Audacity Sports

It’s overreaction season, with scouts nitpicking the incoming rookie class into oblivion, searching high and low for any flaw that could possibly be perceived as a red flag. The dissection of draft hopefuls can be dehumanizing at times, with NFL decision-makers quick to make mountains out of molehills, judging players down to the millimeter (for instance, Kenny Pickett’s hand size fueled an entire news cycle last month). You can understand wanting to dot every I and cross every T because, at the end of the day, teams are businesses and players are their investments. Draft busts are a dime a dozen with horror stories galore (Johnny Manziel, Ryan Leaf and JaMarcus Russell, to name a few). But the level of pearl-clutching surrounding Oregon standout Kayvon Thibodeaux, once touted as the likely top pick in this year’s draft, is astounding, even by melodramatic NFL standards.