2020 Mock Draft: Mike Tanier's Final Predictions

B/R is kicking it off with another mock draft, and this one is full of surprises, including:• Lots of Dolphins trades• The Giants not drafting a hogmolly• An early run on wide receivers• Utah State quarterback Jordan Love slipping to an unexpected team• The Patriots being conventionally unconventional...plus some typical mock draft selections, like the Eagles getting their wide receiver, the Falcons their edge-rusher, the Buccaneers their protection for Tom Brady and the Vikings a pair of replacements for all the guys they lost in the offseason.Enjoy the picks, analysis, jokes and Bill O'Brien cameos. They've spent the past four years locked in their bedroom listening to moody music and wearing sadness sweaters, giving fans nothing to talk about except bland coaches, invisible executives and a roster full of aging semistars, holdovers from a "contender" that never really contended for anything.The Bengals became so dreary that some of us speculated that the Ohio-raised Joe Burrow would refuse to play for them if drafted and would demand a trade the way Eli Manning and John Elway did to the teams that drafted them (Chargers and Colts, respectively) in decades past. As will Burrow.But more importantly, he will make the Bengals interesting again—give football fans outside of the 513 area code a reason to watch.Let's run through Washington's options with this pick:Option A) Draft Tua Tagovailoa or Justin HerbertAdvantages: New head coach Ron Rivera gets to start his regime off with a handpicked quarterback of the future instead of Dwayne Haskins, who was the choice (maybe?) of the last regime.Disadvantages: Quarterback controversies in Washington turn into epic sagas, which inevitably end in double knockouts. I'm calling to see if we can climb up a few slots to make sure we can draft Tua. Chris would have contacted Bob*, but I don't think either of them know how to use Zoom.(*Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and Lions general manager Bob Quinn, two executives too boring to appear in this segment)Patricia: Trade down? ("Chunk Thumpies" aren't really a thing, but neither are "Hogmollies.") So many mock drafters are just inserting the first 300-pound hunk of muscle that comes to mind—Louisville tackle Mekhi Becton, Auburn defensive lineman Derrick Brown, etc.—pointing out that it will make Gettleman happy while filling a need on a roster of nothing but needs and perhaps cracking a joke about how Gettleman's microphone will be on mute when he tries to make the selection from home.Not so fast. And Henry Ruggs III certainly has elite traits.Most mock drafts have teams grabbing quarterbacks and addressing needs until about the middle of the first round, when the Jets and Raiders start dipping into one of the deepest receiving pools in history. But my gut tells me that some teams won't draft for need at offensive tackle or on the defensive line when there are instant-upgrade receivers on the board. Kingsbury is still going to want to spread the field with four receivers as often as possible, and Murray will still want to run around while DeAndre Hopkins gets open behind the neighbor's Buick.Tristan Wirfs is the best overall athlete among this year's talented class of tackles, and 33 starts in Iowa's offensive lineman factory make him NFL-ready. Draft the best available player and then congratulate yourself for doing the obviously smart thing for once.Looks like we rolled a "6"!Most mock drafts we peeked at have the Jaguars selecting an offensive or defensive lineman. He can turn any screen pass or reverse into a touchdown.Don't despair if you think the Jaguars need to draft someone in the trenches; they'll reappear later in this mock draft, thanks to that time last year when they rolled a "3" with Jalen Ramsey. Sure, the Moneyball faction of the front office regained control of the organization, but they didn't do anything radical like declare another three-year tanking program and/or trade all the veterans for draft picks. Waller is a fine tight end and a remarkable story, but he's the most likely player in the NFL to get drafted eight rounds too early in your fantasy league before being traded in October for a kicker.Hunter Renfrow: The third-best receiver on the 2018 Clemson Tigers and lead singer of the West Coast's most popular Julian Edelman tribute band.Tyrell Williams: There's a picture of him in the dictionary next to the entry for "one-dimensional deep threat."Antonio Brown: This space intentionally left blank.Zay Jones, Keelan Doss, etc.: A bunch of guys who couldn't get targets in a passing game that featured Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow.Derek Carr somehow completed 70.4 percent of his passes to this collection of castoffs and role players. Left tackle Donovan Smith, center Ryan Jensen and guard Ali Marpet are all solid, particularly in pass protection.The line's bad reputation comes because the Bucs are the only team in the NFL incapable of finding replacement-caliber running backs, and because we assume that a quarterback's protection must have been