Schefter is Now Reporting Travis Hunter is Going to Cleveland With the 2nd Pick

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Some dreams die hard. And it's increasingly likely this one is, if not dead yet, entering Hospice Care:

All it was going to take for the Patriots to land this unique player was for two quarterbacks to come off the board ahead of them. For the longest time, that seemed doubtful because conventional wisdom had Tennessee not necessarily going QB with the first pick. That narrative has evolved to the point Cam Ward might as well start the draft standing at the podium waiting for Roger Goodell to get there. Then it came down to a question of whether Cleveland would take Shedeur Sanders and the Giants grab Abdul Carter or vice versa. 

Either way, the Patriots get their man, and we end up not having to suffer because in Week 18 Jerod Mayo finally figured out how to win a game. The perfect scenario. But now it would appear that's not about to happen:

To be perfectly clear, Adam Schefter isn't definitively saying Hunter is going to the Browns. Because in case you haven't noticed, he's never truly definitive about anything. He's a master of giving you long and thoughtful answers that manage to come down on both sides of every issue. Which is a skill. You don't get to be the NFL's go-to for reports like this unless you've got a record of never being 100% certain, which means you've never been wrong. 

But reading between the lines, someone in the Browns organization is assuring him they're not passing up a unicorn like Hunter. And that other great American institution that specializes in not being definitive about anything, the betting markets, seem to agree there's been a vibe shift at the top of the draft. This is where we were two weeks ago today:

… with Ward, Carter, Sanders and then Hunter going in that order. 

Today the favorites are:

1. Ward to Tennessee: -5000

2. Hunter to Cleveland: -270

3. Carter to New York: -200

4. Will Campbell to New England: +125, with Armand Membou at +330

While the Pats are favored to be drafting offensive line with their first pick at -155.

I might not be much of a gambler:

… but that sounds very much like the 2025 NFL Draft begins the moment the Patriots are on the clock. The picks ahead of them, while not necessarily etched in stone, at least appear to be written in permanent laundry marker. So the fun will start once we get to No. 4.

Like I said last week, if the Pats can't Hunter, I'll happily take Campbell and finally solve the perennial left tackle problem once and for all:

But that opens up a whole host of possibilities. They could just affirmatively make their pick like they did last year with Drake Maye, which was a "The Patriots are on the clo-- … the Patriots pick is in" special that happened so fast it caused a rip in the space/time continuum. Or they could decide to drop back, still land Campbell or Membou, while adding a pick. Just in terms of rough estimates, according to Jimmy Johnson's old Draft Value Chart, the difference between No. 4 and No. 8 is equal to the 50th pick. So they could theoretically pick up a mid-to-late second rounder while still addressing their gaping hole at LT.

In the bigger picture, in what will be the national storyline of this draft, will be what happens to Sanders at that point. There's one school of thought that says if he survives the first three selections, he could freefall like Brady Quinn or Aaron Rodgers did. Perhaps all the way out of the first round, as unlikely as that seems.

The larger point being that if Schefter is right about Travis Hunter to the Browns, then all bets are then off. A first round that looked like it would be chalk for the most part will descend into a controlled chaos. To be fair, not everyone is as certain as Schefty and the betting market. For instance, Browns reporter Mary Kay Cabot is blaming recency bias for anyone suggesting Hunter is a definite and Sanders is no longer on their radar. And let's never discount the possibility of disinformation psyops taking place. Which I guess means I'm doing exactly what I accused Schefter of earlier, which is coming down on every side of the issue. 

Either way, this is what makes Draft Season worth living. While also serving as a reminder of how dirty Patriots fans were done by Mayo and Joe Milton winning the one game nobody wanted. They're the reason we're in this predicament and driving ourselves insane with all this. Thanks again for nothing.