I added in projected compensatory picks from OTC and the compensatory picks from the new minority candidate development rule. Not sure how those are supposed to be structured in, so I simply used the OTC ones first in the order, but took off the last 3 estimated compensatory picks to ensure it remained at a simple 32 compensatory picks added. So apologies to the Cowboys, Bears, and Steelers. You might have been robbed of a pick but I don't know the specifics of how all those will be factored in. If someone knows the actual way those will set-up, that'd be useful information. Going to provide commentary on rounds 1-3 then maybe the occasional commentary after that if I really like a fit.
Also, there's a chance that I missed someone announcing they were returning to school or not. Just let me know if so.

Pre-Draft Trades

Using the terms suggested from a SB Nation article, so yell at them if you hate it: CAR sends: QB Teddy Bridgewater, 2021, 2022, 2023 first-round picks, 2021, 2022 second-round picks HOU sends: QB Deshaun Watson
The Panthers have drafted relatively well the last 2-3 years, as they have several younger pieces they can continue building around. Thus, a major package to land QB Deshaun Watson should be something they explore. For Houston, a king's ransom for a disgruntled star who really wants out.
An NFC championship contender adds a big piece to their offense: GB sends: 2021 second-round pick, 2022 fifth-round pick DAL sends: WR Michael Gallup, 2021 seventh-round pick
The Packers add some extra firepower on offense by adding Gallup. With Rodgers window coming to a close, the Packers take a chance that an established veteran like Gallup will do more for them than a very late second-round pick. Dallas has Amari Cooper and now CeeDee Lamb at WR, making Gallup expendable if they get a good offer for him.
An NFC playoff team makes a splash at the quarterback position: WAS sends: 2021 fourth-round pick, 2022 seventh-round pick JAC sends: QB Gardner Minshew
While the Redskins did not land Stafford, they could still find a solid upgrade at the QB position by bringing in Gardner Minshew. I love how he fits in Scott Turner's offense, and think this would be a decent enough price to pay to give them some stability at the position.

First Round

(1) Jacksonville Jaguars - QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson - I'd imagine even though it's the only pick that never changes, Jaguars fans aren't bored of seeing this. Lawrence is a special player and their best bet at turning things around in a hurry.
(2) New York Jets - QB Zach Wilson, BYU - There still could be a small chance that the Jets stick with Sam Darnold, but we're going to go ahead and give Darnold a fresh-start somewhere else (trade to be revealed later). I have Fields a smidge higher than Zach Wilson, but could easily see him being the selection here. I think Wilson's a better fit, however, for LaFleur's Shanahan style offense. Either way, a talented QB for the Jets and head coach Robert Saleh (great f***ing hire btw Jets fans).
(3) Miami Dolphins (via HOU) - OT Penei Sewell, Oregon - With the Panthers giving up a haul for Deshaun Watson, the Dolphins may not have a lot of options to trade out of this spot. Thus, they stick tight and land an elite pass protector for QB Tua Tagovailoa.
(4) Atlanta Falcons - QB Justin Fields, Ohio State - Personally, I love the idea of Fields coming back home to Georgia to sit behind Matt Ryan for a season. The Falcons, and new head coach Arthur Smith, would be wise to take a QB while they're in a natural position to snag one. Ryan will start 2021 for sure due to his contract, but if things go well, they could make a Mahomes like transition to Fields into 2022.
(5) Cincinnati Bengals - OT Rashawn Slater, Northwestern - There a lot of buzz that Slater could be above Sewell in the mind of many NFL executives. Either way, it's a strong pick for the Bengals and Joe Burrow to land a top offensive tackle.
TRADE! The Patriots send their 2021 1st (1.15) along with a 2021 3rd (3.98) and a 2022 1st to the Eagles to move up to their selection at 6.
(6) New England Patriots (via PHI) - QB Trey Lance, North Dakota State - The Patriots need to make a significant investment in the QB position, as neither Cam Newton nor Jarrett Sitdham looked like the answer for them in 2020. Here they make a splash trade to move up and grab Lance, a player with immense physical talent. Ideally they'd land a veteran QB like Ryan Fitzpatrick to start in 2021 while they let Lance develop.
(7) Detroit Lions - WR Devonta Smith, Alabama - One thing lost in the Stafford-Goff trade is Detroit essentially nuking its cap space by bringing in Goff's $28 million deal. Now $11 million over the estimated cap, the Lions do not seem likely to retain WR Kenny Golladay at this point. They need a replacement for Goff to throw to while they determine if he'll be around longer than 2021.
(8) Houston Texans (via CAR) - CB Caleb Farley, Virginia Tech - Without a QB available here, the Texans play it patient, letting newly acquired Teddy Bridgewater run the show in 2021. They instead my personal top choice at corner this year, Virginia Tech's Caleb Farley. For a defense that needs to get turned around, he represents an excellent building block for them.
TRADE! The Miami Dolphins get aggressive here, sending their second first-round pick (1.18), a 2021 3rd (3.82) and a 2022 2nd round pick, and swap 2nds with Denver to move up here.
(9) Miami Dolphins (via DEN) - WR Ja'Marr Chase, LSU - The Dolphins go land a premier wide receiver target for QB Tua Tagovailoa to throw to. Chase and Smith will be widely debated for the top wide receiver honors in this draft class. Miami would likely be elated to add either one of them.
(10) Dallas Cowboys - CB Patrick Surtain II, Alabama - Surtain may not be my top cornerback, but the Cowboys should have no hesitation adding him here at tenth overall, especially considering the dire state of their defense.
(11) New York Giants - EDGE Kwity Paye, Michigan - Paye is an exceptional athletic talent. Much like fellow Wolverine Rashan Gary coming out of Ann Arbor, he's still got plenty of room to grow into an elite rusher. He was dominant in the first few games for the Wolverines in an otherwise rough 2020 season for Harbaugh and co.
(12) San Francisco 49ers - CB Jaycee Horn, South Carolina - I have top-15 grades on all three of the corners listed so far, so this remains excellent value in my opinion for the 49ers. They're likely going to lose a handful of cornerbacks to free agency this year, so landing a premier rookie to develop into a stud for DeMeco Ryans defense is a priority.
(13) Los Angeles Chargers - OT Christian Darrisaw, Virginia Tech - An excellent group of tackles in this year's draft class is a big benefit for the Chargers, as they're able to land a premier prospect like Darrisaw. He'll fit well in new offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi's offense in his second-go as a play-caller.
(14) Minnesota Vikings - T/G Alijah Vera-Tucker, USC - Vera-Tucker has the flexibility to play tackle or move inside to guard. The Vikings have a similar player in Ezra Cleveland, which should give them the ability to move some guys around and find the ideal pairing here.
(15) Philadelphia Eagles - EDGE Gregory Rousseau, Miami - The Eagles probably have some positional needs above this, but it'd be a mistake to go for a worse player at a lesser player, thus the selection of Rousseau. He's an elite athlete and was incredibly disruptive for the Hurricanes in 2019. With Brandon Graham getting up there in age, and Vinny Curry set to hit free agency, this selection goes best player available with the near future in mind.
(16) Arizona Cardinals - TE Kyle Pitts, Florida - The Cardinals could use a monsterous pass catcher like Pitts to pair with DeAndre Hopkins. With some strong flashes from QB Kyler Murray in 2020, adding one more weapon could provide the breakthrough the Cardinals need to make it into the playoffs.
TRADE! The Steelers make a move up, sending a 1st (1.24), their third (3.88) and a 2022 fifth to move up and make the selection here instead of the Raiders.
(17) Pittsburgh Steelers - OT Samuel Cosmi, Texas - Jumping ahead of a couple of OT-needy teams in the WFT and the Bears, Pittsburgh gets its future franchise pass protector. Cosmi's film shows a highly athletic tackle who has gotten better each season in Austin. Put in a strong program under Mike Tomlin, I think Cosmi can thrive as a future All-Pro.
(18) Denver Broncos (via MIA) - LB Micah Parsons, Penn State - The Broncos land an absolute steal here with Parsons, an elite blend of size and speed at the LB position. Additionally, his versatility should be a weapon for Vic Fangio to deploy, as he's capable of filling multiple roles on any defense.
(19) Washington Football Team - WR Jaylen Waddle, Alabama - I think a bigger wide receiver would work a bit better, but Scott Turner's creativity in building an offense around mostly role/gadget players like Logan Thomas and Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic gives me confidence he can make it work with an elite talent like Waddle.
(20) Chicago Bears - G Wyatt Davis, Ohio State - The Bears could probably go for a tackle a little bit more than a guard, but beggars cannot be choosers this late into the first-round. They land an elite interior lineman to immediately give a boost to their offensive line.
(21) Indianapolis Colts - QB Mac Jones, Alabama - Philip Rivers retired, Jacoby Brissett is a free agent, and Jacob Eason wasn't active for a single game. Add it all together and it looks like the Colts are in need of a QB like Jones. A decisive passer with a good deep ball, he'll be a nice addition for Frank Reich to mentor.
(22) Tennessee Titans - EDGE Jaelan Phillips, Miami - The Titans pass rusher was miserable this past season. Injecting some youth and athleticism into the equation could help Mike Vrabel get his defense back on track. Phillips was excellent for the Hurricanes in 2020.
(23) New York Jets (via SEA) - OT Alex Leatherwood, Alabama - The Jets add another big body here to pair on the other side of LT Mekhi Becton. With those two in town, new QB Zach Wilson should feel quite comfortable in the pocket.
(24) Las Vegas Raiders (via PIT) - DT Christian Barmore, Alabama - The sixth Crimson Tide player selected, Barmore was dominant the second half of the season in Tuscaloosa. He'd fill a big need on Ken Whisenhu...I mean, Gus Bradley's defense here in Vegas.
(25) Jacksonville Jaguars (via LAR) - WR Kadarius Toney, Florida - The Jaguars give Trevor Lawrence an explosive weapon to throw to. Toney lit up the SEC this season and was very impressive at the Senior Bowl. He'd join former Florida head coach Urban Meyer a short drive away.
(26) Cleveland Browns - DT Daviyon Nixon, Iowa - The Browns drafting this late with their own selection is a sign of how far they've come in recent years. They now have the ability to sit back and take the best player on the board in Nixon, a dominant pass rusher who came on strong in Big Ten play this year.
(27) Baltimore Ravens - WR Rashod Bateman, Minnesota - I believe I've had this pick in the last mock I did as well, but it makes way too much sense. The Ravens need a top option at wide receiver and Bateman's a crafty player who fits their offense well.
(28) New Orleans Saints - CB Aaron Robinson, UCF - Robinson is a very underrated corner in this draft, and I really think he'll have a shot to land in the first-round. A quick player who always ends up in the right position, he'd be an excellent addition to the Saints defense.
(29) Green Bay Packers - LB Nick Bolton, Missouri - The Packers need some fresh blood at the second level, and Bolton's an absolute missile who flies all over the field. Bolton would fit really well in the middle of their defense, especially if the Packers hire a 3-4 zone blitz genius like Jim Leonhard as their new coordinator.
(30) Buffalo Bills - EDGE Azeez Ojulari, Georgia - A debate here between Ojulari and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, but ultimately think the depth at LB is a bit better in this class then pass rusher. So, Ojulari joins Sean McDermott's defense in Buffalo.
(31) Kansas City Chiefs - iOL Creed Humphrey, Oklahoma - The Chiefs need to add a starting caliber player to the interior of their offense line, and if Humphrey slides to them in the first-round, that'd be excellent value for them.
(32) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - RB Najee Harris, Alabama - Congratulations Bucs fans and the Brady bandwagon! Now, don't get too caught up on the position, the best way to maintain your dominance is to continue adding elite pieces, and Harris is a potential star at the RB position. Excellent in-between the tackles as well as in the passing game.

Second Round

(33) Jacksonville Jaguars - S Trevon Moehrig, TCU - I almost thought about Moehrig with their second first-round pick, but ultimately he still lands in Jacksonville.
(34) New York Jets - RB Travis Etienne, Clemson - The Jets have the cap space to add a veteran WR like Allen Robinson or Kenny Golladay, so use the draft to add a stellar running back.
(35) Atlanta Falcons - CB Erik Stokes, Georgia - Another Georgia player sticking around, as Stokes gives them an excellent option to develop alongside Terrell.
(36) Denver Broncos (via MIA) - CB Greg Newsome II, Northwestern - A rising star at the cornerback position, Newsome fits well into Fangio's defense.
(37) Philadelphia Eagles - WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, USC - After adding an edge rusher earlier, the Eagles add a top wideout in the Trojan's star.
(38) Cincinnati Bengals - G Deonte Brown, Alabama - The Bengals, after trading for another starting guard earlier, continue to overhaul their line.
(39) Houston Texans (via CAR) - EDGE Joseph Ossai, Texas - The Texans add some pass rushing help on the edge of their front seven with Ossai.
(40) Miami Dolphins (via DEN) - OLB Zaven Collins, Tulsa - Collins is an ideal fit for Brian Flores, as he can lineup in a handful of different spots, similar to some of the linebackers he's worked with in Miami and New England.
(41) Detroit Lions - LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Notre Dame - The Lions add a rangy linebacker who can give them some much needed at the position.
(42) New York Giants - G Trey Smith, Tennessee - The Giants get an upgrade along the offensive with a powerful guard like Smith.
(43) San Francisco 49ers - DT Levi Onwuzurike, Washington - The 49ers add an elite defensive tackle to pair with Javon Kinlaw on the inside.
(44) Dallas Cowboys - OT Dillon Radunz, North Dakota State - The Cowboys went defense earlier, but add a talented offensive lineman to restock the trenches here.
(45) Jacksonville Jaguars - TE Pat Freiermuth, Penn State - If Freiermuth falls to the Jags here that'd be an absolute steal. A high-caliber tight end who can do everything needed at the position.
(46) New England Patriots - WR Terrace Marshall Jr., LSU - The Patriots, even if they add a QB, still need more weapons at WR. Marshall is an excellent one.
(47) Los Angeles Chargers - CB Ifeatu Melifonwu, Syracuse - The Chargers give new head coach Brandon Staley an elite athlete to mold into a dominant cornerback for them.
(48) Las Vegas Raiders - EDGE Joe Tryon, Washington - The Raiders bring in another talent piece of Washington 2019 defensive line. He's got a high motor along with immense upside.
TRADE! The Colts hop in front of the Dolphins to land their guy. They send a 2022 3rd round pick along with their second (2.54) here to the Cardinals in exchange for this selection and a 2022 7th round pick.
(49) Indianapolis Colts (via ARI) - EDGE Carlos Basham, Wake Forest - I think Basham could definitely go higher than this, but if he's available in the second, the Colts should jump up to land him.
(50) Miami Dolphins - S Jevon Holland, Oregon - The Dolphins add a playmaking safety to join their defense. Holland was an excellent leader on defense for the Ducks.
(51) Washington Football Team - OT Teven Jenkins, Oklahoma State - Washington has gotten serviceable production from a pair of aging OT's in Moses and Lucas. They add a developmental tackle to replace them soon enough.
(52) Chicago Bears - WR Nico Collins, Michigan - The Bears could see star WR Allen Robinson walk in free agency. Adding a deep threat like Collins to pair with Mooney would be fun.
(53) Tennessee Titans - OT Jalen Mayfield, Michigan - Another Wolverine in the second round here, Mayfield would give the Titans a strong Michigan-based tackle duo with Taylor Lewan's return.
(54) Arizona Cardinals (via IND) - iOL Landon Dickerson, Alabama - A tough, hard-nosed player on the interior, Dickerson can play a handful of spots, making him a versatile addition to the Cardinals line.
(55) Pittsburgh Steelers - RB Javonte Williams, North Carolina - The Steelers add a stud running back to help revive their run game.
(56) Seattle Seahawks - EDGE Jayson Oweh, Penn State - The Seahawks could use some pass rush. Oweh's a bit raw, but can develop into a useful piece for Pete Carroll.
(57) Los Angeles Rams - LB Chazz Surratt, North Carolina - The Rams add an athletic player at the second-level to keep their defense playing elite football. With the addition of QB Matthew Stafford, the Rams could be serious contenders for the NFC title in 2021.
(58) Baltimore Ravens - EDGE Quincy Roche, Miami - Adding Roche as a rush end in Martindale's 3-4 defense would be an excellent move as Baltimore seems unlikely to retain both Yannick Ngakoue and Matt Judon.
(59) Cleveland Browns - S Richie Grant, UCF - For a school most associate with high-powered offense, the UCF secondary is loaded, and Grant would make a fine addition for the Browns.
TRADE! The Saints send 2.60 and a 2022 third to the Jets in exchange for QB Sam Darnold.
(60) New York Jets (via NO) - WR Elijah Moore, Ole Miss - He seems to be trending higher than this, but either way, the Jets substitute a backup QB for an explosive wide receiver for Zach Wilson.
(61) Buffalo Bills - OT Spencer Brown, Northern Iowa - The Bills run game needs a boost on the offensive line, and Brown's monstrous frame gives a lot of weight to that.
(62) Dallas Cowboys (via GB) - DT Jay Tufele, USC - After adding offensive line earlier in the second, the Cowboys go back to restocking their defense with talent.
(63) Kansas City Chiefs - WR D'Wayne Eskridge, Western Michigan - The Chiefs likely lose WR Sammy Watkins, but find an explosive piece here to replace him.
(64) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - EDGE Hamilcar Rashed Jr., Oregon State - Rashed has a lot of physical traits that bolster his potential. Letting Todd Bowles develop him would be ideal.

