2018 NFL Draft: Round 1 Open Thread

UPDATE: I’m going to add some commentary here for the first round because. . .well, what else am I gonna do? Original post is underneath the horizontal ruler thing.

-With the first pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns select. . .

Baker Mayfield, QB, Oklahoma

I like it. But, as always, your mileage may vary.

-Saquon Barkley to the Giants at #2. Not what I predicted, but also not surprising.

-Early clubhouse leader for Tweet of the night:

-Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the Browns throw the first curve ball of the evening, passing on Bradley Chubb to select Ohio State cornerback Denzel Ward. Didn’t see that coming.

-The Broncos decide that they’re going to take Chubb instead. I thought they were going quarterback, but that’s still a very nice get for them.

-After the Indianapolis Colts make the safest pick of the night and grab Quenton Nelson, we have our first trade of the evening, as the Buffalo Bills are swapping picks with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. No word on compensation yet, but I’m guessing it wasn’t cheap.

TRADE: The Bills send #12, #53, and #56 to the Buccaneers to move up and select Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen. I know nobody likes Allen, but hey. . .the Bills are taking their shot.

-We have our first NFC North selection of the night, as the Chicago Bears stay at #8 and select Georgia linebacker Roquan Smith. That’s actually a really good pick for Chicago. Damn it.

-The San Francisco 49ers take another offensive lineman off the board, as they nab Notre Dame tackle Mike McGlinchey. Decent get for them as well.

-TRADE: The Arizona Cardinals make a deal with the Oakland Raiders to move up five spots, and they get the (IMO) best quarterback in the draft in UCLA signal caller Josh Rosen. I’m guessing the Miami Dolphins are not pleased.

Arizona gives up #15, #79 (third round), and #152 (fifth round) to move up those five spots.

-Miami takes Alabama safety Minkah Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick was, reportedly, who the Packers were targeting in a trade up. So, that’s not happening. I can live with that.

-Tampa, back on the clock after their trade down, selects the big defensive tackle from Washington, Vita Vea. I assumed they were going to take Derwin James, who might end up falling to Green Bay. That would be bad.

-Speaking of Washington. . .the professional team. . .they draft Alabama defensive tackle Da’Ron Payne. I’m guessing they wanted Vea and just missed him.

-TRADE: The New Orleans Saints are coming all the way up from #27 to Green Bay’s pick at #14. I’m not sure who or what they’re looking for. The Saints give up #27, #147 (fifth round), and next year’s first rounder to jump up to this spot.

And with that pick, the Saints attempt to upgrade their pass rush with Texas-San Antonio defensive end Marcus Davenport. For what they gave up, I was expecting a quarterback here, but hey. . .fine by me.

-Oakland, now back on the clock, pull off a bit of a stunner by taking UCLA tackle Kolton Miller. He’s a project, but the Raiders liked him, apparently.

-TRADE: The Buffalo Bills have traded up again, this time with the Baltimore Ravens to get to pick #16. They give up pick #22, which they got from Cincinnati, and pick #65, the first overall pick in the third round that they got from the Tyrod Taylor deal. Buffalo also receives a fifth-round pick, #154 overall.

With that pick, the Bills get Virginia Tech linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, the youngest player in the draft at 19 years of age. That wraps up the first half of the first round of this year’s NFL Draft.

In just about thirty minutes, the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft will finally be getting underway from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

This is your Open Thread for Round 1 discussion of tonight’s festivities. If we get too many comments, we can open up a second thread later on. It’s something we can monitor.

As we generally do for all of our event-based Open Threads, we ask that there be NO GIFs in the Open Threads for the Draft. Not just this one, but for the rest of the weekend. If you want to get your GIF on, feel free to visit the regular daily Open Threads for that sort of thing. We expect a lot of comments on these Open Threads for the Draft, and we don’t want things getting bogged down.

We’ll be tracking everything that the Vikings are doing as it happens, and we’ll be putting all of the updates in the main stream, which you can find right here. Selections, trades, and everything else will be linked right there, as well as on the main page of the site, obviously.

In addition, our own Josh “J-Dog” Dungan is at the Twin Cities Orthopedic Performance Center in Eagan this evening covering things for us! You can follow him on the Twitter machine to find out what he’s hearing from Eagan.

(Josh’s Twitter account was embedded, but Twitter apparently changed their embedding widget to be unreasonably huge, so it’s been replaced with a link.)

This is the last huge event of the NFL offseason, folks. Let’s hope that it’s a good one for the Minnesota Vikings, and not quite as good for everyone else.

Enjoy Round 1, ladies and gentlemen!