Feeling the Draft
There’s a chill in the air and our nipples are perked: there must be a draft headed this way! NFL draft day is now less than five days away. And just like a boys’ locker room on the eve of prom night, the testosterone is high and the rumors of potential hookups are swirling!
So who are the Saints courting for the “big dance?” Everyone’s got their guesses. If you believe Bobby Hebert, it’s linebacker Keith Rivers of USC. If you believe NFL network, they’re trading up to get a shot at LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey. And if you believe random sports forum dude who calls himself “cd12holden”, they’ll trade down with Philly to get Lito Shepherd and with the 19th overall pick take U of Miami safety Kenny Phillips. (As if…)
We wouldn’t possibly feign to know how this thing will go down come Saturday. After all, the Loomis wants what it wants. All we can say for sure is that if they draft anything OTHER than a defensive player, someone in the Saints’ front office is taking a gold-plated fleur-de-lis book end straight to the pupil.
Of course, we wouldn’t be a “legitimate” sports blog without making a few guesses of our own. (Well, that and the gratuitous sexual references.) So below we offer a few potential scenarios of what could and should go down when the Saints are “on the clock.”
Scenario 1 a.k.a. “The Drunken and Overly Optimistic/Insane Nola Chick Scenario”
Just two days after trading Jason David and Olindo Mare to New York in exchange for Jeremy Shockey, the Saints find themselves hit with yet another wave of good luck: Glenn Dorsey is still up for grabs in the 10th round! They take him in the first then take the best available Safety in the second. Saints fans everywhere request vacation time for the weekend of February 1, 2009.
Scenario 2 a.k.a. “The Hung-over, Clutching the Toilet Nola Chick Scenario”
Saints give up a 2nd round pick and a player for Shockey pre-draft day. They take defensive end Vernon Gholston, creating further contract tensions with Will Smith and ignoring our weaknesses at the linebacker and defensive tackle positions.
-OR-
The Saints trade up to #2 to secure Dorsey, forking over a bevy of later round picks and risking a Ditka-esque disaster.
Scenario 3 a.k.a. “A Sober Nola Chick is a Sane Nola Chick Scenario”
The Saints trade up to #7 or #8 for a guaranteed shot at linebacker Keith Rivers. Rivers, Fujita, & Vilma team up to revive the “dome patrol” days of the Saints’ defense, paving the way for a respectable pass rush and taking some of the pressure off our vulnerable secondary. Rivers’ versatility also gives the Saints freedom to plug him in, if necessary, at defensive end. Yeah…we likey!
Could we be way off base? There’s a hell of a good chance! That’s what makes draft day so exciting. We can’t wait to park ourselves in front of the TV with a case of beer, a bag of tortillas and cheese dip and a barf bag while watching the magic happen.
Filed under: nfl draft
Haha, your first sentence is quite the hook!
Good omen today. I saw a little boy at the ballpark with a Saints’ jersey on tonight. He was so cute ( and rare in these woods ). So I am taking it to mean that great things are going to happen this weekend.
Truth in advertising request. Please consider the veracity of the image in relation to this post’s first sentence. Thank you.
Hahaha. I’ll second the Chef on that one. ;P
I can only hope that I’ll be sloshed enough to be hoping for the Saints to be able to trade a Seahawk in a package for Shockey, and get Dorsey in the tenth round. Heh.
Scenario 2a would suck for sure, but I think I’ve decided that I’d be pretty happy about scenario 2b actually.
scenario 2b frightens me only in the sense that i still have nightmares about the whole ricky williams debacle and the reprecussions of putting all of one’s eggs in the same basket. if dorsey works out, then loomis and the gang are geniuses (or is the plural for that geni?)
as for the “truth in advertising” request…we’ve referred this to our lawyer and mr. bart says we’re in the clear.
I think if we want to make a blockbuster trade in the first round, it should wait until next year when Malcolm Jenkins will be coming out of Ohio. That kid is going to be a ridiculous corner. We can make a run this year and with the big Gay we’ve notched up the nickel package, which will help us immeasurably on 3rd down situations (where we’ve sucked).
That being said, a trade down with the Eagles for Lito makes sense. Kentwan Balmer will still be available at that point, and we need a big, hairy winning machine in the middle. Then we come out good, and who knows? Mayo could drop to the second round for us, which would be sweet.
as someone who lives in philadelphia, i can’t say i have total faith in lito. i’m more than willing to see what gay can do for us with the backing of good linebackers and defensive ends. additionally, i’m curious as to what inspired the name “monty beaver.”
