2010 NFL Combine Losers and Winners

Every year there seems to be winners and losers of the NFL combine but this year the draft class is considered one of the best in a long time. John Clayton said, that the draft classes are graded based on how many juniors/underclassmen are going to go in the first round. This year he figures there could be 21 to 22!

That means, the combine this year has a lot more at stake if there is that much skill in the first round. Players like Taylor Mays who if he would have come out of college last year would have been in the top 10 but this year is hoping to go in the top 20 but no one would be shocked if he fell to the end of the first round.

Here are my top 5 winners from the combine:

Montario Hardesty (Adam Brimer)

1. Montario Hardesty- Who? Exactly. This guy was the starting running back out of Tennessee. He was good in college but he wasn’t a guy people were harking on. He ran the 40 in 4.49, had 21 reps of 225lbs, a vertical of 41″ (the top running back), a broad jump of 10′ 4″ (the top running back), and he didn’t stop there. In fact he was at least in the top 6 in every category of competition for running backs at the competition.

Before the combine he was looking to go at the highest in the late second round but most likely the third round. Now he is fighting for a spot in the late first round.

2. Bruce Campbell - He was fighting before to be in consideration as one of the top offensive tackles on the board. However, he only had 17 career starts to his name. There was really nothing to go on for this guy. However, at the combine he punched a card to be in the top three for consideration if not the top one or two. He ran a 4.85, had 34 reps of 225lbs, a 32″ vertical, and was one of the most athletic offensive lineman in the 3 cone drill and the 20 yard shuttle.

He was going to go in the middle to late first round. He may have moved himself into the top 10 picks. The offensive tackle is one of the muddiest postions in the draft with campbell fighting in that 5 tackle race. (Okung, Cambpell, T. Williams, A. Davis, and Bulaga)

Jarrett Brown

3. Jarrett Brown- was by far the best looking quarterback that competed in the positional drills. He looked accurate and well poised. He had the fastest 40 time of any of the quarterbacks and did significantly well in all of the other drills.

Was out of the top 100 athletes coming into the combine and was rated the 8th best quarterback. He probably wouldn’t have made an appearance until the 4th round at the earliest. Now he is pushed himself into the second round.

4. Taylor Mays- He was blazing fast. There is a huge controversy going on about the combine times now because of Taylor Mays. His unofficial time was 4.24 equal to the fastest man (Chris Johnson) ever at the combine. He then went and ran a 4.34 unofficial time. They published his official time as 4.43. Either way he was the fastest safety or defensive back off the board. He also was one of the top safeties in almost every category and drill.

Many were saying he was going in the second round before the combine. Now, he has taken back over the second safety off the board behind Eric Berry. He should go in the top 20.

5. Tim Tebow- easily won the combine. The man showed he is a freak of an athlete and did exceedingly better than many anticipated. He was fast (4.72), he was the best quarterback in the vertical (38.5), in the 3-cone drill, 20 and 60 yard shuttle. He by far proved he has a place in the NFL now the question is where? He still wants the quarterback position and we will see on his pro day if that is what teams will take him at.

He is a hard one to predict before or after the combine. Many are saying he should go in the 4th or 5th round while they know some team will probably grab him in the second. He could go anywhere from the end of the first to the top of the 5th. We will have a better accurate guess after his pro day.

Here are my 5 losers from the combine:

Joe Haden (Bob Rosato/SI.com)

1. Joe Haden- ran a really slow time to be considered the top cornerback in the draft. He ran a 4.57 unofficially and looked sluggish. 4.57 isn’t fast enough to be considered an elite corner by any means in the NFL. This could really hurt his draft stock. He said he plans to re-run the 40 on his pro day, and that he has never run that slow in his life.

He was projected as the top cornerback coming off the board most likely to the cleveland browns but if he doesn’t improve his 40 time he could drop to the second round.

2. Bryan Bulaga- He really had a shot to be the best tackle coming out of the combine. However, he didn’t do anything. He was ineffective and benched about has much as a running back benched. He looked terrible at the combine.

I don’t think he will drop out of the first round but he may drop out of the top 5 tackles and could go late in the round. Instead of in the top 15.

