The 2008 Draft is in the history books, and we've now hit the inevitable period where the draft "experts" start handing out their draft "grades" based on their perceptions of how different teams performed over the weekend. They'll tell us about how so-and-so was a "steal" or how this guy was a "reach" and so forth, and there will be people that will take such talk as the gospel truth.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here laughing my ass off at the entire exercise.
Don't get me wrong. . .we're entering the "dead" portion of the NFL season. The three months between the end of the draft and the beginning of Training Camp are damn near interminable for die-hard football fans. I realize that there are people out there that get paid a decent wage to talk about football year-round and, God bless 'em, they've got to come up with something to talk about during that time.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical about the entire thing because I still have echoes in my mind about how great the Vikings' 2005 Draft class allegedly was. Oh, there was praise all around for the Vikings' selections of Troy Williamson and Erasmus James and Marcus Johnson and on and on and on. That class, barring James and/or Johnson miraculously "getting it" this season, is on the verge of going down as the worst draft class in Minnesota Vikings history. Not one, but two first-round flops, a second-rounder that can't get off the bench. . .and, as of now, nobody else from that class to be found on the roster.
Now, liking or not liking the players a team drafts is one thing. . .attempting to grade the players themselves is something entirely different. For example, I thought that Kansas City did a pretty fine job getting players that could potentially help them in this year's draft. Everywhere I look, the Chiefs' draft is pretty highly graded by all of the aforementioned "experts." But if we look back three years from now and Glenn Dorsey has turned into Steve Entman and Branden Albert has become Marcus Johnson and other bad luck occurs for them, giving them an "A" now could potentially end up looking almost as ludicrous as the "A's" and "B's" that the Vikings' 2005 Draft class got are looking right about now. Draft grades are a lot like Girls Gone Wild videos. . .fun to look at, but not really anything to take too seriously.
Not. . .that. . .I'd. . .know. *ahem* Anyway. . .
If you'd like to discuss the Vikings draft "grades" and/or other aspects of this weekend's draft, please feel free to use this here thread to do it. I, personally, feel that it put the cap on a pretty productive off-season for the Vikings. I'll hopefully be back later with some more fun and excitement.