Al Davis, the NFL’s draft-day dummy
How many people win the Heisman Trophy each year? One, just one,
Baby. One elite athlete every year wins the prestigious award for
being the best college football player in the nation, right Mr. Al
Davis?
Al Davis, the NFL’s draft-day dummy
How many people win the Heisman Trophy each year? One, just one, Baby. One elite athlete every year wins the prestigious award for being the best college football player in the nation, right Mr. Al Davis?
And if that person is still available when it’s your team’s turn to draft a player, wouldn’t it be a logical choice – especially if you needed to fill a void at the position that player plays.
So why did we hear the following in this year’s NFL draft …
“With the seventh pick overall in the 2006 NFL Draft, the Oakland Raiders select Texas safety Michael Huff,” said NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue as anyone with half a brain gasped. Why would a team from California pass up on a California kid with a Heisman Trophy win under his belt.
Michael Huff is a good safety on the National Championship Texas team, but did he win a Heisman? No, but a 6-foot-5 quarterback from USC named Matt Leinart did in his junior year in 2004, and the Raiders could have used a quarterback of the future.
Still Al and company opted to draft a defensive secondary player for the umpteenth year in a row.
Obviously, Mr. Senile has enough faith in 30-year-old quarterback Aaron Brooks to pass up on the no-brainer pick. And like they say, defense wins championships, right?
Wrong.
I agree with ESPN analyst Michael Irvin on this one. It’s the offense that wins championships. At the end of the game, it’s the points that are tallied up not the tackle totals.
Irvin said that during his heyday in Dallas that the Cowboys were Super Bowl champions because they had the offensive weapons to keep the chains moving and keep the defense off the field long enough so that when they did have to go there, they were well rested, fired up and fresh to make a play.
And that is they key.
Look at what happened to the 49ers defense last year without an offense backing them up. On paper, the 49ers had a playoff-caliber defense in 2005, yet the Niners’ offense was so inept that the whole team broke down and looked bad. Alex Smith’s failure to help keep the chains moving wound up causing his defense to burn out in most games by start of the second half.
The result was a No. 6 pick in the draft for the Niners and another year being absent from the playoffs.
Leinart could have worked a few seasons under Brooks before taking over the reigns.
Now Leinart, who wound up going to Arizona as the No. 10 pick in the draft, will learn under Kurt Warner instead of Brooks. Eventually, the failure to pull the trigger on the gunslinger from Southern Cal will come to haunt Davis and his kingdom of fans in the Black Hole.
A) You don’t pass up on a Heisman Trophy winner, and B) Not on one who has been compared to NFL MVP Tom Brady for his prowess in the pocket, smarts and coolness in big game situations.
With $50 million already invested into Alex Smith, it was understandable that the Niners passed up on the USC quarterback. Plain and simple, they had too.
But had Leinart entered the draft last year after winning the Heisman, no doubt the team of Joe Montana and Steve Young would have chosen Leinart over Smith.
About the only dumber move than the Raiders passing up on Leinart was Green Bay passing up on him with the fifth pick overall in the draft. It would have been real simple. Brett Favre goes one more season while Leinart learns under the future Hall of Famer before ushering in the talented QB as the Packers starter the following year.
But since our readership caters to 49er and Raider fans, I won’t focus on the moldy cheesehead move this week. Instead I’ll talk about the phone call I got from a diehard Raider fan the second the Packers balked at Leinart.
Knowing that the Niners couldn’t take the promising QB with the sixth pick, even though I would have liked to have seen it, I congratulated him on his team getting Leinart within the next half hour.
He was thrilled, yelling and hooting and hollering that his team was going to get Leinart.
Instead, minutes later, he wound up having to look at all of the bright sides of the Huff pick.
Way to go, Al Davis! Maybe next year you can use your seventh overall pick more soundly.
