Someone has to fall...

Ok, so file this one under stating the obvious but just looking at basic numbers, here's my list of guys who are generally considered locks to be in the draft, broken out by position, followed by who that leaves out. The long and short of it is, a good number of players are going to fall

Remember, I'm only counting "locks" here:

• 3 Quarterbacks: Cam Newton, Blaine Gabbert, Jake Locker
• 8 Defensive Ends: Robert Quinn, Da'Quan Bowers, J.J. Watt, Ryan Kerrigan, Cameron Jordan, Adrian Clayborn, Aldon Smith, Cameron Heyward
• 4 Defensive Tackles: Marcell Dareus, Nick Fairley, Corey Liuget, Muhammad Wilkerson
• 1 Linebacker: Von Miller
• 3 Cornerbacks: Patrick Peterson, Prince Amukamara, Jimmy Smith
• 2 Wide Receivers: A.J Green, Julio Jones
• 5 Offensive Linemen: Tyron Smith, Mike Pouncey, Gabe Carimi, Anthony Castonzo, Nate Solder

That is 25 (Update: 26. Hooray for counting!) guys who are generally considered locked into the first round. Now look at the list of who is left off (in rough order of their likelihood of being a first round pick):

• Mark Ingram
• Akeem Ayers
• Derek Sherrod
• Phil Taylor
• Brandon Harris
• Justin Houston
• Christian Ponder
• Ryan Mallet
• Marvin Austin
• Aaron Williams
• Kyle Rudolph
• Brooks Reed
• Andy Dalton
• Danny Watkins
• Rahim Moore
• Stephen Paea
• Jonathan Baldwin
• Ryan Williams
• Colin Kaepernick
• Christian Ballard
• Jabaal Sheard

That is another TWENTY ONE guys and I'd bet there will be at least one pick not on this list who goes in the first (let's be honest, there's a decent chance that it's the Jags who pull that stunt). I'm young and I haven't been following the draft long enough to have a great sense of how this compares to previous years. As for the Jaguars, this list pretty much gets you to their second round pick (#49, the list above has 46 47 on it) which is pretty exciting. It's going to be a fun two days

Also, everyone likes to rail on McShay and Kiper, and with good reason, but McShay especially has been pushing the fact that this draft is approximately 25 elite players deep, followed by another 20 or so who have roughly the same grade. I'm sure all the draftniks will miss something (someone from this list will probably go in the fourth or fifth round, and someone not on here will go first) but he deserves credit for recognizing the way the approximate tier levels of this draft early on in the prognosticating process that is the build up to the NFL draft

-Q