Marcus Mariota and Jameis Winston have been poked, prodded, praised and ridiculed for every single piece of their demeanor, athletic ability, football IQ and off-the-field decisions. As if they weren’t being questioned enough, the two players caused some unnecessarily perplexed reactions when they both announced they would not be attending the 2015 NFL Draft and instead wished to watch the event at home with their respective families.
Naturally, the decisions became a far bigger deal than they should have, with many even wondering if they were actually committed to long-term NFL careers or if the billion-dollar empire was losing some of its commercial luster. Both suggestions are pure idiocy and waste the valuable time that should be spend dissecting and predicting all seven rounds of the draft. Even though their absence will likely be addressed by Chris Berman, ESPN’s bumbling non-expert that has no business of serving as host for an event that actually requires knowledge of the game and those being selected, over and over and over and over again, we’re hoping that the attention is placed upon the draft itself and those who do wish to attend.
There will be 26 players in attendance at the draft in Chicago on April 30th. The list of attendees might be missing Winston and Mariota but it does contain a ton of big-time prospects:
Arik Armstead, DE, Oregon
Vic Beasley, OLB, Clemson
La’el Collins, G, LSU
Landon Collins, S, Alabama
Bud Dupree, OLB, Kentucky
Cameron Erving, C, Florida State
Dante Fowler Jr., DE/OLB, Florida
Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin
Randy Gregory, OLB, Nebraska
Todd Gurley, RB, Georgia
D.J. Humphries, OT, Florida
Kevin Johnson, CB, Wake Forest
Byron Jones, CB, Connecticut
Benardrick McKinney, ILB, Mississippi State
DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville
Andrus Peat, OT, Stanford
Breshad Perriman, WR, Central Florida
Shane Ray, DE/OLB, Missouri
Brandon Scherff, OT, Iowa
Danny Shelton, DT, Washington
Devin Smith, WR, Ohio State
Jaelen Strong, WR, Arizona State
Laken Tomlinson, G, Duke
Trae Waynes, CB, Michigan State
Kevin White, WR, West Virginia
Leonard Williams, DT/DE, USC
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