Charles Davis and I shared duties on "NFL Draft Review" on NFL Network, so I wanted to make sure I gave you my thoughts on the rest of the teams I didn't cover on the show.
The Seahawks are interesting. They finished 7-9 last season, and a lot of people thought they'd have been better off losing the final game and not getting in the playoffs, because then they would have landed a much higher pick. They would have received the 14th pick. But they beat New Orleans in the wild-card round, and they have a bunch of energy now under Pete Carroll.
Interesting first couple of picks for the Seahawks. At No. 29, they took James Carpenter, the tackle from Alabama. They need some major upgrades in their offensive line. They have Russell Okung -- a gifted kid from a year ago -- starting at left tackle, and Max Unger on the inside. But outside of those two, they need major upgrades. So they get Carpenter, who's more of a natural right tackle, and they're hoping to pair him with Okung. A lot of people think that was a little bit of a reach, but Carpenter is a good football player and a tough kid.
Then they took another tough kid in the third round, John Moffitt, a guard from Wisconsin. So you can see very quickly that Carroll's priorities were to upgrade the toughness of that offensive line.
-- Mayock on
49ers top pick
Aldon Smith
Jim Harbaugh put his stamp on his first draft. He took defensive Aldon Smith at No. 7, and he has tremendous upside. He's barely 21 years old and a talented edge rusher. The 49ers will ask him to stand up even though he did a lot of damage with his hand in the dirt playing both defensive end and defensive tackle at Missouri. They're going to ask him to play rush linebacker, and he's a gifted kid with a lot of potential.
I could say the same thing about the 49ers' second-round pick, Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback out of Nevada. He has a big arm. I thought he was unbelievably raw, but he has a lot of upside. Jim Harbaugh is a former quarterback who believes in developing quarterbacks. My guess is, if they re-sign Alex Smith, it'll give Kaepernick at least a year to work on both his technique and learning the scheme from Harbaugh and Smith.
I like the fourth-round pick, Kendall Hunter from Oklahoma State. He's a quicker-than-fast, third down, change-of-pace guy. He doesn't have to have a lot of carries, but he can get Frank Gore off the field.
