Any early indication on talent depth this year. Deep 1st round talent like '10...or thin like '07?
I look at drafts in terms of shades of blue chips, red chips and white chips. I see this draft as heavy on blue chips and very light on red chips and average on white chips.
In this draft a see 1 Voilet Chip in Luck. Best college QB I have seen since Manning. In a class all by himself. Once in a generation QB.
Next I see 5 blue chip prospects. OT Kalhil USC; OT Reiff Iowa; CB Clairborne LSU; WR Blackmon Ok State and QB Griffin of Baylor.
Then come the red chips. In a normal draft I expect to see 30 to 40 red chips players, but in this draft I only see about 16 to 18 red chips. Which means that if you draft after #25, you get the same type player as if you draft #35.
So what does this mean for the Pats. It means that unless teams between #7 and #26 take gambles on non red chip players, we have no real incentive to stay in the first round.
Fortunately I have identified several players that teams will probably over draft, thus allowing a red chip player to fall to us. Players like WR Jeffries of SC; QB Tannyhill of Texas A&M; QB Weedon of Ok State; NT Poe of Memphis and DE/OLB Mercilious of Illinios.
In an ideal draft:
Red Chip DE Brockers falls to #16 and we trade #31 and #48 to move up and take him.
Houston takes Poe and Dallas takes Tannyhill.
This allows Red Chip prospect DE Cox to fall to us at #27.
At #63 we take White chip OLB Curry
We trade #94 to whomever for a 2nd rounder next year
And we end the draft with FS Iloka from Boise St.
