Draft

The home stretch. In this article we finish our first round draft. It was certainly fun, now we play the waiting game to see if we got anywhere near who we think the teams should go for!

21 – Kansas City Chiefs: Gabe Carimi, OT, Wisconsin

Easiest pick so far – the Chiefs need to address right tackle. They should really have addressed this last year, but with a selection of good tackles available they’ll take Carimi as the best of the lot and probably with the biggest upside too.

22 – Indianapolis Colts: Nate Solder, OT, Colorado

Solder is a former tight end, so has good atheleticism for the tackle position. A bit raw, however he has the natural skills to succeed as a left tackle in the NFL. The Colts’ current LT, Charlie Johnson, is set to be a free agent, so they need to upgrade the OT position. DT was a possibility here, but the Colts franchise revolves around Peyton Manning, so protecting him is a must. More >

With the NFL draft just around the corner, here at Mac we decided we would take it into our own hands and take a look at how WE think things will pan out over the first round. Andrew, Tom and myself arranged an order and took it in turns drafting and made a brief comment about why we thought our team would go in that direction. Tom got the first pick, I got the second and Andrew got the third. It then went in the same sequence until all our picks had been made. Without further ado, this is how things panned out…

1 – Carolina Panthers: Marcel Dareus, DT, Alabama

While the Panthers don’t have a great QB, I just have too many questions about the top QBs in the draft for them to warrant the No.1 overall pick. Newton is the consensus choice here, but Newton isn’t like Sam Bradford or Matt Ryan, he was never as good as a passer as them in college. Dareus will be a force inside from the get go, and while he won’t be as dominant as Suh, he is a quality player.
The Panthers used to have a dominant D Line, with Kris Jenkins, Mike Rucker and of course Julius Peppers, but these have now all left or retired. The current DT depth chart is headed by Nick Hayden and Derek Landri, and I believe Landri is a free agent. DT is position of big need for the Panthers, and Dareus can be a player to build around for the future.

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