I'm not surprised that the pick was a 7th, conditional 6th. Reading the earlier posts on this thread, my thought was "a 5th?!?... wishful thinking!" He's an UDFA pickup, who's been groomed into a servicable player... but prone to giving up the speed sack.
Gorin got solidly beaten out by two rookies in consecutive years, one a 3rd rounder the other a 5th rounder. We've known for a while that Gorin was the weakest of the Light/Ashworth/Gorin triumverate... and by a lot, too. We're only likely to get a 6th for Ashworth, too. It would be ridiculous to think we'd get more than that for Gorin.
I think a 6th is fair value. A 7th is a bit weak, but better than nothing given that Gorin looked like he was trending to the waiver wire. This is trade value roughly on par with Grant Williams, who started in a SB too as an emergency backup, and went to the Rams in 2002. We didn't really miss him, either.
The last week or so, my biggest concern was that BB was showcasing O'Callaghan during TC and on game day to get Dallas to bite. Turns out, now it seems more likely that O'Callaghan was the position and made Brandon superfluous... which is a far better outcome than trading the rookie.
One reason I'm glad O'Callaghan is doing so well is because we could have used that pick on Tim Dobbins, a 250# ILB from Iowa, who is impressing coaches in San Diego and sure would look good in Patriots Blues right about now. If O'Callaghan had been a complete bust, I would have been pissed.
As it is, O'Callaghan's rapid success at RT proves that BB/SP ability to judge talent and value is still solidly in place, despite their apparent inability to fill the glaring need for LB via the draft over the past few years.
