Who Goes #1

[Partial]

Who Goes #1?

[Fritz]

He seems to be about as sure a thing as there can be in this draft, and though he's not a QB Johnson plays a premier position. The Raiders will take him.

[Packnut]

CJ

Yep,CJ it is.......

[BF4MVP]

Davis has a foot in the grave, but if his brain is still functioning properly, he'll take CJ..

[ND72]

I've been saying for weeks that the Raiders will take Calvin Johnson...NOW, I firmly believe they will take Russel. Don't ask me why, just a feeling I guess.

[woodbuck27]

There is 'over the top' positive hype on CJ that means he has to be #1.

He is a WR but when have we read such positive's on another WR coming out of college?

Yet. Oakland still needs a bona fide QB to get the ball to him.

[Lurker64]

(CJ + best QB available at Oakland's 2nd round pick) > (Russell + best WR available at Oaklands 2nd round pick).

Plus, if you draft CJ first, if a team (like Tampa) is really in love with him, you can work out a trade like the Eli Manning trade, to get Russell (or Quinn) and a pile of draft picks on top of it.

Were I Al Davis, I would take CJ in a heartbeat.

[Partial]

I've been saying for weeks that the Raiders will take Calvin Johnson...NOW, I firmly believe they will take Russel. Don't ask me why, just a feeling I guess.

Did you put Calvin in your mockdraft? I think me, you and harv are gonna be the top 3 just throwing out a random guess. Not trying to knock anyone, but you do the mocks a lot, Harv is just a wealth of random knowledge, and I read about the drafts to a crazy, insane extent.

[Joemailman]

In the end, I decided that Al Davis' love of the vertical passing game will cause him to take Russell. I think he is still hoping Moss will come back.

[BooHoo]

I am thinking they will take CJ and mess up the Lions draft board. Or maybe it will be easier for them. I can't imagine the Lions taking CJ with the second pick given their past history with high receivers picks (they have not done well - three cheers for Matt Millen).

[Scott Campbell]

There is 'over the top' positive hype on CJ that means he has to be #1.

I've watched the tape. I've read about the ridiculous triple coverage teams threw at him. I did the double take when reading his 40 time. He's really big, and by all accounts is a great character guy. I don't think it's hype. He's the real deal - kind of like LeBron.

[MadtownPacker]

Calvin Johnson by far. He has freakish talent, size and appears to be the sure thing.

[woodbuck27]

http://www.mercurynews.com/raiders/ci_5762933

NFL Draft: Not many top wide receivers have gone No. 1

By Daniel Brown
Mercury News

Article Launched: 04/27/2007 01:41:02 AM PDT

If the Raiders take Calvin Johnson of Georgia Tech with the first pick Saturday, it would be an upset.

Conventional wisdom is that receivers can't do enough to turn around a franchise by themselves - even a can't-miss prospect like Calvin Johnson.

In fact, no receiver has gone No.1 in the NFL draft since 1996, when the New York Jets selected Keyshawn Johnson.

And even that was a fluke.

"There wasn't a No.1 quarterback in my draft when I came out," Keyshawn Johnson said this week on a conference call with reporters.

"I knew that. I understood that. You pick a guy No.1 overall and to expect him to carry your football team."

In Keyshawn Johnson's draft class, the first quarterback taken was Tony Banks, selected No. 42 by St. Louis.

This year's draft offers a few markedly better quarterback options, namely JaMarcus Russell of Louisiana State and Brady Quinn of Notre Dame.

But should Calvin Johnson be bypassed so easily?

He is, by most accounts, the most polished player in the draft - at any position.

He is 6-foot-5, 239 pounds, has a 45-inch vertical jump and runs the 40 in 4.35 seconds. One popular draft guide says of Johnson:

"Makes very difficult catches look easy ... Outstanding leaping ability ... Very durable and has never missed any time ... Big physical blocker ... Outstanding character ... Showed up in tip-top shape at the combine and ran much better than most much smaller WRs, clocking in the 4.3s on a
whim."

Pro Football Weekly called him "a bigger, more athletic Randy Moss with none of the baggage."

Mel Kiper Jr. called him "a bigger, faster Larry Fitzgerald. A great talent."

So why not take him No.1?

Research shows that the bias against taking a receiver first overall is surprisingly well founded. Odds are against a wide receiver becoming the franchise-altering piece that a quarterback can be.

From 1979 to 2003, 22 quarterbacks and 10 receivers were taken in the top five, according to Bill Barnwell of footballoutsiders.com.

The teams that took quarterbacks were an average of 4.23 victories better in Year 3 with that player; teams that took receivers were only 0.59 games better in Year3.

"That's one of the reasons why you see quarterbacks drafted so much with the first pick," 49ers Coach Mike Nolan said.

"If you are going to pay somebody a lot, you need to pay somebody who plays probably the most critical position."

After the Jets took Keyshawn Johnson, for example, they actually got worse, falling from 3-13 before Johnson to 1-15 with him.

Johnson, who became a three-time Pro Bowl selection and serves as an ESPN draft analyst, compared receivers in the NFL to shooting guards in the NBA.

"You can find one almost anywhere," he said.

"When you take a guy No.1 ... you better make sure that this guy is all that he is cracked up to be. He better be better than the franchise quarterback.

"I don't see any team that is picking in the top eight in the draft that is one receiver away from going to the Super Bowl."

Drafting receivers, even the highly touted ones, is a crap shoot. Of the 41 taken in the first round since 1997, only nine have appeared in a Pro Bowl at the position.

Just two in the past 20 years have been selected as the offensive rookie of the year: Moss (1998) and Anquan Boldin (2003).

During that same span, 16 running backs - and two quarterbacks - have won the award.

Conventional wisdom holds that a running back can get by on athleticism alone while a receiver must adjust to the sophisticated coverages of the NFL.

"It's like going from the eighth grade to graduate classes at MIT," said Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys executive turned Fox analyst.

Miami Dolphins Coach Cam Cameron said:

"The sheer volume of plays in the passing game makes it difficult. And it's a grind playing. The amount of running receivers do on a day-to-day basis in practice is incredible compared to what they do in college."

Still, not everyone struggles.

Last season, the New Orleans Saints struck gold with Marques Colston - a seventh-round pick, no less - who had 1,038 yards, eight touchdowns and averaged 14.8 yards per catch as a rookie.

Colston was the 252nd overall pick, supporting Keyshawn Johnson's assertion that you can find a receiver almost anywhere. Teams no doubt will be looking for the next Colston this year, with Mike Mason of Tennessee State, Jordan Kent of Oregon, James Jones of San Jose State and Laurent Robinson of Illinois State serving as potential late-round bargains.

Barnwell, though, in his research for footballoutsiders.com, found a fairly straightforward relationship between a receiver's success and the round in which he was taken.

First-round picks, on average, totaled 207.7 catches over their first five seasons, second-rounders totaled 135.2, third-rounders 97.9 - and on down to seventh-rounders at 24.4.

This suggests that evaluating receivers is no different from any other spot on the field - the best talent is the best bet. And it's the same principle regardless of position.

Cameron, for example, said offensive line is the toughest spot for a rookie to make an impact. Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh, a 15-year NFL veteran, took it a step further, saying that quarterback, offensive line and linebacker all have it rougher.

"Receiver is not even close to being the hardest position on the field - not even close," Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh said he had a hard time remembering any first-round rookie receiver looking overmatched.

To the contrary, he recalled a fresh-faced receiver arriving with the Colts in 1996 and having an instant impact: Marvin Harrison, who had 64 catches for 836 yards and eight touchdowns in his first season.

Raiders, take note: Harrison just happens to be Calvin Johnson's role model.

"My character on the field, I'm like Marvin Harrison - just trying to get the job done," Johnson said.

"I'm more like Marvin Harrison with the attitude."

[woodbuck27]

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

POSTED 7:12 p.m. EDT; UPDATED 7:20 p.m. EDT, April 26, 2007

EIGHTY-PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIDERS TAKING RUSSELL

A league source with knowledge of the dynamics in the Raiders organization tells us that, as of Thursday night, there is an 80 percent chance that the Raiders will select quarterback JaMarcus Russell with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

This belief meshes with other things we've heard from league insiders who believe that Russell is the guy.

With all that said, we believe that anything can happen on this one -- and that Raiders owner Al Davis will relish every last second of his moment in the spotlight.

[woodbuck27]

Then there's this:

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

POSTED 3:13 p.m. EDT, April 27, 2007

RUMORS FLY OF QUINN TO RAIDERS

There are rumors right now in media circles that the Raiders are closing in on a deal with (drum roll, please) Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn, who would then be named the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

Adam Schefter of NFL Network tipped us off to the rumor -- however, Schefter thinks that the rumor is not true.

Mark Maske of the Washington Post acknowledges the rumor in a Friday afternoon chat, but he says he's not reporting that the deal is done.

We heard earlier in the week that the Raiders had made an initial offer to Quinn. We have since heard that, while hard numbers were not presented to Quinn's agent, Tom Condon, there was enough discussion about parameters and terms to give him a sufficient idea as to the ballpark amount of the deal.