Kareem Jackson in the Heart of Texas, Who the Hell is Kareem Jackson, the Wills Boys Are All Up On Mike Singletary's Jock

With the 20th pick in the NFL draft the Houston Texans took...Kareem Jackson?  With Ryan Matthews being snagged by the Chargers with the 12th pick, it was apparently common knowledge that the Texans would be looking to go for a cornerback to make up for the loss of Dunta Robinson.  Apparently Jackson is that man, though Yahoo Sports isn't sure why the Texans wanted to go with the Alabama (Roll Tide?) defensive back over the plethora of other corners who were still on the board. 

Jackson has some pretty bad tendencies which includes letting speedier receivers get behind him too quickly.  He doesn't have a fantastic first step and isn't really a solid to-the-line cover guy.  However, he makes up for these things with his ability and willingness to help out in the run defense and has above average closing speed.  He'll definitely be a good addition to the Texans squad though it might take a few games for him to really start adjusting to the speed of the NFL wide receivers. 

But enough of that bullshit, who IS THIS GUY?  He allegedly told Nick Saban to go fuck himself when he told him to stay for his senior season with the Tide, which, like, anyone who spurns that asshole is deserving of a large and powerful 'attaboy'.  He spent his three years in college being pretty much overshadowed by his partner across the field, Javier Arenas, but wanted to come out and prove himself in the combine, which apparently he did.  He's a former high school All-American and blah..blah...blah.  Nothing juicy at ALL here, this guy seems to be a model fucking citizen, which is fine, but come ON, not even one article about his gardening habits?  Jesus.  Well, we have a whole year ahead of us, surely there will be something. 

Until then, rest assured that the Texans have made a smart pick here, he's got all the raw tools to be successful and seems like a quality guy. 

In other news, the Wills boys got BOTH of the San Francisco 49ers draft picks.  It's a tad bit hilarious to me that they will be forced to follow the inside track for this team.  Though hey, maybe they'll get some season tickets out of it.  More to come. 

-Terrence Adams

Big Whiffah!!!!

Ok, so a prophet I am not. I figured there would be some trading going on in this draft, but I wasn't expecting that someone would move into the 11 spot for an offensive lineman. But, the 49ers did just that in order to take Anthony Davis out of Rutgers University.

It would seem as though Davis is set to be the left tackle of the future for the 49ers. At 6'5 and 323lbs, Davis certainly has the size to hold his own at the position, and by all accounts and what little film I've seen on Davis (honestly about 3 minutes) and some of his combind stats (33 inch verticle), he appears to be athletic enough, also.

NFL.com's analysis of him goes as follows;

Strengths:

"Davis has the outstanding combination of size and athleticism necessary to play left tackle at the next level. Displays impressive strength eating up opponents off the ball. Excels in pass protection utilizing his long arms to effectively react and adjust while protecting the blindside. Displays really nice hand use."

Weaknesses:

"Lacks great initial quickness when exploding out of his stance in the running game. Davis is not a natural knee bender. Would like to see him finish strong on a more consistent basis. His self discipline is questionable after he struggled with weight issues in college."

While the pick itself is solid, it does beg the question; why move up for a tackle when Clausen, whom the 49ers seemed to be rather interested in, is still on the board? When the trade came up on the screen, that seemed to make the most sense. Instead, they gave up a pick to get a position they have a large need at, and they filled it with a rather large man, but were the 49ers really concerned that Davis may not be there 2 picks later? The 49ers do pick at 17, so that could have figured in San Francisco's thinking, but that allows a lot of wiggle room for another team to move up to take the Notre Dame quarterback, but giving up a draft pick usually requires more than an offensive lineman.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the pick, since Davis projects to be a great player and on many boards was the top offensive lineman in the draft, but there is some surprise this move wasn't made to bring in a franchise quarterback. If Clausen's leadership skills and the questions about his ability to handle being an NFL quarterback scared San Francisco away, Alex Smith and Shaun Hill should have had them running right back to Clausenville.

But, in the end, this is why I am not an NFL general manager, and by all accounts, Davis will be a strong pick. He will be a prominent force for the San Francisco running game that has been very solid over the last few years, and he will help solidify the protection on the left side for whomever it may be at quarterback for the 49ers. All in all, on a scale from 1-10, I'd rate this pick a B+.

-Ben Wills

Pick 11 Offers a Lot, But What Do I Have to Offer?

