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| Stanford TE Coby Fleener: The Safest Bet in Tonight's First Round? |
When their team’s first round draft pick(s) is/are announced tonight, a lot of fans will be asking themselves the following question: “Should I be excited?” After all, only a handful of players typically evoke true feelings of excitement in a given draft. In this draft, Andrew Luck, RG3, Trent Richardson, and Justin Blackmon probably comprise that group. No one’s going around fist-pumping and yelling “we just got our starting left tackle for the next 12 years!” (Least of all the Vikings, who are about as psyched to take Matt Kalil at 3 as Sally Draper was to hang out with Henry Francis' mother a few weeks ago on Mad Men.)
As a Steelers fan, I can only remember three times during the draft when I was legitimately excited after a draft:
1. In 1996, when they acquired Jerome Bettis from the Rams, and my excitement there was over Bettis, not a draftpick
2. In 2004, when they selected Ben Roethlisberger 11th overall, the first QB since Terry Bradshaw who could give fans even a sliver of hope that they could come back from a double-digit lead
3. In 2007, when they selected RoboPunter in the 4th round. (Unfortunately, the RoboPunter era came to an end last year. But it was fun while it lasted.)
I digress. This post looks at a more quantifiable way to decide how you should feel about your team’s first-round draft pick: that pick’s position. After the jump, a look at the likelihood of success at each position in the first round, and why you should be psyched if your team ends up with a guy named Coby Fleener (no relation to Myra Fleener).
