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

Always Commander Never Captain said:
I know I've butted heads with others on Lemon's tape. But I thought his Notre Dame game exposed a huge weakness and was a red flag. I charted every snap he and Moore went up against each other. (Link Here)

It took a few reps including one big YAC play by Lemon, but after that Moore had Lemon's releases completely figured out and it got really ugly for Lemon.

Put it this way, Lemon could never play Gunner on Special Teams. He can't do vertical routes against any corner that likes to handfight and get into the body of the receiver, he gets completely rerouted. Against off-coverage and zones, yeah, he's capable of getting to open space all over the field. But against press? I have such strong worries based on that Notre Dame tape that my grade for Lemon is significantly different than most others.
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Nice analysis. Did you chart the 2024 or 2025 game? The two games I watched were 2024. He faced press in the games I saw, but since he was always in the slot, he still has a bit of a runway.
 
Even when healthy, Jayden didn’t look the same last year. My top priority would be giving him the weapons to get back on track and continue developing into an MCP caliber player.

I’m fine with fielding a dominant offense and average defense and getting knocked out nearly in the playoffs, if that’s what’s best for Jayden’s long term development.

In any case, I think we are two off seasons away from having a roster that compares to the top rosters in the league.
 
RWJ said:
Sonny J's O back in the day scored oodles of points and our D gave up more. I don't think that works.
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Not with that attitude it won't.

Gotta think positive.

That being said, philosphically I am very concerned about Jayden's continuing development and I'd personally suffer though a couple more years of crappy bottom 10 defenses if it ensured Jayden was a top 5/top 10 QB for a decade.

Part of why I still like Tate/Tyson at 7 in some scenarios. Terry is probably only Terry for this year, and we need a succession plan yesterday.
 
We need to fix the D, sure. Acknowledged.

But imo even beyond that the mission has to be to protect, support, and maximize Jayden Daniels. And to make him feel that way. It matters more than anything else and our whole future over the next decade depends on it. He needs to keep ascending to his ceiling and he needs to feel this is the place to do it.

We can afford to top out at having an average defense this year. We can’t afford to have an average offense and stay on the same path.

The defense is a ship that needs to be bailed out and kept afloat and patched, with the long term goal of building it to be high quality. The offense, meanwhile, needs to be a rocket ship or we start worrying about Daniels not hitting his ceiling, not earning his massive future contract, not wanting to stay here, etc.

Defense needs to be kept off life support and slowly improved. Average is realistic in the short term. Offense is our lifeblood if we want Jayden to work out longterm, it needs to be as elite as possible or we’re going to fumble his development and his future contract negotiation.
 
Dlts20 said:
What are you guys feelings on Bailey? Seems like he has slid down the list for some guys. I had Bain number 1 on my list of the guys I think will be there because I don't think that Bailey will be but if he is there then I think that we would pick him over anyone on the whole board
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JMO, but Downs, Bailey are the two at #7 I really like.
 
skinsinparadise said:
I think Downs because he's a safety and not a freakish athletic one will be there at 7.
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I started diving into tape of Dillon Thienaman after the amazing combine he had. If you want an athletic safety that is your guy. He is a tackling machine with elite range. I was less impressed with his ability to get off blocks. But that can be taught. He also gets beat with play action occasionally. Again that can be taught. Really like the guy. He is a pure FS though. And I am not even sure I would take Downs over him now. Dont think I would take either at 7 in all honesty.
 
clskinsfan said:
I started diving into tape of Dillon Thienaman after the amazing combine he had. If you want an athletic safety that is your guy. He is a tackling machine with elite range. I was less impressed with his ability to get off blocks. But that can be taught. He also gets beat with play action occasionally. Again that can be taught. Really like the guy. He is a pure FS though. And I am not even sure I would take Downs over him now. Dont think I would take either at 7 in all honesty.
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Oregon and Purdue used him differently at safety and he was good in both roles so he does offer some verstaility as a safety. He can be a free safety or be closer to the line of scrimmage. I think our scheme if it is like Flores scheme would benefit from a verstaile safety so I see that as a plus.
 
We are saying the same thing, Conn, I think. You about O as I am about D. I think the O is further along than the D. That's just me, bro. :thumbsup:
 
philibusters said:
Oregon and Purdue used him differently at safety and he was good in both roles so he does offer some verstaility as a safety. He can be a free safety or be closer to the line of scrimmage. I think our scheme if it is like Flores scheme would benefit from a verstaile safety so I see that as a plus.
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More worried about his size in the box at the NFL level. If I draft him it is for FS.
 
If either of Downs or Bailey are gone, I wouldn't mind a trade down in the mid 1st (i.e., with TB for our #7) to select at #15 selecting WR Denzel Boston and then using their 2nd round pick to get either safeties Haulcy or freak Emmanuel McNeil-Warren.
 
I think we will have a good player to choose at 7 regardless of how the picks before us play out.

Assuming Mendoza goes top 7 (duh), One of the OSU Quartet, Love or Bailey will be there at our pick. There is a chance that we also see an OL go top 6.
 
RWJ said:
We are saying the same thing, Conn, I think. You about O as I am about D. I think the O is further along than the D. That's just me, bro. :thumbsup:
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It is further along, you’re right. Not least because the offense has 3 high end players (Daniels/Tunsil/McLaurin), while the D has zero.

But as others have said, Daniels is the crux to the foreseeable future of our franchise. We need him healthy and we need him happy enough to re-sign with us. And so we can’t have him taking a beating like last year. That requires some combo of weapons he can trust, a ground game teams have to respect, and decent or better pass protection.

With that said, we can certainly address both sides of the ball this offseason, even if the offense has a higher priority. And our FA has to be effective enough that our 1st round pick can go towards either unit.
 
Commander Wraith said:
It is further along, you’re right. Not least because the offense has 3 high end players (Daniels/Tunsil/McLaurin), while the D has zero.

But as others have said, Daniels is the crux to the foreseeable future of our franchise. We need him healthy and we need him happy enough to re-sign with us. And so we can’t have him taking a beating like last year. That requires some combo of weapons he can trust, a ground game teams have to respect, and decent or better pass protection.

With that said, we can certainly address both sides of the ball this offseason, even if the offense has a higher priority. And our FA has to be effective enough that our 1st round pick can go towards either unit.
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I agree with that and also, we can’t have him developing bad habits, holding the ball, taking off, feeling pressure that isn’t there. It felt like he backslid a little bit last year, even when healthy.
 
Anselmheifer said:
It felt like he backslid a little bit last year, even when healthy.
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I dont think this is being talked about enough.

Sure he had a lot of injuries and they can be at least somewhat if not totally attributed to how he looked in the brief time he was in but there's a possibility that it was at least partially something else.

Quarterbacks have sophmore slumps all the time and sometimes they continue, look at cj stroud, after his rookie year he was looking like the next superstar, now hes a huge question mark.

As a fanbase we are conveniently chalking last year up exclusively to injuries and theres a possibility we're stuffing our heads in the sand a little.

I certainly hope that last year was an anomaly due to injuries but I'd really like to get jayden some weapons to take the pressure off of him to have to do it all
 
Its just hard to evaluate Jayden last year. Its possible he regressed. But he was in and out top 6 or so defenese in the NFL (Denver, Seattle, Minnesota, and the Chargers). Additionally while Green Bay's final year defense stats were middle of the pack, they were a good defense early in the season when we played them before a bunch of injuries weakened them as the year went on. Just a tough year to evaluate.
 
TMc's contract is 34M in 2027 and 39M in 2028. Are we going to let him go after this year?
 
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