The purpose of the NFL Draft is to control talent.

If it was open season for teams and rookies, the most competitive and well-off franchises would attract all the best talent.

After seven rounds of the worst teams getting "dibs" on their favorite prospects and the best teams going last, parity is fostered, and the league stays balanced.

Somewhere around the sixth round, though, teams start targeting priority free agents. Calls are discreetly made between teams, agents and players to begin working on deals if the players fall through the end of the seventh round.

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The release of "NFL quarterback" Tim Tebow finally came, according to the New York Post's Brian Costello. Curiously, the New York Jets waited until the Monday after the draft to release their polarizing star, leaving few options for the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner.

My personal opinion?

Tebow will be on a football roster in 2013. No, it won't be in the CFL, where the three-down game requires quarterbacks to throw the football just as much—if not more—than their American counterparts. Tebow clearly doesn't inspire that level of confidence under center, but another NFL team might find a use for him at a different position. 

No team has more experience with bizarre personnel fits than the New England Patriots. Bill Belichick has gushed on the record over Tim Tebow's potential, and while the quarterback situation in Foxboro is beyond stable with Tom Brady, Belichick could find another place on the field for the former Jets quarterback. 

What about Jacksonville? The Jaguars clearly had no interest in trading for Tebow, but would they bring him in as a free agent, without having to give anything away? GM Dave Caldwell and head coach Gus Bradley didn't draft a quarterback this year (if we're not counting Michigan's Denard Robinson, who technically entered February's combine as a wide receiver). Would the defensive-minded Bradley be willing to emulate John Fox's plan for Tebow from 2011?

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The coaches have been fired and hired. The new free-agent contracts have been signed and the old ones ripped up. The plane tickets have been purchased and the bus tickets handed out. The draft-pick cards have been turned in, the caps have been donned, the jerseys have been held up and the commissioner's been hugged senseless.

All of the big NFL moves have been made. All that's left is to play the games.

As each head coach takes stock of his roster going in to rookie minicamps, let's do the same.

How do the teams stack up against each other? How will the schedules pan out? When toe meets leather and helmets crash, who will win and who will lose?

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The NFL draft kicks off Thursday, April 25, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The first round gets underway at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN, and the draft itself goes through Saturday.

Countless predictions have been made up until this point by both fans and media—most of which will be proven wrong once the picks are announced by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The first day of the draft is a time of endless optimism. Every pick is a future Hall of Fame inductee as they're whisked off to their new home cities for press conferences and media appearances.

So, in that spirit of optimism, here are 10 more predictions that are sure to be right in the first round of the NFL draft.

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Every draft pick is a gamble in one way or another, but some selections are even riskier bets.

The media and fans call this concept "red flags." The jargon used by teams is often "significant character concerns" or "non-football issues." Every team is different in how they deal with problematic draft prospects, but each team is the same in sniffing out any potential issues with every single player on the board.

Private investigators are able to retire early in cities like College Station, Tex. and Tuscaloosa, Ala. because of the money NFL teams pay them to keep tabs on top prospects. Local scouts are kept on payrolls long after their player evaluations are given because of who they know on college campuses—janitors, trainers, boosters, landscapers, you name it. It's become a cottage industry because NFL teams want to make the smartest investment possible.

Of course, non-football issues might also mean a significant injury in someone's past—a blown-out knee or a torn shoulder muscle. Modern medicine makes some of this a moot point, but if all things are equal, teams will often take the player with a clean bill of health. At the very least, players with an injury-filled past are poked and prodded even more than the average prospect. No stone is left unturned.

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"Playmaker" is a word that gets tossed around a lot during this time of year.

Literally, it's someone who has the ability to make plays. Someone who always seems to turn a busted play into a big gainer, make defenders miss in the open field or go up and bring a sailing pass down inbounds.

A playmaker is someone whom defenses always have to account for, draws coverage and forces a safety to come up into (or back out of) the box. An offense can turn to a playmaker when it needs a yard, 10 yards or a touchdown. Teammates can rely on a playmaker to jump-start the offense when nobody else can. A playmaker can turn a game around in an instant.

A playmaker wins games.

Who are the playmakers of this rookie class? Who are the explosive, dynamic skill-position studs who can flip a game on its head in one play? Who are the 25 best playmakers in this 2013 NFL draft?

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By now, anyone who follows the NFL draft even casually is at least somewhat familiar with many of the big-name prospects. 

Then there are the amateur draftniks who probably know most of the rookies who will be selected in the first few rounds.

But what about the real hidden gems in the 2013 NFL draft?

In the video above, we take a look at a few of the biggest secrets hidden away deep in the recesses of this draft class. 

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What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to...drive under the influence of intoxicants? It's hard to draw a direct connection between the Detroit Lions' off-field struggles in the spring and summer of 2012, and their disastrous flop on the gridiron.

Something, though, was rotten in Detroit. A team that had improved from 0-16 in 2008, to 2-14 in 2009, to 6-10 in 2010, to 10-6 and a long-awaited playoff berth, returned 21 of 22 starters and suffered a 4-12 implosion.

Time and time again, the Lions whole failed to equal the sum of its highly paid, highly talented parts. Only Calvin Johnson delivered, as he shattered the regular-season receiving yardage record.

Matthew Stafford looked like the cocky, shell-shocked rookie he was in 2009, and his 17 interceptions against just 20 touchdowns looked like rookie numbers, too. The Lions offense scored just 23.2 points per game, ranked 17th and well behind their 29.6 point-per-game clip of 2011.

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