(ed. note: Victrola Cola would like to introduce Ben Wills to the staff. Call him Big Willie Style, he loves that name. He's a smart person, so listen to him)

So, I've inherited the 11th pick in tonight's NFL draft. The anticipation of Chris Berman whispering the obvious all night is killing me (I can't wait for the Ndamukong "Boy Named" Suh debacle to be uttered as if it was clever...or classy), so I thought I'd too take a little gamble on making a prediction ( or merely doing some analysis).

Denver sits 11th on the board and in all honesty, I am willing to bet there is some quiet regret within the organization that they hadn't played so well at the start of the season, because in the end, they didn't make the playoffs and after trading Jay Cutler (2 years ago), as well as Brandon Marshall and Tony Scheffler this year, they could use the luxury of being able to pick who they want to fulfill their recent needs on offense, and despite a defense that finished 7th overall in the NFL, there are some needs across the board for the Broncos defense. So put as simply as possible, with needs across the board for the Denver Broncos, it is basically up in the air what direction they will eventually go.

Shifting to a 3-4 scheme seemed to help the Broncos defense in 2010, but they were a team that was much better against the pass than against the run. They finished ranked an impressive 3rd against the pass last year, but it was their miserable 26th rank against the run that makes this defense more vulnerable than the overall numbers would suggest. Elvis Dumervil could definitely use someone on the other side of the line to compliment his abilities to rush the passer, but help inside the line or at inside linebacker would probably be a more pressing need right now for Denver.

My assumption is that if Rolando McClain is still available, then the Crimson Tide alum will most likely be making his home in the Mile High City. The problem is that is a very big if. McClain very well could be a top 10 pick, going as high as possibly 5 to Kansas City. If McClain is off the board, Denver might be tempted to take someone along the lines of a Derrick Morgan out of Georgia Tech, or combine darling Jason Pierre-Paul to help add some pop to the pass rush, or entertain Jared Odrick of Penn State or Dan Williams of Tennessee to add strength inside the line, but it is more likely that they would look to the offensive side of the ball for a play maker to replace the loss of Marshall and Scheffler.

Dez Bryant out of Oklahoma State most likely will be on the board after being suspended for most of last year for lying to the NCAA about his relationship with Deion Sanders. In this case, it would be a pretty smart move for Denver to replace some of their lost home-run power on offense with Bryant. His play making ability would be even more attractive if Denver had a big arm to get him the football. Kyle Orton played admirably, as he has his whole NFL career, but you shouldn't expect much more out of him this year. Bryant isn't a breakaway type receiver, has good size, and seems to fit the mold of a possesion type receiver, which fits Orton's style, but again, it's hard to feel great (good is ok, just not great) about Kyle Orton leading your offense. Brady Quinn was traded to Denver, and very well could be the starter, but his skill set doesn't make one feel any better about the QB situation in Denver, which I will get to more in a second.

Another option could be a surprise pick of C.J Spiller from Clemson, but again, this is only if he is still on the board. Denver has about a billion running backs, but they've never shied away from bringing in one more, especially since Spiller figures to play prominently into the passing and return games wherever he goes. This pick is a bit of a stretch, but due to the potential that Spiller could fall to 11 and would be a very attractive player at that spot, I wouldn't be shocked.

What could be possible, albeit quite improbable, is Denver could make a move up, and shock the masses by possibly making a play for Jimmy Clausen. It would almost certainly extract a large "OOOHHHHH" from Berman, thus meaning it's not something that ESPN went over in their production meetings. It's not a move many can say they are anticipating, but this has more legs than Ron Santo (sorry, I had to). Clausen would be a quarterback the Broncos could build around, rather than hoping Quinn's potential becomes actual talent or Orton continues to play with his nose pressed against his talent's ceiling for the next year or 2.

I wish I could be more definitive about the pick at 11, but this 2010 draft has about as many different possibilities as chatroulette.com has phalluses. Whomever goes in this spot in this years draft will have the luxury of being either scorned or lauded by yours truly.

-Ben Wills

Pre-Draft Madness on 6th Avenue, Catering to the Masses, Ryan Matthews Might Be My Man Crush

We are so close, so very, very close. The NFL Draft is shaking up midtown Manhattan like a badly made martini at a work sponsored mixer. They've actually set up a red carpet stage outside of Radio City Music Hall, which has caused traffic to bottleneck and subsequently clusterfuck its way between 48th Street and 52nd Street. For every regular work-a-day pedestrian there are about fifty jersey-wearing numbnuts loitering around waiting for Chris "Fuckwad" Berman to show up and grace them all with his shitty, shitty presence. My only hope is that I somehow get to meet Chad Ochocinco, as I know for sure that his team of OCNN reporters are creeping around looking for stories.

