Tag: 2011 NFL Draft (Page 12 of 20)

      Blaine Gabbert a more athletic Drew Bledsoe?

      March 17, 2011 /
      Missouri Tigers quarterback Blaine Gabbert throws the football in the fourth quarter against the Oklahoma Sooners at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri on October 23, 2010. Missouri defeated Oklahoma 36-27. UPI/Bill Greenblatt

      At least one former NFL executive fell in love with Blaine Gabbert after the QB worked out at Missouri’s Pro Day on Thursday. This is what ESPN 101 NFL Insider Tony Softli tweeted after watching Gabbert throw:

      Carolina Panthers will have a difficult decision after the Gabbert workout!! Wow!! A more athletic Drew Bledsoe!

      Softli wasn’t the only member of the media that came away impressed with Gabbert’s workout. Dave Matter of the Columbia Daily Tribune tweeted that Gabbert unofficially completed 44 of 49 passes but at least three of the incompletions were because of drops on good balls. Apparently Gabbert’s QB coach Terry Shea was also very pleased, noting that Gabbert was “flawless on under-center snaps and excelled at moving outside the pocket.”

      One thing to note is that Bengals’ coach Marvin Lewis was on hand and according to Matter, was watching Gabbert with a keen eye. Although hey, why wouldn’t he? Carson Palmer has already stated that he would rather use his face to put out a fire than return to the Bengals next season, so it would make sense that Lewis would watch Gabbert closely. Cincinnati owns the No. 4 pick in the draft and while most pundits have the Bungles selecting receiver A.J. Green, Gabbert would certainly make sense given the situation with Palmer. I personally don’t like the fit because I think someone like Christian Ponder (who should be available when the Bengals pick again in the second) would work well in Jay Gruden’s West Coast Offense and then Cincinnati could address another position at No. 4.

      It’s not surprising that a quarterback prospect looked good on his Pro Day. He’s in a familiar environment throwing to familiar receivers standing on familiar footing. But as Sotli pointed out, Gabbert (who also scored a 42 on the Wonderlict test) certainly has given the Panthers something to think about at No. 1.

      External Sports, NFL, NFL Draft

      Enjoy it this year NFL fans, because there may not be a draft in 2012

      March 16, 2011 /

      For the past two days, columnist Michael Silver has taken to the pages of Yahoo! Sports and Twitter to rant about the NFL draft.

      No, not because he thinks it’s wrong for the NFLPA to instruct top prospects not to attend Radio City Music Hall next month and no, not to lash out about the fact that players and owners are ruining the Holy Grail of the NFL offseason.

      He’s ranting that the NFL draft should become yet another victim of the current labor dispute.

      Silver offers a cold dose of reality when it comes to the draft: that it’s not as important as 1,7000 players fighting for their financial livelihoods. And as much as I’d like to punch him in the ear and tell him to get on board with the rest of us draftnits, he’s right.

      He’s also right about something that will really make devote draft followers sick to their stomachs: The fact that there may not be a draft in 2012 if the owners and players can’t agree to a new CBA.

      In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement, the draft is kind of … how shall I say this gently? … illegal. The notion that a person trying to ply his trade can be denied the opportunity to negotiate his/her services on the open market – in this case, that he is prohibited from signing with 31 of the NFL’s 32 franchises – isn’t simply un-American; it’s also a violation of federal law.

      In fact, the controversy over the upcoming draft would likely be moot if not for a stipulation in the recently expired CBA that this year’s draft would proceed as scheduled. Otherwise, the players would have had an excellent chance of convincing a judge to disallow it. And if there’s still no CBA a year from April, even if the players are successful in blocking the lockout and the owners merely impose rules while the two sides wage their fight over the antitrust lawsuit, you can forget about a draft happening in 2012.

      Even though the situation looks bleak, I’m willing to bet that most fans believe everything will eventually work out. That there will be a football season next year and the events of these past months will fade away once that ball is placed on the tee in Week 1. But Silver makes a great observation here. If the courts rule against the owners’ lockout, that doesn’t mean that a new CBA will be put in place. The players and owners still have to agree to a new deal and thus, we could be back to square one after next season even though the lockout has ended. How nauseating does that sound?

      In the meantime, we can still enjoy the draft but read Silver’s column in full and then tell me you’re still excited for the end of April to come. Personally, I think Silver’s anti-draft rants can be toned down a notch. He seems to be revealing in the fact that he has solid points and those points suck the life right out of whatever excitement fans still have left about this offseason. As a NFL fan and a diehard draft follower myself I want to say to him, “Are you enjoying all of this, Eyebrows? Are you enjoying the fact that we don’t have free agency and trade rumors to chew on for the next couple of months and now the powers at be are also trying to ruin the draft, too? Because it sure seems like it.”

      But as a realist, I say: “Damn it Silver, right on.”

      External Sports, NFL, NFL Draft

      Panthers leaning towards Cam Newton?

      March 16, 2011 /
      Auburn University Quarterback Cam Newton speaks to the media after winning the 2010 Heisman Trophy Award at the Marriott Marquis in New York City on December 11, 2010. UPI/John Angelillo

      Unless it’s a ruse created to lure teams into trading up, all signs point to the Panthers selecting Auburn quarterback Cam Newton with the No. 1 overall pick according to the Charlotte Observer.

