Forecast: This Draft Sucks!

By Ralph Malbrough

I’m not really excited for the Draft. Yeah, I said it.

I began this column six years ago specifically for the Draft. In fact, the year the Saints picked Johnathan Sullivan, I did eight different Mock Drafts. Eight! Me not loving the draft would be like Dean Martin not loving booze or Adam ‘Pac Man’ Jones not ‘making it rain.’

How did this happen?

It’s not like I’ve joined the dark side and think the Draft itself is somehow lame. I still love all the glory that is the NFL Draft. From Mel Kiper’s hair, Mike Detillier at Saints’ Draft Fest, the attire of NFL players at the ridiculous round table on ESPN, and words like “upside,” “difference maker” and “point-of-attack,” I still love the Draft. I just hate This Draft. It’s incredibly boring.

The Dolphins made a guy, Jake Long, who looks like a slightly above average right tackle the first pick. Yawn.

Sure, defensive tackles and offensive linemen are important and all but throw in the fact the Saints pick tenth in a draft with seven really good players and let’s just say I’m glad each team will only have ten minutes to make their picks. At least when the Saints are on the clock and all the elite defensive players are gone, the wait to see what unworthy player they’ll select will be short.

You know when I realized this draft was awful? When I heard Sports Illustrated’s Peter King wax on and on about Boston College’s Matt Ryan and how great he’s going to be – that’s when it hit me. The experts are hyping up average players because no one wants to say, “Boy this year’s class is really mediocre.”

Matt Ryan threw 19 interceptions in a bad ACC and yet all the draft analysts are in nearly perfect agreement that he should be a top ten pick. Just because an average looking girl is in a room filled with ugly ones doesn’t mean she’s Cindy Crawford. That pretty much sums up the 2008 Draft.

So Matt Ryan is the best of bad quarterback group and he gets $25 million? In three years when he’s a backup and assumed the mantle of Joey Harrington 2.0, don’t say you weren’t warned. So go ahead and talk yourself into Keith Rivers, Mike Jenkins or Aqib Talib, but if ever there was a year to overpay to move up this is that year.

The Saints should be willing to part with any pick from this year’s draft to move up and grab either Glenn Dorsey or Sedrick Ellis.

And don’t tell me trading away multiple draft picks ruins a franchise for years. If that’s true, then how come the Saints won a playoff game the year after Mike Ditka traded away the entire 1999 Draft for Ricky Williams? In a draft this pathetic, I don’t want a pocket full of maybes; just give me one possible star.

The Saints should be trying to win now. For the first time in the team’s history the Saints have a quarterback capable of winning a Super Bowl. So win now already. Besides, trading up is way more exciting than drafting Xavier Adibi in the third round.

Mickey Loomis, go and get Glenn Dorsey and make the dullest draft in years fun…at least for us Saints fans.

Ralph Malbrough is a Saints fan living in Houston. He can be reached at ralphmalbrough@hotmail.com