terrible when he throws 30 interceptions in a year, not that he thinks underneath zone defenders don't really exist.Of course, no team signs 43-year old Tom Brady and thinks: "Yep, our line is good enough. And Javon Kinlaw is the best player available, but we just signed Jurrell Casey, so he may not be the best selection for us right now.Grier: So you remembered that the Dolphins have about 300 extra draft picks and called to see if I was interested in trading up.Elway: (Pause) Actually, I was calling to ask you what I should do. Not only does it fill a need—they recorded just 28 sacks last year—but they love drafting toolsy edge-rushers: Vic Beasley in 2015, Takkarist McKinley in 2017.Hmm, perhaps if a team keeps selecting the same type of edge-rusher in the first round every few years, yet still keeps finishing in the bottom half of the NFL in sacks, it is not selecting the right sort of of edge-rushers. He will probably be productive when the defense around him is strong, and may have a great season or two when everything goes just right, but he will also be frustrating at times, leaving the team that drafts him a little disappointed. Jerry loves workout warriors, but he also loves giving the impression that he looked past the numbers and picked up a bargain on an old-fashioned, no-nonsense defender.And maybe this is just that: Epenesa would look great on a defensive line that also features Tank Lawrence, Gerald McCoy and Dontari Poe. We can chuckle at Jerry's seat-of-the-pants thought process, but it often leads him to darn fine football players.This selection is a mild reach, but the Broncos slid down a few slots to make it in our mock, and it fills an immediate need.Elijah Wilkinson was overmatched at right tackle last season, Ja'Wuan James cannot be counted on to stay healthy and productive, and left tackle Garett Bolles is prone to quarterback-mutilating slumps. Stash Jones on the bench for a year, and then pencil him in at either tackle spot, and he'll be ready to protect Drew Lock by the time Lock is ready to start leading the Broncos on real playoff runs.Speaking of Lock, he still needs a weapon at receiver besides Courtland Sutton, and the Broncos picked up a second-round selection from the Dolphins by trading down in this mock draft. A fun game to play when trying to mock-draft for (or otherwise make sense of) the Jaguars is "Where Did All the Assets Go?" For example, the Jaguars defensive line during their 2017 playoff season consisted of Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue, Malik Jackson, Abry Jones and Dante Fowler. Ngakoue is franchise-tagged while the Jaguars try to trade him, because the team thinks it's worth having a miserable reputation among agents and players if it means wresting a mid-round pick away from some team like the Giants. We'd have them trade up or down, select someone you have never heard of, wax philosophically about how they never draft for need, make an Evil Empire joke* and so on.(*Yes, we did a Bill Belichick "Evil Empire" bit at the end of the Lions' pick. He's also 6'1", the perfect height for a Seahawks cornerback.Later in the draft, look for the Seahawks to select at least three safeties, a hard-nosed running back with fumbling issues (let's just pencil in Eno Benjamin), two offensive linemen who were converted tight ends or small forwards and either a kicker or a long snapper. Heaven help the team that sneaks into the playoffs at 9-7, gets hot and ends up picking 29th in the draft.The Titans were deeply flawed at the start of the offseason, and their effort to keep their playoff nucleus together by franchise-tagging Derrick Henry and signing Ryan Tannehill to a long-term deal came at the expense of stalwart defender Jurrell Casey (now in Denver) and right tackle Jack Conklin (Cleveland). But they're picking too late in the draft to net a replacement for Conklin, grab a sure thing in the secondary or do something daring like turbocharge the passing game with an elite receiver.Zack Baun is the best player on the board if the Titans seek an immediate upgrade. We just mock receivers to the Packers every year because it's fun to talk about and we think it's what fans want.Justin Jefferson would be a fine addition to the Packers receiving corps, though: big target, great hands, fine routes, runs like an angry tight end with the ball in his hands. Me and my buddies who don't have any first-round picks are crashing the mock draft to make our voices heard.McVay: I'm pretty sure they did a similar bit in Gridiron Heights two weeks ago, only much better.O'Brien: Shaddup! You got the 43rd pick in this year's draft back as part of the loose change of the Khalil Mack trade.Pace: That doesn't sound like something I would do. And now over to the boy genius.McVay: The Rams select Boise State left tackle Ezra Cleveland with the 52nd pick in the draft so we have someone ready to replace Andrew Whitworth before his 52nd birthday.O'Brien: Great stuff. Welp, I traded next year's first round pick, too, so I'll see everyone after next year's mock draft!McVay: Me too!Pace: What's going on?Irsay: Freebird!