The good news is the Browns have the third pick in the NFL Draft. The bad news is they'll probably end up using that pick on a player who they might be just as likely to get 8th or 11th, so devoid is this draft of "Top Five" caliber talent. At least that's what Len Pasquarelli's survey said:
Every draft is about options. But if a quick survey Thursday of general managers, head coaches and owners resulted in anything remotely legitimate, it is this: Neither the 49ers nor any other team in the top five will have the option of trading down in the first round because no one is anxious to deal up.Over the last several drafts, there has been a perception at combine time that the player chosen with the 20th overall pick might be just as good as the one chosen with, say, the fifth spot in the first round, and there has been some validity to that. Such a feeling is particularly palpable here, as personnel directors and scouts stroll the corridors of the Indiana Convention Center, already convinced that holding the rights to a top-10 pick in the 2005 lottery is like owning the deed to 10 acres of swampland.
Compounding the Browns' problem is that it's a particularly weak draft in offensive linemen, the team's critical area of need. If we can't trade down, and we're going to be overpaying no matter who we select, why not just draft this guy , Alex Barron, the best left tackle in the draft. Unless you sign a top free agent left tackle, you can't wait another year to address that position with a long term solution. Somehow I think that if we keep the third pick, we're more likely to see Antrell Rolle, Braylon Edwards or Alex Smith as the selection.
The Browns have a recent track record of drafting people with Top Five picks that they felt would become special players, only to be consistently wrong. Now they are facing the prospect of having to draft in the top five without even that expectation. I guess that kind of takes the pressure off. I am comforted by my sense that, even though Phil Savage is only 37, we finally have grownups in charge of running the team.
Pasquarelli's article has loads of stuff on free agency, trades and player moves. He suggests the Browns may be inquiring about New England backup QB Rohan Davey, after also putting out feelers to Tampa Bay about acquiring Chris Simms.
It's a love-hate thing with me and ESPN.com. I lot of things they do annoy me. (Like singling out Ohio State for scrutiny in college athletics. Like covering up half their home page with pop-up advertisements. Like charging money to read every utterance of Mel Kiper Jr.) But I love the site for what I think it is; the unrivaled resource for online sports information and opinion. FWIW.
Pasquarelli's running mate, John Clayton has a piece on the attempted re-invention of Maurice Clarett. This may be the shortest story of the NFL season. I just heard that MoC ran 4.74 and a 4.82 in the forty -yard dash at the combine workouts today, pretty much consigning him to the draft's second day, unless he can improve significantly on those times in private workouts. I had been predicting 3rd round for Clarett, thinking some G.M. would roll the dice on a guy with "big upside", but that upside is getting harder and harder to make out in the distance. To be fair, Clarett was never a "speed" guy, like between 4.5 and 4.6, but you almost never saw him get caught from behind. Still, those forty times today are shocking for a guy who has had nothing to do for two years except to prepare for this day.
Posted by dan at February 26, 2005 02:23 PM