Friday, March 9, 2012

Welcome to St. Louis, Justin Blackmon!

Rotoworld reports that Justin Blackmon ran an "official" 4.45 40 at Oklahoma State's pro day today. Though I'll speculate that would be more like a 4.55 had he run it at the Combine, that's still a good enough time to reassure many doubters that he's the top wide receiver in the draft. If the Rams take him at #2 or #4 because wide receiver is their biggest need, it'll be hard to fault them.

Other marks from Blackmon's pro day: 10'4" broad jump, which would have been top 10 at the Combine, and 35" vertical, pretty ordinary. He stood on his Combine performance of 14 bench presses.

I'm going to remain among the doubters. I'd like to hear what kind of time Mike Mayock puts him at. I don't know about using a top-5 pick on a pretty explosive 6'1" receiver from a spread offense. I still don't know you're not just getting Michael Crabtree.

But if Blackmon didn't seal the deal today, it sounds like he came very close. Find route 44 and head on up.

On the downside, I think the big winner here was the Cleveland Browns. If Blackmon has erased any doubt the Rams had, they're not going to want to risk dropping to #6 in a trade and missing out on him. Cleveland knows the Rams don't want to miss out on Blackmon, and the Vikings don't want to miss out on Matt Kalil. Why would they trade up, then? It looks like Robert Griffin III just fell to them. And if they lose out on him to Washington, they just take Blackmon.

So there goes trading the #2 pick overall.

-$-

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