26
Apr
2012
HOORAY … it’s NFL Draft Day!!!
Yes, the day has finally arrived. The 2012 NFL Draft is here – kicking off with the first round tonight – and we couldn’t be more excited about it!
As you pore over Mike Mayock‘s one and only mock draft in preparation for this weekend’s festivities, keep in mind that pretty much none of these so-called “experts” have a clue as to how this draft, nor the players selected in it, are actually going to pan out. For all the scouting and testing and poking and prodding, the draft process is really all just a high-budget guessing game, and we won’t truly know the winners and losers for at least another three years.
Case in point … after JaMarcus Russell was selected #1 overall in the 2007 draft, virtually everyone whiffed on the kid, including Mel Kiper who declared that Russell would be the next John Elway. Enough said.
Meanwhile, the folks up in Bristol are all having a little fun and “Kiperizing” some of the ESPN anchors, like Trey Wingo, Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser:
PHOTOS AND VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP
24
Nov
2010
Should the Vikings cut Brett Favre?
READERS: How would you caption this photo? (Source: Daily News)
Minnesota Vikings coach Leslie Frazier has inherited a mess, but all is not lost.
Frazier has the opportunity to take decisive steps to show that he means business — and he better not waste the chance catering to Brett Favre. His best route is a decisive, fresh start at the quarterback position.
It’s a thought that’s been picking up steam all week, and NFL Network’s Mike Mayock makes a most compelling case for cutting Favre — not in the offseason, but now. With the playoffs out of the question, Mayock insists the Vikings must find out now who they have at quarterback.
You can’t do that with Favre in the locker room.
“At this point, you’ve fired your coach. It would be a crime if you don’t find out, in the remainder of the season, whether or not either one of your backup quarterbacks can play. So, if I was there, I would like to see a uniform situation within the organization where the owner, the new head coach and Rick Spielman, the head of personnel, sit down and say, ‘It’s time to release Brett Favre.’ We need to get a clean look at these two young quarterbacks and find out if either of them is our quarterback of the future. If that’s the case, then you know what you have to do in the draft. If you don’t have a quarterback, then you can go and get one. If you do have a quarterback, that’s great, but it’s time to cut the ties with Brett Favre right now.
“The bottom line is, Brett’s not going to be there next year … so you gotta find out right now who your quarterback of the future is, because … you do a disjustice to your entire organization if you don’t have a plan going into the draft.”
Favre loyalists will balk at such a plan, but it’s time for the Vikings to reboot the machine. It will be interesting to see what Frazier does with the time he has left this season. When it comes to Favre, we’re talking about a guy who’s basically never missed a day of work and never mailed it in. It would be a brutal ending, but Mayock is right — benching Favre doesn’t do you any good. It must be decisive. You cut him and move on.
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
16
Apr
2009
Is there a draft in here?
Wake Forest LB Aaron Curry is going to change an NFL defense next year
We are just over one week away from the greatest annual event in all of football: the NFL Draft! As such, you’ll be seeing more and more draft chatter around these parts. But, “why is the NFL Draft the greatest event in the sport”, you ask?
Quite simply, it is because EVERY team is involved, and EVERY team is getting better! Usually in sports, in order for one team to succeed, another team has to fail. In the Super Bowl, for all the fanfare, there are only two fanbases that are truly interested in the game. Not so on draft day. Everyone is filled with hope for the future. No matter where you’re picking, you’re going to be able to fill some holes in your roster, and wheel & deal to improve your chances for next season. Unless of course you’re the Jets. They just stink. But everyone else is having a great time during the draft, trying to find those gems in the rough who will join their team and hopefully contribute for years to come. (Er, well, at least until training camp rolls around and the #1 pick blows out his knee, or decides to make it rain at a local strip club and ends up on the evening news. But that’s neither here nor there.) In late April, it’s all about HOPE!
Pretty much every sports website and blog out there is posting Mock Draft v7.3 today, along with a more information than you’d ever want to know about these draft prospects. So, now’s the time to start getting yourselves edumacated, so you can pretend like you know what you’re talking about next weekend.
Here are a few pieces that piqued our interest, from some of the analysts we think actually have a clue:
- NFL Network’s Mike Mayock updates his top 20 prospects, as well as his top 5 at each position
- Pro Football Weekly lists the 5 most overrated and underrated players in the draft
- Sports Illustrated tells the heartwarming tale of Wake Forest LB Aaron Curry, who has invited a 12-year old Leukemia survivor to the draft festivities in NY with him
- NFL.com’s Gil Brandt lists his Hot 100 for the 2009 Draft
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 …
