After some discussion a few weeks ago about some mock drafts that we had read, Travis and I decided that doing a mock draft can’t really be that hard, so we decided to put our brains to the test and do some mock drafts of our own. I mean if Kiper and McShay can produce 30 of them a year, we can do one right? One thing we realized though is that it’s pretty simple to pick the Top 12 and the picks for the teams you root for but when it gets into the middle rounds about teams you could care less about, it starts to get a little difficult. I mean what player do you mock to a team that obviously needs a receiver (like the Browns) but there isn’t one there? It took a little while to come up with this, but after a lot of research (okay I just read a few teams’ blogs) and waiting for the craziness known as free agency to start I present to you my first ever NFL Mock Draft:
1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Jameis Winston, QB, Florida State I believe that Mike Glennon is not that bad of a NFL quarterback and may not have really gotten a fair shot to win the job this past season. With that being said, the talent that Winston has and being only a short drive from where he starred in college makes this an obvious pick. 2. Tennessee Titans – Leonard Williams, DE, USC I have been told when you can’t pick out your main weakness on defense, then your best option is to take the best defender on the board. This is the predicament that the Titans find themselves in and so this has to be the choice, right? 3. Jacksonville Jaguars – Dante Fowler Jr, DE, Florida I often wonder what ticket sales would have been like had the Jaguars drafted Tim Tebow a few years ago. If you have a Gator player this high up on the board, you have to draft him if you’re in Jacksonville right? Not to mention he is a very impressive pass rusher and a very dangerous weapon for a defensive mastermind like Gus Bradley. He got himself plenty of offensive weapons last year, now it’s time to start building that defense. 4. Oakland Raiders – Kevin White, WR, West Virginia It’s the time in the draft when everyone gets glued to their seats, what will the Raiders do?! While their draft last year, especially of Derek Carr, was pretty impressive the kid inside me still waits in anticipation of what crazy pick the Raiders will make. If I’ve learned anything over the years, the Raiders always love speed and this guy has it. He also will be a good addition to help out Derek Carr in the passing game but I will still be glued to my seat when this pick comes around because you just never know when it comes to the Raiders. 5. Washington Redskins – Malcom Brown, DT, Texas Every year I keep waiting for the Redskins to be back as a legitimate contender and every year they just can never live up to those expectations. The Redskins’ offense seems to be in pretty good shape, minus the debacle of who is going to be the quarterback, so I think it’s time to take a hard look at the defense. Every year they seem to have good pass rushers and a decent secondary but still fall short. I’ve always been told you build a defense from the inside out and it’s time for the Redskins to do just that. Malcom Brown is the most dominant defensive tackle still on the board and I think it’s a pick the Redskins have to make. 6. NY Jets – Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon I think there is no doubt that Mariota is the next best quarterback in this draft and that he has fallen this far even to myself is a shock. I think that the Jets need a few more things than just a quarterback and I believe that this would be a great chance to get a few assets with one pick. I won’t be surprised to see the Eagles try and jump up here and grab Mariota, while sending Bradford and a few draft picks to the Jets. I know Chip Kelly has said that there is no way he would sacrifice the future for one player, but he also said he wasn’t taking the Philadelphia job about two weeks before he took it. I believe if the Jets can get Bradford it would be a lot better situation than having to try and develop another rookie quarterback and Chip Kelly finally gets the perfect quarterback to run his NFL offense. 7. Chicago Bears – Randy Gregory, OLB, Nebraska As a devoted Panthers fan I know one thing, John Fox is all about having a good defense. He is now in a city that loves a great defense as about as much as he does. The first step he is going to make is to add more speed to this defense and Randy Gregory is that player. 8. Atlanta Falcons – Vic Beasley, OLB, Clemson Speaking of a defense that needs improvements, we get to the Atlanta Falcons. One of their Achilles Heels over the last few years has been their lack of a pass rush and this is going to help in fixing that problem. Dan Quinn has been well known for having great defenses in Seattle and one of those key players to that great defenses has been Bruce Irvin, who I think Beasley compares very similar to. With Beasley and a possible addition to the secondary through free agency and the Falcons defense will look very formidable. 9. NY Giants – Brandon Sherff, OT, Iowa The Giants have always been good when they have had strong offensive and defensive lines. The offensive line was pretty bad last year as Eli Manning was constantly getting hit, leading to many interceptions. Adding a versatile offense lineman here will help to sure up some of the holes that the Giants tended to have in their line last year. 10. St Louis Rams – Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama Jeff Fisher has to feel like it’s Christmas morning when he drafts tenth and realizes that the person a lot of people consider the most NFL ready player in the draft is sitting there, and not to mention he is a wide receiver, something that the Rams have been needing for years. Cooper can come in automatically and become the go-to wide receiver with the Rams, opening up many more chances for Tavon Austin and Jared Cook. Plus with the addition of Nick Foles through another genius move by Jeff Fisher and company, they’ll finally have a quarterback who can make use of these weapons. 