Dr. Z Blog from SI.com

It's not personal ... it's personnel
A league source gives the real scoop on top prospects
Posted: Friday March 31, 2006 11:45AM; Updated: Friday March 31, 2006 1:11PM

USC quarterback Matt Leinart likely won't last past the No. 3 pick in the upcoming draft.

During the league meetings in Orlando I sat down for a deep-cover type of conversation with my favorite NFL executive. His first name is A. His last name is Personnel Man. We call him in print "A Personnel Man," because if you use his real name he won't talk to you anymore and then I won't be able to write this kind of column.

He doesn't like his name used because most of what he has to say is negative, or at least it is this year. I've never known him to gush, which is great because I hate gushing. He finds things wrong. So do I. I asked him what he thought of the unbridled riches available for free agents these days. He smiled because he liked this question.

"Too much money. Not enough players," he said.

"An agent told me," he added, "'You can't go by last year's contracts. Look at the way the cap went up.' I told him the cap went up but the players' ability didn't."

I told him I wanted to know who the top potential draft choices are. "I'm having trouble finding 10 elite ones," I said.

"Not easy this year," he said.

First, one must sort out the quarterbacks. We're assuming that Tennessee, in the No. 3 spot, will go for a QB. I've been told that the Titans' offensive coordinator, Norm Chow, who coached Matt Leinart at USC, lines them up in this order: Leinart, Jay Cutler of Vanderbilt, Vince Young of Texas. The rest of the staff is split between Leinart and Young at No. 1.

New Orleans, which drafts second, already has signed ex-Charger Drew Brees to a high-paying contract. "It's unrealistic to think that the Saints could draft a quarterback at No. 2 and tie up $40 or $50 million in guaranteed money for two players," our source says.

But someone always could trade into that spot for a QB. Or use it to leapfrog into the Texans' spot at No. 1, since it's no secret that Houston's coach, GaryKubiak, wants to draft a runner, Reggie Bush. It would make a lot of sense for the Texans to move down one spot, provided they were sure that the new No. 1 team would draft a QB. Houston would get its guy, plus an extra draft. But Houston couldn't move lower than No. 2 for fear of losing Bush.

Young is slightly ahead of Cutler, behind Leinart. The stories of Young's supposed score of 6 in the Wonderlic IQ test are not true, we were told. Seven, and then 15 on a re-test, are the correct numbers.
"Is Leinart another Peyton Manning in 1998?" I asked my man. "The safest pick among the quarterbacks?"

"Except for one thing that makes me nervous about him," he said. "Manning had an intense work ethic on and off the field, and I don't sense it about Leinart, the lifting, etc. Of course that could change by the time camp starts."

I told you this guy was inclined to be negative. How about Young? Is it fair to say he's a young Randall Cunningham?

"Well, I never saw Cunningham in college," he said, "and the best person right now to ask about Randall's rookie year with the Eagles would be Ron Jaworski. He was his teammate then."

As the draft approaches, I'll talk to Jaworski.

OK, let's give away Bush, Young and Leinart to somebody in the first three picks. That leaves Cutler at No. 4 if the Jets would be interested. Which would mean that they re-signed their starter, Chad Pennington, they traded for Patrick Ramsey and then they would draft a third one, which would give them the trifecta. Hard to see that happening.

So here are a few potential top-10 names. D'Brickashaw Ferguson, the tackle for Virginia. That might not be a bad choice for New Orleans, either.

"A good player," my man says, "but not in the class of a Tony Boselli. I'd say more on the level of a Levi Jones."

It can be a mystifying position at times. The surest left tackle bet since Boselli was Robert Gallery of Iowa and look at him now, struggling at RT for the Raiders.

"The only thing I can think of," says our super-scout, "is that those Iowa tackles are so well coached, so well drilled, that their excellence of technique masks their athletic ability."

The second-best tackle projection is Winston Justice of USC. Potentially a top 10 selection?

"A risk," says my man. "Great ability, but his performance depended on which game you watched him in. He didn't play in 2004 and he absolutely should have stayed in school another year. He really would have helped himself. He has athletic ability, he'll look great in workouts, he's just inconsistent."

OK, I'll do it this way. I'll shoot out the names, followed by Deep Throat's capsule comments and hopefully we'll find a top 10 choice or two.

Ohio State LB A.J. Hawk and Maryland TE Vernon Davis:

"Both should be top 10. When's the last time you saw a tight end run in the 4.3s? I don't remember ever seeing one."

Jimmy Williams of Virginia Tech, supposedly the best cornerback:

"An enigma. Played much better in '04 than '05. More of a cover two corner. Maybe they could move him inside."

How about Max Jean-Gilles, the 355-pound Georgia guard, plus another serious jumbo, Haloti Ngata, the 338-pound Oregon DT?