Third Round

(65) Jacksonville Jaguars - EDGE Patrick Jones II, Pittsburgh - Urban Meyer and Jags add a defensive end with a high motor to develop along with Josh Allen and K'Lavon Chaisson.
(66) New York Jets - CB Keith Taylor Jr., Washington - A long, versatile defensive back, Taylor reminds me a good deal of 49ers CB Richard Sherman in his playstyle.
(67) Houston Texans - S Talanoa Hufanga, USC - The Texans continue to overhaul their defense here, bringing in Hufanga to play a handful of roles in their backfield.
(68) Atlanta Falcons - RB Michael Carter, North Carolina - Excellent value for the Falcons here, whether or not they bring back RB Todd Gurley who played on a 1-year deal in 2020.
(69) Cincinnati Bengals - CB Paulson Adebo, Stanford - The Bengals give their defense some reinforcements with the selection of an experienced corner like Adebo.
(70) Philadelphia Eagles - LB Jabrill Cox, LSU - The Eagles add a great athlete to the second-level of their defense. Cox has shown a lot of potential as a modern backer.
(71) Denver Broncos - EDGE Janarius Robinson, Florida State - With Von Miller in a bit of hot water at the moment, Denver make want to add a pass rusher to develop just in case.
(72) Detroit Lions - S Andre Cisco, Syracuse - Detroit's safety play was poor last year. Adding a high potential player like Cisco could be a good move for the rebuilding Lions.
(73) Carolina Panthers - TE Hunter Long, Boston College - Welcome to the board, Carolina! After making a splash trade for QB Deshaun Watson, the Panthers give him another weapon at tight end. Long impressed during the Senior Bowl.
(74) Washington Football Team - LB Cameron McGrone, Michigan - McGrone has some inconsistency to his play, but offers a lot of upside for someone who can straighten him out.
(75) Dallas Cowboys - EDGE Victor Dimukeje, Duke - The Cowboys take a chance on Dimukeje here to help get after opposing QB's more frequently.
(76) New York Giants - WR Rondale Moore, Purdue - I'd anticipate Golden Tate being a cap cut, and if so, Moore would be an explosive slot weapon to replace him.
(77) New England Patriots - PICK FORFEITED
(78) Los Angeles Chargers - EDGE Dayo Odeyingbo, Vanderbilt - A craft, versatile edge rusher, he'd project as an OLB in Staley defense with the Chargers.
(79) Minnesota Vikings - DT Alim McNeill, North Carolina State - The Vikings add an explosive 3-technique to help get their defense turned around in a hurry.
(80) Arizona Cardinals - CB Shaun Wade, Ohio State - Wade was overhyped early on, but would fit well in the Cardinals defense, developing as a future replacement for Patrick Peterson.
(81) Las Vegas Raiders - S Richard Lecounte, Georgia - The Raiders add an experienced safety on the back end who can help them slow down divisional offenses led by Mahomes and Herbert.
(82) Denver Broncos - OT Liam Eichenberg, Notre Dame - The Broncos stop a bit of a slide here for Eichenberg. He has the ability to play RT or on the inside for Denver.
(83) Washington Football Team - S Joshuah Bledsoe, Missouri - An underrated player at the position, Bledsoe has a ton of versatility and would fit very well reinforcing Washington's already stellar defense.
(84) Chicago Bears - QB Kyle Trask, Florida - The Bears don't ignore the QB position entirely, as they take a later-than-expected flier on Trask. He was very good for Florida.
(85) Indianapolis Colts - CB Elijah Molden, Washington - Not the biggest need on the Colts roster, but they should have the cap to plug holes in free agency and pick better players, like Molden, here.
(86) Tennessee Titans - WR Dyami Brown, North Carolina - The Titans do have a stud WR in A.J. Brown, but with Corey Davis likely landing big money elsewhere, adding another player here is important.
(87) New York Jets (via SEA) - EDGE Payton Turner, Houston - A versatile pass rusher who can fit either a 4-3 or 3-4. Whatever system Saleh installs, Turner should find a home quickly.
(88) Las Vegas Raiders (via PIT) - LB Dylan Moses, Alabama - Once considered a potential top-10 pick, Moses has fallen off a bit, but the Raiders take a chance on him nonetheless.
(89) Detroit Lions (via LAR) - WR Tylan Wallace, Oklahoma State - Detroit should probably consider hitting the wide receiver position multiple times in the draft. The cabinet is empty there.
(90) Cleveland Browns - LB Ventrell Miller, Florida - The Browns linebackers are a major weak spot. If Cleveland wants to contend for the division, adding some speed there in Miller would help.
(91) Minnesota Vikings (via BAL) - S Paris Ford, Pittsburgh - With S Anthony Harris likely headed elsewhere in free agency, the Vikings take a chance on the hard-hitting ford as a replacement.
(92) Cleveland Browns - EDGE Rashad Weaver, Pittsburgh - Back-to-back selections of Pitt Panthers here, Rashad is an excellent pass rusher to add into the mix.
(93) Green Bay Packers - DT Tommy Togiai, Ohio State - The Packers add some beef to the inside of their defense, hoping to solidify a shaky group outside of DT Kenny Clark.
(94) Buffalo Bills - iOL Josh Myers, Ohio State - The Bills grab a starting caliber lineman here in Myers, who should help bolster the interior of their offensive line and give a boost to their run game.
(95) Kansas City Chiefs - OT Jackson Carmen, Clemson - The Chiefs need another offensive tackle to throw into the mix, as neither Eric Fisher nor Mitchell Schwartz figure to be around for too much longer.
(96) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - DT Marvin Wilson, Florida State - While Wilson didn't dominant as many expected him to in 2020, perhaps slotting him alongside Vita Vea will free up mismatches for him.
Compensatory Selections
(97) Los Angeles Chargers - G Quinn Meinerz, Wisconsin-Whitewater - Meinrez blew up the Senior Bowl, and could easily land as a top-100 prospect after that showing. LAC is a good fit here.
(98) Philadelphia Eagles - TE Brevin Jordan, Miami - With Zach Ertz and Philadelphia likely parting ways soon enough, Jordan gives the Eagles a gadget replacement in the passing game.
(99) Dallas Cowboys - CB Asante Samuel Jr., Florida State - Another corner for Dallas as they really could use two strong selections to help rebuild the position. Samuel excels in the slot.
(100) New Orleans Saints - WR Amari Rodgers, Clemson - The Saints add the best player on the board here for me, an exceptional wide out who will pair well with Michael Thomas.
(101) Tennessee Titans - DT Marlon Tuipulotu, USC - The Titans add another body to their defensive front, in hopes that Marlon and Simmons can become a dominant duo inside.
(102) Los Angeles Rams - WR Josh Imatorbhebhe, Illinois - One of the most underrated wide outs in the class, due to the lack of offensive savvy around him. Imatorbhebhe reminds me of Kenny Golladay, so pairing him with new Rams QB Matthew Stafford out to be fun.
(103) Minnesota Vikings - EDGE Jordan Smith, UAB - A long, toolsy pass rusher to develop into a sidekick for Danielle Hunter is the pick here for Mike Zimmer and co.
(104) San Francisco 49ers - OT Walker Little, Stanford - I'm certain the 49ers will bring back LT Trent Williams, but how much longer does he really have? Meanwhile, Little can play guard before taking over at left tackle soon enough.
(105) Los Angeles Rams - EDGE Shaka Toney, Penn State - Toney has good burst off the edge and with OLB Leonard Floyd headed towards the market, the Rams could stand to add some pass rushers.
(106) New Orleans Saints - RB Trey Sermon, Ohio State - With a cap crunch, paying $4 million for Latavius Murray may be a luxury the Saints cannot afford. Cutting him and drafting Sermon can offset that.

Fourth Round

Just a reminder, but almost half of all fourth-round selections (46%) are no longer on the roster after two years in their career, so don't take these picks too seriously, as this is also where teams start to diverge from needs a bit more and go best available. The aim is rotational players who might be contributors by their 3rd year with the franchise. If you have a significant need, fill it in free agency, not the day three of the draft. If you're banking on your team to find a starter here at a key position, you're already kind of screwed. Really I'm less focused on needs as opposed to getting good value here. Am trying to avoid doubling up on prospects, but sometimes teams actually do that.
(107) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Tyler Shelvin, LSU (108) New York Jets - G David Moore, Grambling State (109) Atlanta Falcons - S Hamsah Nasirildeen, Florida State (110) Houston Texans - QB Jaime Newman, Georgia - The Texans don't draft a QB in the first, but do take a chance on Newman's upside to develop behind Bridgewater.
(111) Cleveland Browns - WR Seth Williams, Auburn (112) Cincinnati Bengals - S Jamien Sherwood, Auburn (113) Detroit Lions - EDGE Ronnie Perkins, Oklahoma (114) Carolina Panthers - LB Baron Browning, Ohio State (115) Denver Broncos - RB Jermar Jefferson, Oregon State - With Lindsay hitting the market, maybe the Broncos don't bring him back and Jefferson as a change of pace back behind Gordon instead.
(116) Dallas Cowboys - TE Tommy Tremble, Notre Dame (117) New York Giants - RB Rhamondre Stevenson, Oklahoma - An excellent backup for Saquon Barkley if the Giants don't re-sign Wayne Gallman. (118) San Francisco 49ers - S James Wiggins, Cincinnati (119) Los Angeles Chargers - RB Demetric Falcon, UCLA (120) Minnesota Vikings - WR Dazz Newsome, North Carolina
(121) New England Patriots - WR Whop Philyor, Indiana (122) Las Vegas Raiders - G Sadarius Hutcherson, South Carolina (123) Houston Texans - WR Marlon Williams, UCF (124) Miami Dolphins - DT Jaylen Twyman, Pittsburgh (125) Jacksonville Jaguars - CB Israel Mukuamu, South Carolina - The Jags had a good year out of Sidney Jones, but still could use an intriguing developmental option like Mukuamu behind him.
(126) Minnesota Vikings - LB Pete Werner, Ohio State (127) Tennessee Titans - G Ben Cleveland, Georgia (128) Indianapolis Colts - WR Jaelon Darden, North Texas (129) Pittsburgh Steelers - CB Kary Vincent Jr., LSU - The Steelers get some excellent value here, as I think Vincent is one of the top slot corners in the draft. Could easily replace Hilton. (130) Seattle Seahawks - CB Shakur Brown, Michigan State
(131) Jacksonville Jaguars - LB Monty Rice, Georgia (132) Baltimore Ravens - iOL Trey Hill, Georgia (133) Cleveland Browns - TE Cary Angeline, North Carolina State (134) New Orleans Saints - EDGE Tarron Jackson, Coastal Carolina - With Trey Hendrickson likely departing and Marcus Davenport still yet to hit double-digit sacks, the Saints may look to add another piece to develop here. (135) Minnesota Vikings - RB Khalil Herbert, Virginia Tech
(136) Green Bay Packers - OT James Hudson, Cincinnati (137) Kansas City Chiefs - LB Anthony Hines III, Texas A&M - A quick linebacker, he'd fit nicely into the Chiefs defense alongside Willie Gay and others. (138) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - QB Davis Mills, Stanford (139) New England Patriots - EDGE Adetokunbo Ogundeji, Notre Dame (140) Dallas Cowboys - S Ar'Darius Washington, TCU
(141) Los Angeles Rams - TE Tre McKitty, Georgia (142) Pittsburgh Steelers - DT Darius Stills, West Virginia (143) Green Bay Packers - RB Kylin Hill, Mississippi State - With Aaron Jones hitting the market, the Packers may look for another back to add to their rotation. Hill would be a great addition. (144) Kansas City Chiefs - CB Roger McCreary, Auburn (145) New England Patriots - OT Cordell Volson, North Dakota State

Fifth Round

(146) Jacksonville Jaguars - OT Brady Christensen, BYU (147) New York Jets - DL Brenton Cox, Florida (148) Houston Texans - EDGE Jonathan Cooper, Ohio State (149) Atlanta Falcons - EDGE Kingsley Enagbare, South Carolina - PFF actually lists Enagbare as a top-100 player on their latest big board, which, if accurate, would be tremendous value. (150) Cincinnati Bengals - WR Anthony Schwartz, Auburn
(151) Philadelphia Eagles - CB Robert Rochell, Central Arkansas - Big fan of Rochell's a potential starter down the road. Would fit well with Marcus Gannon calling the defense. (152) Carolina Panthers - G Kendrick Green, Illinois (153) Denver Broncos - QB Kellen Mond, Texas A&M (154) Detroit Lions - CB Kelvin Joseph, Kentucky (155) New York Jets - S Caden Sterns, Texas
(156) San Francisco 49ers - CB Camryn Bynum, California (157) Philadelphia Eagles - OT Adrian Ealy, Oklahoma (158) Minnesota Vikings - CB Rodarius Williams, Oklahoma State (159) New England Patriots - DT Milton Williams, Louisiana Tech (160) Los Angeles Chargers - WR Simi Fehoko, Stanford
(161) Arizona Cardinals - RB Chuba Hubbard, Oklahoma State - He'd be an excellent fit in the Cardinals backfield, especially if Kenyan Drake does not return. (162) Buffalo Bills - CB Tay Gowan, UCF (163) Las Vegas Raiders - QB Feleipe Franks, Arkansas (164) Washington Football Team - WR Jonathan Adams Jr., Arkansas State (165) Chicago Bears - CB D.J. Daniel, Georgia
(166) Indianapolis Colts - OT Brendan Jaimes, Nebraska (167) Tennessee Titans - OLB Charles Snowden, Virginia (168) Seattle Seahawks - OT Dan Moore Jr., Texas A&M (169) Baltimore Ravens - QB Sam Ehlinger, Texas - Unless the Ravens are certain that Trace McSorley is their backup QB, they may want to look at adding Ehlinger behind Lamar. (170) Cleveland Browns - LB Tony Fields II, West Virginia
(171) Jacksonville Jaguars - WR Tamorrion Terry, Florida State (172) Minnesota Vikings - QB Ian Book, Notre Dame (173) San Francisco 49ers - iOL Drake Jackson, Kentucky (174) Green Bay Packers - CB Ambry Thomas, Michigan (175) Buffalo Bills - S Reed Blankenship, Middle Tennessee State
(176) Kansas City Chiefs - EDGE Malcolm Koonce, Buffalo (177) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - LB Garrett Wallow, Texas Christian (178) Green Bay Packers - S Tyree Gillespie, Missouri (179) Atlanta Falcons - C James Empey, BYU - The Falcons find themselves a quality interior lineman who could use a year to develop before getting in the mix to replace Alex Mack down the road. (180) Dallas Cowboys - WR Josh Palmer, Tennessee
(181) Baltimore Ravens - S Qwynterrio Cole, Alcorn State (182) San Francisco 49ers - WR Marquez Stevenson, Houston (183) Kansas City Chiefs - RB Pooka Williams, Kansas