11. Minnesota Vikings – Devante Parker, WR, Louisville Teddy Bridgewater really started to turn into a pretty good quarterback as the season went along for the Vikings. How do you help him out going into his second season? By drafting his sure handed teammate from Louisville, who may end up being looked at as a steal in this draft before it is all said and done. 12. Cleveland Browns – Shane Ray, DE, Missouri Even with my mock draft, sorry Jed, things just don’t seem to go the Browns way in the draft. They would have loved to have gotten one of the two previous wide receivers but they fell just one spot too late. In this scenario, they need to forget about the offensive side of the ball for now and find them a solid defensive player that can rush the passer. Plus with the addition of Hartline in free agency, they may be able to wait until the second round to find a receiver to play on the opposite side. 13. New Orleans Saints – Jalen Collins, CB, LSU The Saints have struggled on defense some in recent years and there is one sure fire way to fix that problem and that is to draft players from the college down the road, who always seem to excel at defense. Collins will be able to contribute right away and be a key member of Rob Ryan’s defense for many years to come in New Orleans. With the addition of another first round pick, courtesy of the Seahawks, the Saints may be able to address some needs on offense there. 14. Miami Dolphins – Trae Waynes, CB, Michigan St. With as pass happy of a league as the NFL has become, can you ever really have too many defensive backs? The Dolphins luck up that the person many consider to be the best cover corner in the draft falls to them at number fourteen. With two games a year against the Patriots adding Waynes to the other side of Pro Bowl corner Brent Grimes will improve the Dolphins secondary and help improve its depth that it lacked at times last year. Not to mention the addition of Suh on the defensive line will give this secondary plenty of chances at interceptions as they will be trying to dodge that pass rush from the inside. 15. San Francisco 49ers – La’el Collins, OT, LSU With a new regime taking over in the Bay Area there is really no telling where this pick could go. I believe that they would have loved to see Waynes fall to here or one of the wide receivers but since they’re not, the Niners will settle for another need and work to improve their offensive line. With the loss of Gore, they are going to have to sure up the offensive line and hope they can put a group together that can produce running lanes for whoever will be playing running back in San Francisco next year. 16. Houston Texans – Landon Collins, SS, Alabama At times the Texans defense looked near unbeatable last year and here is their opportunity to improve an already stellar defense. With JJ Watts back and hopefully last year’s first round pick Jadaveon Clowney coming back healthy, adding a physical safety like Collins to the back end of that defense will be scary for any offensive players lining up against them. 17. San Diego Chargers – Danny Shelton, NT, Washington The Chargers could use some help on their defense and a defensive lineman who can take control of the middle of the line will go a long way into curing their ills. The Chargers get lucky here as a player many saw being drafted possibly in the Top 10 falls all the way to seventeenth and will help the Chargers defense right away next season. 18. Kansas City Chiefs – Marcus Peters, CB, Washington The Chiefs ideally would have one of the top wide receivers fall to them here but since their dreams didn’t come true I think they will try to upgrade their secondary in a very pass happy AFC West. Plus the addition of Jeremy Maclin in free agency makes that need for a wide receiver not as glaring. 19. Cleveland Browns – Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin The Browns have to do something to try and address their offensive woes from last year. After addressing the defensive side of the ball with their first pick, they add a little help to whoever will be playing quarterback for them next year by adding the best running back in the draft who can help immediately next season. Gordon is just another of really good running backs from Wisconsin and will be perfect for that Cleveland weather in December and January. 20. Philadelphia Eagles – Jaleen Strong, WR, Arizona St. While I have a suspicion that the Jets could be making this pick, if it turns out to be the Eagles picking here I think they will look to upgrade their receiving core with Strong who is a receiver that many people have had as a sleeper pick. It gives another weapon for Bradford, Mariota, Sanchez or anyone else people think may be the starting quarterback next year. 21. Cincinnati Bengals – TJ Clemmings, OT, Pittsburgh The Bengals need to find some young help to take over on the offensive line in the next few years, and Clemmings is the perfect player. There are many people that believe he is a project player and what would be a better situation than for him to come and learn from Andrew Whitworth? He could play right tackle until Whitworth is ready to pass on the torch. 22. Pittsburgh Steelers – Alvin Dupree, OLB, Kentucky The Steelers made a change at defensive coordinator during the offseason which obviously showed a lack of confidence is the direction the defense was heading. The Steelers built their name on strong defenses and they will work on continuing that tradition and drafting the best pass rusher still on the board. 