2012 NFL Mock draft Round Up: Houston Texans
It is 2012 NFL Mock draft season now, although we’ve been in the game the whole year and our readers have seen our opinions forever, with that in mind I thought I would search the web at some other 2012 NFL mock drafts to see what kind of picks are happening for the Houston Texans. The Texans are one of the most intriguing teams in the 2012 N.F.L. draft. With a very talented young defense and a potent offense it could be argued that of all the teams in the draft, the Texans have the fewest needs. What then will they do? In order to delve into this answer I went around the web and found some mock drafts that might give an indication into what people think, at the very least, the Texans should do in the draft.
Selection: Dontari Poe, NT, Memphis
Explanation: Relatively young and inexperienced, but he has the size (350+ pounds) and explosion necessary to play in the 3-4 or 4-3.
Dratek uses an online simulator to come up with their picks which is based off of their big board and the positional needs input into the simulator by a “team expert”.
Selection: Jonathan Martin, T, Stanford Cardinal
Explanation:
If Jonathan Martin falls this far in the 1st round, Bob McNair should hire Carl Lewis to sprint the card to the podium – what a perfect fit! Martin at LOT allows incumbent Duane Brown to move inside to his more natural position of OG and 2011 draft choice Derek Newton should be ready to push ROT Eric Winston for a starting position, giving the Texans a pair of talented bookends for the next decade. Martin understands pressure, having protected Andrew Luck’s blind side for the past few years, and is athletic with natural bend, lateral agility and good foot quickness. He plays with a wide base which allows him to establish a strong anchor against bull rushes and combines football intelligence with a bit of a nasty, mean streak (which old Long Ball loves in his Big Uglies). This one draft choice improves the Texan OL at more than one position!
Mel Kiper Jr. (Insider content)
When Andre Johnson was lost for a long stretch this season, it didn’t totally derail the Houston offense. What it did do was severely hamper the Texans’ play-action game, which can be simply devastating with the combination of a steady run game and the presence of Matt Schaub. In that scheme, the Texans can pile up chunk yardage with the pass, and Sanu is the type of guy who can stretch the field and be a huge threat across from Johnson. And when you consider that Johnson will be 31 entering the 2012 season, the Texans need this kind of presence around if he misses any more time. Sanu is hugely productive, creates space, has good speed and can contribute early.
Selection: Kendall Wright, WR, Baylor
Explanation:
Andre Johnson’s hamstring injuries exposed a lack of depth at wide receiver. Wright would add some major explosiveness
Concluding thoughts:
Just from a small sampling around the web you can see what I mean by the possibilities for the Houston Texans. This is the third or fourth team I’ve done the mock draft round up for so far and this is the team that has the most diversity with the picks by far. The Green Bay Packers picks were almost all defense, and almost all defensive linemen. Though there was a cornerback in one mock and clearly OLB is a possibility as well. For the New York Giants two positions were chosen: Linebacker in 90 percent of the mock drafts and OL in the other 10 percent. Basically linebacker. The Colts are not a team I will do a mock draft round up for because that will be the most boring option I could go with. I tend to agree with all of these mock drafts here: the Texans should take the best player available on their board whether that happens to be a fluky situation where a player like Jonathan Martin falls all the way down into the twenties. They could go NT and beef up their already talented defensive line. They could go OL and provide talent, youth, and depth to that position. And they can definitely consider a WR. I think Kendall Wright is the WR who most perfectly complements Andre Johnson, and would represent good value by draft day as we found out earlier this week Wright is reportedly even ahead of Blackmon on N.F.L. teams draft boards (which is inane).
What do you think Texans fans?
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