Mark Sanchez Talk of NFL Draft 2009

With the expected announcement that Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford had reached a contract agreement with the woeful Detroit Lions, the start of the 2009 NFL draft was anti-climactic. With St. Louis in the #2 slot of the NFL draft for the second straight year, the Rams took Jason Smith, an offensive tackle from Baylor to fill departed Orlando Pace's spot.

The Kansas City Chiefs threw a bit of a curve at #3, taking Tyson Jackson, the 2nd straight year the Chiefs took a defensive lineman out of LSU with their top pick. However, it wasn't that much of a surprise for a team that had so much trouble on the defensive side of the ball in 2008.

With the 4th pick, Seattle nabbed Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry, no surprise there. Then, in an instant, the 2009 NFL draft was turned on it's head with the trade between the Cleveland Browns and New York Jets allowing the Jets to draft Mark Sanchez.

One of the ironies in this deal is that new Cleveland head coach Eric Mangini and the Browns made a deal with the team that just fired the man dubbed "Man-genius" by Jet fans seemingly yesterday. The deal wasn't cheap for New York, with the Jets giving up their 2nd round pick and three players in addition to moving up from #17 in the 1srt round to the Browns spot at #5.

There have been reports that Mangini is not be that impressed by the Browns present QBs, Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn. Maybe so, but with the addition of Brett Ratliff in the trade, but the Jets must not be all that taken with Ratliff, either. Mangini passed up the chance to go for Mark Sanchez himself, so maybe he has a QB he likes after all and just wants Ratliff for the future.

There had been reports that the Browns would take Texas Tech WR Michael Crabtree with the pick and trade Braylon Edwards, most likely to the other New York team, the Giants. Those reports turned out to be smoke.

So, who got the best of the deal that set the 2009 NFL draft abuzz? To me, the Jets did, in spite of giving up 3 players and two draft picks for the right to take Sanchez. The debate over who's better between Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez had been ongoing in recent days and in my opinion, Sanchez was the best QB in the 2009 NFL draft.

Stafford, despite superior arm strength and size was an underachiever at Georgia for his entire collegiate career while Sanchez seemed to be at his best in the biggest games, unlike Stafford.

When the buzz from the Sanchez deal calmed a little, the Oakland Raiders stirred things up again with the selection of Maryland speed burner receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey with Michael Crabtree still available. Heyward-Bey was not rated higher than a 20 something pick in the 1st round by most other teams.

Oakland curmudgeon owner Al Davis is in love with speed and their 1st round selection ran the fastest 40 time at February's NFL combine. However, Heyward-Bey often beats everyone else down the field only to drop the ball. He had only a little over 600 yards on the 2008 season, a good 2-3 games for Crabtree.

In my opinion, the Raiders will rue the day they passed over Crabtree for Darrius Heyward-Bey. On the NFL network, former Oakland head coach Jon Gruden passed on a remark Davis once made to him about former Raider WR James Jett and his speed.

While Heyward-Bey is much bigger than Jett, Jett was a speedster known for drops who never lived up to his potential. Not the sort of comparison Raider fans will be thrilled to hear.

Those were the top two stories of the first day of the 2009 NFL draft with the rest of the first round going fairly routinely other than Percy Harvin going 21st to the Minnesota Vikings. Harvin had been projected to go much higher, but a reported failed drug test at the combine dropped Harvin's stock, like, well, most stocks since last fall.