This is my yearly exercise in bold proclamations about the upcoming draft. Some of these have basis in legitimate info I’ve gathered. Some are me reading between some lines that may or may not exist. Some are wild figments of my imaginary vision of the draft. Without further ado… 

1. I’ll start at the top with an if/then forecast. If Luke Joeckel is the No. 1 overall pick, then Eric Fisher, Lane Johnson and DJ Fluker will all be drafted by the 10th pick. But if Fisher goes 1st, then the run on tackles gets pushed back and jumbled; Johnson will go before Joeckel and Fluker will last to at least the Chargers at 11.

2. Geno Smith will be drafted in the top-five, but he will not be an immediate starter in the fall. This will prompt many to label him a bust before the end of September.

3. Even though both Jonathan Cooper and Chance Warmack are considered elite, can’t-miss prospects at guard, three quarterbacks will be drafted before either of them come off the board. Cooper will be drafted before Warmack.

4. The Buccaneers will trade for Darrelle Revis, ultimately giving the Jets the 13th overall pick. The Jets will use the trade bounty on cornerback Xavier Rhodes, who will forever be judged against Revis. Tough shoes to fill, especially considering the Bucs would take Rhodes if the trade falls through.

5. The Oakland Raiders will find a taker for the No. 3 overall pick, and the team trading up will use the pick unexpectedly on Ezekiel Ansah. Oakland falls back and takes a defensive tackle in the first round and uses one of the bonus picks on a cornerback. Sharrif Floyd and Darius Slay are the stabs at the names.

6. The 33rd pick in the draft will either be Jacksonville taking Matt Barkley, or a team trading up and taking Eddie Lacy as the first running back selected. The Bengals are the prime candidate to do so, moving up from their pick acquired from Oakland in the Carson Palmer trade.

7. In a twist that stuns the ESPN and NFLN talking heads, UConn corner Blidi Wreh-Wilson will be a first round pick but Desmond Trufant from Washington will not.

8. San Francisco will only use two of their first five draft picks they have in the first three rounds. One of the picks will be Alabama DT Jesse Williams. The other will be Florida safety Matt Elam. One of the picks they trade away will be used to take USC wideout Robert Woods.

9. The position with the biggest 1st round surprise is wide receiver. Tavon Austin will be the first wideout and go in the top ten. The second wideout will be Clemson’s Nuke Hopkins, who goes to the Panthers at 14 or Saints at 15. After that, no other wideout comes off in the first round. The lack of definite separation and stratification of talent, paired with an incredibly deep class, leads to a case of “we can wait ‘til later” on wideouts. The run on them starts with Detroit at the 36 spot in the 2nd round, a round that will see eight wideouts taken.

10. The Cleveland Browns will select Dee Milliner, but it might not be with the 6th pick. They will have the opportunity to trade back with San Diego or Miami, who will be maneuvering to select an offensive tackle. Nobody between where Cleveland pick at six and where Miami picks at 12 will take Milliner, in part because of his underwhelming productivity in college; Milliner had just five INTs in 26 games the last two years.

11. Tyler Eifert will be the only tight end taken in the top 45, but Vance McDonald, Travis Kelce, Zach Ertz, and Gavin Escobar will all be gone by the 90th pick.

12. The Philadelphia Eagles will trade away either Trent Cole or Vinny Curry, misfits in their new defense, for a pick in the 50-70 range. They will use that pick on South Carolina DE Devin Taylor. They will regret both decisions before the 2014 draft.

13. LSU defensive end Sam Montgomery, once thought of as a potential top 10 pick, will be the most prominent player to go undrafted. Montgomery falls because of questions about his attitude and motivation. The Dallas Cowboys will sign him as a priority free agent and he will make the team.

14. The Minnesota Vikings will use both of their first round picks. They will use one of them on a defensive tackle, preferably Sylvester Williams. The other pick will either be Manti Te’o or a cornerback.

15. The two prominent players with pre-Combine health issues will have very different draft weekends. Utah DT Star Lotulelei got full medical clearance for his heart issue and will be taken in the top 15, perhaps the top-five. Georgia OLB also received clearance for his spinal stenosis condition, but the positive reports won’t help him get drafted in the first 40 picks.

16. As is their custom, the New England Patriots will trade their first round pick away, but this year they need the extra picks. Even though conventional wisdom says the Patriots address their WR needs early, they will draft a tight end or H-back before they draft a wideout.

