Raider Nation
Devil's Advocate
Only problems I have with the article are the two parts I bolded.I think New Orleans has all their QB eggs in Drew's basket. I don't see them taking a QB with all their needs. Trading down slightly on draft day is a more likely scenario.Teams will bypass sure things for flashy, risky picks
By Ron Borges
NBCSports.com contributor
NFL coaches, scouts, personnel directors and general managers are
growing paler by the day this month and not simply because as spring
dawns they go into hibernation.
The reason so many of them have begun to look a little peaked has very
little to do with the fact that for the next three weeks they will be
locked in darkened meeting rooms trying to evaluate the fitness of 300
or more college football players to earn a living in the NFL. That in
itself is a daunting task, but the real reason they're looking a bit
drawn is that most of them know that come April 28, they will have to
make selections they're not sure about of young players they can't know
enough about. Many of these players will become albatrosses around their
selectors' necks.
Other than that, the NFL draft is a pretty enjoyable time.
Every year it's like this. More than 300 new faces enter the NFL, many
of them with big reputations and, more importantly to the teams, big
signing bonuses. Far too few of them pan out when you consider how much
money and man hours are invested in this whole process of evaluation.
That's the nature of the beast and this year, even at the top of the
draft, there are more questions than answers.
The Houston Texans, it has been said, have no choice but to draft
Heisman Trophy winning running back Reggie Bush with the first pick even
though they have far more pressing needs than adding a runner to an
offense that already has a pretty good one. Bush is explosive,
versatile, focused, productive at the highest level and small. In the
end, that last point might not mean a thing, but if it does, Texans
general manager Charley Casserly never will hear the end of it,
especially if Texas hero and Houston native Vince Young goes to someone
else and becomes a star, as at least some teams find likely.
Yet their opinion doesn't make Young a lock, either. With a Wonderlic
score that could have been exceeded if he'd simply thrown darts at the
test and a throwing motion that makes some quarterback coaches blanch,
Young knows the Texans aren't likely to pick him.
More than likely he won't be the second player taken, either ,and if he
gets by the third team, Tennessee, he could slide down the board to No. 10.
Some experts postulate he wouldn't get by the Oakland Raiders at No. 7,
but the Raiders want to throw the ball deep, and that's what Young does
worst. So why would they take him? Because stranger things have happened
in the draft ... and surely will again. But the odds are against it.
Speaking of odd, take the odd case of the New Orleans Saints. The Saints
pick second and have a myriad of holes to fill. They could use middle
linebacker, a tackle or a defensive lineman, and there are surefire
prospects available at each position. They can take a guy considered the
lock of the draft, Virginia tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, and let him
fill a primary need, or they could select defensive end Mario Williams
or linebacker A.J. Hawk, who are considered the consensus best defensive
players in this draft at two positions where they could use reinforcements.
So why are they going to take a quarterback instead after investing
millions to sign free agent Drew Brees? Because Brees isn't a sure
thing, even after two highly productive seasons with the San Diego
Chargers, because he's recovering from a terrible shoulder injury
sustained in San Diego's final game last season. Even though they paid
Brees a huge price to not sign with Miami, the Saints fear they can't
pass up a potential franchise quarterback such as USC's Matt Leinart,
even though one would think they already signed one.
But that is not the end of the Saints' problems with the No. 2 pick.
The rest of the story, as radio host Paul Harvey used to say in a
stentorian voice, is which quarterback do they take? Is it Leinart, the
consensus choice, or Young, the phenomenal athlete but questionable
passer or, after all is said and done, will Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler
prove to be the best? Or could it be none of the above?
That is part of the dilemma for the teams drafting at the top this year.
Considering that the winningest quarterback in the league in recent
years was a guy who was drafted by the New England Patriots after 198
other players were taken, including the tight end from Boise State New
England took one round before it took a flyer on a kid named Tom Brady.
Such are the vagaries of the NFL draft, a procedure that is alchemy, not
chemistry.
Depending on what the Saints do, next up it's Titans general manager
Floyd Reese who has to sweat. With long-time starting quarterback Steve
McNair banned from the club's complex because he won't re-negotiate his
contract to cut down on a $23 million salary cap number (that's not a
cap, that's a tiara), it seems pretty clear a new quarterback is on the
horizon in Tennessee. If the Saints remove one of the names from the
list, do the Titans ignore their own hometown hero, Cutler, and go with
Young even though he's much less of a polished passer in the hope he
will develop in a couple of years into a more mobile version of McNair?
