John Middlecoff

But yeah, I mean, I haven't heard that many negative things, to be honest, and I talk to my buddies about it all the time.

Which is crazy.

I mean, it's honestly a testament to this generation.

Because I'll promise you this, people my age, late 30s, early 40s, would have handled it incredibly poorly.

It would have gone south fast.

We talk about this a lot.

A couple buddies I play golf with in Arizona.

I can't even imagine what it would be like

Being 19 and playing football and having someone pay you $100,000.

Let alone being one of these guys making seven figures.

Because what would you even do with the money?

A lot of these guys are in small towns.

I don't even know.

What would you do?

Pretty incredible that Mario Cristobal has a high-priced team and keeps those guys focused down there.

This year's draft seemed very shallow, especially in the last couple rounds.

I typically know at least the name of a couple late-round picks, but not this year.

The consensus seems to be that this is a short-term trend that will even out as we get further in the NIL era.

I disagree.

What tends to excite me about many late-round picks is the mystery bag of upside for players that have little experience, played at a small school, or that could really develop with a year or two in an NFL program.