Some thoughts on the draft, the off season and the

[Tipster19]

It's no coincidence that Tuna & Co are taking their time in locking up the their top choice. I expect this to be stretched to the last minute. I don't believe that they want the top pick at all and that they are hoping for a team to trade with them. I also believe that they deliberately haven't made mention of wanting Matt Ryan because it's their best bargaining chip at this time. If they can get one of the teams who may want him to get nervous about his availability then this may prompt one of these teams to trade with them.

 

Speaking of a team trading up, the more I think about it QB is Baltimore's biggest need and there's no way they can risk losing out on the Matt Ryan sweepstakes. They are not too far out of range to be able to obtain him, this is their best chance to secure a franchise QB.

 

Buffalo having so many picks (10) in this draft leads me to think that we can expect another trade up in this year's draft. There could be two very good reasons for this. The first is because of need and quality of a earlier prospect. The second is that there is a salary cap for draft picks and having so many early picks carries a higher cost factor. Condensing a couple of these earlier picks for better quality players would save them some money. Instead of trading back into the 1st rd I think that they will either move up earlier in the 3rd rd or into the back of the 2nd rd. I suppose they still could move up earlier in the 2nd rd but this would cost us too much of our resources of draft picks and we do have other needs to address still.

 

Atlant would be a great trade partner for Buffalo, in the 2nd rd. They have three 2nd rders and if we were looking to get back into the 2nd rd then their pick at #48 (Jordy Nelson or Early Doucet?) should be a reasonable cost to us.

 

It appears like Green Bay can't retire Farve's jersey fast enough. Since the new regime took over, Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy etc, they never seemed to embrace Brett. I got the feeling that there was resistence on adding more offensive help for him with Moss being the biggest example. I remember Farve was pushing hard for him, saying that he was either 99 or 100% sure that they were going to get him and then when Moss came in for a visit they were pretty abrupt with him, not exactly rolling out the red carpet. I wonder if this helped accelerate Brett's decision.

 

It was good to see the Giants play their hearts out at the end of the regular season in what was supposed to be a meaningless game against the Patriots. It obviously propelled them thru the play-offs and I hope that the rest of the league took notice. If Buffalo is fortunate enough to be in this kind of position this year I hope they play it full force and I believe they would.

 

Although San Diego is limited in the draft with earlier picks, keep an eye on AJ Smith, the guy sure knows how to navigate a draft. If he doesn't trade his 1st rder for more picks then it wouldn't surprise me to see him take a RB (Jonathan Steward?). Having no Michael Turner and LT being 30 years old, drafting a future potential replacement for LT would be a great move.

 

I'd be worried if the Jets land up with Darren McFadden. We sure don't need to see them having McFadden snapping off home runs against us. They had a great off season in free agency but our saving grace might be their QBs. I'm not too intimidated with either of them but them having a great ground game would definitely make a difference for them.

 

While that I'm on the subject of our division, does anyone have any idea what to expect from the Patriots in this draft? They sure are a big pain in our @$$.

 

It's nice to see that Baltimore should be struggling this year and Cincinnati has their hands full. I guess that this division should come down to Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Although Cleveland has alot of pieces in place and were very active in free agency, they are limited on draft picks.

 

Outside of San Diego, the AFC West has their hands full too. If Jacksonville and Indianapolis can nuetralize each other, than the post season would be limited on heavyweights in the AFC. If we can find a way then I like our chances on making some noise in the post season.