My opinion of day 1!

[rawbacon]

At first, I was shocked about our 3 picks. But after sitting back and thinking about it a little more, I think they were the perfect picks for us. Here's why:

1st of all, receivers are the hardest position to figure out if a guy will be successful or a flop. Remember Desmon Howard, Michael Westbrook and Rod Gardner? They all were first round picks and all flopped to say the least. Now we have 2 excellent college receivers to see if we can get at least 1 solid NFL receiver and hopefully they both turn out to be excellent. Cerrato made the Skins better today and increased our chances of getting a good receiver.

2nd, what would have happened to our passing game the last couple of years if Cooley got hurt and was out for the rest of the year or at least an extended length of time? It would be almost nonexistent. Now we have a TE that can back up and spell Cooley. Just think about having Cooley, Moss, Randle El, Fred Davis and Devin Thomas on the field all at once. Who do you cover Cooley, Davis and Thomas with? LB or S or CB? That's a question teams are going to be asking a lot in the next few years. Now, just think about having Malcolm Kelly, Devin Thomas, Fred Davis, Chris Cooley and Portis in the back field on goal to go passing situations. The smallest receiver out of that bunch is Thomas and he's 6'2". It will help us in the red zone more than I think anyone at this point can imagine. Jason Campbell has to be loving life right about now. Now, think about having Fred Davis, Cooley and Sellers in the red zone when we do play action in a goal to go situation. We will have 3 extremely big guys with great hands that can catch the ball for Campbell.

Sure, I would have loved to have Devin Thomas, Trevor Laws and Calais Campbell with those 3 picks, but what if Thomas is the flop and Kelly turns out to be the solid pro receiver? Now we don't have to worry about that, we have them both.

There are still good players that can help us on the board. Here are some guys (in no particular order) I absolutely love and hope the Skins get 1 or 2 of them.

1.) Roy Schuening OG Oregon State

2.) Justin King CB Penn State

3.) Chris Ellis DE Virginia Tech

4.) Josh Barrett S ASU

5.) Quintin Demps S UTEP

6.) Chad Rinehart OG Northern Iowa

7.) Brandon Keith OT Northern Iowa (No, I'm not a Northern Iowa fan)

8.) Dennis Dixon QB Oregon

9.) Owen Schmitt FB WVU

10.) Mike Gibson OG California

11.) Jeremy Zuttah OT Rutgers

12.) Devin Clark OT New Mexico

13.) Maurice Murray DT New Mexico State

14.) Erin Henerson OLB Maryland

15.) Dre Moore T Maryland

16.) Brennan Carvalho C Portland State

I believe that 9 or 10 of these guys will turn out to be solid starters in the nfl in the next couple of years. I love Schuening, King and Barrett. I would love for the Skins to draft those 3 guys on day 2. But unfortunately unless we trade up, at least one of those guys and maybe two will be gone by the time we draft at 96.

Here's what I hope the Skins 2nd draft day looks like

3rd Round (96) - Roy Schuening

4th Round (103) - Josh Barrett

6th Round (186) - Chad Rinehart

7th Round (228) - Mike Gibson

7th Round (242) - Brandon Keith

7th Round (249) - Maurice Murray

We would help our OL and S positions right away and look at the DL and LB in next years draft. We don't have any youth on the OL except for Stephon Heyer who I absolutely love. Remember Dockery his rookie year? I think Stephon had an equally impressive rookie year. I think he turns out to be a great OL and will be a starter either next year or the year after. And we don't have any depth at S at all. We have Vernon Fox, but I don't think he should even be playing in the NFL. Give Buzbee and Wilson a chance at the other DE position and I think Montgomery and Golston turn out to have extremely good years this year. This is both of their 3rd year in the league and we may not even be discussing DT in next years draft. Hail Skins!!!!!!!

[4daskins]

Because this draft is deep with quality players..not spectacular players...our 1st day was almost perfect.

As long as we address the DL and add OL depth and possibly a LB for insurance, we will have had a very successful draft.

[SkinSince87]

give me Gary Guyton LB from G Tech and Zack Bowman the CB from Nebraska

[4daskins]

We would help our OL and S positions right away and look at the DL and LB in next years draft. We don't have any youth on the OL except for Stephon Heyer who I absolutely love. Remember Dockery his rookie year? I think Stephon had an equally impressive rookie year. I think he turns out to be a great OL and will be a starter either next year or the year after. And we don't have any depth at S at all. We have Vernon Fox, but I don't think he should even be playing in the NFL. Give Buzbee and Wilson a chance at the other DE position and I think Montgomery and Golston turn out to have extremely good years this year. This is both of their 3rd year in the league and we may not even be discussing DT in next years draft. Hail Skins!!!!!!!

