Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The NFL Draft and Questionable Decisions

The National Football League's annual draft began Thursday night and ended Saturday, and it ended up being one of the deepest drafts in recent memory.  The draft was such a deep draft that a guy by the name of Kellen Moore, a standout quarterback for Boise State who helped keep the Broncos on the map, ended up not getting drafted before he was picked up as an undrafted free agent by the Detroit Lions.  He almost certainly won't beat out Matthew Stafford but if he puts in the time he might have a shot to make the roster.

As with most NFL drafts, this draft came with some questionable decision making, from a lot of teams.  Let's start with the Washington Redskins, who made the choice everyone expected them to make by taking Baylor's Robert Griffin III with the second pick in the draft.

It was an obvious move and a move that one would have expected the Washington Redskins to make as they have been looking for a franchise quarterback for many years.  They also went very heavy on the offensive line, as one expected they might.  In the draft, the Redskins selected three offensive linemen - two offensive guards and one offensive tackle.

But the curious decision, to me, is why did they take ANOTHER competent quarterback in the third round.  Kirk Cousins is not a guy who is going to ride the bench very easily - he is going to give RG-III some competition.  If they are giving up all those draft picks for RG-III, then why are they taking a guy like Cousins in the third round?

Another question: Why do teams even bother trading picks with the New England Patriots?  That is almost money to guys like Bill Belichick.  Take the 25th pick in the draft...New England got it in a trade with Denver.  This pick became Dont'a Hightower, the spectacular linebacker from Alabama.  And it's not like Denver had a great draft either, although they got a couple of good picks.

Now to the matter of Ryan Tannehill and wondering why in the world would the Miami Dolphins select this guy to be their franchise quarterback, let alone take him with a top 10 pick.  Did they not see this guy cough up game after game after game in his senior year in college?  The guy missed key throws and had big turnovers in the second halves of several games this last season which caused a lot of losses for a talented Texas A&M squad.

I even have questions about the hometown Houston Texans, who took Ohio State wide receiver DeVier Posey with a third round draft pick.  He's got talent as he had a big year two years ago but he didn't run many pro style routes in college.  Also, wide receivers take a very long time to develop.  As a Texans homer, I would have liked to see Joe Adams or Jarius Wright from Arkansas in Texans colors.  I thought Carolina did a good job picking up Adams, and Minnesota got the other two big playmaker receivers from Arkansas.

And the questions I have are not just limited to the NFL draft.  Most notably, in the Dallas/Oklahoma City playoff series, there were questionable decisions in game 2 of that series which helped dictate how that game went.  Oklahoma City won 102-99 going up 2-0 in that series.  A lot of me wishes these referees would just stay out of these games as these games are good enough to where referees do not need to be that involved.

That is all for my thoughts, questionable decisions and all.  Until next time...

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