ESPN ANALYST SLAMS CONTROVERSIAL DRAFT PICK
Prior to becoming one of ESPN’s top NFL voices, Mina Kimes was a business reporter.
Yet despite excelling in both fields, she may have truly missed her calling as a lawyer.
That much was evident on Friday, as the NFL Live analyst appeared on First Take to discuss the Atlanta Falcons’ shocking selection of quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the No. 8 overall pick in the NFL Draft on Thursday night. After Dan Orlovsky repeated his surprising (but also unsurprising) defense of the controversial selection, Kimes systematically broke down why it’s actually indefensible.
“I could not disagree more. And I find the justification to be somewhat logically incoherent,” Kimes said. “I’ll start here: you said they’re going to be good. They’re not going to be in a position to get a quarterback. If you think you’re going to be good, which is why you pay Kirk Cousins $100 million guaranteed, you’re doing your team a disservice by not making your team better so that you can compete now. Offensively, they’re set. Defensively, they haven’t had a solid pass-rushing option since, frankly, John Abraham.”
Kimes went on to point out that at No. 8, Atlanta could have taken the first defensive player in the draft or traded down and taken multiple swings. She also noted that the depth of pass-rushers in this class isn’t particularly strong, making it less likely the Falcons will now find a defensive difference-maker in the draft’s later rounds.
What’s more is that even if Atlanta felt compelled to pick a quarterback, Penix didn’t make much sense. Considering he’ll be 24-years-old when his rookie season starts — as opposed to Jordan Love, who was 21 when the Packers selected him in 2020 — all indications are that the former Washington signal-caller should be ready to play sooner rather than later.
“In Penix, they get a quarterback who’s not a developmental prospect,” Kimes noted. “In the pathway that you’re describing where maybe he sits for a couple of years — and if he doesn’t, something’s gone horribly wrong and the Kirk Cousins contract was a huge waste, by the way — he’s going to be 26-years-old. So you will have wasted most of his rookie contract. He’s a quarterback who probably should have played right away. The track record of quarterbacks who do start in at that age in the NFL for the first time, Dan, as you know is not good.
“I just don’t get this. Frankly, I’ve been trying to understand it because I was shocked and I went through, OK, Kirk Cousins’ contract, the timeline, all of it — it just doesn’t add up. It doesn’t add up for the team or the player. I wish he would have landed somewhere else because I don’t think this was a good destination for Penix either.”
Despite Kimes having covered all her bases, Stephen A. Smith opted to side with Orlovsky, comparing the Falcons’ drafting of Penix to her beloved Seahawks selecting Russell Wilson in the same offseason they signed Matt Flynn. Kimes, however, didn’t miss a beat, quickly noting that Seattle had only signed Flynn to to a contract with $10 million in guaranteed money (compared to Cousins’ $100 million) and that Wilson was picked in the third round, as opposed to the first round.
Altogether, this was a tour de force of a takedown that would have held up just as well in a courtroom as it did on a morning debate show. Then again, it doesn’t hurt when you have the facts — and common sense — on your side.
The post Mina Kimes perfectly explains why the Falcons drafting Michael Penix Jr. made no sense appeared first on Awful Announcing.
2024-04-26T18:39:33Z dg43tfdfdgfd