going 5 hole: the draft

Five thoughts on the day after the NFL draft:

1. The Washington Redskins continue to defy logic. All too often, 31 teams have a way of thinking and then there’s the Redskins. When 31 teams decide it’s best to build a championship contender through the draft, the ‘Skins happily toss away picks by the dozens justifying the tactic by saying they’d rather have a proven veteran commodity rather than rolling the dice on a rookie. But then that “proven” player ends up being T.J. Duckett or Brandon Lloyd, meaning they might as well have set the draft pick on fire.

This year Vinny Cerrato and the powers that be opted to give this NFL draft thing a shot. They did their best to keep their draft picks heading into the weekend and promise to actually have a draft board this year. Once the draft began, Redskins fans all held their breath to see how this “new” tactic would play out. Much to our surprise, the front office seemingly made a great move when they traded out of the 21st pick and acquired some extra ammo for their newfound draft strategy. Unfortunately, once they got those picks, the ‘Skins front office couldn’t help themselves. As I stated in my day one recap, the team drafted three pass catchers in the span of 16 picks to go on an offense with plenty of name players (Moss, Randel El, Cooley, Sellers and Portis) who already come into a game expecting to touch the ball from time to time. Not making a move to bolster either the offensive or defensive line with any of the three second-round picks, regardless of how many receivers you had ranked as “first-round talent,” is negligible. At this point, Jon Jansen and Randy Thomas spend as much time on the Redskins sideline as I do. Wouldn’t it be wise to have someone — anyone — under the age of 30 qualified to play on the offensive line this season?

2. The second day of the draft was kinder to the Redskins, if for no other reason than they didn’t draft another wide out. With the 96th overall pick, the ‘Skins drafted Chad Rinehart, an offensive lineman from Northern Iowa. I heard Mike Mayock, the NFL Network’s answer to Mel Kiper, had this guy as a seventh-round caliber player, but that should matter to anyone in D.C. The team brought is a 6’5″, 320 lb. country boy who Joe Bugel should be able to mold into a guard for the future. With their fourth rounder, the ‘Skins selected my personal favorite player from this weekend, J.T. Tryon, a cornerback from Arizona State. He’s 5’9″ and 190 lbs., but he already thinks he can go toe-to-toe with Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens and basically said he didn’t care who the Redskins had as cornerbacks on the roster, he’s coming in to win the job. My buddy, Papa John, is convinced he’ll be the first rookie ducktaped to the goalposts during minicamp.

3. Two other players of note worth mentioning — the Redskins picked up both Georgia Tech punter Durant Brooks and Hawaii QB Colt Brennan in the sixth round. I love the punter pick if for no other reason than it very well mean the end of Derrick Frost Era. Frosty, while a “highly” enjoyable interview (unless you ask him, like I did, if the reason he still has a job is because he has naked photos of someone in the front office), scares the hell out of me every time he lines up to punt. You honestly never know if he’s going to punt it 60 yards or six. That’s probably because he doesn’t know either.

About the new quarterback — he’s Jordan Palmer with a new name. A year ago the ‘Skins took a flyer on Carson Palmer’s brother in hopes of developing him from a raw talent into an NFL quarterback. He didn’t last because Mark Brunell was still collecting his pension … er … paycheck here. This year, they took Brennan, who set 21 NCAA passing records in his three years over the rainbow. On the one hand, Brennan comes into a safe situation, with no expectations and a head coach who knows a thing or two about getting the best from his QBs. On the other, this guy is a short, injury-prone, side-armed quarterback who finds himself on the wrong side of the law from time to time. We have Jason Campbell showing up to neighborhood birthday parties, not Pacman Jones making it rain. If this guy even shows up to a meeting late, I’d send him on the next bus to Hawaii. Besides, if were up to me, I would have drafted Dennis Dixon, the Oregon quarterback who was drafted by Pittsburgh in the fifth round. That kid is a flat out playmaker.

4. Stepping away from the Redskins draft, I wanted to take a moment to highlight the top three drafts from this weekend. Now, I openly point out that it’ll probably be two years before we truly know how each of these teams fared in the draft, but we can still see some teams have reason to be optimistic sooner rather than later. First of all, the Kansas City Chiefs, led by Herm “We play to win the game” Edwards was phenomenal. Defensive tackle Glen Dorsey is the real deal, and was the number one overall player on the ‘Skins draft board. Branden Alberts, the guard from Glen Burnie High, is exactly the type of offensive lineman I would have traded your kid to get on my favorite football team. Brandon Flowers was one of the most consistent players on a stout Virginia Tech defense, and Jamaal Charles is the type of running back who can break a 60-yard touchdown at any moment. Those are four really good players from four legit college programs who should be making Kansas City proud for the foreseeable future.

I also really liked the Arizona Cardinals’ draft. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is a very talented cornerback out of Tennessee State. Calais Campbell is the defensive lineman out of University of Miami pipeline, who I was convinced the ‘Skins would draft. Early Doucet is a productive wide out from LSU who should take full advantage of his situation and learn from ultra talented wide receivers Anquan Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald. And finally, I liked how the Pittsburgh Steelers spent their weekend. Rookie Rashard Mendenhall and Willie Parker should work nicely in the Steelers backfield. Limas Sweed was a dependable wide out during his sentence in Texas, and I’ve already mentioned that I’m a fan of Dennis Dixon, the quarterback from Oregon. There’s a reason the Steelers are consistently competitive.

5. This isn’t completely draft related, but it happened over draft weekend, so work with me. After hearing months of nagging, I finally got my act together and uploaded some of my best photos taken of the Washington Redskins over the past three years. If you were one of the people kicking me to get my act together, or if you just want to see some decent shots of your favorite ‘Skins players, then click this link.

(photo by Brian Murphy)

1 comment

  1. Stevie
    April 30, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    Hey Homieboy,Lay off Brennan. Anyone who has that much fun playing college ball deserves a shot.He could fit right in with the other D.C. crazies. Phuck Philly

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