      Carolina sent six representatives to Auburn’s Pro Day and will attend a private workout by Newton in Alabama on Wednesday. With Blaine Gabbert’s Pro Day coming up on Thursday, the Panthers should have a good idea as to whom they will be selecting with the top pick next month. There have been reports that the injury concerns surrounding the top defensive linemen in this year’s draft have scared the Panthers off, so maybe they’ve narrowed their wish list down to Newton or Gabbert.

      Of course, there are rumblings that the Vikings and Bills are interested in Newton as well, so maybe a trade is in order. The Panthers don’t have a second round pick this year, so they may want to trade down in order to regain that selection. If they do trade down, Gabbert, LSU cornerback Patrick Peterson or even Georgia receiver A.J. Green become possibilities for the Panthers depending on how far they fall.

      As of right now, this is still a cat and mouse game. The Panthers want to do their due diligence when it comes to scouting prospects, but they also don’t want to make their intentions obvious. If they have a couple of prospects rated close to each other, maybe they wouldn’t mind trading down, acquiring more picks and still landing a player at the top of their board.

      External Sports, NFL, NFL Draft

      NFLPA trying to get one representative from every team to show up at faux draft party

      March 15, 2011 /

      Peter King writes in his latest edition of MMQB that the NFLPA is trying to get veterans from every team to show up at an undetermined location in New York so that when the college players are drafted next month, they’ll have a future teammate, not commissioner Roger Goodell, greet them. This news comes a day after reports surfaced that the NFLPA has instructed prospects that were invited to Radio City Music Hall to boycott the draft. (A claim they’re now denying.)

      Will it work? One agent with several prospective first-round picks thinks it will, telling me this morning: “What is the first round of the draft for the NFL? It’s a TV show, a show that makes the league a lot of money. They’re going to be asking young men to shake the hand of a commissioner [Roger Goodell] who is trying to lock them out. They’re going to be asking young men to help the league put on this big TV production. And I can tell you this: There’re a few quarterbacks who could get picked high in this draft and the NFL will invite to New York. All those quarterbacks would do by attending the draft for the NFL is giving DeMarcus Ware more incentive to knock their blocks off the first time they line up across the line of scrimmage from him.”

      Forget DeMarcus Ware or any other opposing player: what would a veteran teammate do to a rookie that defied the NFLPA’s instructions not to attend the draft? Could you imagine being a first-year player who attended the draft and then had to answer to Ray Lewis once the football season resumed?

      I feel bad for these college players. Don’t forget that these are just kids and they deserve the opportunity to shake Goodell’s hand and stand up on stage at Radio City Music Hall. They’re now pawns in something that hasn’t concerned them until this moment and they have to go along with it because the labor dispute is much bigger than them. It’s much bigger than shaking Goodell’s hand, standing up on stage with family and snapping that picture holding up that No. 1 jersey. It’s much bigger than the draft.

      But even if they got the opportunity to take part in the normal draft festivities, the moment they shook Goodell’s hand they would enter the land of lawsuits, lockouts and labor disputes. It’s just the misfortune of being the class of 2011.

      External Sports, NFL, NFL Draft

      Do the Panthers have eyes for Ryan Mallett?

      March 15, 2011 /
      Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett (15) is chased from the pocket by Ohio State defensive lineman Cameron Hayward (97) during first half action of the 77th Annual Allstate Sugar Bowl at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana January 4, 2011. UPI/A.J. Sisco

      You have to hand it to Ron Rivera. He’s only been a head coach for about two months but he’s already managed to keep everyone guessing when it comes to the No. 1 pick. (I guess some credit goes to GM Marty Hurney for that, too.)

      After the Super Bowl was played, the majority of draft pundits had the Panthers taking Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert with the first overall pick. Then it was Auburn defensive tackle Nick Fairley. Now it’s Auburn quarterback Cam Newton. Give it another week and it’ll be LSU’s Patrick Peterson, Clemson’s Da’Quan Bowers and MTV’s Lady Gaga.

      Or how about this for a curveball: Arkansas’ Ryan Mallet.

      There are reports that Mallett is scheduled to work out for the Panthers on Tuesday in Fayetteville. While he isn’t viewed as a potential No. 1 overall pick, that doesn’t mean Carolina wouldn’t trade out of the top spot in order to acquire more picks and nab him later in the first round. They currently don’t have a second round pick after the aforementioned Hurney traded it away last year so that he could reach on Armanti Edwards. So it would stand to reason that the Panthers wouldn’t mind trading back in order to gain more picks this year, and the No. 1 pick would fetch quite a haul.

      Of course, trading out of the top 5 isn’t an easy task – especially when teams don’t know what’s going to happen with the CBA. The one thing the NFL and NFLPA reportedly agreed upon was restructuring the ridiculous rookie pay scale. If teams don’t have to invest $67 billion in the No. 1 pick, then the Panthers might have an easier time trading down. But if the rookie pay scale is still an issue, then they might be stuck.

      If that’s the case, then it still seems likely that the Panthers would select Newton or Gabbert at No. 1. Granted, they could always take a defensive player like Peterson and then trade back into the first round to nab Mallett, but how would they do that? They don’t have a second rounder and they have a ton of needs to address, so trading the rest of their draft doesn’t seem smart. Thus, moving out of the No. 1 slot could prove extremely difficult.

      Either way, the Panthers have everyone in a state of mass confusion with their pre-draft antics. And with that in mind, I say well done, Rivera and Co.

      External Sports, NFL, NFL Draft

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