Post by TheShadow on Apr 7, 2006 4:34:41 GMT -5
msnbc.msn.com
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.
Ron Borges writes regularly for NBCSports.com and covers the NFL and boxing for the Boston Globe.