Following an exciting first round, we break down the favorite picks, most pleasant and biggest surprises, most under-appreciated pick, worst move and more.
Peyton Manning, Mario Williams, Mike Wallace and Carl Nicks headline an intriguing free agent class that can shift the balance of power this offseason.
The Eagles seemingly came out of nowhere to sign Nnamdi Asomugha as they eye a trip to the Super Bowl.
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The draft is less than two weeks away, the NFL game schedule will be released this week, fallout from the Donovan McNabb trade continues and the weather is finally warm enough to get outside without a jacket, even in Michigan.
For a select few of us, this week also marks the release of the anxiously awaited new Coheed and Cambria album. For others it means last-minute tax filing, a phenomenon which I've never understood.
Thanks to all who have taken the time to write and comment on the draft stuff, or have sent me questions about certain teams or players. I will try to answer them all as timely and honestly as possible.
$.01--You've all heard the numbers by now. Sam Bradford goes 62-for-63 at his pro day, Colt McCoy goes a perfect 57-for-57, Jimmy Clausen completes all but two of his throws on Friday. It sure sounds impressive, doesn't it?
Here's some you might not have heard trumpeted on Sportscenter: Mike Kafka threw a perfect 55 throws last week, and both Levi Brown and Matt Grothe each had just one ball touch the ground at their pro days. Last year I stood and watched Brian Hoyer complete some 85 passes in a row at, and after, his pro day. I suspect that with a month to prepare and work with familiar receivers on a tightly scripted regimen with no defenders, I would be able to complete at least 85% of my throws and I haven't worn football pads in nearly 20 years.
Don't be fooled, because NFL personnel people aren't taken by the raw numbers. Obviously it doesn't hurt to complete every throw, but the talent evaluators are looking for other things. As one quarterback coach told me last week, "I want to see his feet, how he shifts his weight and steps through the throw. I watch the arm motion and shoulder angle. I look at velocity out of the hand and how much it tails off before it gets to the target."
So don't get too enthralled with all those gaudy numbers. Being perfect at a pro day won't make Mike Kafka a second rounder and won't get Matt Grothe drafted, and it shouldn't change anyone's opinion of Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen either.
$.02--The Donovan McNabb trade continues to reverberate. His new team, the Redskins, suddenly have a superfluous former starting quarterback in Jason Campbell that clearly doesn't want to be there. Acquiring McNabb demonstrates the Skins don't exactly want him around either, and now they have an asset to trade for a much-needed draft pick, even if it's only a sixth rounder. Campbell has long been a whipping boy of disappointed beltway fans, who demanded and expected more from the former first rounder and an organization that did little to help develop him.
Washington also has a much bigger player dangling (allegedly) as trade bait. Albert Haynesworth, he of the $100M+ contract and recalcitrance to change defensive schemes, which coach Mike Shanahan intends upon doing this season. Few expect the talented defensive tackle to attend the upcoming "voluntary" minicamp, something which Shanahan has shown little patience for in the past -- ask Jake Plummer. The return for dealing Haynesworth is tough to predict; one source advised me the Skins were feeling out what exactly Detroit, coached by Haynesworth's former coach Jim Schwartz, would be willing to give in a deal (an internet report that I quoted on the RealGM message boards of #2 and Detroit's third rounder for Haynesworth and #4 should not be taken seriously, I'm now told). It's been reported they tried to include Big Al into the McNabb trade as well.
Could there be a package deal involving Campbell and Haynesworth? One nationally-known scribe bounced the idea off me late this week in a text exchange. Would a team like Buffalo, which needs both a long-term answer at quarterback and immediate defensive line help, give up a second rounder (the pick the Skins really want) this year and a conditional 2011 pick in order to get the two soon-to-be-ex Redskins? Would Skins general manager Bruce Allen take that offer? Would Haynesworth even report to Buffalo, which is also making the move to a 3-4 front that is part of the reason he wants to leave Washington? I don't have any of those answers right now and I won't claim to have great insider knowledge about it, but I'll say this: it would not surprise me at all if both Campbell and Haynesworth are no longer in Washington by the time the second day of the draft kicks off a week from Friday.
$.03--Much is made by some about which players are visiting which teams, what coaches are at certain pro days, etc. My advice: ignore it all. Last week I was privy to a staged player visit to a team deliberately trying to send a false message to a couple of teams drafting just below them. The team brought in the player and spent ample time with him, trying to convince other teams that their interest is strong and genuine. That couldn't be further from the truth; this team would not take this player until at least 20 spots later, if at all. But they are trying to create a trade market and also trying to enhance the perception of this player, hoping that someone above them will get nervous and select him, thusly allowing a player they covet to be more likely to fall into their lap. I should add that the team advised me the player's agent was a willing (even "orchestrating," according to one team source) participant in the ruse, and that the player almost certainly has no idea.
