Brandon

If not for the recent complication in his recovery, I would agree, he would be drafted higher (I still would not have taken him on the first day). But now that we're finding out that his recovery has gone so poorly that he's had to have a 2nd surgery now 6-7 months after the injury, it should be cause for concern that he'll never fully recover. Inevitably, someone will draft him late, but I also think he's probably carrying a few undraftable grades around the league right now.

I take a different view of a potential Chris Brown signing. I don't think it will change their draft plans at all. I believe that he is probably being looked at as a competitor to Anthony Thomas for the #2 role and that only one of them will be a part of the RB by committee.

I think he'll be lucky to be drafted. The guy is a major medical concern at this point.

The 'off the field issues' seem to be very questionable at best. You can find several articles detailing both incidents, but this gives a quick summary: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=569818

I think the case can be made either way, but in the end, I agree that the Texans will select Peterson for all of the reasons mentioned in their explanation.

The Falcons received the Texans 8th overall pick and 2nd round pick this year, plus their 2nd next year in exchange for Schaub and their 10th overall pick.

I don't think it changes anything, except that Adrian Peterson goes 10th instead of 8th and that he just lost some money in the process.

Do you think he can do that if given 250 carries per season?

No disagreement. I'm just pointing out that Turner's statistics really are not that impressive or unusual.

It depends upon the nature of the injury. For all we know it was nothing more than a deep bruise that took a few weeks to heal during the season. We simply don't have enough information about it to write him off.

The post was intended as a rebuttal to the original poster's contention that it doesn't make sense to draft a RB in R1. If one believes great RBs are rare, it certainly does make sense to do so if one also believes that the 1st round prospect in question would become a truly great RB. It becomes another matter entirely if one only expects that player to merely become good.

I have him at a 4.51 from the combine, but I agree, its a significant drop either way. I have no idea what type of surface he ran it on.

It would also seem reasonable to believe that if great Rbs are indeed rare, you should acquire one when given the opportunity as it may be a while before you have the chance again.

He was expected to run a 4.6 at the combine. He wasn't expected to be 'slow', just not to exhibit elite speed. I'm a Razorback fan and have that particular game recorded, along with several others. McFadden is fast, but he's probably not as fast as their #2 RB, Felix Jones.

His bench reps were a little underwhelming, but certainly not indicative of a problem. 21.8 was the average for the LB group as a whole.

Willis ran a 4.37 and 4.38 at his pro day workouts. I already thought the 49ers would take him at 11, but he may not even fall that far now. The only knock there ever was against him was speed, a question he answered at the combine but he has now completely blown that issue out of the water. http://www.nfl.com/draft/analysis/individual_workouts#mich

Yep, its just a rumor. As mentioned earlier, there are reports that he had some type of minor back problem this past season that he played through, yet even this is unsubstantiated. Given that, I think it would have been thoroughly checked at the combine and we'd have likely heard about it before now if there had been an issue.

The point I was making is that we don't even know that there IS a problem. A herniated disk would very likely cause him to fail his physical. If he passed it, he's probably fine.

I don't consider 'unable to touch his toes' to be a major problem.

He either passed his physical or he didn't. 'Disappointed' seems like an odd choice of words. Its possible this is true. Then again, a few teams in the top 10 may be trying to push him down the board with the intent of trading up from their early R2 spots to select him.

Those are the successes, but what of the failures? There are usually about a dozen RBs chosen in R2-4 of every draft. Of those, on average only two or three of them develop into quality starters and maybe another two or three hang around a few seasons as backups. That's a success rate of 25-50%, depending upon how you consider the backups. http://www.drafthistory.com/positions/rb.html On a related note, the drafts of the 1990s were absolutely pitiful at the RB position usually producing only 1 or 2 long-term starters through all 7 rounds. Perhaps the current 'dime-a-dozen' situation is merely an abberation?

That sucks for him. I would imagine that he's now carrying an undraftable grade for at least a few teams. His best option probably would have been to petition the NCAA for a medical hardship and returned for another season. But by signing an agent, he likely doesn't have that option anymore.

He could also be this year's Lee Evans or Mike Williams, both of whom were widely known to have visited the Bills prior to draft day.

Kenneth Davis had over 600 yards rushing for the Bills in 1991 and 1992. Darrick Holmes had nearly 700 yards and was closing in on 1000 yards rushing and receiving combined as a rookie in 1995. The point is that it helps when an excellent starting RB and a good OL have already beaten the crap out of the opposing defense before you come into the game. Turner could be a quality starter who just needs a chance, but he could also be like any number of backups who are largely the beneficiaries of someone else's success.

I think he's probably just this year's version of Tory Woodbury, Ken Simonton, Kamil Loud, Clarence Coleman, George Wilson, Lionel Gates, etc. He may make the team and he may be better than I expect, but I'll believe it when I see it.