Draft predictions: Simply impossible

On the morning of April 24, 2005, I sat down to breakfast at my apartment, checked ESPN.com and discovered that Maurice Clarett had been drafted in the third round of the draft by the Denver Broncos.

My first thought was, “Holy smokes! The third round!”

My second thought was, “Holy smokes! There’s nothing in our paper about this!”

We had a 10 p.m. deadline on Saturday nights at the time. Clarett wasn’t chosen for another hour. We didn’t think to hold up the presses because there was absolutely no chance of his getting drafted before the fifth or sixth round. No sir. No chance at all.

I immediately got on the phone, made a few calls and wrote something for Monday’s paper.

I mention this story because there’s just no way to predict what’s going to happen in the draft. Case in point: Walter Reyes, who had a terrific career at Struthers and Syracuse, was also in the 2005 draft. But he wasn’t taken, eventually signing a free agent deal with the Titans, where he got released and afterward played briefly in NFL Europe.

(Neither Clarett nor Reyes returned my calls after the draft. If you ever want to experience what it’s like to be a sportswriter, simply sit next to a phone that doesn’t ring for several hours, then write a story based on the information you didn’t get.)

This year’s draft has a chance to be a pretty special one for the Mahoning Valley. Five players (Chaney’s Keilen Dykes, Fitch’s Mike McGlynn, Boardman’s John Greco, Harding’s Mario Manningham and Harding/Glenville’s Antwaun Molden) have a really good chance of being drafted and a few others (Harding’s Mike Phillips, Fitch’s Davanzo Tate, YSU’s Dorian Chenault and YSU’s James Terry) have a good chance of getting training camp invitations.

So the question is, when was the last time this area had this many players drafted?

For the answer, I turned to Terry Fagan, who is the type of guy who keeps track of this kind of stuff. The man is amazing. He’s also not someone who cares about getting credit, but, as he wrote me in an e-mail, “[there] is no way anybody is going to believe you researched [this] yourself, so I guess I’ll take credit.”

The area’s best draft (numbers-wise) came in 1963, when six players were taken: South’s Don Lisbon (No. 36 by the 49ers), Campbell’s Jack Cverko (No. 63 by the Packers), Salem’s Lou Slaby (No. 69 by the Giants), Ursuline’s Ernie Borghetti (No. 72 by the Browns), Rayen’s Frank Horvath (No. 255 by the Vikings) and some Mooney grad named Jim Traficant (No. 276 by the Steelers), who became slightly more famous after his football career.

The Valley had five draftees in 1943, 1953 and 1957. The 1943 draft was arguably the area’s best. Chaney’s Frank Sinkwich, who won the Heisman Trophy at Georgia in 1942, went No. 1 overall to the Lions and won the MVP in 1944. He was the first Ohio high school football player to do each of those things.

South’s Bob Dove went No. 40 to the Redskins, followed by Chaney’s George Poschner (No. 61 to the Lions), Struthers’ Walt McDonald (No. 90 to the Redskins) and Scienceville’s (later North) Leo Mogus (No. 180, also to the Redskins). Although there were a lot more rounds back then, there were also a lot fewer teams. There are 252 picks over seven rounds this year.

There were four area players drafted in 1967 and 1974.

There were three picked last year.

There were none picked in 2003 or 2004.

There could be none next year.

It’s hard to say.

But this much I know: If Manningham gets drafted tonight, we’ll have something about it in Sunday’s paper.

And if Clarett or Traficant get drafted? Well, we’ll know something else: They’re making another version of “The Longest Yard.”

XJoe Scalzo covers sports for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.