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Making sense of the draft
It ended with a seventh-round choice, Alex Hall, from a small school in Raleigh, N.C., who might turn into something.
The draft also ended with no cornerback or backup running back added to the roster.
General Manager Phil Savage seemed pleased, however, with the Browns’ five picks Sunday: linebacker Beau Bell, tight end Martin Rucker, receiver Paul Hubbard, nose tackle Ahtyba Rubin and defensive end Hall, a long-range project who will be converted to an outside linebacker.
Factoring in earlier trades, you can say the draft looks like this:
Brady Quinn, QB, Notre Dame
Corey Williams, DL, Green Bay Packers
Shaun Rogers, DT, Detroit Lions
Beau Bell, LB, Nevada-Las Vega
Martin Rucker, TE, Missouri
Ahtyba Rubin, NT, Iowa State
Paul Hubbard, WR, Wisconsin
Alex Hall, DE, St. Augustine’s
Where’s the cornerback, you ask? Well, the Browns’ looked at their needs this way: Inside linebacker, outside linebacker, tight end, cornerback, in no particular order apparently. They addressed three of the four.
“I think there’s always some soft spots on your roster,” Savage said, “but I think we’re comfortable with the players we have. We’ve made a lot of strides. Offensive line, defensive line and quarterback seem to be fairly solid, and those are three good places to start.”
As for sacrificing next year’s third- and fifth-round picks for better traction in this year’s draft, the wisdom of that can be debated, but Savage defended it by saying they had put so much effort into scouting second-day picks that he didn’t want that work to go to waste, especially if they could acquire players such as Bell and Rucker. Both were among the top 50 or so on their board and, by that logic, bargains where they were taken.
Plus, “Beau and Martin were in a group above the next level of corners in our mind,” Savage said.
The sleeper, I think, is Hubbard. The Wisconsin receiver missed half of his senior season with a knee injury and caught just 14 passes, but he’s big and fast and some teams might have forgotten about him or downgraded him just because there wasn’t a lot of tape of him doing much last season.
Hubbard can’t be any worse than Travis Wilson, a 2006 third-rounder who is shaping up as a colossal bust. Or Tim Carter, who did next to nothing last season after being acquired from the Giants.
Beyond Bell and Rucker, I think Hubbard has the best chance to contribute right away and certainly he’ll be in the mix in ‘09, by which time Joe Jurevicius figures to have retired.
Rubin will compete with Louis Leonard, primarily, for the backup nose tackle spot.
On the running back issue, an NFL Network analyst left Savage puzzled when he criticized the Browns for not taking one to back up Jamal Lewis.
“I don’t know why people keep saying that,” Savage said. “We were pretty pleased with (Jason) Wright and (Jerome) Harrison. We have no complaints.”
With no prompting, however, Savage listed cornerback and running back as two of next year’s likely draft needs.
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Comments
By The Big G
April 28, 2008 2:49 PM | Link to this
I give that draft an A+ and I have learned not to second guess Dr. Phil. The man knows what he’s doing. And so do you, McClelland!By professor@bgsu.edu
April 29, 2008 9:52 AM | Link to this
Interesting analysis of the Brown’s decision.By professor@bgsu.edu
April 29, 2008 9:53 AM | Link to this
Interesting analysis of the Brown’s decision.