You can find many similar stories from war room vets all over various media sources, and the above team I'm referring to isn't noted for being the savviest organization. So why is this behavior so pervasive? Because it works. Why do the Jets have Vernon Gholston? Because they believed the Patriots wanted him badly (they didn't). Why did Jacksonville trade up to get Derrick Harvey? Because the Bengals successfully sold the perception they were locked in on him at the next pick (they weren't). Why would Baltimore give an extra pick to hated rival Cleveland to move up one slot to take Haloti Ngata? Because the Browns sold the potential they would take Ngata and not Kam Wimbley, whom they hadn't spent a great deal of attention (see, it can backfire!). The culture of deception and misinformation is rampant and deep-rooted. I'll relate it to the advice I give every young lady heading to college: Never drink anything that you didn't see poured yourself.
$.04--I don't typically foray into political topics here, but two events in the last week have really stuck in my mind and I need to get them out. A country you've likely never heard of, Kyrgyzstan, had a hostile ouster of their President that set off violent rallies around the mountainous former Soviet republic. Another country lost its leader when the Polish president was killed in a plane crash.
I know you probably don't care, but ponder if you will if either of those happened in our country. Imagine if Sarah Palin, the spearhead of the anti-Obama sentiment, successfully organized a coup that convinced the military and Supreme Court to overthrow our elected president, and then installed herself as populist leader. Now imagine that Palin had discreetly courted Chinese and Russian support for the move. That's essentially what happened in Kyrgyzstan, which happens to be home to a U.S. Air Base vital to the war in Afghanistan, a base that some will tell you also provides a great intelligence-gathering locale near western China. There are much deeper issues in Kyrgyz government (and yes, I did actually study Central Asian history and culture in college) at play here that make the comparison inexact at best, but you get the point.
Or imagine if George W Bush had been killed in a plane crash back in early 2006, which equates with where Poland is in their election cycle. Think about the chaos that would have created on our political process, our national psyche, our future. That's what Poland is facing today.
Despite all our rampant partisanship and venomous rhetoric, our nation is remarkably stable and prosperous, even in an economic down cycle. It's unthinkable that one political party could successfully oust a democratically elected leader from the other party, let alone get backing from the military to do so. Pondering the death of a seated president is something I've never had to seriously think about, not even when Reagan was shot when I was in 3rd grade, and the ramifications of the death of a President are so vast and unpredictable that it makes my head hurt. So take a moment to be thankful that we Americans live where we do and have the privileges and lifestyles we enjoy. I'm unbelievably confident we could quickly move forward in a state of relative normalcy should something happen to Obama or whomever succeeds him. Whether you lean far left or far right or (like me) swing from side to side in between, take a second and be thankful that we live where we do.
$.05--3 Draft Points:
1. Most everyone agrees that this isn't a great year for running backs. That's not to say there isn't some real talent available, but there are enough knocks on most all the top prospects that it would not surprise me at all if the draft is not kind to the RBs. C.J. Spiller is the only sure-bet first rounder, and I can envision a scenario where the next RB doesn't come off the board until the middle of the 2nd round. It's not that Ryan Mathews, Jahvid Best, and perhaps Jonathan Dwyer and Ben Tate don't deserve to be drafted higher. But a glut of recent young rushing talent and this draft's peculiar top-heaviness at other positions of more common need (DT, S, T, CB) could drive the draft market for RBs way down. It happens to one position every year, even the seemingly chronic high demand position of offensive tackle--see 2006.
2. The three players about whom I hear the most varied opinions and draft slotting talk: Anthony Davis, Taylor Mays, and Tim Tebow. All could conceivably go in the top 15, but I can find you at least five teams that wouldn't take at least one of those players in the 2nd round, let alone the first. It's been my experience that when opinions are so widely divided, the players wind up being drafted a lot closer to their ceilings than floors. I expect all 3 to go in the top 30 picks, as laughable as that might be to some evaluators.
3. In keeping with that theme, developmental/high upside projects are notoriously difficult to project in terms of draft slotting and value. In this draft, Jason Pierre-Paul, Vlad Ducasse, Bruce Campbell, and Tim Tebow all prominently fit that ball. Once again, it's been my experience that these players wind up being drafted a lot higher than most pundits predict. Teams believe they can polish the rough stone into a diamond and aren't afraid to risk losing a more NFL-ready prospect with a lower ceiling to reach and grab the higher risk/reward talent. Not every team buys into that, obviously, but enough do that all those players will likely wind up leaving draft analysts gasping and fans grumbling next Thursday. Pierre-Paul and Campbell could both go in the top 10. It sounds crazy now--combined they have less than half the college starts of Colt McCoy--but too many decision makers are mortified by being tagged as ?the guy that passed on? DeMarcus Ware or Marcus McNeil and took Travis Johnson or Deuce Lutui instead.
