Round 1: Tye Hill, Clemson - For me, it was a toss-up between Bobby Carpenter and Tye Hill if we traded down, which I was also in favor of. If we stayed pat, I thought we'd take Haloti Ngata. I was happy with this pick, though. He was fast and had less risk than Cromartie. In fact, he was arguably the best corner prospect in the draft.
Round 2, Joe Klopfenstein, Colorado - Definitely liked this one. We had our choice of three or four TEs all rated in the same range, and we took arguably the best all-around choice.
Round 3: Claude Wroten - I considered this one of the biggest steals of the draft. Wroten had first round talent but dropped due to character concerns because he got busted for possession of marijuana a few months before the draft. I thought it got blown out of proportion and was glad to have picked him up.
Round 3: Jon Alston, Stanford- A workout wonder posting 31 reps on the bench and a 4.40 40. He was also considered smart, having interned in some kind of biomedical field and attended Stanford. He was small for a linebacker at about 220 lbs and didn't have the greatest instincts, but had good potential.
Round 3: Dominique Byrd - This one was a head scratcher. We had already taken a tight end AND the guy was an injury risk AND he had been sidelined after he got in a fight with his own teammate over a Madden game AND he didn't have great statistical production. So why did we have to trade up out of the fourth for him? This didn't make much sense until we traded Brandon Manumaleuna the next day. Manu had gotten on the wrong side of the coaching staff, so I thought he might be released later, so this made the move a little more palatable albeit still somewhat iffy. Effectively we traded Manu and a sixth for Byrd.
Round 4: Victor Adeyanju - This was the pick we got for Manumaleuna. We traded our fourth and sixth round picks to move up for Byrd. I viewed this as somewhat of a developmental selection. Adeyanju had good size for the position with decent pass rush ability. Basically he possessed the physical tools to succeed but was considered a raw prospect who would need more coaching than some others to reach his potential. This seemed like a good choice.
Round 5: Marques Hagans - This one was the first choice that I really thought we dropped the ball. Hagans wasn't even expected to be drafted by some experts, so we took him way early by most account. He was supposedly the best kick returner left on our board, but I didn't buy that. This guy was also characterized as a poor man's Antwaan Randle El, but the way I figured it Randle El was a borderline no.2/no.3 receiver, so what's a poor man's version of that? It seemed to me like a toy for an offensive coach to play with since he could be moved around or used for trick plays. However, he didn't have great return stats in college and hadn't returned at all for two years. Also, since he had played QB and other positions as well, his receiving skills were not that great. On a team stocked with receiving talent and set at QB, I questioned whether there would even be a place for him on the roster.
Round 6: Traded in Byrd deal
Round 7: Mark Setterstrom, G - I didn't know much about him, but I figured we couldn't go wrong taking O-linemen with our last picks.
Round 7: Tony Palmer - If I remember correctly, he was considered one of the best run blockers in the draft but needed work on his pass protection.
In Conclusion: I thought we had one of the best drafts in the league. We addressed a lot of areas of need and got good value for our picks. We had five first day picks, and Adeyanju was projected as a possible first day talent as well.
