Death Squad

We were amazed to have Young fall into our laps at the #10 pick.

We had Young very high on our draft board regardless of his performance the past two years. Young has fallen on hard times due to injuries. He had 18 TDs in 96, 23 in 95 and 42 in 94. We see him with 34 total TDs and 3900 yards passing. Having Garrison Hearst in the backfield should keep defense's honest to help the passing game, and Rice should rebound for a great season.

For those who think Young is washed out, check back with us at the end of the year after Young puts up his stellar numbers.

Are you kidding me? We thought we where very lucky to have Steve Young still available for our 10th pick, but to have Jerry Rice still around for our 15th pick is stunning! These are two players who where drafted #2 and #3 last year in this league.

What a combination! They will single-handingly win many games for us this year. We believe the other owners made the mistake of looking only at last year's numbers. Young had multiple injuries, reducing his numbers, and his absence from the lineup hurt Rice's numbers. Also, Stokes missed half the season due to injury, which made defenses overload on Rice (although Rice still had the 5th most fantasy points at his position). What has changed from last year that would make these guys go so low in the draft? Actually, the 49er's are even better. They have improved their running game by obtaining Hearst. Grbac is gone, meaning Young will stay in the lineup as much as possible.

Rice being the 3rd WR taken is a major surprise. We also thought the Juggernauts would notice that we already had Young and snatch Rice to prevent us from getting that deadly combination. We think it is important to keep track of the players that are on the other teams to prevent a team from getting a great combination and therefore getting a great advantage. If Rice was taken, we definitely would have taken Pickens to prevent the Atlanta Angst from getting a Blake/Pickens combo.

Young will be fully healthy for this season, and that means him and Rice will rebound with fantastic stats this year.

Many of you are wondering what the hell we are doing drafting a tight end when we have no running backs on our roster. Believe it or not, after our 2nd round pick of Jerry Rice, Shannon Sharpe was who we targeted all along.

We anticipated who would go before us and figured that Sharpe would be our guy.

Believe me, we are not disappointed one bit. Sharpe is a stud and the best tight end in the league. There are no concerns about his signing with the Broncos and we fully expect him to play like he did last year. The receiving corps in Denver are so screwed up, that Sharpe is the only guy that have proven himself.

With all the quality running backs gone, we will have to pull a couple rabbits out of our hat with our next couple of choices. We guarantee you will be surprised by our picks.

Kaufman had 150 rushing attempts last year, and averaged an amazing 5.8 yards per carry. Harvey Williams split time with Kaufman last year, but Coach Joe Bugel has publicly committed to Napoleon Kaufman as the featured halfback. Williams may begin training camp as the starting fullback, or he may be cut on June 1st for salary-cap reasons. All this means 15-20 carries per game for Kaufman. He may not get a lot of TD's (6-7), but he should easily surpass a thousand yards rushing. The addition of Jeff George will also help open things up for Kaufman. If we had to pick a "sleeper" running back, Kaufman would be our man.

Conway has had 1049 and 1037 yards the past two seasons. His touchdowns dropped in 1996 from 12 to 7 because of the tremendous problems at quarterback. Rick Mirer is now with the team and the Bears should see some consistent quarterbacking. Mirer was able to get 1000 yards and 7 touchdowns to Joey Galloway each of the last two seasons. No reason why he shouldn't be able to do it this year.

We are projecting 1120 yards and 8 touchdowns which make him a logical pick at this position. We feel comfortable with our top two receivers and now need to pick a gem out of what's left for our #3 guy.

Carter has not lived up to expectations. He missed his entire rookie year due to injury, and was replaced in the starting lineup last year by Garrison Hearst. However, last year he started to show some promise by scoring a bunch of TD's in the second half of the season, while Hearst got most of the carries. Hearst is gone, so Carter will be the primary ball carrier. We expect him to finally perform like the Bengals expected when they drafted him.

We also strongly considered taking Lawrence Phillips or Robert Smith. However, the one advantage Carter has is that his team has no other RB's that could take away many carries or TD's from him. Phillips may lose some carries to Craig Heyward, as well as some touchdowns. Smith, besides the fact that his is very injury prone, has Leroy Hoard to share duties with. So, we thought it best to go with the guy who will see the most action.

Coming into this pick we were targeting a wide receiver to fill out our receiving corps. Up until right before the pick we were going to take O.J. McDuffie. Thanks to the Chiefs signing of Brett Perriman, signing him early in the day, we were able to change our thinking and grab an excellent receiver.

Perriman will be the go-to-guy in Kansas City. The other receivers, Lake Dawson and Tamarick Vanover are recovering from injuries and are not the quality of a Perriman. We are looking for 900 yards and 7 touchdowns from our #3 receiver.

Since we had all of our starters (except kicker), it was time to look for a backup at the position that we have an injury risk -- Steve Young at QB.

While Marino is old and a injury risk himself, we think with McDuffie, Barnett, and Yatil Green, he will fill in nicely for the bye week and any injury weeks. He is not near the QB he once was, but he is still capable of big games and he finished strong last year.

He should get around 3600 yards and 23 TD's this year.

This pick was a real difficult one for us to make. We do have two young running backs and most likely should have taken a veteran in case the other two falter. Well, we did not do that.

The choice of Mario Bates could and will be questioned by the pundits. Bates is an underachiever and if he does not perform for Coach Ditka he will ride the pine. He will be pushed hard by the rookie, Troy Davis, but we feel he could still win the starting spot.

This is a definite risk pick and quite possibly the reward could be great, or it could be disastrous.

Looking at our wide receiver corp, we felt it was time that we could take a chance on a player that could pay huge dividends. Unfortunately, our pick of Brett Perriman a few rounds earlier is not going to help us as much as we had hoped.

Looking through the rest of the receivers, we felt that we found a gem with Andre Hastings. Hastings will be the #1 receiver in New Orleans. I guess that is by default because there is not much else there. The Saints will be behind a lot so the passing game will be active. We would have preferred having a better quarterback to throw to him, but you just never know what is going to happen.

Boy is this a stretch. We are not sure if it worked out well or not that Pegram was traded from the Steelers to the Chargers the day we drafted. Pegram has always been a so-so back. He did run good in '95 with a good offensive line. He now goes to San Diego where he must compete with Gary Brown. Brown is already a favorite of the coach so this will be a tough nut to crack. Our guess is that Pegram will get a lot of playing time.

The league's all-time field goal percentage leader has found a team. We had Pelfrey last year and found him to be very dependable. The Bengals offense is sure to be better so Pelfrey's numbers are sure to go up. We had him #5 on our draft board so we feel fortunate getting him this late.

Even though Yatil Green sprained his knee in practice on July 17, 1997, [a few days after this selection]we still feel he is going to be a star player. Coach Johnson has said Green will not see many passes, but the ones he does see will be long ones most likely for scores. Green is a talented receiver who makes the Dolphins a much better team. A gutsy pick, but with what is left, you got to take a chance.

[Shortly after this selection, Green tore his ACL at practice. He will miss all of 1997.]

When looking at a backup tight end, you look for a guy who can give you that one week when your starter is off. Since we have Shannon Sharpe in the fold, McGee will get a lot of bench time. McGee can catch and block but has been a disappointment. Early in his career he was utilized often. Last season he was non-existent from some games. We believe McGee will be used more in Costlet's offense and should be able to help us should anything happen to Sharpe.

Analysis

Selected ONLY as a backup to Young. Should Young -and- Marino be idle for a weekend, I wanted to have an option. Brohm may provide that option.