2011 NFL Draft: Safeties

This is going up much quicker than I'd previously imagined and there is a very good reason for that which I'm going to get to in just a moment:

- Quinton Carter. Chris Conte. Joe Lefeged. Chris Culliver. Shiloh Keo. Da'Norris Searcy. Deunta Williams. Jeron Johnson. Jerrard Tarrant. Chris L. Rucker. Jermale Hines. Eric Hagg. Nate Williams. Dom Decicco. Will Hill. Duke Honcho. Dejon Gomes. Colin Jones. Brian Lainhart. Eugene Clifford. Zac Etheridge. Tejay Johnson. Johnathan Nelson. Brett Greenwood. Jai Eugene. Jay Valai. Troy Woolfork. Fon Ingram. Antwine Perez. Donovan Fletcher. No film. No comment. I'm stunned. I could not find a scrap on most of these and those that I could, it wasn't really worth watching (too short/specific).

- Rahim Moore. Good open field tackling. Good instincts. Plays the ball well in the air really well. Looks destined to earn the second most annoying generic moniker in football after "Dynamic Playmaker", that being "Ball Hawk".

- Tyler Sash. Good tackler. Some nice positioning. Seems to get lucky more often though than making his own luck. A little dubious.

- DeAndre McDaniel. some good instincts and plays the ball well in the air, but tackling is a little underwhelming.

- Jaiquawn Jarrett. Seriously, where do people get some of these names for their kids? It looks like they just chucked a bunch of scrabble letters onto the board and went "Jaiquawn. That looks fairly difficult to spell. Let's roll with it". Anyway, excellent tackler. Pure form tackling, the best I've seen in years and that most definitely includes the NFL. Range is good as well. A very strong candidate at the strong safety position.

- Ahmad Black. Good tackler, reads the play well, breaks on the ball in the air and plays it well. A solid overall pick.

- Robert Sands. Great speed, range, instincts, tackling, determination and ball play. Highly impressed. Can't go wrong with this pick I feel.

- Mistral Raymond. Good tackler, not afraid to throw himself in harms way. Coverage is ok.

- Chris Prosinski. Very "field quick", play recognition is off the charts. Committed tackler. Excellent prospect.

- Mark Legree. I'm going to use a word that I've only heard used once to describe a player, and that was by Bill Walsh talking about Jerry Rice. The word I'm going to use is "Phenom". Great speed, amazing vision and great instincts. Blew me away on film. Truly wonderful.

- Michael O'Connell. Good tackler, good run support, pass coverage is ok.

- Davonte Shannon. Tackling is very good, as is run support. Pass coverage however is a problem. doesn't read the play very well, always looks likes he's a step behind everyone else.

- Byron Lander. Excellent. Quick, tackling was superb, saw the plays developing early and closed well. A very good prospect considering he's billed as a 7th rounder/Free Agent. Probably a little more suited to strong safety than free safety. Really good though, thoroughly impressed.

- Marcus Gilchrist. Good range, but doesn't really have the instincts. Tackling is also dubious.

- Collin Zych. Not bad. Tackling is ok. Comes up quickly in run support. Reads the quarterback reasonably well.

- Alex Johnson. Good speed, good range, hard hitter. He's likely to end up as a Free Agent and I think it's worth a shot for some team to bring him into camp.

So that's the safeties and indeed every position has now been covered ahead of the draft. That gives me now about four or five days to go back and just review some positions a little more in depth. For example I already have ten names that I'd like to add on to the receivers list. So that should keep me busy until the big days, and of course I'll be recapping each day of the draft to see how the teams got on.