Huge news today, Oklahoma tight end Jermaine Gresham has been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury. He missed the season opener against BYU on Saturday and was considered out indefinitely. Surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee has taken place and it's now being reported he won't feature for the Sooners this year.This is big for two reasons. Firstly, what will this do to his draft stock? He could have entered the 2009 draft but decided against it, despite being ranked as a sure fire top 20 pick.
Secondly, how does this affect Sam Bradford? We're still none the wiser as to how long he'll be out with a shoulder injury. If he returned in 2-4 weeks, he'll be without his No1 pass catching target. Without Gresham Saturday, Bradford toiled for a measly 96 yards in one half - a long way from the kind of numbers he posted last year to win the Heisman. If he does return soon, losing Gresham could hurt the quarter backs stock.
Gresham remains an unlikely choice for the Seahawks regardless. With John Carlson firmly planted as the team's long term option at tight end, taking another with a high draft pick would be deemed something of an unnecessary luxury. There could also be a red flag - he was arrested in April for failing to pay a seat belt citation.
2 comments:
If Gresham enters the 2010 draft (the NCAA could allow him to play next year), do you think he could still be taken in the middle or late 1st round?
He may be hard to pass up late in the 1st round.
On pure talent alone he could still go in the first round. I doubt his stock will be as high as it would have been in the 09 draft however.
It probably doesn't help that he plays TE. How many teams out there will want to spend their first round pick on a tight end who hasn't played a game for 16 months? For that purpose alone I think you'd have to be looking at teams in the late 20's who are coming off a good year who are in the kind of position to make that choice. Just throwing this out there as an example, but if Philly had a good year and a deep playoff run, they might look to upgrade at TE and be prepared to take the kind of health risk Gresham might represent.
As for Seattle, we'd probably need to have that kind of deep playoff run, feel confident with the roster and also key positions where guys are ageing to justify drafting another tight end that high, regardless of talent. I know Mora/Knapp will use a lot of 2TE sets, but can you really justify that level of investment at the position... especially now Gresham is missing 2009?
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