Dawgs By Nature Blog Way-out-on-a-limb predictions after the NFL Draft

1. Andrew Vorhees will have a better career than Zak Zinter Vorhees (guard, USC) was drafted by the Ravens in the seventh round when Cleveland traded pick 229 to Baltimore in 2023. He suffered a torn ACL at the combine last year and was essentially a medical redshirt as a rookie. Zinter (guard, Michigan) was drafted by the Browns at No. 85 overall in this year's third round. I had a third-round grade on Vorhees in my 2023 evaluations (use landscape mode). I had a fifth-round mark on Zinter in my 2024 Draftionary. 2. Jonah Elliss will be better as a rookie than Alex Wright will be in year three Right or wrong, Wright was left there for Cleveland in round three of the 2022 draft (3.78). He's been up and down, more or less. PFF grades aren't black and white, but they ranked him 119th out of 119 NFL edge defenders two seasons ago. At the end of his second year he showed some improvement, tallying a sack in each of the final four games which certainly would've exceeded the over/under. I had a 5-6 round draft grade on Alex Wright coming out of UAB. Elliss (edge, Utah) was third on my board at his position this year; I graded him as a 1-2 round prospect. He was the final player available with that high of a grade and was still on the board in the 70s, both predicted here. 3. Antonio Johnson will outplay Cameron Mitchell and Greg Newsome II Johnson (defensive back, Texas A&M) was bafflingly passed on by the Browns in the fifth round of last year's draft. They instead took a sixth-round-graded prospect: Cameron Mitchell (cornerback, Northwestern), who played exactly 79 slot snaps in college; Andrew Berry told the fans in a post-draft presser that they drafted him because they "liked his versatility to play inside." The Jaguars drafted the 2-3 round graded Johnson, who played more than 1000 snaps in the slot for A&M, 18 picks later (5.160). Newsome was Cleveland's last first-round selection (1.26, 2021). He showed some promise on the boundary as a rookie, but the Browns have played him primarily inside since then. Had they drafted Johnson at 142 last year, they could've traded Newsome prior to exercising his fifth-year option of $13.377 million. He'll now be paid as if he's the best slot corner in football. 4. UDFA Dallas Gant will be better in the NFL than Nathaniel Watson Gant (linebacker, Toledo) received a 3-4 grade from my analysis. As predicted here, he went undrafted — meaning he was available and would've been good value for the Browns with either of their seventh-round picks. Cleveland selected Watson with their sixth-rounder: No. 206. I graded him 6-7 in my Draftionary. 5. Jordan Travis will be a better pro than Drake Maye Maye was widely considered a top two QB prospect heading into the 2023 college football season. Jayden Daniels had a phenomenal year and won the Heisman; that catapulted him to just behind Caleb Williams on most boards. I had only a round-two grade on Maye. He's extremely traitsy but he's far too much of a project for me to endorse him at No. 3 overall. Travis (quarterback, FSU) famously suffered a season-ending ankle injury which caused committee voters to cull the Seminoles from the playoff pool despite a perfect record. I had a third-round grade on Travis; he went near the end of round five to the Jets (5.171). Even if he moved to wide receiver, he could still wind up better positioned to succeed; the forecast is stormy for Maye in New England. 6. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah's last two UDFA classes will prove more talented than Andrew Berry's entire 2024 draft As it happens, former Browns VP of football operations and current GM of the Vikings Kwesi Adofo-Mensah nabbed two of my top three UDFAs this year and three of my top seven, including linebacker Dallas Gant (mentioned above). He also inked my No. 1 undrafted free agent last year: Ivan Pace Jr., who was a top 20 linebacker in the league for 2023 — as a rookie playing the Mike. Similar to Mekhi Blackmon last year, I had identified Dwight McGlothern (cornerback, Arkansas) prior to the draft as likely to be one of the best values of the entire event. My evaluation of him, like Blackmon the year before, resulted in a second-round grade. As of the end of the 2023 regular season, Blackmon was a top 30 cornerback in the NFL. McGlothern was signed by Minnesota after going unselected this year. 7. Bo Nix will be one of the top two most productive rookie QBs Eleven quarterbacks were drafted this year, six in round one; Nix was the sixth off the board. Many said the Broncos reached on the Auburn graduate / Oregon product at 12th overall. To me, he's the most pro-ready signal caller in the class. His 85.5 on-target percentage is higher than a giraffe's top hat; no one else is above 80 percent. He also posted the best turnover-worthy percentage: a nanoscopic 1.0 which is reflected by his least-in-class five turnovers (three INTs, two fumbles), best by anyone who played a full season. And he was tied for second with a dazzling pressure-to-sack mark of 7.6 percent, showing that his mobility makes him more evasive than he gets credit for. 8. Omar Brown sees more NFL playing time than Myles Harden The Browns drafted Harden (cornerback, South Dakota) in round seven (7.227). So guessing that he won't play a million snaps in the league is weak. But Brown (cornerback, Nebraska) wasn't drafted at all and was therefore available for Cleveland at 227 (and anywhere else as well). It wouldn't surprise me if Brown makes Denver's initial 53-man roster in 2024 and is pushing Ja'Quan McMillian for slot reps next year. It would be a shock though to see Harden make Cleveland's 53 this season, and if he were to see the field at all as anything other than a practice squad elevation because the bubonic plague has swept through the Browns' DB room, I'd tip my cap ... and then eat it. 9. Miami's class will prove to be the best draft of 2024 With the possible exception of Chicago's — due to incongruous positional value with respect to drafting a quarterback No. 1 overall — the Dolphins' haul from this year's draft should set the curve for the rest of the league. And somehow they got relatively low marks from many analysts, including those at ESPN, PFF, Bleacher Report, and The Athletic. Below is Miami's draft, in parentheses are my round grades for the prospects, my letter grade for each pick is after that. 1.21 ED Chop Robinson (1) A 2.55 OT Patrick Paul (2) A 4.120 RB Jaylen Wright (3) A 5.158 ED Mohamed Kamara (2-3) A+ 6.184 WR Malik Washington (3) A+ 6.198 S Patrick McMorris (5) D 7.241 WR Tahj Washington (3) A+ And that's after forfeiting their thrird-round pick as a result of the opprobrious Tom Brady / Sean Payton tampering operation. For what it's worth, Cleveland was in position to draft four of these prospects: Paul at 54, Wright at 85, Kamara at 156, and Tahj Washington at 227. All of those player selections would've resulted in better grades than I gave the Browns for the picks they made at those spots. —@PoisonPill4