So what of the draft thus far? Well, everyone with a brain is assuming that we'll see Nebraska's Ndamukong Suh or Oklahoma's Sam Bradford taken first by the St. Louis Rams, and considering the fact that the Rams need help at just about every single position outside of running back, both of these assumptions could prove to be correct. Outside of that, it's a toss-up. The wide reciever crop this year is sub-par and outside of C.J. Spiller the running backs ain't much to look at either. Where this draft is strong is on the defensive side of the ball. Outside of Suh, you have Tennessee's Eric Berry (Safety) and Oklahoma's defensive tackle Gerald McCoy, who is tough as nails. I've broken into a drug-addict-like cold sweat waiting for this stupid fucking thing to start. Come ON already.

At the 20th pick I'll be taking on whatever poor bastard gets picked up by the Houston Texans. That is, of course, barring any kind of trade or movement that would push their pick either up or down the board (for instance, Bleacher Report thinks that San Francisco will have this pick).  Regardless, two other mock drafts have Houston taking Fresno State RB Ryan Matthews.  Steve Slaton doesn't really have the ability to be the lone horse in that backfield, so this pick makes sense.  They need a duo that has both speed and power and Matthews and Slaton certainly cover both of those bases.  The guy had 1800 yards rushing and 19 touchdowns for the Bulldogs last year, his best with the team.  The scouting combine brought forth this opinion of him:

"Mathews is a good sized running back that runs hard and shows a good burst through the hole. He is a one cut runner that does not waste a lot of time dancing around in the backfield. Once he gets past the first level he could use a bit more elusiveness in space as he has some straight line to him. He tends to run a bit erect but does show upper body strength to stiff arm his way out of a tackle as well as balance on contact to stay on his feet and fight for extra yards. He has struggled to stay healthy as he has missed time in each season at Fresno State."

Though there are certainly some cynics who don't think the Texans will take him with the 20th pick, at this point, as with all things in life, it's a complete fucking mystery.

The draft begins at 7:30 p.m. though I'm already looking for ways to sneak into Radio City Music Hall and put laxative in Jon Gruden's tea.  More as it happens.

-Terrence Adams   

2010 NFL Big Blogger/Little Draftee Program Methodology

To make sure the selection of our adopted draft picks was as random as possible, the following highly scientific formula was used:

I had figured from the onset that Powerball was going to play a part, but the question loomed how do we select a Powerball draft order for ourselves? That's where the 1968 Summer Olympics come into play. I assumed that neither Terry nor Ben were at all familiar with the results of the 100m sprint event in Mexico City--I know I wasn't--so I asked them to choose, without any context, from Charles Greene, Jim Hines, and Lennox Miller. Terry selected Lennox Miller (Silver), Ben chose Jim Hines (Gold), leaving me with Charles Greene (Bronze). Thus, the Powerball draft order went Ben, Terry, then me.

Now we return to the Powerball results. Put the white ball/red ball issue aside, I don't have time to sort through that shit, I just needed numbers that were randomly selected. Since no individual ball exceeds 59, I figured we're in business. The NFL draft slots would be determined by the Powerballs. Ben, having picked Jim Hines, would receive the draft slot of the first ball bearing a number equatable to a selection in the First Round of the NFL draft. Terry would receive the next eligible number, and I the third. As you may have noticed, it's possible for there not to be three numbers under 32 (which was the case). So in this event, the first drawn number exceeding 32 would be divided by 2 (and rounded up in event of an odd number), but only after all sub-33 balls had already been assigned.

The Powerball numbers were drawn in Orlando, Florida, last night. They were (in order of the actual drawing) 11, 34, 55, 41, 49, 20. The first number fits our scheme. Ben, with the first pick, will adopt the 11th pick in the NFL draft.

The next four numbers (34, 55, 41, 49) didn't comply with the scheme. However, the Powerball did. Terry, with the second pick, will follow the 20th pick in the NFL draft.

In order to determine my pick, the division-by-two rule from above needed to be invoked. Having gone through all six powerballs and yielding only two picks, I had to return to the beginning. The second ball, 34, was the next eligible number (when divided by two). Therefore, with the third pick, I will coddle/berate the 17th (34/2) pick in the NFL draft.

Now all that's left is the waiting.



-Kyle Wills