Crimson And Cream Machine, an Oklahoma Sooners community

Colts take Brody Eldridge in the fifth round, a 265 pound tight end out of Oklahoma. The interesting thing about him at Oklahoma is that he was sort of a "jack-of-all-trades" along the offensive line. He played some center and guard his senior year. He didn't catch that many passes playing behind OU phenom tight end Jermaine Gresham. But pass catching doesn't seem to to be his thing. This guy is a blocker:

My first reaction here was "WHAT?!" My second reaction was "Wow, Franks actually sounds pretty good." This might and should signal the end of Brian Williams in Atlanta, and the wealth of young talent at cornerback will allow us to give Franks a redshirt year to learn the defense. He's also enormously athletically talented, which means he could be an immediate factor on special teams. He also has some natural coverage talent, a strong sense of confidence and good foot speed.

Clayton was a productive two-year starter for the Sooners' defense. He lacks great size for the position but is a good athlete who shows quickness and range in pursuit. He is a solid open-field tackler, keeping good body positioning and level in space. He is a competitive linebacker but isn't great to take on and shed effectively (especially versus interior power run schemes). He has the lateral agility and quickness to be an effective zone coverage defender but is inconsistent with his angles to the ball as well as biting on run fakes, which gets him out of position. Clayton is a good football player but is limited due to his size, which likely will relegate him to a back-up role and special teams duty.

The addition of Jermaine Gresham does make sense. With Gresham, the Bengals can stretch the middle of the field and Palmer can hit a target in traffic on a critical third and short. With the addition of Gresham, the Bengals could be afforded an opportunity where predictability slowly fades away. Think about this. The Bengals line up double Tight End formation with Gresham and Chase Coffman at the ends and Chad Ochocinco and Antonio Bryant flanking them. Essentially Palmer will have four options on any play. And since the formation is also a run formation, the team can simply hand the football off to Cedric Benson for a sure four or five yards. What are you going to do defense? You have four guys you need to cover with Benson foaming at the mouth to hand out some awesome punishment.

Todd McShay broke down Trent Williams and he certainly is the most athletic Tackle on the board. He packs a punch, can play both ends, and is the quickest Tackle in terms of speed from the NFL draft grades. One of his red flags is his work-ethic, which is highlighted when he'll be given a huge NFL paycheck. It's hard to imagine a regime as tight as Shanahan's would allow a player to tail off like some of the Redskins high-paid free agents did last year.

Generally speaking... on the scale of brute power vs. greasy speed, McCoy falls squarely on the side of speed. That's not to say McCoy can't get pressure through a power move/bull rush. He can. What he does is explode off the line and get on the outside shoulder of his blocker and get into the pocket quickly. He probably boasts the quickest first step out of any interior defensive lineman in this draft and possibly in the past 3 or 4 years. As we all know, quick, pocket-collapsing DT's are a premium in the Tampa 2, so, at first glance, McCoy's speed through a single gap would put alot of pressure on opposing guards in one-on-one matchups and would likely draw help from an offensive linemate, freeing up a lane for the quick Geno Hayes to blast into the backfield. That simple chain of events would likely cause the opposition to keep a running back in the backfield to chip the linebacker, taking another receiving threat out of the play. That's the ripple effect that an impact defensive lineman can create.

I don't know it was by design or just the way scouts broke it down, but I find it appropriate that Bradford that he is compared often to Kurt Warner. Sure, the accuracy and decision making is the basis for that comparison. Still, it's no small coincidence, from a literary angle, that Bradford, chosen to lead the franchise out of the doldrums, get compared to the last great QB who led the team out of the doldrums. Just set aside the Horatio Alger, grocery clerk turned Super Bowl hero story when thinking about the $70 million contract Bradford is likely to sign as the first overall pick.