Grading the Draft - Slipping Through the Cracks

'oops?'

The 'protected players' concept is a cool feature of the AAFL. Texas protected 29 players. I thought it would be interesting to look at the the draft picks by other teams and see if any players from the state of Texas made it onto other rosters.

Shawn Bell - QB- Baylor - Round 50 - Michigan

Shawn suffered through playing against Big Twelve talent with CUSA ammunition. It think it is safe to say that we had our QBs picked out and that this pick isn't 'one that got away.'

Joe Sturdivant - DB/S - SMU - Round 49 - Arkansas

Joe really wanted to get drafted and I'm glad he did. We were already so stacked in the secondary that we just didn't have room for him. I'd like to wish him all the best with Team Arkansas.

Thadis Pegues II - DL/DE - Rice - Round 12 - Tennessee
Alex Obomese - LB - UTEP - Round 5 - Alabama

These two picks are the only ones that I really would consider an 'oops.' We were pretty full at Linebacker already so the Obomese pick isn't that much of a head scratcher, but we really needed talent on the D-Line. I know that Mike Pede is pretty familiar with Rice, so maybe he had some inside info that kept them from taking Pegues.

'Ha-Ha'

On the other side of the table are players that we swipped out from underneat the nose of other teams.

Dwight Ellick - CB - Notre Dame - Round 5
Keith Brooks - RB - Western Kentucky - Round 9
John Simon - RB - Louisiana Tech - Round 11
Damian LaVergne - OL - Louisiana Tech - Round 43
Erick Joyce - CB - Tennessee St. - Round 46
Bobby Garofolo - OL - Memphis - Round 47

It is nice to see that we took from more then we were taken from. Three from Tennessee's region, Two from Arkansas' region, and one from Michigan's region. It is hard to argue that the late rounds are 'steals,' but it is nice to see us snagging so much talent in the early rounds. I think this may be a factor of us running a particular system. We are looking for speed, speed, speed. Both Arkansas and Tennessee are going to be running teams and they were probably looking for a different style player.