What Can You Expect From a Draft Pick?

The NFL Draft is fast approaching; so, there is no better time of the year to analyze the overall draft performance of the league and the relationship between draft position in NFL success. The draft can change team's fortunes if they draft the right player (Tom Brady in the 6th around) or the wrong one (Ryan Leaf), often for seasons at a time. Coaches, scouts, and general managers spend months and months before the draft analyzing every facet of a player--from the way he handles himself during interviews to the speed he can run a 40-yard dash. Not surprisingly, the 1st-round draft picks are the most scrutinized, as they are given millions upon millions of dollars and expected to contribute at a professional level almost immediately. However, what should the expectations be for those picks, as well as the players taken in the following two rounds--who often end up being major contributors as well? What can teams expect out of a player picked in the first 100 picks? We might just have an answer...

Where would YOU wanna live?

This is the first post in a series about sports history. Specifically, from a fan's standpoint, where would you want to live for the best possible sports experience? I began thinking about this question while watching a few cities have quite a good few years lately--Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Boston have all won numerous titles in the past few seasons. I wondered how these years would stack up against some of the great historical times: New York in the Roaring 20s, Pittsburgh in the Iron Curtain 1970s, and so on. Lucky for me, I happened to be in a journalism research class...and a project was born. So, here's the first part of my article, I hope you enjoy!!

In the game of life, as well as the game of sports, the saying often rings loud and true: being in the right place, at the right time. For those of us sports fans in cities and towns across the country, we often wonder what it’s like to be in the right place at the right time—to be there when our team goes to the playoffs, defeats all comers, and wins their championship—year after year. So, I tried to find out what exactly was the place to be in American history, both place and time. Would it be the era of the Bambino, swinging for the fences in New York? What about Dallas in the 90s, America’s Team, or Philadelphia’s “fo-fo-fo” of Moses Malone and the 1980s? How could one find any decade and city that would rule over the sports world?

To see how I tried, hit the jump!