You know that defense wins champions.
You know how to draft for success.
You know how hard pass rushers are to draft.
Even though we went defense heavy on the draft this year, and a lot of people are skeptical, there’s still other guys to be hopeful about.
I’m talking about UDFAs!
You know, the guys that no one wanted to draft, but every team trucks in by the dozen to compete for a spot and take some wear and tear off the vets? Don’t think any of them will amount to anything? Don’t think UDFAs can lead your team to a title?
Why not?
Because NFL talent evaluators are all so good at their jobs that no good players could possible make it past the seven rounds of the draft? That’s crazy talk! The draft is full of flops drafted by highly competent talent evaluators and those wasted draft picks mean there’s a lot of good players who fall right out of the draft.
If you want to see what makes championship defenses, let’s go back to our last championship. The 2010 starting Super Bowl defense had 4 starters that were undrafted free agents:
Tramon Williams
Sam Shields
Cullen Jenkins
Frank Zombo
On top of that, the defense had Jarrett Bush, who (of all people) had an interception. Obviously, Jarrett Bush was an UDFA.
So how many UDFAs does it take to win a title?
I don’t know, but I hope we find out this season.
It’s the dead zone of the football year (so Happy Solstice, winter is coming). How about we get excited and hopeful about stuff like this?