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National Football League
Draft King Analysis
May 19, 2009
Lou Pickney, DraftKing.com
Reader feedback is always welcomed here. Send your thoughts to Draft King at LouPickney@gmail.com.
The off-season can drag for a long time for football fans. When the top story is Brett Favre flirting with yet another comeback (in full Terry Funk style), it can be a grind. There's the NBA and NHL playoffs and MLB, but for people who place football at the top of their sports favorite list, this time of year can be a grind. When you're looking forward to pre-season games, you know you're in the midst of NFL withdrawl.
One nice thing about the NFL Draft is that it helps to fuel the insatiable appetite that people worldwide have for the league, if only for the roughly two-and-a-half to three months after the Super Bowl. But now that the players have been drafted and the free agents (both rookies and veterans) have mostly settled into wherever they're going to end up, things can really begin to slow down.
I just moved to a new place (still in the Nashville area), though unlike 2007 I planned it for a few weeks *after* the draft as opposed to a few weeks before it. Talk about a grind -- it's packing up everything you have and then trying to reorganize it in a new place. I now have an official office room for myself for the first time ever, and now it's up to me to get things organized.
An interesting piece of news came out this week with word that Tony Kornheiser is stepping down from the Monday Night Football booth in favor of former Raiders and Buccaneers head coach Jon Gruden. Kornheiser is outstanding in his role on Pardon the Interruption, and I suspect that most people don't realize the constraints put on his time between that show and his newspaper responsibilities and hosting his own radio show. Meanwhile, I suspect that Gruden will be great on MNF, particularly after seeing how solid his work was for the NFL Network during its draft coverage last month.
This time of the year is an interesting one for looking ahead to the following year's draft. Consider that at this time last year I had USC DT Fili Moala at the top spot. There are millions of variables that come into play in an 11 month time frame, which makes it tough to project how things will play out in the future.
 | I'm in the middle next to Britney Spears.
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I'm on Twitter (you can see my page via this link), and I anticipate working in links to Draft King material on there. People tend to either love it or hate Twitter, but there are some high profile people connected with football who have a strong presence on there. I've been particularly impressed with agent Drew Rosenhaus (who is on there as RosenhausSports), who is illustrating how creativity plus emerging technology can give aggressive and intelligent people an edge. For example is this post from earlier today: "Just finished my meetings at the Owners conference. Edgerrin James was among the players that I discussed with various teams." James is rumored to be possibly going to the Saints, but Rosenhaus is wisely playing up the possibility that the Saints won't get him, which could potentially cause the Saints to pay more to land James now.
Will it work? It remains to be seen. But Rosenhaus has a history of savvy moves, such as his positioning of University of Miami RB Willis McGahee prior to, and even during, the 2003 NFL Draft. Plus he managed to do business with notorious prick Warren Sapp, and if he had the patience to deal with that jackass, he can likely handle the toughest of negotiations. For me, I'm just amused to see myself listed next to the likes of Britney Spears on people's Twitter follow lists.
As strong as the offensive tackle class was in this past draft, there are some solid prospects who will be in the mix in the 2010 Draft. Two guys I foresee being high picks are offensive tackles Trent Williams of Oklahoma and Russell Okung of Oklahoma State. Others at the position who could be in the first round mix include LSU's Ciron Black and underclassmen Bryan Bulaga (Iowa) and Anthony Davis (Rutgers). If there are some breakthrough guys at the position, like Butler's Jason Smith was this past season, it could be another strong draft for teams looking for an offensive tackle.
Congratulation to New Orleans for landing the 2013 Super Bowl. It will be the first Super Bowl in the city since Hurricane Katrina, and it should provide a great boost for the city and the state of Louisiana. Plus, no one city how to party quite like New Orleans does.
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