Top 10 List of NFL Draft Facts

Top 10 List of NFL Draft Facts – There’s a lot more going on during the draft season than just choosing up side for a game of football. Here are a few unknown facts – perhaps – about the draft that may interest you.

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The 2021 NFL draft will be ‘large, live, in-person’ fan event in Cleveland.

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The league announced Monday [March 22] that the draft’s host city of Cleveland will feature a setup similar to years past, with stages spread out over the downtown area, including at the Browns’ FirstEnergy Stadium, the iconic Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center. Fans, media and select players will be attending. Fans in attendance at the event’s “Inner Circle” will be selected by the league’s 32 teams as franchise ambassadors and must be fully vaccinated. And yes, for those fans who missed out on the annual tradition of booing the pick announcements of commissioner Roger Goodell, he’ll be back on-site in 2021.

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There have already been 60+ trades made in the 7 rounds of the 2021 NFL draft.

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There were 11 trades involving 22 teams in the 2020 first round and 12 trades involving 25 teams in 2019 so, with only 5 trades having taken place in the first round of this year’s draft — so far — we can expect more trades are a-comin’ and that’s seems like something we can count on. If you’er lookin’ for sure things, there ya go. The question for Chiefs fans is… will one of those trades involve K.C.?

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Rules are Rules, and that’s still true. If a team fails to send in their pick in their allotted time, the next team in line can jump in front of them. This happened 10 years ago when K.C did in it 2011, leapfrogging Baltimore from pick 27 to 26, but sadly, K.C. ended up taking woeful WR Jonathan Baldwin. Oopsie. We can thank GM Scott Pioli for that one.

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If you don’t remember Jon Baldwin that’s probably a good thing. Andy Reid took care of that mistake two years later when he traded Baldwin to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for WR A. J. Jenkins right before the 2013 season. Jenkins never did anything either, so Pioli totally whiffed on that first round pick. Baldwin was then was waived by the 49ers in August of 2014.

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On a positive note… or negative, I can’t decide which… from 1990 to 2015, there were 99 Wideouts taken in the first round of the draft, but only 15.2% of those ever made it as an All-Pro. Does that put a first round WR pick this year in doubt? Could be. BTW, in that same time span, only 19% of the OTs drafted in round one ever became an All-Pro.

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On the subject of rules…

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Also, here’s a look at the new rules changes approved by the owners yesterday:

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Not sure I like the idea of an out of sight ref calling into the game refs whenever they want. On the other hand, I cant say I haven’t thought about it before myself. In any case, it will slow the game down even more than it has been slowed. Relaxing the numbers changes? It’s hard enough to keep track of the players as it is. However, if a player wants to wear the number one as a LB… who am I to say he can’t.

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If you’re having trouble with the idea that K.C. will come out of this draft in good shape, just think about CB L’Jarius Sneed, and then trust in Veach

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Sneed was the 4th round pick which Veach and His Scouts took in last year’s draft. It’s amazing to think Sneed was selection #138 overall, and then became 7^th overall talent in a re-draft of the top players in the 2020 NFL Draft by Chris Trapasso at CBS.com. In fact, while we — yes, I’m including myself — were all calling, loudly, for Veach to take the so-called best cornerback in the first round of last year’s affair, Veach was quietly drafting top round level players with his first three picks — RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire, LB Willie Gay Jr., and OT Lucas Niang — and theeeeen, he was choosing L’Jarius Sneed: the real first round quality pick (according to the re-draft and his performance).

The point is –> IVWT. Let’s do that.

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The 2021 draft class is probably the deepest draft class we’ve seen in a long time. The again, we also have less information about this draft class than ever before. So, where does that leave us?

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Lance Zierlein at NFL.com has ranked the positions of this year’s draft class. The good news for Chiefs fans is that the top two positions are those positions of need: 1) WRs and 2) OTs. Here’s the rest in order: 3) IOL, 4) Edge Rushers, 5) CBs, 6) LBs, 7) QBs, 8) Safeties, 9) RBs, 10) TEs, and 11) IDL.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars have 5 of the top 65 picks. They should be able to get a lot done with those picks. We’ll see if Urban Meyer knows what he’s doing now that he’s playing with the big boys. The Miami Dolphins have 5 of the top 81 picks this year and they look like they could be the next big thing in the AFC East. It would be great to see the Pats finish third in that division… again. The New York Jets have 5 of the top 84 pick this year and everything I just said about the Dolphins is true here… but… I still think they’ll be a couple years away from contending for an AFC East title. The most picks at the top of the draft in the NFC, belongs to the Wahsington Football Team who has 4 out of the top 82.

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Four QBs in the first four picks has never happened before, but it probably will happen this year.

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I can still recall the 1983 draft when John Elway was taken first overall, then Todd Blackledge was picked by K.C. at #7, then it was Jim Kelly to Buffalo at #14, Tony Eason to the Patriots at #15, Ken O’Brien to the Jets at #24, and last, but certainly not least, was Dan Marino to the Dolphins at #27. That’s the best first round draft class for QBs that I can recall. I’d be surprised if any of the QBs in this draft make it to the Hall of Fame like Elway, Kelly and Marino did. Still gets my goat that K.C. passed up Kelly and Marino… much less O’Brien.

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Three of the Chiefs biggest draft day steals include: LB Bobby Bell (59^th overall in 1963), RG Will Shields (#73 overall in 1993), and WR Otis Taylor (29^th overall in 1965). Also we might also add CB L’Jarius Sneed to this list, if he keeps this up.

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Other Favorite Chiefs draft steals include: Donnie Edwards, #98 in 1996, Dave Szott, #180 in 1990, Kevin Ross, #173 in 1984, Jack Rudnay, #101 in 1969, Willie Lanier, #50, in 1967, and let’s not forget RB Mike Garrett, #178 in 1966, best known as the RB who ran it in when Hank Stram called, “65 Toss Power Trap” in Super Bowl IV. Note: it was Garrett who was the first in a long line of great USC running backs.

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No one’s draft board is righteous. IOW, no person or team’s draft board is right or wrong… unless you count teams who have never made it to the Super Bowl… like maybe the Browns or the Lions. So, we should all take a chill pill because no one knows who is going where or when……….. that is, except for Trevor Lawrence at #1.

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Kansas City will host the NFL Draft two years from now in 2023. Then, we’ll show the world how to light up a city.

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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