Hooray for the Draft !

After watching about five hours of mostly boring baseball between the Yanks and Boston, then the Mets and Nationals, my mind began to wander. Surely, there must be something more exciting going on in the sports world. With the NBA playoffs still on the horizon, and little enough interest in that anyway, being that the Knicks and Nets have played themselves out of them, I suddenly remembered that the NFL Draft is April 26th, and, lo and behold, April 26th is next Saturday!

I find myself totally unprepared. But I look forward with relish to my annual exercise of figuring out who my New York teams will select. What do they need, will they draft for need at all or will they select the best player available? Will they trade up, trade down, make a last-minute trade? Will some of our favorite players find themselves in a different uniform this July? What players were lost or acquired in the off-season through free agency?

Surely, the Giants will just draft for need, the spanking of those "best team of all time" New England Patriots fresh in their minds. It's a good thing too, because the reward for their pluckiness is the 31st pick, not a position that would ordinarily yield a perennial All-Pro type of player. The Jets get the 6th pick, of course, for their alarming return to mediocrity or worse last season.

The Jets were truly deserving of their fate in 2007, it must be said. Mike Tanenbaum, the GM, destroyed the team's offensive line by playing hard ball with one of their best men in the trenches while Eric Mangini tried to disguise that stupidity by changing quarterbacks, implying that their offensive futility was due to less than inspiring play by Chad Pennington.

Of course, this was total nonsense, and I don't think Jets fans were fooled. Nor was Woody Johnson, I suspect, because the Jets came right out of the box and picked up the best offensive lineman available in free agency. In Alan Faneca, they now have one of the toughest, and reportedly meanest, guards in the NFL. That move alone buys that management team untold indulgences with me. In one fell swoop, they undid their foolishness and more. Everyone in a green jersey, on the field and in the stands, appreciated that one.

Then, as if to convince Jets fans everywhere that Christmas was still here, they picked up a giant of a defensive tackle in the person of Kris Jenkins, a poor man's Ted Washington, a run stopper extraordinaire, thus plugging up the huge hole in their defensive front. But they weren't done yet. They spent even more money on Calvin Pace, a 6'4" 270 pound linebacker, who should help stop the passing game as well.

With those moves, the Jets certainly went a long way in fixing their infrastructure, their core, if you will. One other glaring weakness last year, however, was at wide receiver. The Jets made their one good wideout, Laveranues Coles, happy by guaranteeing the last years on his contract. That still leaves Jeremy Cotchery as their only other decent wideout though, and I’ll be hugely disappointed if the Jets don’t get a couple of wide receiver prospects in this draft.

As the wide receiver prospects in this draft are generally not considered strong enough to warrant a number 6 pick, the Jets will probably try to make a move downward. They’ll pick up some extra draft picks that way, and maybe land a few good prospects. They’ll also relieve themselves of another big salary obligation.

The Giants did lose a great safety in Gibril Wilson to free agency, and, despite their successes last year in the playoffs and the Super Bowl, they do not possess great speed at the linebacker position. Indeed, that they were able to beat Dallas and New England with the existing linebacker group makes the play of that defensive line all the more remarkable.

The play of rookie TE Kevin Boss last year may make Jeremy Shockey expendable, thus either enabling a trade for a move up in the pecking order, or for the acquisition of additional picks. Dealing from a position of strength can be a wonderful thing.

Whatever position the Giants are able to negotiate, it would be hard to believe that they could draft better than they did last year. The Giants rookies were absolutely instrumental in the incredible Giants playoff run last year.

WR Steve Smith made crucial catches in just about every game, showing an ability to get open and elusiveness after the catch. TE Kevin Boss showed a great mix of speed and hands for a very big man. Number 1 pick Aaron Ross was everything that could have been expected at the corner, both in coverage and tackling ability. Ahmad Bradshaw added another dimension to the running game, Michael Johnson ably filled in at the safety spot and who can forget DL Jay Alford’s crushing hit on Tom Brady in the Super Bowl!

As the Giants got Bradshaw at the 250^th overall pick, it’s hard to believe that position really matters that much for what must be a great group of scouts. Six of their seven 2007 picks not only made the team but helped drive them to victory in the biggest game of them all.

With the injuries suffered by Plaxico Burress all year and with the age of Amani Toomer, the G-Men will also probably grab a wideout or two. But I would expect the higher picks to be spent on linebacker and safety spots.

One thing does worry me, though, and that would be the possibility of making the big mistake. The Jets especially seem to have a talent for it. I can still recall their trading two Number 1’s for Johnny Lam Jones, a receiver who couldn’t catch.

That mistake could be in the form of Chad Johnson, the very mouthy but talented wide receiver from the Bengals. Please, Jets geniuses, don’t make things any worse.