2010: High-Low early round surprise picks

[DFWJC]

There are draft surprises every year.

Which 1st and 2nd rounds picks surpsied you the most in 2010 on draft day.

Leading up to the draft, one of the biggest mistakes a team can make is to get swallowed up by NFL group-think.

You know, when teams pay so much attention to the mock drafts, "word on the street" , and TV analysis that a team will veer from their own draft board--which was created by a year of hard work by their staff.

I can think of a couple of picks last year that were deemed by many as surprises:

High pick:
Tyson Alualu, DT/DE Jacksonville 10 pick
Jax got blasted by this pick but hindsight says they knew exactly what they were doing. Alualu made the all-rookie team and it turns out that several teams were targeting him. Miami wanted him at 12 and immediately traded down when Jax took him ay 10. Supposedly, Pittsburgh and Indy liked him a lot too. Anyway the critics were most likely wrong on this one.

High pick:
Tim Tebow, QB, Denver 25th pick
I guess the jury is still out on this one. It seemd very high to me but he was fairly productive when he got some playing time late in the season.
Time will tell, I guess.

Low pick:
Jim Clausen, QB, Carolina, 48th pick
Many mock drafts had this guy going in the top 10 (in fact some had him going to jacksonville). Many more had him gone by the late 1st round.
I guess the jury is still out, but it does seem that all 32 teams may have made the right move to at least pass on him in the 1st round. Carolina using the 48th pick on him was not as much of a giant risk, though even that may end up being too high.


Any others?

 

[DFWJC]

I guess Taylor Mays could fit the low pick category

Many had him going VERY high, but the mocks and TV analyists were WAY off. All NFL teams passed in Rd and he didn't go until mid-late 2nd round.

Mays could end up being a good value pick at #49...we'll see. He looked pretty good for a rookie late last year.