Lou Pickney's 2025 NFL Mock Draft

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Draft King Mailbag

Reader feedback is always welcomed here at DraftKing.com. Send your thoughts to me at LouPickney@gmail.com.

From: Stephen Broussard
To: LouPickney@gmail.com
Date: Mar 22, 2006 3:43 AM
Subject: Cowboys first rounder..

Hey Lou,

First off, I like your draft site a lot and I have been paying attention to it for the last couple of years. I'm a big Dallas Cowboys fan and in your latest mock draft you have them taking a receiver. I think it might be a good idea to get a good receiver for insurance purposes incase T.O. doesn't work out.

However, since the NFC East is getting tougher and tougher every day with the Redskins and Giants going crazy in free agency, don't you think it would be better for Dallas to pick someone that could help fill in the few, but important, holes in their line up such as FS and LOLB instead of just making sure they have depth at receiver? I was thinking maybe someone along the lines of Chad Greenway, Ernie Simms, or even Jimmy Williams if he's still available. I just think it would be better to improve at positions that Dallas is weak at right now in order to be able to compete with a hard NFC East Division.

One more thing... Looking at many draft boards, none of them have Darnell Bing as a top prospect at safety. I thought he was a standout in college and could be good for Dallas at safety, I could be wrong though.

Keep up the good work!

Lou: Dallas has signed LBs Akin Ayodele (Jacksonville) and Rocky Boiman (Tennessee) so far this off-season, which makes me think the team won't look OLB on day one of the draft, let alone round one. FS is a possibility, and I know some Cowboys fans who really hope to see the team go safety in round one. I'll address this a bit more with the next letter, but I would suggest that the depth at safety in round two relative to the depth at WR would put the Cowboys in a position to go WR in round one and then S in round two. Incidentally, I'm a big fan of Darnell "Bada" Bing, but this is where I have to regulate my personal preference in relation to what I've read from the scouts as far as who teams are looking at for the draft. Let me ask this: would you want to be the WR going across the field knowing that you have to content with Bing and/or Williams ready to crack you on a deep crossing pattern?

It might be wise for Dallas to trade up in the second round if there's a particular safety that Parcells has in mind, but with Roy Williams as a very highly paid and very aggressive safety, Dallas doesn't need to break the bank to get another safety in there who is going to go crazy out there. I think Bing would be nice in that he is disciplined, he's a winner, but he's also a hard-hitter. But that's just my take. I imagine that someone in Dallas' organization is breaking down film like mad trying to find the most disciplined, conditioned, intuitive safety to get as the Ying to Roy Williams' hard hitting, big play making Yang. Two aggressive safeties can mean big trouble on a play-fake. And I only have to say "Washington at Dallas, 2005, final two minutes" for you to know how aggressiveness can go from a blessing to a curse.

From: Mike Torbert
To: LouPickney@gmail.com
Date: Mar 22, 2006 3:57 PM
Subject: Huff to Dallas.....PLEASE!

Just another Dallas Fan bugging you about this Santonio Holmes pick. We just got T.O. which gives us Terry Glenn, T.Owens, Patrick Crayton & Terrance Copper. We only need a #3 or #4 receiver. Do you really think we will pick that guy in the 1st round?!

I believe Michael Huff will fall to #18 or very close to where Dallas might want to trade up. This is what I want, but I see them trading out or down in the first round to gain a 3rd or 4th this year.

Jason Allen I feel will slip out of the 1st round and we might be able to trade up in the 2nd round to pick him or Daniel Bullocks. Please give me a couple 1st & 2nd round scenarios that the Cowboys should and might consider.

The obvious need for Dallas is a FS, but we want to add depth at NT, LB, WR, and get a kicker.

Thanks Lou, glad we got you back from "The Love Sponge" what is a Love sponge anyways? Someone told me it was a type of female birth control!

