Finishing off the mock draft, here are the final six picks of the first round.
27th Pick – Dallas Cowboys – Rodger Saffold, OL, Indiana – Dallas plays in a division full of fearsome defensive linesmen, and suffered a playoff loss because of their inability to protect their quarterback. They are another team that needs to work on their offensive line depth.
28th Pick – San Diego Chargers – Ryan Matthews, RB, Fresno State – Matthews is a between the tackles runner that should make the Chargers offense multi-dimensional again. This should be an easy pick if he is still on the board at 28.
29th Pick – St. Louis Rams (traded from New York Jets) – Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame – Those who are patient will be rewarded. The Rams move up to this late first round pick to draft the free-falling Clausen, who after being bypassed early in the draft finds a lack of suitors up until this point. The Rams still need more positions filled before they can become competitive, but drafting a potential franchise quarterback this late is too good value to pass up. The Vikings, picking next, could be in the market for a quarterback, not to mention other teams such as Cleveland that may look to leap frog St. Louis for Clausen this late. Thus it makes sense for the Rams to trade up a few spots to guarantee getting the Notre Dame product. The exact projected trade is that the Rams trade their 2nd round pick and 4th round pick for the Jets 1st round pick.
As for the Jets, they trade down because the players they are projected to take will still be available four picks from now, and picking up extra selections always makes sense.
30th Pick – Philadelphia Eagles (traded from Minnesota) – Brian Price, DT, UCLA – The Vikings are the team that should trade for Donovan McNabb. Enough waiting for Brett Favre to make up his mind on playing or not, the Vikings need to move on and make sure they have a quarterback for 2010. McNabb is a proven player and leader who could perform just as well as Favre did in 2009 for Minnesota, and giving up a late first round pick, especially after Clausen is taken, is worth it.
After all, what happens if Favre decides to stay retired? The Vikings are left to choose between Tavarias Jackson and Sage Rosenfels to run a team with championship aspirations. Why leave that nightmare scenario to chance?
As for the Eagles, Price helps them reaffirm their commitment to overhauling their defensive line.
31st Pick – Indianapolis Colts – Charles Brown, OT, USC – The consensus seems to be that the Colts need to add depth to their offensive line. It makes sense. Even with holes on defense, the primary focus of a team whose best asset is Peyton Manning should be to protect him.
32nd Pick – New Orleans Saints – Sean Weatherspoon, LB, Missouri – With the loss of Scott Fujita, this should be an easy pick. Weatherspoon fills a gap in the defense. And his weaknesses, notably his tendency to be a disturbance, shouldn’t be as big of an issue on a veteran team with a winning history like the Saints.
Thus concludes the first round of the mock draft. I will repost the entire draft as a list for easy reference, along with notes on the terms of the trades projected.
