9:50 A.M. MST: We’ve been at the facility for just under an hour now.
9:52 A.M. MST: To the paramecia at Radio City Music Hall who are booing as Michael Vick and DeAngelo Hall are introduced — there can sometimes be a time and a place to boo players; it’s part of pro sports. But during a tribute to the victims of the massacre on the Virginia Tech campus is neither. Shame on you.
9:57 A.M. MST: Stunning development — ESPN’s Ed Werder is NOT in Dallas! He just doesn’t look the same without a galaxy of blue stars behind him.
9:58 A.M. MST: Sal Paolantonio checks in from Tampa wearing a tie that bears a shade of orange eerily familiar to the one on the Bucs’ uniforms from 1976-1996. Ah, Florida orange … the color of the Sundays from my youth.
9:59 A.M. MST: There’s not a Super Bowl ring out there pricier than the watch that Adrian Peterson is brandishing. As site contributor Kyle Sonneman said, “That’s rented, not bought.”
10:01 A.M. MST: Am I watching the draft or an episode of 24?
10:08 A.M. MST: Are we going to put a team on the clock today?
10:09 A.M. MST: Oh, hosanna! “The 2007 NFL Draft is now open,” declares Goodell. I guess he’s no Mike Shanahan, who showed up for his press conference yesterday precisely at noon.
10:17 A.M. MST: The Raiders have had nearly four months to make their decision … and now they’ve gobbled up seven and a half minutes of their allotment. Cripes, how long does it take?
10:20 A.M. MST: All that for a pick that surprises few who observe the draft … as the Raiders select JaMarcus Russell. Somewhere, a certain All-Pro cornerback who devours young passers as afternoon snacks is smiling.
10:21 A.M. MST: Whoa — Elway comparisons for a rookie who hasn’t taken an NFL snap? Settle down, Chris Berman … Russell needs to throw at least a couple of pro passes first.
10:28 A.M. MST: “Brian Kelly is not happy in Tampa,” says Keyshawn Johnson, a man who knows all about malcontentment on Florida’s west coast.
10:30 A.M. MST: Make that four wide receivers in five first rounds, as the Lions take Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson. The fans at Ford Field erupt. Can you blame them? This is a fellow who shredded the top-ranked defense in college football last year, sprinting through Virginia Tech for a pair of touchdowns en route to an early-season win that ended up swinging the ACC’s Coastal Division race to the Ramblin’ Wreck.
10:42 A.M. MST: We’re averaging about 10 minutes, 20 seconds per pick now that the Browns have selected Wisconsin’s Joe Thomas, a selection met with 15 seconds of silence from ESPN’s otherwise talkative armada of correspondents.
10:45 A.M. MST: How giddy must Charlie Frye be right now? And what do the Bucs do here? Jeff Garcia, whom they signed in March probably has no more than two or three years, max, in him, and they already have young quarterbacks with starting experience in Chris Simms and Bruce Gradkowski.
10:54 A.M. MST: Gaines Adams looks good in orange. Too bad for him the Bucs wear red now.
11:03 A.M. MST: Brady Quinn has a bemused smile on his face. We are averaging 10 minutes, 36 seconds per pick, so if the pace continues, we will see the Broncos go on the clock at 1:22 p.m. MST.
11:07 A.M. MST: Speaking of average times, Rachel Nichols blinks, on average, once every eight seconds.
11:14 A.M. MST: Well, it would seem LaRon Landry is the pick here, although the Redskins seem determined to milk their moment until the final seconds. Tick, tick, tick …
11:16 A.M. MST: Well, at least the Landry brothers will be close to each other; elder brother Dawan starts at safety for Baltimore.
11:25 A.M. MST: Are those purple and yellow M&Ms on the Vikings draft table? Did someone have to manually expunge the brown M&Ms from the jar? Did you ever think you’d hear Steve Spurrier saying, “Click! Clack!” Are they actually running this T.J. Houshmanzadeh fantasy-football commercial for a second consecutive year? Are the mispronunciations of his surname actually still funny on some planet? Perhaps this one?
