Gunzlingr
04-30-2003, 08:51 AM
Do you want to know how I rate the teams on their 2003 drafts? See me in five years. Then we'll know who did what. Too long to wait? Everyone else is rating them now? OK, I'll give you my early impressions. The Redskins and Falcons, each of whom used their first-round choice for a veteran, will receive two grades, with and without their vet.
THE ELITE
A) Cincinnati -- Another top grade for the Bengals, but they always draft well. It's when those guys put on the uniform that the bad things happen. This is a big-name draft with very few unknowns. We'll find out about Carson Palmer, of course. In the second round they landed the player many people felt was the second best offensive lineman in the draft, Eric Steinbach. But for all his athleticism and technical brilliance, he plays an unpopular position, guard, which kept him off the board for a round. Kelley Washington (third round) is a big-league receiver with a neck injury. The pick is a bit of a gamble. More of the same lower down, as Dennis Weathersby (fourth round), a talented cornerback, dropped a couple of rounds because of a recent gunshot wound and fell to Cincy. I like Cincinnati's fifth-round pick, too -- Khalid Abdullah, a sleeper linebacker who had a great combine workout, and from a college so obscure that I figured the name must be a typo and changed it. The school is Mars Hill. When I first read it in one of those draft books, I thought they had substituted an "i" for an "a" and I changed it to Marshall.
MORE (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/dr_z/news/2003/04/29/drz_insider/)
THE ELITE
A) Cincinnati -- Another top grade for the Bengals, but they always draft well. It's when those guys put on the uniform that the bad things happen. This is a big-name draft with very few unknowns. We'll find out about Carson Palmer, of course. In the second round they landed the player many people felt was the second best offensive lineman in the draft, Eric Steinbach. But for all his athleticism and technical brilliance, he plays an unpopular position, guard, which kept him off the board for a round. Kelley Washington (third round) is a big-league receiver with a neck injury. The pick is a bit of a gamble. More of the same lower down, as Dennis Weathersby (fourth round), a talented cornerback, dropped a couple of rounds because of a recent gunshot wound and fell to Cincy. I like Cincinnati's fifth-round pick, too -- Khalid Abdullah, a sleeper linebacker who had a great combine workout, and from a college so obscure that I figured the name must be a typo and changed it. The school is Mars Hill. When I first read it in one of those draft books, I thought they had substituted an "i" for an "a" and I changed it to Marshall.
MORE (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/dr_z/news/2003/04/29/drz_insider/)