Dolphins take Tagovailoa at No. 5, Chargers Herbert at No. 6
Two years ago this spring, Joe Burrow announced on Twitter that he is moving out of Ohio State University after three frustrating years.
He was tired of riding the bench and not getting a chance to show how good a passer he could be.
Two April’s later, it’s no longer a concern for Burrow. And probably won’t be again.
On the basis of unexpectedly zooming into college superstardom last fall at LSU, the quarterback Thursday night was selected No. 1 overall by the Cincinnati Bengals to kick off the three-day NFL Draft.
The reports said the Bengals had already informed Burrow on Wednesday that he was their man. He was the first of three QBs to be selected in the top six.
The draft, originally planned for Las Vegas, was conducted remotely via video conferencing – due to the coronavirus pandemic. Physically isolated team personnel, league officials, draft players and networking talents were remotely linked.
Outside of a couple of expected, but still annoying, syncing delays and errors, it seemed early on that it went smoothly.
Like Burrows last season in college.
“Jumping up to No. 1 overall is crazy to me, but it’s a dream,” Burrow said on the joint NFL Network / ESPN telecast.
Told ESPN’s top draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. Having rated him as a sixth-round pick entering his senior season at LSU, Burrow hinted that low quality was justified at the time.
“I wasn’t very good in my junior year. It’s pretty simple, “Burrow said of his parents’ home in Athens, Ohio. “But I worked really, really hard to get better.”
Thirty-one other prospects were selected on Thursday after Burrow to finish Round 1. The draft continues with Round 2-3 on Friday starting at 1 p.m. EDT and round 4-7 on Saturday start at noon EDT.
Canadians Chase Claypool (a tall and muscular but fast University of Notre Dame wide receiver from Abbotsford, BC) and Neville Gallimore (a powerful, penetrating Oklahoma University defensive tackle from Ottawa) were expected to be selected Friday in mid Round 3.
A few other Canadians have a chance outside to be drafted for a late round Saturday.
So much buzz had swirled around in the hours, days and weeks before Thursday night about this team or the trade that went up in the Top 10 – or, more precisely, about teams in the Top 10 that were looking for trading partners to trade down to get more juicy picks.
Surprisingly, the first trade of the night first fell almost two hours in, as San Francisco and Tampa Bay swapped choices # 13 and 14.
With overall pick # 2, Washington, as expected, took top rusher in the draft, Ohio State defensive end Chase Young, who grew up less than 30 miles from Redskins headquarters in northeast Virginia.
Young stands nearly 6-foot-5, weighs 264 pounds and is universally described not only as a super-freaky athlete, but an exceptionally influential playmaker. New Redskins head coach and chief defense strategist, Ron Rivera, has to rub his hands on adding such a promising passport rusher.
The Detroit Lions at No. 3 selected cornerback Jeff Okudah of Ohio State.
Okay, another Buckeye. The top three picks were all played at OSU at one point.
As for Burrow, I’ve been watching American college football closely since the 1970s, and his last season reversal is as amazing as I can remember from a previous three-year college backup. I remember watching Burrow fight in the shadows of J.T. Barrett or Dwayne Haskins in a pair of televised spring games at Ohio State in 2017 and 2018. I didn’t see anything to suggest that Burrow had college-level grandeur in him. Nothing.
I’m still stunned by that. It is a reminder for eternity that sometimes a budding athlete needs not only a chance but time to put it all together. Only we who anticipate look stupid afterwards.
Even after Burrow transferred to LSU in the summer of 2018, he had an okay – certainly not great – first season, his first meaningful playing time since piloting his Athens High School team in Southeast Ohio from 2012-14.
No one thought Burrow was capable of the final college season of what he wound up showing week after week. He scintillated for LSU and completed 76.3% of his throws for 5,671 yards, 10.8 yards per. Trials, 60 touchdown passes and just six interceptions – arguably the best statistical season for any passer in the U.S. college football’s 150-year history.
Burrow won the Heisman Trophy in December as college football’s top player, led the LSU Tigers to a 15-0 record and national championship – and is now considered a no-miss for pros, packed with top-shelf QB qualifications, both physical and mental.
“When the pressure was on him, when it was championship or bust, he was on – and that’s what cemented him as the overall No. 1 prospect,” Kiper said during the previous show.
Kiper called Burrow’s two-year turnaround “historic.”
Assuming the Bengals start Burrow from the start, trading their starter in the last 10 seasons, Andy Dalton, the young man will be bull-eyed for the league’s top pass rushers. One of them, Calais Campbell now of the Baltimore Ravens – a Bengal division rival in the AFC North – congratulated Burrow in a tweet, legend added: “Can’t wait for us to get to know him properly.”
