The NFL Draft 2012 started with an interesting development: after St. Louis opened with the selection of Appalachian State’s Brian Quick (which was a head-scratcher choice over Ga Tech’s Stephen Gill), the Indianapolis Colts followed by snatching up Stanford Tight End Cory Fleener. Now, Fleener is re-united with his Cardinal teammate, the first pick of all, Colts 1st Round Selection Andrew Luck in Indy.
I can’t remember when that’s happened before in NFL Draft history: the first pick QB gets to have one of his college pass catchers join him on the same team in the same year. To say Cory Fleener’s excited is an understatement. He’s, as of this writing, on the way to Indianapolis; our video interview with him (a long one) will be up by Sunday, if not before then.
After the Stanford show, Baltimore took Courtney Upshaw, the linebacker from the Alabama Crimson Tide, who was not at all happy he had to wait until the 2nd round of the NFL Draft to be picked up – by someone. The blessing was that the someone was the Baltimore Ravens. So, here we have a top defender from the Alabama Crimson Tide, totally pissed he’s not a first round pick, wanting to go to the Ravens, getting there, and discovering that he’s with the one team where he has the best chance to exact punishment on the NFL.
There’s something totally, spiritually weird about that.
Bill Carroll