Now that I have a few moments, and have digested a bit more from the 2011 NFL Draft that took place last weekend; we better sit down and talk about this one for a few moments…
Kyle Rudolph is now my enemy. Rudolph was selected in the second round of the NFL Draft by those purple pansies- otherwise known as the Vikings. As a Packer fan, this selection is troubling on many, many levels.
Congratulations Kyle for achieving your goal of making it to the NFL.
Once Mr. Irrelevant was called- it was over. In a very big way, I was just relieved that Ian Williams was not drafted with the last pick. (The Notre Dame is irrelevant jokes would be unbearable). However, I was disappointed that his name was never called. There was a lot of talk that Ian would probably be drafted sometime from the 4th-6th round. This obviously didn’t happen.
Ian’s height is what was his undoing. He measured up at around 6′ 1/2″; a far distance from the 6’2″ he was listed as while at Notre Dame. 1 1/2″ is what stood in his way from being a NFL Draft pick, instead of a unsigned free agent.
No home to hang their hats. Besides Ian Williams, there were 7 other Irish players that went undrafted:
- Kerry Neal
- Robert Hughes
- Brian Smith
- Darrin Walls
- Armando Allen
- Chris Stewart
- Duval Kamara
Because of the labor situation going on with the NFL and its collective bargaining agreement with the Players Association, no free agents can be signed to a team. So, during a week where we would normally see undrafted players get signed to teams; we have to wait until that mess is cleared up before we see some of the remaining 8 players find a team and try to make the roster.
While we could see all of the remaining seven sign free agent deals with a team, only Walls, Williams, Stewart, and Hughes have a decent shot of making an NFL roster.
The continued trend of mediocrity continues:
| YR/RD | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
| 1 | Brady Quinn | ||||||
| 2 | Anthony Fasano | Victor Abiamiri | John Carlson; Trevor Laws | Jimmy Clausen; Golden Tate | Kyle Rudolph | ||
| 3 | Justin Tuck | Maurice Stovall | Ryan Harris | Tom Zbikowski | |||
| 4 | David Bruton | ||||||
| 5 | Jerome Collins | Derek Landri | |||||
| 6 | Dan Stevenson | Mike Richardson | John Sullivan | Sam Young; Eric Olsen | |||
| 7 | Dan Santucci; Chinedum Ndukwe |
What is not listed, is the Notre Dame players that went undrafted and signed free agent deals over the course of that timeframe. I don’t have the time to go back and check all of that- but feel free to do so yourself.
After looking at this table, here are a few thoughts and things that come to mind:
- Over the past 7 years, Notre Dame has had only 22 players drafted. That’s an average of 3.14 a year.
- The 2nd round has seen more ND players selected than any other in that span with 7.
- Brady Quinn is the only player to be drafted in the first round.
- Willingham has a 18-6 advantage over Weis during that span with players that each had signed to ND. Willingham does have an extra year on the chart.
- The 2007 Draft class was huge with 7 players selected. It could have been bigger if Jeff Samardzija had not decided to play MLB.
- As of right now,all of the players from the 2007 NFL Draft class will enter their 5th season in the NFL in 2011.
- Only 3 players drafted in that span were underclassmen; Rudolph, Tate, and Clausen. All Weis guys.
- 14 offensive players were drafted VS. 8 defensive players. No kickers or punters were drafted in that span.
- The offensive line had 6 players drafted during that span. 3 other groups were tied with 4 (defensive line; tight end; defensive back)
- No running backs or linebackers were drafted IN 7 YEARS.
- The average round in which these players were drafted was 3.86.
I could go on and on- but I won’t. You can draw more conclusions and interpretations from this table if you want. I think we could see a spike in the draft numbers next year, but there is no way of even guessing at a number until about halfway through the 2011 season.
Moving forward… The NFL draft is both a good and a bad indicator of college football success. I think too much stock is put into the draft numbers as far as program success is concerned, but it is still important. Will the Irish see more players drafted if they start to win on a more consistent basis? Yes. Honestly, if you win, you will find that players will be drafted in at least the latter rounds as opposed to being free agents from a losing program.
And, I wanna ween…
