NFL Draft Day Decisions Loom

Last month I wrote about the Kansas City Chiefs' draft dilemma. Now I am noticing the same parody around the league.

Teams such as the Jaguars, Cowboys, and Chargers need little to improve their rosters. The decision they face is whether to take the best player or draft in positions of need.

On the other hand, teams like the Chiefs, Raiders, Vikings, and Dolphins need to fill many holes and are struggling to decide what position to draft first.

For example, the San Diego Chargers have a very complete, young team. Their only key offseason loss was Michael Turner, but they hope Darren Sproles will be able to fill the backup role at running back this year.

No matter how they choose to draft, there will most likely be some sort of controversy in that position. If San Diego were to draft a quarterback to assume a number two position behind Phillip Rivers, it could have the same effect Philadelphia saw by drafting Kevin Kolb last year.

No one in their right mind believes Kolb is a better quarterback than McNabb, but every player feels threatened when a new young player comes in to the locker room. Every player knows they are one blind side block, low ankle tackle, or helmet to helmet hit away from watching from the sidelines, so I understand a player's concern with being replaced.

It is this attitude from players that stops a team from being great.

A few years ago in San Diego, Phillip Rivers was drafted to take over for the still-young Drew Brees. Brees felt the pressure, stepped his game up, and became one of the league's top passers.

I understand every player wants to be a starter and, in the Chargers' case, both QBs were good enough to start. Consider this: If Brees had stayed in San Diego and Rivers was still the backup, we may be talking about the Chargers as Super Bowl champs instead of the Giants.

When Rivers was injured Brees could have taken the starting role and gotten them over the hump. Instead, as soon as Rivers came to San Diego it was a battle for the starting position that eventually led to Brees' departure. 

As mentioned earlier, there is another side to this problem: teams that need too much. These teams can actually strike gold. Unfortunately it is sometimes fool's gold.

In the case of the Dolphins, I think they would rather trade out of the number one draft position than pick a player who is only worthy of that pick because of lack of talent pool. Jake Long will be a good lineman, maybe even great. Chris Long will be just as good on the other side of the ball. The problem is they are not number one overall caliber players.

One of the latest mock drafts I have seen has Kansas City taking Matt Ryan at number five. While I do believe Kansas City needs a quarterback, I am not so sure Matt Ryan is much better than Brodie Coryle.

On top of that no one really knows what Croyle has to offer. He played about a half a year last year where they allowed him to throw short to intermediate passes. Croyle's strength is in throwing the long ball, as was made evident on almost every deep pass he threw.

Most teams want to pick a player they want rather than the best player available, especially this year. Unfortunately for teams like the Dolphins, they will stick with the trend of picking the best available, which basically means you have a good player on a bad team.

Ryan Leaf is a great example of this. Leaf was a great college quarterback, but unfortunately he was not used to losing. When he made it to San Diego he looked good in his first couple of games. Shortly thereafter, when the losing began, he broke down mentally.

Part of that is poor coaching. If someone were to really look after Leaf we may still be seeing him play today. The other part is poor player management. San Diego had more needs than just a quarterback. If you do not believe me try to name a receiver, the running back, or for that matter anyone not named Seau on that team.

In closing, just remember it is great to get excited when your team picks a great college player, but do not get too excited before you look at his surroundings.