Fair enough.
Before I give you the story of the Beav, let me just say that in any case, I think it would be crazy to trade up to #2 for a player with as many injury concerns as Dorsey. Do I think he’s incredible? Absolutely. Do I think he’d be a hometown hero and a great addition? Sure. But there’s a lot of risk considering how much we’d have to give up for him. The NFL is rough. So I’m on your page with that one.
The origins of Montague Beaver are as much a mystery to me as anyone. The first appearance I know of was an interview for a college newspaper when he was working as a vulcanologist in the Puget Sound area. He apparently moved there for the dungeoness crab, which he said was delicious. He spent the better part of an hour trying to molest the student reporter, chewing on a cigar, and waxing philosophical about Mt. Rainier. Classic stuff.
That was around the turn of the century. The next I heard of him was a few years later in Beijing. He was living in the HuTong district in an ex-pat hostel, smoking a lot of hash and buying cheap, cream-colored cashmere suits. He was planning a trip to Panama, where he said he wanted to set up a sustainable farm/fishing lodge to live out the rest of his days. As far as I know it’s still his plan, because I still see him in those damn suits. When he was done with Beijing, sick of the pollution and unfriendly atmosphere, my sources tell me that he took the Trans-Siberian all the way to Estonia in search of a proper fedora to go with the suits.
But inevitably he ended up in Christania, a separatist compound in the middle of Copenhagen, smoking more hash and feeding french fries to the local pigeons. He published an article in some academic quarterly about the pigeons as an alternative food source, including a couple of recipes. I was living in Colorado at the time, and as soon as my Lexis search brought up his name I sent out some feelers. But he didn’t respond. I had a friend in Amsterdam try to find him, but Mr. Beaver was gone by then. Long gone.
I’ve since lost track of him mostly. The only reason we ever connected in the first place was the Saints. I grew up on the coast, and the year I first really got into football was the year they beat the Rams in the wild card game by 3. Remember that? When we thought Haslett was competent? When Aaron Brooks was “the future of the franchise?” I met him at the Royal Sonesta in the Quarter. It was my cousin’s wedding, and I ran into him when we both tried to seduce a lounge singer. He ended up buying me a very large glass of scotch. I’d of course heard of him through his vulcanology. But he was the person that really opened my eyes to why the Saints are the greatest football team in the world.
“This town moves differently, my boy. When you get off the plane in New Orleans, the atmosphere hits you like a gold-plated brick to the skull. Reminds me of Budapest.”
I was younger, and I thought statements like this were a lot of hyperbole. But he went on.
“You have to remember that most cities keep an efficient pace. Moving people from point A to point B, getting work done, buzzing around, always in motion. Not here. Efficiency is actively avoided.”
I honestly didn’t see it, but I let him go on. I was getting drunk. Why not?
“This is a city that hasn’t forgotten that there are a lot of things we don’t understand, or even comprehend. What sets it apart is that it still lays wonderful, greasy, elaborate offerings at the altars of the unknown. Fitness, for example. Less attention is paid to calories here. New Orleans is a city that know good food should feed more than just the stomach.”
So we went out and bought a couple pounds of crawdads. It was pretty late at this point, and we were picking through the food in the middle of the street while Monty kept trying to throw the shells down college girls’ tank tops. And they all smiled when he did it. Maybe they were smiling at his expedition shades, worn even at 3 in the morning. Or his khaki expedition uniform. Who knows? I was along for the ride at this point, there was no denying it.
“A victory for the Saints is a victory for good times! It’s a victory for unnecessary frills, for mint juleps and watching bugs fly around your porch lights. It’s a victory for a way of life that you have to swim through.”
There was a pretty fair crowd gathered at this point. I doubt he even noticed. I didn’t until he was finished. But that was it. The Ravens ended up winning it all that year, and all I could think of was how boring a town Baltimore was. I was a Saints fan. I’ll be interning down there for the summer, so hopefully he’ll show up. To be honest I have no idea where he is these days.
If I had to guess I’d say that he’s in Egypt. He always had an obsession with the idea of seducing a middle-eastern princess. And the Crown still pulls a little weight in those parts. Most likely he’s making a living harvesting spider silk, cause even something like cashmere doesn’t breath real well in those parts. Really, though? It’s not the point to try and figure Monty Beaver out. Or where he might be. Just enjoy the ride if you manage to jump aboard.
Who dat?
Holy crap.
This guy…. this is my kind of guy.
I tip my cap in your general direction, sir.
If you hadn’t responded GW, i would have assumed “tbe beav” was your alter-ego