How the 2018 Draft Proved That the Modern NFL Doesn’t Exist

[waving monkey]

Soon after being selected by the Detroit Lions in the second round of the 2018 draft, Auburn running back Kerryon Johnson revealed that he wishes he had been alive to watch Barry Sanders play (Johnson was born in 1997). Then there’s new Falcons running back Ito Smith, whose real name is Romarius but whose nickname is Ito because when he was born, his family thought he looked like O.J. Simpson murder-trial judge Lance Ito. You are old, I am old, and if your team is still operating under the strategies it employed when Johnson and Smith were born, it is behind.

Each year, the NFL draft teaches us about where the league is. It is a snapshot of everything the sport believes in. A center was picked first overall in 1939, ending a two-year stretch in which a fullback went first. Since 2001, 12 quarterbacks have gone first overall, the same number as between 1965 and 2001. Since the draft began, running backs are the second-most-popular first-overall pick, but that pick hasn’t happened in 23 years.

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/...-josh-allen-analytics-old-new-school-football

 

[Nightman]

He’s also the third running back taken in the top five in the past three years, and my guess is the first two teams who made those picks wish they could have them back. The Cowboys would be better now with Jalen Ramsey rather than Zeke Elliott

That line ruined the whole article..... no player has been more integral to a team's identity than EE has been to DAL...... Ramswy would be BJones II..... very good but not our foundation