced they will take a defensive player at 7. And it would not surprise me if they made that commitment to any DC candidate they are considering. I'm very concerned about the talk of people like Harris. We need a proven DC and some are still out there.

 

[DWinzit]

Back to the draft talk I'm pretty convinced they will take a defensive player at 7. And it would not surprise me if they made that commitment to any DC candidate they are considering. I'm very concerned about the talk of people like Harris. We need a proven DC and some are still out there.

That's my thought as well. The 7th picks is one of the few things they can dangle to good DC candidates. I see them attacking offensive weapons early in FA