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Editor’s note: This article was originally published by USA TODAY Sports and has been republished in its entirety below.
The NFL’s 2021 pre-draft buildup will suffer from an obvious void: the league opting not to hold the annual scouting combine lest it become a COVID-19 super spreader.
However, this year’s hot stove season is off to a tremendous start, with three big-name quarterbacks already packaged in soon-to-be consummated trades that will become official next month.
So why not toss more dry kindling into that scalding stove and – devoid of star college prospects tearing up Indianapolis’ Spandex Olympics and forcing mock draft revisions – propose a trade of our own as a way to shake up our newest first-round projection?
Let’s do what the NFL world is breathlessly anticipating and orchestrate a deal for disenfranchised Houston Texans superstar Deshaun Watson. We’ll send him to the New York Jets, thus giving the Texans two first-rounders this year (including No. 2 overall) as part of the compensation – and maybe creating the first mention you’ve seen of Houston in a 2021 mock draft – while arming them with the ability to pick anybody they want … save that cat from Clemson.
With that, the Houston Texans are on the clock … as soon as the Jags make one of the least-suspenseful picks in draft history official: