That sound you heard late last night was the re-shuffling of draft boards across the NFL.
Missouri's star pass-rusher Shane Ray has potentially cost himself multiple draft slots, not to mention a large sum of money, by being cited for marijuana possession early Monday morning after he was stopped for a traffic violation near Columbia, Mo.
The fact that Ray got caught with pot may not be what torpedoes his draft stock. There are plenty of players like him with an affinity for the stuff. But the fact that he got caught just three days before the draft could be what has front office people ripping their hair out.
If an NFL owner is going to invest first-round money on a player, it's safe to say the team would probably like for that player to make better decisions than the one Ray did on Monday morning.
Ray also reportedly failed a drug test earlier in his collegiate career, something NFL Media's Albert Breer tweeted on Monday night could come back to "haunt him" now.
According to TheMMQB's Peter King, three club officials said the news of Ray's citation will almost certainly knock him down draft boards. One personnel staffer told King that Ray would slip into the second round, another said Ray could fall into the early portion of the second. A third said Ray -- who at one point was considered a potential top-10 talent -- would remain a first-rounder, but that now he'll go late on Thursday night.
King's mock draft, which leads with the news on Ray, has Ray going to the Patriots at pick No. 32.
New England Patriots
Here is King's explanation of the pick, which he makes after selecting Nebraska's Randy Gregory for the Saints at No. 31, calling it a "wild guess." (Gregory is another first-round pass-rusher who has been in the news for a marijuana-related incident recently; he failed a drug test at the NFL Scouting Combine in February.)
Wilder guess. The Patriots have long steered clear of draft-day controversy since the Christian Peter fiasco 19 years ago. (The Nebraska defensive tackle was drafted in the fifth round by the Patriots and summarily cut days later when his history of domestic abuse was discovered.) But there’s no evidence of anything but marijuana experiences in Ray’s past, which may make owner Robert Kraft a little more forgiving—particularly when he hears that a healthy Ray would have been a sure top-10 talent in this draft. The Pats could stop Ray’s decline from being a precipitous fall.
The Patriots could certainly benefit from adding another pass-rusher in this year's draft. Though they have Rob Ninkovich, Chandler Jones and Jabaal Sheard on the roster another edge player would give the team valuable depth at a vital position. Especially given the changing nature of the Patriots secondary, pass-rush help likely won't be shooed off without a second look.
Ray is part of a class that is loaded with talented sack artists, including Dante Fowler of Florida, Bud Dupree of Kentucky, Vic Beasley of Clemson and Gregory. Though he may have been selected near the bottom of that group before Monday's news broke -- he is recovering from a foot injury that could scare teams off -- it seems as though Ray's slide could last a little longer now.
The 6-foot-3, 245 pounder was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year last season as a junior. He finished the season with 14.5 sacks and 22.5 tackles for a loss.
On Monday night, Ray issued an apology via EAG Sports Management.