Bad start for ‘Skins rook… Washington TE Fred Davis, the Redskins’ second-round pick at the 2008 draft, missed the team’s minicamp practice on Sunday after he reportedly overslept.
May 3
(12:01 AM): Browns re-up top exec…
Cleveland and G.M. Phil Savage have agreed to a 3-year contract
extension that will keep him with the team through 2012.
Young, old college QBs get bad news… LSU junior
QB Ryan Perrilloux, once the top recruit in the country, has been
kicked off the defending national championship team after repeated
violations of team policy. In particular, Perrilloux was suspended for
a while last summer as well as during spring drills this year. Among
his legal problem, Perilloux was involved in a counterfeiting
investigation and was later caught trying to enter a Baton Rouge casino
with false identification. He also was involved in a fracas at a
nightclub last fall, but was later cleared of wrongdoing. Perilloux now
has a choice of transferring to another D1A school, but would have to
sit out a year, or transferring to a lower level where he could be
eligible immediately. Meanwhile, Cincinnati QB Ben Mauk had his request
for reconsideration on his original waiver for a sixth year of
eligibility denied by the NCAA. The NCAA's decision to deny the appeal
was based a lack of contemporaneous medical documents from Wake Forest
where Mauk originally played. Mauk, though, reportedly has not given up
on his attempt to get an extra year of eligibility and reportedly will
try and provide the NCAA with the needed information.
May 2
(1:00 PM): Draft off-season official over...
The NFL draft off-season is officially over; the 2009 draft is just 356
days away! Hang in there guys!
(12:01 AM): Are you ready for some football...
With the 2008 draft in the books, the majority of teams will be holding
their rookie mini-camps this weeend, while those that aren't scheduled
this weekend will be up within the next few weeks. For the record,here
is the full
NFL Minicamp schedule. NFL
teams shake up front offices… Just hours after the draft, San Diego
was forced to revamp its personnel department after assistant G. M. and
director of player personnel Buddy Nix either resigned or was forced
out of the job. Nix had been with Chargers since 2001 and has been in
the NFL for 15 years after a 32-year career as a college coach. The
Chargers reportedly will not replace Nix, but will restructure from
within, although former New Orleans and Miami G.M. Randy Mueller was
hired as a senior executive who will also scout nationally. At the same
time, Ed McGuire, the Chargers' executive vice president, added Nix’
title of assistant GM., while ?
director of college scouting Jimmy Raye was promoted to director of
player personnel. John Spanos, the assistant college scouting director
under Raye, becomes director of that department while the Chargers also
promoted Mike Biehl to assistant director of college scouting and Tom
McConnaughey to national scout, and they made Chris Hobbs executive
assistant for player personnel. Meanwhile, Atlanta has hired David
Caldwell to be the director of college scouting. Caldwell, who was a
regional scout with Indianapolis for the past 10 years, replaces Phil
Emery, who was re-assigned to be the Eastern region scout for the
Falcons. Emery had been Atlanta's director of college scouting since
2004.
May 1 (12:01 AM):
Cats stay close to home in CFL
draft... Hamilton chose Saskatchewan DB Ryan Barker with the first
pick overall in Wednesday's annual CFL draft. Calgary had the next wto
picks and selected OTs Dimitri Tsuopas of Weber State and Jesse Newman
of Louisiana-Lafayette, while Saskatchewan nabbed Central Florida DT
Keith Shologan with the 4th pick. Sholgan had signed earlier this week
as an undrafted free agent with San Diego. Meanwhile, Sherbrooke WR
Samuel Giguere, who signed earlier this week as an undrafted free agent
with Indianapolis, was chosen 8th overall by Hamilton, while Montreal
took Boise State senior OG Andrew Woodruff with the 12th pick overall.
Here is the full list of
48
players selected in this week's CFL draft.
April
30 (12:01 AM): Draft lite on sked…
For those
that didn’t get their fill of drafting over the weekend, the Canadian
league holds its annual
CFL
draft later today. The CFL draft gets underway at Noon ET with
Hamilton holding the top pick. The CFL draft actually only involves
Canadian players, although there are a number of players available
today who should be familiar to NFL followers. Indeed, both Sherbrooke
WR Samuel Gigure and Central Florida DT Keith Shologan signed on as
undrafted free agents with Indianapolis and San Diego respectively in
the past couple of days, while RBs Rolly Lumbala of Idaho and Jerome
Messam of Graceland remain unsigned. Meanwhile, other top players
expected to be selected at today’s CFL draft still with U.S. college
eligibility include junior offensive linemen Andrew Woodruff of Boise
State, Jesse Newman of Louisiana-Lafayette and Jonathan St. Pierre of
Illinois State. NFL round 8 continues… NFL teams continue
to
announce their undrafted free agent
signing classes and many of the top undrafted players are coming
off the board at the various positions.
It is important to note though that all players that showing up on some
lists of undrafted free agents may have actually only signed on for
mini-camp tryouts.
April 29 (12:01
AM): Round 8 well underway...
