The NFL Draft

The NFL draft begins Thursday night with the first round, continues Friday night with the second and third rounds, and runs through Saturday, when the final four rounds will be held at Radio City Music Hall. The Indianapolis Colts and St. Louis Rams both went 2-14 last season and had the top two picks, but the Rams traded the second spot to Washington.
While Andrew Luck and Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III will be the stars of the show, this year's draft will be more about defensive players than quarterbacks. In fact, only 3 QB's are expected to be picked in the first round while as many as four cornerbacks could have their names called early.

The New York Jets reached out Sunday to Alabama running back Trent Richardson, fueling speculation they will try to orchestrate a blockbuster move to trade up.
Richardson said Wednesday he received a call from the Jets soon after arriving in New York for pre-draft festivities.

It's common for a team to call potential picks a few days before the draft, but it's unusual to contact a player seemingly out of reach.
The Jets, picking 16th in the first round, are exploring the possibility of moving up for Richardson, according to league sources. But it's a long shot, considering they'd probably have to jump 11 or 12 spots.

Before an inexplicably large television audience and scored to the dulcet analytical tones of Chris Berman and Mel Kiper Jr., the Indianapolis Colts will take Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck with the first pick of the NFL Draft on Thursday. Shortly after that, the Washington Redskins will select Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III with their first pick. At which point … well, Berman and Kiper will still be there, loudly, but things get pretty cloudy pretty quickly. This is generally the case in the mis- and disinformation-muddled days before the draft, which are traditionally home to both a great deal of uncertainty and some middle school-level psy-ops from front offices.

Uncertainty is, of course, the name of the game in the draft even when anonymous scouts aren’t talking down various players for reasons owing to peevishness, strategy or both. First-round picks don’t provide any real guarantee of success, and the odds of teams scoring an impact player decrease as the draft drags on.