Draft Winners/ Losers

Winners:
St. Louis Rams: I absolutely love what the St. Louis Rams did this year. Tavon Austin is going to win the offensive rookie of the year. Brian Quick, Jared Cook, Chris Givens and Lance Kendricks is the wide receiving corps right now, so to add such a dynamic player is huge for Sam Bradford. Also, Stedman Bailey who was Austin's battery mate at WV is pretty good as well. I love that they stole Ogletree and Barrett Jones in the 4th round. I think that the Rams may have had the best draft this year.

San Francisco 49ers: Eric Reid is going to be a starter this year. He is the best safety in this draft and will be an impact player. Tank Carradine falling to them in the 2nd is absurd. This guy has 1st round talent and just adds to a ridiculous SF defense. I really like the Marcus Lattimore pick. If Lattimore didn't have 2 gruesome injuries he would be taken in the first round, however, the 49ers are the perfect location for them. He gets to basically sit out this year and be Frank Gore's successor going forward.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Jarvis Jones and the Steelers are a match made in heaven. He is an outside pass rusher that was the most productive college player the past 2 years. The Steelers needed a RB and got Bob's boy from Michigan State Le'Veon Bell in the 2nd and picked him over Eddie Lacy. I like Lacy better, but Bell has more of a pass catching ability. Marcus Wheaton out of Oregon State was an absolute steal in the 3rd round. With the Steelers track record of mid round WR success, they found another gem here. I also love the Landry jones pick. I have had enough of the Charlie Batch, Byron Leftwhich era as Ben's back up. Now they have someone who can be the equivilant to the Patriots Ryan Mallett.

NY Jets: I really like what the Jets did. Dee Milliner should fit right in the Revis slot and will be very impactful. Sheldon Richardson will be a force, but to be honest, they should have take Eifert there, but whatever, Richardson will be pretty good for that D Line as well. Getting Geno Smith that late is a steal and if the Jets were smart, they would cut Tebow and Sanchez and say David Garrard is our QB this year and Geno Smith will take over next. gets rid of all the drama and shows a plan. Enough of the ridiculousness of the Jets QB situation. They also picked up 2 pretty good guards.

Losers:
Dallas Cowboys: I was not a fan of the Frederick pick to start with when I thought there was a lot more talent there, but whatever. They seemed a little all over the place, I didn't really see the need of drafting a TE and WR in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. I just don't get the Cowboys picks at all.

NE Patriots: People say, this was a very Patriots draft, however, I think it was just a real dumb draft. I really like the move they made with the Vikings, then hated what they did with everything. I also love how the radio and Boston media is trying to protect the Patriots and their shitty draft by saying, "nobody really knows", well yes, you do. Jamie Collins was productive for a really bad team, so maybe he can work his way in the rotation. But Dobson is a project, Logan Ryan will be lucky to be a nickle back, Harmon will be a special teamer at best and the rest of the guys blow. The Patriots decided to just draft depth, when there was much better talent on the board. Once again the Patriots out think themselves at the draft, which is weird after such a great draft last year.

Chicago Bears: The only reason I hate this draft is they had a chance to get Tyler Eifert and chose Kyle Long instead. that forever will be a head scratcher to me. Just dumb.

NFL Draft Recap: Picks I Love, Picks I Hate and The Legend Of E.J. Manuel

Picks I Love:
Pittsburgh Steelers: Jarvis Jones LB Georgia: It's great that the Steelers drafted the next HOF LB at 17. If it weren't for a couple of health issues, Jones would be a top 10 pick easily, but since a couple of red flags popped up he fell to 17. Jones can be put in immediately for James Harrison without much drop off. He is a tenacious pass rusher, and led the SEC in sacks and tackles for loss. With an always aggressive Pittsburgh defense he fits the mold perfectly.

St. Louis Rams: Tavon Austin, No. 8; Alec Ogletree, No. 30. The 2 players I cared the most about in the draft were Tavon Austin and EJ Manuel. The Rams go out and get the most explosive player in college football in Austin. Sam Bradford will absolutely adore him as he will open up the field and give him a ton of options on plays and Ogletree is an extremely good value pick for 30. The Rams have a good D Line so Ogletree can probably play this year and be effective.

Buffalo Bills: E.J. Manuel QB FSU: Have I not told you guys about this? I told you here all the way back in 2008, and here, and here, and here that E.J. Manual was the best and nobody listened. Well what do you know, once again with college football I am on target. They should start having me be lead recruiters for schools because I have a great eye for talent. Many "experts" say this was a little bit of a reach, but it was perfect. It was obvious to me and the Bills that E.J. Manuel was the best QB in the draft so they took him. I am a big fan of drafting who you like especially if it's a QB and that's what the Bills did. E.J. has all the physical tools, size, mobility and leadership qualities and I'll go out on a limb that he will win a Superbowl before Andrew Luck. Great pick by Bills.