Lou: I worked for Bubba The Love Sponge for three years. It was a great run. He's one of the most entertaining talk show hosts I've ever heard, and because of him I was able to have my dream job when I was handling his syndication back when we were on terrestrial radio (2003-2004.) From there I moved into middle management as a producer, which was also great. I'm sad to be leaving, but much like an NFL player who gets a great offer on the open market, it was too much for me to pass up. Plus I'll be closer to my family (Birmingham is closer to Nashville than Tampa), though my plans to sell some Bucs tickets and go to other games looks to be out the door for 2006 (I was on that damned waiting list for four years, and I'm not going to give those tickets up now that I have them.) Maybe I'll fly down on Southwest Airlines for a game or two; we'll see. At least I can drive up to Nashville to catch a few Titans games with my parents' Titans season tickets. And, hey, I'm closer to Mobile now for the Senior Bowl. Work permitting, I hope to go down there and cover it for the site next year.

Luckily, thanks to Sirius Satellite Radio, I will still get to hear Bubba's show... and Howard Stern's, not to mention every NFL radio broadcast. I'm not going to turn this into a Sirius infomercial, but it's WELL worth every penny. Once you go to satellite radio, you can't go back to local radio. And remember, I'm saying this on my way out. It's not like I'm pimping a new project or something.

As for the Cowboys, Owens and Glenn give Dallas a nice one-two punch at WR, but a young star WR is still a need for the team. Even if Crayton goes into camp as the #3 guy (and as a 7th round pick from 2004, that will be sketchy at best), I don't think that Terrance Copper, an undrafted free agent out of East Carolina (in 2004) who had one catch for five yards last year, would be able to hold off Holmes when it comes to the #4 spot. Considering that most WRs don't blossom until year three, consider this an investment in the future. Do you really expect T.O. to last more than two years in Dallas with those roster bonuses he has in his contract?

Terry Glenn turns 32 in July; Terrell Owens will be 33 before the end of this season. Any way you slice it, Dallas needs an injection of quality youth at the WR position.

If WR is not the direction the Cowboys want to take, I think South Carolina safety Ko Simpson would be the best bet for the team (and I hear about the Cowboys from friends who know I do this site more than any other team), but with Denver moving up to #15, I forsee the Broncos snagging Simpson. But don't discount the possibility that the Broncos could have moved up with the intention of snagging Holmes for themselves. Dallas is a team that has traded down in the Bill Parcells era.

The reason I like Holmes in round one is that he is the best WR in the draft, in my opinion, and when you can get the best guy at a need spot, why in the world would you pass up on that? Remember when Dallas passed on Steven Jackson to trade down and ultimately get Julius Jones? Not that Jones won't bounce back in 2006, but in hindsight the move seems questionable. But Bill Parcells judges players as he sees fit, and the draft gurus don't always match what he comes up with. Note that I don't consider myself a "guru"; I just do this mostly for fun (the "Draft King" name, incidentally, was originally conceived as a play off the Mr. Plow/Plow King episode of The Simpsons.)

If I'm Dallas, I want to come out of the first day with a quality WR and S. Dallas should feel pretty safe that they can get an elite WR in round one (Holmes or Jackson); safety is an iffier proposition, though there is another line of thought that says with high-priced safety Roy Williams on the roster, using another first round pick on a safety might be overkill. You need to have the right DT to play NT in a 3-4 (see Warren Sapp in Oakland as an example of how *not* to fill that hole.) I could see Dallas potentially landing a free agent DT and then getting a guy like Steve Fifita (out of Utah) late in the draft, a huge body to fill the middle and stop the run. Gabe Watson might be an outside possibility if he's on the board at #18. If Dallas uses a first or second rounder on a DT, you want it to be a 320 pounder, and besides Haloti Ngata and Watson, there isn't much near the top as far as huge-sized, high-end DT talent goes.

Want a nice scenario? Get Holmes in round one, then land a guy like USC S Darnell Bing in round two. That would be a nice bang-bang to get from the draft. But something tells me we might see Dallas move up (or more likely down) the ladder in doing some wheeling and dealing.

One last thing: I don't see Michael Huff falling to the #18 spot. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think he'll play corner in the NFL... and be the first CB taken in this year's draft.

