Best picks? Depends on who picks them
NEW YORK (AP) — In college football there’s a theory, supported by some solid evidence, that a high school player’s rating is influenced by the schools recruiting him.
A player can go from a three-star prospect to four stars when Urban Meyer shows up at his door. When that player decides to go to Florida, the Gators’ recruiting grade gets an extra boost because they signed a four-star prospect instead of a three-star.
Shady, right?
A similar dynamic seems to be happening in the NFL draft.
Players selected by the most successful organizations generally have their positives accentuated by the pundits and experts. So when the Indianapolis Colts took running back Donald Brown from Connecticut with the 27th pick in the first round, the choice was mostly well received.
Brown was regarded as a good citizen and a very good player. He had a huge 2008 season, running for 2,083 yards and 18 touchdowns before deciding to skip his senior season.
“We said, ’Here’s a guy that fits everything we want. There isn’t a thing wrong with him. He’s everything we want to have,”’ team president Bill Polian said.
Great pick. Right?
Well, the consensus had running back Chris Wells from Ohio State rated ahead of Brown. Wells went to Arizona with the 31st pick.
Also, increasingly NFL teams are shying away from taking running backs in the first round because it’s usually a deep position with good players available later in the draft.
The Philadelphia Eagles, for example, took LeSean McCoy from Pittsburgh in the second round with the 53rd pick. An argument can be made that Brown and McCoy have similar enough potential that the Eagles got the better value.
The same could be said for the New York Jets, who took the bruising Shonn Greene from Iowa in the third round, and maybe even the Carolina Panthers, who took the speedy Mike Goodson from Texas A&M in the fourth.
And another thing, don’t the Colts have Joseph Addai, a first-round pick from 2006?
Two-back systems are all the rage in the NFL, but did the Colts really need to use a first-round pick for a complement to Addai when they had needs at linebacker and defensive tackle?
Of course, Polian does the draft about as well as anybody in the NFL and has earned the right to avoid criticism. Indy’s top choices the last 11 years all became starters.
The Oakland Raiders, on the other hand, have been bungling their way through most of the decade, with owner Al Davis as the circus’ ring leader. Oakland is 24-72 since the start of 2003, the worst in the NFL over that period.
It sure looks as if the stopwatch-obsessed Raiders reached for Heyward-Bey, and then did it again when they took Ohio University defensive back Michael Mitchell and his 4.4 speed in the second round.
The Cincinnati Bengals are another of the NFL’s toxic teams. The Bengals’ first three draft picks were players who, at one time or another, were being pegged to go sooner than they did.
During the season tackle Andre Smith looked like a potential first overall pick. Cincinnati got him at No. 6. USC linebacker Rey Maualuga looked like a sure first-rounder. The Bengals got him early in the second. Georgia Tech defensive end Michael Johnson was being touted as a potential first-rounder before his senior season; he went 70th overall.