If I was a GM I would have used a 7th on him simply because how often does a 7th rounder even do something. Teams really over rate their 6th and 7th rd. draft picks.
I really should be an NFL GM the way these bozos miss the boat so often.
And if you burned your 7th round pick and he refused to sign and became a first round pick for another team next year, then what?
Easy answer. He wasn't eligible for the 2016 draft. All I was doing was gambling on a 7th round pick. A hack, a lotto ticket. However this lotto ticket had 1st round talent. Everyone else's lotto ticket is projected 7th round talent and a lot of them don't even make the team. It was the correct move and 32 GMs failed because they think their 7th rounder will magically become Tom Brady.
A week ago, they didn't have any info, and he was saying he wouldn't sign.
Maybe killed a pregnant woman, and claims he won't sign? That's enough to take him off my board.
I think there's a good chance that the NFL teams received encouraging news from the police, info they didn't have last week. That's why it makes sense to not draft him, but makes sense a week later, to sign him.
I also believe the threat that they wouldn't sign. By saying that, they get a UDFA deal, which they can replace after
two years, rather than three.
If he was drafted in the 7th, you tell the kid, sit out, get drafted in the 1st or 2nd next year, and recoup all that money. You don't gain ANYTHING by signing as a 7th rounder. As a UDFA, you get to the big money a year earlier, and that's worth two years of short money, AND you can pick your team.
The team that drafted him in the 7th round might get a happy kid that plays like a stud for peanuts, but more likely, they get as malcontent that resents them for drafting him, holds out for months, and becomes a distraction. And maybe they draft a guy that had a pregnant woman shot. Something like that has a small chance of being a distraction, believe it or not. A player that may become a good OG (but probably not a LT) might not be worth that risk.