11:30 A.M. MST: Steve Young: “That pick gets the Minnesota Vikings out of the top 10 next year.” We shall see about that.
11:38 A.M. MST: Of all the draft mouthpieces on air, none is having a better day than ESPN’s Michael Smith, who successfully called the Arizona pick of Levi Brown and Atlanta’s selection of defensive end Jamaal Anderson, meaning that new Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino opted not to reunite with his standout defensive tackle at Louisville, Amobi Okoye.
11:47 A.M. MST: Might the Disney suits be a tad angry at Steve Young referencing a reality program that is not aired on the ABC/Disney family of networks?
11:50 A.M. MST: Mel Kiper’s face looks like Jon Gruden’s. My jaw hasn’t yet returned to its normal position. Our first true draft stunner has arrived, and Brady Quinn has officially become the face of this year’s draft.
11:58 A.M. MST: This is SportsCenter just had its best spot in years with the David Ortiz/Wally the Green Monster commercial.
12 P.M. MST: With Quinn dropping, ESPN just showed the montage of quarterback campouts in the green room. That’s just twisting the knife in the poor lad’s back.
12:01 P.M. MST: How many Facebook and MySpace searches for Quinn’s girlfriend, Lindy Slinger, have been made in the past 35 minutes? The over-under is 18,000.
12:05 P.M. MST: There are seven of us based here in the conference room, and each of us has placed a name by our initials denoting who each of us believes will be the Broncos’ first-round pick. With the Texans’ selection of Amobi Okoye, video maven Chris Hall and publications majordomo J. Michael Moore have dropped out of the running. (And for the record, nothing more valuable than bragging rights are at stake.)
12:14 P.M. MST: Nobody’s touched that ham sandwich on the table where Brady Quinn once sat. If Quinn or any draft picks want to kill some time, do what I did while I was waiting for some of the draft-prospect video to encode over the last few weeks — conduct random You Tube searches. I recommend looking up Mr. Belvedere and the theme to One Day at a Time.
12:20 P.M. MST: San Francisco takes Patrick Willis. For the last time ever, I will say, “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” in reference to the Ole Miss linebacker, but will add, “What you talkin’ bout, everyone!”
12:44 P.M. MST: Finally, the magic word: “Trade!” And with that, the first appearance of Gene Washington, patron saint of the second round, who announces a deal between the Jets and Panthers. Leon Hall or Darrelle Revis, perhaps?
1 P.M. MST: Revis goes to the Jets, and Lawrence Timmons goes to the Steelers. Another member of the communications concern here in Denver drops out of the draft-pick-prediction scrum, leaving myself, Kyle Sonneman and media relations staffer Dave Gaylinn.
1:05 P.M. MST: Keyshawn Johnson just suggested the Packers pick Dwayne Bowe to help “move it (the team) into the next millennium.” The franchise’s not even a century old and Johnson’s talking about them hitting Futurama territory!
1:17 P.M. MST: Regarding ESPN’s 24-style draft promos: I don’t think I’d want to be a fan of a team who puts the name of a player’s college on a Post-It note beside his name on the wall. Sounds like the purported draft preprations of the New York Titans, which supposedly involved Harry Wismer 2007 Draft
A trade in the works for someone else. ???? Could have had him later.
He would of still been there at 21, costly, but a good pick.
Looks like Andrew is shocked as well. No update since the #17 pick.
Wow, why give up two picks for 4 spots – They must see some good stuff on film on Mr. Moss
It’s obvious that they **really** wanted the guy. We gave up more value than we received, and got a guy most mock drafts showed we’d get at #21.
It’s fair to say they got a whiff that Moss wouldn’t be there at #21.