3. Dan Lefevour- made a terrible decision to not throw to receivers at the combine. I don’t know if he just puts himself up with the elite quarterbacks like Clausen and Bradford or not but he only wanted to throw to non-moving targets. And even when he was throwing to stationary targets he didn’t look impressive.

He really hurt his draft stock. He may even fall into the really late rounds (5 or 6). Though there are a lot of teams that need quarterbacks but when you decide not to show off and other quarterbacks are, you are in trouble. He plans to throw at a pro day and he may change some minds then but for now he is looked at as a late round quarterback.

4. Earl Thomas- was the second best safety in the draft coming into the combine. He didn’t improve his draft stock nor did he really elevate it. However, he let Taylor Mays show him up. Thomas is already looked at as undersized and a little slow, so he has a lot to prove but he didn’t.

He just became the 3rd safety off the board which will probably happen in the second or third round.

5. Jason Pierre-Paul- could have easily become the best DE in the draft with a good athletic performance at the combine. He didn’t do much at the combine to really wow anyone.

He didn’t hurt his draft stock but he didn’t improve it. It looks like he will still go in the middle of the first round.

UW Basketball Loses Another

I know it was to UCLA but the bruins are bad this year, and are in their years of rebuilding.

UW is struggling way more than anyone had anticipated, this was the team that was supposed to run away with the PAC-10 this year, but once again this PAC-10 is proving to be a well rounded conference.

So whats up with the UW basketball team?

To answer it in the short version- 2 players. That’s it, we only have 2 players that are doing anything of significant value to the team and one of those players just recently snapped out of what would look like to be a mediocre year for Isaiah Thomas.

Quincy Pondexter and Isaiah Thomas can’t do everything but they basically are doing everything. When the shortest guy on your team is the 3rd best re-bounder you got issues. When your best re-bounder is only averaging 7.8 rebounds on the season you got other problems too.

This year was supposed to be the glory year for UW and that was because we thought these young guys, that were highly recruited, were supposed to step it up and play like PAC-10 champs but we haven’t seen that yet.

I hope Lorenzo Romar can find a way to turn this around and get his young guys playing like we will actually be able to compete next season without Pondexter, that would be nice.

Early Admission

Watching SportsCenter these past few days has brought up a thought that I’ve actually had for some time now, but finally see some merit to back it up. It being the offseason for baseball, lots of the coverage on ESPN right now is about basketball. One instance in particular was when the Oklahoma City Thunder played the Denver Nuggets. It was Carmelo Anthony vs Kevin Durant. The Nuggets ended up winning, but Durant outscored Melo.

That got me on a rabbit trail of thought. I looked over Durant’s stats this season so far and through 24 games he is averaging 27.8 points per game, has 6 double-doubles, has scored less than 20 points only 4 times, and scored over 30 ten times! He is ripping up the league right now. Hm… how old is he? Oh yeah, he’s 21. If Durant would have stayed in college, he would be a senior this year. In his first two years in the NBA Durant averaged 20.3 and 25.3 points.

Imagine if Durant would have stayed at Texas and, not only got a higher level education, but also mature his game and playing ability there. He would be entering the NBA next year at the prime of his ability. Instead, he left after his freshman year and spent the beginning of his career learning on the fly if you will.

This may be just me, but I do not like when athletes leave college early. They are wasting their education that could help them if their pro career would to be cut short. They are wasting the money spent to have them go to college in the first place. Some argue that the money doesn’t matter because of scholarships, but I say they are wasting the school’s time then. The school gave them the scholarship for them to play 4 years at their school, not to be one and done. The school can use their scholarships on players they know will stick around.

So that’s Kevin Durant, now lets look at the other freshman that was apart of the 2007 draft… Greg Oden. Oden missed his whole first season due to injury, bad start. Then only played 61 games in 2008, and averaged 8.9 points and 7 rebounds, getting better. Now this year… After 21 games Oden is done for the season, again…

So combined Oden has played one accumulative season, in 3 years. Would Oden have been a better/stronger/healthy player had he stayed at Ohio State? Who knows, but I think he should have. He is starting to prove time and time again that he is soft. Oh well, I like Joel Przybilla better anyway.

2 players and 2 choices, one a good decision that could have great and one that was bad and could have been decent. Basketball should drop the 1 year of post high school play and either make players stay in college, or let them skip college altogether.