Ignorant Draft Musings

My favorite night in the annual sports calendar just past, and I wanted to share some of my oh so enlightening reactions:

1. J-Boogie!!!!!!!!!!

2. The dominant theme of the 1st Round was smart teams, and yes I'm including the Jags and maybe even the Cowboys in this group, taking advantage of an unusual market inefficiency. The consensus around the league settled so firmly around the concept that the value of this draft was its depth that real value could be found in moving up. When everybody wants to move back, value can be found in moving up. The Jags, Cowboys, and Eagles all sacrificed a relatively meager amount to move up and draft elite players. The Patriots, perpetual kings of moving back, moved up twice. It was a different kind of night.

3. Gene Smith made an outstanding move. Every unknowing blogger and Peter King on the planet thought the Jaguars wanted to move back until about an hour before the draft. Then, all of a sudden, my man Gene only sacrificed a 4th round draft pick to get J-Boogie!!!!!!!!!! Just as a point of reference, I want to list some of the best 4th round picks from the last 3 years:

Roy Helu-RB-Redskins
Sam Acho-LB-Cardinals
Delone Carter-RB-Colts
Cortez Allen-DB-Steelers
Mike Williams-WR-Bucs
Jacoby Ford-WR-Raiders
Aaron Hernandez-TE-Patriots
Geno Atkins-DT-Bengals
O'Brien Schofield-LB-Cardinals
Mike Thomas-WR-Jags
Louis Murphy-WR-Raiders
Austin Collie-WR-Colts
Jacob Tamme-TE-Colts

That's it. 13 quality picks out of a possible 96. Gene Smith sacrificed a 13.5% of finding a quality player for the chance to draft J-Boogie!!!!!!!!!! My man Gene. What a hoodwink.

4. It is safe to say we can stop talking about the Steelers offensive line woes. If greater Pouncey stays healthy and David DeCastro is half the player people think he is, we are looking at an all-time great interior offensive line. Look for a great year from Rashard Mendenhall and some favorable comparisons to the Walter Jones-Steve Hutchinson road-grating excellence that somehow yielded a Shaun Alexander MVP.

5. Teams around the league yearn to get after the quarterback. The Giants won the Super Bowl with an elite pass rush that outlasted the glamorous offenses that dominated the regular season. So, in a cliche-perpetuating movement, the "copycat" league attempted to replicate their success by drafting an enormous amount of pass rushers. 7 seemingly indistinguishable quarterback chasers were selected between picks 15 and 28. One of those players might turn into Clay Matthews of Jason Pierre-Paul, but it is safe to assume there is a Vernon Gholston or two in that bunch. My money would be on Bruce Irvin, Quinton Coples, and Nick Perry.

6. Just to recap, the Rams turned the 2nd pick into:

Michael Brockers-DT-LSU
39th Pick in 2012
45th Pick in 2012
Washington's 1st in 2013
Washington's 1st in 2014

That is an enormous load. The ascendancy of Robert Griffin should be one of the best things ever to happen to the Rams franchise as they have the opportunity to turn his potential into 5 quality starters. As long as the front office does their job, the Rams just created five years worth of championship contention.

7. J-Boogie!!!!!!!!!!

-Myles
(KPPBH's ignorant draft commentator)

Welcome to Jax, J Boogie

(image courtesy of Florida Times Union)

BLACKMON!!!

There are no guarantees and every player can fail but yesterday was the most universally beloved draft pick for the Jags since Fred Taylor in 1998. Gene Smith supporters are happy. Gene Smith doubters seem to be in some state of shock or pleasant surprise. There is, as officially as it gets, buzz about the Jags.

You have to get the player right but the trade was perfectly executed. It's reasonable to assume the Rams would have taken him at sixth, so a move was necessary. They moved up the minimum amount necessary to get him. They gave up as little as could be reasonably expected (4th rounder). It always feels good when your team is doing the same thing as the traditionally smart teams (Eagles and Patriots moving up. Cowboys, although traditionally dumb, gave a reasonable amount to jump up and get Claiborne). Smith noted everyone wanted to move down. He went the other way.

