ESPN's draft simulator was updated today following the latest mock drafts!

And it of course also reflects the Giants having pick No. 10!

espnanalytics.com/draft-sim/

I'm curious the details with guarantees on Dexter Lawrence's extension. Because simply adding a third year at $28 million, if it didn't any guarantees, would be a straight up worse contract (for him) than the one he was on. So I have to assume something else changed.

New ESPN draft simulator feature: how often users select each player at each pick!

Can see here that Jets users select Makai Lemon at 16 more than anyone else, and far more often than the draft day predictor forecasts.

www.espnanalytics.com/draft-sim-re...

2026 NFL free agency grades: Dexter Lawrence, Kirk Cousins We're handing out report cards on big moves, including the Giants trading Dexter Lawrence to the Bengals.

My grades and analysis on the Dexter Lawrence deal.

One team came out way, way ahead here!

www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...

In other words: that's not just a cap inflation price. That's a legit huge number.

Highest non-QB APY contracts since 2015 if we adjust for cap inflation to put everything in 2026 dollars, per OverTheCap.com.

Micah Parsons (2025) $50.2M
Will Anderson Jr. (2026) $50M
Aidan Hutchinson (2025) $48.5M
T.J. Watt (2021) $46.2M
Aaron Donald (2022) $45.8M

ESPN's draft simulator and draft day predictor have been updated to reflect the latest mock drafts, including Mel Kiper Jr.'s 2-round mock today, and updated Scouts Inc. rankings!

espnanalytics.com/draft-sim/

espnanalytics.com/draft-predic...

Pelton is a legend. This is great.

Board game folks: my friend Akshay made a game!

It's a simple, elegant strategy game. I have played it. It's fun! And it has five days left on kickstarter!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/akd...

If you'd asked me prior to free agency, which player do you think the model is off on I'd have said: Rasheed Walker.

But I would have meant that the model was too light on him!

Turns out: way, way, way too strong.

Update on calibration of my free agency contract projection model. Feel pretty good about this!

Dug this as a means of, essentially, calibration of free agency signings

hahaha thank you

whoops!

I gave out some variety of A to 10 free agent signings and six trades (for one team).

These are those 16 transactions: www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...

A friend of mine recently created a free season-long fantasy baseball tool. Granted, I'm biased -- but I think it's pretty great!

rotohound.com

It let's you import your league and has a draft assistant, trade analyzer and projected standings for your league.

oh hadn't seen that, thank you.

If Fields isn't also taking on a pay cut seems like a lot for KC to pay him! But perhaps he is.

Curious to see the deal with the Fields contract in this trade.

My guess here would be Jets take on all the money they had guaranteed him and Fields takes a pay cut down from the remaining $10M.

I had assumed Crosby would *not* be getting a new contract in a trade.

That was one of the mitigating factors for Baltimore (I thought): they were losing a lot of surplus value in the draft picks but at ~$30M per year Crosby was going to be below market for them.

This is pretty wild!

Would have turned an already-bad trade for the Ravens -- regardless of what they found in the physical -- into a terrible one!

Baltimore is very fortunate to have dodged this.

Model was way off on Malik Willis but I can live with that -- probably one of the hardest situations to predict.

Only missed by a couple million on Linderbaum, which I feel great about considering historic nature of his contract!

And another shoutout for @overthecap.bsky.social making the data accessible via nflreadr!

Initial results comparing my FA contract model's predictions to actual results for contracts OTC has so far. Model is based primarily on media rankings.

Very happy with these results!

A testament to @greggrosenthal.bsky.social, @profootballfocus.bsky.social, Matt Bowen and Daniel Popper, too!

We're up to 50 transactions in my free agency and trade grades story here. Including Daniel Jones and Trey Hendrickson contracts from earlier today!

www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...

"it'll be too obvious if we announce it the same night let's wait until 9 a.m. ET tomorrow"

hypothetically

lol

ok!

Ravens: A
Raiders: C

should I grade the ravens not trading two firsts for maxx crosby now

would be hilarious if the cowboys call up the packers right now and tell 'em actually we don't want rashan gary anymore

we were waiting on the actual trade details but have them now. I'm writing it as we speak!