With the eight pick of the 2011 NFL draft the Tennessee Titans woke up Radio City when they drafted Washington QB Jake Locker. There had been one shock, most notably the awful trade Atlanta made to get up to Julio Jones, but at least people expected Jones to go high. The Locker pick came out of nowhere.
The Jake Locker pick shocked almost everyone, but also elicited cheers from the media. It was the first real pick that media could have some fun with. The draft isn't fun until someone reaches for a QB. SI's Tony Pauline, who actually pumped his fist and cheered the pick exclaimed, "That was a great pick... in the second round!"
I said to Colts writer Brad Wells after the Locker pick "there's going to be a run on QBs here." Sure enough, there was. Locker went, then Blaine Gabbert to the Jaguars, and soon after the Vikings made a another head scratcher taking Christian Ponder. A national media source sitting near me remarked, "This is like the 1999 class, except there's no Donovan McNabb."
The inexplicable run on QBs at the top of the draft meant that a slew of a really good players slipped down to all the teams sitting in the late teens and early twenties. The Chargers got Corey Liguet, the Colts got Anthony Castonzo and the Giants were able to take corner Prince Amukamara.
That's a great pick for the Giants to get a good player at a position of need without even having to move around. It was actually interesting to see Prince fall to where he did. For months he was seen as a top ten pick, but in the past two weeks we've seen him slip in mock drafts to this late teens area. There's no doubt that the run on QBs pushed him down, but it could be that he was taken right where he belonged all along. Either way, Giants fans at Radio City went nuts and for good reason. It's a very good pick for them.
Speaking of Prince Amukamara, he may not have had any ladies the caliber of AJ Green(whose girlfriend in a painted on purple dress was the hit of the draft), but he did have the most impressive and largest entourage. He had two ladies, which appeared to be his mom and grandma out in full African dress. They were clad in long, gold sequined dresses with giant gold headdresses. They wouldn't have been out of place on the Radio City stage on any other night but this. There were also probably 15 other people up there with him. It was really a sight.
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