"Jean-Gilles is a road grader type. When you see him live, he's more athletic than he looks on tape. But he's got a weight problem, and the percentage of guys who overcome that isn't good. Ngata is a man, a huge physical guy. If he wants to he can really stack things up at the point, but he didn't play hard all the time. There wasn't a lot of production. I'm afraid he's more hype than substance."

OK, here's a guy whose stock is soaring right now. He could be a safetyman or a corner projection. His combine speed was 4.34, which you seldom see for strong safeties. I'm talking about Michael Huff of Texas.

"Look, I'm really sorry to be so negative, but here's what I see here. I see a guy who has trained very hard to run the 40 at the combine. He runs it too effectively. Everybody's getting better at this speed thing. They're learning how to train for it very efficiently. The trick is not to get fooled by this. Huff is a guy who runs fast but doesn't play fast."

OK, Mr. A, could you please give me one sleeper, a guy who's not projected near the top of the board but might slip in?

"Ernie Sims, outside linebacker from Florida State. I see him listed as the fourth- or fifth-best linebacker on some charts. He's a lot better than that. An undersized guy with tremendous athletic ability."
The Truth About Favre
During Super Bowl week I ran into Warren Moon, who has a radio show in Seattle. We talked about Brett Favre, of all things. Moon lines up with the people who feel that the great Packer will call it quits.

"I think it's been a struggle for him," the new Hall of Famer says. "You can see by the way he's played the last couple of years. I think if he could see a turnaround coming, he'd come back. But I don't think he sees that. Just my opinion, though."

I've written this before. For Favre to have a chance to bring his career back to any kind of a decent level, he needs someone who isn't afraid to take him on, to work on his fundamentals, to tell him that if a rookie on the team played the way he did last season, he'd be gone within two weeks. And there wouldn't be an army of people copping out about how he wasn't getting help from his receivers or his blockers or John Madden up in the TV booth telling you every five minutes how much fun he was having out there. It wasn't fun for the guys on his unit after he threw still another pick.

So at the league meetings on Wednesday, when we sat down with the NFC coaches, I hunted down the Packers' new man, Mike McCarthy, who had coached Favre in better times. How, I asked him, do you bring him back to life, assuming he wants to play?

I would like to report that I heard something new. But it was the same routine. Not all his fault, receivers ran wrong routes, dropped the ball. Offense lacked continuity, etc.

But then again, can you blame a coach for not dropping the hammer on a Hall of Fame QB, especially when he's talking to a stranger such as me? Maybe he'd feel that's all Favre would need, a rip from the coach. That's it folks, I'm gone.

McCarthy is a guy who's seen life from the underside. At one time he quit college and worked in his father's bar, Big Tim's in Lower Greenfield, Pa. After he'd gotten his masters and he was a volunteer coach at Pitt, he worked the graveyard shift as a toll taker on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Exit 5, Harmarville.

"It's amazing what you would see at 2 a.m., when the bars closed," he says. "Sometimes someone would run the tollbooth without paying. Would I go after him? Hell No. It wasn't worth it for 50 cents.

"It's funny ... people you thought you'd never run into would come by and you'd try to explain in the quick period you had why you're working there, with a master's, taking tolls."

A tough guy, but is he tough enough to tell his quarterback, "Look, what you've been doing just isn't good enough"? l'd like to think so but I don't like the chances.

A Coach's New Challenge
Tuesday night on our way out of the Hyatt Grand Cypress we passed this tiny infant, crying in that bleating little post-newborn way. Almost every person who passed was good for an "Awww, isn't he cute?"

The baby belonged to Eric Mangini. He was two months old on Feb. 26, two years to the day after his brother, Jake, had been born. Cute, yes, but not when you're trying to survive a plane trip from New York to Orlando with the pair of them.

"Usually Jake is fine on plane trips," said the Jets' new 35-year old coach. "This time the little guy was OK but Jake suffered a complete meltdown. It was a disaster. Jake just shut it down. 'I won't get on.' Like that.

"I mean, this is tough. You can't reason with him. You can't make him run. Can't cut him, can't fine him. All you can do is some self-scouting, so you can prepare him for the ride home."

Quick Hits
My favorite news item: Terrell Owens releases new rap record, I'm Back.

Here's my favorite verse:

I got what I wanted up front, 10 mil.
I changed the rules of the game, so now how you feel?

Note to T.O.: I like rhyming rap. So it's either got to be "10 meel," or "how you fill?" Take your pick.

ANOTHER ITEM: New Orleans restaurateur Emeril Lagasse was so happy that Brees came to the Saints that he promised to cook the QB "his first meal when he gets to town -- in his house."

My advice to Brees: take a pass on it. That pate with pineapple, those green things that had the consistency of rubber heels. Eeeugh!

Too much money. Not enough players.

That could have been Thompson.