Thoughts From The Rest of Day One

I thought Jimmy Williams was going to be a first round bust, but he fooled me. His attitude apparently caused him to drop to the second round. I see that ESPN had Williams doing an NFL draft promo, so I guess they thought he would have been in the first round. I remember a few years back when they did the same thing with Chris Simms because everyone thought he was moving up into the first round, but he ended up being the last pick on day one. I wish the NFL had put him in the Green Room. A ten hour wait is certainly funnier than a five hour one.

Green Bay trades Javon Walker for a second round pick after asking for a first round. It's pretty funny that they had been asking for a first round pick because last year, they didn't want to pay him a big contract based on two average years and one really good one. But they thought someone would give them a first round pick in exchange for Walker after he hurts his knee? Actually, I agreed with Green Bay when they didn't give him the contract. He needs to prove a bit more.

The Trey Wingo Schmo Show was discussing the fact that Vince Young will have a learning curve when he hits the NFL, and while Jaws thought he was fixable, the others were saying that he wouldn't have the time because he would be expected to play right away as a top five pick. In most cases, sure. However, Tennessee has been the exception before. Steve McNair was a number three pick just like Young, and Tennessee brought in Chris Chandler for two years to get McNair ready. I think this is an ideal situation for Young, because even though McNair is probably gone, they still have Billy Volek who could hold down the fort for a couple of years until Young is ready. Tennessee's rebuilding anyway, so why not wait on him. Young could be in trouble if he had gone to somewhere like Oakland who was hoping he would drop to them. If he wants to pick up bad habits, Aaron Brooks is the one to teach them.

ESPN.com sucks. Apparently, their servers can't keep up with the traffic when I try to go to their draft tracker. NFL.com isn't having a problem.

Lendale White goes to Tennessee. Think Vince Young will invite him over to watch a replay of the Rose Bowl?

Word is that Matt Leinart has lost at least $10 million by staying for his senior year. I think Rovell is wrong to say that we shouldn't presume Matt Leinart would go first last year. Apparently, he has forgotten that it was pretty common knowledge the 49ers were on hands and knees praying for Leinart to declare for the draft last year. They settled for Alex Smith, the luckiest man in football, because Leinart in the 2005 draft probably would have cost him that $10 million (actually more because he probably would have dropped to mid-teens). I think this is another indictment of the NFL rookie scale. There is no way you can say that a number 10 pick is worth that much more than a number 1.

Why should the Colts get a mulligan for last year as Chris Berman said? Las Vegas and ESPN may consider the Colts odds on favorites to win the AFC, but I don't. Sure they won 13 straight games to start the season, but that's their M.O. since Peyton Manning's second year. Win a lot of games. Lose in the playoffs. In the past seven years, they've won at least 10 games in six seasons. Four of those seasons were one and done in the playoffs. They've made one AFC Championship, and lost pretty badly. In fact, the closest the Colts have been to the Super Bowl since they had Johnny Unitas was in 1995 when the immortal Jim Harbaugh led Colts were within one dropped Hail Mary of winning. Oh, and that one season that they didn't win 10 games, they lost Edgerrin James to injury. You may have heard that James is now in Arizona.

Why are they talking about Marcus Vick on the first day? None of them even think he's going to be drafted. Which he shouldn't, but unlike the analysts, I'm not convinced someone won't take a chance on him. Although, Maurice Clarett and Ricky Williams have screwed a lot of players who may have character issues. Quite a few guys with such issues have dropped. Of course, this is nothing new. Randy Moss dropped a lot because of character. Warren Sapp dropped because he tested positive for pot. It seems like someone always tests positive for something at the combine, and I can't figure out why. The date of the combine isn't a secret. How tough is it to figure out when to stop and let your system clean out. My favorite this year was the Rams' third round pick Claude Wroten. This guy was busted for intent to distribute pot back in January (charges were dropped), and then he failed a drug test a month later at the combine. Let's see. I just got busted for drugs and will be at the combine soon. No reason to stop smoking weed now.

One final note of the day. I didn't think Scouts Inc did all that well in predicting the draft, but what they did afterward indicates there might be some credibility issues with them. They listed the top three players by position who are available for day two. Only problem was that Abdul Hodge from Iowa was listed as the top inside linebacker. Funny. A guy by that name, from that school and at that position was drafted by Green Bay in the third round.