The draft is now over so it is time to grade the teams to see how they did in the draft. I will be grading the teams and doing them by division. The first installment is the AFC North which is one of the toughest divisions in football. All of these teams have had great success building through the draft so it should be interesting to see who gets the best grade.
Baltimore Ravens: The Ravens should be happy with their draft as they traded down and got the guy they wanted in Joe Flacco. The only problem was they didn't have to trade up to 18 to get him. The Ravens probably could have got him at 26. Flacco though has a cannon arm which is something that the Ravens haven't had in a quarterback in a while. Ray Rice was a good pick in round 2 as he is very durable and is a good insurance policy for Willis McGahee. Tavares Gooden was a good pick in round 3 as he should develop and gives the Ravens depth to help a linebacker corps that is aging. Tom Zbikowski was a good pick in ...
Original Story:
http://www.fbkid85.blogspot.com
Original Story:
http://www.fbkid85.blogspot.com
-Flacco has size, arm strength etc. but so did Kyle Boller (the guy they are looking to replace) and how does that translate to winning football games at the pro level? Here's a guy that couldn't break into the lineup at Pitt so he transferred down a division to Delaware. Sort of like the kid who can't make his High School Varsity squad but kicks ass against the middle schoolers, or the guy who wants to look handsome and thin so he hangs with fat and ugly people.
Because he was unproven in competition he appeared to be slated, by most, as a speculative 2nd rouind pick.
-Beyond that, the Ravens left value on the table when they swapped picks with Jacksonville. When Ryan didn't fall to the Ravens they wanted to trade down. The only willing partner was Jacksonville however the value of the compensation received (based on the point values assigned to picks 8 &. 26 is a 700 point gap) would indicate that Jax got the better end of that deal. By far.
Word in Jacksonville leading up to the draft was that they wanted to move up to get Harvey but figured that the price would be too steep (i.e. nobody would be dumb enough to do it at their price).
-And rather than wait to get him at #26 (which still wouid have been a reach), they moved back up to grab him mid 1st round.
All in all this seemed like a desperate series of moves executed by a team with an otherwise stout drafting history.