As my Great Uncle Louie would say if he were still with us, “New?”, which is a Yiddish slang greeting for What’s new. If he were around today and he asked me that I’d tell him how I lost my voice Working at the Draft. Being an Eagles fan with South Jersey roots, Uncle Lou might have said “So vat about this Kolb? He’s so good that he’s a 36th pick?” So my question to our readers and listeners: Is Kevin Kolb really worth the 36th pick? Is Ted Ginn the 9th Pick? Is Anthony Spencer the 26th Pick?

I can’t really argue much with Picks 1-8. The level of talent is in line with those choices. The same can be said for most of the rest of the first round, with the exception of the Packers Pick of Justin Harrell, who was a low 1st to high 2nd rounder. In breaking down the 1st round I don’t see any other outrageous selections. I do see teams that went safe, for the sake of being safe. Get It? Again, as we like to say, any grade you give a teams' Draft class right now is just too premature. Skill Players take 2 to 4 years to develop, and “Pit” players 3-5 years. So giving a draft grade now on a player who has yet to show his full potential is just wasting time. You CAN grade a team’s draft now as far as value in relation to the slot of that pick.

Some other observations: I thought the Saints gettting Meachem at #27 was a steal, and the Jets pulling the deal on Revis took guts, as well as jumping ahead of the Steelers to get their home town college star. Not that the Steelers made out so bad either. Smart teams will always have a plan B (and C and D and E) regarding when a player they zeroed in on gets drafted in front of them. Timmons was plan “B”. Some teams didn’t bother with “lets see who the next best player is at that position” but rather, “the Next best player available”.

While the trend is leaning towards more and more draft day or just pre or post draft dealings, are these trades really worth making? Who makes them? When Oakland got a 4th for Randy Moss on Sunday, did they settle for less? Or did they know that the market for talented but head cased wide outs was a 4th round pick? One NY based but nationally known scribe trumpeted Monday “lets just give the Pats the title now” Why? Playing the games means that little? One thing that struck me as funny this past weekend was that teams began “reaching” for “project” type players much sooner then in years past.

Next post: breaking down the second and third rounds…..

So where do we begin? How do we break down the Marathon that is the 2007 NFL Draft.

Zennie likes to sing my praises, and I apologize for correcting him here, but he was off by one year. This was my 33rd Draft, and my 21st with a press credential working for various organizations. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t tell you all how much I enjoyed this Draft from a working standpoint, even though I was miserable from a health standpoint with a sore throat. Working with both Zennie at SBS and Walter at Fieldposition over the last year has been a great experience, and it should continue for a long time to come. It’s also great to work with great guys like Author Wil Mara, who thinks I’m some sort of second coming of Rich Little!

All that out of the way, lets get down to the meat of the draft. I was wrong, I admit it. I promised I would, so here I am. The Raiders suckered me in, As Walter would say “I’ve been Smoke screened, big time. I really believed that once they selected Quinn, they would trade Randy Moss, and the offensive conversion would be complete. I got it half right at least. Moss is a Patriot now, and JaMarcus Russell will have to develop a relationship with Jerry Porter and Ronald Curry. Clearly the better drafting team in the Bay area is the 49ers, getting both LB Patrick Willis and OT Joe Staley. Seems like what the Raiders are doing defies logic, much like Dallas trading out of the round altogether.

Speaking of the Big “D”, who’s driving the horse cart there? Ok so they had plenty of picks to trade around, But Doug Free? James Marten? This is the future of your Offensive line. Yes Jerry, lets get some value here, we don’t need anyone in the first round…Oh wait, this Spencer kid from Perdue, he’s worth a reach isn’t he. Seems like only the Eagles had a worse draft in the NFC East (Kevin Kolb? at 36??) I’m sure Donovan McNabb is sleeping well this week.

Surely The Cleveland Browns had the best draft in Ohio in years. Good thing too, because it probably saved Crennell and Savage's Jobs for the next two or three years,.....Unless Bill Cowher decides to un-retire. If they had tried to do it the other way around, Joe Thomas would not have been there past the 7th Pick, no matter where the fishing boad was that he was with Daddy On.

Over the next few posts we will break down the best and the worst of the weekend that was at NYC Radio City Music Hall.


Bill(Draftnik)