Sixth Round

(184) Tennessee Titans - QB Shane Buechele, Texas (185) New York Jets - LB Paddy Fisher, Northwestern (186) Atlanta Falcons - G Aaron Banks, Notre Dame - Love the value here for the Falcons, and if they do have to cut James Carpenter, Banks could be a useful piece. (187) Houston Texans - iOL Jack Anderson, Texas Tech (188) Philadelphia Eagles - S JaCoby Stevens, LSU (189) Cincinnati Bengals - DT Khryis Tonga, BYU (190) Denver Broncos - DT Bobby Brown III, Texas A&M
(191) Dallas Cowboys - G Josh Sills, Oklahoma State (192) Carolina Panthers - DT Carlo Kemp, Michigan (193) San Francisco 49ers - EDGE Daelin Hayes - The 49ers showed a good deal of interest in Hayes at the Senior Bowl per reports. He'd be a nice depth option on the edge. (194) New England Patriots - CB Benjamin St.-Juste, Minnesota (195) New York Giants - CB Thomas Graham Jr., Oregon
(196) New England Patriots - G Tristen Hoge, BYU (197) Los Angeles Chargers - S Eric Burrell, Wisconsin (198) Minnesota Vikings - OT Alex Himmelman, Illinois State (199) Las Vegas Raiders - PICK FORFEITED (200) New York Giants - LB K.J. Britt, Auburn
(201) Houston Texans - DL Cameron Sample, Tulane (202) Las Vegas Raiders - WR Austin Watkins, UAB (203) Chicago Bears - OT Bryce Matthews, Ole Miss (204) Los Angeles Chargers - WR Isaiah McKoy, Kent State (205) Indianapolis Colts - WR Damon Hazelton, Missouri - This stretch of wide receivers looks like solid value, especially Hazelton in Reich's offense.
(206) Miami Dolphins - TE Kenny Yeboah, Ole Miss - Yeboah got to work with Miami's coaching staff at the Senior Bowl, so I'd imagine they have a good feel for his use. (207) Seattle Seahawks - DT Mustafa Johnson, Colorado (208) Los Angeles Rams - OT Robert Hainsey, Notre Dame (209) Baltimore Ravens - G Robert Jones, Middle Tennessee State (210) Cleveland Browns - CB Trill Williams, Syracuse
(211) Houston Texans - RB Jaret Patterson, Buffalo (212) Buffalo Bills - RB Elijah Mitchell, Louisiana (213) Green Bay Packers - WR Cade Johnson, South Dakota State (214) Pittsburgh Steelers - C Jimmy Morrissey, Pittsburgh (215) Tennessee Titans - S Aashari Crosswell, Arizona State
(216) Atlanta Falcons - LB Derrick Barnes, Purdue (217) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - TE Quintin Morris, Bowling Green (218) Atlanta Falcons - OT Greg Eiland, Mississippi State (219) Philadelphia Eagles - RB Javian Hawkins, Louisville (220) Chicago Bears - EDGE Chris Rumph Jr., Duke
(221) Green Bay Packers - DE William King-Bradley, Baylor (222) Chicago Bears - S Shawn Davis, Florida (223) Minnesota Vikings - G Ben Brown, Ole Miss (224) Philadelphia Eagles - LB Grant Stuard, Houston

Seventh Round

(225) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Malik Herring, Georgia (226) San Francisco 49ers - TE Noah Gray, Duke (227) Houston Texans - CB Tre Brown, Oklahoma (228) Chicago Bears - LB Justin Hilliard, Ohio State (229) Cincinnati Bengals - EDGE Elerson Smith, Northern Iowa (230) Philadelphia Eagles - WR Ben Skowronek, Northwestern
(231) Cincinnati Bengals - DT TaQuon Graham, Texas (232) Buffalo Bills - S Divine Deablo, Virginia Tech (233) Denver Broncos - S Damar Hamlin, Pittsburgh (234) Green Bay Packers - LB Riley Cole, South Alabama (235) Denver Broncos - WR Cornell Powell, Clemson
(236) San Francisco 49ers - WR Frank Darby, Arizona State (237) Los Angeles Chargers - DB Darrin Hall, San Diego State (238) Minnesota Vikings - WR Trevon Grimes, Florida (239) New England Patriots - DE Wyatt Hubert, Kansas State (240) Arizona Cardinals - OT Jaylon Moore, Western Michigan
(241) Washington Football Team - G Jake Curhan, California (242) Pittsburgh Steelers - CB Bryan Mills, North Carolina Central (243) Washington Football Team - RB Chris Evans, Michigan (244) Las Vegas Raiders - CB Mark Webb, Georgia (245) Indianapolis Colts - RB Larry Roundtree, Missouri
(246) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Forrest Merrill, Arkansas State (247) New York Jets - WR Tre Walker, (248) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - EDGE Joshua Kaindoh, Florida State (249) Los Angeles Rams - CB Bryce Thompson, Tennessee (250) Cleveland Browns - QB Brady White, Memphis
(251) Denver Broncos - EDGE Patrick Johnson, Tulane (252) New Orleans Saints - PICK FORFEITED (253) Green Bay Packers - DT Jack Heflin, Northern Illinois (254) Cleveland Browns - CB Nahshon Wright, Oregon State (255) Kansas City Chiefs - DT Kobie Whiteside, Missouri (256) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - WR Desmond Fitzpatrick, Louisville
You'll notice there are no special teams listed...mostly because I don't have a clue who needs a K/P/LS. That actually might be something useful to mention if you're team really needs someone.
Feel free to comment...I won't really be looking at them until next week, as I've spent too much time putting this together and now I need a break from this website. Just don't be a d*** is all I ask. It's shockingly hard for some people when it comes to internet mock drafts. Did this for fun, hope you had fun reading it.

Enough of you have said that you wanted to see a Humans Will Use Any Weapon 2, so here it is you wonderful people.
First | Next | Author Wiki
The room was lavish, with fur carpets, cherry wood floors, mahogany cabinets with marble and gold busts, and beautiful, soft, matching red furniture with a large picture window looking out over Earth's horizon. Sitting in a large reclining chair, that was as ostentatious as the room around it, was Leo Sampson of Sampson Whales Incorporated, a large, heavy set man who dressed as if he was a medieval king with modern jewelry. Sampson's chair sat before a large, semi-circular table, which he sat on the flat side of. To Sampson's right, at the edge of the curve of the table, was President Rupert Calhoun of the United Martian Colonies, a gruff and sturdy, but short, man in a red suit and tight. To Calhoun's right was Grand Admiral Loui Wall of the Frontier Protection Alliance, a short and slim man wearing a white, armored jumpsuit adorned with small metals and ribbons. In the final seat was Secretary-General Zaine Kouma of the Confederated Nations, a tall and lanky man in a tight, black suit and tie.
"Thank you all for joining me today, my friends! Have all of you settled in? I have some fine wines and whiskeys, and even a few meads, if you'd like." Leo Sampson spoke with his trademark cheer.
"What is the point of this, Sampson? I have more important things to do then deal with another of your 'trade meetings.'" Grand Admiral Wall spat out, a scowl dominating his features.
"Grand Admiral, please, I doubt mister Sampson would have called you to represent the Frontier if this was a trade meeting." Spoke Secretary-General Kouma.
"Very attentive of you, Zaine. I called you all here because, while I was working out a trade agreement with the Rupert, sorry... President Calhoun, an intern barged into his office and said something most interesting. Being that it has been about 2 days, I figure that Rupert, sorry again... President Calhoun should have more information, and being that it is his, I'll let him explain." Sampson stated jubilantly.
"Ah, yes. Before I say anything, I must state that this information is still confidential and hasn't been released to the public. This isn't information we can afford to let spread freely." Stated President Calhoun.
"We get it President, but unlike you and the Secretary-General, not everyone here can so causally waste time. Get on with it." Spoke Wall with venom on his tongue.
"Fine. As of 2 Earth days ago, approximately 53 hours, specifically, the UMC New America made contact with 3 unknown cruisers, escorting approximately 20 support vessels, while patrolling the 1st Martian Exclusion Orbit. The New America attempted communications, but got no reply. After 7 minutes, Mars Command gave the New America permission to enforce the exclusion orbit or retreat to Exclusion Station 83. The New America identified the unknown vessels as having light, specialized armor and deemed that an attack was a viable option. The New America was then able to destroy 2 of the enemy cruisers before the 3rd and the supporting ships fled. Early analysis of battle debris and New America's records indicates the unknowns to be non-human." Calhoun announced while placing a folder before each leader.
As each leader opened their folders, Kouma asked "The 1st Martian Exclusion Orbit? That's the one placed around Mars by the Treaty of Deimos? How deep did they manage to penetrate?"
"Yes, that exclusion orbit. They were about a quarter of the way into it when they were detected. Defense analysts looking into how they got so deep without detection found there was no matching warp energy pulse for the ships, but they did find that the Susanna Meteor Detection Network detected a short lived gravitational anomaly at the edge of the exclusion orbit about 3 hours before the New America engaged the, I hate having to say this seriously, aliens."
"Are you telling me that we are dealing with aliens that use some kind of FTL system that can penetrate deep into a solar system and doesn't give off a warp energy pulse?" Wall asked, his scowling replaced with his left elbow hitting the table, the attached hand resting under his nose, rubbing his cheek with the pointer finger.
"We don't know the source of the gravitational anomaly at this point and we have no evidence as to whether the aliens have FTL capability. The working assumption is that the gravitational anomaly is related to how they travel, FTL or STL."
"Was Mars able to recover any of the alien technology?" Sampson asked, one eye cocked.
"Minimal, at best. The ships the aliens used were thoroughly destroyed by the New America. We did recover some armor and structural pieces, but nothing ground breaking as of yet."
"New America... that's one of the first cities on Mars. You said the engagement was the New America and 3 cruisers, correct?" Asked Kouma.
"Yes."
"How did a frigate manage to defeat 3 cruisers? How come there weren't any reinforcements? That sort of slugfest should have lasted hours."
"The engagement lasted 6 and a half minutes, with 2 of the cruisers destroyed and the final fleeing. The aliens ships were dispatched in 1 or 2 shots each, with the aliens scoring 27 distributed hits. Given the weapons the enemy was using, damage was a little higher than one might expect from a frigate take 2 volleys of thermal weapons fire from a cruiser, but it was still only damage to the armor panels."
Wall snorted as his elbow retreated to the armrest of his chair, then asked "What do these aliens make their ships out of? Paper?"
"The combat records and analysis indicated that each vessel the aliens used carried a single variety of weapon and defenses effective against that weaponry. One vessel used 2 centimeter thick reflective panels and lasers, another some kind of slime covered organic armor with flak missiles that used, you guessed it, missiles, and the final one used a soft tungsten-carbon-platinum alloy with a layer of thermal dispersion gel and thick layers of ablatives as protection with high density plasma as its weapon. The first was damaged by a few missiles, but was destroyed by a heavy plasma cannon, the second got away, and the third was destroyed by a glazing blow from a spinal rail cannon followed up by a direct hit from said cannon."
Kouma leaned back in his chair as he said "Sounds like the aliens favor putting all their eggs in one basket. Did the analysis come back with any strengths that level of specialization gave the aliens?"
"Yes, it did. For one, all their ships were fast, easily capable of out accelerating a, for example, Fayza Chen class rapid response cruiser by a factor of 2, though their rotational speed was slow given their forward acceleration, but that may have been because the ships the New America engaged used exclusively turrets. The analysts also said that if we fought them with only the same weapon as the one they brought to the fight, they would probably win one on ones with ships of the same weight class."
Looking down at the open folder without reading the page he was looking at, Wall stated "So, we have aliens that build specialist ships that are able to accelerate faster than our ships and can penetrate deep into a solar system?"
"Yes."
"But, if they get into our weapons' range, we can rip them to shreds?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't do us much good if we can't catch them."
"If they plan on waging war with us, they'll need to enter attacking range of our ships, stations, and immobile guns. That should mean that we can counter them by grouping patrols together and keeping fleets closer to important targets." Kouma replied while rubbing his chin.
Wall's head shot up to stare daggers at Kouma. "The CN and UMC might have all their planets nice and buttoned up, but the FPA doesn't have that luxury! We're still recovering from the Secession War! We haven't even figured out what type of government we want! We don't have the ships or resources to go and park a fleet in orbit of every planet we have to protect!"
"Well, unless something changes, you'll have to ask the UMC for help. The Aranya Accords forbid the CN from sending military forces into, or through, FPA space." Kouma replied, leaning back in his chair with a slightly up turned right lip as he stared back at Wall.
"Maybe you'd still be able to move ships there if your precious CN didn't treat frontier colonies like Britain treated colonial America!" Well shouted, standing up from his chair.
Kouma rolled his eyes as he retorted with "Oh, I didn't realize that detonating a thermonuclear warhead within an orbital shipyard was the Boston Tea Party!"
"Men, please! We have more pressing matters than a few recent scabs to our prides." Sampson stated, throwing his arms out wide.
Speaking calmly, Calhoun state "I agree with Mr. Sampson. Our first contact with an unknown entity was a violent one and I think we would all be better off if we prepare for a violent response. If we get something less violent, then we can fall back on our existing methods of diplomacy."
"Given the possibility of a new threat, the CN would certainly like to have martian military support for the D5 colonies." Said Kouma.
"Those the ones near the Yakovich system?" Calhoun ask.
"Yes, the ones cut off of CN space by Martian space."
"In exchange we'd like access to the Jupiter and Saturn slingshot arrays."
"That's acceptable."
"And what can the FPA expect?" Wall asked with a scrunched face.
"To need to offer something up before getting anything in return." Calhoun stated flatly.
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"Kesselfoor Atall, I have bad news for you." Stated the lyrint drone, a 76 cm tall, redish yellow, chitinous creature with 3 pairs of buzzing wings keeping him aloft while its 12 slimy tendrils drooped almost as pointlessly as his sperm sack.
"Speak, Anakk." Atall said as her tendril wrapped around a nutrient brick and pulled it into her mouth.
Anakk spoke nervously as he said "The Hesmanformic High Council has decided that you will be leading the scouting group returning to S32-558-B to gather information on species 437."
"Anakk, now is not the time for one of your jokes. I failed Kesselfoor Kelsuun and Kesselfoor Granag. The High Council wouldn't send a failure to handle something as sensitive as scouting a new species." Said Atall dismissively as she took a bite of her nutrient brick.
"Kesselfoor, please, I would not joke about the orders of the High Council." Anakk stated as he hovered over the seat next to Atall, placing his tendrils onto the oversized armrests and landing, lowering his body into the wide seat.
Atall struggled not to eject the chunk of nutrient brick she was rolling in her mouth. The High Council could accept failure, but hers was disastrous. It should take her [months], if not [years], to recover from her mistakes. To regain the High Council's trust.
After rolling the chunk of nutrient brick round in her contemplation, Atall finally swallowed it and asked "Is there any indication of their reasoning, Anakk?"
"Yes Kesselfoor. It would appear that Councilors Yolree, Xzvin and Piini believe that failure was inevitable, given the situation, while Councilor Kelrion voted that you should be actively punished. The rest of the council abstained from giving their opinions on the matter. As for why you were chosen, our little hive are the only military survivors from first contact with species 437. That, and at the moment the High Council is working with the assumption that missiles are the longest range weaponry that species 437 has."
Atall dropped her nutrient brick as she came to the realization that the armored tube and species 437 were the same. After a moment of debating biting off one of her tendrils, Atall calmed down and said "I guess someone has to do it. Come on Anakk, we have to inform the hive."
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Kelyung sat across from Councilor Kelrion in the cramped restaurant, brushing his dark yellow furred torso face with his undersized foot while his oversized, 3 fingered hands resting on the table. In front of Kelyung was a metal cup filled with a dark brown-red fluid and a plate with some kind of stomach wrapped in lightly seared meat.
Finally deciding to speak, Kelyung announced "It is truly a pleasure Councilor, but might I ask what the subject of our meeting today is?"
"Lead Tactician Kelyung, I've managed to get your team assigned to creating counter tactics for species 437. They're brand new, only one engagement so far and it was hostile." Stated Kelrion before leaning into his matching plate and biting a chunk out of the meat wrapped stomach.
"That doesn't sound abnormal. A touch hostile, but if it's just a single species, we shouldn't need any special tactics." Kelyung said before taking a bite of his own food.
"This is an abnormally dangerous foe. You'll get the details when you return to your team, but I wanted to ask that you report findings and strategies to me."
Kelyung sat back as he contemplated the request. "Does this mean that the Council is taking a direct interest in species 437 and how the Union handles them?"
"Not a direct interest, direct command. The handling of species 437 has been deemed a top priority of the High Council. I've take the responsibility as serving as liaison the Bureau of Space Tactics until the situation is resolved." Kelrion said, leaning back in his seat and displaying his two, currently bloody, fangs.
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Atall gently rubbed her tendrils over the observer interface, taking brief glimpses at the small "fleet" she had been put in charge of. A collection of metal ships surrounded her hive, 8 missile using frigates, 2 sensor cruisers armed with anti-fighter laser weaponry, and 4 projectile users serving as artillery ships. While it certainly wasn't a battle fleet, it was quite a bit more than a few lone scout ships the Union would normally deploy. Even so, Atall didn't like returning to the scene of her recent failure, however orders had been given and the navigation routes had already been agreed upon.
Atall's little fleet formed up and prepared to enter superluminal space. With a cautious rub of her tendrils, Atall grabbed the communications interface.
"This is Kesselfoor Atall to the Hesmanformic Union Scout Fleet S32-558-B-437: I know many of you haven't been informed as to what is our mission is, for this mission is of the utmost secrecy. However, now is the time that veil of secrecy be lifted. We are being sent to system S32-558-B to preform reconnaissance on the system and the recently identified species 437. The reason for the secrecy is, in fact, species 437. All we currently know about them is that they live in system S32-558-B, arm their spacecraft with multiple types of weapons and protect their vehicles with defenses capable of protecting against multiple varieties of weapons. Such a statement may sound unbelievable, but I have personally seen them use lasers, plasma, kinetics and missiles in a single fight from a single vessel and learned that their spacecraft are slow to accelerate and that they use missiles as their long range weapons.
Now, you all might be wondering what we are looking to discover. The scale and hostility of species 437 are our first priority, after which comes further information on their spacecraft, ground combat capability, and methods of communication, then finally population centers, places of technological importance and places of cultural importance. It is of equal importance that we gain military and diplomatic information.
Now that you all know our mission, it is also important that you be aware that Scout Fleet S32-558-B-437 has been formed under the direct command of Councilor Yolree of the Hesmanformic Union High Council. We are expected to perform at our best while the eyes of the High Council are upon us. That is all."
Atall released her tendril from the communications interface, moving over to the navigation interface. It didn't take long before she could feel the gravitic generators stretching space-time, then the subtle queasiness of exiting relativity. The existence outside of relativity gave Atall some time to think, a few [hours] only, even if the actual travel time was closer to [a week].
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Captain Stubbs sat in his command chair, a cup of god awful Martian Standard Ration coffee in his hands. The bridge of the New America was tense, and not just because they had run out of non-standard coffee and that Ensign Anderson was actually doing her job. No, the tension was from 2 weeks of knowing why UMC deployments were changing, but not being able to say anything. The tension was from 2 weeks of waiting to learn if they were going to be fighting more than just pirates and smugglers. Two weeks of knowing that aliens with warships lay out in space.
Then, it came.
Comms Officer Bryant announced "Captain, message from Mars Command. Gravitic anomaly detected on the edge of the 1st Martian Exclusion Orbit. Orders are to investigate and, if necessary, engage. The New Britain and the CNSS Musashi are also responding. Coordinates sent to navigation."
"Navigation, take us there. ETA?" Captain Stubbs said, calm and strong.
"15 minutes. 20 minutes for the New Britain and Musashi via slingshot array." Stated Navigation Officer Bowes.
Stubbs pushed a blue button on the armrest of his command chair, a loud gong sound playing over the New America's PA system. Shortly after the gong, a robotic voice announced "General quarters. General quarters. All hands man your battle stations."
"Captain, message from the Musashi. They're taking bets on if the New Britain or the Musashi get their first." Said Bryant.
Stubbs rubbed his chin for a half minute before replying "Tell the Musashi I'll put 2 shots of whiskey and a bottle of scotch on the New Britain."
First | Next | Author Wiki

