4:40 -- Now 14 picks in. The Redskins kick off the NFC East's picks by going for need and picking U.T. DE Brian Orakpo.
No enormous surprises, aside from the Jets' deal for Sanchez. Oakland's pick of Darius Heyward-Bey raised some eyebrows, but a lot of pundits, most notably Mike Lombardi and Mike Mayock, were touting Heyward-Bey to the East Bay early in the week.
3:44-- New York gave up former Cowboys Kenyon Coleman and Abram Elam, QB Brett Ratliff and New York's 1st (17th) and 2nd (52nd).
3:40 -- BIG TRADE: Jets swap places with the Browns at 5 and select QB Mark Sanchez. Details to come.
2:49 -- Update: The draft is about to tee off. I'm going to check out during the top dozen or so picks, but want to put my predictions for the division in black and white:
Redskins -- they need an offensive tackle and a pass rusher. They're going after quarterbacks. I think Sanchez and the top four OTs -- Jason and Andre Smith, Monroe and Oher -- fly off the board in the top ten. I also see the big DEs go, so unless the 'Skins get lucky on a pass rusher, I'm thinking they're going to take another WR. They took two high last year and Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly did almost nothing.
Eagles -- Andy Reid takes linemen, QBs and CBs high. I don't see any elite pass rushers in the 21 range, and the Eagles have spent heavily to get OTs Stacy Andrews and Jason Peters. I keep hearing Knowshon Moreno or Brandon Pettegrew, but 1st round skill-position players isn't the Eagles' style. I think they'll snag the best available cornerback.
Giants -- They need receivers, badly. They stocked the d-line this offseason and went hard for secondary players the last two drafts. They might take a linebacker if one is too good a value and their veteran o-line could start getting reinforcements, but that can come in later rounds. I do think the Giants will take the best wideout on the board, if they don't swing a trade for a veteran. Amani Toomer and Plaxico Burress are gone. They're Super Bowl contenders, but less so with Domenik Hixon and Steve Smith as their starting duo.
-- rv
* * * * *
Are you freakin' kidding me? It's draft day, finally! One of the best weekends of the year in my book.
So here's what we'll be doing over the next 36 hours or so on BTB. This will be the first of many open threads over the weekend. Basically, we'll be running them anytime the draft is in progress. This one is a little early; kind of a pre-draft, let's get motivated, please Jerry don't trade out of the second round and leave us with no picks today, open thread. Like gameday threads, just leave it open in your browser and the comments will automatically refresh. Use the ‘z' key to tab through unread comments. It's really easy once you get the hang of it.
We'll start a new open thread if the current one reaches 600-700 comments. That point seems to be where the platform can slow down and the comments become unwieldy.
And remember, please keep your cool. Sure we get excited or angry throughout the weekend over things our beloved Cowboys have done, but profanity, name-calling, etc. is a no-go - all of the rules are still in place.
So what are you hearing? We know QB Matt Stafford is the first pick to the Lions. Where do the Rams go, Jason Smith from Baylor?
Raf and I will be updating the content in the open threads as we go. So take a look every so often for any new info, rumors, or just stuff that we hear/see/read about.
Today is great because it's the kickoff day, but tomorrow could be the real action for the Cowboys. Unless Jerry gets out of the straitjacket and does some crazy dealing, we have only one pick to look forward to today. Tomorrow, we could be ‘on-the-clock' around the clock.
Whatever the case, we'll be here all weekend covering the draft. Raf will be giving us a breakdown analysis of each Cowboys pick after it's made and we'll be doing wrap-up posts after each day.
I hope you guys will join us on BTB all draft weekend.
Draft weekend? Are you freakin' kidding me? Woo hoo!
Start threading.