Ten Thoughts on the NFL

1) Next week the NFL owner’s meetings will take place, and the Competition Committee will recommend that the league hires full time officials in time for the 2017 season.

I know a lot of fans have been clamoring for this for years, so hopefully this will stop some of the complaining when calls are blown.

(Insert eye roll GIF here)

As long as calls hurt our favorite team, it won’t matter if it’s a pee wee league referee making the call, or a “pro,” we’re still gonna gripe about it.

But with that being said, I’d like to see the NFL go with full timers.

2) Another interesting rule change that will be on the table, is changing the length of overtime in the regular season and preseason, from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. This one, I’m all in on.

3) The New York Giants signed Geno Smith to a one year, $2 million contract and the New York Jets signed Josh McCown to a 1 year, $6 million, fully guaranteed deal.

Meanwhile...

Other, higher profile, better quarterbacks are still waiting for a team to call.

4) The Oakland Raiders signed quarterback E.J. Manual to a one year deal, but look at this tweet in regards to Manual’s and Smith’s draft class.

Only one of those players is set to open up as a starting QB in 2017, and that guy was the third QB picked that draft.

5) Speaking of quarterbacks, the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, now have exclusive negotiating rights with Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III and Johnny Manziel. Even though none of the three has expressed a serious desire to play in Canada, the option is there.

All this talk of QBs, has me wondering how Tim Tebow is doing...

5a) Through seven games, the wanna-be New York Met is batting .200. The Mets plan to assign him to the Class A Columbia Fireflies.

Yay! Tebowmania is running mild...

6) Our sister site that covers the Philadelphia Eagles, Bleeding Green Nation, just put out The 2017 NFL Draft All-Hype Team. It gives some good perspective on a lot of the most buzzed about prospects.

7) When Marshawn Lynch retired, he did so with this tweet.

With the recent rumors of he and the Oakland Raiders having mutual interest, Raiders’ punter Marquette King retrieved his cleats for him.

The Seattle Seahawks still hold his rights, so a move to the Silver and Black would probably require a trade of some sort.

8) If law enforcement can come together to solve the crime of the century (Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl LI jersey), I wonder what other long forgotten NFL cold cases can be solved?

9) NFL.com Draft Analyst, Chad Reuter, recently speculated that a quarterback the Chicago Bears are very familiar with, Pittsburgh’s Nathan Peterman, may sneak into the 2nd round because of how safe of a prospect he is.

Will Peterman be an above-average NFL starter? It's tough to say. But he's a unique quarterback in this draft class due to his combination of sufficient arm strength, solid character grades, and experience in a pro-style system. No one should be surprised by his talent, as Peterman was a four-star recruit when he signed at Tennessee, where he began his career before transferring to Pitt. Don't be shocked if a team trades up in the second round to select him.

Most draft pundits have had Peterman around the 4th round, so I wonder if his team meetings are impressing enough to boost him up the boards.

10) Last week the Bears were on hand at Clemson’s Pro Day, keeping a close eye on quarterback Deshaun Watson. Today, they were down at North Carolina's Pro Day, watching QB Mitchell Trubisky work out. If the Bears had interest in either of these QBs, they'd probably need to pull the trigger in the first round.

A recent article on NFL.com (2017 NFL Draft: Who will take a QB in the first round?) fails to mention the Bears as a potential team to snag a quarterback in the first.

Will the Bears really pass on taking a QB third overall? Will they pass on trading back into the first round to ensure a 5th year option on a QB? Will they settle on a prospect like Peterman this draft class?

I have no idea what Ryan Pace will do, but I made my best guess in the SB Nation writer mock draft.