Mr. Scot

Picture order is... 1. Darnold 2. McCaffrey 3. DJ Moore 4. Sam Hartman 5. Braxton Berrios 6. Rodney Smith 7. Brandon Zylstra

Another oddity: One of the guys pictured lining up as a receiver is Jets WR Braxton Berrios.

Apparently it's Sam Hartman, a quarterback from Wake Forest. Why he's there? Don't know, but Grier's dad used to coach him in high school.

My first thought, figured maybe Grant Udinski but looking at the staff pics I don't recognize him. Instagram comments don't shed any light either. And don't see any changes to the roster.

We start OTAs today. Likely related to that, I'd guess.

Because he's also not exactly the most durable guy on the team.

Not exactly a jersey, but...

I don't know how the story got out there, but it was definitely out there. Our friend Verge was one of the first to mention it here, with the source being another team's NFL scout. It quickly became obvious that teams across the league bought into the idea, as did analysts. Mocks done around that time pretty much reflected the line of thought. It wasn't until the last couple of weeks before the draft that rumors started floating around the pick might be Lance instead. But even then, most still seemed to think it was going to be Jones.

Don't think I agree here. Ron pretty much got the players he wanted with Marty as his GM. The big problem was that neither of them was a very good judge of player talent. Rivera and Gettleman were known to have argued a lot because, for whatever else you think of him, Gettleman was willing to tell Rivera when he was full of sh-t. And I see that as a big reason why Rivera's record with Gettleman as GM was head and shoulders above his record with Marty.

I do think the Super Bowl comparison highlights one of Rivera's biggest weaknesses. We all know he was not a great judge of player talent, but I think his inability to judge coaching talent was an equal and arguably even greater issue. Mike Shula is obviously Exhibit A for that argument. Richard Rodgers is probably Exhibit B.

2008 Cardinals game?

I don't put much on Rhule last year because it was his first season as an NFL coach and the guy who was supposed to help him with his transition to the pros was sh-t. I've also said before my expectations for this season are low because I see this as the first year of the rebuild rather than the second. Beyond this year though, we need to see improvement.

If we get anything out of our lower round picks, I'll be pretty happy.

That's not a circumstance. John Fox didn't believe in franchise quarterbacks.

Coach of the Year is a pretty useless honor. If you want to talk about Rivera the person, you'll find loads of people ready to say something nice about him. Rivera the coach? Not so much.

We didn't have better behind Teddy. We saw that pretty clearly when PJ Walker played against someone other than the worst defense in the league. And if we're being real, Jermaine Carter wasn't anything special either.

When you picked in the top three, it's a pretty safe bet that you actually did.

He also doesn't have any sort of "no trade" clause so he can't control where he gets traded.

This is the kind of hard hitting, in-depth news that's available at this point in the offseason.

More: Apparently Newton is working on his throwing motion... Quietly and with little fanfare, Cam Newton had been working with a throwing coach to rebuild some of his fundamentals this offseason. Some who shared a field with him this past week at voluntary Patriots workouts -- the first time players were on the field as the program shifted to its second phase -- noticed a difference. What does it mean in the big picture? The essence of the Patriots' offseason program is teaching-based, with the goal to give every player what they need so they can be in the best position to compete come training camp, so any pure evaluation is premature. But some teammates view Newton as getting off to a nice start last week. Quick hit notes from Mike Reiss

Which could mean that both Jones and Lance ended up in the best situations for them.

He's really a slow learner. The list entitled "things Ron Rivera learned too late" is a long one.

That probably makes as much sense as anything.

I think it's fairly safe to say that Rhule isn't necessarily looking to have everybody go out on their own terms.

To a point... If you're in the top two or three, chances are pretty good you really did get your guy.