Making sense of the 2008 draft
A combo platter of a column, with How I Spent My Weekend in Atlanta, followed by what I loved, and what I scratched my head about after the 2008 draft.
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — It was never excruciatingly close, but 20 minutes before the draft, St. Louis Rams decision-makers were sequestered in an office and seriously considering two trades down from No. 2, one of which would have changed the headlines in your Sunday newspapers.
Matt Ryan to Baltimore.
Glenn Dorsey to Atlanta.
Chris Long — don’t gasp so loud, Howie — to the Raiders.
Chad Henne to Atlanta, somewhere in the middle of the first round as the Falcons’ quarterback of the future, not Miami’s.
Jacksonville NOT trading up for Derrick Harvey.
Vernon Gholston to the Chiefs.
Joe Flacco somewhere in the second round.
“Can you imagine,” I said to Ryan late Saturday night, “you in Baltimore, and Henne and Glenn Dorsey here in Atlanta?”
“Really?” he said. “Was it close?”
Again, not so close that the three teams involved in the discussions are regretting it this morning. But in re-creating the events of the two hours before the draft, I learned that the Rams had some lines in the water that would have surprised us all.
si.com
4/28/08