With one of our 7ths, I think we should take a chance on one of the DEs from Hampton or Tommy Blake. 7ths are when you go for a homerun or strike out. Why draft a so-so player who you know is nothing but camp fodder...instead take a chance on a player who may have a sketchy background but if he puts it all together can be a major contributor for years.

[rawbacon]

With one of our 7ths, I think we should take a chance on one of the DEs from Hampton or Tommy Blake. 7ths are when you go for a homerun or strike out. Why draft a so-so player who you know is nothing but camp fodder...instead take a chance on a player who may have a sketchy background but if he puts it all together can be a major contributor for years.

I would be extremely happy with that! I do hope they take Mike Gibson if available in the 7th and I think Maurice Murray has a ton of upside, but not really getting noticed because he played at NMSU. I watched this guy play for the last few years (because I am a New Mexico Lobos fan) and he would collapse the pocket on almost every pass play. And the Lobos are known for having huge, very strong OL. Ryan Cook from Minnesota is an ex Lobo. I would be happy with one of the Hampton DE's and Mike Gibson and Maurice Murray!

[DexterSackMachine]

I love getting the two receivers, because, just as you said you never know what you're going to wind up with. We should be able to get a good one out of the two. The upside is we could wind up with two good sized starting receivers down the road. The first pick was especially good because he was the best receiver available. The trade down worked perfectly.

The TE pick is a little odd to me, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. Cooley is entering his 5th season and plays very physical, so the chances of him getting hurt are probably pretty good. Taking a quality TE in the 2nd gives us a cheap, quality backup for 4 or 5 years. The presence of Cooley also allows him time to develop properly, not thrown in the fire.

If Kelly turns out to be a good pro TE, then a Colts-like offense could be the future for us..............

[Mr. S]

Too bad we don't have a higher 3rd round pick. I'm worried lots of guy swe may want will be gone.

However, give me a CB, OL, and DL in some order, and I'll be happy today. Please no random picks like RB, FB, or QB next (QB in the 7th would be ok).

[4daskins]

I like the idea of getting 2 WRs too. Santana and El are coming up on the critical yrs of their contracts. Big payouts are expected if we honor their contracts. Doesn't drafting the WRs put us at a position of strenght in the negotiating process or we can just cut ties with the least productive one. And as a poster previously stated, Santan and El are getting up there in age.

[Wyvern]

My impression was negative. It looks good on paper (like the top-100 draft picks that the Sports magazines churn out) but we whiffed on obtaining highly-regarded athletes for the team's more urgent needs.

Outside of the flashy marketing spin of having a trio of highly-rated receivers, I suspect that "Day One" might wind up being remembered for how the Skins over-drafted for one need while ignoring more urgent needs. Regardless, we are in for a lonf wait to discover whether these WRs turn out to be 'stars' ... or busts.

Earlier in the month, I had posted how the Skins' shoudn't be investing too heavily in 3-year WR development projects, when we could sign free agent WRs who were already NFL ready. I pointed out that there were urgent needs in 2008 and 2009 that needed to be addressed in this draft, before it was too late. While I conceded the need to draft one WR, I felt that should happen only after we'd taken used two picks to pick up the BPA for our D-line, O-line, or D-secondary.

Obviously the Skins FO didn't go that way, and now I can only wonder how it will turn out. This seems like a Snyder draft, and the return of folks mentioning 4-WR sets bring me back to the Spurrier days. Frankly, signing DJ Hackett would have been a quicker and cheaper way to go, and would saved one of our second round picks for more pressing needs. ---And what about Moss, El, Thrash, Mix, McMullen, and Mathis? Now we have a glut at WR; so did we need to draft that many?

Now my real beef with drafting two WRs with our first three picks is that we now will have turn them over to the Skin's WRs coach --Stan Hixon-- to develop. I have concerns whether Hixon will dequately develop these relatively inexperienced, talented WRs. His track record is not good.

Since he's been here, Stan Hixon has yet to really develop a decent NFL receiver for the Skins. The best WR on the Skins, Moss, was already a finished NFL product when we traded for him. During his 4-year tenure with the Skins, Hixon has yet to maximize the potential of the talent he's been handed, and some have pointed to uneven WR play even though we have continued to rotate in new talent for Hixon to work with.