NFL Combine day 2: WRs

* WRs, RBs and QBs worked out at the NFL Combine Sunday, where Alabama WR Julio Jones crushed Rams Nation’s hopes of drafting him by crushing everything he performed. He ran a sub-4.4 40, had a ridiculous 11-foot-plus broad jump and bested #1 WR prospect A.J. Green at just about everything. Green was the clear #1 WR coming into Sunday, with Jones #2; now it’s more of a 1/1a situation, and Jones looks every bit like a top-10 draft pick now, which sucks when your team needs wide receivers and you’re picking 14th. Unless, that is, every team ahead of the Rams has draft evaluators who are IDIOTS as big as Sterling Sharpe, who insisted at the top of Sunday’s coverage on NFL Network that Jones wasn’t even a first-round pick. Less than five seconds after that moronic pronouncement, Jones blazed a 4.39. Sharpe is supposed to be their WR specialist for the Combine?

* More on the WRs, when their drills weren’t being pre-empted in favor of covering Cam Newton’s stupid broad jumps:

- More bad news: Leonard Hankerson may be another WR the Rams can’t draft, possibly playing his way into the lower-first / upper-second round. Then again, maybe I’m like Mike Mayock and think two hundred guys are going to get picked in the first two rounds. Hankerson ran a 4.4 and made pretty adjustments and catches in deep route drills. He did only go 2-for-5 on his first gauntlet run, though.

- A couple of the top small WR prospects surprised with their 40 times, not in a good way. Titus Young’s official 40 was 4.53. Jeremy Kerley, who looked pretty promising at the Senior Bowl, ran a 4.6-plus. At the slower speed, Kerley needed to look flawless at things like the gauntlet drill, but he didn’t. Young and Kerley were getting compared to DeSean Jackson, making them enticing names to Rams fans. But Jackson ran a 4.35.

- Another Senior Bowl favorite who had a setback at the Combine was Vincent Brown of San Diego State, who turned in 4.7-plus 40s. Yeah, I’m going to need my WRs to be able to outrun David Ortiz. Didn’t look like Boise State had a good day to me. Austin Pettis dropped a couple in the gauntlet and ran 4.6-plus.

- If you’re going to go with a smaller WR, go with Edmund Gates of Abilene Christian. He looked very smooth throughout the day and ran a sub-4.4. Or Kentucky’s Randall Cobb, who had a fine enough day to be named NFL Network’s Value Player of the Day, or something like that. Looked good in drills and ran a sub-4.5. Aldrick Robinson was one of the fastest runners and made a pretty play to high-point a deep pass. Greg Salas of Hawaii was smooth and showed nice body control. Denarius Moore had a nice gauntlet run and I’ve got my eye on him anyway since WR guru Charlie Baggett was his position coach last year at Tennessee.

- If you’re going to go with a bigger WR, try Greg Little of North Carolina. Like Tar Heel Brooks Foster a couple of years ago, he outbenched all the WRs. His 40 time was good, and he ran the best, smoothest gauntlet drill of anyone all weekend. Pitt’s Jonathan Baldwin’s also definitely in that equation. His 40 time of just over 4.5 wasn’t bad at all and he made nice catches away from his body. Terrence Toliver had one of the better gauntlet runs of the day.

- Staying off my WR radar: DeAndre Brown looked ungainly and really struggled to adjust to throws. Darvin Adams dropped too many, some just terribly, let too many get into his body and pulled up lame during the deep route drill. Torrey Smith’s got intriguing speed, but just like Darrius Heyward-Bey, the Terrapin can really only run speed routes. He’s nice on deep routes but nearly useless on short routes. And he plays out of control a lot. Joe Morgan appeared to have terrible hands and looked like total slop at times. Multiple drops for Lestar Jean, Ronald Johnson, Jock Sanders.

- We do know who the Rams are drafting in the sixth round, though: wide receiver Steven Burton. Burton ran a 4.5 and looked all right in drills, but more importantly, he’s out of WEST TEXAS A&M. Mortal lock the Rams are drafting him.