A Rational Look at the 2023 Offseason

I haven’t really been active since our last game as I knew this sub would be a literal dumpster fire. A few days have gone by and we know a bit more than we did going into Sunday.

That said we still know VERY little how things are going to shake out. We know we have the 2nd pick and a list of Candidates we have requested to interview (1 of which we know doesn’t even want the job).

What I’m seeing is a ton of talk about how disadvantaged we are for having the 2nd pick.

Here are my thoughts:

2 things need to happen before we can truly speculate what we do with the 2nd pick.

First is hiring our new head coach. The coach we hire will undoubtedly have a partial say in who they desire we take with our first pick. If we end up with Gannon, he may really push for Jalen Carter after seeing the success Jordan Davis had with him.

Second (and what I think is most important in all of this) is: Knowing if CJ Stroud will enter the draft. He hasn’t declared and in the event he doesn’t I think it drastically changes things for us.

If Stroud declares we are guaranteed a week 1 ready QB with it being either him or Young. That’s not a bad situation to be in at all. Especially if our rival has to liquidate assets to acquire one as well.

If he doesn’t declare we have a real decision to make. Build out DL or be ready to compete when it comes to trading up.

The real intriguing thing about this is if CJ goes back to OSU all of a sudden nexts years QB class gets even more solid and defense first seems to be the safe bet.

TL/DR: Until we get a coach and we know if CJ declares or not we have no idea how detrimental sliding out of the first pick is. All these posts about how we “missed out on Young” lack any rational substance.