A lot of mystery surrounds Dom. Up until season 7, we had always assumed, for lack of any other information, that Katarina took the name Rostova when she married Constantin Rostov.
But in 7.02 we got a piece of information that has never got the attention it deserved: Dom is supposedly a Rostov:

He's a Rostov, Elizabeth. If we take him to an emergency room, questions will be asked, questions he's not prepared to answer.

Whether his real last name IS Rostov, or along the way it was changed, by him or his parents, Red told Liz that if Dom went into a hospital, he would face questions, BECAUSE he is a Rostov. Questions he was not ready to answer.
Since he has papers as Dominic Wilkinson (he was investigated by the CIA), HOW WOULD going into a hospital bleeding from a chest wound create questions he cannot answer tied to his being a Rostov?
ONLY IF DOM HAS A RARE AND IDENTIFIABLE DISEASE, like the show's aplastic anemia, a disease passed along the paternal line, known to affect a family in particular, killing them at a much younger age than Dom was, except for the distant uncle who contracted the Ribowski virus that gave him a form of leukemia:

He has aplastic anemia-- a systemic failure to produce viable bone-marrow cells. It's been a death sentence for generations of men in his family, except a distant uncle, who had contracted the Ribowski virus. After getting the virus, the uncle lived longer than any other Rostov with the blood disease
.... It's a simple math problem, really. Kirk's disease prevents his body from producing enough blood cells. The Ribowski virus results in a rare form of leukemia which creates the opposite problem-- too many blood cells.

https://preview.redd.it/5x8u3mjc0pa61.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=288c3fa47c87b7e1776caa49f8e2291e75aa2332
So what we KNOW, is that Dom, regardless of his current last name (Wilkinson) or whatever his legal birth name was, was truly part of the Rostov clan.
By lineage, Dom was a descendant of the Rostov family on the male line, even if he changed his last name, or his parents or grandparents did.

A double life

The next curious thing about him was his espionage activities and his home.
For one we have him apparently living in Moscow when Katarina goes there probably to steal the classified packet, but more importantly, we have Fakerina saying:

As the daughter of a domineering spymaster I never had a voice in my future. I was 15 the first time they ordered me to sleep with a young American soldier.

Red has described Dom the same way, even though the phrasing made it look like Katarina could have been the spy master:

But who would care that I'm Katarina Rostova's daughter?
The daughter of a legendary spymaster, the secret-keeper who disappeared—

Could be read as Liz is the daughter of the legendary spymaster, who disappeared, or it could be saying, as it apparently does, that Katarina Rostova was the daughter of a legendary spymaster, and Katarina was the secret-keeper who disappeared.
BUT regardless of what Fakerina or the other Russians know about him, Dom had a cabin in upstate NY where he kept mementos of Katarina's childhood, including toys and drawings of that cabin.
https://preview.redd.it/b1zojzahroa61.png?width=720&format=png&auto=webp&s=e246292d77b48c9305c80ccab64e141ba1c774db
That is a life in the United States that neither Fakerina nor the Russians knew anything about. Plus the CIA seems to be as uninterested in finding him, as they were in finding Lena Volkova or Katarina. In fact working to hide them.

US Intelligence, the Russian operative codenamed Oleander and Dom Wilkinson

Let us recount what we know of his espionage activities. Liz asked Cooper about Oleander, and Cooper found some old file about Oleander. A CIA investigation that was inconclusive linking Dom Wilkinson with Oleander.

Oleander. Tom was still researching the name when he was killed.
It's a person.
So you found something.
I made some calls, cashed in a few favors from friends working in counter-intelligence. Oleander was the name of a Russian operative active during the Cold War.
A Russian agent?
I'm not sure he's even still alive. A few years ago, the CIA thought he might be living here in the United States under an assumed name. That was never proven. No charges were ever filed.

​
BUT the fact that it existed, means that regardless of who Dom Wilkinson was, he was investigated. His prints would be in the system as a supposed recent immigrant, his face would be in facial recognition databases when he was given a supposed visa, an extensive background check would have existed. Not to mention he HAD that house when Katarina was growing up.
So, Cooper gives Liz a file with Dominic Wilkinson's name. NOT an easy information to come by, as Cooper had to go to counterintelligence friends.
Dom of course denied being Oleander, gives Liz a cockamamie soy about being in the beet business, and calls Red to tell him about Liz's visit:

She was here. Masha.
How?
How is a problem, yeah, but not as big a problem as why. She was here looking for Oleander. Apparently, she thinks tracking him down will help solve her husband's murder.
What did she say? Be specific.
Relax. She doesn't know Oleander's me. I certainly didn't tell her.

https://preview.redd.it/ocoev01i2pa61.png?width=648&format=png&auto=webp&s=8aaae9d4a1799e3c169673319119d12e6f478c73
Then Ressler, looking to find out who Red is, starts by trying to find Katarina, for which he reaches out to his CIA pal, asking about the sighting Velov had reported in the ferry. This gets him to Lena Volkova, which gets him to the last letter she wrote, and sent to the PO Box, which gets Ressler a photo of Dom.
Ressler then notices he went for peanuts, retrieves the coins in the dispenser, and has Aram run the prints, which then has the Russians telling him who is the man he saw picking up the letter: Katarina's father.

RESSLER: I think I found someone who might. Your grandfather.
LIZ: You found Reddington's father?
RESSLER: Katarina's. Look, all I have is a photo.... My only regret is that I hit a dead end. 'Cause that guy he's a ghost.

This means that his prints are NOT in the system, regardless of a supposed investigation. His face is not in facial recognition database, despite his story of being an immigrant. He is been hidden by US intelligence, and that report was likely a fluke, a cover, or an overzealous agent with too much free time on his/her hands.

The house in the woods

But for Liz, who had met Dom, it suddenly makes sense. Dom is her grandfather. She had been to his house, a house devoid of any photos.
https://preview.redd.it/qgcf5i5v0pa61.png?width=552&format=png&auto=webp&s=492a6b1b2215f386bc4c72a0b07f71df2d909461
In this house, in the barn, Red keeps his island box and Dom keeps his mementos of his child, in a Bronx Zoo trunk.
The toys are all American, all dating to the 1960s and 70s. Which could just point to their being sleeper agents. BUT there is a lot more to this, especially once we learn that Fakerina did not even have any idea even as to general area where Dom was hiding.
This cabin had been hidden from Fakerina and from Russian Intelligence, who also cannot seem to be able to find him.
More importantly, in the trunk there is a child drawing of the cabin, together with a drawing of a man with two female figures.
https://preview.redd.it/z71tfwipwoa61.png?width=648&format=png&auto=webp&s=48f022ab97e2fffc14e49bd4f7e76155205aedbc
The cabin is what is interesting here, for while the drawings were also seen in the Summer Palace, the trunk seem to have mementos of Katarina, as Dom does not mention anything about Masha's:

You have no right to go through her things..... These boxes are all I have all I have left of my daughter.

If those drawing had been Liz's then he would have said the boxes had all the memories from his daughter and granddaughter.
The drawing, then made then by Katarina as a child, depicts a house just like the house in the woods. Dom had a secret hideaway, one that contains memories of Katarina, and which existence is hidden from Fakerina.
EACH time we had a scene in that house, the blue door has been highlighted for us.
among others
And that seems just like a double agent, living a double life: one in Russia, with Fakerina as his daughter, and a secret one in America, in his cabin in the woods. Maybe even living in the US as a sleeper agent. Could also be a agent who turned, becoming a double agent.

Dom's real last name

Dom is a Rostov by lineage, and he has been using the name Wilkinson, at least since he went hiding, but we do not know what was the name he was using before.
We have a clue in Liz's middle name, a name so far we have been unable to connect to anything, and a middle name shared with her mother in law, Susan Scott Hargrave, nicknamed Scottie.
If this Scott as Liz's middle name was a link to her mother Katarina, then could Dom's last name have been Scott as well?
And what do the Russians believe is his last name? Maybe his real name, Rostov. That would have made Fakerina be Katarina Rostova, daughter of Dominic Rostov.
Or one Katarina could have become Rostova when she married Constantin Rostov. Or hide the last name in a marriage to a Rostov.

His relationship to Lena

According to Fakerina, Lena was married to Dom:

Lena Volkova. She was his wife.

If that is the case, was Dom's apparent last name Volvok, like Berlin's weapons dealer? Was Lena his cover wife?
Was Lena REALLY Katarina's mother? Was she involved at all in the Fakerina charade? She had no accent, so, it seems she may have been in the US for a long time. Was she a sleeper agent? Was Dom a sleeper agent who turned? Was she his handler?

The PO Box in Wilmington, NY

In Rassvet, that PO box was supposed to be a way for Katarina to communicate with her parents:

A few months after I made it to America, Katarina met me here on that sidewalk. She handed me a key to box 642.
LIZ: The letter. This is where you picked it up.
She gave the key to her mother, too. She told us that, when she resurfaced, she would make contact with us.
I got this 28 years ago. And in 28 years, there was not a week that has passed that I haven't tried to use it. I'd say a silent prayer first hoping, praying to find something from her.

BUT Liz had got to learn who Dom was through that mailbox, as Liz in the unused scene showed him the photo Ressler had found. Dom then knew Liz had found Lena, and had found the letter Lena wrote. So, we cannot take any of that soppy stuff that seriously.
WHAT WE KNOW, is that the story Katarina gave a key to her mother is likely to be a lie. WHY? Because Katarina had sent her mother supposedly to Boston, a trip almost 5 hours from there. There was NO chance Lena was checking that box, not to mention that she, apparently without any concern for ever hearing from her daughter, had moved to Chicago at some point, even if Ted King could have been in the NY area or in Boston. What we know is that in 2020, before she died, she was in Chicago.
There was no way she was checking that PO Box. What we ALSO know, is that regardless of the sob story Lena gave the sap King, the person who picked up the letter was her supposed ex-husband Dom.
IT WAS THE LAST TIME THE BOX WAS CHECKED BY DOM.

We're looking for a person who picked up a letter from Box 642 in probably the first week of February.
...
I looked into the security footage like you asked. The drives cycle out after 90 days, but I took a look. And box 642 was accessed only once in that time. February, like you said. 13th.

So, it seems what we actually know, is what is evident: Dom and Lena kept in touch, at least once that we know of.
Lena, about to die, wrote a letter which was picked up by Dom. Seems to me Lena and Dom had always had means of communication. I would bet Lena had a similar PO box somewhere where she lived. The PO Box ownership gave no information:

the box is registered to a Tracey Ivers, but that's the guy who picked it up.
Do you know him?
Can't say I do. Phone number's disconnected. The account's paid by money order. But anyone with a key can obviously open the box.

About the same time Dom picked up this last letter Lena could write as she was in hospice, dying, Dom had an accident.

RED: I got your message about the accident.
DOM: I sent it a month ago.
Yeah. Three months after it happened.

It seems that regardless of the story about a letter to a estranged daughter, what the PO box served as was a means of communication between Dom and Lena.
Dom may have had an accident about that time because he was upset about Lena dying, or about something he learned in that letter.
Why were they hiding separately? Dom seemed to have been in Russia in 1991, while Lena was in the US.

THE PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES

Dom seem to have kept Russian explosives. WHY? Why would a Russian agent, who was living in the US, or partly operating there USE RUSSIAN EXPLOSIVES during the Cold War? It was advertising an act of war.
Why not buy some other explosives?
It seemed to me destined to make false flag operations. Plastic explosives are not things to be casually lugged around on a trip from Russia, particularly evading a hunt. So WHY did Dom have them if not to accomplish false flag operations if needed.
https://preview.redd.it/ucanoydyyoa61.png?width=616&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e92c3c7a73b4211131c61b43fad8ad7d7fd12fa
Everything about Dom points to his being a double agent. The name Oleander is curious, as is the name of a bush and its flower, highly poisonous. But think about it. Is like being codenamed Azalea, Rose, Hibiscus. If going for a flower, why not Foxglove or Narcissus?
Was Dom the REAL Oleander? The ORIGINAL Oleander?

