No, you aren’t having a fever dream right now – this is Redleg Nation. But we also figured that since there’s no baseball right now, and most Cincinnati Reds fans are also Cincinnati Bengals fans, we’d open up the comments tonight for some NFL Draft discussion.
And yes, the Bengals are going to draft Joe Burrow tonight. If they don’t I will go ahead and be on the record that I will eat at least part of a Cincinnati Reds hat, live on camera this weekend if they don’t. Lock it up, it’s happening.
Getting teams ready for a remote draft has been the kind of experience that a 36-year-old techie simply can’t understand. The number of stories that have come out over the last two weeks where team front office employees couldn’t figure out how to do basic internet things. In one case, it’s been reported that THEY “RIPPED UP SOME WALLS” to get someone set up for the draft. What even is wifi? Who are these people who don’t know how to run some cat-5 or cat-6 cables from one room to another without”ripping up” walls? How is any of this a thing in the year 2020?
#Seahawks GM John Scheider says they’ve ripped up some walls to make the technology work in his house… he says working with crews in his house, in this time of social distancing, has been a challenge, but is confident they’ll be ready for Thursday.
— Omar Ruiz (@OmarDRuiz) April 21, 2020
But we’ve also seen things like this, where teams are setting up multiple monitored, multiple deviced set ups for the draft.
Do NFL coaches and GMs know they can open up multiple tabs in a browser? pic.twitter.com/Ej28pFG7yL
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) April 23, 2020
There are a lot of things at play here. As someone who during a regular day during a regular baseball year will have 4 baseball games on at once across four devices on or around my desk – I get it. But I don’t think it’s necessary for the Bears or Chargers or Giants to have that going on. Are you still breaking down game footage of guys on draft night? If you are, what the heck are you doing?! And if you aren’t, why do you need seven different screens?
All of that said, look at the Chargers photo. That moose is ready to fight you, your dad, your drunk cousin Frank, and anyone else that is willing to step to him. That intimidation factor is real.
It feels almost guaranteed that the Bengals are taking Joe Burrow at the top spot – they’ve reportedly told the Miami Dolphins multiple times that they have no interest in trading the #1 pick away – but where they go and what they do beyond that is quite a bit more intriguing. Let’s all sit down, leave permanent indentations in our couch cushions, and watch this thing unfold. I can’t wait for the technology hiccups to play out in real time.
Hope not for Joe’s sake as He will ride off into oblivion like Big Daddy Dan Wilkerson and Ki-Jana Carter other Ohio born first overall picks by the Bungles.
Well, Sorry Doug, but I am a Colts fan! I am sure the “Bungles” will find a way to mess this up!! LOL
Andy Dwyer approves of this message.
Well, Green Bay left a few people scratching their heads.
I hate NFL football period . But I understand that these are desperate times without much Baseball news to cover . So Doug I will cut you some slack on this one
Give them another year and the Burrow Bengals will be the surprise team of the NFL.
Providing that Burrow stays healthy. I predict the Bengals will play in a super bowl sometime in the next 3 years.
I think he is that good.
I’ve been both a Reds and Bengals fan for nearly a half-century, and followed both teams with equal passion. I nearly reached the breaking point with the Bengals last year, when they were down 28-6 against Miami in the third quarter of the next-to-last game of the season. Of course, the one time I turned the game off, I missed possibly the most exciting and amazing comeback in their history. (Thankfully, with the draft in mind, they weren’t able to pull it out in overtime.) 😉
You watch a college quarterback absolutely carve up the best competition that there is in the sport week after week, in big game after big game, and you have great hope that at least some of that will transfer to the pro game. The guys on the Locked On Bengals podcast said they heard that the reason Miami was trying to hard to trade up for Burrow was that they believe he will be the next Joe Montana. I certainly hope they are correct.
Joe Montana is one of the great all-time quarterbacks, but it still hurts the way he and the 49ers beat the Bengals in the last minute of the 1989 Super Bowl.