No FIrst-Round Guarantees
BY RICK TITTLE
Every year I ring my hands and go into a mini-panic over the NFL Draft. As a life-long Raider fan, the draft is truly Christmas in April for me, and I love all the intrigue and drama that goes along with it. That being said, the first round is usually more overblown that it should be. I had to go back six years to find a draft where our first-round pick was the best guy we chose out of all seven rounds.
Last year was an easy one to target. DHB was never going to amount to much, therefore the second wide receiver we selected, Louis Murphy, has been far more effective so far. The year before that I begged Big Al to draft Darren McFadden, and to my delight he did exactly that. But you could make a good case that three players picked after D-Mac have been more useful to the team, and those guys are Branch, Scott and Schilens. In 2007 we had the first overall pick for the only time in our history (something I wish never to repeat!) and we selected the QB I really wanted, JaMarcus Russell. One only has to look to the next round for one to see a far more valuable commodity in Zach Miller. Prior to that year, we took Huff in the first round whilst Howard was better value in the second, and the year before that we chose Washington initially before getting it right with Morrison in the third.
We have to go back all the way to 2004 to see a case where the first-round selection was the best pick of a Raider draft, and that’s pushing things. After making Robert Gallery a rich man, we took Grove (decent), Schweigert (horrible), Francis (fast but never played much), Morant (cup of coffee), Johnson (cut), Spencer (cut) and Anderson (played for Coach Carter in Richmond, did fairly well for a short while). Truly, Gallery was a bust for what we drafted him for, and that was to play left tackle. But he is a regular starter at guard and I have trouble picking any of those other fellows as better players.
So try not to get too euphoric or too down over your first-round draft picks this year. It usually doesn’t mean a dang thing.
Rick Tittle can be reached at
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