[DC 86]

Why?  How do you know?

Obviously there is no way to KNOW, but I base my statement on the following:

I find it very hard to believe that McCaffrey and Fournette decided to bypass their bowl games without the active endorsement (or even encouragement) of the NFL. McCaffrey's father is a well connected former NFL player, Fournette is represented by Jay Z's Roc Nation which represents numerous high profile athletes (e.g. Durant, Cano, Gurley, Suh, Cespedes) so it seems unlikely that they decided to makes these decisions on their own, instead almost surely after consulting with NFL teams, which leads me to the conclusion that the NFL does not view their decisions negatively (perhaps positively) and thus won't negatively impact their draft evaluation.
On the other hand, there are numerous cases of skill position players falling after posting a poor 40 time or poor 20 shuttle time or measuring in much smaller than listed, so it seems far more likely that something along those lines would cause McCaffrey to fall if indeed he does fall. In any case, given his current second round projection I think the likelihood of someone (Patriots?) becoming enamored with him and choosing him in the first round is greater than the likelihood of him falling to the third round, but that's purely a guess on my part.

[DC 86]

Why?  How do you know?

Obviously there is no way to KNOW, but I base my statement on the following:

I find it very hard to believe that McCaffrey and Fournette decided to bypass their bowl games without the active endorsement (or even encouragement) of the NFL. McCaffrey's father is a well connected former NFL player, Fournette is represented by Jay Z's Roc Nation which represents numerous high profile athletes (e.g. Durant, Cano, Gurley, Suh, Cespedes) so it seems unlikely that they decided to makes these decisions on their own, instead almost surely after consulting with NFL teams, which leads me to the conclusion that the NFL does not view their decisions negatively (perhaps positively) and thus won't negatively impact their draft evaluation.
On the other hand, there are numerous cases of skill position players falling after posting a poor 40 time or poor 20 shuttle time or measuring in much smaller than listed, so it seems far more likely that something along those lines would cause McCaffrey to fall if indeed he does fall. In any case, given his current second round projection I think the likelihood of someone (Patriots?) becoming enamored with him and choosing him in the first round is greater than the likelihood of him falling to the third round, but that's purely a guess on my part.