Not really.
There was a proposal that said something about "late first+" that was a bad proposal. He reacted to it saying it was a bad proposal.
That is NOT the same thing as saying Chychrun will get an early 1st, or Chychrun = Bedard or anything close to that. There's something called a mid 1st (say pick 12-15) which has already been pointed out to you earlier this page. Multiple times, from multiple posters. So even if you didn't reason it out when you saw it initially, at this point there's really no way anyone should be misinterpreting what he said. This isn't difficult.
So no,
@Nowotny isn't backpedaling and in my opinion he's not the one making a fool of himself in this particular conversation.
Lastly, 'degrees in reading comprehension' don't exist. Not sure where you got that idea from