Mr. Scot

You think the team believes that?

Sure. Then pick another in Round Two because keep swinging, right?

Or Darnold could be perfectly fine and Fields be awful (or vice versa) but the good one gets beaten to hell behind a sh-tty line that can't protect them. Not like we've seen that movie before, right?

Yeah, that's... horrible thinking when you're talking about a rebuilding team with multiple needs. By that logic, we could use our first and second picks on a quarterback or more because...hey, screw team building if we don't have a quarterback, right? And hey, it's not like a pass rusher could get past our mediocre left tackle and snap our franchise quarterback in two either, right. That never happens! Wait...Joe who? He plays where?

You're talking like everybody was in favor of that idea. A lot of us weren't.

Ideal Draft Day scenario is that one of the top quarterbacks or another really hot (non-OL) player falls to pick #8 and more than one team calls with offers. In that situation, you can leverage the two teams against each other to get the best package possible.

You're correct. My mistake.

Wrong. If the guy you used the first round pick on fails, or even if the guy you already had succeeds, then you wasted a first round pick when you could have used it to shore up a position of great need. That's a bad outcome.

Never hurts to ask.

Could be as little as one spot back with Denver. They get Fields while the Panthers still get whoever is at the top of their board at the time plus additional picks.

If they're looking at moving back, it's more likely because they think somebody else is "intrigued" enough by Fields to offer them a nice trade.

Speculation that they could conceivably trade down to 10 with the Eagles but still get one of the top two tackles (if they fell) I'd probably just go ahead and take one at 8 but I'm a cautious person.

Related Note: Sadly, that's a position where the Panthers could use somebody.

Or we could just, you know, take the best tackle on the board when we have the chance.

Never said they rarely happen. Lying season still exists. With that said, not everything that fans see as a smokescreen actually is one, especially when it comes to teams scouting players. Sometimes checking out a particular player is due diligence, but that doesn't make it a smokescreen.

Former Panther alert... For some reason I was thinking he had already been signed somewhere.

They might not be doing that great a job of selling.

The Seahawks have issued the usual "we are aware of the situation and are investigating further" statement. If he actually did get in trouble just a short 48 hours after getting a second chance, yikes!

Works for me Damn, I just got a huge feeling of deja vu

I could see Denver wanting him, but not necessarily enough to give up what we'd want in return.

Same. I could see exploring this if we weren't able to get a top left tackle in the draft though.

We're not going to spend the number eight pick on a player just so we can trade him later. When you're a rebuilding team with a top ten pick in the draft. You're going to take somebody that can contribute right now. As to Fields, don't know. Could be genuine interest. Could be due diligence.

I know a lot of fans assume that if they believe a certain player is good or bad, the team must feel the same, but as often as not what the team thinks of certain players doesn't align with what fans think.

I get that everybody thinks everything is a smokescreen, but again that doesn't happen nearly as much as fans think it does.