Todd McShay has Bengals protecting Joe Burrow in 2021 mock draft

Photo by John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty ImagesJust to get this out of the way, this is a way-too-early mock draft from ESPN. This is purely just to see where college prospects are viewed at this point, and their value and NFL teams’ needs will probably be drastically different come time to actually hold the draft.

There is also the elephant in the room of the college football season being up in the air with the Big Ten and Pac-12 recently suspending its football season to try again in the spring. There have already been a handful of highly rated draft prospects who have opted out, and there could be more on the way with the pandemic going on.

With that all being said, this is just a…