Like most insane (and I use that word in the most positive sense) football fans, I spent this past weekend completely entrenched in everything NFL draft. Every year, my friends and I like to make our own “War Room” complete with every draft magazine they sell on the market, mock projections and enough laptops to make Best Buy jealous.
It’s the perfect weekend, really. Just like the yahoos on TV, we debate and analyze each pick, get disgusted when our teams reach on a player and celebrate when one of the guys we said to “watch out for” finally gets picked.
At one point during the first round, the six or seven of us in the “War Room” were absolutely flabbergasted with one of the selections. The Falcons had traded back into the first round by sending two second round (No. 34 and No. 48) and one fourth round (No. 103) picks to the Redskins for their first (No. 21), third (No. 84) and fifth round (No. 154) selections.
“Who would the Falcons be looking at here?” asked one of my friends.
We all listened intently as Charles Davis of the NFL Network filled us in.
“Are the Falcons going to get their quarterback here, guys? Could it be Brian Brohm’s turn to come off the board?” said Davis almost excited that he had inside information that know one else did.
“Why the fuck would they draft another quarterback after taking Matt Ryan third overall you dumb bastard!” shouted somebody in the room. (Okay, I admit it… it was me.)
Clearly Davis had no clue what was going on. And neither did we.
“They’ve gotta be thinking cornerback here,” I said. “Mike Jenkins is the best available and they need someone to replace DeAngelo Hall (who was traded to Oakland in the offseason).”
“What defensive tackles are left? Since they didn’t get Dorsey, maybe they’re looking for one here,” said someone in the room.
“Well all the offensive tackles are pretty much gone, so they wouldn’t reach for one of those,” said someone else.
We were all wrong.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell broke the news at the podium: “With the 21st pick in the first round, the Atlanta Falcons select, Sam Baker, offensive tackle, USC.”
The room erupted.
“Why would they take him? He’s a second rounder at best!”
“What a reach!”
“What were they thinking – are you kidding me?”
“They got nothing out of the DeAngelo Hall and Matt Schaub trades – NOTHING!”
“That was a terrible trade – the Redskins literally bent them right over and took the Falcons’ manhood!”
“Worst team in the NFL!”
“Sam Baker is horse manure!”
(Side note: I made each of those comments in one, three and a half minute tirade.)
Throughout the course of the draft, there were more moments like the Falcons’ Sam Baker pick.
My buddy Doug – a huge Bears fan – couldn’t believe his team took tackle Chris Williams in the first round with Virginia’s Branden Albert and Pittsburgh’s Jeff Otah still on the board.
“If you had told me before the draft that both Albert and Otah would still be there yet the Bears would draft Williams, I would have punched you square in the mouth.”
Jim, another friend and a poor bastard of a Lions fan, literally went silent for the entire second round after Detroit took Colorado linebacker Jordan Dizon with the 45th overall pick instead of Penn State’s Dan Connor. I’m still not sure if he’s recovered.
And there’s no doubt a similar draft day scene played out in homes across America. It’s our right as fans to complain about the boneheaded decisions our teams make on draft day. It’s actually part of the fun.
But one thing to keep in mind – and I’m talking to myself here too – is that we as fans have no clue. Watching countless college football games, the scouting combine and the Senior Bowl doesn’t even scratch the surface of what these teams do to prepare for the draft. Hours upon hours are spent scouting, interviewing and checking backgrounds of certain prospects. Days, weeks and months are all spent on seven rounds over two days.
Seriously – we have no idea as fans just how much goes into preparing for the draft. That’s why it’s times like these that you have to remember what’s important about the NFL draft.
Can the guy play? That’s it. That’s the only thing that counts.
It doesn’t matter if the Falcons reached for Baker in the first when they might have been able to snag him later. It doesn’t matter if scouts think his arms are too short to play tackle. It doesn’t matter if he had a down senior season. Can he play football? Can he succeed in the NFL? Can he anchor the left side of Atlanta’s offensive line and provide protection for new golden boy Matt Ryan? When push comes to shove, can he hold his own in pass protection and get under defenders’ pads while run blocking?
It doesn’t matter where Mel Kiper had Williams rated among all other offensive tackles. Is the guy a football player or not? Is he going to show up in practice and the film room ready to work? More importantly, is he going to show up on Sundays when the Bears don the blue and orange at Solider Field?
Too much is made whether or not a team got “good value” for a pick. I’m the biggest culprit of it when I’m doing pre-draft write-ups, so don’t think I’m excusing myself here. We all want to make sure that certain players are taken in certain rounds because then that would mean that our teams got good value.
Guess what? To an extent, it doesn’t matter. Who cares where Kiper or Mayock or McShay had these guys rated? If a team reaches on a prospect in the first round but the guy turns out to be a Pro Bowler, does it really matter if they got him at No. 12 instead of No. 27?
A perfect example of this happened in the 2006 draft. The Lions had the ninth overall pick in the first round and quarterback prospects Matt Leinart and Jay Cutler were still available. To the disproval of many draft pundits, Detroit took Florida State outside linebacker Ernie Sims.
They reached.
In each of his first two seasons, Sims has led the Lions in tackles. Not only that, nobody remembers were he went in the first round – just that he’s a Lion and he makes plays.
You can take the argument the other way, too.
I thought one of the best “value picks” in the entire draft was when the Bears selected Arkansas wide receiver Marcus Monk with the 41st pick (248 overall) in the seventh round. Both Doug the Bear fan and I remarked, “Wow – that was a great pick in the seventh round. Talk about value.”
We might be right, but how valuable was the pick if Monk is working at Target come September? He was slated to be a late round pick, but if the Bears took him in the fourth round and he turns out to be a two-time Pro Bowler, was he not a good value pick in the fourth, too?
Sure, I get that a team doesn’t want to reach on a player in the second round if they could have eventually got him in the seventh. But don’t worry – they won’t. Once again, teams know more than the fans do, so let them do their jobs. One of the biggest examples of this happened on February 10, 1992.
At the time, the general manager for the Green Bay Packers was Ron Wolf. That offseason, Wolf was heavily criticized for giving up a future first round pick for a third-string quarterback who liked to party too much.
“How could Wolf give up so much for this bum?” remarked fans. “How stupid!”
That bum turned out to be Brett Favre. And given how the story played out, most fans would probably give up two future first round picks and a three-year supply of cheese to do the trade again.
Considering the Falcons drafted Favre in the second round and Wolf gave up a first round pick to acquire him, some would say (and did) that the Packers didn’t get good “value from the trade.” Think Wolf cared about getting max value at the time? No – he just knew that the guy could play.
So yeah, it’s fun to hammer your favorite team on draft day for reaching on a player or not getting enough value. And when reviewing past drafts, some teams are lucky/skilled enough to not only get good players, but also don’t have to reach for them either (i.e. every single New England Patriots draft over the past decade). But when it all boils down, the only thing that matters is what the guy can do between the hash marks.
Name one Hall of Fame player that was a “reach” on draft day.
