Questions about just how good this year’s QB class for the 2014 draft is may have some teams rethinking their options at the position. One story that won’t go away, for example, is that Houston has explored the possibility of acquiring QB Ryan Mallett from New England. The Texans need to upgrade at QB, but reportedly aren’t convinced that any of this year’s top prospects at the position are worth the #1 pick overall in the 2014 draft especially with a defensive game change like South Carolina DE Jadeveon Clowney on the board. And the speculation that the Texans are interested in Mallett has only gotten louder since Houston hired Bill O’Brien, the former Patriots’ offensive coordinator who worked with Mallett in New England. The Patriots selected Mallett, who will be a free agent at the end of the upcoming season, with a third round pick at the 2011 draft. Speculation is that the Patriots are likely to be looking for the Texans second round pick, the 33rd overall, in exchange for the former Arkansas star. At the same time, though, John McClain, the Texans beat writer with the Houston Chronicle has opined that Houstons interest in Mallett may in fact be minimal, but they may be intrigued by Clevelands Brian Hoyer, who is coming off an ACL injury, but also spent time with OBrien with the Patriots. And McClain may be onto to something as OBrien is known to run a somewhat comlicated offense that requires a good decison-maker to run it and that was never Malletts M.O. Meanwhile, the fact that Jacksonville was able to resign Chad Henne to a 2-year deal prior to the start of free agency means the Jaguars won’t necessarily be forced to pick a QB with the 3rd pick overall. Indeed, the buzz around the league is that the Jaguars are leaning toward using the #3 pick on a positional rather than a QB for the second straight year. And Minnesota G.M. Rick Spielman kind of played down the position when he was quoted at a post-combine interview starting that the Vikings, which have the 8th pick overall, don’t want to ‘box themselves into having to take a quarterback if there’s another player that’s very significant at another position.’ Spielman added that he thinks there could be some decent options at the position in the second and third rounds. For the record, Spielman also said he thinks there could be a lot of movement in this year’s opening round as teams look to put themselves into position to grab the particular player that they really like. Of course, all of this just could be just posturing but often where there is a little smoke there is some fire. Stay tuned
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 10:53:13 +0000
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