2010 draft preview: Hype gives way to three-day extravaganza
Like so many things in this era of perpetual Twitter mode, the perception of the 2010 NFL Draft has been turbocharged to be far more than the truth.
And the truth is that this draft has some great talent, as always, but otherwise doesn't seem unique or historic. Well, except the NFL is turning its annual version of American Idol into a three-day miniseries with a primetime kickoff.
The curtain raises Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET in New York's Radio City Music Hall, featuring Round 1 only. That is followed by Rounds 2 and 3 on Friday and the anti-climactic rounds four though seven on Saturday.
To help grasp the nuances of this dazzling production, the NFL has deployed its media appendages -- NFL Network and NFL.com -- to join ESPN and others with round-the-clock coverage worthy of a presidential election.
The nature of the draft may be impacted by the drawn-out production in that teams will have even more time to micro-analyze between draft days and conjure up trades to target certain players or situations, including tweaking their existing rosters.
Hard to imagine how the NFL managed to quietly get through 17 draft rounds in February back in the 1970s, often regarded as the golden era of pro football. That was before such things as combines, when scouts merely watched college prospects in real games, sometimes on that clumsy medium of the time, film. Now, much like the dazzling James Cameron production that changed the movie industry in 2009, the NFL Draft has become a fully dimensional showpiece that leaves onlookers trying to discern the difference between the actual players and seductive Avatars created to run, jump and otherwise take on the appearance of players.
Really, the idea is simply to select the best players, preferably in order of how well they can play pro football, or at least help a given team. But even that straightforward exercise is convoluted by the need to heed that one factor that impacts everything these days -- finances.
And that will certainly be foremost on the mind of the St. Louis Rams, whose incompetence on the field last year earned them the pick of the litter, or the ability to trade that lofty perch to another team. As is the annual practice, rumors of potential draft trades ramp up as the event draws near. The best players available this year are probably a pair of huge and impressive defensive tackles -- Nebraska's 6-foot-4, 304-pound Ndamukong Suhand Oklahoma's 6-4, 295-pound Gerald McCoy, both of whom should be among the first three selected. The position with the most top talent in the draft may be offensive tackle, where Oklahoma State's Russell Okung and Oklahoma's Trent Williams could lead a parade of six tackles worthy of first-round picks, according to ratings by NFLDraftScout.com.
But defensive and offensive tackles aren't attractive as television headliners or as recipients of the mega millions that can make or break an NFL franchise, especially one struggling so much as to earn that first pick.
So expect that expensive No. 1 selection -- and most of the first round, primetime drama -- to be all about quarterbacks. Nothing new there. Quarterbacks were the No. 1 pick in seven of the last nine and nine of the past 12 drafts.
This year's prime quarterback candidates are Oklahoma's Sam Bradford, Notre Dame's Jimmy Clausen and Texas' Colt McCoy, possibly in that very order. Their roles are dramatized by intriguing sub-plots -- Bradford sat out all last year recovering from a shoulder surgery, Clausen can't convince everybody he really is a take-charge leader and McCoy injured a nerve that numbed his passing arm in the final game of his college career. But by far the most intriguing figure this year is Florida's prolific quarterback Tim Tebow. The story line there is that although Bradford, Clausen and McCoy functioned as traditional passing quarterbacks, Tebow flashed varied abilities to run and pass with startling effectiveness. Yet despite collecting two national championships, a Heisman Trophy and enough statistics to choke an Excel spreadsheet, Tebow is viewed as an oddity because there are questions whether his versatility can translate to success in the NFL. So he has become the most controversial prospect in draft history. He's the iPad of the 2010 draft -- loaded with possibilities, but what will somebody really do with him?
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| The 49ers drafted Billy Kilmer in 1961 -- a player similar to Tim Tebow. (US Presswire) |
Yet, like every other aspect of this draft, even Tebow's dramatic story is just history repeating itself, albeit with more publicity and little historic perspective.
There was a similar situation as far back as 1961 when the NFL was curiously eyeing a talented prospect who was one of the last successful engineers of the famed single wing offense. Like Tebow, he received the snap from afar at his position -- known as tailback in the single wing. This athlete was so good at both running and passing that he led the nation in total offense -- he was even an outstanding punter.
The San Francisco 49ers liked him and with their 11th pick in the first round they called his name -- Billy Kilmer of UCLA. Yes, that same Billy Kilmer who, as a rotund offensive leader of coach George Allen's Over-the-Hill Gang, helped lead the Washington Redskins to a Super Bowl in 1972.
