Here were some highlights from Mel Kiper's NFL Draft conference call, courtesy of ESPN:
-- Kiper said he expected the Dolphins to look hard at cornerback at No. 25, even after the addition of Eric Green. While he expected Ohio State's Malcolm Jenkins to be gone (even after Jenkins's stock drop), he pointed to Illinois's Vontae Davis ('great talent; inconsistent"), UConn's Darius Butler and Utah's Sean Smith ("great size").
-- Kiper said that even if Bill Parcells doesn't want to take a receiver there, the options could prove too tempting. Kiper expects five or six to go in the first round. "And say a Heyward-Bey is there?" Still, he thinks Heyward-Bey goes between 16 and 18 (to the Bears), and that the Maryland product is "the fourth receiver or fifth." He said there's "about seven teams between 17 and 32 that need a wide receiver."
-- Kiper does believe, however, that guys like Ohio State's Brian Robiskie, Rutgers's Kenny Britt ("I don't think he's elite, and I don't think he's a guy you can count on to be a No. 1 receiver, but he's got a lot of skills") and Oklahoma's Juaquin Iglesias could slip to the Dolphins' spot in the second round. He thinks Iglesias could even be available in the third.
Kiper said that "people are more enamored" with Percy Harvin than they were a month or so ago. And many are less smitten by Hakeem Nicks, after Nicks put on weight. Kiper called Harvin "Reggie Bush as a Saint, not Reggie Bush at USC."
-- Kiper is still going, more than an hour later. He just gave a really interesting answer to Omar's question, and I'm sure Omar will blog it. The crux? That if Kiper ran a team, he would never have a first-round pick if he could help it. Instead, he would just accumulate as many later picks as possible. He said that was always Bill Walsh's philosophy, and that led to one of the great drafts in NFL history, in a year that San Francisco didn't have a single first-round pick and kept trading down.
-- Kiper said he expected the Dolphins to look hard at cornerback at No. 25, even after the addition of Eric Green. While he expected Ohio State's Malcolm Jenkins to be gone (even after Jenkins's stock drop), he pointed to Illinois's Vontae Davis ('great talent; inconsistent"), UConn's Darius Butler and Utah's Sean Smith ("great size").
-- Kiper said that even if Bill Parcells doesn't want to take a receiver there, the options could prove too tempting. Kiper expects five or six to go in the first round. "And say a Heyward-Bey is there?" Still, he thinks Heyward-Bey goes between 16 and 18 (to the Bears), and that the Maryland product is "the fourth receiver or fifth." He said there's "about seven teams between 17 and 32 that need a wide receiver."
-- Kiper does believe, however, that guys like Ohio State's Brian Robiskie, Rutgers's Kenny Britt ("I don't think he's elite, and I don't think he's a guy you can count on to be a No. 1 receiver, but he's got a lot of skills") and Oklahoma's Juaquin Iglesias could slip to the Dolphins' spot in the second round. He thinks Iglesias could even be available in the third.
Kiper said that "people are more enamored" with Percy Harvin than they were a month or so ago. And many are less smitten by Hakeem Nicks, after Nicks put on weight. Kiper called Harvin "Reggie Bush as a Saint, not Reggie Bush at USC."
-- Kiper is still going, more than an hour later. He just gave a really interesting answer to Omar's question, and I'm sure Omar will blog it. The crux? That if Kiper ran a team, he would never have a first-round pick if he could help it. Instead, he would just accumulate as many later picks as possible. He said that was always Bill Walsh's philosophy, and that led to one of the great drafts in NFL history, in a year that San Francisco didn't have a single first-round pick and kept trading down.