BPA Best Player Available

In 2005, I wanted the Vikings to use the 7th pick on Derrick Johnson or Shawne Merriman. They could have grabbed Demarcus Ware or Thomas Davis and still have done well, but all four of these linebackers became good to great players in the NFL, and all went from 11-15 in the draft. The Vikings would have had their pick of them at 7 along with Antrel Rolle and Carlos Rodgers at cornerback.

Instead, the Vikings used the pick they received from trading Randy Moss by trying to replace the need with a wide receiver. They wanted speed, and they reached for Troy Williamson. By doing so, they not only missed the BPA, but they also drafted for a single attribute, speed. As football pundits say say, "You can't teach speed," but it ignores that looking at speed alone is not the best way to evaluate a receiver.

I was leaning toward Derrick Johnson, so we must say he likely would have been the Vikings pick there if I was the GM. I would have missed out on Ware and Merriman, but Johnson was my BPA with the 7th pick. Johnson did have a good NFL career, and it could have been better if he had not been injured twice.

With the 18th pick in 2005, I saw three players I liked. The first two were players that I had thought could be there when that pick had come up, so I would not have reached for them earlier: Marcus Spears and Mark Clayton. Spears had been a beast at LSU, and Clayton was the second receiver on my board after Braylon Edwards - whom I would have drafted at 7 had he been available. So which player did I want the Vikings to pick? It likely would have been neither of them. I would have been happy enough if the Vikings had chosen either player, but the draft board had not gone as I had foreseen. One player in particular had dropped out of the top ten, and I didn't know why. That player was Aaron Rodgers.

To the casual observer or pundit, the Vikings did not need a quarterback. Daunte Culpepper was coming off his best season, and he was still young. Why would I even consider Rodgers? There are two major reasons I saw at that time: Culpepper wasn't what his stats showed he was, and Aaron Rodgers was the best player available at 18 on my board bar none. I had posted on anothermessageboard stats and game logs that showed Culpepper was a very erratic quarterback. He had great games, and he had terrible game. He had trouble going through progressions and tucked the ball rather than moving through them and making a throw. Culpepper ran the ball often, but he fumbled often as well.

All of that is so, but there was one key factor that didn't show up in the stats: Daunte Culpepper used Randy Moss as a deep outlet pass any time he got into trouble. Instead of the five yard outlet to a back, Culpepper often had Randy Moss in an 8 or 9 pattern to go to. All he had to do was put it up and watch Moss adjust to the ball. In 2005, Culpepper lost Randy Moss, and his inability to go through progressions and get the ball out would lead, in my opinion, to a huge regression in his game. With the top quarterback on my board sitting there at 18, why would the Vikings not draft that player just in case what I had seen and predicted became a reality.

I could not have foreseen Culpepper's injuries, but it was soon evident that Culpepper without Moss was not the player The Vikings thought he was. Drafting Rodgers would have been both smart and serendipitous. Even if Culpepper had not regressed, having two good quarterbacks would have been a good place to be for acquiring future picks with a trade or not having to overpay Culpepper as a free agent.

As we know, the Green Bay Packers, with future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre on their roster, went BPA and drafted Aaron Rodgers with the 24th pick. The rest, as they say, is history, but learning from history is not what the Vikings had done. In 1998, the Vikings had drafted BPA Randy Moss after 20 teams had passed on him for need or for concerns about his character. None of those teams had learned from the Vikings drafting Alexander over Sapp just a few seasons previously.

Yes, the Vikings would need a receiver to replace Moss, and Clayton was there to be had, but a team passing up top talent because of need is a fools journey in the long run. Draft the best players when they are available and there will be less needs to fill down the road. Of course there are exceptions. Having Culpepper and Rodgers on the roster would likely mean the Vikings would forego drafting another quarterback in 2006, but the likelihood of having a player rated that high fall so far is low anyway. Drafting a second running back isn't often a good choice, but I don't rate running backs high unless it was a great back coming out, and it was obvious.

There are people who say Rodgers would not have been great in Minnesota, but I disagree. There are others that say, if what I had thought about Culpepper was true, wouldn't I want to draft a receiver to make him play better? My answer is, yes ... if it had been Braylon Edwards because he was the only receiver on my board in the top 15. I had Clayton going someplace late in the first round to early second round, but he could have gone for need earlier. Roddy White ended up a good receiver, but he was from a small program at UAB, and I basically missed on him. Drafting is not an exact science.

So there it is, BPA all the way, baby! In the long run, it is the winning move. Of course, recognizing which player is the BPA when the pick comes up is the hard part.