Cane UDFA signings

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You can’t expect teams will draft punters bc there’s no reason to. The vets hang around the league a long time and they’re a fresh batch every year so easy UDFA picking. The guys who do go are usually elite or have a special trait. For instance, the first guy taken (Baringer) was mid 6th round and he was #1 in punt average in all of college at 49.0 pee punt. Hedley was #14 at 45.3 per punt. The next guy taken in the 6th round from Michigan (Robbins) has really good hang time and a crazy knack for not kicking into the end zone for touchbacks. So that specialty of pinning teams deep and hang time to prevent returns was valuable enough to get him drafted. The 3rd guy is from Wingate so I have no idea about him.

Many expected Turk to be drafted. He was 3rd in punt average, but he went undrafted.

Kickers I think stand a better chance, especially now with the extra point being moved back. Even so, only 3 were drafted, although R3, R4 and R6 bc of higher value than punters.
 
How Kiper keeps his job amazes me. He is wrong more than the local weatherman
My favorite moment of the draft was near the end of day 1 where kiper have a big monologue explaining that it wasn’t him that was wrong about will levis, but it’s really the front office guys whose livelihood depends on making these picks that were wrong
 
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My favorite moment of the draft was near the end of day 1 where kiper have a big monologue explaining that it wasn’t him that was wrong about will levis, but it’s really the front office guys whose livelihood depends on making these picks that were wrong
I'm not defending Mel or any of the talking heads of the draft...but those guys do not come up with any of their own takes. They just aggregate what they hear from their connections in the league and post them as their own takes (why else does every talking head have roughly the same draft board) and then when they end up with egg on their face they go into the spin cycle and often sound even worse because they can't just come out and say "I was told by (insert name of a guy on the Colts) they were definitely taking this guy."

Will Levis was invited to the draft...he accepted that invite...and was told he was assured a Top 10 pick (partly this has to be his agent, but the agent was hearing this from teams as well). Levis wasn't the only one. Brian Branch and Keion White were also invited to the Green Room, accepted, under the guise that they were assuredly R1 players. All three guys invited by the league, told they were first rounders, every mock by every talking head that got their information from the league had these guys as R1 players for months.

That is because the teams around the league lie...a lot...most of the time unnecessarily so. As a result, several people have egg on their face, including the players that are about to play in their league.

The draft talking heads should come up with their own opinions, too, but thats a different story.

Shouts to Brian Branch tho, who seemingly took it in stride, showed up on Day 2, went on that stage and smiled. Wish the Jaguars got the guy, because I like that he stuck it out and lived in the moment. He'll remember that Thursday Night into Friday and how he felt for the rest of his life and I hope he balls out as a result.
 
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