Prelim NFL Draft Prep (with a Pats slant)

So, tonight’s the NFL Pro Bowl.  For many of the players on the AFC and NFC rosters, their draft status was either helped or hurt by their play/participation in the college football All-Star games. 

Most people know how much I love college football, especially SEC football (GO DAWGS!).  However, I don’t know how many people know that I Tivo the practices of these games in addition to watching the games.  If you think recording a practice is boring, then you probably won’t be impressed that I also record the NFL Draft Combine as well.  If you don’t know what the combine is then let me fill you in on what you’re missing!  To steal the description from the NFL, the combine is the “annual job fair for prospective new NFL players”.  Players are put through a series of drills (40 yard dash, high jump, bench press, etc.), tests (Wonderlic, weighed, measured) and interviews.  Jealous?  Admit it, you are.  I’m not claiming to be a know it all expert (there are plenty of people who do this full-time for ESPN or the NFL Network).  However, I do think that I know more than your typical fan going into Draft Weekend.

Anyway, last week was the East-West Shrine game.  It was not a pretty game.  You get that sometimes as players don’t really have a lot of time to gel. The East won (13-10) won on a TD pass with 6 seconds left.  Honestly, I really wasn’t that impressed by a lot players.  Although, Max Hall of BYU played OK and O’Brien Schofield (LB – Wisconsin) was named Defensive MVP.  As the Pats need help on Defense, I was looking forward to watching Schofield this week during the Under Armour Senior Bowl practices.  However, he hurt is knee early in the week.  I guess the injury is serious and his draft status is now in question.

As I watched the practices, the obvious names were there (Ndamukong Suh – DT Nebraksa, Terrence Cody – DT Alabama, etc.), but I was interested in watching Jared Odrick (DT) as he’s been pegged to be the Pats’ #1 pick in a few mock drafts.  Odrick is from Penn State so we know that he’s well coached.  He is the Big 10 Defensive Player of the Year…not bad.  However, he’s been a little inconsistent over the course of his career at Happy Valley.  Here’s what ESPN’s Todd McShay has to say about him.

One player that really impressed me all week was Brandon Graham (DE - “Big Blue” Michigan).  He had a tremendous game as the North’s Defense dominated the South’s Offense.  Graham’s stock is hot right now.  I would love to see him as an OLB for the Pats.  In fact, I read that Todd McShay call Graham a “Belichick-type player”.  Here’s what McShay said about Graham, "There wasn't a guy here this week that hustled more, had better technique, that picked up schemes as quickly as anyone that was at the defensive line or inside linebacker position. He's a Bill Belichick type of guy,".

Here’s a link to the NFL Network’s highlights of the Senior Bowl with plenty of talk about the play of Brandon Graham.  The NFL Network doesn’t allow for videos to be embedded.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-senior-bowl/09000d5d816168d1/Senior-Bowl-highlights

I’m still reading up on the Senior Bowl and also reviewing a few websites to help get me ready for the Draft.  But first is the Combine (2/24 to 3/2) in Indianapolis. 

Finally…On a personal note, today was a difficult day for me and I’m assuming also for a bunch of people I spend a week with each August.  I don’t think that I can accurately describe it other than it was a first for me and there were times when I didn’t really know what to say.  The best way that I can sum it up is,

“Luv’ ya Billy!”