Our 2008 Rookie Class in Review: Part 1

Like I did through 10 games I am going to review all of our Rookie picks and some of our key Undrafted Rookie acquisitions. These are all my own personal opinions about each player from what I have seen on film during games, heard, and read about them. I hope you enjoy and feel free to ask me questions, explanations, or just leave your own comments, Thank you:

1.) Jake Long- 16 GP, 16 GS. 5 total penalties (2 Holding and 2 False Starts) gave up 2.5 Sacks.
Jake started this year off relatively slow. His first two games didn’t go that well, but he seemed to hit his stride around week 4 and never looked back. During those first few games (especially against the Jets) he seemed to miss some assignments and also misread the Defense on one play giving up a sack. Once he hit his groove around week 4 he was amazing for us. He is one of the best Left Tackles in the league right now and will be for a very long time (barring injury). Jake is very valuable as a LT (more valuable than Ryan Clady IMO) for us because he is just as good, if not better at run-blocking than he is at Pass-Protection. He is a true Road Grader which you don’t see to often from LTs. Another thing that is so amazing was how he played about half of the season without Justin Smiley by his side. I was truly impressed by Long this year and it was a shame he didn’t make the Pro-Bowl.
Rating: 9.5/10

2a.) Phillip Merling- 16 GP, 2 GS. 26 Tackles, 1 Sack, 1 INT, 2 Pass Deflections
Merling has been a good 3-4 DE for us this year. He is starter quality in my opinion, but Vonnie Holliday currently holds down that spot. When he did start in week 2 and 3 (at DT for Ferguson, if I recall correctly) he had 7 Tackles and 1 Sack, which is very impressive. He was a vital part of our rotation this year and played great when he was in the game. He holds his ground in the running game, and does a good job of shedding blocks and chasing running backs down when they run to his side. That being said, I just don’t see him playing LB at 6-4 290 he is just too big, plus he has played well already at DE (if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it). If the front office does want him to play LB they should make him lose weight over this offseason and have him start practice at LB from the very beginning. He has a non-stop motor and never gives up on plays.
Rating: 7.75/10 (I was split between 7.5 and 8)

2b.) Chad Henne- 3 GP; 7-12 for 67 yards. 74.0 QB Rating
Chad Henne is the future QB of the Miami Dolphins. He didn’t get much playing time this year, but if you go back to Pre-season he looked very sharp out there. He has the arm to make all the NFL throws. Parcells really wanted to select Henne with pick 2a, but Ireland talked him into picking Merling with that pick instead, which was why the Dolphins were so happy he was here at our 2b pick. Although Henne didn’t really play this year I was still impressed by what I saw; he was always hanging around Pennington and picking his brain. That should go far in his future development because Pennington is one of the smartest QBs in the league. Another thing that excites me about Henne was the fact that earlier on in the year Dan Henning said that he is as good as Matt Ryan is right now. I don’t know if that’s 100% true, but if he is even close I’m pumped.
Rating: 7/10 (just because we haven’t seen too much of him)

3.) Kendall Langford- 16 GP, 13 GS. 31 Tackles, 2 Sacks, 3 Pass Deflections
When we drafted him, I knew absolutely nothing about him and was quite upset; I forget who but a couple people on this board eased my worries and expressed their happiness with this pick. Looking back at our ’08 draft class Langford just might be my favorite pick. He is big and plays with a mean streak. He holds his ground in the trenches and is amazing against the run. He got 2 sacks in his first 2 games then sort of disappeared. The only explanation I can think of is maybe he only has one good pass rush move and teams figured out how to stop it on film, or maybe we changed his role in our defense. He is going to grow into a dominate 3-4 end and if/when he develops some more/better pass rush moves he will be incredible. I was really impressed with how easily he made the jump from D-II to the NFL.
Rating: 9/10

4.) Shawn Murphy- 0 GP.
Murphy was highly thought of by many people, but in his first year he just didn’t pan out. The fact the both of our starting Guards went down and he did not even get in for a single play all year is very disturbing. As a 4th round pick you aren’t supposed to be a super-star, but you should be able to contribute to the team in one way or another. We traded up to get into a position to draft a guard, there was a lot of speculation we missed out who we wanted (either John Greco or Jeremy Zuetta) and Murphy might have been a consolation prize. All that being said, Murphy has the tools to develop and might be better off with our new Offensive Line coach.
Rating: 3/10

The Reviews of the rest of our '08 Rookie Class (including some Undrafted Free Agents) can be found in the Thread Titled "Our 2008 Rookie Class in Review: Part 2." I broke it up for several reasons. One, if people wanted to talk exlusively about Devone Bess or Donald Thomas they could do so in the other Thread; whereas if people want to talk about our first 5 picks they can do it here. Secondly, if you read them both together its a HUGE read.

 

No Problem. Sorry about the length (thats what she said ), I considered breaking it up into two threads, but I wanted to give people the most bang for their buck...lol.

It really is incredible how many picks we nailed right on the head, especially considering how much of a crap shoot the draft is.

 

I just broke it up into 2 seperate Threads, because it was really, really long. No MODs are on right now so I couldn't ask any of them if it was ok, so I sent Muck, Fin Fan In Cali, and Celtkin PMs about this. So it is up to them to either keep them seperate or merged them back together.