Another Mock Draft—This One for 2009
The draft is over and done with, leaving many pro football fans restless. Where will they spend their off hours if not glued to the television watching an ESPN analyst predict the draft? What will they do when they have a few moments of quiet after the boss leaves for lunch? There are no more mock drafts and predictions to look over.
It’s a sad time of year for the football guy who likes mock drafts. But fear not. The power of Sports Illustrated will help you cope. Andrew Perloff, one of the lead writers for SI.com has already give you a head start on the guys at the bar… he has a mock draft… for the year 2009.
Even though it’s painfully early, there is still room to speculate where certain players will go, who will opt out of college early and who will be a bust on Draft Day almost a full year from now. Hey, there were Top 25 rankings out the day after the college basketball national championship game, right? Perloff is thinking that Tim Tebow, the quarterback from Florida, will not opt out of school next season, but if he does, he might well be in the top 5, if not the top pick overall.
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Draft Non-Dodging for the Lions; Plus Chiefs Analysis
Two stories await you lucky Super Bowl Blog readers today, as there is much to write about with the NFL Draft having just concluded- well, kind of. Anyway, the Detroit Lions drafted a cadet from Army, one Caleb Campbell. Apparently West Point is now allowing graduates the chance to play professional sports, so long as they serve some time as a recruiter while they’re playing. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Although Campbell was all ready to go serve in Iraq with a platoon under his command, he chose to try pro football after the Lions gave him a chance late in the draft. We hope this situation works out nicely for all involved.
In other news, the Chiefs have overwhelmingly impressed the draft experts with their picks. We mentioned this the other day as well. Pete Prisco explains why they did so well in his column at CBSsportsline.com. Basically the scoop is that the Chiefs were not so hot last year, but that they’ve instantly gotten about five wins better because of all of their draft picks. And they had quite a few. Mostly the defensive and offensive lines were improved with Glen Dorsey and Branden Albert- their two first round picks. In the second round they got Brandon Flowers, a cornerback. Hopefully they get Arrowhead pumped up this year.
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NFL Draft Winners and Losers
The NFL Draft was this past weekend, so there’s about a million years’ worth of blogs that could be written about every little minutiae that has to do with the players and teams involved. Where to begin? How do you sum up so much in a little tiny blog?
We could start by simply giving you a link to another, much more painstaking and thorough article that can give you the grades each team received for their Draft day performance. It looks like there weren’t a lot of teams that did well, at least from the perspective of Mel Kiper. According to his analysis, the only team that deserved an A was the Kansas City Chiefs.
Of course, as you are probably well aware, sometimes good draft picks don’t show themselves right away. Sometimes the best players are taken in the later rounds and given no chance of success in the NFL, and sometimes the worst flops are taken in the top 5. So for right now, the Super Bowl Blog is not about to jump into the mix to say who did well or who did poorly. We wouldn’t want to be wrong. This is a blog, you know.
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Everybody Ready for the NFL Draft?
Normally today would be a day filled with some insight into one of the teams in the NFL, as we’ve been going over their stats from the past season to try to get a better handle on where they will draft this weekend. If you are into pro football, the Draft is one of the most exciting days of the year, as your team could draft the next Jerry Rice or Peyton Manning. However, for some the task of picking players is arduous and boring, and at best, a roll of the dice when all is said and done. After all, Jerry Rice went late in the draft, and Manning went early. They both turned out to be great, so you never know who’s going to be good, and who is going to stink.
If you want a little tutor in the world of the draft, you might want to head on over the FOXSports.com to read up on the best (and worst) drafting teams from the past five years. The top eight are broken down by Alex Marvez. You can see that some teams are actually good at picking players, while some rely on luck. It’s a bit like poker. If you keep getting dealt good cards, you’re going to win a lot, but if you’re a good player, you might be able to do fine with bad cards.
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Cincinnati Bengals 2007 Stats Breakdown
The Cincinnati Bengals were not as bad as their overall record of 7-9 might suggest. In fact, near the end of the season the Bengals really got their game together, and they wound up winning their last two games, and went 8-5 in the second half of the season. So what went wrong for this team? What went right? Let’s take a quick look at the numbers.
One thing that was really working right for the Bengals was the passing game. With Carson Palmer healthy all season long (he was the only QB all season for Cincy) Chad Johnson was able to get the ball quite a bit. As a team the Bengals racked 4,012 total yards through the air (ranked 7th in the NFL). They scored 26 passing TD’s, and were 5th in the NFL in terms of net yards per attempted pass (6.8). Although Carson was apt to throw interceptions (20), it would be difficult to say that him tossing the ball was a bad thing, especially considering the fact that the Bengals ended the year with a +5 turnover differential.
How did they get that turnover differential, you ask? The Bengals defense was 6th in the league in interceptions (19) and 3rd in recovering fumbles by the opposing team (35 on the year). The Bengals defense ended the season with 16 forced fumbles. So basically the best things about this team were the passing game on offense, and the defensive ability to cause and capitalize on turnovers. If the Bengals can get an improved running game and a better rush defense, then they could become an elite team very soon.
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Dolphins Don’t (But Really Do) Take Long to Pick First in Draft
We did have another team stats review from last year all lined up for you Super Bowl Blog readers, but today’s news is just too big not to cover, so you will get a break. Stay tuned for another overview of the stats for another NFL team on Thursday when we return to your regularly scheduled blogging.
The news that’s too important to skip is that the Dolphins already picked their draft choice. As you might already be aware, the Fins were slated to pick first in the NFL draft, so they pretty much have all the time in the world to decide what they’ll do with their draft choice. Who’d they pick? Jake Long.
