Friday, April 23, 2010

In six years Tim Tebow will either be doing NFL Coors commercials, or be vice president

The NFL Draft is a welcome sports shakeup for me, personally I've heard enough about the Flyers and Devils to last me a good 17 years. Clearly we all understand the concept of not attaching unreasonable expectations to players who have never tasted the game on a professional level, many of them not even legal to drink in this country. To the contrary, this draft brings what seems like a larger share of really hyped college players, including all the Heisman runner ups.

I'll briefly discuss impact players, and teams which may or may not benefit from their draft picks. Of course the draft isn't over, and the 7th round picks could end up being far more relevant than the first three, but personally I feel it to be unlikely.

Truly, I feel like the Kansas City Chiefs may come out of this draft with the most balanced crop of picks, as far as overall player quality and ability to start is concerned. They picked some incredible athletes, a group which includes some big name college players who start at fairly, glamorous I guess you'd call it, positions. I don't believe this necessarily means the Chiefs will have the most success with their picks for the next few years, because adaptation to the team and its game plan and chemistry obviously weighs very heavily.

The Chiefs first 3 picks: Eric Berry, Dexter McCluster, Javier Arenas

With no exaggeration or offense to Joe Haden, Kansas City just picked the two best defensive players in the SEC, and maybe the country. I don't need to get into any kind of stances on college football right now, but a lot of people and the CBS network think the SEC is the best I guess.
That doesn't matter as much as the fact that Berry is without a doubt the best defensive player in the draft, a strong safety who can clamp down in man coverage, pick of passes across the field, pass rush, sack, force turnovers, and stop the run. Arenas is a fantastic cover corner, but I think is less of a safe bet for the NFL, though I suppose there are enough crappy receivers out there. I think he returns punts too. McCluster is a running back from the south who has dreads and will be better than fellow Ole Miss alum Deuce McAllister.

Detroit made a pretty good #2 pick with Heisman nominee Suh, mainly because the Lions' defensive has been exceptionally soft for several years, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see even St. Louis or Tampa Bay drop 42 on them on any given week. Then they took a RB who certainly will not save their team or win them many games on his own, and that's not even a knock on Jahvid Best. Maybe Detroit figures they need to score a ton every game in order to ever win, so I will reserve some judgement on them taking a RB so early.

Tampa Bay took 2 defensive tackles with their first picks, and perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I respect what looks like an honest attempt at rebuilding from the line out, building a core that may last several years. They will still win fewer than 7 games next year.

The Redskins took an offensive tackle so far, but won't have another pick until round 4. Seems very appropriate. I think they win 8 games next year.

I really don't care about Tim Tebow.

The Bills took and explosive RB in CJ Spiller and two defensive lineman, which is very much some of what they need the most.

I don't understand how Los Angeles lost a football team to St. Louis. 3 wins.

More to come later.


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