Mockery of the Week
T-minus 33 days 'til Draft Day, and I'll give you my guess (and let's be honest-- we're all guessing) about the top of the draft. By top, I mean the top 10.
1. Miami. Virginia DL Chris Long. If Bill Parcells is going to guarantee anyone $33 million, it's going to be a 24/7 football player who he'd trust to marry one of his daughters. And Chris Long is as trustworthy as they come, in a personal and football sense.
2. St. Louis. Ohio State DE Vernon Gholston. The Rams got 5.5 sacks last year from their defensive ends. That's 5.5. Total. Their best one, Leonard Little, is 33 and coming off toe surgery. There might be no team in the NFL needier at the rush spot than this team, and Gholston is tailor-made to come off the edge on the carpet of the Rams' home dome.
3. Atlanta. LSU DT Glenn Dorsey. Trust me. The Falcons' new GM, Thomas Dimitroff, is a very big Dorsey fan. And for all you out there who say, "No! You can't take a guy with a bum leg with the third pick in the draft,'' I would advise you to remember two things. One: Dorsey never missed a game due to injury in his LSU career. Two: Anthony Munoz was flunked on his pre-draft physical by 14 teams. Fourteen! And he only went on to be one of the greatest offensive tackles in the last 40 years.
4. Dallas (acquired in trade from Oakland). Arkansas RB Darren McFadden. Count me among those who think the Jerry-loves-Darren stuff is very real. If it costs Jones the 22nd and 28th pick in the draft, it's fine with him. Imagine the Cowboy offense with McFadden. The best 1-2 punch at running back in football, hands down. Very good young quarterback. Good-enough receivers. Very good 1-2 punch at tight end. A left tackle who can hold speed rushers off the quarterback. Dallas could be Patriot-like on offense next fall with McFadden.
5. Kansas City. Boston College QB Matt Ryan. Just a hunch, though they'll have trouble passing on Michigan offensive tackle Jake Long.
Strange thing here. At the combine, Carl Peterson told me the Chiefs loved Ryan, but there was no way they could take him because of their needs elsewhere. (Offensive line, I'm guessing.) Then they sent half the front office to his workout the other day at BC. Methinks Carl does not want to be the man to pass on the guy he thinks will be a franchise player. The other thing this does is buy coach Herman Edwards one more year of rebuilding. Even if the Chiefs go 5-11 this year, they couldn't whack Edwards until after they got a really good look at Ryan.
6. New York Jets. Michigan OT Jake Long. You and I and everyone else who does these things believe there's no way Long lasts 'til number six. And he probably won't. But funny things happen in unpredictable drafts like this one.
The benefit for the Jets: If D'Brickashaw Ferguson continues to be a C-plus left tackle, Long could play the right side this year, then the coaches could decide who'd be the best left tackle in 2009. But here's my view if Ryan's there: The Jets will hold an auction and try to get two first-day picks for this slot.
7. New England. USC DT Sedrick Ellis. Go back to those not-so-thrilling days of the 2007 playoffs. The man who is supposed to be the difference-maker on the New England defense, end Richard Seymour, played 12 postseason quarters against a decent but hardly murderers' row of left tackles -- Khalil Barnes (Jags), Marcus McNeill (Chargers) and David Diehl (Giants). Seymour's pass-rush line from those 12 quarters: zero sacks, zero quarterback hits. Seems like Seymour's gone pretty unscathed for that three-week no-show, which I would think, in Boston, would be something like Manny Ramirez having zero extra-base hits in three playoff series.
So I'm sure the Patriots want someone to collapse the pocket and a corner, not necessarily in that order. But I would be stunned if the Pats did not go for the best available front-seven player with this pick that it obtained from San Francisco via a trade in last year's draft.
The Pats are in an interesting spot. Don't put it past them to trade up if they've decided Gholston or Dorsey is the guy they simply have to have. Even if they sit at seven, they'll likely get one of the four most highly regarded linemen -- Chris Long, Dorsey, Gholston or Ellis. And if those four are gone, maybe USC outside 'backer Keith Rivers is there for them. In any case, New England should come out of the top 10 with a premier front-seven player.
8. Baltimore. Tennessee State CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. The Ravens have no corners of the future, which, with a risk-taking defensive boss like Rex Ryan, is going to get them killed. Rodgers-Cromartie not only will have to make the jump from mid-major football to the NFL, but also he'll have to be ready to play opening day, with Ray Lewis and Ed Reed jumping down his throat if he screws up.
9. Cincinnati. Florida DE Derrick Harvey. Five names here. Glen Collins. Pete Koch. Jason Buck. John Copeland. Justin Smith. What do they have in common? They are the five first-round defensive end picks by the Bengals in the last 30 drafts, and none made it big. Not a one of them made a Pro Bowl. Now that the underachieving Smith is gone, it's time to find an edge force again.
10. Detroit (acquired in a trade with New Orleans). Illinois RB Rashard Mendenhall. Matt Millen deals up from number 15 to get a 227-pound back with 4.4 speed ... and coming off a 1,600-yard season with every defensive eye on him every snap. Nice back for the plastic grass of Ford Field.
