2010 NFL Draft: Suh At Number Two

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The NFL Draft is something I’ve always paid a lot of attention to.  Back before it became prime-time entertainment event, the NFL Draft was a weekend’s worth of football geek Nirvana.  Throughout my formative football geek years, I’d spend the weekend glued to the TV, with notebook, newspaper, Sports Illustrated Draft Preview issue, and pencils at hand. 

As the NFL has exploded in popularity, and as more teams have used the draft to bounce from the cellar to the penthouse—like the 2009 Falcons—interest in the Annual Player Selection Meeting has grown exponentially.  Speculation and anticipation start building well before the NFL and NCAA regular seasons end, reach fever pitch during bowl season, and somehow keep climbing all the way up until late April.

I've fended off a lot of emails and Tweets over the past few months, declining to engage in the banter.  Why?  I don’t feel like it’s productive.  Until the Combine is complete—and, to an extent, Pro Days are complete—it’s nearly impossible to place these guys in the very narrow value slot ranges they’ll occupy.  “Top Three”, “Top Ten”, and “Mid-First-Round” are three very different value classes; the all-star games, Combine, Pro Days, and shifting team needs can swing one player through all of them between December and April. 

Now, though, we have a pretty firm grip on who the Lions will have a crack at with that #2 overall pick, presuming they stay there.  People have asked me who “my guy” is, and I’m proud to say I have an answer, if an obvious one:

Ndamukong Suh.

There has been some talk about Oklahoma LT Russell Okung, or another, anonymous, left tackle—possibly Oklahoma LT Trent Williams.  There were questions about whether the Lions would prefer Oklahoma DT Gerald McCoy, and even insinuations they’re looking at Clemson RB C.J. Spiller.  But at the Combine, Suh proved himself exactly the man the Lions need to rebuild their defense.

Earlier on in this process, I wondered if Suh could play defensive end in the Lions’ system, shifting inside on passing downs, much as Kevin Carter did for Schwartz in Tennessee.  Now that Suh dominated the combine drills at a lean 307 pounds, I don’t see that as his role.  I consider Suh every bit the stud DT the Lions need to shore up their run defense, disrupt the pass, and—finally!—be able to force opposing offenses to adjust to the Lions’ defense.

That's the real value of Suh: more than just his sky-high ceiling, or likely production once he develops his technique, he’ll make every other player on the Lions’ defensive line more effective.  You can bet that with Suh drawing double teams, Sammie Hill is going to be much harder to move around—and the Lions’ outside rushers should see a lot more one-on-one blocking as well.

Think about what the Lions love to do with their outside ‘backers on a blitz: Sims slicing in between Suh and Avril, Peterson coming up between Hill and Vanden Bosch, Levy and Foote both blitzing the B gap that Suh has blown open . . . the possibilities are intoxicating.

Theoretically, St. Louis could take Suh, but I find that a colossally unlikely proposition.  Not only have the Rams burned first-round picks on 290-to-300-plus-pound defensive linemen in two of the last three years, but their quarterback situation is beyond alarming.  With Sam Bradford killing it at his Pro Day, and Matthew Stafford’s jawdropping contract just the starting point for what St. Louis will have to pay the #1 overall pick, it makes zero sense to pass on a franchise quarterback and take Ndamukong Suh.

I get the sense that if the Lions had their druthers, they’d move back a few slots and take one of the other top ten draft prospects that fit a need—and sign him to a much smaller contract.  But in terms of the impact he’d have, and the quality of person that he is, I absolutely believe the right decision is to stand pat, and take Suh at #2:

I feel as though I should get those T-shirts made.  Apologies to Michael Conroy and the AP for desecrating this photo.

Technorati Tags: nfl,nfl draft,ndamukong suh,detroit lions

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Pacman Jones to the Lions?

I wrote about the Lions, the NFL, second chances and wasted talent before, when I looked at the cases of Charles Rogers, Mike Vick, and Glenn Winston.  When it comes to Pac-Man Jones, nothing’s changed: the number of chances misbehaving football players receive varies in direct proportion to their on-field ability (or perception thereof).  As disgusting as that sounds, it’s really no different than the white-collar workplace—don’t top-gun account execs get away with more “martini lunches” than their non-billable assistants would?

In terms of both perceived football ability, and gravity of his crimes, Pac-Man Jones falls in between Rogers and Vick.  Chuck can’t stay away from the bottle or the bud, and it’s never affected anyone besides him and his family.  Mike Vick brutally tortured and killed animals, and spent and made five-figure sums gambling on a blood sport; he did hard time in Leavenworth for his crimes.

Chuck's competitive fire went out.  Whether it was the drugs, the injuries, or the influence of his old friends from Saginaw, Chuck Rogers simply lost the edge.  His speed left him, his desire left him, and he became, as Bill Parcells would say, "just a guy”.  Meanwhile, Mike Vick’s electrifying legs and haphazard arm had averaged out over six seasons into a worthwhile starting quarterback, and his moon-high upside hadn’t diminished.

So: Mike Vick’s crimes were much worse than Charles Rogers’, but Chuck had proven he had no value whatsoever to the NFL.  Mike Vick’s “maybe a starting quarterback, and maybe even a good one” grade-out means he’s still a potential jackpot.  If Chuck Rogers is an already-scratched-off lottery ticket, Mike Vick’s a perpetual Mega Millions pick—and the drawing, apparently, is always tomorrow.

Pac-Man's crimes—for the most part, starting fights in strip clubs—are worse than Chuck’s, but aren’t as brutal as Vick’s, and haven’t been punished as harshly under the law.  His raw talents as an pass defender and punt returner are elite, and yet his young career has been interrupted too many times for us to see if he’ll reach his potential.

