It's back, baby! BRB's wholly worthless and ill-informed regular in-season feature, "Three And Out," is making a special offseason return for the glory that is the 2009 NFL Draft. You know the drill. I give you three (3) predictions that are sure to come to fruition (read: these predictions are sure to fail, thus exposing the author to deserved mockery), and we all marvel at my eerie resemblance to Nostradamus after the fact. Hit it!
1. For reasons beyond my comprehension, Aaron Curry will not be picked within the first five (5) picks. He's almost universally regarded as the closest thing to a lock in this year's draft, but teams will manage to talk themselves out of taking him. Some franchise selecting between sixth and tenth is going to get him, and they're not going to believe their luck. This will anger me, especially if Jacksonville becomes Curry's employer in a few hours.
2. After seeing himself going in the top ten in mock drafts in early April, Everette Brown is going to find himself in for an awkward afternoon. He's not going in the top half of the first round. On the other hand, Tyson Jackson is somehow going to go in the top twelve. In three (3) years, we will wonder what the heck the team who picked Jackson was thinking.
3. For all the talk about the cost of trading up, there will be at least one team that trades up into the top ten. My guess? Washington agrees to further mortgage its future (e.g., the thirteenth pick in this year's draft and a first-rounder in a future draft) for the opportunity to make Mark Sanchez their own.
PUT YOUR NAME ON IT: And what of our beloved Houston Texans? Call me unoriginal, but I'm calling a trade down for the second year in a row. With who? No idea; I never saw Baltimore being the trading partner last year. But I feel confident predicting that your Houston Texans are going to parlay the fifteenth overall pick into a later first-round pick plus a second or third rounder.
Who will be the first newest Texan tomorrow afternoon after said trade? Again, I never saw Duane Brown coming, so take this prediction with a gallon of salt. I'm calling Clay Matthews III, which necessarily means it will not be Clay Matthews III. You can blame me when Matthews goes on to become a Hall of Famer for another team; I jinxed it.