I'm not going to be on much next Saturday, so if we don't make it to #23 in the next week, I'll PM my picks to someone.

Usually the first round flies by.

Come on, Direckshun. I've got an awesome draft-winning pick to make and I can't do it until you shit your pants like you usually do

LMAO

This isn't surprising. People just aren't as in to the draft this year. We aren't picking nearly as high, so interest wanes. We didn't expand to 7 rounds until 2008 which was the year in which we also had a top 5 pick for the first time since the 80s. Now that we're picking in the 20's again, the entire tenor of the board is less focused on the draft. Far fewer posts in the combine thread, almost no draft debates out in the main forum.

People think we are on the verge of competing rather than rebuilding and the talk of acquiring a QB through the draft has all but been given up or deemed not necessary.

There is definitely a lot of truth to this post. Part of it also probably has to do with the difficulty of projecting who will be available in the 20s. When you're drafting in the top 5 like we have been, people spend so much time on what if scenarios for those first few picks.

And certainly the QB debates created much of the draft discussion the past couple years.

I'm interested in the draft as always but I think the looming lockout has put a damper on things. I also think the overall talent in this draft class sucks compared to others.

2009 was a worse class than this.

If anything, a potential lockout would get you more interested in the potential football-related things that actually still will happen.

I agree. The 09 class was garbage. Worst ****ing year to have a top 3 pick. Well, it was after we made a certain trade anyways.

No, it was still a perfectly fine year for a top 3 pick even if we weren't going to take a QB. We just picked the wrong guy at the wrong position. There are several guys who would have lived up to that pick.

Where that class really suffered was in the middle rounds. That's where you can always tell good drafts ('10, '08) from bad ones ('09, '11).

Maybe I'm different than. Because if theres nothing done by the time the draft rolls around it's going to be even more of a cluster **** and I just can't get excited for someone who I won't see play for a year and half.

10 minutes.

It's been 30. It shouldn't be this hard to make a pick for someone who always "wins the draft". There are only so many permutations at #11.

I have had a definitive plan for quite some time to watch over the following three players incredibly carefully: Cameron Jordan, Aldon Smith, Ryan Kerrigan. It's such an awkward spot for any of them to go, but the transition to Wade Phillips' 3-4 demands that they start investing a ton of effort into their front seven. Other than Connor Barwin, they have zero reason for hope at the OLB position. And while they can get by in the middle on some combination of Amobi Okoye and Earl Mitchell (although I'm hungry for a nose in this draft), and Mario Williams will be wrecking shit at one end position, the Texans need an upgrade over Antonio Smith on the other end. The guy is very blah.

I think I would have drafted Kerrigan over the other two. I think Jordan is for real, and I remain ambivalent about Aldon Smith. But Kerrigan is about as sure a thing as you're going to get at the OLB position. Nobody has him mocked this high, but Kubiak is in win-now mode, and Kerrigan's got the best chance of hitting in my estimation, and the Texans have jack and shit at the position.

However, all that planning has been unnecessary. For some reason, Nick Fairley has fallen, and that pretty much ends the conversation.

Wade Phillips has the perfect system for Fairley and Mario Williams. He coached Bruce Smith in the 3-4 and Smith raked in nearly 70 sacks by himself in 6 years. Williams and Fairley together is a sick combination that could well double that for all we know.

Sucks to pass on a passrusher, but you don't get an opportunity to stock your DL like this, ever, in the NFL.

With the 11th pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, the Houston Texans select DE Nick Fairley, from the University of Auburn.

Edited because I overdosed on Smith's.

WADE SMITH FTW!!!1!1!