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Trade down? Which QB? Saquon Barkley? NFL Draft rumor mill already cranked up

There is still a long way to go, and nothing has yet been decided

NFL: New York Giants-GM Dave Gettleman Press Conference Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

NFL Draft rumors. Everybody loves a good one. Sometimes, those “rumors” aren’t even rumors at all. Rather, they are just speculation from a draft analyst, reporter or blogger taken as reporting by information-starved fans who spread it across Twitter with the hungry belief that “something big involving my team is about to go down.”

With the New York Giants owning the No. 2 pick and the Internet telling us that just about every quarterback-needy team in the league would like to sweet talk GM Dave Gettleman into giving it to them, the rumor mill is already on blast. More than three months before the draft, and before anything is really likely to happen.

Well, far be it for me to tell you not to get yourself all worked up into a tizzy every time somebody says something MIGHT happen in the draft more than three months from now. I’m going to let Greg Gabriel, a 30-year veteran of scouting including working for the Giants and spending nine years as scouting director for the Chicago Bears, and now a writer for Pro Football Weekly and other publications, tell you.

Gabriel went off on a weekend tweet-storm about draft rumors, including the one about the Buffalo Bills wanting to get the No. 2 pick away from the Giants. Clip it, save it, do whatever you need to do so you can reference it over the next couple of months every time you read the latest rumor about who offered what to the Giants for the No. 2 pick, or someone saying they “know” exactly what the Giants are going to do with the second overall pick.

Just keep all of that in mind as the draft process unfolds. Some small portion of what you hear might actually turn out to be true. Maybe the Giants and Bills actually will pull off a draft day whopper. Right now, nobody knows. Most of what you hear is just dart-throwing by analysts/bloggers/reporters hoping to be able to look back and tell you “see, I was right,” or info floated by teams aiming to hide their true intentions.

Speculate all you want. Turn over scenarios, figure out trade partners and calculate potential deals. I do it. That is a big part of the fun of the buildup to the draft. Just don’t convince yourself that you know what’s going to happen.

We still have to get through the combine, free agency, Pro Days, official visits and private workouts. Right now, not even the decision-makers know what is going to happen.