Over a month ago I was given an opportunity to write about football for FanSided’s New England Patriots blog Musket Fire but wasn’t sure if I should take it. My life revolves around football and writing. Specifically, the New York Giants. I grew up rooting for the Giants and here I was offered a chance to write about football. Win-win, right? Kind of. The Patriots are one of the most despised teams in all of football, and Giants fans definitely have no love for the Patriots. So, I was kind of torn. Take a wonderful opportunity to write about football but do so for a Patriots blog or just sit on the sidelines waiting for another opportunity like this to come my way?
Well, I took the gig and had a platform to spew out my views on football, specifically the draft and mock drafts. In the words of Omar Little, “It’s all in the game, yo!” Writing about football is writing about football, no matter where I was writing. I kept chugging along producing articles for Musket Fire and then one day I was asked if I wanted to be a contributing writer for GMEN HQ and I couldn’t have said yes quicker.
So before I start my gig here at GMEN HQ I just wanted to thank Jamie over at Musket Fire for giving me a chance to write about football. Now, let’s get onto the newest feature at GMEN HQ that I like to call, ‘This Week In Mock Drafts’ aka the greatest mock draft feature in all of the world wide interwebs, at least according to my mother.
‘This Week In Mock Drafts’ takes a look at mock drafts from various NFL writers to see who they predict the New York football Giants will select with their first round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft and then compare their selections once the draft is over to see what they got right and what they got extremely wrong. Pretty simple stuff but a whole lot of fun.
Even though the 2012 NFL Draft is still quite a ways away that doesn’t mean there aren’t some draft-obsessed writers out there mocking picks for a draft based on a season that hasn’t happened yet or might not happen. As long as there are mock drafts being published online then this crazy kook of a mock-obsessive Giants fan will keep on writing about them.
Enough of the intro, let’s get to the facts. This week’s ‘This Week In Mock Drafts’ takes a look at Chad Reuter’s 2012 NFL mock draft.
Reuter’s the Senior Analyst over at NFLDraftScout.com and this particular mock was featured at CBSSports.com. In the 2012 NFL Draft, as of May 4,2011, Chad has the Giants selecting 19th overall and taking ILB Vontaze Burfict from Arizona State.
Here’s Reuter’s scouting report on Burfict: “Like their 2010 pick, Jason Pierre-Paul, Burfict is explosive but raw. His talent is greater than the Giants are likely to pass up at this point in the first round.”
Burfict’s a 6’3, 245 pound linebacker who was the Defensive Freshman of the Year in the Pac-10 and was given the nod as ASU’s starting middle linebacker during his freshman season. During his two year college career so far he’s racked up 159 tackles, 2 sacks and 4 forced fumbles.
The depth chart for the Giants at middle linebacker looks like this: Jonathan Goff, Chase Blackburn and Phillip Dillard. The three of them accounted for a total of 104 total tackles and 1 sack. 1 sack! Not really much of a productive unit so you can’t really blame Reuter for thinking the Giants might go linebacker in round one.
Other middle linebackers that Reuter has being picked ahead of the Giants include Boston College’s Luke Kuechly, who he has going 7th overall to the Buffalo Bills and Manti Te’o out of Notre Dame going to the Jacksonville Jaguars at 16.
With Reuter giving the Giants the 19th overall pick that means he thinks the Giants will be out of the playoffs once again and based on his predictions he has the Cowboys winning the division and the Eagles finishing second and getting one of the wildcard spots. As for the Redskins, they’ve got the number 1 overall record and has them selecting the player most pundits believed would have been the first player drafted this past draft if he had declared, quarterback Andrew Luck from Stanford.
We have no idea what will happen between now and the 2012 NFL Draft and how Burfict or any other college prospect will fare in the 2011 NCAA collegiate football season. That means by the time the 2012 NFL Draft actually takes place the names in these mock drafts will change and keep on changing until draft night.