I don’t undrstand that one..another shanny’s first round bust picks…he hasn’t even played a complete season in college…didn’t he have a staph infection from his pelvic injury??? we should have picked Nelson…BUST!!!
Not so much shocked … just busy writing a story over on the main site and now waiting for Jarvis to get on the phone. I’ll be back with more in a bit. Intriguing, however, that the Jaguars selected another former Gator, Reggie Nelson, down at 21.
The four picks after Denver were CBs and Safetys, I think Denver wasted two picks to get Moss. It must of been a big whiff.
I mean why trade our “bread and butter” picks to get someone we could of easily got with our 21st pick…man
And from watching several UF games last year, it appeared Moss showed no ill effects from what he endured with the staph infection. That’s one of those things from which you can completely recover and have a lengthy athletic career (most notably longtime NBA center Mike Gminski a couple of decades back).
Moss was very candid about the character issues that surrounded public discussion of his status. As I type, I’m listening to his live conference call with Denver-area media, at which he is discussing a positive test for marijuana, which he said he had last season. “I learned from it,” he said. “I manned up to it like a man (and) faced up to the consequences.” At the Combine, he called the positive test “God’s way of bringing me back to earth.”
yeah you’re right..didn’t think of that…..but honestly was he worth it??? He might not have ill effects from the infection…but how are we going to use him? most likely a outside linebacker..he has no moves to be a d lineman..only has a weak swim move..I seen him play..he was maybe a second round pick at the most…
Andrew – what’s your take on the trade and pick? Worth it?
I really like the pick, and I was shocked to find out they moved up to #17 to watch something else on another channel, then all of a sudden when I switch back we are on the clock with time running out. Jarvis Moss was in my top 3-5 players I wanted the Broncos to select with the 1st round pick. He will make an easy transition from Florida to Bronco Orange & Blue. I still think we got the short end of the stick for only moving up 4 spots to 17. Can we recoup a mid-round pick or two in another trade, that would make it easier to regain what we lost. Joe Staley would have been another great pick also to protect Cutler. At least the Broncos build better through the draft than do the Redskins, which would have been nice to get LaRon Landry, but at least he and Sean Taylor can punish Terrible Owens when he runs across the middle. C’mon Shanahan, finish the draft well so BRONCO Nation can celebrate a Super Bowl Championship in February 2008, 10 years after our 1st Super Bowl Triumph. We already have D-Will and D-Nash guiding us to University of Phoenix Stadium. R.I.P. #27 & #29.
Well, on the trade itself, the point value seems to match up. According to the chart on Pro Football Weekly’s Web site, the 17th pick was worth 1,000 points, while the 21st, 86th and 198th selections combined to be worth 959 points — 800 for No. 21, 149 for No. 86 and 10 for No. 198. Also, if you really want a player, you make the move to acquire him (see Cutler, Jay). Make the deal and gain a little more control over your future.
And for what it’s worth, in the pre-draft prediction pool in this conference room to which I’ve referred in the text above, I chose Jarvis Moss. He’s made some mistakes, but he owned up to them at the Combine and did so again when speaking with the media here this afternoon.
O.K.Andrew, I expected you to say you won the media pool. But I bet you did not expect it to be at #17. That is what the issue is. Why give up what we do not have to?
AZbeachboy, is right. Andrew please answer his question.
Perhaps they got the indication that somebody else would take him in the interim. Again, if you really want a player, make the move to acquire him.
I think the thought is that we are one of the few teams that don’t have the much room left under the cap. I mean how many times can you go to the vets to get them to redo their contracts. How about giving up the rest of the draft for either Justin Blalock or even Brian Leonard? Try not to throw anything for saying that.
Sorry maybe I was panicking. Blalock just looks like some tackle insurance we could use.
The cursive writing below the pictures are hard to read. Great pictures but dont know what the heck is going on.
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Before you open your swimming pool for the season, or if you are thinking of having a pool installed, you should review the basic safety procedures.