NFL Network Analyst Curtis Conway will be the first to tell you that he’s not a big mock draft guy. He made one and just one this year. He makes them for the NFL.com website for fun, not for the achievement of being the most accurate.
However, he totally nailed the Chicago Bears selection of Georgia Linebacker Leonard Floyd the day before the draft.
We had an exclusive with the former Chicago Bears Wide receiver at the NFL Network’s NFL Draft Media Luncheon yesterday. Curtis Conway, along with Erik Kramer and Jeff Graham, helped usher the Chicago Bears franchise into the modern era of the National Football League. Those Bears teams were the first to bring the Monsters of the Midway into the Brave New World we now know that is the ridiculously pass happy NFL.
The audio of our conversation is below, as Curtis Conway explains his Chicago Bears mock pick rationale as well as his top five, Bears talk begins around the 3:00 mark:
https://soundcloud.com/p-m-banks/curtis-conway-exclusive-nfl-network-nfl-draft-media-day
“Foxy being a defensive guy, they need help on the defensive side of the ball. They need defensive tackles and outside rushers,” Conway said in his explanation of why the Bears would take Floyd.
“My theory is you can never have too many of those guys in the front four, or front seven because I believe that’s where you win games, in the offensive line or defensive line. In the media, because the quarterback sells, we have a tendency to put the quarterback on the pedestal.
“When you go back to the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the ’70s, with that dynasty, no one talks about Mean Joe Greene and the Steel Curtain, they talk about Terry Bradshaw. When you go to the ’80s, it’s always Joe Montana but no one talks about that secondary, with Keena Turner and Ronnie Lott.”
“You can go on and on in the ’90s with Troy Aikman, no one talks about Dallas’ defense and then the Patriots.”
“The Bears won a Super Bowl on defense. the Denver Broncos won the the Super bowl with defense, that being said I don’t think you can never have enough defensive front guys,” Curtis Conway concluded.
Getting back to what we said earlier about Conway’s views on mock drafts.
“I’m not big on mock drafts because for me, when I look at and evaluate talent, I don’t rank them or put them on a team based on what I’m hearing, I kind of put them there based on how they would fit.”
“I’m not trying to be right I’m just trying to tell you what I think as a player,” he said.
So there you have it, Conway correctly forecasted his former team’s pick based on his opinions and thoughts, not some inside information. As for what Leonard Floyd brings to the table, it’s anybody’s guess. Opinions of him are all over the board. After the Bears selected him, Conway’s NFLN colleague spewed a ridiculous amount of indecipherable word salad that turned my mind to mush.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/725856717205049344
It’s what Mayock actually said, and it’s just way too many buzzwords and cliches concentrated in a small space to NOT give you a painful ice cream headache. Floyd’s actual position itself, an edge rusher, is a position that didn’t exist a few years ago, so it’s kind of a buzzword in and of itself. It will be interesting to see what kind of substance he gives the team, beyond all the shoptalk jargon used to describe him.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram