Brownlow's Twitter Mailbag: The NFL Draft, the Big 4 as Succession siblings and more

By Lauren Brownlow, WRALSportsFan columnist

Each week, you all submit your Twitter questions to me so that we can fill all this off-season time by still talking about sports. And some non-sports, fun, diversionary questions thrown in for good measure. This week, we tackle the upcoming NFL Draft and who the Panthers might take further down the board, the best special teamers your team might draft to send you into a rage, Disney killing off parents and ACC coaches as punters. Plus, last but not least, the Big 4 teams (UNC, Duke, Wake, NC State) as the siblings from HBO's hit show Succession.

So let's get right into the questions!

I like this question! It doesn't stress me out. Well, the thought of them trading it away for something else does. But that's not what you asked. Assuming the Panthers take a quarterback with the No. 1 overall pick is all but academic at this point, so what are some other positions of need? After trading away D.J. Moore and with the cornerback they drafted instead of a quarterback a few years ago being hurt all the time, wide receiver and corner are two areas of need. So I'll concentrate on those.

For cornerback, I'd concentrate on Cam Smith from South Carolina or Julius Brents from Kansas State. Brents is definitely intriguing because of how well he tested athletically, but either one would make sense to me. Wide receiver is the direction I'd go though, particularly if USC (and former Pitt) wideout Jordan Addison is available. I found a mock where the Panthers took him at 39, which would make me quite happy. He's really the only one there I'd feel like the Panthers got great value for.

If the Panthers do love offensive linemen, which would sure be a franchise first, Wisconsin guard/center hybrid Joe Tippman wouldn't be the worst. I mean, come on. Wisconsin and offensive linemen go together like Wisconsin and cheese.

I mean, honestly, Pat Narduzzi strikes me as a great punter. That is absolutely a dude who has punted an inanimate object in anger before. Dabo Swinney, Jeff Hafley, Mike Norvell, Jeff Brohm, Dave Clawson? All could get a solid punt away as well, I think. But I think the answer is Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key. Dude is built like the best punter in Georgia Tech history Pressley Harvin, and a thick punter is the best kind of punter. Plus, Key just strikes me as a dude down to do anything he asks his players to do. But if you made all the coaches angry before the punting competition, I think Narduzzi sneaks out a win.

I love this question. It shows that you all know me. I mean, come on. I got MULTIPLE special teams questions in an NFL Draft-themed Mailbag. You people GET me down to my core.

So, the kick holder is often (not always!) the backup quarterback. So that's a little less exciting to me than the long snapper, which is a spot we've seen drafted rather than waiting to be filled in free agency. And every year, plenty of you roll your eyes at it. I get it. I used to be one of you. But that is one of the few pure specialty positions (besides kicker, obviously) that NFL teams will fill with a guy who does that one thing. Special teams are important, as we all know, and having a good snapper is HUGE.

The best long snapping prospect, and one you'll almost certainly see drafted, is UCF's Alex Ward. From bnbfootball.com:

Alex Ward has been on the NFL draft radar for a few years, and is in the best position to be drafted. The 6’4" 240 pound 6th year senior was the only long snapper invited to the NFL Combine this year, and had a good performance as one of two snappers at the Senior Bowl. He was one of three finalists for the Patrick Mannelly Award each of the last two seasons, given annually to the nation’s best long snapper. Through his four years as a long snapper he was credited with no botched snaps, while displaying ideal snap speed and consistent placement. Ward is fairly active in coverage and has plus-character.

Plus-character! I love that. So Alex Ward is your guy. And you know what? Since you asked, I think Kentucky quarterback Will Levis has a fruitful clipboard and football-holding career ahead of him.

I counted this up the best I could and found this list of when Disney killed off parents. The answer was honestly not what I expected because I thought the sneaky answer would be both parents, since Disney does do that a lot. And I was almost right: Disney has killed off (or had both parents presumed dead) eight times and killed off the mom NINE times. What about the dad, you might ask? Well, it's happened. Three times. I do think one of the three was gut-wrenching enough to count more than once (I mean, come on, Lion King!). There's speculation out there that Walt Disney did this at least initially because his own mother died unexpectedly.

But the real issue to me is that until recently, Disney didn't really deal with the deaths. I mean, we knew Ariel didn't have a mother, and that had to have impacted her choices. We couldn't get a song about how she misses her mom? The more contemporary stories deal with it better like in Frozen and Lilo and Stitch, but still. What about Jasmine's mom in Aladdin? Gone, but ... also forgotten, apparently. The three movies where only the father was killed off all featured the dad as a fleshed-out character and not so much in the ones where the mom died, but it's also kind of wild that Lion King was the first Disney movie to kill off only the dad.

Either way, could you knock this stuff off, Disney? I don't like crying in movie theaters.

I love this question so much. Full disclosure: I have not watched this season of Succession yet as I am woefully behind on all of my shows. I had a lot of Love Island: UK to catch up on, OK?

We all understand that Wake Forest is Conner. The eccentric and often-forgotten Roy sibling, Conner is far more capable than anyone knows and yet too easily forgotten and dismissed by those around him. And he's easy to like because of how different he is. Wake Forest is too!

A lot of the replies to this tweet focused on the likelihood of each Roy sibling to take over the company, and I don't view this exercise that way. I think it's more about their personalities because as the show has taught us, none of them are all that good of a fit and yet all of them are capable of it on some level. And for that reason, I had NC State pegged as the lone sister in the bunch. Shiv also has red hair! But really, Shiv feels like she'll never be taken seriously enough because of a factor outside her control (her gender), and I think State fans feel similarly. Both are also apt to self-sabotage when it seems their goals and dreams are in sight.

The Roy siblings all excel at self-sabotage, and that's why plenty felt that Roman was a better fit for NC State. While we all know better, Roman projects an air of being above it and often drives those around him crazy by how above it all he seems. That is Duke! We know Roman's really not above it all, and look at Duke basketball Twitter this year with the Virginia postgame tweet — they're not really above it all either, even if they've often seemed that way. And every time the haters want to take Duke down, the Blue Devils survive and thrive. Roman, same thing.

Kendall for UNC also feels like the right fit. The dream job is also the best Roy sibling on paper, the one who was supposed to get the job from the start. He was set up for success. UNC is set up for success as well. Both do succeed at times. And sometimes they embarrass you, like UNC going to the NIT and Kendall doing that horrifying rap. Oh and his whole addiciton thing. But that's not really analogous here.