A big draft trade, plus Skenes flirts with a perfecto

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Celebrate your irrelevance today. Inside: 🏈 Draft-day deal 👑 LeBron takes over ⚾ Skenes comes close-ish NFL: Another Eagles swindle on Day 2?The NFL Draft’s second and third rounds are finished. Grades are here, via Nick Baumgardner and Scott Dochterman. Some threads to follow:  QB6 became QB3. No quarterback went in the second round, but the Cardinals threw a curveball to open the third when they took Georgia-turned-Miami QB Carson Beck at No. 65. He was Dane Brugler’s sixth-ranked QB. The Steelers then used the 76th pick to add Penn State’s Drew Allar, who is poised to become a solid addition to lists of “all of the quarterbacks who have taken snaps for Pittsburgh since Ben Roethlisberger.” Could he be more than that? We’ll see. More on Beck here, and more on Allar here. Non-edge-rushing linebackers went on a run. Only one of those, Ohio State’s Sonny Styles to the Commanders at No. 7, went on Thursday. But the Dolphins, Bucs, Vikings, Colts and Titans all took run-stuffing or off-ball types in the second round. As a college football writer by day, I like new Colt CJ Allen (No. 53 overall out of Georgia). Allen “projects as an NFL starter who can make a Nick Bolton-like impact,” says Dane Brugler. The evening’s big trade: The Vikings sent EDGE Jonathan Greenard (plus a seventh-round pick) to the Eagles for the No. 98 pick and another third-rounder next year. The Vikings used last night’s extra pick on Miami safety Jakobe Thomas. Advertisement