after Day 3 of the 2012 NFL Draft

One sports journalist made reference to the phrase 'getting a life' with those who spend all those hours watching the draft - hey, I resemble that remark. 

In way of explaining my fascination with the event, I thought of how I would describe it to someone: Did you ever play with those little plastic army men when you were a child? How about the board game Stratego? And as I mentioned in an earlier blog entry: jigsaw puzzles. Do you enjoy putting those together? I also liken the NFL Draft to not only playing chess, but 3-D chess. I could probably come up with other comparisons, but those are the ones that first come to mind. 

The Niners made four more picks after the three that had been made by the time I wrote yesterday's entry. One thing to keep in mind about the draft is some players have already reached a high enough level of play during their college careers that teams draft them sooner than others by the time the draft happens. It's entirely possible that others haven't yet maximized their potential at the college level and will bloom a little later. Of maybe are coming from smaller, less touted programs. There are a myriad of reasons. It's up to team evaluators to decide which players are worth taking when their team's turn to pick comes up (or make trades instead). And then further their abilities with the right coaching and the right system.

And now that the draft is over - it's time to sign undrafted free agents!!! There's more freedom for those players that weren't chosen during the draft, because they are the ones that get to choose now. And they have to decide which of the teams that have contacted them they want to go to. I would suspect that going to the better teams may well make it more difficult to make the roster, and conversely, the teams that have the furthest to go may well present the best opportunities to be a part of the opening day squad. But who wouldn't want to test themselves with a chance to play for a winning organization?

The signing of free agents starts up the minute the draft ends, I suppose, and I've already seen several lists of whom have signed with the Niners. The one name that pops out to me is Chris Owusu, a fleet footed wide receiver out of Stanford. Provided he is fully healthy, wouldn't it be nice if he could be the Doug Baldwin (an undrafted free agent from Stanford that the 49ers missed out on last year; he tore it up for the Seahawks in 2011) of this year? When I look at the 49ers roster now, I think of the line from the movie 'Top Gun': "I feel the need, the need for speed!" 

I'm enjoying the thought that the Niners are building a juggernaut built of both power and speed. Should be fun next season!