The 6-foot-2½, 221-pound burrow was bred in Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio as a college coach’s son. His father, Jim Burrow, played in the CFL from 1977-81 with the Montreal Alouettes, Calgary Stampeders and Ottawa Rough Riders.
It is rather doubtful that his son will ever play in the CFL. But I’m done condemning the young man.
At No. 4, the New York Giants Georgia offensive tackle Andrew Thomas chose something of a surprise. Not that the Giants took a tackle; rather that they took IT tackle. Some draftniks, such as Daniel Jeremiah of the NFL Network, rated Thomas the No. 4 OT in this draft.
The No. 5 Miami Dolphins actually took on the second-best QB, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa – as many had predicted for months, and as most Dolphins fans deeply hoped.
Tagovailoa, who left the university a year early, was the mystery man for the entire infinite four-month advance process. Not because he stands only six feet flat (that’s quite short by prototype NFL QB standards), and certainly not because of his impressive overall skill set (since he has above-average accuracy and top-end decision-making, vision and instincts).
Rather, that’s because Tagovailoa released his hip last November, a serious injury that ended his Crimson Tide season and threatened to kill his football career. But the operation was successful and he is now fully working and throwing again.
He swore by the Scouting Combine that he would be ready to go by that time, regardless of which team pulling him begins his post-draft, on-field practice.
Tua Tagovailoa shows off the lining of his jacket during the NFL Draft after being selected fifth overall for the Miami Dolphins. NFL / Distribution Photo via USA TODAY Sports
Tagovailoa’s history of being vulnerable – he had surgery on both ankles in the 11 months before the wound to his hip and suffered finger and knee injuries in the months before that in 2018 – allegedly scared some teams who might otherwise have considered appointing him to the top 10, or act up there to hook him.
It was clear that the dolphins had no such noticeable concerns.
It could have charrined the Los Angeles Chargers, who had been trying unsuccessfully since January to convince everyone that they were content to enter the 2020 season with meh veteran Tyrod Taylor at QB.
At No. 6, the Chargers selected QB, who was most tied as the third best in the draft, by Justin Herbert of Oregon. He is athletic, strong-armed and accurate on rollout.
The knock on the 6-foot-6, 236-pound is that he holds the ball far too long before throwing, and that his substandard footwork all too often leads to out-of-the-blue awful throws. Chargers were not deterred.
Auburn defensive tackle Derrick Brown, the best interior D-lineman last year in college ball, was taken No. 7 overall by the Carolina Panthers. He helps when the Panthers re-enter a defense shaken by departures, primarily the retirement of a perennial Pro Bowl inside linebacker Luke Kuechly.
The Arizona Cardinals at No. 8 chose Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons, described as perhaps the NFL’s first no-player position. Apparently a linebacker, Simmons ran a 4.39-second 40-yard strike at the combine. He is so tough, athletic, physical and limp that in college he played inside linebacker, rush linebacker, slot corner, true cornerback and safety. Yup. Crazy.
The Jacksonville Jaguars selected University of Florida cornerback C.J. Henderson to No. 9. The Jags had a need after trading away from the league’s top corner in Jalen Ramsey last October and solid A.J. Bouye last month to Denver.
Around a surprisingly trade-free Top 10, the Cleveland Browns – to no surprise – chose a much-needed offensive tackle: Jedrick Wills Jr. from Alabama. Jeremiah of the NFL Network predicted Brown will hire Wills at left tackle, holding free agent purchases Jack Conklin at right tackle, playing for four years at Tennessee.
The offending tackle many selected as the draft’s best, Louisville’s Mekhi Becton, an unbelievably fast 364-pound, went to the New York Jets at No. 11.
The first member to step out of the board from what was named the NFL’s best and deepest wide receiver class ever was the fastest prospect in this year’s draft: Alabama’s Henry Ruggs III. He drove a 4.27 40.
In conducting the first trade of the draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers chose some protective help for newly signed QB Tom Brady with offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs, a junior from the University of Iowa.
San Francisco, which also sent a Round 7 (No. 245) to Tampa Bay, in return received the Bucs’ No. 14 choices as well as their choice of Round 4, 117th overall.
Niners GM John Lynch then took a defensive tackle, ostensibly to replace veteran D tackle DeForest Buckner he traded to Indianapolis last month to get the No. 13 pick, becoming No. 14: South Carolina’s Javon Kinlaw .
Kinlaw over the next four seasons in San Fran will earn only a little more than Buckner will do this year alone in Indy.
Denver’s No. 15 cracked the wide receiver, which many considered to be the best of a big game in Alabama’s second starter, Jerry Jeudy. He is not as fast as Ruggs but runs sharper routes and is considered by most to be more reliable.