23. Detroit Lions – Jordan Phillips, DT, Oklahoma With the loss of both of their defensive tackles from last year, the Lions will need to make sure that they aren’t left short on tackles to fill those roles. With the addition of Ngata they are starting the process of replacing them but his contract situation after this year is still not solid. Phillips is the best DT still left on the board, so they jump and make their pick. 24. Arizona Cardinals – Ereck Flowers, OT, Miami The Cardinals need to improve their pass protection and Flowers is the man that can do that for them. He was an exceptional offensive tackle in college on a team that came up short of expectations. He will not try to add some protection to a team that wants to make sure whoever will be playing quarterback will be well protected. 25. Carolina Panthers – DJ Humphries, T, Florida Ever since Jordan Gross retired at the end of the season two years ago, the Panthers have been in desperate need of finding his replacement. Byron Bell was a stop-gap option at best last year and the Panthers will finally address that need in this draft. If they can get Humphries here and with the signing of Michael Oher to man the other side, the Panthers offensive line will be looking much more formidable than it did last year. 26. Baltimore Ravens – Dorial Green-Beckham, WR, Missouri With the Ravens releasing Jacoby Jones they are going to need to address the production that they are losing and Green-Beckham is their answer. He has always been considered a player with all the tools on the field but off the field troubles put him in the lower half of the first round. The Ravens are willing to take the gamble and hope it works out for them. 27. Dallas Cowboys – Todd Gurley, RB, Georgia If Gurley hadn’t got hurt he would be getting picked in the Top 15 for sure but because of concerns with the knee he falls to number twenty-seven which ends up being a steal for the Cowboys. If Murray signs elsewhere Gurley could start from Day One or he could sit behind whoever the Cowboys sign and be ready to come off the bench or take over next year after letting his knee have time to heal properly. I think in 5 years we’ll all wonder how he fell this far down the draft board. 28. Denver Broncos – Maxx Williams, TE, Minnesota With Julius Thomas leaving via free agency, they need to find someone who can take on the burden of being an offensive weapon from the tight end position. Williams is that player, if you have seen any of the footage of him playing at Minnesota you can understand why a tight end is being drafted in the first round. This could be a pick that people will be kicking themselves years later for passing on. 29. Indianapolis Colts – Andreus Peat, OT, Stanford The Colts decided when they drafted Andrew Luck to also draft Colby Fleener his Stanford teammate to give him a player he could trust throwing the ball to in his rookie year. This time around they will go back down that route to Stanford and find someone he can trust to protect his blind side. That Stanford connection has worked pretty well for the Colts so far. 30. Green Bay Packers – Stephone Anthony, ILB, Clemson After releasing AJ Hawk the Packers will need to look to replace his numbers at the linebacker position. Anthony will be able to step in next season under the Dom Capers scheme and produce results right away. It was rumored that Dom Capers was really impressed with this guy at Clemson’s Pro Day and how could you not be, he’s an ILB who ran a 4.56 forty-yard dash at 243 pounds. 31. New Orleans Saints – AJ Cann, OG, South Carolina New Orleans is wanting to make sure that it can improve its offensive line, which was very evident when they traded Jimmy Graham for Max Unger and this pick. Unger already helps bolster the interior of this offensive line, why not help it even more by adding the best offensive guard in this draft? AJ Cann was an exceptional player at South Carolina on an average football team. He will help bolster a struggling offensive line and give Brees some more confidence when he goes back to pass and help to add a player to help bolster a run game that has struggled at times. They can address the other offensive needs later in the draft as this is a deep draft for receivers. 32. New England Patriots – Kevin Johnson, CB, Wake Forest The Patriots had a great season ending with a Super Bowl victory. After the loss of Revis though at the cornerback position they need to address that loss. He is an excellent cover corner and will be a big help in trying to replace the All-Pro corner Revis. And there you have it, my first ever NFL Mock Draft. Those are going to be the draft picks of every team, at least until I do my mock draft 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 or however many it takes for me to claim that I mocked each player into the correct position, that’s how us “professionals” do it. It is going to be a lot of fun comparing my mock draft to Travis’ mock draft, but I think we both know neither of us would be getting a 100 if this was a test. Heck, we probably would both be happy with a C minus by the time the draft is over. Let us know though what y’all think of our mock drafts and why we were either right or wrong with our picks for your team. Also, stay tuned as we get a little closer to draft time as we are working on getting a mock draft together based on picks from fans of each team. We know we at least have the Panthers, Redskins, Vikings and Browns covered but if you are a fan of another team or know someone else who is, let us know.
