This past weekend the NFL put on its two-day performance entitled \The Draft,"" starring Chris Berman, Mel Kiper and St.. Louis wide receiver Torry Holt to name a few.
As the hours passed, Berman lost much of his enthusiasm and Holt still failed to say anything significant.
While the reaction of New York Jets fans that were in attendance to the selection of Ohio State placekicker Mike Nugent in the second round was priceless, the draft is a painfully slow process. Yet, the only thing more irritating than listening to Kiper for an extended period of time was watching the Packers put together one of the worst drafts in recent memory.
The day began for the Packers after 23 picks that amounted to almost four hours when Aaron Rodgers slipped to us with the 24th pick on the draft, which may not be the blessing many view it to be.
When reviewing the history of the draft, it's clear that quarterbacks don't need to be picked in the first round in order to succeed. The stories of Brady and Montana are becoming clich??, but at the same time, they hold truth.
The pick of Rodgers meant that they opted to neglect their huge defensive holes. The Packers finished almost dead last in team defense last year and things didn't get any better in the later rounds.
I would have felt much more comfortable if the Packers had waited to take a quarterback in the second round and draft a player like Akron QB Aaron Frye.
Instead the Packers used their second round pick on Bethune-Cookman product Nick Collins. At 5'11"", he lacks the size it takes the play in the secondary and the Packers made the selection based on his upside. This is alarming because I would have liked to see his upside in college, especially while playing at a small school where he should have dominated his competition.
With our second round pick, we would have been better off selecting Ron Wolf, a 70-plus-year-old punter/general manager who could have drastically helped out the Packers in rounds 2-7. Though Wolf's 40-yard dash time is rumored to have dropped to around 7.2, his ability to evaluate NFL talent is second to none.
The second and most alarming problem with the draft was the selection of two wide receivers. The Packers wasted second and sixth-round picks on Texas A&M's Terrence Murphy and Craig Bragg respectively, who have little more than punt-and kick-returning abilities to offer Green Bay immediately. Considering the Packers are the deepest at this position with Javon Walker, Donald Driver and Robert Ferguson all entrenched in the starting spots, their choice to again ignore the defensive problems was inexcusable.
As the rounds passed and the anger in my house grew, one potential pick had the ability to calm the mood.
Would it have been a huge risk to take former Badger Anttaj Hawthorne before he was selected in the sixth round? Our front four was awful last year, and Hawthorne could have been a player that competed for immediate playing time.
At this time next year, when the Packers have a top ten pick in the draft, Kiper may very well be talking about how Green Bay's 2005 draft failed to produce any players who saw significant action last season.
This couldn't have come at a worse time for head coach Mike Sherman, whose contract expires at the end of next year. He received no immediate help at any position and it could cost him his job.
The only thing this draft was missing was a decision to trade up and draft UW kicker Mike Allen in the early third round. Though current kicker Ryan Longwell has been above average thus far, it's always good to get competition going during mini-camp.
Many analysts rated Thompson's first draft with the Packers as the poorest in the NFC. I will go a little farther than that and say that it was a joke.
How Rodgers pans out in the next few years is irrelevant, as the Packers will look back at this draft for their future misery.
The expression ""teams are built on draft day"" is highly accurate. This past weekend, the only thing the Packers built was a pathway into one of the top ten picks in the 2006 draft.
But on the bright side, last year's third round draft pick punter B.J. Sander had a year to mature in the offseason. Enough said.
Jon is a junior majoring in English and journalism. He can be reached at jrmcnamara@wisc.edu.
