Which NFL draft rumors are you buying this year, and which are nothingburgers?

Barely one week separates us from the 2026 NFL Draft, and that is good news because it feels like we are barely going to make it.

So much has happened (Tua Tagovailoa is a Falcon!) and not happened (Maxx Crosby is still a Raider!) that getting through the draft feels necessary at this point. It will help the waters fully and finally calm across the NFL and close out (for the most part) the roster construction period.

It will probably be quite the ride to get to the end, though.

What kind of quarterback room are the Raiders going to have?

Since we last spoke, the Las Vegas Raiders adjusted their quarterback room. Obviously they are expected to do it again with the No. 1 overall pick in Fernando Mendoza as well.

Kirk Cousins sort of feels like the perfect player to have ahead of Mendoza. The Atlanta experience likely helped Kirk understand his new place in the league as a backup and mentor to a younger signal-caller, and Mendoza seems like the perfect one to live and operate under his wing.

It was always going to be fascinating to see what kind of situation Klint Kubiak developed with the Raiders. It feels like he’s off to a strong start.

I don’t think there’s going to be anything unique happening with this room. I believe the addition of Kirk Cousins is nothing more than an insurance policy if Mendoza is not ready to lead the team right out of the gate. Cousins has not looked great since his Achilles tear and leaving the Vikings, but he’s still better than the majority of backups and gives the Raiders a relatively high floor at the position.

In comparison to what they got out of Geno Smith in 2025, this is a huge upgrade. Now let’s see how they approach protecting their quarterback and upgrading the offense around him after the first round this year.

Which draft rumor are you buying?

This is such a weird class in that there aren’t many players seen as the consensus top guy at their position this year. One murmur I’m buying is that Georgia’s Monroe Freeling has the opportunity to be the first offensive tackle off the board, over the likes of Francis Mauigoa (Miami) and Spencer Fano (Utah).

Freeling is a very prototypical tackle at 6’7” and 315 pounds with excellent athleticism. He’s the picture of an NFL tackle and it feels like teams are very willing to overlook his small sample of starting experience in college.

Do I think that’s smart? Not necessarily, but what do I know? I’m just a guy who writes the sweetest NFL column in the whole world.

So much of the discussion around this class has been about how it is a little less impressive in some respects. In this respect I fully and totally buy that teams near the top are looking to trade out.

I particularly buy this when it comes to squads like the Titans and Cardinals. They are not close enough to contending in 2026 so it makes sense for them to accrue more capital to set themselves up for when the opportunity is more closely in front of them.

I definitely buy that someone outside of the top 10 is going to want to move up.

Which draft rumor are you selling?

It feels kind of impossible for AJ Brown to get traded at this point in my opinion. Why would Howie Roseman do it now? What would the benefit be?

I suppose the answer to this is that the Eagles first acquired Brown during the NFL draft so anything is possible in that sense. It would just be tugging at a thread that they should leave alone for the Eagles to do this now in my mind. I still see very little to gain from their perspective.

There’s been a recent story being published around the media landscape that involves Miami edge rusher prospect Rueben Bain Jr. being a part of a fatal car accident in 2024. It’s being plastered just about everywhere despite the matter essentially being moved on from by all parties involved way before this draft season. The thought now is that Bain will see his draft stock fall because that’s usually what happens in these cases that happen so close to the draft, but when the family of the person who lost their life comes out and says they did not want the story published because they would prefer to move on, that tells me it’s as much of a nothingburger as something like this can get. It’s a very, very unfortunate story but it should not have any bearing on when Bain ultimately gets picked next week.

Will the draft completely change any team?

Given the lack of quarterbacks beyond Mendoza I don’t think anybody is going to be seriously transformed after the draft. That is simply the way that professional football works.

It is hard to capture lightning in a bottle, and even if you do that doesn’t necessarily mean your fortunes completely shift on a dime. Everyone is chasing the Seattle Seahawks these days and I don’t know that any one team is a draft away from everything being right in front of them.

Looking across the NFL landscape with the draft just a week and a half away, I have to say no. The closest team to doing such a thing, in my opinion, is the Raiders who spent a ton of money on their defense in free agency and have the number one pick. With the majority of their cap space being spent on that side of the ball, I would not be surprised if they really leaned into the offense during the draft, essentially building that side from the jump with (presumably) Fernando Mendoza as their quarterback of the future.

By the start of the 2026 regular season, the Raiders should look quite, quite different than on opening day last year.

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