{"id":47387,"date":"2015-03-29T14:12:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-29T21:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47387"},"modified":"2015-03-29T14:15:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-29T21:15:51","slug":"nfl-talk-3292015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=47387","title":{"rendered":"NFL Talk: 3\/29\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NFL<\/a>

NFL<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

The rumors get\u00a0hotter and heavier as the NFL Draft\u00a0day gets closer and closer.\u00a0With the draft scheduled for April 30- May 2 we keep hearing about who’s moving up, who’s moving down and\u00a0who is simply being moved.<\/p>\n

Here’s the latest rumor.\u00a0The St. Louis Rams at number 10 trade up with Jacksonville to number three to land\u00a0Oregon quarterback Marcus\u00a0Mariota.\u00a0This would happen (so the rumor is)\u00a0because the Rams are convinced that Tennessee is going to grab USC DE\u00a0Leonard Williams at\u00a0two leaving Mariota available. The\u00a0Rams of course did recently land Nick Foles\u00a0but they figure Mariota will push Foles if not beat him out and they’re willing to\u00a0make the move. Again so goes the rumor.<\/p>\n

The Eagles, currently\u00a0holding the number 20 spot, would\u00a0seem to make more sense as the team wanting to make a trade to grab Mariota.\u00a0Eagles HC Chip Kelly coached Mariota in college and once called him\u00a0the most talented player he’s ever coached.\u00a0Wouldn’t it also make more sense\u00a0to target Tennessee at two rather than Jacksonville? Who knows for sure that the Titans won’t take Mariota?<\/p>\n

At this point\u00a0everybody is assuming that Tampa Bay will take Jameis\u00a0Winston\u00a0with the first pick despite\u00a0his off the field troubles. The Buccaneers\u00a0have made it clear that they’re comfortable with\u00a0Winston,\u00a0baggage and all. Winston reportedly has impressed in interviews and\u00a0 looked good at the NFL Combine.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0draft will take place this year\u00a0in Chicago, the first time it has been held outside New York City since 1965.<\/p>\n

Oakland at number four wants a wide receiver but\u00a0it might not be Alabama’s Amari Cooper. The Raiders reportedly like\u00a0Kevin White of West Virginia\u00a0because he is 6-3 and Cooper is 6-1.<\/p>\n

If there are no trades\u00a0and Tennessee does take Mariota at two then the Jags are expected to take Williams at three.\u00a0The Rams could be leaning\u00a0towards an offensive lineman.\u00a0La’el Collins of LSU?<\/p>\n

The NFL\u00a0is now a quarterbacks league but\u00a0there are several\u00a0good running backs available this year.\u00a0Wisconsin’s\u00a0Melvin Gordon and Georgia’s Todd Gurley are expected go in the opening\u00a0round. Last year,\u00a0Washington’s Bishop Sankey was the first running back\u00a0taken when he was selected by the Titans with the 22nd pick of the second round.<\/p>\n

San Diego, with Ryan Matthews now in Philly, could be\u00a0looking at Gurley with the 17th pick while Gordon could go to Arizona at 24.<\/p>\n

Williams is the only local player (USC, UCLA) that is projected to go in the first round.\u00a0Bruin quarterback Brett Hundley is\u00a0slated to go in the second round.<\/p>\n

The Houston Texans\u00a0are counting on DE Jadeveon Clowney to be completely healed\u00a0from knee surgery by the time camp opens this summer. Clowney, who was the number one pick in last year’s draft, has been receiving “encouraging” reports from doctors.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Vikings have signed cornerback Terrance Newman to a one-year deal. Newman has spent the least three years with\u00a0Cincinnati\u00a0after nine with Dallas.<\/p>\n

OT Jonathan\u00a0 Martin\u00a0was cut by San Francisco on\u00a0Thursday but was signed by Carolina on Friday.\u00a0Martin was the subject of the bullying scandal in Miami involving Richie Incognito in 2013.<\/p>\n

Last week DE\u00a0Randy Gregory from Nebraska\u00a0admitted he\u00a0failed a drug test at the NFL combine. He said hadn’t smoked\u00a0weed since December\u00a0but that the THC was still in his system.\u00a0It was obviously a stupid move by Gregory – it isn’t like he\u00a0didn’t know\u00a0the combine was coming. But it probably won’t affect him in the draft.\u00a0He is expected to go as high (no pun intended) as six to the New York Jets.<\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks in “NFL Talk” we\u00a0will be breaking down the NFL Draft as well as going over which\u00a0NFL teams had the best and worst off seasons.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tim@midalleysports.com or on Twitter\u00a0@tspeterson40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson The rumors get\u00a0hotter and heavier as the NFL Draft\u00a0day gets closer and closer.\u00a0With the draft scheduled for April 30- May 2 we keep hearing about who’s moving up, who’s moving down and\u00a0who is simply being moved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-news-notes-around-professional-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47387"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47389,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47387\/revisions\/47389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}