Draft day woes

As the 2005 NFL draft wraps up, there are many questions floating around everyone's mind.

Questions like, "Will my team's number one pick make an impact this year?" or "What were the Bills thinking taking Roscoe Parrish when they already have three pretty good receivers on their roster?" or better yet, "What will Mel Kiper Jr. do with the rest of this year now that the draft is done?"

Well, those first two won't be answered until the season starts, and the last one ... well, we may never know what Mel Kiper Jr. does when it's not draft season. Personally, I think he sits at home greasing his hair, getting ready for his time on camera.

The Bills, on the other hand, picked up a University of Miami product in Parrish, who can run an impressive 4.43 40, but he's only 5-foot-9, 169 pounds.

Additionally, Bills fans should be worried about Parrish's mental capacities, as according to Scouts Inc. his mental capacity is a concern. The guy scored a 10 out of 15 on the Wonderlic test, which asks relatively basic questions of players.

If he can't answer questions like this one:

"RESENT RESERVE - Do these words:

1) Have similar meanings, 2) Have contradictory meanings, 3) Mean neither the same nor the opposite" - From ESPN.com's page 2

You can't exactly expect him to remember a playbook and run his routes properly.

The Bills did not have a first round pick this season because of the trade they made with the Cowboys last season. And surprisingly enough, they were unable to find a new home for Travis Henry, who was a Pro Bowl running back two years ago.

Now, obviously, I am not a general manager of a football team, but it doesn't take having a $90 million payroll behind me to know that if you have three good receivers, you don't need to use your first pick on a fourth one, who isn't going to be an impact player from the get-go anyway.

In a draft that surprisingly had very few surprises - the biggest surprise, of course, being Maurice Clarett going to Denver in the third round - the Bills disappointing their fans would be a surprise.

The Bills certainly had other areas where they needed to concentrate for this coming year. Cornerback, for example, is a position where the Bills could have picked up Justin Miller from Clemson, who is a cornerback who can run with almost all NFL receivers, and return kicks as well. Miller went three picks after the Bills' first pick to the New York Jets.

Though Buffalo didn't pick anyone up who should be making a huge impact on the team for this coming year, they didn't hurt themselves, and they picked up someone who has the talent to be an NFL receiver.

The rest of the draft went pretty much as expected, with Alex Smith going to the 49ers despite not being able to work out a contract with him beforehand. The Dallas Cowboys were easily the big winners of the day, but it would take a few boneheaded moves for any team to have a bad draft that includes two first round picks.

Another relative surprise in this year's draft was the New York Jets picking up a kicker, Mike Nugent, in the second round. Nugent has been predicted to be as good as players like Sebastian Janikowski and even Adam Vinatieri.

The smartest and the best move by a team that had only one first round pick on draft day was the Green Bay Packers picking up Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers may not get to call himself the first pick in the draft, and he most likely won't get a start for the first two years of his career, but the man gets to learn from one of the greatest quarterbacks of my lifetime, Brett Favre. Sure he won't get a number one contract until he proves himself, but Rodgers is a good, technically sound quarterback who will get guidance from one of the best of all time.

The Packers got lucky with the 24th pick in the draft to get Rodgers, but they weren't about to question the philosophies of the 23 teams who passed up on him.

All in all, Draft Day 2005 provided the sports fans with everything they needed, their teams picking up players to fill their needs, and of course, our well-deserved Mel Kiper Jr. fix.