By now you might be wondering who Jake Long is. He certainly is not Darren McFadden, and he’s not at all Matt Ryan. He’s an offensive lineman who used to play for the Michigan Wolverines. He’s 6-7, 315 All-American tackle from Lapeer, Michigan. There’s already a Wikipedia article about him. Long already agreed to a deal worth almost $58 million. $30 million is guaranteed. Congrats to the Dolphins and especially to Long for this historic contract. He’s now the highest paid lineman in the NFL, and he hasn’t yet played one pro game.
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Baltimore Ravens 2007 Stats Breakdown
Although the Baltimore Ravens had high hopes entering the season, and their 4-2 record after a 22-3 win over St. Louis was a high point for Baltimore fans, the Ravens could not continue their winning ways into the second half of the season. They lost 9 of their last 10 and ended the year 5-11, last place in the AFC North.
There were some things that went wrong, stats-wise last year, but let’s start with the things that went right. How about the rush defense? The Ravens were well above the curve at stopping the run. In 2007 they held their opponents to 1,268 yards on the ground (the second fewest team total in the NFL). They also has the lowest average for opponent’s rushing yards at 2.8 per carry. While their opponents tried to run the ball against the Ravens a decent amount of times (446, 17th most in the NFL) they only allowed 9 rushing TDs all season, the seventh fewest in the league.
One highlight on offense was that the Ravens quarterbacks (Kyle Boller, Steve McNair, Troy Smith and Mark Clayton) only threw 14 total interceptions last year, which was ahead of the curve for NFL teams. However, there were clearly problems on the offensive side of the ball, and they showed up in the stats. The Ravens lost a total of 26 balls to fumbles (ranked last in the league). This lead to an overall turnover differential of -17. Passing yardage for the team topped out at 3,035 yards, which was below average. The ravens gained 1,797 yards on the ground, which was directly in the middle (16th).
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Green Bay Packers 2007 Stats Breakdown
You don’t really need the numbers to tell you that the Green Bay Packers had a great season. However, we’re going to run through them anyways. As you probably know, the Packers finished the season with an overall record of 13-3, and were basically one of the best teams in the NFL all season long. Who knows if the Pack would have beaten the Patriots in the Super Bowl like the Giants did… but we digress.
What was the best stat for Green Bay Packer fans to look back upon? We’re big fans of the passing game. Packer quarterbacks (mostly Brett Farve, but also including Aaron Rogers and Craig Nall) combined for a total of 4,334 yards passing, the second most in the NFL. They threw 30 passing touchdowns (6th in the league) and attempted passes 578 times (also 6th). Despite the fact that the Packers’ Brett Fave always gets criticized for interceptions, the team only gave up 15 (all of them Farve’s) over the course of the whole year, which ranks them 11th of 32 NFL teams. The packers ended with a +4 turnover differential.
On defense both the passing D and the rushing D were in the middle of the pack. Green Bay gave up 3,366 yards through the air (12 in the league) and 1,647 yards on the ground (14th). The best individual stats probably came from Farve (4,155 yards 28 TDs) but Ryan Grant, the first year running back, deserves some honorable mention. He racked up 956 yards rushing, 145 yards receiving and scored 8 TDs.
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Minnesota Vikings 2007 Stats Breakdown
The Minnesota Vikings had a chance to become the Green Bay Packers, but their late-season burst seemed to have been too little, too late. The Vikings got off to a 3-6 start, but then won five games in a row, righting the ship and eventually landing in third place in the NFC North standings with a record of 8-8. Although their record was just two games better, they showed a lot of improvement from their 10-6 season in 2006.
Some of the best statistics for this team were on the ground. We can’t decide if the offensive line was better than the defensive, but they were both amazing in 2007. The Vikings were the No. 1 team in the NFL in terms of total rushing yardage gained (2,634), and similarly they were the No. 1 NFL defense in terms of yardage allowed on the ground (1,185). The Vikings allowed the second fewest yards per carry on average of any defense (3.1), but gained the most yardage per rush attempt of any NFL team on offense (5.3). The Vikings had the most rushing touchdowns in the league (22).
But while the rushing game was going strong in 2007, the stats show that the Vikings were a very one dimensional team. Their passing stats were average to poor. Although multiple quarterbacks that lined up in the back field last season threw 14 interceptions (middle of the pack), they only managed to gain 2,746 total passing yards (ranked 28th in the league). Of course, that might have simply been a result of the fact that Minnesota attempted the fewest passing plays in the league (432).
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Detroit Lions 2007 Stats Breakdown
The Detroit Lions finished the season with an overall record of 7-9, but at one point in the middle of the season they were working from a record of 6-2, and some people were saying that they were going to be THE surprise team of the NFL. After that they lost 7 of their last 8, falling to the bottom of the NFC North. Bummer.
Looking at the team stats, you can see that the passing game was one of the highlights of the year, especially when you look at the beginning of the season. Jon Kitna helped to produce a total of 3,878 passing yards on the year for Detroit, the ninth most in the NFL. The Lions attempted the fourth most passes in the league (587).
On defense the Lions were not so great at defending through the air, though, and opponents took advantage of that fact on a regular basis. Could this mean that the Lions need to focus on the secondary in the offseason and in the draft? As a team the Lions allowed the second most passing yards on defense (4,131), and allowed the second most passing touchdowns (32). Rushing defense was slightly better, as they were near the middle of the pack in the league in terms of yards allowed (1,911)
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