Points of View, April 25, 2013

Though I’ve pledged to make my posts shorter and to the point in a minor reboot of the site, I still want to highlight these short points that don’t deserve extensive comment here and there.  Don’t worry, they won’t be the novels that they used to be.

  • The Green Bay Packers are reportedly trying to become more physical by signing bigger, tougher players this offseason.  Josh Alper at profootballtalk.com comments:

“It doesn’t take sophisticated analysis to figure out that a team that gave up 323 rushing yards in their playoff loss could stand to be stouter than it was in 2012. The inconsistent running game would also benefit from a bit more physicality on the line and in the backfield, so there’s plenty of areas for the Packers to target in their effort to toughen up.”

“[I] think it’s just a matter of who takes me first, because I know the Eagles may want me, the Cleveland Browns may want me, the Buffalo Bills and the Jets.  I think those are all sequential picks, you know what I mean, within those top 13 picks or whatever. I’m just hoping one team loves me, because really, that’s all you need, one team to fall in love with you.”

All of these teams might, indeed, be interested in Emanuel.  In the second round.  I’ll be surprised, along with a lot of other people, if he goes higher than that to any of them at their present draft positions.

  • We also have this nugget from The National Football Post in the Friday Buzz section:

“One player who is making a late run up draft boards is LSU safety Eric Reid. Teams do not have a consensus on how the safeties should fall, but there are some teams who rate Reid the top safety, ahead of Texas’ Kenny Vaccaro. There is a chance Reid could be off the board by the middle of the first round.”

Reid is probably a name to pay attention to if you are a Bears fan.  Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune suggests that he could be central to a scenario where the Bears trade down.