I know the elbuzzard faithful expected a draft post on Monday morning. For that I apologize. I’m much better at free agent signings than drafts. With the exception of our last pick, we only took guys who wore red in college. Excellent draft strategy.
We traded up to get Sedrick Ellis, a DT from USC. Apparently, he’s real good. Like all college players, I don’t know a lot about him other than what Mel Kiper says on TV. He’s a defensive player. A run-stopper. I like that. If he pans out, and we can get consistent pressure on the QB, our secondary will look a lot better than it did last year, even if Chasin’ David is still starting. Also our Dline coach Ed Orgeron was his coach at USC. So we should know what we are getting. In theory.
What I really like about our draft is our sixth-round pick. Taylor Mehlhaff. A GODDAMN kicker. He was the first kicker taken in the draft, and was the highest ranked by most everyone. Who cares, right? Who cares about the kicker? Why waste a draft pick? Just sign a free agent, right?
That’s been working out great for us, hasn’t it? No more Mare (well, he’s already been cut), no more Cundiff, no more Marteen Gramatica, no more whoever we have kicking for us now. No more having a kickoff guy and a field goal guy. Just one guy who does both. I really hope this guy can do both, the criticism I’ve read in some places is that he’s a better kickoff specialist than field goal kicker. I’m just glad to see us addressing a position that caused us no end of grief last year.
Assuming, of course, the kid can kick.