Five Things: 2/27/13

1. Pete Fiutak of College Football News seems to think this year's NFL Draft is a bit short on talent. I couldn't disagree more -- maybe there's a lack of star power on offense, but I love this defensive group, especially in the front seven. So many athletic pass-rush types, athletic tackles. There may not be a Patrick Peterson or Mo Claiborne level corner (though Dee Milliner is clearly going to get drafted like one), but guys like Bennie Logan, Chase Thomas of Stanford and Bacarri Rambo of Georgia are all later-round picks I'd love to have on my team. And it's a FANTASTIC year for the Saints to switch to a 3-4 with so many tweener end/linebackers: Dion Jordan, Ziggy Ansah, Barkevious Mingo, Jamie Collins. No excuse for the team not to get some pass-rush help this year.

2. Speaking of NFL talent evaluation, Chris Brown of Smart Football posted this link to some of Bill Walsh's standards for evaluating different positions. Very interesting read.

3. Also on the Smart Football tip, Dan Gonzales has published a new piece expanding on Concept Passing, which you may remember from last spring's passing-game prospectus. "Recoded and Reloaded: An Updated Structure for a Complete Passing Game at Any Level," available from Amazon here. If there's interest, I may throw it on the offseason reading list. Brown has some excerpts available here.

4. Via twitter, here's some very interesting data from the Football Perspective on some of the top passing performances from 2012. It's broken down by season, individual games and even has rankings on the top defenses and individual defensive performances. LSU finished third in the team ratings, and the secondary's performance against Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel ranked as the top single-game rating. In another post, the site ranks QB performance since 2005. Jamarcus Russell's 2006 season ranks 33^rd.

5. Back to passing -- and we'll begin talking spring football soon enough -- here's some more Cam Cameron goodness, via the National Football Post.