Hey Everyone! I put this together to help some friends out, and realized it's probably useful to a lot of other folks. I also wanted to see if anybody had any suggestions or comments. This also applicable to Boston and DC, as those are roughly the three main places that transit to the trail goes through.
Backpacking the AT via Mass Transit from NYC: Harpers Ferry to Maine
The Appalachian trails goes right by NYC, and is perfectly suited for a transit accessible section hike. In fact, the 870 mile section from the Harpers Ferry to the NH/Maine border has decent transit options every 20-50 miles, which I’ve covered in this guide. I’ve also included a segment linking to transit options in Maine, which are not as closely linked.
If you’re going to do some part of this, I highly recommend downloading the Guthook Map and buying these sections. It’s both a good map app, and a great guide to the trail, covering water sources, food resupplies, tent and lean-to sites etc. It also has comments from other hikers with the latest info on water and trail conditions
Below I’ve listed the AT mileage as found in the Guthook App (measured from the Southern Terminus in Georgia), and Transit options at each point. Using Guthook and these references, you should be able to put together any type of trip from a single overnight, all the way up to a month long backpacking trip through the entire area.
Couple of Notes:
This is a wall of text, and can be intimidating. I suggest planning this out in manageable chunks. For example, I think that the Delaware Water Gap (Mile 1296) is a great start/finish point for a section, due to convenience of buses to Manhattan, and good food options. Other notably good points to get access include: Greenwood lake (1372), Harriman (1385), Garrison (1411), Harlem Valley/Wingdale (1453). These could all be looped into a short or long weekends, and this area of the trail isn’t called the “Deli to Deli” Section for nothing. The logistics are probably the easiest of the entire trail, while also being full of beauty.
Taxis: While I have provided numbers for various taxi companies, I make no guarantee as to if you’ll have a good experience. I recommend contacting them well in advance, and get a cost before you get in the car. If the cost seems unreasonable, it probably is, and I recommend contacting another service. I also haven’t listed every road crossing that you can get a taxi at. I’ve selected ones that make sense due to proximity, or being the first/last area that makes sense for a while. For pretty much all of the NY section of the trail, catching and Uber is also an option. The Trek also maintains a list of shuttles covering this whole area as well: https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/accessing-the-appalachian-trail-shuttles-buses-taxis/
Amtrak: Amtrak occasionally has issues with being significantly late, especially on the line going by Harrisburg. I wouldn’t recommend planning on a close connection, and if you do, have a backup plan (ie, take a $20-$30 Uber ride to a trail head if you miss a bus).
Also, I make no guarantee that all of the options work. I as a random redditor take no responsibility for any misadventures you might have from this info. I’ve found google maps to be fairly reliable, but have included direct links to every transit operator so you can check latest schedules with them. Be sure to check everything before you go, especially with all of the uncertainty surrounding COVID. Enjoy!
1025.9 Harpers Ferry - From here you can walk a couple blocks to the train station and catch either an Amtrak or MARC train back to Washington’s Union Station. See 1048.6 for info on Union Station.
MARC: https://s3.amazonaws.com/mta-website-staging/mta-website-staging/files/Routes+Schedules/marc_brunswick-washington.pdf
Amtrak: https://www.amtrak.com/routes/capitol-limited-train.html Or you can take it to Chicago. You do you.
1048.6 US-40 - Walk 4 miles to the Meyersville Park and Ride https://goo.gl/maps/Q8Ajy3h7Qz9rK2jKA and catch the 505 Bus. https://s3.amazonaws.com/mta-website-staging/mta-website-staging/files/Routes+Schedules/505.pdf This bus can take you to the Shady Grove Metro train station. You can then take the train to Washington DC’s Union Station, https://goo.gl/maps/PyfbpJDEFbjKd3VC9
At Union Station you can catch a bus or Amtrak train back to NYC. Bus operators include: Bolt Bus: https://www.boltbus.com/ Megabus: https://us.megabus.com/stops Greyhound: https://www.greyhound.com/ Note: This bus runs weekdays only
1096.3 Shippensburg Rd - This is an 8.5 mile road walk https://goo.gl/maps/9XHQTdrzW7fAXVEj8 or call a taxi or shuttle:
Chambersburg Taxi - (717) 377-0806 Express Taxi - (717) 977-9539
Once at the Walmart you can take the CAT 81X to the Harrisburg Amtrak Station. See 1184.7 for info on Amtrak. https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Route-81X-Public-Schedule-2019.11.04-v2.pdf Note: This is a weekday only service
1131.9 US-11 Carlisle Pike - Walk 1.2 miles west to catch the bus at Country Club Rd. There are two buses that stop here that will take you to the Harrisburg Amtrak Station:
CAT C Bus - https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/Route-C-Public-Schedule-2019.11.04.pdf and take it to Harrisburg Amtrak Station. Note: Route is Weekday only, but does run hourly/every other hour. Be very careful if crossing Carlisle Pike! See 1184.7 for info on Amtrak.
CAT 81X Bus - https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/Route-81X-Public-Schedule-2019.11.04-v2.pdf
1132.7 Bernheisel Bridge Rd - There are couple options:
Walk 1.5 miles to the intersection of Farmers and Carlisle Pike. https://goo.gl/maps/ZVbLB6R719184MuL9 Catch the CAT C bus. https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/Route-C-Public-Schedule-2019.11.04.pdf and take it to Harrisburg Amtrak Station (see 1184.7). Note: Route is Weekday only, but does run hourly/every other hour. Be very careful if crossing Carlisle Pike!
Walk 2 miles to the Fry/Weg Warehouse and catch the CAT CY Bus. https://goo.gl/maps/6L9r46WLZYxdbXxK8 https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/route-CY-2020-10-18.pdf Note: There are currently are only 2 trips a day, 6 days a week from here. Be very careful if crossing Carlisle Pike!
1151.3 US-22/Susquehanna River - Catch the CAT 23X Commuter bus from the Park and ride, and take to the Harrisburg Amtrak Station https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/Route-23X-Public-Schedule-2019.11.04.pdf Note: Route is weekdays only, and has only a few trips See 1184.7 for info on Harrisburg Amtrak Station info
1184.7 Swatara Gap - Walk along the rail trail, and then surface roads to the Mattel distribution center area https://goo.gl/maps/jj8rapAMNgGVHwvY6 where you can catch Bus 16. From there you have two options. There are two options. One is to transfer to Bus 8 and take it to Hershey Intermodal center, and transfer to CAT Bus 322 to the Harrisburg Amtrak station.
There are several options throughout the day to take this route. https://goo.gl/maps/kreW1xWNx3ovnf4w7 -> https://lebanontransit.org/map-schedules/routes/route-10-old-forge-road-express/ https://lebanontransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Route-8-Schedule.pdf https://www.cattransit.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/03/Route-322-Public-Schedule-2020.03.09.pdf
The other option is to take the express bus, which runs twice a day Round Trip: https://lebanontransit.org/map-schedules/routes/harrisburg-commute-king-express-a-b-schedules/ You take the same Bus 16 https://goo.gl/maps/VzpESaLHVHG77Cup9 , and transfer to Express Bus 22 https://goo.gl/maps/GGHTXskjxnrsxbGg7 https://lebanontransit.org/map-schedules/routes/harrisburg-commute-king-express-a-b-schedules/
Live schedule updates can be found here: http://realtime.lebanontransit.org/InfoPoint Note: Not all of these routes operate on weekends.
Google has issues with updated schedules and has issues putting these together. I recommend using the operators website to figure out transfer schedules. Both of these options will require a lot of attention to detail on the schedules to make it work. However, once in Harrisburg your options get better.
From the Harrisburg Amtrak Station, you can take: Amtrak back to NYC via Philadelphia: https://www.amtrak.com/routes/keystone-service-train.html Greyhound Bus: https://www.greyhound.com/ Pre-COVID there were other operators like Megabus that used to operate this route.
As an editorial note: given the disconnect between Google maps and updated schedules, this is the trickiest connection I’ve found on this list.
1220.5 PA 61/Cabelas/Hamburg - Walk 1.2 miles form the trail to the Walmart. https://goo.gl/maps/peCcYsM2GkNZ5BB78 Take BARTA Bus 21 http://busfinder.bartabus.com/InfoPoint to the BARTA Transportation Center in Reading. Take an Ourbus to NYC https://www.ourbus.com/ Note: Buses currently run only 3 days a week. Pickup and drop off in NYC is NOT PABT, but rather at Madison and E33rd.
1260.1 PA-248 - It’s a short walk to a stop for Bus 325. Transfer to Bus 209 to get to the Allentown Bus Terminal. https://goo.gl/maps/f3haz8mvvctVTPc69 http://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/325-weekday/ https://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-209/ Note: These buses are currently weekday only. Verify schedules before travel
See 1280.5 for details on travel form the Allentown Bus Terminal
1280.5 - Wind Gap - Walk one mile to catch Bus 217, transfer to Bus 107 to the Allentown Bus Terminal. https://goo.gl/maps/mLgqaNSvUszG99od6 or transfer to Bus 106 or 216 or 214 to get to the Easton Intermodal Center. I would suggest using Google Maps to figure out the best option to get to Easton, as there are so many options, and it varies based on time. Note Google has issues figuring out the trips back to Manhattan. I recommend directly contacting the bus operators. https://goo.gl/maps/MPQCzWnaZ83gGThg7
https://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-217/ https://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-107/ https://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-106/ http://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-216/ https://www.lantabus.com/routes-and-schedules/route-214/
From Allentown Bus Terminal you can catch: Greyhound: https://www.greyhound.com/en-us/bus-from-allentown-to-new-york Trailways: https://trailways.com/schedules/bus-from-allentown-pa-to-new-york-ny/ Transbridge https://transbridgelines.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Allentown-Clinton-Eastbound-1-4-21.pdf Ourbus to NYC https://www.ourbus.com/
From Easton Intermodal Center: Trailways: https://trailways.com/schedules/bus-from-allentown-pa-to-new-york-ny/ Greyhound: https://www.greyhound.com/en-us/bus-from-allentown-to-new-york
NOTE: Not all bus routes do not run every day. Verify travel and make reservations in advance.
1296: Delaware Water Gap (DWG) - It’s a really cool area, and you can take a Martz bus from the PABT to their station located here https://goo.gl/maps/VqYJqZXSBTkqcpLw9 and walk to the AT by the river. You can look up schedules and buy tickets here: https://martztrailways.com/schedules/ Port = PABT Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, DWG - Delaware Water Gap
Pro Tip - There’s a bunch of great food options that you pass by walking from the bus terminal, so it’s a good place to stock up on a hot meal before setting off, or to reward yourself after finishing. I’m personally partial to Sango Kura’s Ramen/Sushi/Sake, and Joe Bosco’s BBQ.
1338: High Point State Park - At this point you’re 6.5 miles of road walking away from the Port Jervis Train station (NJ Transit). This is not a particularly fun road walk as it’s a fast, busy road, but it does have a large shoulder on one side. You can knock off a mile and half of the road walk by taking some trails to the Steenykill Lake boat launch https://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/parks/maps/HighPointTrailsFinalDraft_reduced.pdf
The better option is to call a cab, numbers for some listed below. I recommend adding a large amount of time between pickup and the train you’re going to catch. Check out Fox N Hare Brewing Company while you wait. J L Dispatching Taxi Service - (845) 856-3544 Yo Taxi - (845) 672-4171 Swift Cabs - (845) 672-4888 Port Jervis Dial A Bus - (845) 856-7999
1365: Warwick Turnpike - You will likely be able to catch an Uber from here. You have two options, either take it to catch the NJ Transit bus 197 either in Hewit NY https://goo.gl/maps/cHzsM3u1PLaYcMAu7 or Warwick NY https://goo.gl/maps/NhFD1KMGtJ56DDkb7
1368.5 State Line Trail - You take the turnoff and follow the state line trail down to the parking lot. There is a bus stop a couple hundred yards up the road where the 197 bus stops that will take you to Manhattan. https://goo.gl/maps/7kP18iv1HKWHt6iW9 Map showing trail down: https://www.njparksandforests.org/parks/maps/AbramHewittFinalDraft_reduced.pdf
1372.4 Greenwood Lake - There is a direct connector trail between the AT and Main Street in Greenwood lake. You can take the NJ Transit bus 197 to here: https://goo.gl/maps/Ji7D6u8QRs6tZMmP7
1374.6 NY-17A - There is a bus stop near the top of the hill where NJ Transit Bus 197 makes a stop. https://goo.gl/maps/4PuJLSQvH3oZLLew6 If riding too here, you should definitely let the bus driver know.
1383.4 East Mombasha Rd/1384.8 Orange Turnpike - It’s a ~3 mile road walk, or Uber ride to the bus stop in southfields, which is a ShortLine Bus run by Coach https://www.coachusa.com/bus-schedules There is currently very limited schedules on this route. I would recommend the next option, or if you really need to bail here, take an uber to the Harriman Train station https://goo.gl/maps/GZk2nuaQpenTL7re7
1385.9 Sapphire Trail/Harriman Train Station - This 2.2 mile trail goes to the Harriman Train station. This is on the Port Jervis line, so service isn’t that frequent. https://goo.gl/maps/GZk2nuaQpenTL7re7
1386.6 NY-17/Agony Grind - The Shortline Bus by Coach stops here, although has limited service https://www.coachusa.com/bus-schedules. As of 2021 this is not a reliable stop.
1405.7 US-9/Bear Mountain Inn - Ordinarily there is a shuttle bus between Manhattan and Bear Mountain. Due to COVID, this service has been suspended.
1407.2 Manitou - Ordinarily there is service at the Manitou station. Currently service is suspended due to COVID http://web.mta.info/supplemental/mnserviceupdates.htm?story=1427
1411.4 Trail Junction - Side trail to Garrison Metro North Train station. The 2 mile side trail can be viewed here https://parks.ny.gov/documents/parks/HudsonHighlandsTrailMapSouth.pdf https://goo.gl/maps/sDT7SQTyJWvXYx3f7 navigate via Avenza's free map here https://www.avenzamaps.com/maps/91861/hudson-highlands-state-park-trail-map-south This is currently the best access into Manhattan, as the train runs relatively frequently, and stops at Grand Central. Hopefully Guthook will add in the side trail route.
1444.1 NY-55 & 1451.7 NY-22 - 4 mile for NY-55 and 2.5 mile for NY-22 road walk to the Pawling Metro north station. There is the Appalachian Trail station at NY-22, but it has very limited hours normally and is not running due to COVID. Likely able to catch an Uber or you can call a cab: https://goo.gl/maps/zHaB9ojB3MJnUvgZA.
Taxi services will cover this entire area too, in case you have an issue. Pawling Train Station Taxi - (845) 855-9800 Segundo's Taxi - (845) 264-3020 Pauling Taxi Service - (845) 855-8585
1453.6 Trail Junction - This junction leads 2.5 miles to the Harlem Valley Wingdale Train station https://goo.gl/maps/JxvegjPWLJrhjzNw8 Trail map https://imgur.com/a/itWgK3S https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/pawling.pdf There are a couple of other routes possible if coming from the North. Hopefully Guthook will update the side trail.
1470.1 Macedonia Rd/ Kent CT - This is ~10 miles from the Wassaic Metro North Stop. It is a fairly quick cab ride. https://goo.gl/maps/o3s5iBMHsxoTUHBL8
Morning Star Car Service - (845) 832-7933 Litchfield County Livery - 860-601-9143 Big Bully Taxi - 845-546-5707
*1502.3 Cobble Rd/Salisbury CT *- This is ~15 miles from the Wassaic Metro North Stop. It is a fairly quick cab ride. https://goo.gl/maps/o3s5iBMHsxoTUHBL8
Emerald Express - (518) 592-1074 Watson Livery - (845) 464-8178
1523.8 US-7/Great Barrington - As of now in 2020, Peter Pan is no longer running a bus service from Great Barrington to NYC. A mile and a half north of where the trail crosses US-7, there is a stop for Bus 21 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-21-schedule/ at the Claire Teague Senior Center. You can take this to the Lee Outlets, and transfer to Bus 2 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-2-schedule/, which will take you to the Pittsfield ITC (Amtrak/bus center in Pittsfield). https://goo.gl/maps/rGzVLzVfMrzACKiR9 These buses take awhile (it’s a 21 mile route). Note, these buses do not run on Sunday. The other faster, albeit more expensive option is to take a taxi back to Wassaic, or Catskills Amtrak station which are only 30 miles away.
Hudson Car Service - (518) 697-0056 Morning Star Car Service - (845) 832-7933
From the Pittsfield ITC, you can either take a Greyhound bus to NYC, or an Amtrak train back - both have at least one transfer, so both options take awhile. The Amtrak option also does not run every day. While I ordinarily recommend using google maps to handle the details of transit, it has issues putting it all together, especially with the schedule issues with Peter Pan. I would recommend directly checking on https://www.amtrak.com/ and https://www.greyhound.com/ for options.
1541.2 Jerusalem Road - You can walk 4 miles to the Lee Premium Outlets and catch Bus 2 behind the Polo Ralph Lauren https://goo.gl/maps/XP7pyjhkR1ecUzrT6 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-2-schedule/ that will bring you to the Pittsfield ITC Bus/Amtrak station. See description at 1523.8 for info on the Pittsfield ITC. Note, these buses do not run on Sunday. It should be noted that walking along Goose Pond Rd (1548.5) is a nicer, quieter, safer road walk.
1548.5 Goose Pond Road - You can walk 4 miles to the Lee Premium Outlets and catch Bus 2 behind the Polo Ralph Lauren. https://goo.gl/maps/VoKCnn4LeJ3HZ7QCA https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-2-schedule/ The bus will bring you to Pittsfield ITC Bus/Amtrak station. See description at 1523.8 for info on the Pittsfield ITC. Note, these buses do not run on Sunday.
1572 Dalton- A couple blocks off the trail you can catch Bus 4 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-4-schedule/ to the Pittsfield ITC. https://goo.gl/maps/amSCrFgxnZ81naQ57 See description at 1523.8 for info on getting to and from the Pittsfield ITC. Note, these buses do not run on Sunday.
1580 Cheshire - You can catch Bus 1 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-1-schedule/ to the Pittsfield ITC. See description at 1523.8 for info on getting to and from the Pittsfield ITC. Note, these buses do not run on Sunday. https://goo.gl/maps/aW74Xdspo87ujXxY6
*1595.4 North Adams *- You can catch Bus 3 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-3-schedule/ at the Stop and Shop in North Adams, a half mile west of the trail, or walk 2 miles into downtown North Adams. Then transfer to Bus 34 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-34-schedule/, and then to Bus 1 https://berkshirerta.com/plan-your-trip/route-1-schedule/ to the Pittsfield ITC. https://goo.gl/maps/tf6YgR71RDyc86JN7 Note, these buses do not run on Sunday. See description at 1523.8 for info on getting to and from the Pittsfield ITC.
1613.8 Route-9 Bennington VT: It’s a five mile road walk into Bennington on a busy road Otherwise, there is a bus that runs a couple times a day https://goo.gl/maps/tEJRkT7NBRczZQ3X9 https://www.greenmtncn.org/emerald-line.html (it’s the LT/AT stop). You must call the bus service at (802) 447-0477 to request a pickup at the LT/AT stop. You can also check Guthook comments for info on shuttle services. Otherwise, here are some listed taxi services. Be advised that some carriers don’t have cell phone service at the trailhead, so plan ahead when you have service on one of the mountains above the road.
Mike's ALL HOUR Taxi - (802) 379-6279 Walt’s Taxi - (802) 681-7054
Once you’re in Bennington, you would ordinarily be able to take a VT Transline to Albany for a Greyhound/Trailways bus, or Rensselaer NY for Amtrak Service back to NYC. However due to COVID Transline has suspended service. Please check https://www.vttranslines.com/ for updates
1649.1 Prospect rock/ Manchester Center VT- It’s a 2.5 mile walk to Zoey’s Double Hex Restaurant, which is where one of the three daily buses to Albany stops, and ~4 miles to the Bus parking area where the other two stop https://goo.gl/maps/6ZDmBwck8Lm99m2w9 Check out https://www.vttranslines.com/bus-schedules/ for details. Note, all services are cancelled due to COVID
There are several taxi options as well: Equinox Transportation - (802) 430-9920 Mountain Drivers - (802) 772-5223 Manchester Taxi - (802) 362-4118 Northshire Taxi - (802) 345-9333
1679.9 Russell Road /Wallingford VT - It’s a 3 mile road rock to the Cumberland Farms where the VT Translines bus stops, which does daily runs to Albany. https://goo.gl/maps/6kapAzAXjhy1Q4Mn6 See https://www.vttranslines.com/bus-schedules/ for details. There are some folks listed in Guthook comments who do shuttles here Note, all services are cancelled due to COVID
*1686.2 VT-103 / Rutland * - There is a Ludlow Bus Route stop at the trailhead. The bus runs infrequently, so check the schedule and plan accordingly https://goo.gl/maps/Yv4KrkcdSYxzGSsm9 https://www.thebus.com/ludlow-route/
There are also taxi options to get into Rutland, and Uber reportedly works: Timberline Transportation - (802) 345-6917 Catamount Taxi - (802) 236-0282 Tri State Transportation - (802) 855-3130
Once in Rutland, you have two options. You can either take Amtrak to NYC via Alban, or the VT Translines bus. Once in Albany you can transfer to either an Amtrak or bus back to NYC. Note, due to COVID both the Rutland Amtrak and VT Transline have been suspended.
*1706.0 - Inn at Long Trail/Rutland * - The Rutland Killington Commuter Bus stops here. https://goo.gl/maps/m1Ksez9TCLP7fDfXA Note, this bus runs infrequently, verify schedule https://www.thebus.com/rutland-killington-commute You can also catch a taxi into Rutland. Please see taxi options and transport to/from Rutland at 1686.2
*1750.7 Hanover NH *- You can take a bus from Hanover to White River Junction, and catch an Amtrak train back to NYC. https://goo.gl/maps/Yu7tmFuaoFZHz1NS8 https://www.amtrak.com/ You can also catch the Dartmouth Coach https://dartmouthcoach.com/ to Boston, and then take a bus or train back to NYC. Currently, the Amtrak service, as well as Dartmouth Coaches’ direct service to NYC is suspended due to COVID.
1803.6 Kinsman Notch/ Lincoln NH - It’s a 7 mile road walk to the 7-11 where the bus stop is https://goo.gl/maps/YdvTtWvFw22VyRuC6 There are also several taxi companies:
Ali’s Taxi Rides: (603) 348-3914 Shuttle Connection: (603) 745-3140
Concord Coach runs a bus from Lincoln to Boston, where you can take a bus or train back to NYC. https://concordcoachlines.com/stop/lincoln-nh/
1819.9 I-93 /Liberty Springs Trailhead/ Lincoln NH - You can likely get a ride from one of the taxi services listed at 1803.6 back to Lincoln. The AMC Hiking shuttle also stops here, although is not running due to COVID. See https://www.outdoors.org/lodging-camping/lodging-shuttle for details and reservations.
1847.6 Webster Cliff/Crawford notch - The shuttle services listed for Lincoln will likely work here, as does the AMC hiking shuttle, which is not running due to COVID. See https://www.outdoors.org/lodging-camping/lodging-shuttle for details. Note, little to no cell service exists in the Notch, so plan accordingly.
1873.6 Pinkham Notch Visitors Center - Concord coach stops here, and goes to Boston. https://concordcoachlines.com/stop/pinkham-notch-nh/ From Boston, you can catch train or bus back to NYC.
1894.8 Rattle River - This is the last access for quite some time. Concord bus has a stop in Gorham https://concordcoachlines.com/stop/gorham-nh/, which is a 4.7 mile road walk from the AT. https://goo.gl/maps/fyC4g9NsfDyVnQUu6 This bus will drop you off in Boston, where you can take a train or bus to NYC. Shuttle service may also be available from the Rattle River Hostel (603) 466-5049 - and others which can be found in the Guthook comments.
Maine
From here through Maine, there are no regular bus routes, but options to exist. I’ve included a partial list here, and information sources. Overall the best bet besides these two points to split it up is to work with a shuttle operator.
2193 - The End/Start Mt. Katahdin - See the guide here on getting here https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/get-mount-katahdin-sobos/
2003.3 - ME-27 Carrabassett Valley - The Maine Hut to Hut trail system is nearby, and has a good rundown on transit options here https://mainehuts.org/transportation-services. The main theme is you’ll have to take a shuttle service of some variety to Bangor, Augusta, or Portland. Where you can take a Concord Bus to Boston, or a train or bus to Boston. Since the shuttle service is to order, you can also get picked up at many othe road crossings in the Rangely/Carrabassett area. Be sure to work the details out ahead of time.

