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Draft King Analysis

February 24, 2009
Lou Pickney, DraftKing.com

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


It's busy season here at Draft King, and the e-mails are pouring into the mailbag...


From: Rodrigo Muniz
To: LouPickney@gmail.com
Date: Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 7:17 PM
Subject: Dallas ILB draft

Hey Lou continue the amazing job with the website!

It's clearly the Boys biggest needs are ILB and S, a QB comes as the 3rd, not essential, need.

I was thinking on a possible scenario with the 'Boys...Jerry Jones will try do the possible and the impossible to sign Ray Lewis to the Cowboys roster, if even offering him a lot of money he decides to sign elsewhere the Cowboys will definitely IMO do some deals to move to the 1st round and get one fresh guy to fill the spot: James Laurinaitis or Rey Maualuga. Do you think is there any chance J.Jones do his thing, move up the draft and get one of the 2 guys even with Ray Lewis signed or not? Even with Lewis signed this is a must improve position for this team. Also which S should slip to the 2nd/3rd round and get a ticket to the America's team starting line up? A QB that could turn to be a good pick is Pat White, but will he fall to the 4th after the NFL Combine?

Lou: The situation at strong safety with Roy L. Williams is rather interesting. Williams has two years remaining on his contract, and he has stated that he is willing to redo his deal to remain with the Cowboys.

Williams is a boom-or-bust type of player. He often goes for the big hits, sometimes with very impressive results. But he has been burned enough times deep to where the Cowboys, with or without him in 2009, are believed in many circles to be looking to bring in another quality strong safety. I doubt that free safety would be a position of interest, not with Ken Hamlin under contract with the team through 2013.

Roy Williams
Dallas gave up two high draft picks to land WR Roy Williams from Detroit in 2008. (Icon SMI)
The trade that brought the *other* Roy Williams to Dallas (a move that Deion Sanders criticized last month) cost Dallas their first round pick, which is most unfortunate for the Cowboys since they might have otherwise been in a position to draft either Ohio State ILB James Laurinaitis or USC ILB Rey Maualuga (particularly with Maualuga suffering a hamstring injury at the combine).

But all is not lost. Free agency begins on Friday, and there is widespread speculation that the Cowboys will make a major play to land Ravens ILB Ray Lewis. If that happens, the need will be filled... and then some.

[Correction: Dallas has Cleveland's third round pick, so the Cowboys have a bit more wiggle room than I initially indicated.]

With no third round pick (also traded to Detroit in the WR Roy Williams deal), Dallas will need to maximize its second round selection. Oregon SS Patrick Chung would be a nice addition for the Cowboys, but if he's not on the board at that spot then Dallas might consider trading down from round two to round three. In that range, Dallas could end up with a player like Wake Forest SS Chip Vaughn or Clemson SS Michael Hamlin.

Keep in mind though that the further you get from the top of the draft, the more difficult it is to accurately project what a team might do at any given spot. The reason? Most of the elite talent is, more or less, ranked about the same by most teams -- certainly in comparison with the second and third wave talent, where opinions tend to vary considerably from team to team.

As for quarterbacks, there are a wide variety of options for the Cowboys. With Romo entrenched as the long-term starter, the team could look to the free agent market for a veteran with experience to step in if Romo is unable to play. A player like Pat White could be an interesting addition to the team, but with only one pick in the first three rounds, I have my doubts about him ending up as a Cowboy.


From: Dan from Detroit
To: LouPickney@gmail.com
Date: Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Subject: lions wont go qb

i like your take on your drafts, i consider it to be one of the most thoughtful of the many out there. but the detroit lions will not select matthew stafford with the 1st overall selection. look for them to try to trade out of it but this will most likely fail. the leading candidates for the 1st selection are jason smith, aaron curry and eugene monroe. thanks, dan from detroit, go lions...

Lou: You may be right about the Lions and Stafford -- it's simply too soon to tell. The problem for the Lions in trading down from #1 is that they only have four teams to reasonably trade with: the Rams at #2, the Chiefs at #3, the Seahawks at #4, and the Browns at #5. As I've written on here ad nauseum, trading into or out of the top five of the draft is almost impossible due to the rookie salary cap.

Roy Williams
Jason Smith may be the first offensive tackle taken in the 2009 NFL Draft. (Icon SMI)

It's possible that the Lions could entice the Rams to move up to #1 to land the offensive tackle of their choosing. It was just one year ago when the Rams, from all indications, were set to draft Michigan OT Jake Long. But Miami snagged him at the top spot, so instead the Rams went with DE Chris Long.

This is a very deep draft at offensive tackle in 2009, and even with the bizarro Andre Smith situation at the combine, I tend to doubt that the Rams would want Jason Smith or Eugene Monroe so much that they'd trade up to ensure that they would get one over the other. At this point, J. Smith looks to have the edge on Monroe, but the only opinion that matters there is that of the Rams management.

An idea that is plausible is Kansas City moving up from #3 to #1 to draft Stafford. New Chiefs GM Scott Pioli has a chance to make a major splash and doing that would certainly qualify as an impact move. At the same time, Kansas City also has a major need at offensive tackle, perhaps to the point where staying at #3 and taking J. Smith or Monroe would be the best course of action.

I still think that the Seahawks will draft Michael Crabtree at #4, but I don't think that they would trade up to #1 to ensure that they would get him -- not with Crabtree measuring at 6'1" as opposed to 6'3" and having a slight stress fracture in his left foot.

As for Cleveland, moving up from #5 to #1 wouldn't exactly be cheap. I imagine that the Browns would love to draft Aaron Curry, but trading up to #1 overall to take a linebacker, no matter how impressive he is, would seem unlikely. More likely would be Cleveland trading with Kansas City to get Curry at #3 (if he is on the board at that point) and the Chiefs sliding to #5 to land Mark Sanchez there if that is what they intend to do. The Chiefs might also draft an offensive lineman at that spot.

In short, I think Detroit will keep the #1 overall pick.



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