Bell: NFL draft looks short on sizzle, long on 'Uglies'

Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

What a difference a year makes.

Twelve months after Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III left the NFL scouting combine firmly established as the can't-miss quarterbacks to set the pace for the NFL draft, there is no such sizzle this time around.

Get ready for a run on Big Uglies.

Big Uglies. That's the term for linemen in the trenches popularized years ago by legendary broadcaster Keith Jackson. This year's draft is so top-heavy on offensive and defensive linemen, that as combine workouts wrapped up Tuesday, some draft analysts project at least 15 Big Uglies as first-rounders.

Who goes No. 1 overall? There's a chance that the quarterback-needy Kansas City Chiefs will select West Virginia's Geno Smith, the top-rated passer in the draft, with the first pick on April 25. But at the moment, that's a bit iffy.

Smith has a live arm and convincing presence, but he's generated nothing close to the buzz that enveloped Luck and RGIII — whose eye-popping combine last year helped fuel such demand that the Redskins mortgaged their future in trading a bundle of draft picks to the St. Louis Rams for the right to select him after the Indianapolis Colts jumped on Luck.

If the Chiefs were truly sold on Smith, they wouldn't be a potential suitor to land San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Alex Smith in the trade market.

Thus, this year's top pick could be Luke Joeckel, the 6-6, 306-pound tackle from Texas A&M. When former Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, working for NFL Network, unveiled his first mock draft over the weekend, Joeckel went No. 1.

That's no joke.

"It would be really cool, a dream come true," Joeckel said.

It would also buck the trend that sells in the pass-happy NFL. Quarterbacks have gone No. 1 overall in the previous four drafts, and in five of the past six. Go back even further, to 1998 when Peyton Manning came out, and 12 of the past 15 drafts were christened by quarterbacks. Jake Long, the former Michigan tackle, was the last non-quarterback taken atop the draft, by the Miami Dolphins in 2008.

Naturally, timing matters. And so does the propensity for teams to reach (JaMarcus Russell, 2007) for the position that has a premium.

This time, though, the drought at the top of the draft doesn't just apply to quarterbacks. It appears thin on other skill-position players, too. Smith might be the only quarterback, receiver or running back drafted in the top five slots, and maybe the top 10 ... and that's assuming the former Mountaineer hears his name called that early.

Last year, four of the top five picks were skill-position types, which had something to do with all the trade activity as six of the top seven slots were swapped. Don't expect a follow-up to all of that top-of-the-draft churn of 2012 — although there's still an eye-of-the-beholder beauty in the NFL for defensive playmakers and big-time blockers.

The "marquee" talent for the top-10 list includes: Alabama guard Chance Warmack, Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones, Florida State defensive end Bjoern Werner, LSU defen-sive end Barkevious Mingo and Missouri defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson. Surely, they are fine prospects, each with their own interesting backgrounds.

It's just that if offense is your bag, this is not your ideal pattern.

"You've got to live in the world that you're in," says Pat Kirwan, a former NFL executive who's now an analyst for CBS Sports and Sirius NFL Radio. "You don't have Andrew Luck or Robert. So it's like being a victim of 2012, if you still have a quarterback issue. But this is your Christmas tree. You'd better open one of these presents."

As the possibility of trading for Alex Smith hovers, the Chiefs are non-committal about their draft plans and how they'll address the quarterback position that suffered with turnover-prone Matt Cassel. GM John Dorsey cites the standard "best available player" philosophy. Coach Andy Reid stressed that they would not reach for a quarterback and are open to trade offers. The evaluation of Geno Smith, who passed for 42 TDs with six interceptions in 2012, is ongoing.

"I like Geno," Kirwan said. "I think it's going to be hard at the top to turn him down, when they get done with the process. They have every right to not know yet. But they don't have every right at the end of this to say, 'We're going to pass on this guy.' It would remind me of Matt Ryan (selected third overall, 2008) and all the criticism — 'Matt's slow, Matt this or that' — all this other business. And where is Miami today?"

The Dolphins passed on Ryan, opting for Long, who's set to become a free agent this spring. Miami is now building around quarterback Ryan Tannehill, drafted eighth overall last year. Ryan has developed into one of the NFL's best quarterbacks as a cornerstone for the Atlanta Falcons.

Still, despite the value on quarterbacks — remember, two years ago the Tennessee Titans grabbed Jake Locker at No. 8, the Jacksonville Jaguars took Blaine Gabbert 10th overall and the Minnesota Vikings drafted Christian Ponder 12th — this doesn't look like the year for a blockbuster deal.

Last year, Washington dealt three first-round picks and a second-round choice to the Rams in order to move up four slots to take Griffin.

That was then. This is now.

"We're just not going to give it away, so we'd have to see what people throw our way," Reid said of trading out of the top slot. "It's a pretty valuable pick I'd say."

Just not as pretty as we've seen in the recent past.

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Follow Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell