I doubt that will happen, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Firstly, I admit that my knowledge of these prospects consists primarily of perusing the better draft sites so it should be taken with a grain of salt. However, there is something to be said for a “hive mind” process, and some of the sites, like Scott Wright’s, who was an NFL scout, contain some knowledgeable assessments.

Mau and Lau are no brainers, of course.

The Safety group becomes more difficult as you go down to the second group. There’s been some lesser discussed names, like Rashad Johnson, FS, Alabama, and Curtis Taylor, FS, LSU, who have been getting more attention lately. Despite the ordering of our needs, I’m less enthused about drafting the next best Safety unless he happens to rate high enough to warrant the choice. It’s a deep enough crop of Safeties so it’s not a bad guess for our #2 pick but it’s worth taking a look at the overall rankings before pulling the trigger on a Safety at that spot. One important final consideration is whether we’re looking at the SS or FS position, although many players can switch. The Safeties diverge somewhat, with some looking more like coverage guys and others looking like run support guys, and size isn’t always a cue to which is which.

Here’s a BIG BOARD from Pro Football Weekly that gives us one picture of an overall rating. It may not be the best BIG BOARD but it’s fairly complete (includes many possible junior declarees) and it uses a quantitative score, which tells us something about the intervals between player rankings — which I really like. BIG BOARDs can be misleading since the practices of drafting for need and responding to other teams’ choices (a run) can scramble things. We can still compare players across possitions, however, which helps us when we have more than one position we’re looking to draft.

We may (or may not) actually dip into the DTs in the 2nd if, for instance, a player like Chung is off the board (assuming the other top Safeties are gone, too). I’m intrigued by both Woods and Oghobaase. I have reservations, too. First, let me provide a schema to help people here — there a few colleges to remember on the DTs; LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma. Each will send DTs to the NFL in the next two years or so. Both the LSU DTs, Woods and Ricky Jean-Francois (also Marlon Favorite) are highly rated. Woods has size and is more in the NT mold but Jean-Francois may be the more talented one, but he’s yet to demonstrate that talent to the degree that would warrant a very high pick. I like Oghobaase because he’s athletic and quite tall, has low body fat, and is a very good run stopper. He also could stick on the BIG BOARD long enough for us to have a shot at him around pick #3. Again, I’m trying to differentiate on function, like with the Safeties, and having one great run stopper to pair with a quicker, more pass rushing DT (Marcus Thomas like) seems to be the best way to go in the absence of a sure fire prospect at DT. The uncertainty about whether many of these DTs will declare (because they’re often juniors), and the difficulty of evaluating based on potential, makes it very difficult to predict with much accuracy. The Broncos scouting/coaching staff is going to know a lot more than we do on the DT choices.

Here’s some more material to look at on the DTs.

Walter’s DT BOARD

Walter’s 2010 DT BOARD

PFW’s position BOARD

Michael Abromowitz’s DT BOARD

is floating about in the ether. His situation, with the injury and being ‘cut’ has more to do with money than anything else. If the Broncos could have afforded multiple young players to a paid status on IR, he would be there with Alridge right now.

He graded out as a good blocker and a good receiver, and he is a taller player with room to add bulk. He could very much be in the physical mold of Graham. I think he will return to the team in the offseason.

Which begs the question of yet another injured/injury prone TE…