Anthony Richardson's eye-popping NFL combine justified his Josh Allen draft hype
This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Charles Curtis.
The top of the 2023 NFL draft just got REALLY REALLY INTERESTING.
Sure, we already figure the Chicago Bears are going to trade out of the top spot to get the highest price possible for the No. 1 pick, giving a QB-starved franchise the chance to grab the name of its choice.
But the buzz about Alabama’s Bryce Young or Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud as the top pick in mock drafts has worn off a bit.
Now, it’s Anthony Richardson time.
The Florida quarterback came to the NFL combine with some detractors wondering if the flaws they saw last season were too much to overcome in the league. But he put on a show with freakish athleticism and capped it all off with a backflip. As our Robert Zeglinski wrote, he’s the clear top winner from Indianapolis this past week.
The comparisons to Josh Allen are everywhere. You might recall the Buffalo Bills QB was a flawed prospect coming out of Wyoming. The Bills took him seventh overall in 2018 and look at him now.
So you can imagine teams are going to wonder: Do you take Young, who appears to be consistent and steady? Or do you roll the dice on the upside Richardson flashed this past week?
The drama!!!
Quick Hits: NBA Mock Draft! … March Madness is coming … so is the World Baseball Classic … and more.
(Photo by OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images)
— Bryan Kalbrosky’s latest NBA Mock Draft is here and there’s a lot of intrigue as we get set for March Madness.
— Speaking of which! We have a running list of the men’s teams who have punched their tickets to the Big Dance.
— The World Baseball Classic is approaching and Shohei Ohtani just hit a LONG dinger from one knee in a Japan tuneup.
— Nice try, Giannis, but that “rebound” off your intentional miss should be reversed by the NBA.