Sam Bradford's Pro-Day. See you in St. Louis?

So by now we have all heard that Sam Bradford lit everyone's fire at his ProDay in Norman Oklahoma. He shot 62 for 63, and a good pass was dropped. He executed 50 scripted plays and threw 13 passes from a fixed stance. Gil Brandt commented that it was the best performance by a QB candidate since Troy Aikman. That is powerful praise.

Congratulations are in order, and I still think it is a bad fit. You can't throw this kid in the shark tank behind our offensive line and expect good things. The order of operations we must go through is critical, just as in calculus. We need to build our offensive line first, and then draft a QB. The Jets were successful last season with Mark Sanchez because they went through precisely this order of operations. They built the best line in football, and then they drafted their rookie. Guess what? He did okay, even prospering a bit towards the end.

If we are haunted by the spectre of QBs we passed up, we need not be. Neither Matt Ryan nor Mark Sanchez would been successful behind our offensive line. Arguing that we should not have passed on them is rank foolishness.

When we acquired Jim Everett we had the best offensive line in professional football. We three guys who routinely started in the Pro-Bowl. I'm speaking of Jackie Slater, Dennis Harrah, and Dough Smith. We lost Kent Hill in the deal we made with the Oilers. Irv Panky wasn't bad either. We had a line that drove Eric Dickerson to 2,105 yards. When Kurt Warner blew up in 1999, we had a very good offensive line. Good enough to win the Super Bowl.

The only reason Steven Jackson hasn't rushed for 2153 yards is that he doesn't have a line.

Drafting Bradford is just not the right move right now. This is no reflection of Sam. Sam is worth the pick. If we had a quality line, I would draft Sam immediately. We do not have a quality line. A young QB needs an OL like a fish needs water. A rookie QB and our offensive line will go together like Basketball and a Vasectomy.

From my perspective, the real value of what happened yesterday is this: We now have three interested parties buzzing about doing a deal to acquire Bradford. Those parties are the Washington Redskins, the Cleveland Browns, and now the Seattle Seahawks. I hope Devaney is a man of his word, and hope he is in contact with these parties,

Our best deal is probably with Cleveland, if we can swing it. We can probably swap 1sts, get a 2nd and a 3rd. We probably would probably swap 1sts and acquire a 2nd from Washington. Whilst I am not delighted by the prospect of dealing Bradford to the Seahawks, I do covet Coach Carroll's two 1st rounders. He better know it is going to cost him if he wants do do business within the NFC West.

In any of these cases, we can put together the picks to fix our terrible offensive line, and we can add 'skilled players' as well. I still think this is the way we should go.

Sam Bradford & Todd McShay
Sam Bradford & Mike Mayock

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