An odd thing has happened to the Jacksonville receivers this off-season. They are good. They are competitive. It's a crowded room. My friend Russell (read his movie reviews here) instantly pointed out that Blackmon and Laurent Robinson are the best Jags duo since Smith and McCardell. I have my worries about Robinson (mostly injury related) but here's the thing, the Jaguars have a legitimately deep WR corp and one of the best WR coaches in history. In one off-season, it has gone from being an obvious weakness to a potential strength. That is odd in the best and most glee inducing way. Quick glance at Jags WR corp:

• Justin Blackmon - The presumptive #1.
• Laurent Robinson - Young, speedster. Caught ten touchdowns last year. Less pressure with addition of Blackmon.
• Mike Thomas - Good, young player who was clearly on the rise before all the WRs stepped back last season.
• Cecil Shorts III - Rough first year but flashed in the preseason.
• Lee Evans - Low risk, high reward veteran, who, at a minimum gives a lesson on how to be a professional, while, if healthy, legitimately pushing younger guys to be at their best. Also, it has been forgotten but he looked very good last preseason before injuries derailed him.
• Chastin West - Jags fans will scoff but he was a player Green Bay was disappointed got away. A full-season will give the Jags a chance to properly evaluate.
• Jarret Dillard - Certainly expendable now but he hasn't ever been properly coached or healthy. He's healthy and there's no coaching excuse now. He's legitimate competition if nothing else
• Taylor Price, Brian Robiskie - Young, former reasonably high draft picks. Once again, competition.

It's hard to look at that list and not think the Jaguars will keep six guys.

A supremely underrated quality of Gene Smith's is his ability to completely remake a position, incredibly quickly. If you don't evaluate well, it's all over anyway, but Jags fans should at least respect he has a clear vision. In recent years, he has, typically in a single off-season, completely overhauled nearly every position (OT, DT, S and LB being the most obvious.)

If he fails, he fails, but I think Jags fan truly fail to realize how many teams are shooting blindly in the dark.

-Q

Carl and Q's Mock

Carl described this mock perfectly, "A work of art."

Without further ado,

Myles' 2012 Mock

First, big thanks to Myles for providing this mock. He wrote out a mock draft last year that I really enjoyed. There are a couple of ways to interpret a mock.

1) You can grade them entirely by how well they match a player to a team, in which case they all get F's (or in random years they all get a C-. Coincidentally, this might be one of those years, a lot of consensus especially around the top 10, although that's breaking up somewhat as Matt Kalil supposedly falls)

2) You can grade them on how sincerely and intelligently they play out their vision of the draft. I say sincerely because there is no shortage of professional writers who shamelessly do something different, not because they actually believe that's what's going to or should happen, but because they want to stand out from the multitudes (and there are multitudes). I say intelligently because if you go to pretty much any football related mock draft you can find one guy genuinely SCREAMING IN ALL CAPS THAT HE THINKS CASE KEENUM, NCAA FOOTBALL YARDAGE CHAMPION, SHOULD BE A TOP TEN DRAFT PICK. I don't judge either of these groups too harshly, fella (or lady) gotta get paid and who knows maybe Case will be a top ten draft pick, but Myles is neither of those things. He just a kid with a vision and a dream. Enjoy. Mock after the jump.

Smack Smack

I'm a little late to this but Mike Lombardi gets slapped around a bit by John Oehser.

Oehser hasn't reached Vic level adoration but there's few ways for a football writer to get closer to my heart than calling out Lombardi, who is consistently the most frustrating NFL analyst for me to read.

Oh that sweet, sweet, hair...

He looks great, right? Like a real NFL QB. As my lovely fiance pointed out, he could be straight out of Friday Night Lights (and let's be honest, the Jags are definitely the East Dillon Lions of the NFL. All the way from the big cat mascot to their status of neglected runt of the NFL). I was pretty eager after last season for Gabbert to cut his hair. Despite his claims to the contrary (get to that in a moment), I thought a new, fresher look would be confidence inspiring. I have no idea how his teammates responded but I was pretty much giddy as I forced my friends to check out the new Gabba-Gabba cut.

Now, I don't expect Blaine to come right out and say he's cutting his hair cause people called him wimpy and having beautiful, golden locks only reinforces the perception he lacks toughness (For the record, in my opinion, hair length not correlated to toughness. See Clay Matthews). It wouldn't be smart to be so plain in your reasoning. That said, this quote could've used just a bit of work (via the times-union):

“I’ve had long hair for two years now; it’s comfortable...It’s just freshening up a little bit. Look a little cleaner, look well-kept. That’s about it. I’m the same Blaine. … You are who you are regardless if you have a full beard, which I can’t grow, or you have long hair."

It starts off so strong. Confident. Self-assured. And then...just an acknowledgement that you can't grow a beard, a universal sign of manliness and testosterone. Sigh. So close, Blaine, so close.