Patriots Flag Football: Alec's Third Pick

Two rounds down, four to go.

Round two seemed to represent a difference in drafting philosophy between Greg and I; Greg clearly values elusive, shifty guys that have played both ways and will be hard to get a hold of once they have the ball. On the flipside, I decided to shift my second pick more towards a skill player whose elite athleticism can compensate for his lack of experience on the other side of the ball. Both are fairly viable strategies, but I think round three is where we really start to separate the men from the boys.

There were a couple of directions I could have gone with this pick; to be honest, Greg threw me for a little bit of a loop by selecting Wes Welker last night. He now has the two most elusive, shifty players on the team on his side, and having Welker and Julian Edelman darting around in the secondary like a couple of little weasels won't exactly be easy to defend. And while I definitely have to take Greg's team into account when I'm making my picks, one thing that you never, ever do is draft based on what your opponent is doing. I just can't allow myself to start chasing Greg's picks. That's why I'm going to worry about Welker later and rack up some more speed. My third round pick is Brandon Lloyd.

With Lloyd, I now have a blazing fast deep threat with unbelievable hands. He is one of the fastest, if not THE fastest, players on the Patriots, and even the guys who play cornerback for a living have trouble with him. He can also run all of the underneath routes, come across on a slant, and likely runs a mean double reverse. But for me, it all comes back to his speed. Everyone knows that a perfectly timed Go Route is one of the harder flag football plays to defend, and I now have that Go Route right in my back pocket. There were multiple reports out of Patriots camp about how Lloyd and Tom Brady were already starting to develop a rhythm during OTAs, and so I have no reason to believe that he and Tommy B won't be lighting the end zone up all day - that is, when he isn't throwing to Aaron Hernandez after pump faking a Deep Post to Devin McCourty.

The question mark, of course, is whether or not Lloyd can successfully transition over to the defensive side of the ball. Honestly, I'm not too worried about it; Lloyd successfully picked up the St. Louis Rams' offense on the fly last year and was still a fairly productive receiver despite being the team's only real receiving threat. So obviously, Lloyd has a high football IQ. And with a high football IQ comes the ability to adapt and adjust to playing a different position if the need calls for it. No, Lloyd won't be Champ Bailey out there on defense, but he's big enough, fast enough, agile enough, and smart enough to at least be a serviceable corner. As a receiver, part of his job is to get inside the DB's head and know how they think, which will translate nicely when my team is on defense.

Plus, it's not like he's never played corner before; some quick scouting on him revealed that he played cornerback, wide receiver, kicker, and punter at Blue Springs High School, where he earned three letters in football, four in track, and one in basketball. As a cornerback, he intercepted six passes and returned one for a touchdown. The man is obviously a phenomenal athlete who has enough experience on the opposite side of the ball to not be a liability, and his abilities on offense make him a no-brainer here.

Man - Hernandez, McCourty, and now Lloyd. It's gonna be a good day. Back over to you, Greg.