Skull Session: Giants Pass on Dwayne Haskins, Urban Meyer Remembers 2014, and Tyreke Smith Calls His Shot

By Kevin Harrish on April 26, 2019 at 4:59 am
A lot of greatness poses for today's Skull Session.
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I'm ashamed to admit I watched the wrong broadcast of the draft last night, causing me to miss this beautiful piece of television history:

I want to know how Corso even went about acquiring that, and I am also extremely, extremely, extremely interested in what becomes of it now. As in, I am "I have my wallet out" interested in what becomes of it.

ICYMI

Word of the Day: Repudiate.

 “THE LEAGUE DONE MESSED UP.” I joked for months that the Giants were going to end up taking Daniel Jones instead of Dwayne Haskins, but I was never actually serious and even in my most outlandish jests I thought they'd take him at No. 17, not No. 6.

But here we are. They really did it.

There's so much to take in: the immediate surrender cobras, the lady in the background uttering a long and desperate "ohhhhhhhhh shitttttttt," and the kid with the painted face urgently asking his dad "what? what? what? what?" with his father just staring into space.

Dave Gettleman used their No. 6 overall pick on Great Value Eli Manning.

With a top-10 pick, they got a guy with a historically bad outlook who nobody else was going to draft in the first round, passing on a quarterback who completed 70 percent of his passes and threw for 50 touchdowns last season who for some reason wanted to play for them, all because he thought he played well for three series in a postseason exhibition game.

Oh, and that quarterback they passed on? Now they have to play him twice a season.

"To be honest, I'm more motivated than ever," Haskins said in an ESPN interview after his selection. "There's a bigger chip on my shoulder. The league done messed up."

Honestly, this is a blessing in disguise for Haskins. The Giants organization is an absolute dumpster fire that somehow keeps getting hotter. It's not like the Redskins are Super Bowl contenders or anything, but it's a solid landing spot that's right down the road.

And it's Ryan Day approved:

 PEAK REALISM! Bold move by EA Sports to introduce the College Football Playoff into one of their game modes without 2/3rds of the teams who've ever won the College Football Playoff.

I am absolutely shocked Ohio State – which took almost a decade to allow Build-A-Bear to sell licensed Buckeye teddy bear clothes – wouldn't be clamoring to hand EA Sports its trademarks to use in a video game.

I understand the need to protect the #brand, but God forbid you do something fun and good with it that the masses will enjoy.

 “THE UNTHINKABLE.” Urban Meyer's never going to get tired of talking about that 2014 National Championship, and as someone who won't stop wearing my intramural flag football championship shirt from three years ago, I completely understand.

From Jon Spencer of the Mansfield News Journal:

"We did the unthinkable," Meyer said. "We solved the mystery. Our players became the most unselfish, selfless group I've ever been around ... mostly that big quarterback, Cardale Jones."

Described by Meyer as "kind of a selfish guy, just a non-contributor," Jones made his first start in the 59-0 trouncing of Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game and then steered the Buckeyes past Alabama and Oregon in the CFP to give Ohio State its first national title since 2002 and Meyer another national championship ring to go with the two he earned at Florida.

"His transformation, I had never seen anything like it," Meyer said of Jones. "I remember the next morning (after beating Oregon in the title game), seeing Cardale sitting with a group of players. I sat down with him. I stared right at him. 'Man, what happened?'"

At this point Meyer's voice cracked as he choked back tears at the podium.

"He said 'Coach, I solved the mystery,'" Meyer said, continuing the story. "I put the team in front of self.' How cool is that?"

...

"I spent 17 years of my life waking up every morning thinking about how to put together the best team in America," Meyer said. "How do you teach people to do the unthinkable, because that's really what leadership is.

"I'm not talking about teaching Dwayne Haskins to throw a touchdown. That's fun. Parris Campbell scoring touchdowns, Curtis Samuel .... Joey Bosa getting a sack, Chase Young getting a sack, those are fun things. How do you get them to do the unthinkable because that's how you really win."

It's been almost five years since that season and the rational parts of my brain still haven't accepted it all as possible, even though my eyes watched it happen.

Before the Wisconsin game, Cardale Jones was a "pocket passer" with four times as many rushing attempts as completions who best known for a bad Tweet. And on the other side of the ball, the defense had just given up five yards a carry to some dude named Drake Johnson and 233 passing yards to a glorified wide receiver at quarterback.

Then all of the sudden, Cardale Jones was smart bombing the top defenses in the country and and the defense was shutting down Heisman candidate after Heisman candidate and the Heisman winner.

If you could bottle whatever that team had and sell it, you'd never have to work another day in your life. Granted, finances are not really a struggle for Urban Meyer right now anyway so he'd probably be cool just hanging onto the bottle for a bit.

 CALLING HIS SHOT. Chase Young's status as Ohio State's next first-round pick on the defensive line is pretty much locked up, but the role as top pass rusher after him is up for snags, and Tyreke Smith is laying claim.

I buy it. Then Zach Harrison can have next. It's a nice little assembly line.

 NICK (WARD) QUITS ON HIS TEAM! Nick Ward made an extremely selfish, me-first move this week by entering the NBA Draft and completely abandoning his team, all in the name of millions of dollars.

He should be ashamed of himself. Even if he was unable to help, he should have honored his commitment to the group project and provided moral support and leadership. Fake Spartan, imo.

 FOOTBALL RUINS EVERYTHING. Folks, this is what it looks like to be extremely pissed at everyone else for your own lack of awareness and poor planning.

I swear I've seen both of them before, and weirdly enough, they had that exact same expression as they asked to see the manager at TGI Friday's.

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