Please help me add to this. I got some of this information (especially the scholarships) from an old list so I don't know if it's still up to date. Please help me correct any errors. Please also add any schools I missed. I bet there are other annoying big state schools with December 1st Deadlines. I bet I've missed some priority scholarship deadlines. I bet I got most of the notable private schools, but if everyone can just check their local state colleges, that would be ideal.

I'm not worried schools with special deadlines after November 1st (for early) or January 1st because I feel as if most readers of this sub will have at least one application submitted by those dates (if applying Early). This is just a list to make sure you don't miss any deadlines.

EARLY

October 15th:

Oxford University (UK)
Cambridge University (UK) [note: you can only apply to either Oxford or Cambridge, using the British UCAS system, not the Common App; these aren't actually "Early"—this is their only deadline—but it made sense to put them here somehow, whatever, it’s before November 1st]
Coast Guard Academy
Georgia Tech (Georgia Residents only; non-Georgia Residents Nov. 2)
Stanford (if using the arts supplement only)
Texas A & M (Early Action; only an option for engineering applicants)
University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill (UNC) (Early Action)
University of South Carolina (Early Action)
University of Georgia (UGA) (both Georgia and non-Georgia)

October 31st

Berea College (Early Action)
Transylvania University (Early Action)
Please note that any school with an early date before November 1st is officially uppity, except for Oxford and Cambridge 'cause they're really just riding their own wave out there. But what the hell is up with these other schools? Who do they think they are?

REGULAR

November 1st

University of Florida (only some parts of the application; rolling after this, "on space-available basis")

November 15th:

University of Washington—Seattle (UDub)
What the hell. Seattle's cool, I mean, but it's not that cool. It's not California. I literally don't understand why they're so much earlier than everyone else. This school has lots of advantages students look for: it's in a major city, it's a public school so less expensive, it has a number of great programs including one of the top Computer Science programs in the country (think: where are Microsoft and Amazon headquartered?), etc., but a lot of students miss out every year on a great school because of their weird deadline.

November 30th:

All University of California campuses, including:

• Berkeley
• UCLA
• UC San Diego
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Irvine
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC Merced

December 1st:

All Rutgers campuses,
New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden
Gonzaga (but "will take late applications until February 1st")
Stanford but only if you're doing an arts supplement.
Texas A&M (TAMU)—College Station
University of Southern California for film school applicants only
All University of Texas campuses (priority deadline), including UT Austin, UT Dallas, etc.
Again, I bet at least one or two other big state schools are in this category. Help me out.

December 4th:

California Polytechnic (Cal Poly)
All California State Campuses (CSU) (I’m not listing all 23 campuses)

December 15th

*University of San Diego (but accepts applications through February 1st for "Late Consideration")

SCHOLARSHIPS

Many schools offer consideration for scholarships for those who apply by a certain deadline. These can be either Priority Deadlines (you have a better chance of scholarships if you apply before) or Hard Deadlines (do or die deadlines where if you miss it, they won't consider you for merit). Priority Deadlines marked with a +, Hard Deadlines marked with a $.
These I actually just found on one long list from a few years ago so I haven't double checked to make sure the dates are still correct. I also I haven't filled in Priority or Hard but I'll try to go through and fill those in like next week or something. If someone wants to do that now, though, that'd be rad as hell tho.

October 15st:

University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill (Morehead-Cain Scholarship, in state; OOS October 1st)
University of Central Florida (I'd check other Florida schools as well)

November 1st:

Indiana University (IU)
Michigan State
North Carolina State University (NCSU) (Parks Scholarship; school endorsement should actually be done by October 15th)
Ohio State University—Columbus
Purdue
Texas Christian University (TCU)
University of Maryland—College Park
University of Georgia (UGA) (Foundation Fellowship—internationals and OOS can get this)
University of Texas—Austin (UT—Austin) (even earlier than the normal deadline)

November 15th :

Emory $
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) (special COVID scholarship deadline)
Loyola University Maryland
The Ohio State University (OSU) (Maximus, Provost, and Trustees scholarships)
University of South Carolina
UNC and Duke's Robertson Scholarship

December 1st:

Boston University
Claremont McKenna
Clemson
College of Charleston
Creighton
Grinnell
Hampton
John Carroll University
Loyola University Chicago
Saint Louis University
Transylvania University
University of Connecticut—Storrs
University of Illinois—Chicago (UIC) +
University of Southern California (USC) $
University of Richmond
University of Rochester (including the IB scholarship)
Vanderbilt
Virginia Tech (Presidential Scholarship)
Washington & Lee

December 15th:

University of Alabama

December 20th

Duke (priority deadline for interviews)
&
Again, please help me add any schools I've missed!
Team work makes the dream work.

