Shiny Pennies

Squirrel!

Thursday night, somebody’s dream of being the #1 pick in the NFL draft will come true. Does anyone ever dream of being the #29 pick in the NFL draft? As a Patriots’ fan, I care a lot less about the #1 pick than I do #29 but caring about the Patriots’ first round pick is probably a fool’s errand. I know how this is going to go. This coming Thursday, my wife will be watching The Daily Show and I will be streaming ESPN on my laptop around 11:15pm, the estimated time New England will be on the clock. I will have tracked picks #1 through #28, hoping that one of those Top 10 studs I’ve been reading about for the last six weeks has inexplicably tumbled all the way down the draft board and right into the Patriots’ lap.

At which point, Bill Belichick will trade down for extra picks.

Despite the fatalistic certainty I hold for Belichick trading down, I comb the mock drafts and possible Patriots lists hoping I won’t read words like “tweener” or “lacks top end speed” or “coming off a fill-in-the-blank injury” or “off-field issues” or “upside.” I especially hate upside. Upside = Not Very Good Right Now. Upside was what every bust who ever failed to live up to expectations had tattooed on his Johnson. Some of them even had massive upside (and massive Johnsons if you’re going to fit 13 letters on it).

I’m hoping the Pigskin Pundits and Bobbleheads are right and the 2013 draft is deep in above averageness. After the Pats trade down they should be able to find a new Deion Branch and a new David Givens in the second and third rounds. Wouldn’t you take that? I would in a heartbeat.

Oh, sure, I’d be more than happy (I’d be delighted) if new shiny penny Terrance Williams is picked up in the second round and becomes Tom Brady’s big play binky on his way to 12 TD catches and a few votes for Offensive Rookie of the Year. (I ask for so little, really.) And sure, I’ll wonder what might have been after the Jets take Margus Hunt with the #13 pick but then I’ll remember Vernon Gholston, who was supposed to be drafted by Belichick and become the next Lawrence Taylor (without the hookers and coke) but then the Jets swooped in and none of that happened and then I’ll feel really badly for Margus Hunt.

Speaking of the Jets, I would be remiss in my duties as a Patriots’ fan if I didn’t rub some schadenfreude on my chest following the much discussed and long awaited trade of Darrelle Revis to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In exchange for their very best player (and arguably one of the twenty best players in the entire league) the Jets received Tampa Bay’s first round pick this year and a conditional third/fourth round pick next year. The NYJ now hold the 9^th and 13^th picks in the first round of a draft that lacks franchise quarterbacks, elite running backs, playmaking wide receivers and shutdown cornerbacks. By the time Gang Green is on the clock, the next Darrelle Revis – Alabama’s Dee Milliner – will be wearing a Cleveland Browns’ baseball cap. It’s hard to say what the Jets will do. Trade down for more picks? That would be the smart way to go (if they can find a trade partner). Could the Jets package their first round picks and find a trading partner that would allow them to move up? Perhaps Oakland? Maybe (they’re still crazy, aren’t they?) but are you absolutely convinced Dee Milliner is really (really) the next Darrelle Revis?  Maybe they reach for a QB of the Future with one of those picks. Maybe Geno Smith is the next big thing. (It could happen.) Defense – literally every position on defense – is probably a better use of their draft capital.

I’ll tell myself it was a good idea if the Patriots trade down for additional second and third round picks even though I wince as a shutdown corner and a playmaking wide receiver are the next two picks. Shiny pennies.

So here’s hoping the Jets do something crazy like draft the wrong quarterback (could be any of them, really, other than Matt Barkley as I just don’t see how even the Jets could embrace the irony of overdrafting yet another USC quarterback) with the 9^th and then taking a project with upside like Margus Hunt or a guy Kiper and McShay gave a second round grade with the 13^th pick as the boos of Jets’ fans fill Radio City Music Hall like a hundred drunken Pavarotti’s bellowing and sobbing and crying to an indifferent pigskin god.

That’s good TV.