But as a svelte and swift rookie in 1961, Kilmer became an offensive plaything for inventive 49ers coach Red Hickey, who initially used his new toy at running back and wide receiver. Even the vast vaults of NFL Films show little of that experiment, most notably Kilmer as the unnamed receiver fumbling the ball to open the way for the infamous 70-yard wrong way return by Minnesota's Jim Marshall.
Still, Kilmer's story may indeed impact Tebow's career because coach Hickey tried something that fit his new player's varied abilities. Hickey aligned his quarterbacks -- including John Brodie and Kilmer -- 5-to-7 yards behind the center and ran what he called the Shotgun offense. The upstart 49ers went 4-1 before Chicago Bears coach George Halas dismantled the Shotgun so convincingly that Hickey abandoned it. But Dallas coach Tom Landry revived the Shotgun in the 1975 with a quarterback named Roger Staubach and it has been a part of every NFL playbook ever since.
In recent years, NFL teams have dabbled with a long-snap cousin of the shotgun called the Wildcat, which features multi-talented athletes taking the ball and threatening to run or pass. So perhaps the NFL is more prepared now for a Tebow than it was in 1961 for a Kilmer. And perhaps it won't take Tebow more than a decade to show that he can indeed successfully lead a pro football team.
So it will be very interesting to see not only when Tebow is drafted, but by whom and for what role.
Beyond his specific situation, or because of some of it, Tebow can be viewed as the poster boy for the underlying confusion that has fueled controversy involving many intriguing prospects in this draft. The scouting combine, invented in the 1980s as an efficient way to get medical information on hundreds of top prospects at once, has become the NFL's version of the indoor winter Olympics, complete with micro analysis of height, weight, speed, agility, explosion, abstract thinking and on and on.
With all the attention and potential income imbedded in this event, the preparation by players has evolved from crude to shrewd. Many spend months with a new cottage industry full of experts who prepare them for the specific combine events.
There is quantifiable proof that such preparation led to improved results, regardless of whether such data reflects an ability to play the game. At this year's Indianapolis combine, the best examples were the offensive linemen (45 of 46 weighed at least 300 pounds) who performed more like oversized decathletes than blue-collar quarterback protectors.
Three ran 40 yards faster than five seconds, led by Maryland's 314-pound Bruce Campbell's 4.75 seconds, which is better than many tight ends, linebackers and even some ball carriers. But can he play football? Well, NFLDraftscout.com was generous in that regard, rating him as the 42nd overall player and seventh tackle on the list. Again, Tebow is a central character in this debate. He validated his obvious athleticism at the combine by running and jumping and otherwise looking more like a candidate for running back or tight end or, well there it is again. Another notable workout warrior at the combine was USC's 6-3, 230-pound safety Taylor Mays, who soared 41 inches in the vertical jump and blurred through 40 yards in only 4.31 seconds. But on film -- well, on digitized video these days -- he doesn't show coverage or ball reaction skills and seems content to use his size and speed to just mug people.
At the other end of the spectrum are players who looked sensational in games, but either did not participate or did poorly at the combine.
Best example is Oklahoma State's wide receiver Dez Bryant, who was sensational as a sophomore in 2008, but sat out almost all of last season for lying to the NCAA about his interaction with Deion Sanders, among other things. He cited a pulled hamstring and skipped the combine events. Bryant eventually had a less-than-stellar workout at his Lufkin, Texas high school that left scouts a bit hamstrung themselves, although most still have him rated as the best wide receiver in the draft regardless of whether they would want him on their team.
So those are some of the key plots, sub-plots, players and pretenders who will be critical aspects of the NFL Draft's first primetime drama. It will be dissected and over-analyzed with help from some whose credentials include previous employment by NFL teams, which by some twist of logic somehow makes them experts in the media.
But the lights, cameras and opinions are not what this is about. The goal is still simply to find prospects good enough to play in the NFL and maybe even have a major impact of regardless of where they were picked. Day-of analysis and day-after-draft reports cards will be everywhere, but should be labeled entertainment only. Consider that Joe Montana was drafted in the third round, Tom Brady in the sixth round, and they were mere footnotes by experts then. So, despite frenetic media coverage and the perceived need for 24/7 insight during this process, patience remains the key to perspective because only time will tell who turns out to be the real stars of this 2010 draft.
Frank Cooney is publisher of NFLDraftScout.com. In the interest of full disclosure, when he began high school football as a sophomore at San Francisco's Balboa High in 1961, he chose jersey No. 17 -- the number worn by Billy Kilmer.
