Bad games matter! Week 16 could dramatically shake up top-10 picks of 2020 NFL draft
Week 16 holds massive, season-altering implications.
But yeah, you can have your Buffalo Bills-New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys-Philadelphia Eagles or your Green Bay Packers-Minnesota Vikings games. That’s not what’s going to gird our loins next weekend.
Your cute, little playoff battles do have meaning, sure. Wile those are going on, we’ll be drilling down on four matchups that will dramatically impact the upper reaches of the 2020 NFL draft.
How about Bengals at Dolphins, Giants at Redskins, Jaguars at Falcons and Lions at Broncos? Yep, that’s the real drama. Mainline this straight into our draft veins, please.
Here’s how the top 12 picks for the 2020 NFL draft currently sit:
1. Cincinnati Bengals
2. New York Giants
3. Miami Dolphins
4. Washington Redskins
5. Detroit Lions
6. Arizona Cardinals
7. New York Jets
8. Jacksonville Jaguars
9. Los Angeles Chargers
10. Denver Broncos
11. Carolina Panthers
12. Atlanta Falcons
Now do you see what we’re getting at? Let’s break down the significance of each of these four games:
Bengals at Dolphins
The Meeting in the Magic City is this year’s Super Bowl of draft drama.
The Bengals and Dolphins are in need of a quarterback, and they’re two of the four teams that have a chance to land the first overall pick in 2020. That likely means taking LSU’s Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, Joe Burrow, if they land there, even as we’ve said all along that not all NFL teams are as in love with him as the online draft community is.
Still, it’s clear what’s at stake here. Did the Dolphins tap out on their season Sunday after playing hard in recent weeks? The Bengals appear to be playing fairly hard, giving the New England Patriots a good first half anyway.
The rub here is that if the Bengals lose either of their final two games — they play the Cleveland Browns in Week 17 — they’re the owners of the No. 1 pick.
So the fate of that pick lies in the hands of Andy Dalton and Ryan Fitzpatrick. What could go awry, we ask you? This game (Joe Bowl? Burrow Bowl?) is must-see TV. Get your popcorn. The wacko factor is gonna be cranked up to 11 in South Florida.
Giants at Redskins
The other two teams in the running for that top selection are the Redskins and Giants. It appears to be a showdown of rookie quarterbacks in Dwayne Haskins and (if healthy) Daniel Jones. Haskins played well Sunday in almost taking down the Philadelphia Eagles, and Jones has had his moments.
There could be a discussion to be had for both of those teams possibly selecting a quarterback high in 2020, especially if either team (yes, even the Giants) makes significant front-office changes. Let’s assume that this game will have a huge bearing on the Race for Chase. As in Ohio State’s Chase Young.
The Buckeyes’ pass rusher finished fourth in the Heisman voting — too low for us, honestly — and was the best non-quarterback in college football this season. He also should be the top non-QB drafted in April, likely with the No. 2 overall pick.
Currently, the Giants sit in the No. 2 hole and the Redskins at No. 4, but the results of this game hold big implications. Both teams are 3-11, so the loser would jump into the lead spot. Of course, there is still a Week 17 game to be played, but both teams could be facing do-or-die opponents (Dallas and Philly) in their final games.
So it certainly feels like the Giants-Redskins loser is likely to be stuck on three wins and in the driver’s seat for No. 2, pending the results of Bengals-Dolphins. If you want to take it a step further, the first tiebreaker for draft order is strength of schedule, and the Giants currently have the edge there with the lower number.
Young raised a few eyebrows by saying in New York last weekend that he has yet to make plans to enter the draft. Despite that, we’d bet dollars to doughnuts that those plans will be in the works soon. There’s no way he’s staying in Columbus another season. And we’d also wager that he might be tuning into Giants-Redskins, even for a bit, as there’s a decent chance he could be a member of the losing team in about four months.
Jaguars at Falcons
There’s a lot going on in this one. Will it be the end for head coaches Doug Marrone and Dan Quinn? What about the fates of both front offices?
Perhaps the result of this game will have no bearing on any of those matters. It’s possible that Jaguars owner Shad Khan and Falcons owner Arthur Blank already have their respective minds made up about who will stay and who will go next season.
You’d have to say that Quinn has his team playing very hard, and Marrone earned a feather in his cap with the Jaguars shocking the Raiders in their final game at Oakland-Alameda. Who will play hardest in this one? Hard to say, but Atlanta has been the more competitive team for about a month now.
Currently, the Jaguars are picking No. 8 and have a huge strength-of-schedule advantage to earn a higher selection than the current slew of five-win teams. Jacksonville is almost certain to end up in the top 14, even with two victories.
The Falcons are all the way down at the 12th overall pick at the moment, but what’s wild is that Atlanta basically could end up selecting anywhere from No. 6 overall all the way down to 18th.
Still, both teams could have some overlapping needs in the 2020 draft, so this one is big. Yes, seriously.
Lions at Broncos
The last time David Blough and Drew Lock met in a football game, Blough threw for 572 yards (!) and accounted for four touchdowns (and lost!) for Purdue, and Lock matched his four-TD output for Missouri in a 40-37 game in West Lafayette, Indiana. These rookies now hold the keys to shaping the top 10 picks of the draft. Yes, expect another thriller in Blough-Lock II.
OK, thriller might be a slight oversell, but it’s hard not to realize what’s at stake here. Maybe a Denver loss adds to the chaos factor; that could help push the Broncos as high as the No. 6 pick, and perhaps it gives Vic Fangio and his staff a chance to coach the Senior Bowl.
A Lions loss would drive a stake deeper into the chest of Matt Patricia in his effort to keep his job, and it certainly won’t help the cause of GM Bob Quinn either. The Lions have an excellent shot to land somewhere in the top five of the draft, but they could tumble to as low as No. 10 with an out-of-nowhere hot streak. Ah, the dilemma!
There also could be two matchups of five- and six-win teams in Week 16. We have one locked in (6-8 Raiders at 5-9 Chargers) and another possibility (Panthers at Colts) if Indianapolis loses to the Saints on Monday night.
That’s six crummy Week 16 games with massive draft implications. You can have your decidedly fewer matchups of contending teams next weekend. We know what we’re watching instead. This stuff matters, you guys.
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