(Image via Yahoo Sports)
The NFL Draft has come and gone, and I have to say as a Bison fan it was fairly disappointing initially. Coming into the draft I had high hopes for a lot of the leaders off of last season’s Championship winning team. Kyle Emanuel received a wheelbarrow of accolades this season and as such was deservingly drafted by the San Diego Chargers this year. However, he wasn’t drafted until the 5th round. But what was more disappointing was the fact that he was the only Bison player drafted this year in spite of what I thought was a crop full of NFL caliber talent.
(Photo Credit: Luke Lu, KFGO)
Now, I’m not saying this Bison team was full of NFL superstars waiting to break out. However, in a league that chews players up and spits them out as quickly and mercilessly as the NFL does, it was somewhat disappointing to think that our best weren’t deemed sufficient to fill out the depth of pro rosters. I just have a hard time believing guys like Carlton Littlejohn (who looks like he’s cut from freaking marble mind you) or John Crockett can’t play in the NFL. I mean… you’ve gotta have special teamers who can step into a lineup when needed right?
Can you guess which one is Littlejohn? Here’s a hint… He’s the guy with bigger biceps than anyone else’s thighs… (Image via Carlton Littlejohn’s twitter https://twitter.com/lj38bison )
Its even more baffling when I think about how good the NFL is about digging for gems when it comes to talent acquisition. The NFL couldn’t care less what league you played in (Khalil Mack was drafted #5 overall in spite of the fact that he played in the unheralded MAC) or even how long you’ve played football (the Lions drafted Ezekiel Ansah number 5 overall in 2013 in spite of the fact that the guy had only played football for 2 years). If they think you’re good, you’re getting drafted. And if they think you’re REALLY good, you’re going early.
Now, things did get a lot better for the Bison NFL hopefuls once undrafted rookies started getting signed, which we knew would be the case. John Crockett will attempt to make the Packers roster where incumbent RB Eddie Lacey has thus far produced enigmatic results, and John Starks has been openly disappointing… so I see a big opportunity here. Littlejohn and Christian Dudzik will try to make the Vikings roster, and Kicker Adam Keller has gotten a handful of interested from the Vikings, Saints, and Patriots as far as I’ve seen. So its very possible for NDSU to wind up with a fairly impressive 2015 NFL class if all goes well even if the draft didn’t treat us spectacularly.
In the end, then, I probably shouldn’t be upset. NDSU has fairly consistently been putting players on NFL players these days which is spectacular to see. Not only that but NDSU now has a big time advocate in the League in the form of Jacksonville Jaguars Head Coach Gus Bradley, a former NDSU player and coach.
Having a guy like Bradley in possession of one of the 32 coaching jobs available in the NFL certainly helps raise the profile of the program even further than our stellar performance on the field already does. Moreover, its great to see that the two “local” NFL franchises to North Dakota, the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers, are clearly both paying attention to the program and see it as a potential source of undervalued regional talent. That is absolutely huge for the Bison program. If potential recruits know that NFL scouts have a pipeline tapped into the program it can only improve NDSU’s recruiting efforts and keep this train rolling.
Moreover, NFL recognition might help NDSU get noticed by bigger football conferences if moving up in class is still something remotely on the new NDSU athletic administrations mind now that Gene Taylor (possibly the biggest proponent for going up we had) has moved on. In the end then I suppose all I’m really sad about is that NDSU hasn’t yet reached their peak. We don’t have it all yet. We don’t have multiple players going in the draft. We don’t have first or second day draft picks (in spite of the talent we’re churning out) and we don’t yet have the respect of the league, and the country, on whole.
However, we sure as hell aren’t too far behind. For one thing, the best of the best of NDSU’s talent have begun popping up all across the nation for various NFL Franchises. The Miami Dolphins are making noise about needing to use Billy Turner more this season.
(Photo Credit: USA Today Sports Images)
Marcus Williams made an impact for the depleted Jets secondary last year.
(Photo Credit: Alex Goodlett, Getty Images )
Craig Dahl and Joe Mays have turned themselves into a stalwart NFL veterans currently with San Francisco and the Jets respectively. Add to that the fact that Emanuel is sure to get a fair shake at making an impact in San Diego and you have the beginnings of a strong nucleus of NDSU players in the League. It seems like a distant memory when I got myself all juiced up to see Lamar Gordon playing in the Mike Martz Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis, only to watch injuries derail his career and NDSUs hopes of an NFL standout before they began.
(Photo Credit: Elsa, Getty Images)
Nowadays NDSU has a small but steadily growing core of NFL players, and if things continue on this path that can only improve moving into the future.
The NFL Draft may not have been the best for the NDSU program on whole (although congrats to Kyle!! Wonderful to see him get this far and I can’t wait to see him get even better and succeed even more into the future!!) but things are anything but grim for the Bison. Carlton, Christian, Adam, and Crockett will have every chance to make their dreams of a professional football career a reality, and keep populating the League with Bison veterans. Even though the draft didn’t help as much as I would have liked, the NFL is looking a lot more Green and Gold today than it did a month ago, and for that I couldn’t be happier.
Where is North Dakota? 