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In 1997 I was just a kid making his way through the District Two school system but for the NBA it was a much more significant year. In 1997 the NBA was celebrating its fiftieth year in existence and as part of that celebration they decided to name the Top-50 NBA players of all-time, which in turn led to many discussions of who should have been on the list but also asked the question, in place of who? Earlier tonight I got to thinking about that list and realized it has been 18 years since that list came out and that means there has been a lot of basketball played since then, so I decided to text Jed, Travis and Richard to talk about who we would put on the list from the past 18 years and the tougher part, who would we take off the list?
The conversation got started with, “Well, we have to at least include LeBron and Kobe on the list right?” We all agreed on those two choices and we also decided we couldn’t leave Tim Duncan off the list, a man who has won five NBA Championships over the last 18 years. These were the three players that we said, “We have to add them to the list, but who do we take off the list to add them?” When you look at the list, it is hard to find people that you just say, “Well, he is obviously not good enough to be on this list” so you have to go down the list and hope that you find someone that you can talk yourself into taking off the list, so that you can include one of these other well deserving basketball players. After a discussion of about twenty minutes over text we were able to talk ourselves into replacing Scottie Pippen and Lenny Wilkins on the list with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant but finding the spot for Duncan was a little harder. One way we discussed finding a spot for Duncan, was to have him replace his former teammate David Robinson on the list. That would be a tough decision though because “The Admiral” was a very dominant center in his day and how do you take him off a list of the Top-50 players of all-time? We know Duncan has to be on the list, but once again we had to ask the question, “Who goes off the list?” We continued to talk about other players we thought could possibly have a spot on the list, as Travis tried to make a case for Dirk Nowitzki and we discussed the resumes of Reggie Miller and Kevin Garnett while also asking the question of, how could players like Dominique Wilkins be left off the original list? We also tried to make cases for some of our favorite players from each of our childhoods to make the list but we couldn’t get a group consensus on any of those players. In the end we found three spots we felt we had to make room for on the list but could only free up two spots. I’m sure the discussion will continue on but my question to you the reader though is this, if you had to add players from the last 18 years to this list, who would you add, who would you take off and why? The 1997 list of the Top-50 All-Time NBA Players: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Nate Archibald Paul Arizin Charles Barkley Rick Barry Elgin Baylor Dave Bing Larry Bird Wilt Chamberlin Bob Cousy Dave Cowens Billy Cunningham Dave DeBusschere Clyde Drexler Julius Erving Patrick Ewing Walt Frazier George Gervin Hal Greer John Havlicek Elvin Hayes Magic Johnson Sam Jones Michael Jordan Jerry Lucas Karl Malone Moses Malone Pete Maravich Kevin McHale George Mikan Earl Monroe Hakeem Olajuwon Shaquille O’Neal Robert Parish Bob Pettit Scottie Pippen Willis Reed Oscar Robertson David Robinson Bill Russell Dolph Schayes Bill Sharman John Stockton Isaiah Thomas Nate Thurmond Wes Unseld Bill Walton Jerry West Lenny Wilkens James Worthy |
JamesBoiling Springs native, lover of sports and food. 15x SC Press Association Award Winner. I do some sports writing and radio every now and then. Archives
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