Or do they actually forget all that noise and draft for their greatest
needs, which are all on defense and where at this point in the draft
surer picks such as Williams and Hawk will still be on the board?
These are the kind of decisions that cause men such as Reese to go
prematurely gray. But what are the Titans going to do?
They've spoken so highly in public of Young, it seems reasonable to
assume they won't take him. Whatever they do, at least one and maybe two
of those quarterbacks will be around when the lowly New York Piper Cubs
(they've got a long way to go before they're the Jets again) are on the
clock.
Rookie GM Mike Tannenbaum and rookie coach Eric Mangini never have
picked a single player for an NFL team, which is not the most
encouraging thought for Jets fans. Neither is the fact that they may
feel forced to take what could be considered the third-best quarterback
on the board rather than the best defensive player or the best offensive
lineman because their incumbent, Chad Pennington, has a shoulder that
keeps falling apart.
A former No. 1 pick himself, Pennington has played well when his
shoulder has not resembled a jigsaw puzzle. However, at the moment
that's what it is — a puzzle that has been surgically repaired each of
the past two offseasons — so the Jets could be forced to take a
quarterback when their most pressing needs are on defense and at tackle,
the position most responsible for the condition of Pennington's shoulder
in the first place.
Do they go for Williams to replace departed Pro Bowl defensive end John
Abraham, which would be the more logical choice? Or do they gamble on a
quarterback in the belief that they can't afford to pass on one of the
Big Three, even though most scouts seem convinced at least one of them
is going to be an empty promise five years from now?
Or why not play it very safe and take Ferguson, who can keep whoever
their quarterback is from experiencing two years worth of shoulder surgery?
Whatever those top four teams do will determine what the Packers, who
need everything, the 49ers, who are in the same boat, and the Raiders,
Bills and Lions do. Green Bay and San Francisco would seem most likely
to go defense, which is still the safest route this year, and the same
may be true of Oakland. The Bills just traded Eric Moulds, so they need
an explosive wide receiver, and the best ones in this draft still will
be available when they select No. 8. Then again, there will be higher
rated defensive players on the board as well. What's a personnel
director to do?
Turn paler and pick, that's what.
As for Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh, NFC champion Seattle and final
four teams Indianapolis and Carolina, the task might be more daunting.
By the time they make their selections, the top-rated collegians will
all be gone. These teams will either reach for need, which is almost
always a disastrous decision, or learn from the league's many drafting
mistakes of the past and take the best player available, although not to
the extent the Patriots have gone in stockpiling tight ends the last
couple of years.
There's been millions upon millions of dollars spent on scouting and
endless hours of research and discussion about the players available,
yet it's still a crapshoot. It's the kind of exercise that will make
otherwise fit men turn pale and gray. Very gray, in some cases, but
maybe not as gray as the team that decides it has no choice but to grab
Bush's backup at USC, power running LenDale White.
White seems hell-bent on eating himself out of pro football before he
even gets there. He's the only one of the top eight rated backs to weigh
over 215 pounds, and he was closer to 245 than 215 when he appeared at
USC's Pro Day workouts. By the time they left campus, many NFL scouts
felt White had become a risk, because it's hard to believe his apparent
penchant for late-night snacks and Big Macs will be quenched once he
signs a deal for millions of dollars?
Someone will take him in the first round, however, because he's got in
abundance the thing that's gotten more GMs, coaches and personnel men
fired than any other thing in football. White has potential, which is
another way of saying he hasn't done enough yet. Of course, now that
it's pale season in the NFL, few prospects have.
What will happen on April 28-29, is an odyssey into the commodities
market for NFL teams. The commodity is college football players, and
that's a volatile market whose success has little to do with science and
a lot to do with luck. If you question that, talk to the teams that
picked 198 players before anyone wanted Tom Brady.
As for the Bills, there is no chance they stay at 1.08 and take one of the receivers in this weak WR crop. Fans and media would be calling for Levy's head after one pick.
Unless we are in a league together. At that point, you should read all of this idiot's works.
