So many questions for Mike Mayock.
The NFL Network draft guru held court Thursday on a 97-minute conference call with reporters from Miami to San Francisco and points in between.
Queries ranged from the obscure ("Mike, what's the ceiling for Presbyterian safety Justin Bethel?"), to more hard-hitting topics, namely Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III.
Mayock was asked which of the two would encounter more success out of the gate. His response surprised a few listeners.
"On the surface, RG3 has a better chance to succeed from Day 1 because (the Washington Redskins) signed high-level wide receivers," Mayock said, before rolling to the next topic.
Here's what else we learned:
• Pinpointing a quarterback in the later rounds comes with risk. Mayock dropped this stat: Of the last 23 quarterbacks taken in first round, 15 currently are starters. Among the 82 drafted from the second to seventh rounds? A grand total of seven became starters.
• Lots of chatter lately about quarterbacks Brock Osweiler of Arizona State and Kirk Cousins of Michigan State. Buzz-kill time: Mayock sees them falling to the third round.
• With Luck and RG3 essentially off the board, the spotlight falls to the Minnesota Vikings at No. 3: "I believe (USC offensive tackle Matt) Kalil is the choice, and if it's not, it's (LSU cornerback) Morris Claiborne," said Mayock, who added he doesn't see the Vikings taking Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon.
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• There are four first-round wide receivers in this draft, according to Mayock: Blackmon, Michael Floyd, Kendall Wright and Stephen Hill. "Hill's a little bit of a wild card," Mayock said. "... He's really raw, he's a developmental project, but boy is he gifted and athletic."
• The three first-round cornerbacks will be Claiborne, South Carolina's Stephon Gilmore and Alabama's Dre Kirkpatrick, according to Mayock. Janoris Jenkins falls to the next wave because of his well-documented off-the-field issues, as chronicled by NFL Network's Albert Breer earlier this month. Said Mayock: "The Jenkins kid is scaring a lot of people off."
• Mayock isn't as high on North Carolina linebacker Zach Brown: "Anytime anybody gets on him, his feet stop. He's a run-and-chase linebacker who's going to get enveloped."
