As I sit here in my room at the end of Spring Weekend, listening to Tommy Four-Tone playing barely chromatic covers and mish-mashed medleys out on Wriston Quad, only one thought keeps running through my head - wasn't that NFL Draft remarkably weird?
Now, I'm no Mel Kiper Jr. For one thing, I have things to do year- round, and my hair moves occasionally. But let's just take a look, shall we?
The most obvious issue is Eli Manning refusing to play in San Diego, which is why I'm barely going to mention it. I am going to mention that the man who was traded to the Chargers by the Giants, North Carolina State's Phillip Rivers, had the highest QB rating in the NCAA last year, as opposed to Eli, who was ranked 20th. Rivers also passed for about 700 more yards, five more touchdowns and three fewer interceptions than Eli. He committed the unpardonable sin, however, of not being born a Manning, so I guess he got what he deserved.
As a die-hard 'Boys fan, it breaks my heart to say this, but the bonehead maneuver of the draft has to be the Dallas Cowboys' trade of the 22nd pick. The Cowboys weren't truly good last year, but they did manage a 10-6 record with Troy "drops like a" Hambrick at running back, with his sterling 3.5 yards per carry and buffet bill to rival a linebacker's.
You'd think the Cowboys' needs would be obvious, and since Stephen Jackson, the top-rated running back on a lot of boards, had miraculously dropped down that far, the pick seemed obvious too. All the talking heads were in agreement - even Mel Kiper's hairdo, which got its own mike somewhere around pick 12. They even talked about how Stephen Jackson's favorite team is the Cowboys, how his father's team is the Cowboys, all that sappy feel good stuff. Then the 'Boys traded the pick away to the Buffalo Bills.
I mean, I get it. The Cowboys got some extra picks this year and the Bills' first-rounder next year, which is likely to be high, since banking on the Bills to lose is like investing in ice cream on the futures market. While the Bills only got a player who would still have been around in the second round, this was such a clear-cut case. The Cowboys had an obvious solution to an obvious need, and they just threw it away. So we'll be in luck the year after next. That's great for gardening, maybe, or international policy, but sports are always in the present tense.
There's also the fact that the Minnesota Vikings reportedly had a man stationed at the Greenwich Meridian, monitoring exactly how much time they had left, after they let the clock run out on them two years in a row. And then there are the Raiders, whose top three wide receivers, one of whom is 25 years old, combine for 103 years of age. Yet they passed on University of Pittsburgh wideout Larry Fitzgerald and drafted an offensive tackle to stand in front of their 38-year-old quarterback. Weird, huh? Yeah, weird.
Andrew Tobolowsky '07 could do way better than Dave Binder in closing out Spring Weekend, but only if he had Mel Kiper, Jr.'s hair.
