THE PREMIER FOOTBALL
THINK TANK

After three decades of covering the NFL, Adam Schefter has risen to the ranks of perhaps the most informed and most relied upon source of information in the industry. ESPN’s Senior NFL Insider is constantly working the phones to break news. Even with the NFL draft just two weeks away, we were fortunate enough to have Schefter take our call. We caught up with him for this week’s Friday Five… Who is your biggest mentor? I’ve had various mentors throughout the course of my career. I go back to college and I think of Thomas George and Mitch Albom, who both worked at the Detroit Free Press at the time, and how much I looked up to and respected and admired their work. And then being out in Denver, Colorado, and watching the way all the reporters at both newspapers, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post, did their...

It’s all but guaranteed that the first three players taken in his year’s NFL draft will be quarterbacks. There may be a surprise in terms of exactly which ones, but the real intrigue on April 29 begins when the Atlanta Falcons are on the clock with the fourth overall pick. Will they make draft history and make it four QBs in the first four picks? Will they trade down? In order to form some sort of speculation into what the Falcons might do, it requires a quick glance into some of their recent moves with some of their biggest names. The state of the franchise right now begins and ends with Matt Ryan, who will be 36 before the start of the 2021 season. Since signing his first $30 million-plus annual contract in the NFL, Atlanta has restructured Ryan’s deal four times -- including three times since the end of...

Former NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz joined this week's 33rd Team Call to provide detailed scouting reports on three of the top offensive linemen available in the 2021 NFL Draft: Oregon's Penei Sewell, Northwestern's Rashawn Slater and USC's Alijah Vera-Tucker. Some of Schwartz's observations: On Sewell: "The explosiveness from Penei in the run game is unmatched at the tackle position." On Slater: "He's super-athletic... He is able to sustain blocks at a high level." On Vera-Tucker: "He is going to be an incredible guard in the NFL. ... He knows his awareness, he knows where he's supposed to be. He's very smooth." Watch the entire video breakdown: