NFL coaches would like the fans to think they are masterminds who have these complex systems that "non-football minds" wouldn't understand, but the majority of them have one strategy going from one season to the next:
"Do whatever the good teams did last year, and hopefully, it will work for us this year."
For those who don't believe me, all you have to do is look at this weekend's draft and see for yourself.
The one word you will hear over and over again during the ESPN broadcast will be "hybrid", which is the new fad amongst NFL teams citing how successful these types of athletes were last season.
OLB/DEs like Pittsburgh Steelers' James Harrison and LeMarr Woodley, Miami Dolphins' Joey Porter, and San Diego Chargers' Shaun Phillips accounted for 282 tackles and 57 1/2 sacks for their respective tams.
But what makes the NFL's new affinity with these types of players odd is that at one time they were looked upon in a bad light, as far as the draft goes.
Despite their incredible performances last season, Woodley was taken in the second round, Porter was in the third, Phillips in the sixth, and Harrison didn't get drafted at all.
But it was Harrison's epic performance in Super Bowl XLIII and during the regular season--earning him the Defensive Player of the Year award--that opened the floodgates for players like himself.
It has been projected that there could be anywhere from four to seven DE/OLBs taken in the first round this year.
Coincidence. I think not.
It's even gotten so crazy that the one-time scariest phrase upcoming quarterback prospects can hear about themselves (running quarterback) isn't even that bad an insult anymore due to the Dolphins success with the "Wildcat" offense.
It has been widely reported that--maybe for the first time in NFL history--college quarterbacks who may not be good enough to be every-down signal-callers in the NFL still can be viewed as valuable commodities in upcoming drafts due to their ability to come in and contribute by running the offense that spread across the league like a bad cold after the Dolphins extinguished the New England Patriots with it early in the regular season.
Pat White, for example, is projected to go somewhere in the second round of this year's draft despite having a similar skill set and collegiate background as New York Jets WR/QB Brad Smith, who was drafted in the fourth round of the 2006 draft (to the surprise of some draft analysts who had Smith projected as an undrafted free agent).
So I'm sending this as a warning to all who will be watching this year's draft, because it may be a shock to see teams do things that once was thought of as "draft day no-no's."
But don't worry, because they will be doing something different two years from now anyway.
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