What are your thoughts? Wall of text incoming. Had to write a paper with a annotated sources.
​
In recent years research suggests that the current iteration of banking is stuck in history, it is unsanitary, and perhaps unwilling to evolve and is slowing the modernization of our world. Banking as we know it will either need to adapt or others will take its place because, in today’s society, we need the ability to access our funds at any time, be able to complete transactions within minutes and not days, and to make global transfers within minutes and not weeks while ensuring the exchange is hygienically plague free.
With recent worldwide events, we have found that the banks are not able to fully service their customer because of governmental and environmental sanctions from the Corona Virus and other contaminations that may come about. We look to the future for solutions on how to hold and spend currencies without the requirement of the proximity of fiat changing hands, or third-party establishments providing a service while taking unnecessary cuts from our wallets. Banks let archaic computer systems run our financial communities with very little effort in maintaining the business, almost making a passive income. Some believe the solution is already here, though still in its infancy, blockchain will free us of many of these third-party providers.
To understand what blockchain is, you must first define it. Blockchain is still a relatively new technology and being innovated at a rapid pace. According to Steven Norton from the wall street journal “a blockchain is a data structure that makes it possible to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it among a distributed network of computers. It uses cryptography to allow each participant on the network to manipulate the ledger securely without the need for a central authority.” (Norton, 2016)
A ledger of transactions that is open for the world to see, yet one of the most secure networks in the world with a singular chain known as Bitcoin using a top of 146 million tera-hashes at the current time this paper was written. This is one of a hundred underlying platforms that are available to the world through blockchain.
This is important because of how it is used for business. From the book Blockchain for Business“Blockchain matters because no business operates in isolation. By implementing business processes that leverage the collective knowledge of the group, processes can be orders of magnitude more cost-efficient.” ( (ARUN, 2019))
To simplify what was said this means that no longer will a core group of individuals control how you bank, what your business can or cannot access. It will open doors that were closed to you because of simple choices that were made in the past and over complex regulations and rules.
For example, with the legalization of marijuana in some states, while federally it is still against the law. This provides complexities to banks, do they serve the customer, and the customers cash, or do they serve the federal government that holds the chains and regulations. At this time majority of the Banks still serve the slow to adopt federal government.
For example, according to CNBC, in 2014, SinglePoint, a mobile app payment company, had placed Point of Sale or POS terminals in legal Medical Marijuana dispensaries. Which then the consumer could pay with their credit cards.
“Everything was going great,” the store owner Ralston said. Then the bank decided to shut them down, with no warning, no latitude, or space for business adaptation. The reason the bank cited for such a drastic and uncompromising decision. “They didn’t want to risk it.” (Criteo, 2017)
With the examples of how and why the Banks are losing faith with people of the world this is where Blockchain will come in. It will step in and provide where the current Banking system refuses to.
According to Banking Dive, with Covid-19, our population is currently getting comfortable with doing everything remotely, digitally, with no requirement of the bank branches. "I think everything that's happened over (since February) or so is probably accelerating a trend that’s already happening, which is the reliance on traditional bank branches will continue to go away," Chime CEO Chris Britt (Criteo, 2020)
The Balance lists off many benefits to cryptocurrency that could change or replace banks, such as immutability. For example, if you are selling your used car, you want to get paid before handing over the car. The real current options are cash, wire transfers, or a cashier’s check. However, cash is dangerous and dirty, Wire transfers are labor-intensive, and cashier’s checks can be faked and can cost money to get. Instead, we could wait for a few block verifications to verify the sender and at that point there is no way for them to recall that transaction. (Pritchard, 2020)
A list of other options that the blockchain excels at while banking is slow and expensive is Money Transfers, Swipe Fees, Title Details, Smart Contracts, Reduced Fraud, and the possibility of Public Ledgers that anyone can look at and verify if they have your wallet address.
Banking is a well-defined tradition of being slow to adapt to technology due to many different reasons. Such as: non-agile systems, the mindset of their leaders, as well as regulatory concerns. With the rapid development of technology, they have leaps and bounds to catch up. If they do not they will be left in the dust with many old “unstoppable” industries such as movie rentals, like Blockbuster.
Many new companies are ready to take their place, according to a paper at CNN, "We believe that Bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future," Square's Chief Financial Officer, Amrita Ahuja, said in a statement. "As it grows in adoption, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined way." (Effron, 2020)
Many companies are buying up this blockchain as a store of currency instead of leaving it in a bank for rainy days. For example, Square invested in almost 1 percent of the company’s assets in the second quarter of 2020. Which at that time went by 4,709 Bitcoins, or a price of 50 million dollars. At that time Bitcoin was worth around 8 Thousand dollars each. Today it is worth 27 Thousand Dollars per coin, tripling that bet if they have not bought anymore.
Not only wanting to hold Bitcoin, in 2018 Square expanded its Cash App to support the top cryptocurrencies, even for users without bank accounts. After the success of Cash App, it launched Square Crypto to help develop the space. (Effron, 2020))
JPMorgan believes “That more will come into the space now that the dam has been broken. With Square’s Cash App facilitating $858 Million worth of Bitcoin Purchases in Q2. We believe that millennials, or the younger cohorts of the US retail investors universe, have been using the Cash App as an alternative vehicle to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust to add to their bitcoin holdings," said JPMorgan strategists. (Khatri 2020)
Since these opening plays, a few well-known companies have heavily dived down the Bitcoin hole. Such as: GrayScale, PayPal, MicroStrategy. Others who now will accept it such as Microsoft, Overstock, Home Depot, Starbucks, Whole Foods, New Egg. (Tuwiner, 2020)Even as everyday useable credit cards from Crypto.com and Binance.
Our currencies have gone through a few changes already, from being a gold-backed standard and then leaving it on April 20, 1933. (Richardson 2013) We have gone from Cash to Checks, to Debit and Credit cards. The new iteration of financial freedom is upon us. Allowing us greater freedoms to be our money, getting paid directly to hardware and software that we own and control, and connect with people around the world. This gives us the choice. The choice of trusting third party institutions such as Square, PayPal, and GrayScale if we desire. To make available these services on a global scale, not just those that are lucky enough to live in the first world, but anyone that has a phone/computer, power, and some sort of internet, even if it is not connected immediately. This allows us the ability to send unlimited amounts of money throughout the world for a few dollars and a few minutes. Giving us more of what is the most precious asset, time.
Sources:
Norton, S. (2016, February 02). CIO Explainer: What Is Blockchain? https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/02/02/cio-explainer-what-is-blockchain/
This article is a great primer on what is blockchain, how it is used, and what its future components will be used for. “A blockchain is a data structure that makes it possible to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it among a distributed network of computers. It uses cryptography to allow each participant on the network to manipulate the ledger securely without the need for a central authority.” With several startups and industry groups working on multiple levels of blockchain, life-changing solutions will be forthcoming. Steven was the CIO for the Wall Street Journal, a prestigious source that many uses for financial guidance. I will be using this article as a primer on what blockchain is.
Arun, J. S., Cuomo, G., Gaur, N., & Tapscott, D. (2019). Blockchain for business. Boston, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
This book is about bringing blockchain and businesses closer together, whether it's for financial remittance, inventory, and supply chain tracking. It describes various real-world examples, implementation, and industry-specific as well as cross-industry cases. While bringing into clarity and magnification of opportunity that may be present in your organizations. With this source, we have Cuomo, Gaur, and Tapscott, all high ranking individuals within IBM, Gaur is currently the Director of digital research inside IBM. I will be using this source to start outlining how the business and the individual could get away with becoming their own bank.
Pritchard, J. (2020, April 23). Here's How Blockchain Will Transform Banking and Financial Services. https://www.thebalance.com/how-blockchain-is-changing-banking-and-financial-services-4174354
This paper starts to address how blockchain is specifically changing banks, being immutable, public transactions. How one can do financial transactions from money transfers across the globe with minimal financial fees and instantaneous transaction and remittance with low cost private and public ledgers. Justin Pritchard is a Certified Financial Planner and normally covers banking and loans, in his experience, he has covered the financial sector for two decades. I will be using this paper multiple times as it heads many points of my thesis whether it be direct payments, money transfers, and other thoughts
Kozyra, K. (2020, May 18). 10 Use Cases of Blockchain in Banking (1061520692 809060717 K. Shah, Ed.). https://concisesoftware.com/10-use-cases-of-blockchain-in-banking/
Another paper on the use cases of blockchain in banking, quoting faster payments, clearance and settlement systems, and a transfer of assets. It also talks about how the blockchain can help clear up erroneous errors of credit and loans while keeping your information secure. Khadija is a strategic investment and funding expert. Also a teacher for finance in top universities. I will be using this for ideas on how the banks could adapt and continue to be a service that many use.
Effron, O. (2020, October 08). Square just bought $50 million in bitcoin. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/business/square-bitcoin-crypto-investment/index.html
This paper outlines the growing adoption of cryptocurrency. Proving that it is no longer taboo and used for people to purchase things that they would rather stay private. That the blockchain is a great hedge against the current inflation of the dollar. CNN is a place where many people get their daily consumption of news. I will be using this to prove that many other financial services and sectors are willing to take on the bank's role in life. This is the first mover to take on this responsibility.
Khatri, Y. (2020, October 14). JPMorgan believes more payment companies will enable bitcoin purchases similar to Square's Cash App. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/80838/jpmorgan-payment-companies-bitcoin-square-cash-app
This paper outlines how JPMorgan believes that now bigger businesses will welcome bitcoin as a treasury and remittance that square started the ball rolling, that PayPal Venmo, grayscale, and quite a few other large companies are putting a small percentage of their cash into Cryptocurrencies and blockchains, removing them from the banks and other standard places of securing money. Yagita is a financial writer with experience in the financial sector, including the Economic Times, Reuters, New York Times, CNBC, and MIT. I will be using this to quote JPMorgans expectation for this space to fill quickly, and that the banks must start moving to stay relevant.
McWhinney, J. (2020, September 16). Can Bitcoin Kill Central Banks? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/050715/can-bitcoin-kill-central-banks.asp
This paper directly addresses the thought of what I want to write about, is it possible that Cryptocurrency replace central banking and what hurdles would need to be overcame to make this a viable option. McWhinney writes on many Financial items for a few different websites. This paper directly supports and helps outline what I want my paper to be about.
Richardson, G. (2013, November 22). Roosevelt's Gold Program. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/roosevelts-gold-program
This paper talks about a huge paradigm shift, when we went from the gold backed dollar to a financial institution with nothing backing the dollar except peoples words. Following the transition and laying the possible groundwork of what can come. This website is currently hosted on Federal Reserve History, documenting the progression and path of our economy.
Criteo, D. (2017, December 15). Bitcoin offers the cannabis industry an alternative to banks. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/15/bitcoin-offers-the-cannabis-industry-an-alternative-to-banks.html
This article talks about how a blurred line between state legislation and federal legislation is making it difficult for
This article talks about how a blurred line between state legislation and federal legislation is making it difficult for legal companies to complete business transactions through current banking infrastructure. How business can turn to cryptocurrencies to hold their cash in a safe manor. CNBC is often a trusted and respected source of information.
Tuwiner, J. (2020). Who Accepts Bitcoin? 11 Major Companies. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/who-accepts-bitcoin/
This list is a quick list of many companies that is currently accepting cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, as legal tender. Direct from user to company or a third-party administrator if that infrastructure is not built yet. Buy Bitcoin World Wide is a moderate source of information that focuses on the cryptocurrency world.
Criteo, D. (2020, November 30). How COVID-19 is driving consumers and banks to embrace digital technology. Retrieved December 30, 2020, from https://www.bankingdive.com/spons/how-covid-19-is-driving-consumers-and-banks-to-embrace-digital-technology/589447/
This article focuses on how with the current pandemic, people are getting use to never seeing their money, or interacting with banking personal. In essence giving the bank their money, with out using a majority of the services offered by the bank, leading us to the next evolution. The writer writes on many financial and cryptocurrency events in the States.