The Atlanta Falcons at No. 16 took the night for third cornerback Clemson’s A.J. Terrell.
Dallas No. 17 took on big-play receiver CeeDee Lamb of Oklahoma. Former Cowboys great and NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin said Lamb was the No. 1 wideout on his former team’s draft board.
Wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, third from right, speaks on a phone after being selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft on April 23, 2020. (Photo by NFL via Getty Images)
Miami used the No. 18 pick it received in exchange for sending safety Minkah Fitzpatrick to Pittsburgh last September on the fifth offensive tackle of the night, USC’s Austin Jackson.
With the last of the draft Round 1 draft the Raiders received in return for trading with Khalil Mack for Chicago in September 2018, Las Vegas took on No. 19 Ohio State’s second starting cornerback in 2019, Damon Arnette. He had been considered a choice of round 2 or 3.
With the pick they received from the Rams in last fall’s Ramsey trade, the Jaguars took No. 20 LSU outside linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson.
Philadelphia took a receiver at No. 21: Jalen Reagor of TCU, a smurfy slot type.
With the choice they received last month from Buffalo in return for disgruntled but very talented science, Minnesota’s No. 22 seed Stefon Diggs chose LSU wideout Justin Jefferson, a fast-paced big-play slot.
In the second trade of the night, New England traded out of the first round at No. 23 for selection of the Chargers Round 2 (No. 37) and Round 3 (No. 71) on Friday. At No. 23, the Chargers took Oklahoma linebacker Kenneth Murray.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A top official of the Pakistan Cricket Board declined Friday to confirm media reports that India has decided against playing any games in host Pakistan during next year’s Champions Trophy.
“My view is if there’s any problems, they (India) should tell us in writing,” PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi told reporters in Lahore. “I’ll share that with the media as well as with the government as soon as I get such a letter.”
Indian media reported Friday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has communicated its concerns to all the Champions Trophy stakeholders, including the PCB, over the Feb. 19-March 9 tournament and would not play in arch-rival Pakistan.
The Times of India said that “Dubai is a strong candidate to host the fixtures involving the Men in Blue” for the 50-over tournament.
Such a solution would see Pakistan having to travel to a neutral venue to play India in a group match, with another potential meeting later in the tournament if both teams advanced from their group. The final is scheduled for March 9 in Pakistan with the specific venue not yet decided.
“Our stance is clear,” Naqvi said. “They need to give us in writing any objections they may have. Until now, no discussion of the hybrid model has happened, nor are we prepared to accept one.”
Political tensions have stopped bilateral cricket between the two nations since 2008 and they have competed in only multi-nation tournaments, including ICC World Cups.
“Cricket should be free of politics,” Naqvi said. “Any sport should not be entangled with politics. Our preparations for the Champions Trophy will continue unabated, and this will be a successful event.”
The PCB has already spent millions of dollars on the upgrade of stadiums in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi which are due to host 15 Champions Trophy games. Naqvi hoped all the three stadiums will be ready over the next two months.
“Almost every country wants the Champions Trophy to be played here (in Pakistan),” Naqvi said. “I don’t think anyone should make this a political matter, and I don’t expect they will. I expect the tournament will be held at the home of the official hosts.”
Eight countries – Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Afghanistan – are due to compete in the tournament, the schedule of which is yet to be announced by the International Cricket Council.
“Normally the ICC announces the schedule of any major tournament 100 days before the event, and I hope they will announce it very soon,” Naqvi said.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Ottawa‘s Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand are through to the doubles final at the WTA Finals after a 7-6 (7), 6-1 victory over Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the United States and Australia’s Ellen Perez in semifinal action Friday.
Dabrowski and Routliffe won a hard-fought first set against serve when Routliffe’s quick reaction at the net to defend a Perez shot gave the duo set point, causing Perez to throw down her racket in frustration.
The second seeds then cruised through the second set, winning match point on serve when Melichar-Martinez couldn’t handle Routliffe’s shot.
The showdown was a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which Melichar-Martinez and Perez won in a super tiebreak.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will face the winner of a match between Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, and Hao-Ching Chan and Veronika Kudermetova in the final on Saturday.
Dabrowski is aiming to become the first Canadian to win a WTA Finals title.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
Inter Milan winger Tajon Buchanan, recovered from a broken leg suffered in training at this summer’s Copa America, is back in Jesse Marsch’s Canada squad for the CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal against Suriname.
The 25-year-old from Brampton, Ont., underwent surgery July 3 to repair a fractured tibia in Texas.
Canada, ranked 35th in the world, plays No. 136 Suriname on Nov. 15 in Paramaribo. The second leg of the aggregate series is four days later at Toronto’s BMO Field.