New England Patriots: They shipped the team's first-round draft choice (29th overall) to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for second-, third-, fourth-, and seventh-round draft choices. I think that's absurd value and with WR's dropping they still will have a shot at some good players in the second round, guys like Tank Caaradine, Robert Alfort, Manti Te'o, Robert Woods, Justin Hunter, Jonathan Cyprian, Kevin Minter and Keenan Allen are still all left and should be around when the Pats pick again. I think thats enough picks to have got like the 15th pick, so for them to get that much for the 29th is pretty good.

Moves I hate:
NY Jets: Shelden Richardson pick. I loved the Dee Milliner pick, they grabbed the best CB in the draft completely, but I maybe would have gone with Tyler Eifert. Eifert I think could be the next awesome tight end and would really help out a struggling Jets offense, but I guess whatevs. I could also say the same thing about the Chicago Bears as well.

That's it.

Sucks for Geno Smith.

Wes Welker Out, Danny Amendola In

The Patriots made some shocking moves yesterday that really have me perturbed. Wes Welker signed a 2-year contract for $12 Million with the Denver Broncos, one of the Patriots AFC rivals. Within a matter of hours the Patriots had signed St. Louis Rams Slot Receiver Danny Amendola to a 5-year contract for $31 Million, only $10 million of which is guaranteed money. On the surface this deal doesn't make much sense. Why would you break up one of the most productive quarterback/wide receiver duos in the history of football and then offer more money and years to a very similar player who has been less productive and has some durability questions?

First, a little information about Danny Amendola. As you can see from the graphic above, Amendola has been drawing comparisons to Wes Welker for his entire career at the NFL level, and with good reason. Amendola was literally Welker's replacement at Texas Tech after Welker went pro. They were both initially undrafted and had to sign as undrafted free agents. Welker was able to work his way onto the roster almost immediately where Amendola had to work his way up from the practice squad. They play similar roles with similar styles and have similar builds. Some people have noted that Amendola's production is also very similar to Wes Welker's numbers in Miami before coming to the Patriots.

Wes Welker 2006 Stats:
16 Games Played
67 Catches
99 Targets
687 Yards
10.3 Avg
1 TD

Danny Amendola 2012 Stats:
11 Games Played
63 Catches
101 Targets
666 Yards
10.6 Avg
3 TD

You'll notice that the only really substantial difference in these figures is in the games played category, and this has been the point where Amendola and Welker diverge. In Welker's career he has missed 3 games in the regular season and 1 playoff game in 2009. By comparison, Amendola has missed 20 games over the past two seasons with the Rams. Maybe it's just dumb luck that Welker's only serious injury, a torn ACL/MCL, came in week 17 and Danny Amendola's dislocated elbow came in the first game of the season. The same could be said about the dislocated clavicle injury that kept Amendola out of 3 games last year.

So let's take a hard look at some of the reasons the Patriots chose to move on from Welker to Amendola.

1) Wes Welker is a few years older than Amendola. We haven't seen Wes' numbers decline substantially as he's gotten older, but age tends to hit wide receivers pretty hard. Wes may be coming off of his prime and Amendola may be just coming into his prime.

2) Although the sum total of Amendola's deal has him getting more money per year than Wes' deal, only $10 Million of Amendola's deal is guaranteed money. Amendola's deal may be structured in such a way that his cap hit is low and the deal is backloaded with non-guaranteed money and the Patriots could cut ties with him relatively easily after two seasons without much issue. We may see this when the more precise terms of the deal are known.

3) Maybe there's some things about Welker that Bill Belichick and the Patriots are aware of about Wes Welker that we as outsiders are not. Does Wes have some concussion issues that have been kept under wraps? Is Wes a pain in the ass in the locker room and constantly complaining to Bill about how he's not getting paid? Does Bill see something in the film/practice field that makes him think that Wes can't keep up his production for very much longer?

4) Some of the advanced stats show that Amendola has a much better drop percentage than Welker. Drops in key moments have been the bane of Welker's career, maybe the Patriots were fed up with this deficiency in his game.

All things considered, I think I still would have taken Wes Welker over Danny Amendola. I think Amendola will fill the role well if he manages to stay on the football field, but part of me wonders if maybe the Patriots are overthinking in this scenario. Welker was playing at a high level and assuming that he was asking for the same figures he got from the Broncos the money was pretty reasonable and didn't handcuff the Patriots in the long term. He has had 6 seasons of experience working in the Patriots system and with Tom Brady. Part of me thinks that if it's not broken then don't fix it.

Steven Jackson To Void Contract

Steven Jackson's record-setting career with the St. Louis Rams could be coming to an end.

Jackson, the Rams' career rushing leader, plans to void the final year of his contract to become a free agent March 12, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Monday.

IT'S ABOUT GOD DAMN TIME. This poor guy has been doing his job on the shittiest team in the NFL for such a long time and has been doing it relatively quiet. If anyone deserves to leave and be on a contending team it's Jackson. He can really fit on any team because of what he brings, he is a hard runner and he is decent catching out of the backfield.

Of course for me, I would love to see this guy in Pittsburgh, we have no runningbacks and Rashard Mendenhall is a piece of shit. For 8 straight seasons Jackson has ran over 1000 yards and I would love to see a guy of his talents be our ball carrier and finally play for a winning team.