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NFL Draft

Drake Wimberly, Staff Writer
May 23, 2012
Filed under Sports

The 2012 NFL Draft is over, mini-camps are underway and players are already being signed to contracts with their new teams. There is incredible value in each and every draft class and this year was no different. The great teams always find players in the middle-to-late rounds of the draft who turn into important pieces. It is remarkable when looking at a team’s roster to see how many players it has developed from middle-to late-round picks into starters or very adequate backups. Here, we will unearth the gem in each team’s draft class. In some cases, it is simply that a team picked a great player at a position of need, and in other cases, the organization picked the best player available. In a perfect world, it is a combination of both. Let us look at the players that each franchise and their fanbase will be smiling about over the next few years.

In the first round this year we had a lot of winners. The Colts and Redskins got their franchise quarterbacks in Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. The Browns finally got an every down back with Trent Richardson coming out of Alabama, and Jacksonville grabbed a target for QB Blaine Gabbert by taking Justin Blackmon at number five. There was also some questionable picks in the first round. Kansas City taking Dontrai Poe over Fletcher Cox. I do not know what Kansas City saw in Poe, but when they picked him instead of Cox the Eagles seized the opportunity and grabbed him the very next pick. The Browns have seemingly given up on starting QB Colt McCoy because they drafted Brandon Weeden late in the first round. And the Cowboys gave up a lot to grab shutdown corner Morris Claiborne, they traded away multiple picks to get this one guy who is arguably the second best defensive back in the draft, behind Mark Barron. All in all the draft was a success for most teams this year and a failure for others. We will only know for sure in September.