There is also a return for veteran winger Junior Hoilett, who last played for Canada in June in a 4-0 loss to the Netherlands in Marsch’s debut at the Canadian helm. The 34-year-old from Brampton, now with Scotland’s Hibernian, has 15 goals in 63 senior appearances for Canada.
Midfielder Ismael Kone, recovered from an ankle injury sustained on club duty with France’s Marseille, also returns. He missed Canada’s last three matches since the fourth-place Copa America loss to Uruguay in July.
But Canada will be without centre back Derek Cornelius, who exited Marseille’s win Sunday over Nantes on a stretcher after suffering an apparent rib injury.
The Canadian men will prepare for Suriname next week at a camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
“We are looking forward to getting the group together again with the mindset that there is a trophy on the line,” Marsch said in a statement. “We want to end 2024 the right way with two excellent performances against a competitive Suriname squad and continue building on our tremendous growth this past summer.”
The quarterfinal winners advance to the Nations League Finals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., with the two semifinals scheduled for March 20 and the final and third-place playoff March 23, and qualify for the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup.
Thirteen of the 23 players on the Canadian roster are 25 or younger, with 19-year-old defender Jamie Knight-Lebel, currently playing for England’s Crewe Alexandra on loan from Bristol City, the youngest.
Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies captains the side with Stephen Eustaquio, Jonathan Osorio, Richie Laryea, Alistair Johnston and Kamal Miller adding veteran support.
Jonathan David, Cyle Larin and Theo Bair are joined in attack by Minnesota United’s Tani Oluwaseyi.
Niko Sigur, a 21-year-old midfielder with Croatia’s Hadjuk Split, continues in the squad after making his debut in the September friendly against Mexico.
Suriname made it to the Nations League quarterfinals by finishing second to Costa Rica in Group A of the Nations League, ahead of No. 104 Guatemala, No. 161 Guyana and unranked Martinique and Guadeloupe.
“A good team,” Osorio said of Suriname. “These games are always tricky and they’re not easy at all … Suriname is a (former) Dutch colony and they’ll have Dutch players playing at high levels.”
“They won’t be someone we overlook at all,” added the Toronto FC captain, who has 81 Canada caps to his credit.
Located on the northeast coast of South America between Guyana and French Guiana, Suriname was granted independence in 1975 by the Netherlands.
Canada has faced Suriname twice before, both in World Cup qualifying play, winning 4-0 in suburban Chicago in June 2021 and 2-1 in Mexico City in October 1977.
The Canadian men, along with Mexico, the United States and Panama, received a bye into the final eight of the CONCACAF Nations League.
Canada, No. 2 in the CONCACAF rankings, drew Suriname as the best-placed runner-up from League A play.
Canada lost to Jamaica in last year’s Nations League quarterfinal, ousted on the away-goals rule after the series ended in a 4-4 draw. The Canadians lost 2-0 to the U.S. in the final of the 2022-23 tournament and finished fifth in 2019-20.
Canada defeated Panama 2-1 last time out, in an Oct. 15 friendly in Toronto.
Goalkeepers Maxime Crepeau and Jonathan Sirois, defenders Joel Waterman, Laryea and Miller and Osorio took part in a pre-camp this week in Toronto for North America-based players.
Canada Roster
Goalkeepers: Maxime Crepeau, Portland Timbers (MLS); Jonathan Sirois, CF Montreal (MLS); Dayne St. Clair, Minnesota United FC (MLS).
Defenders: Moise Bombito, OGC Nice (France); Alphonso Davies, Bayern Munich (Germany); Richie Laryea, Toronto FC (MLS); Alistair Johnston, Celtic (Scotland); Jamie Knight-Lebel. Crewe Alexandra, on loan from Bristol City (England); Kamal Miller, Portland Timbers (MLS); Joel Waterman, CF Montreal (MLS).
Midfielders: Ali Ahmed. Vancouver Whitecaps (MLS); Tajon Buchanan, Inter Milan (Italy); Mathieu Choiniere, Grasshopper Zurich (Switzerland); Stephen Eustaquio, FC Porto (Portugal); Junior Hoilett, Hibernian FC (Scotland); Ismael Kone, Olympique Marseille (France); Jonathan Osorio, Toronto FC (MLS); Jacob Shaffelburg, Nashville SC (MLS); Niko Sigur, Hadjuk Split (Croatia).
Forwards: Theo Bair, AJ Auxerre (France); Jonathan David, LOSC Lille (France); Cyle Larin, RCD Mallorca (Spain); Tani Oluwaseyi, Minnesota United (MLS).
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