There was no down time for NFL pro personnel folks after the completion
of this past weekend's draft. Indeed, even before the final picks were
made, teams were on the phones trying to sign the top undrafted
players. In fact, most teams will have signed many, if not all, the
undrafted players they are going to bring in, however, official
announcements of who has been signed often don't come until later in
the week or even after the team's rookie mini-camp. For now, here is
our annual list of the top (at least on our board)
undrafted prospects by
position as well as a partial list of announced undrafted signings by team . Of
course, we'll be updating each file as new signings hit the wire.
April 28 (12:01
AM): That's a wrap... The 2008
draft is in the books and while there is still much chewing over of
what transpired this weekend, here are some preliminary thoughts in our
Draft Blog including some
early observations of the winners and losers in the 2008 draft. Only
364 days until the 2009 draft... Hang in there guys! To help wile
away a few of those moments here is our very first, very preliminary 2009 projection. And first-projection
rules will be rigourously enforced; that is anyon e-mailing comments to
the effect that 'the Buckeroos will never take a ...' will receive an
automatic 6-minute suspension from the site!
April
27 (6:45 PM) That's a wrap... With
the
selection of Idaho LB David Vobora by St. Louis with the 252nd and last
pick, the 2008 draft is in the books. There won't be any rest for weary
NFL pro personnel staffs, however, as teams are already working the
phones trying to sign the top undrafted players. In fact, there is a
small army of pretty good prospects still out there; for reference,
here's the updated
GBN Big Board with the
top 90 or so undrafted players on our chart. We'll be back a little
later this evening with our final wrap of this weekend's draft. (10:00
AM): Day two underway... With day two of the 2008 draft
underway we are ensconsed back in the GBN War
Room where we'll be right through the 252nd pick sometime around 6
PM ET later this evening. We'll have round-by-round wraps through the
rest of the day, plus we'll be keeping the GBN
Big Board updated as players come off the board.
(9:00 AM): Day two morning shocker… Hard
to believe, but all 31 NFL teams that made at least one pick yesterday
were reporting this morning that they couldn’t believe that the guy
they got “was still on the board” when they got on the clock. To be
fair, some teams actually have a case starting with Kansas City which
never figured that LSU DT Glenn Dorsey, arguably the best player in
this year’s draft, would still be on the board when the Chiefs made the
5th pick. Indeed, said Bill Kuharich, the Chiefs’ vice president for
player personnel: ““I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would
have the opportunity to get both of these guys” after the Chiefs were
also able to acquire Virginia OT Branden Albert later in the opening
round. One can’t blame New Orleans, though, for not trying to move up
to get Dorsey, the local favorite who would also have filled a huge
need on the Saints’ roster. The Saints reportedly offered their first
pick next year, along with the 10th overall pick this year and a later
round pick this year to the Chiefs to move up to the #5 slot to get
Dorsey themselves, however, Kansas City turned them down. The Saints
though got some consolation when they were able to tarde up with New
England two picks later and get USC DT Sedrick Ellis, who is almost as
good a prospect as Dorsey. Meanwhile, there was no small irony when
Baltimore selected Delaware QB Joe Flacco with the 18th pick overall.
In the overall process, Flacco became the first non-D1A QB selected in
the first round since Tennessee took Steve McNair of Alcorn State in
1995. Of course, the Ravens took Flacco in large part because they
suddenly had a pressing need at QB when the same Steve McNair abruptly
retired just days before the draft.
Back at it on day two… After catching maybe a
couple of hours of sleep we are back at it on day two of the 2008 draft
which gets underway in about an hour at 10 AM ET with Detroit on the
clock with a pick from Miami. Baltimore, which had a busy first making
two big first round moves, though, looks to be in position to make the
biggest impact with today’s selections. After taking what they hope is
their QB of the future in Joe Flacco of Delaware in yesterday’s opening
round, the Ravens have 9 more picks today including three in each of
the 3rd anf 4th rounds. In addition to Baltimore, Kansas City,
Philadelphia, and Chicago also each have 9 picks today barring further
trades with the Chiefs having three in the third round, while the
Eagles have three in the 4th. Atlanta will also have a busy second day
with 8 picks overall including three in the 3rd. Meanwhile, Cleveland
will finally make an appearance at the 2008 draft when the Browns pick
in the 4th round. The Browns had traded away their top three picks this
year prior to the draft. And there are still plenty of quality
prospects left on the board including Penn State LB Dan Connor, WRs
Early Doucet of LSU and Michigan’s Mario Manningham, RBs Jamaal Charles
of Texas, record-setting Kevin Smith of Central Florida and West
Virginia scatback Steve Slaton, and QBs John David Booty, who figures
to be the 8th former USC Trojan picked this weekend, along with
Kentucky’s Andre’ Woodson and Erik Ainge of Tennessee. Here’s the list
of players still on the board on the GBN
Big Board. In fact, as much as possible we’ll be updating that list
through the day today along with round-by-round wraps of all today’s
action.
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