4
Apr
2010
Happy Easter! At this point, we’re just waiting for the draft
Kiper Bunny is coming to town
Early April is generally a pretty slow time for NFL news. There have been a few minor moves and signings, and we had our annual player caught with gun story, but in general, things like the Final Four, MLB opening day, Easter with family (and for some of us, reruns of Hard Knocks on Hulu) are more interesting this time of year. And at this point, everyone is really gearing up for the draft, which is less than 3 weeks away.
There are mocks-O-plenty as prognosticators pretend to have a clue as to how the draft (in its new 3-day format) is going to play out. Meanwhile, teams fine-tune their value boards and conduct background checks on their top prospects. We’ve heard plenty of reports from pro days of the top college players, but sorry, we simply refuse to write about Tim Tebow before he actually does something in the NFL. He gets plenty of ink already.
So, before we head out to round up eggs and candy from the neighborhood kids, we’ll leave you with a few links from the past week:
- 8 USA Today analysts provide their 1st round mock drafts
- According to ProFootballTalk, everyone in the NFL hates Todd McShay
- Giving a little love to the unsung soldiers. The New York Times lists the best Right Guards in the league.
- Washington Redskins Chris Cooley and Fred Davis appeared at intermission of an NHL game this week. And raced each other. On tricycles. Poor sportsmanship ensued. Here’s the video, from Gunaxin:
Happy sunday!
2
Mar
2010
Oh yeah, the combine is happening
These stopwatches mean millions of dollars to players at the NFL Combine (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
You’ll have to forgive us for our recent lapse in NFL coverage … we were swept up in Winter Olympic fever for the past few weeks, and kind of forgot that the NFL Scouting Combine started last week. And yeah, we actually had something better to do than watch a bunch of grown men run around in their skivvies. So sue us.
Otherwise known as the “underwear Olympics”, the Combine is the annual meat market where NFL teams poke and prod at the latest round of prospects like so much cattle, sizing up their chances of success at the next level. It’s where Wonderlics, route trees and body lean become the talk of the day. A place where a mediocre player can rise from obscurity with a 4.3 40-yard dash time, and where an all-American LB can tumble down the draft charts because he’s a few inches too short.
As you might be able to surmise from our tone, we don’t put as much stock in the combine as some others. I mean, it’s a useful tool to get an up-close look at these athletes, who teams are about to invest millions of dollars in … but it should really only be one piece of the larger puzzle. How someone performs on an indoor track in a sterilized environment should not be viewed as a direct reflection of how they will perform on Sunday. Sure, there are some physical tools that you simply can’t teach, and certain teams (ie., the Raiders) are always going to take a chance on gifted athletes, whether they can actually play football or not. But if a kid is ranked in your top 10 at the end of the college season, after being a playmaker his entire career, there’s simply no way a slow 3-cone drill time should drop him off of your board.
DTs Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma (left) and Ndomukong Suh of Nebraska are 2 of the top prospects in this year's draft (Photo: Ben Liebenberg/NFL.com)
I’ve watched a few hours of the combine over the past 2 days, and I guess I’ll have to leave it to the Kipers and Mayocks of the world, who make their living off of this event. And don’t get me wrong, you can definitely gain some affirmation on your feelings about a player one way or another from these workouts – and especially the interviews. I just feel that often, too much value is placed on these measurements over actual gameday performance.
And with that, I leave you with a few Combine-related links:
- Tim Tebow’s 2010 Combine performance set to Iron Maiden [Deadspin]
- NFL Network’s Rich Eisen prepares to run the 40-yard dash [NFL.com]
- *UPDATE* Clemson RB CJ Spiller’s blazing 40-yard dash of 4.27 seconds … actually clocked in at 4.37 seconds. Whoops.
AFTER THE JUMP, WATCH RICH EISEN RUN THE 40-YARD DASH … IN A SUIT
27
Apr
2009
We are with you, temporarily
I’m glad the Draft is over.
The thing is a circus. It is a fantasy world. And while it provides broad, vicarious pleasure for the armchair quarterback in all of us, the entire process would benefit from a dose of reality. One suggestion: What if these football “experts” and “draftniks” analyzed their predictions from three years ago?
How many of those sure-fire, 1st-round, penciled-in HOFers turned out to be dazzling, 16-game starters who changed the landscape of the sport? Very few.
Remember how excited we were about Tom Brady being picked in the 6th round? Remember how we all knew he'd be better than 1st rounders Peter Warrick, Trung Canidate, and Travis Taylor? ...Me neither.
The Draft is fun for us because, as Artie pointed out in an earlier post, every team seemingly improves. But it is high foolishness, on the Monday after, to point out which teams won this thing. Talk to me in 5 years–when the hype of the 2009 Draft is long gone, when Matt Stafford is working at a bank, and Darrius Heyward-Bey has 3,000 more career yards than Michael Crabtree, by then a renowned landscaper in Waco, Texas, with “garden quickness.”
Cities of poor and homeless could be saved with the $$$ Cleveland gave these epic draft busts...
