New Years Eve, Christmas, Halloween, your own birthday… Perhaps no holiday could be more exciting to a football player than Draft Day.
On April 30th, the city of Chicago hosted
the 2015 Draft at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University. In the first
round, the New York Jets selected Leonard Williams sixth overall and the
Philadelphia Eagles picked Nelson Agholor 20th. These two picks led USC to have
79 all-time NFL first-round draft picks, more than any other college. I’m
sure Williams and Agholor would agree that this selection beat any Christmas
gift they have ever received.
With the 2015 NFL Draft culmination only two weeks
ago, one might think the sports world might have a couple weeks before any news
about the 2016 NFL Draft talk began. Think again.
Over the weekend, ESPN NFL draft analyst, Todd McShay, released an
early 2016 NFL first round mock draft. How many Trojans did this
draft guru predict to be selected first round? Similar to how this year's draft panned out, McShay predicted
two Trojans to also be first round picks in next year’s draft as well. Who are
they?
According to McShay’s first 2016 mock draft, LB Su’a
Cravens will be going to the Philadelphia Eagles 19th overall, while C Max
Tuerk will be going to the Seattle Seahawks 32nd.
It should be noted that McShay did announced the disclaimer, "I have not done full tape studies on any of these players yet." But do we really care? He just gave team fanatics all over the nation hope and excitement for the 2016 season just one week after their teams cleaned up at the 2015 draft.
Of course, USC fans could not be more excited than
anybody to see a pair of Trojans on that list this early on. Why? Because
although Cravens is unstoppable, he is only a junior and can only get stronger
from here. On top of that, Tuerk is only entering his second season at center
and can only get more comfortable in the position in the 2015 season. Overall,
their strengths can only grow over the next year.
However, since the name of this blog is 'Sports and
Sass', I'm feeling very compelled to add a little spice to the end of this
article. So Todd McShay, how on Earth can you call yourself a draft analyst if
you release an early mock draft and you haven't even "done full tape
studies on any of these players yet"? Please do your research. We'll be
awaiting your next mock draft.
Here’s to an eleven month countdown to our favorite
holiday of the year… Draft Day.
