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!
24
Apr
2009
Countdown to the Draft: 1 day
ESPNs draft coverage has been known to induce seizures
Alright … it’s almost time to get into full geek/sloth mode and spend the next 2 days on the couch & computer for the NFL Draft! Woo-hoo!
Deadspin.com has posted their 2009 NFL Draft Jamboroo, which includes tons of ridiculous/helpful information for this weekend’s draft, as well as this incredibly sage advice for ESPN & NFL Network:
Ten Quick Ways To Improve The Draft Telecast (from Deadspin)
- Increase the number of prospects invited to New York to 30. Make them all sit on stage until their name is called to step up.
- Wiretap all draftees’ cell phones.
- Fire everyone on ESPN set but Tirico and Kiper.
- All draft picks announced by drunken fans of respective teams and/or Chairman Kaga from Iron Chef.
- Force the Top 10 prospects to live in a house together between the combine and the draft and film it. Right before the draft, have them each vote on who they think should be the top pick (they can’t vote for themselves). Winner with the most votes gets $500,000.
- Tits (preferably Kelli Croyle’s).
- Announce combine drug test results right before draft begins.
- Force teams to show their draft boards once the draft has ended.
- All seventh round picks decided by fan poll.
- Ritual Pussycat Doll sacrifice to hooded cobra.
Here are a few more links to help you get ready for the big day:
-
Quinn after finally getting the call up
Pro Football Weekly’s final player rankings for the 2009 draft, regardless of position
- NFL.com’s Mock Draft Central, including the latest from Pat Kirwan … if you’re into that sort of thing
- With Leather wonders who will be this year’s Brady Quinn, and be left floundering in the green room on national TV, waiting for their name to be called
- And finally, in case the draft just isn’t your bag, Bootleger brings us their list of Things Better than Watching the NFL 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 …
