American Football Spectacular: Your 2007 NFL Draft Wants & Do-Not-Wants
Coming to you from da city of Da Bears, it's your American Football Spectacular shorthand 2007 NFL Draft overview for the 49ers and Raiders. The draft is here. What should each team want, and what should each team do-not-want?
* For the 49ers,
WANT: NT/DL
DO-NOT-WANT: WR
Shut up. Listen, picking a wide receiver high in the draft simply does not pay dividends by nature of the position. You've got the rare Larry Fitzgerald, and the example of the 7th round pick success Marques Colston, but the story of the first round-drafted WR is one that in most cases traffics in failure and pain. Like Jawbreaker, Leonard Cohen, or AFI.
Hang on, I'm going to hurt you now:
Rashaun Woods, the 49er first round draft pick of 2004. We're sorry we had to bring that up.
No, the thing that could help the Niners the most would be to expend their eleventh overall 2007 first round draft pick on a defensive lineman. Albeit one not named Alan Branch. Sorry, dewd.
The d-line was manhandled last year, what with guys playing out of position, and this weakness trickled down through the entire defense's effectiveness.
Ideal for the Niners to pick up would be young DL Amobi Okoye or the hard-driving DE Adam Carriker. But not DT Alan Branch -- he has too many character questions. And we've already had a Reggie McGrew DT bust. No; no more of that, thank you.
The analysis of the Raiders -- as much as can be done -- follows the jump.
* For the Raiders,
WANT: OL
DO-NOT-WANT: QB
Shut up. The Raiders already have a quarterback that fits Raider specifications. But even a spanking new QB will fail, fail, fail behind the current offensive line scheme and current offensive personnel.
The Raider offense is somewhat like the current US military -- you can't be sure of their real strength since the so-called civilian braintrust is bungling the planning of the operation so thoroughly.
So, Raiders -- either take the highest-rated OT Joe Thomas or take-and-trade the freakishly talented WR Calvin Johnson (no, not the one from K Records). Really, to take a quarterback while ignoring the o-line would be the most embarrassing and obvious of errors for OAK to make. But Al is Al, and Al will do as Al pleases. There is little hope to be had from this.
Next up on your American Football Spectacular: After the dust clears from this wknd's draft, we'll react, respond, and relax.