17. The Chicago Bears will not draft an offensive player before the 5th round. The aging back end and wafer-thin front get all the early attention from GM Phil Emery. Two players to watch: UCLA DE Datone Jones to fill the Israel Idonije role, and Rutgers LB Steve Beauharnais, who fits the defense nicely.

18. Seven Georgia defenders will be taken in the 2nd-4th rounds. In order: Jarvis Jones, Alec Ogletree, Cornelius Washington, Sanders Commings, Johnathan Jenkins, Baccari Rambo, and Shawn Williams. Two other Bulldogs will go in the later rounds, Arby Jones and Kwame Geathers.

19. Because of the depth in the 16-50 overall range and the trade action that figures to factor in, no pundit will successfully predict more than 15 of the first round picks. If you’re one who likes to judge the accuracy mocks, this year the best measure is to see how many of the players in the first 100 picks are included. My personal goal is 83; last year I got 81.

20. Much to everyone’s viewing relief, the major networks will not spoil the pick announcements with shots of the player answering the phone before the pick is read. That won’t stop at least one person from ESPN, likely Adam Schefter, from tweeting out spoilers anyways. Just unfollow him for the weekend; thousands will.

21. Even though it has been their most glaring need for years, the Houston Texans will once again bypass taking a wide receiver in the first round. GM Rick Smith is hellbent on being the anti-Millen. They will draft Oklahoma QB Landry Jones before Friday ends.

22. Keenan Allen’s plummet down the draft boards thanks to a gimpy knee and a flagged drug test drops him out of the top 50 picks. Watch closely the reaction when he is taken; if a “respected” team like the Steelers or Packers take him they will be lauded for getting such value, but if it’s Carolina or the Bills they will get pilloried for taking such an unnecessary risk.

23. The first player that was not invited to the Combine who will be drafted is Princeton DE Mike Catapano, who will be drafted in the middle of the fourth round by the Miami Dolphins. He will quickly become a fan favorite.

24. Even though this is not a strong year for specialists, at least seven kickers and punters will be drafted. Florida kicker Caleb Sturgis and Arizona State punter Josh Hubner are the safest bets to actually stick.

25. One player widely seen as a top 100 pick who will go undrafted is Syracuse safety Shamarko Thomas, who has a Jahvid Best-like history of concussions and a playing style that puts him at chronic and imminent peril for turning his brains into scrambled eggs.

26. There will be four foreigners drafted within the first 40 picks. Ezekiel Ansah from Ghana, Menelik Watson from England, Bjoern Werner from Germany, and Margus Hunt from Estonia will be drafted early, and in that order. Interesting to note that Werner is the only one who will be under 24 years of age as a rookie.

27. Two teams will trade 2014 1st round picks to move up in, or crash back into, the first round this year. The San Diego Chargers will be one of them in a desperate effort to rebuild a truly awful offensive line.

28. Number of times you will hear commentators bemoan the lack of quality quarterbacks in this draft compared to Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin and Russell Wilson: 312, and that’s just for Thursday and Friday. We get it already! For what it’s worth, I have three QBs this year rated higher than I had Christian Ponder, Jake Locker, or Josh Freeman, all of whom were recent top 20 picks.

29. The three most recent college coaches to jump to the NFL will each draft two collegians they recruited and coached. Chip Kelly will tap former Oregon Ducks Kyle Long and John Boyett, while Greg Schiano will select Steve Beauharnais and Jawan Jamison from Rutgers. Doug Marrone reaches back to Syracuse to draft Ryan Nassib and Alec Lemon. And as a bonus, Jim Harbaugh will draft Stanford TE Levine Toilolo from his Cardinal background.

30. Despite all the speculation to the contrary, there will be a running back taken in the first round. Eddie Lacy from Alabama will come off the board in the 20s, though it won’t be to a team currently holding the slot in which he’s selected. However, no running backs will be selected in the second round, leading to a small glut near the top of the 3rd round.

31. Drama will erupt on the ESPN broadcast as Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay get increasingly fed up with one another. On Saturday this will produce a memorable confrontation that will ultimately lead to one of them no longer being employed by the four letter network. Kiper will ultimately be vindicated as the winner of the argument.

32. My pick for Mr. Irrelevant, the final pick of the draft, is Alabama A&M offensive lineman Jamal Johnson-Webb. He will stick on the Colts practice squad as a rookie.