More Post-Draft Analysis

The football world did a lot of post draft 2009 analysis yesterday. We left our analysis from Saturday and Sunday to stand alone for Monday because we do not look at what others are saying. Our conclusions are not based on what anyone else thinks. Just a reminder that Wonder does his own work.

1) Bob comments yesterday: "The relatively unknown "problem "
with Malaluga came out last night. He has been having "temper" problems with other teamates in the locker room."

We suspected there could be more to this than just not being able to drop back in coverage on 3rd down (criticism which Wonder swept aside).

If this is true, it would make a lot of sense. The other alarm bell that goes off when you hear about "temper" problems is 'roid rage,' ..steroids. He may have cleaned himself out for the drug test (or even tested positive anyway) but left that as a poker tell for steroid use. I am NOT starting rumors about Rey Maualuga being a steroid user, but you can only imagine how many teams passed based on putting 1+1 together. In fact, the word "temper" may actually be the code word for steroids, for all I know.

2) Justin tells us that Todd McShay gave the Giants a good review of their draft. The video section had a better review. McShay has Beatty as a bust?! Time will tell.

3) Text of Jerry Reese Transcript Post Draft Press Conference on Sunday. Craig made mention of it in yday's comments, and it is an important read for any of you who missed it.

4) Interesting side show draft stories. If you find more of these stories, please pass them along.

5) Butch Davis has a strong review of Nicks, comparing him to Michael Irvin. Wow. I hope he's right. Of course his coach is going to have nice things to say about him, but he does not have to go out of his way to compare him to Michael Irvin. Yet he did.

6) Unconfirmed UFA signings by the Giants (and updates):
CB Vince Anderson, Weber International University
DE Maurice Evans, Penn State
DE Kenny Mainor, Troy (tryout)
S Sha’reff Rashad, Central Florida
DE Alex Field, Virginia
S Kenny Ingram, Florida State
TE Darius Hill, Ball State

Reese got us two Safeties. If one of them can make the roster we'll be dancing in the aisles. Bet on the Giants scouring the waiver wire in late August/early Sept for a more credible one, all else equal.

7) Still am thinking we were fronted on LBer this weekend. Twice. GB traded up to #26 to take Clay Matthews three picks ahead of us. And then when we were one pick away from going in the 5th round, the Vikes traded up to take the spot right in front of us and took Jasper Brinkley. (Yes, another B, and this one was on our list of 22 Day 2 players to target, remember?!) Whenever a team trades up to get someone, it is because they are concerned the player may be taken very shortly. GB and the Vikings (and the rest of the NFL) knew we were thin at LBer. (No, I do not want to hear about the smorgasbord of mediocrity the Giants currently have. We'd trade every last one of them for someone with half of Clay Matthews' talent.) This is how the draft works. We may have very well done the same thing to another team looking at Barden. Most of the time you will never know. Some times you can find out about what actually happened many years later. This is why I love these old draft stories.