In his rookie season, 2005, his sophomore season, and an abbreviated 2008 campaign with the Cowboys, Jones had 25 passes defensed, 4 interceptions, and 2 forced fumbles.  He took one of those picks back 83 yards for a touchdown—and returned 4 punts for scores on 84 tries.  There’s no denying that he’d be a perfect fit, football-wise, for the Lions: any young cover corner with starting experience could find a home on this roster, and despite Martin Mayhew’s insistence that the spot is handled, adding an explosive returner to the stable couldn’t hurt.  But character-wise?

Jim Schwartz had a salient quote on this during his recent Jim Rome appearance:

I think we've all done things we regret at age 21 or 22.

I identify with this—though my transgressions didn't reach "start a brawl with dozens of strippers, bouncers, managers and patrons amidst a tornado of eighty-four thousand dollar bills” magnitude.  Frankly, I trust Schwartz to be able talk with his former star pupil, and know if he's really straightened his life out. 

What bothers me is: what bothers me?  Why don't I want the Lions to sign Pac-Man Jones?  If he can help the Lions salve the wounds of the past ten years with some long-awaited wins, why not?  It’s the same reason we’re fans to begin with: when we don the Lions’ colors, and wear the Lions gear, and announce to everyone else that we’re Lions fans, what the Lions do reflects on us.

We want the Lions to win because we want to win.  We want our invested time and emotion and money to pay off.  We want to walk around town with our jerseys and hats and shirts and jackets, and have the glory of the Lions reflect on us.  What we don’t want is to be the team that was so desperate that they signed a loser like Pac-Man—and what we really don’t want is this headline broadcast across the nation: “LIONS CB ‘MAKES IT RAIN’ IN CASINO; SIX WOUNDED”.

On the other hand, what better city for a new start?  What better team for a reclamation project?  If Jones turns over a new leaf, why not have that greening be in the city that needs it most, on the team that needs it most, at the position—arguably—where they need it the most?

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,pacman jones,jim schwartz,charles rogers,michael vick

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The NFL Combine, the Wheat, and the Chaff

It’s begun: the annual NFL convention/festival where rookies-to-be are injected, inspected, detected, and infected with hopes of getting selected—and the fear of getting neglected.

I have no idea who named the event the "combine", but it fits.  I’m sure it was intended as a reference to the farm implement: a device that takes up crops, draws out the nutritious grain, and leaves the waste behind.  The correlation is obvious: separating the wheat from the chaff; the men from the boys.

To me, the name “Combine” has darker correlations.  Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is narrated by a character who sees “the Combine” in almost everything.  The Combine is his name for the engines of conformity that drive our culture: everything we experience, from children’s games to table manners, prepares us to slot neatly into our prescribed social niche.  Behavior that does not fit is discouraged, and those who simply cannot fit into the larger whole are weeded out—medicated, institutionalized, imprisoned, lobotomized.

Nobody is going to institutionalize a small-school cornerback who cuts a 4.69 40, of course, but it’s the same idea.  Athletes are weighed and measured in several dimensions; if they don’t measure up, their value falls.  Athletes are given a thorough medical workout; if an old injury spells bad news for the future, their value falls.  Athletes are interviewed day and night by journalists, scouts, coaches, general managers, even entire front offices; if they can’t handle the interrogations, their value falls.  Finally, they’re made to do drills: real football drills, often against each other.  If they make a mistake, or simply fail to impress, their value falls.

The NFL is a business–a BIG business.  There are 32 franchises worth nearly a billion dollars each.  The pressure for an athlete to perform isn’t simply from within, or from a coach he respects and fears—it’s from his owner and fans, demanding he justify their mind-boggling financial investment in him.

The combine, for athletes, is a five-day, full-body job interview; every step they take could be the one that costs them their chosen career.  Do they fit?  Can they hang?  Are they wheat—or are they chaff?

As a television observer, the most information doesn’t come from the 40 or the bench press—these often have little bearing on game strength or speed.  What I love watching is the drillwork.  Seeing these players in nothing but very clearly labelled Under Armor workout gear, going through actual football motions, you start to understand the jargonized language scouts have developed to describe some of the ineffable qualities of athleticism that separate the wheat and the chaff: short-area-quickness.  maxed-out.  suddenness.  stiff hips.

One of the most memorable moments of recent combines was watching Joe Thomas do drillwork.  He was so phenomenally composed, so perfect in form and execution.  Things other athletes were giving everything they had just to pull off, he executed with picture-perfect technique every time, maintaining balance and composure.

He was so plainly head-and-shoulders above every other tackle prospect there, I couldn’t believe it.  When he quickly established himself as one of the better tackles in the league, I wasn’t surprised.  It really focused how I think about the draft, and how fans latch on to “their guys”, many of whom they’ve never seen play.  You can check out all the numbers.  You can read all the magazines, websites, blogs, and forums.  But until you watch these guys compete on a level playing field, you can’t see what they’re really made of.

Peter King recently wrote an article poo-poohing the importance of the combine.  There’s a key bit of information in there, though: his source is a highly placed NFL exec, who notes that his draft board is 90% set before the combine, because they’ve already watched all the film.  They’ve already watched all the tape.  They’ve already scouted these players—in the case of top prospects, watched every snap they’ve ever taken.  The combine is for confirming what’s already known, or uncover what red flags aren’t known, than about finding out whether these players are wheat or chaff.

Finally, a couple of interesting links:

• @movethesticks
• Orange & Brown Report Live Blog
• Pat Kirwan's interesting prospects
• Michael Schottey, Lions Blogger (I'm not jealous!)

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