Anchor Drop, April 27, 2020: Final Thoughts on the NFL Draft

Good morning.

A few thoughts on this weekend’s NFL Draft, which saw Ke’Shawn Vaughn drafted in the third round, while Kalija Lipscomb and Jared Pinkney went undrafted. First off, Lipscomb and Pinkney were both signed as undrafted free agents by, respectively, the Chiefs and the Falcons. (So was Riley Neal, by the Broncos.) The terms of Lipscomb’s deal frankly sound about as good as a typical seventh-rounder.

So: what do we make of this? There have been some fans complaining that they cost themselves money by returning for 2019, and specifically some want to blame the coaching staff for their drop. But there are a couple of problems with this. For one, the NFL is usually good at figuring out if a guy is being misused by his team rather than actually being not good.

And the other problem is that you can’t blame Derek Mason for causing Pinkney and Lipscomb’s draft stock to drop without also crediting him for their having a draft stock in the first place. Remember, Lipscomb was a two-star recruit; Pinkney was a three-star recruit whom Rivals called a wide receiver. These weren’t guys who were obvious NFL talents, and really, maximizing the odds of marginal players of getting to the NFL might be one of Derek Mason’s biggest strengths as a head coach.

Here’s Chris Lee’s new podcast with David Sisk in which they discuss hoops recruiting, but more to the point, around the ten-minute mark of the podcast they talk about Simi Shittu having an agent who counseled him to stop playing defense during SEC season (I’m paraphrasing here) because he’d get in foul trouble and NBA teams wouldn’t see him.

ICYMI: Jay Cutler is back on the market.

YouTube Game of the Day

The 2008 Music City Bowl! The one where Vanderbilt punter Brett Upson was the MVP!