(Note the connections)
CargoMetrics Cracks the Code on Shipping Data
Scott Borgerson and his team of quants at hedge fund firm CargoMetrics are using satellite intel on ships to identify mispriced securities.
By Fred R. Bleakley February 04, 2016
Link to article
One late afternoon last November, as a ping-pong game echoed through the floor at CargoMetrics Technologies’ Boston office, CEO Scott Borgerson was watching over the shoulder of Arturo Ramos, who’s responsible for developing investment strategies with astrophysicist Ronnie Hoogerwerf. At Ramos’s feet sat Helios, his brindle pit-bull-and-­greyhound mix. All three men were staring at a computer screen, tracking satellite signals from oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Malacca, the choke point between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea where 40 percent of the world’s cargo trade moves by ship.
CargoMetrics, a start-up investment firm, is not your typical money manager or hedge fund. It was originally set up to supply information on cargo shipping to commodities traders, among others. Now it links satellite signals, historical shipping data and proprietary analytics for its own trading in commodities, currencies and equity index futures. There was an air of excitement in the office that day because the signals were continuing to show a slowdown in shipping that had earlier triggered the firm’s automated trading system to short West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures. Two days later the U.S. Department of Energy’s official report came out, confirming the firm’s hunch, and the oil futures market reacted accordingly.
“We nailed it for our biggest return of the year,” says Borgerson, who had reason to breathe more easily. His backers were watching closely. They include Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), the world’s largest hedge fund allocator, and seven wealthy tech and business leaders. Among them: former Lotus Development Corp. CEO Jim Manzi, who also had a long career at IBM Corp.
Compelling these investors and Borgerson to pursue the shipping slice of the economy is the simple fact that in this era of globalization 50,000 ships carry 90 percent of the $18.5 trillion in annual world trade.
That’s no secret, of course, but Borgerson and CargoMetrics’ backers maintain that the firm is well ahead of any other investment manager in harnessing such information for a potential big advantage. It’s why Borgerson has kept the firm in stealth mode for years. In its earlier iteration, from 2011 to 2014, CargoMetrics was hidden in a back alley, above a restaurant. Now that he’s running an investment firm, Borgerson declines to name his investors unless, like Manzi and BAAM, they are willing to be identified.
“My vision is to map historically and in real time what’s really going on in economic supply and demand across the planet,” says the U.S. Coast Guard veteran, who prides himself and the CargoMetrics team on not being prototypical Wall Streeters. “The problem is enormous, but the potential reward is huge.”
According to Borgerson, CargoMetrics is building a “learning machine” that will be able to automatically profit from spotting any publicly traded security that is mispriced, using what he refers to as systematic fundamental macro strategies. He calls the firm a new breed of quantitative investment manager. In unguarded moments he sees himself as the Steve Jobs or Elon Musk of portfolio management.
Though his ambitions may sound audacious, one thing is certain: Borgerson doesn’t lack in self-confidence. Over the past six years, he has secretly and painstakingly built a firm heavy in Ph.D.s that can manage a database of hundreds of billions of historical shipping records, conduct trillions of calculations on hundreds of computer servers and systematically execute trades in 28 different commodities and currencies.
For his part, Borgerson seems an unlikely architect of such a serious, ambitious endeavor. Easygoing and fond of joking with his colleagues, he is a hands-off manager who credits CargoMetrics’ investment prowess to his team. His brand of humor comes through even when he’s detailing the series of challenges he had starting the firm. After using the phrase “It was hard” several times, he pauses and adds, “Did I mention it was hard?” Although Borgerson declines to provide any specifics about Cargo­Metrics’ portfolio, citing the advice of his lawyers, performance during the three years of live trading apparently has been strong enough to keep his backers confident and his team of physicists, software engineers and mathematicians in place. “Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we can make a more significant investment,” says BAAM CEO J. Tomilson Hill. Former Lotus CEO Manzi is optimistic about the firm’s prospects: “It has an unbelievable edge with its historical data.”
CargoMetrics was one of the first maritime data analytics companies to seize the potential of the global Automatic Identification System. Ships transmit AIS signals via very high frequency (VHF) radio to receiver devices on other ships or land. Since 2004, large vessels with gross tonnage of 300 or more are required to flash AIS positioning signals every few seconds to avoid collisions. That allows Cargo­Metrics to pay satellite companies for access to the signals gleaned from 500 miles above the water. The firm uses historical data to identify cargo and aggregation of cargo flow, and then applies sophisticated analysis of financial market correlations to identify buying and selling opportunities.
“We’re big-data junkies who could not have founded CargoMetrics without the radical breakthroughs of this golden age of technology,” Borgerson says. The revolution in cloud computing has been instrumental. CargoMetrics leverages the Amazon Web Services platform to run its analytics and algorithms on hundreds of computer servers at a fraction of the cost of owning and maintaining the hardware itself.
At his firm’s headquarters — where the lobby displays a series of colored semaphore signal flags that spell out the mathematical equation for the surface area of the earth —Borgerson leads the way to his server room. It’s the size of a closet; inside, a thick pipe carries all the data traffic and analytic formulas CargoMetrics needs. That computing power alone would have cost $30 million to $40 million, Manzi says.
CargoMetrics is pursuing a modern version of an age-old quest. Think of the Rothschild family’s use in the 19th century of carrier pigeons and couriers on horseback to bring news from the Napoleonic Wars to their traders in London, or, in the 1980s, oil trader Marc Rich’s use of satellite phones and binoculars for relaying oil tanker flow.
Other quant-focused Wall Street firms are latching onto the satellite ship-tracking data. But, Borgerson says, “I would bet my life on a stack of Bibles that no one in the world has the shipping database and analytics we have.” The reason he’s so convinced is that from late 2008 he was an early client of the satellite companies that had begun collecting data received from space and on land to build a large database of all the world’s vessel movements in one place.
That’s what caught Hill’s eye at Blackstone when he learned of Cargo­Metrics a few years ago. BAAM now has a managed account with the firm. “If anyone else tries to replicate what CargoMetrics has, they will be years behind [Borgerson] on data analytics,” Hill says. “We know that a number of hedge fund data scientists want his data.”
But too much reliance on big data can go wrong, say many academicians. “There is a huge amount of hype around big data,” observes Willy Shih, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. “Many people are saying, ‘Let the data speak; we don’t need theory or modeling.’ I argue that even with using new, massively parallel computing systems for modeling and simulation, some forces in nature and the economy are still too big and complex for computers to handle.”
Shih’s skepticism doesn’t go as far as to say the data challenge on global trade is too big a puzzle to solve. When informed of the Cargo­Metrics approach, he called it “very valid and creative. They just have to be careful not to throw away efforts to understand causality.”
Another big-data scholar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of electrical engineering and computer science Samuel Madden, also urges caution. “What worries me is that models become trusted but then fail,” he explains. “You have to validate and revalidate.”
Borgerson grew up in Southeast Missouri, in a home on Rural Route 5 between Festus and Hematite. His father was a former Marine infantry officer and police official, and his mother a high school French and Spanish teacher. The family traveled 15 miles to Crystal City to attend Grace Presbyterian Church, which was central to young Borgerson’s upbringing: There he was a youth elder, became an Eagle Scout and received a God and Country Award. The church was across the street from the former home of NBA all-star and U.S. senator Bill Bradley, whose backboard Borgerson used for basketball practice.
When it came to choosing what to do after high school, Borgerson was torn between becoming a Presbyterian minister and accepting an appointment to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy or West Point. He went with the Coast Guard because, he says, “the humanitarian mission really appealed to me, and I had never been on a boat before.”
At the academy, in New London, Connecticut, Borgerson played NCAA tennis and was also a cutup, racking up demerits for such antics as placing a sailboat on the commandant of cadets’ front lawn and leading bar patrons in a rendition of “Semper Paratus,” the school’s theme song. Still, he graduated with honors and spent the next four years piloting a 367-foot cutter — which seized five tons of cocaine in the Caribbean — then captaining a patrol boat that saved 30 lives on search-and-rescue missions. From 2001 to 2003 the Coast Guard sent Borgerson to the Fletcher School at Tufts University to earn his master’s of arts in law and diplomacy. While at Tufts he volunteered at a Boston homeless shelter for military veterans and founded a Pet Pals therapy program for senior citizens.
Following graduation, from 2003 to 2006, Borgerson taught U.S. history, foreign policy, political geography and maritime studies at the Coast Guard Academy, and co-founded its Institute for Leadership. While there he would get up at 4:00 each morning to work on his Ph.D. thesis exploring U.S. port cities’ approaches to foreign policy. He would also travel to Boston to complete his course work at Tufts and meet with his adviser, John Curtis Perry.
Borgerson’s military allegiance runs deep. One weekend last fall he played football in a service academy alumni game. On another he attended the Army-Navy game. Still militarily fit at age 40, the 6-foot-5 Borgerson works out regularly at an inner-city gym aimed at helping youths find an alternative to gang violence; a few weeks ago he was there boxing with ex-convicts and lifting weights.
Leaving the Coast Guard was a hard decision for Borgerson, resulting in part from his frustration with the military bureaucracy’s stymieing of his bid to get back to sea for security missions. With his degrees in hand, he applied for a fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. During the application process he met Edward Morse, now global head of commodities research at Citigroup. Morse was on the CFR selection committee in 2007 and recommended Borgerson as a fellow.
Morse introduced Borgerson to commodities, and to trading terms like “contango” and “backwardation.” Morse himself had, earlier in career, gotten the jump on official oil supply data by hiring planes to take photos of the lid heights of oil tanks in Oklahoma’s Cushing field.
Working for the CFR in New York reconnected Borgerson with his Missouri roots. Bill Bradley’s aunt called the former senator to say: “The son of a family who went to our church in Crystal City is in New York. Would you welcome him?” Bradley did — and would later play a part in Borgerson’s career development.
While at the CFR, Borgerson became an expert on the melting of the North Pole ice cap, writing numerous published articles on its implications; this led him to co-found, with the president of Iceland, the Arctic Circle, a nonprofit designed to encourage discussion of the future of that region. Borgerson recently spoke to 50 international generals and admirals about the Arctic and is co-drafting a proposal for a treaty between the U.S. and Canada that would help resolve the differences the two countries have in allowing international ship and aircraft travel through the Northwest Passage.
His Arctic research led to an aha moment early in 2008, while he was still with the CFR, on a visit to Singapore and the Strait of Malacca with his Fletcher School classmate Rockford Weitz and their former Ph.D. adviser, Perry. Seeing the mass of ships sailing through the strait, Borgerson and Weitz decided to build a data analytics firm using satellite tracking of ships.
Like many successful entrepreneurs, the two struggled to find financing before reaching out to a network of friends and their contacts. One was Randy Beardsworth, who had sat with Borgerson at a 2007 Coast Guard Academy dinner, where Beards­worth, then the Coast Guard’s chief of law enforcement in Miami, was the guest speaker. Borgerson “made references to history and literature, and I thought, ‘Here is a sharp guy,’” recalls Beards­worth. “We have been friends ever since.”
But Borgerson didn’t turn to his new friend in his initial fund-raising. “He came to me in 2009, after he had been turned down by 17 VCs, was maxed out on his credit card, was married and had a newborn son,” says Beardsworth, who was reviewing the Department of Homeland Security as part of the Obama administration’s transition team. Beardsworth came to the rescue, not only committing to invest a small amount but introducing his friend to Doug Doan. A West Point graduate and Washington-­based angel investor, Doan took to Borgerson right away. “To be honest, it wasn’t his idea, it was Scott I invested in,” says Doan, who provided $100,000 in capital and introduced Borgerson to a few friends, who added $75,000. Manzi came on board as an investor in 2009, having been asked by Bradley to check out Borgerson’s plan for a data metrics firm. (Manzi knew Bradley from the late 1990s, when the latter was considering a run for U.S. president.)
With Doan, Doan’s friends and Manzi as investors, CargoMetrics was finally able to garner its first venture capital commitment in early 2010, from Boston-based Ascent Venture Partners. That gave the start-up the capital it needed to hire a bevy of data scientists to build an analytics platform that it could sell to commodity-trading houses and other commercial users. In 2011, CargoMetrics added Summerhill Venture Partners, a Toronto-based firm with a Boston office, to its investor roster, raising roughly $18 million from venture capital and angels for its data business.
By then Borgerson had already begun to contemplate converting CargoMetrics from an information provider into a money manager; he saw the potential to extract powerful trade signals from its technology rather than share it with other market participants for a fee. Among those he consulted was serial entrepreneur Peter Platzer, a friend of one of CargoMetrics’ original investors. Platzer, a physicist by training, had spent eight years as a quantitative hedge fund manager at Rohatyn Group and Deutsche Bank before co-founding Spire Global, a San Francisco–­based company that uses its own fleet of low-orbit satellites to track shipping, in 2012. “We had lengthy conversations on how to set up quant trading systems and how [commodities giant] Cargill had made a similar decision to set up its own in-house hedge fund to trade on the information it was gathering,” recalls Platzer. So Borgerson reset his course. Doan describes the decision as a “transformative moment” for the CargoMetrics co-founder. “The military trains you to be a strategic thinker,” Doan explains. “Scott had been tactical until then, making small pivots, and like a general who sees the theater of war, he moved into strategic mode.”
Borgerson’s ambition to succeed was in no small part fueled by the early turndowns by many venture capital firms and a fierce determination to best the Wall Street bunch at their own game. “There’s a lot that motivates me, including — if I’m honest — I have a big chip on my shoulder to beat the prep school, Ivy League, MBA crowd,” he says. “They’re bred to make money, but they’re not smarter than everyone else; they just have more patina and connections.” (Bred differently, he spent last Thanksgiving visiting his parents in rural Missouri. After breakfast he and his father were in the woods, shooting assault guns at posters of terrorists, with Gunny, his father’s Anatolian shepherd dog.)
Borgerson’s plan was not met with enthusiasm from the company’s then co-CEO, Weitz. CargoMetrics had been gaining clients and meeting its goals, and was on its way to becoming a successful data service provider. Weitz, who now is president of the Gloucester, Massachusetts–based Institute for Global Maritime Studies and an entrepreneur coach at Tufts’ Fletcher School, did not return e-mails or phone calls asking for comment. For his part, Borgerson says: “A ship cannot have two captains. The company simply matured and evolved into a streamlined management structure with one CEO instead of two.”
Eventually, Doan went along with Borgerson’s plan. “We believe in Scott and that shipping holds the no-shit, honest truth of what the economy is doing,” he says. But buying out the venture capital firms several years ahead of the usual exit time would require a hefty premium over what they had invested.
Once again Borgerson’s early supporters played a key role. Manzi, a fellow Fletcher School grad who had mentored Borgerson since the company’s early days, put up more money (making CargoMetrics one of his single largest investments) and introduced him to a powerful group of wealthy investors. Separately, the CFR’s Morse suggested that Borgerson meet with Daniel Freifeld, founder of Washington-based Callaway Capital Management and a former senior adviser on Eurasian energy at the U.S. Department of State. Impressed by Borgerson’s “intellectual honesty, vigor and more than four years of historical data,” Freifeld brought the idea to a billionaire third-party investor, who took his advice and became one of CargoMetrics’ largest backers. “I would not have suggested the investment if CargoMetrics had not done the hard part first,” adds Freifeld, declining to name the investor.
A chance encounter in the fall of 2012 gave the CargoMetrics team its first taste of real Wall Street trading. Attending an Arctic Imperative conference in Alaska, Borgerson met the CIO of a large investment firm, whom he declines to name. When Borgerson confided his ambition and that CargoMetrics had developed algorithms to trade on its shipping data once it was legally structured to do so, the CIO suggested CargoMetrics provide the analytical models for a separate portfolio the money manager would trade. Live trading using CargoMetrics’ models began in December 2012. Manzi brought in longtime banker Gerald Rosenfeld in 2013 to craft and negotiate the move to make CargoMetrics a limited liability investment firm. Rosenfeld acted in a personal role rather than in his position as vice chairman of Lazard and full-time professor and trustee of the New York University School of Law. The whole process took a year and a half. During that time Blackstone checked in as an investor.
Bradley, now an investment banker, has yet to invest in CargoMetrics, explaining that he is unfamiliar with quantitative investing. But he may eventually invest in Borgerson’s firm, he says, because “we are homeboys. I believe in him and that things are going to work out ” — pausing to add with a smile, “based on my vast quant experience, of course.”
Borgerson has been in stealth mode since CargoMetrics’ early days, when he moved the firm from an innovation lab near MIT because the shared space was too open. He is much more forthcoming when boasting of the firm’s “world-class talent.” The team includes astrophysicists, mathematicians, former hedge fund quants, electrical engineers, a trade lawyer and software developers. Hoogerwerf, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Netherlands’ Leiden University, built distributed technical environments for scientists and engineers at Microsoft Corp. Solomon Todesse, who works on quant investment strategies, was head of asset allocation at State Street Global Advisors. Aquil Abdullah, a team leader in the engineering group, was a software engineer in the high-performance-computing group at Microsoft. And senior investment strategist Charles Freifeld (Daniel’s father) has 40 years’ experience in futures and commodities markets, including nine with Boston-based commodity trading adviser firm AlphaMetrics Capital Management.
“All were self-made people; none were born with a silver spoon,” Borgerson notes. One of his blue-collar-­background hires was James (Jess) Scully, who joined as chief operating officer in 2011, after his employer Interactive Supercomputing was acquired by Microsoft.
“The team we built treasures team success, which is Scott’s motto,” Scully says. “We want shared resources, one P&L, not ‘How much money did my unit make?’” Both Scully and Borgerson say Cargo­Metrics is like the Golden State Warriors, a leading NBA basketball team known for putting aside personal glory and playing as a band of brothers having fun.
Borgerson says he fosters a no-ego policy with “lots of play because investment teams are built on trust, and playing together builds trust.” Team building at CargoMetrics includes pub crawls, picnics at Borgerson’s house, poker nights, volunteer work in a soup kitchen for the homeless, Red Sox games and visits to museums.
Trips to the Boston docks or Coast Guard base are intended to remind the CargoMetrics team of the real economy. There are also occasional “touch a tanker” days. On one visit to a tanker, everyone was amazed that the ship was the size of a city building, Borgerson says. “They could smell the salt on the deck,” he recalls. “Wall Street can lose sight of the real fundamentals in the world. I don’t want that to happen here.”
Unlike the Rothschilds 200 years ago, only a small percentage of the trades that CargoMetrics makes relate to beating official government data. Most simply are aimed at identifying mispricings in the market, using the firm’s real-time shipping data and proprietary algorithms.
At a whiteboard in his conference room, Borgerson sketches out CargoMetrics’ general formula. He draws a “maritime matrix” of three dynamic data sets: geography (Malacca, Brazil, Australia, China, Europe and the U.S.), metrics (ship counts, cargo mass and volume, ship speed and port congestion) and tradable factors (Brent crude versus WTI, as well as mining equities, commodity macro and Asian economic activity). Using satellite data with hundreds of millions of ship positions, CargoMetrics makes trillions of calculations to determine individual cargoes onboard the ships and then to aggregate the cargo flows and compare them with historical shipping data. All that leads to the final comparisons with historical financial market data to find mispricings. If CargoMetrics observes an appreciable decline in export shipping activity in South Africa, for example, its trading models will determine whether that is a significant early-warning sign by considering that information alongside other factors, such as interest rates. If Cargo­Metrics believes a decline in the rand is forthcoming, it might short it against a basket of other currencies. “This is like a heat map showing opportunity,” Borgerson says, noting that CargoMetrics is not trading physical commodities. “We are agnostic on whether to be long or short, and let the computers spot where there is a mispricing and liquidity in the markets.” He sums up his simple, but still less than revealing, process by writing on the whiteboard “Collect, Compute, Trade.”
Borgerson says CargoMetrics is building a systematic approach that will work even when cargo cannot be identified — on containerships, for instance. It already knows a large percentage of the daily imports and exports into and out of China and island economies such as Japan and Australia. And although the firm cannot glean from its calculations on satellite AIS data the type of cargo, such as iPhones from China, it can measure total flow, which shows present economic activity. Cargo­Metrics’ data scientists are working on linking such activity to the firm’s data set of the past seven years to measure the evolving global economy. That will lead, Borgerson maintains, to more trades on currencies and equity index futures and, eventually, trades on individual equities. “Uncorrelated” is a mantra of Borgerson and his team. Well aware that correlated assets sent the performance of most asset managers, including hedge funds, plunging in the financial crisis, CargoMetrics is determined to come up with an antidote. Careful not to say too much, Borgerson lays out the simple principle that the process starts with placing many bets among uncorrelated strategies in different asset classes, like commodities, currencies and equities.
The goal is diversification, staying as market neutral as possible and remaining sensitive to tail risk in different scenarios. CargoMetrics’ analytic models help find asset classes that are outliers. Those may include a publicly traded instrument such as oil, another commodity or an equity for which shipping information was a leading indicator during times when other asset classes marched in lockstep. The historical ship data is then blended with this new information to seek opportunities. Identifying mispriced spreads among different trades within an asset class is another way of avoiding the calamity of correlation. Borgerson says the firm’s models will find instances where one type of oil should be a short trade and another a long one. The same goes for whole asset classes — shorting one that will benefit if virtually all asset prices plunge and buying another that will rise when oil prices gain. “We’re counting cards with the goal of being right maybe 3 percent more than we are wrong, as a way of making profits during good times and staying afloat during times of sudden, unpredictable but far-reaching events,” Borgerson says. The key, he adds, “is to know your edge and spread your risk.” CargoMetrics’ uncorrelated approach worked during the dismal first three weeks of this year, says Borgerson. Dialing down risk as volatility in the markets soared, the firm was on track in January to have its best month since it began trading.
To improve the firm’s models, eight of its data scientists hold a weekly strategy meeting, nicknamed “the Shackleton Group” after the band of sailors shipwrecked in the Antarctic from 1914 to 1917. Hoogerwerf and Ramos co-lead the group. At one recent meeting they were deciding how much risk, including how much liquidity, there was in a possible strategy; reviewing whether to keep previous strategies; and assigning who would research new ones.
The Shackleton Group’s meetings are free-form, with a lot of “I’ve got an idea” interjections that disregard official roles. “We hit the restart button a lot,” says Ramos, a former director of business intelligence and a quantitative economist at law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf who joined CargoMetrics in late 2010. “That’s why our motto is ‘Never lose hope.’” A bet on oil, related to Russia’s production, was stopped at the last minute in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Some currency-trading strategies have been abandoned in theory or after failing. Strategies the Shackleton Group likes are passed on to the firm’s investment committee of Borgerson, Scully and Ramos for a final decision. CargoMetrics has a unique set of big-data challenges. Historical shipping patterns may not be as useful in the new global economy now that shipping freight prices are plunging, a sign that trade growth rates may be changing. And analysts point out how hard identifying oil cargo can be in certain locations and instances, even in more-­predictable economic times. “While it may be easy to say that ships leaving the Middle East Gulf are typically carrying crude oil, knowing the type of crude is sometimes quite difficult,” says Paulo Nery, senior director of Europe, Middle East and Asia oil for Genscape, a Louisville, Kentucky–based company that analyzes satellite tracking of ships. Borgerson maintains his team is well aware of the dangers of data mining and getting swamped by noise. “If you run computers hard enough, you can convince yourself of anything,” he says. To make sure CargoMetrics’ algorithms for identifying cargo are valid, the firm spot-checks manifest data filed at ports and imposes statistical confidence checks to guard against spurious correlations.
Getting the jump on official government statistics is likely to become tougher too thanks to the recently formed High-Level Group for the Modernization of Official Statistics. Although the U.S. is not a member, Canada is a key player helping to lead the mostly European nation group (including South Korea) in coming up with a global blueprint for measuring and reporting economic activity.
Reflecting on his journey to Wall Street — raising money, hiring employees with different skill sets, making changes to Cargo­Metrics’ culture, overcoming legal and regulatory hurdles — almost gives Borgerson second thoughts about whether he would do it again. “I’ve sailed ships through tropical storms, captured cocaine smugglers and testified before Congress [on his Arctic research],” he says, “but this was the hardest.”