NFL Mock Draft: Picks 6-10

posted by cochise March 21, 2010

Continuing from the mock draft that began yesterday, here are the next five picks as they should happen.

6th Pick – Seattle Seahawks – Eric Berry, FS, Tennessee – The Seahawks are a deceivingly bad team. That is to say, because of their past success, many people think they are a squad that is one or two playmakers away from the playoffs. But the truth is the team has a lot of fundamental problems. They haven’t been able to keep Matt Hasselbeck healthy for a couple of seasons and they lost their running game with Shaun Alexander’s decline and departure.

But what the Seahawks were absolutely dreadful at in 2009 was stopping the pass. Eric Berry has elite athletic abilities for his position and would be an immediate contributor. And with his addition, the Seahawks would have two stellar, young pieces to grow their defense around in Berry and last year’s pick, LB Aaron Curry.

7th Pick – Cleveland Browns – Joe Haden, CB, Florida – The Browns should fight their urge to take another Notre Dame quarterback with this pick, and instead draft the speedy Gator that fills a need. (But as we all know, logic is thrown out the window with this team all too often.)

8th Pick – Oakland Raiders – Trent Williams, OT, Oklahoma – A very solid offensive linemen whose stock has risen considerably since the beginning of the year, Williams would help provide more consistency to the Raiders offense in 2010. Unfortunately for Raiders fans, Al Davis is still in charge and will most likely waste another pick on a player who fits one of his outdated talent evaluation methods.

9th Pick – Buffalo Bills – Derrick Morgan, DE, Georgia Tech – The lure of a gamebreaking running back like CJ Spiller or a franchise quarterback like Jimmy Clausen may be strong, but neither is what the Bills need. In the last decade, the Bills gambled in the first round on Willis McGahee (worked out for a year or two before he left on bad terms), J.P. Losman (the arrogant quarterback wasn’t quite as good as Brett Favre as he claimed he was), and Marshawn Lynch (again worked out for a year or two, now the relationship is crumbling.)

The point of that history lesson? Stop wasting picks on offensive players! The Bills haven’t been to the playoffs since they lost to the Titans in the Music City Miracle in 1999. They might get back there if their focus is on improving their defense for once.

10th Pick – Jacksonville Jaguars – Earl Thomas, FS, Texas – The Jaguars were seemingly close to the playoffs last year, but the truth is that they played a very easy schedule and still ended last in their division. There is nothing wrong with their offense as it is, so the problem has to be the other side of the ball. Thomas fills an immediate need and has the potential to be a very good player. This should be the pick. (And if the Jaguars pick Tim Tebow to appease local fans it would be an awful pick and the Jaguars loyal base has the right to riot.)

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Browns’ Quarterback Shuffle Makes Little Sense

posted by cochise March 14, 2010

A few weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers, quite sensibly, released quarterback Jake Delhomme. Delhomme had once been the star for a team without much history of success. He led them to a Superbowl berth in 2003 and kept them a perennial playoff threat for every year since. But his recent play, including incredible meltdowns in the 2009 playoffs and 2010 regular season, proved that Jake had little left in his tank.

Why then did the Cleveland Browns, a rebuilding team that would be lucky to smell the postseason this upcoming year, sign Delhomme to a two-year deal? It wasn’t like the deal was inexpensive. Jake is due to be paid seven million dollars in 2010 alone, despite still receiving another twelve million from the Panthers. And the team didn’t sign him to be a veteran backup who could mentor a young quarterback either, as previous starters Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn were moved off the roster.

What separates a good franchise from a bad one are moves like this. The Browns easily could have signed Delhomme for a third of what they handed him, given that he was still due a hefty paycheck from his previous team and was garnering little interest from the other thirty-one teams in the NFL. They easily could have brought him in to mentor Quinn. As someone who began his career as a backup and fought to become a star, he would have been a great one. Instead they traded away their former first-round pick for table scraps to the Denver Broncos.

Cleveland is a great example of a bad team that seems to think all of their problems can be solved at quarterback. In 2007, they drafted Quinn only to see Derek Anderson flourish in a contract year. Then, in 2008, they decided to resign Anderson for three more years and keep Brady Quinn, whose trade value was still somewhat high. Now the team has neither player and still has no solution at the passing helm.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The way to rebuild a team in the NFL is not to start at quarterback, the most vulnerable and needy position in the game. A team needs a good offensive line, a solid defense, and even a decent running game before it can expect high efficiency out of a passer. Until the Browns realize this, they will continue to be terrible.

On a final note, congratulations to Jake Delhomme, who went from crying at a press conference to pulling down almost twenty million dollars in salary following the worst year of his career. I hope Jake is at a bar buying his agent drinks like its his twenty-first birthday.

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Why Drafting Quarterbacks Early Can Be A Mistake

posted by cochise February 26, 2010

For bad teams in the NFL, one solution seems to come to all; draft a quarterback with your first-round pick and everything will solve itself. This belief, however, has proved itself to be incorrect year after year, with many teams struggling to improve with their highly-selected, and well-paid, passers. The crux of the problem? Drafting a quarterback is just not as important to team improvement as general managers and draft experts perpetuate them to be.

Most seasoned football fans should realize that the best teams are built from the lines out. Meaning that once the offensive and defensive lines have been solidified, then only will the specialty players perform at their best. A quarterback, in particular, depends on many other of his teammates for success. He cannot complete passes without a reliable receiver to catch them. He cannot fool defenses with play action passes without a steady running game to support him. And most of all, he won’t have enough time to make plays without an offensive line able to protect him consistently.

So why is it, then, that terrible teams with holes all across the board decide to stick inexperienced and young passers into a flawed system? Last year, the Detroit Lions, a team that finished 0-16 in 2008, selected Matthew Stafford with the first pick despite having a terrible offensive line. What happened? Stafford throws twenty interceptions and misses six games, at two different points in the season, due to injuries. In other words, he was hung out to dry and paid for it.

The point here is when a team decides to make an investment in such an important position, they should be sure they can protect it first. It is no coincidence that the teams that have success with first-round quarterbacks (such as the Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons, Pittsburgh Steelers, and San Diego Chargers) are teams that were fringe playoff teams that suffered one down year because of injuries. Those teams had the personnel to win games before they drafted their passers. Teams like the Lions and the Cleveland Browns don’t.

And it isn’t like the only way to acquire a franchise signal-caller is through the first round either. The Houston Texans traded for Matt Schaub after their first-round fiasco, David Carr, failed to pan out and found success.

So my advice to the St. Louis Rams and Browns, the two teams most likely to erroneously select a quarterback, is don’t do it. Focus on your other weaknesses and fill all the holes you have, and success should eventually come.

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