The massive industry surrounding the NFL Draft is a bit absurd. And it lacks reflection.
The pull, I suppose, is that everybody can be an expert on Draft Day. You spend a few hours studying the players from a distance, and you’re suddenly transformed into “that guy,” loudly, confidently spouting disdain for teams that don’t select the guy YOU wanted.
For a day, we are kings–and despite the fact that our couch is the closest we’ll ever get to an NFL war room, we don’t hold back.
We go on and on about players we’ve never seen on the field and, when our team finally makes its pick, within seconds we Google him, YouTube his best 10 plays–and succumb to the euphoria.
We’re immediately swept up with the concept that our team has finally turned the corner, “filled holes,” and turned weakness into strength. Everything is untouchable. (Of course, the flipside of this, which Raiders fans are dealing with, is having everyone tell you that your team has FAILED. You get a Monday-morning “F,” and you can’t help but sense that the organization you’ve given your heart to is a trainwreck falling from the sky. Terrible feeling. Even though that “F” has ZERO merit. Even though years must pass before we can assess whether the Raiders really screwed this up.
Somehow, we all *know* that Michael Crabtree will be better than this guy. Based on what?
23
Apr
2009
Countdown to the Draft: 2 days
Ah, Spring … baseball season is underway, its playoff time in the NBA, the flowers are in bloom, the smell of fresh cut grass is in the air, college co-eds are shedding layers of clothing, and the NFL Draft is almost upon us! Honestly, is there a better time of year? (Video via Kissing Suzy Kolber)
Here are a few draft-related links to get you in the mood for this weekend:
- Pro Football Weekly has posted a new Draft Value Chart, which gives a position-by-position breakdown of where they think players will be selected. It’s pretty helpful to get an idea of who a team might at a position of need, and where certain players will fall – especially in the later rounds.
- Wake Forest LB Aaron Curry is slashing prices just in time for this weekend’s draft! NFL.com reports that Curry is willing to take less money from Detroit as the #1 overall pick than Jake Long received from the Dolphins last year. Most reports have the Lions taking QB Matt Stafford with the first pick, but according to MLive.com, they have also completed a deal with Curry if a deal with Stafford can’t be reached.
- Finally, the NY Daily News is reporting that the Giants/Browns deal for Braylon Edwards is dead. Honestly, I’ve heard so many different reports over the last few weeks, I don’t know what to think anymore. And at this point, both sides are throwing up so much smoke, nobody really knows what’s going to happen until draft day. For my money, I still say Edwards will be a Giant by Saturday night. I think all of the leaked info over the past few months has been posturing by two stubborn GMs, and when the Browns go on the clock with the #5 pick, it’ll get done.
21
Apr
2009
SPECIAL REPORT: Origins:Wolverine = Metaphor for Life Story of Mel Kiper, Jr.
Set for release just a few days after the 2009 NFL draft (you think that is merely a coincidence?), Origins tells the fictional story of the origins of Wolverine– a mutant who seeks revenge against Victor Creed.
What is not being reported by the mainstream press, though, is that Origins is really a metaphor for the life and times of the real Wolverine, draft-nik Mel Kiper, Jr. :
Mel Kiper, Jr. Does Not Cut His Fingernails
When he is not fighting with Todd McShay, Mel Kiper, Jr. is fighting crime. Mel Kiper, Jr. is Wolverine:
Mel Kiper, Jr. Shredding a Mock Draft with His Uncut Fingernails
We will be covering this EXCLUSIVE story all week. STAY TUNED.
28
Mar
2009
OH BOY! IT’S MOCK DRAFT SEASON!
With everyone’s favorite off-season sporting event just around the corner (duh, the NFL Draft – April 25-26), now is about the time that every sportswriter, blogger and geek with a computer are going to be posting mock drafts.
Mel Kiper & Mike Mayock - the Darth Vader and Obi-Wan of the NFL draft
And we here at R&R are just about as big of fans of the NFL draft as you’ll find. We’ll pore over scouting reports & combine numbers, project who our favorite teams should select, and feverishly start doing research as soon as a player we’ve never heard of gets the call. A beautiful weekend in April will fall by the wayside as I sit in front of my computer & television for 2 days straight, watching it all majestically unfold, with Kiper and Mayock as my guides. I’m an unabashed NFL draft geek.
But with that said, mock drafts are just about the most useless exercise on the planet. There are about a million variables that will go which player gets selected when, and with almost a month to go yet, you have a better chance of guessing which type of doughnut Andy Reid is going to pull from the dessert buffet next (boston creme? chocolate glazed?? cruller???) than getting most of these picks right. Maybe, and I mean maybe, these mocks will get most of the top 5 right, and a few more in the middle of the first round … but overall, they’re pretty much throwing darts.
And yet, here I am, compelled to post a link to the the latest Mock Draft from Pat Kirwan of NFL.com. He’s one of the better NFL analysts out there, and he tends to have a better read on which way certain teams are leaning heading into this thing.
And hey, if nothing else, it gives you an idea of which players are expected to go in the first round, and the projected picks are fodder for discussion.
Enjoy …
