Did the Bears steal Rex Grossman from the Packers?
The Packers say no. General manager/coach Mike Sherman said he would have selected his pick, Oregon State linebacker Nick Barnett, over Grossman.
Had Kyle Boller lasted, Sherman isn’t so sure.
“I liked Boller,” Sherman said. “Boller would have been a strong consideration if he was there. But I’m not disappointed the quarterback wasn’t there for us to pick.”
Former general manager Ron Wolf agrees, saying the Packers simply had to get a linebacker. To take Brett Favre’s heir apparent would have been a luxury they couldn’t afford.
Wolf studied tapes of Boller, Grossman, Chris Simms and Dave Ragone for Sherman and advised him not to spend the No. 1 pick on any of them.
“I wasn’t high on those players as first-round picks,” Wolf said.
Wolf said he does like Grossman but bases his opinion on only a few tapes. He hasn’t seen Grossman play since his freshman year of college.
“I like him because the ball goes down the field, the team moves down the field,” Wolf said. “I’ve read all the stuff about him being gutsy. I don’t know him, never met him, don’t know about leadership and all this other stuff. But I know he played under a tough guy [Steve Spurrier] and he won big games as a freshman with probably the toughest coach to play for in college football. To me that shows a lot of moxie.
“He’s played big-time competition, so that’s not going to faze him. He’s from right next door there [Indiana], so the weather is not going to faze him. His arm is strong and he can get out of trouble.”
Wolf said he looks “at the feet first” because a quarterback’s ability to move might be most important, especially in the kind of West Coast offense the Packers, Bears and many teams try to feature. That’s why Marshall’s Byron Leftwich wasn’t a prime consideration for either team.
“He’s a great quarterback with a great arm,” Sherman said of Leftwich. “But he doesn’t really fit the prototype for what we do.”
Wolf said he read recent magazine quotes painting Grossman as a gunslinger who gambles with ill-advised throws into coverage. Experts Boomer Esiason, Don Coryell and Bill Walsh all expressed concern about what Walsh termed “disastrous decisions.”
“To me that’s just gobbledygook,” Wolf said. “You tell me one guy who’s ever played quarterback who’s not done that. You can always find something wrong. I’ve never seen the guy who doesn’t throw into coverage. That’s kind of looking at the cornerback who never got beat.”
Wolf believes Grossman’s arm is strong enough, and his feet give him “that ability to step around the rush.”
“The thing I don’t know is how tall he is,” Wolf said. “Everybody says he measured 6-1 at the combine. If that’s true, then he’s tall enough. You know how some guys look tall and some look short? He looks like a short 6-1, but I think it’s because he’s so blocky.”
It happened before: Everybody was stunned when the Vikings missed their 15-minute time limit in the first round, precipitating a scramble behind them before the Vikings jumped back into the fray and selected Oklahoma State defensive lineman Kevin Williams.
But at least the Vikings had the excuse of trying to trade down to add a few picks before taking Williams. In 1969 the Bears missed their time limit because of utter chaos in their cluttered draft room.
They had the 13th pick and were eyeing a defensive lineman. But when Bill Stanfill went to Miami and Rich Moore to the Packers right ahead of them, the Bears were baffled. Coach Jim Dooley remembers the room was filled with scouts and coaches. Owner George Halas started seeking opinions.
“Halas said, `I want to have a democratic vote,'” Dooley recalled. “Picture it. We had a couple of players we were fairly in agreement on. Then they went right beforehand. You never saw just wild opinions in your life.”
Defensive end Fred Dryer received a lot of votes, but not a majority and not in time. As soon as the 15 minutes were up, the Giants grabbed Dryer.
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“They didn’t wait a minute,” Dooley said. “It was terrible. Halas said, `Aw, for heaven’s sakes, pick anybody.'”
The Bears took offensive tackle Rufus Mayes. Halas said: “We didn’t lose a thing. We were only about 15 seconds late, but a rule is a rule.”
It was the first mistake of the Bears’ disastrous 1-13 season. Mayes was traded after that rookie season and started nine years for the Bengals.
Jets compelled: After trading up to the Bears’ No. 4 spot, the Jets were still afraid the Cowboys or Patriots would jump ahead of them to take Kentucky defensive tackle Dewayne Robertson. So they offered a second-round pick to the Lions to move to the No. 2 spot.
A sign held up at draft headquarters before the Jets’ turn: “Make a good pick, Jets. He’ll soon be a Redskin.”
The Jets lost four free agents to the Redskins this off-season: wide receiver Laveranues Coles, kick returner Chad Morton, guard Randy Thomas and kicker John Hall.
Linebacker division: In a division where Brian Urlacher is the standard, the Packers were the first to draft a linebacker, taking Barnett. Some teams had Boss Bailey as their top linebacker, and the Lions made him the second one picked. Other teams liked E.J. Henderson, and the Vikings made him the third linebacker picked. All three went between Nos. 29 and 40.
The Packers rejected Bailey because of bad knees and missed tackles.
“He wasn’t a sure tackler,” Sherman said. “Barnett is a great space player. He can tackle people in the open field, which is important.”
The 6-foot-1-inch, 235-pound Barnett is projected as a middle linebacker.
“He’s a [middle linebacker] very much like a young Hardy Nickerson in Tampa Bay’s defense,” Sherman said. “He can take the middle 15 to 18 yards when you have both safeties wide. The other linebackers weren’t even close to this guy. This guy is the exact size as Ray Lewis when he came out, speed and everything. This guy might be a little bit heavier. But I’m not saying this guy is Ray Lewis.”
Henderson, more of the run-stuffing prototype, “doesn’t have the speed [Barnett] has,” Sherman said.
Center of attention: Cleveland Browns fans had no problem with the selection of Notre Dame center Jeff Faine No. 1. One of Paul Brown’s first signings in the start-up of the 1946 Browns was a center, Hall of Famer Frank Gatski. When Brown started the expansion Bengals in 1968, he made Tennessee center Bob Johnson his very first draft choice.
Browns coach Butch Davis said of Faine: “When you identify traits and qualities of guys who can get you to the next level … guys who are football junkies and absolutely love the game and have passion about it, and are tough and nasty and love getting bloody and muddy … how can you not love a guy like that for the Cleveland Browns?”
In the fifth round, however, Davis got carried away with the position, selecting a long snapper, Rice’s Ryan Pontbriand. You don’t think football has become specialized? Davis saw the New York Giants eliminated from the playoffs on a bad field-goal snap.
“I’m at a loss for words,” the flabbergasted Pontbriand said. “I was not expecting this. I’m very shocked right now.”