From: jasontla@gmail.com
To: LouPickney@gmail.com
Date: Mar 22, 2006 6:11 PM
Subject: Quarterbacks in the TOP5

How can you say that no team besides Tennessee in the TOP 5 needs a QB. The Jets are in need of QB, since it is clear that Pennington is not going to be in their long range plans anymore. The Packers also need a QB since Favre can't play forever and I don't think anybody has hopes that Aaron Rogers is the answer. I think both the JETS and the PACKERS would love to draft Cutler.

Lou: Let's break down the teams currently in the top five of the draft, shall we?

1. Houston: David Carr is the incumbent, being paid the hefty salary from the contract he received as the #1 overall pick in 2002.

2. New Orleans: The Saints signed free agent QB Drew Brees to a six year, $60 million contract. $10 million of that was paid up front. Brees just left a situation where he was constantly looking over his shoulder at Philip Rivers, and it would stand to reason that the Saints didn't give Brees a $60 million deal to make him paranoid all over again. With the Saints needing to fill defensive holes, taking a QB here would only make sense if the plan was to make a trade with someone later in the draft. I don't project trades (I've tried that before; it doesn't work out well on any level), and if the Saints keep the pick, I believe they'll take DE Mario Williams, LB A.J. Hawk, or perhaps OT D'Brickashaw Ferguson (not a need per se, but Ferguson is a great prospect.)

3. Tennessee: We concur that the Titans will take a QB here. If Matt Leinart is on the board, I expect him to go to the Titans and be reunited with Norm Chow. When I was in Nashville this past weekend, I talked with some casual Titans fans, and one or two mentioned about how nice it would be if Jay Cutler could stay in town (he played at Vanderbilt, which is in Nashville.) But Leinart is a no-brainer, in my estimation. Never forget that Leinart would have been the #1 pick in last year's draft if he hadn't chosen to return to USC for one more season.

4. New York Jets: The Jets have two huge holes created by off-season moves: OT (Jason Fabini, free agency) and DE (John Abraham, trade.) Ferguson is an ideal fit here, particularly for a team whose new coach has proclaimed that he wants to rebuild via the draft. The Jets managed to rework Chad Pennington's deal to keep him on board, but even if his injury concerns would make Jay Cutler or Vince Young tempting, a QB in this spot is going to be a developmental player. Would you want to throw either Cutler or Young into the fire... without protection from a solid offensive lineman? And couldn't the Jets get someone like Omar Jacobs or Brodie Croye or Charlie Whitehurst in the second or third round and not have to pay the big money that a first round QB contract would command? Remember, the Jets also acquired Patrick Ramsey for a mere sixth round pick recently.

5. Green Bay Packers: The Packers got the steal of the 2005 draft when Aaron Rodgers, who had been in the running for the #1 overall spot, slid all the way to Green Bay at *24*. People are making a big deal about Brett Favre retiring or returning, and understandably so, but Rodgers is ready to start for Green Bay this year. So at least one person (me) has expectations for Rodgers. Otherwise, did the Packers just piss away a first round pick last year? Moreover, if OLB A.J. Hawk is on the board here, he'd be an ideal fit for the team. If not him, then DE Mario Williams should be there. In short, drafting a QB here would be crazy. Green Bay could trade down, but due to salary cap ramifications (there's quite a drop-off from the #5 pick to #6 and below as far as signing bonuses are concerned) it is tough to trade in and out of the top five.

I would agree that the Jets would love to have Cutler, but not at the expense of filling vital need positions. The Jets have their backs against the wall with the salary cap, going through a similar situation to what the Tennessee Titans faced two years ago (only without a trip to the Super Bowl to show for their troubles.) Releasing Jason Fabini isn't something that the Jets wanted to do; they had to do it to clear up cap room.

I don't write these things to be argumentative; it's just that, in the present environment, the Jets have much more pressing needs than a QB at the #4 spot.

Now, this is the NFL Draft, so things don't always make sense. As it is, the mock that is up as I type this is outdated, as the Raiders signed Aaron Brooks today, so I don't anticipate that they'll take Vince Young (they have Andrew Walter as their developmental guy.)

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