2006 NFL Draft contest

I don't play fantasy football and I don't really follow college football all that much. But for reasons I don't quite understand, I always follow the NFL draft. I like to see particularly, which players the Patriots will draft. Especially in an offseason where they've lost more than they've gained. Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach, is not shy about trading picks and moving around in the draft to get players that fit the Patriots style of play.

Every year, Patriots Football Weekly holds an NFL Draft contest. What you have to do is guess the order of who will be picked when in the first round of the draft, with each player worth a noumber of points equal to the draft slot. For example, the first pick is worth one point, the tenth pick is worth ten points, etc. Below is my pick of how I think the first round will go.

As I was looking on ESPN.com tonight, I read that Mario Williams has already agreed to a contract with the Houston Texans, who had the top pick in tomorrow's draft. Great. My guesses are already messed up and the draft doesn't officially begin until noon tomorrow.

Update: After all of my hard work, I only ended up getting one pick right, which was #3 Vince Young. So I'll not be winning this contest THIS year.

1 Bush, Reggie
2 Ferguson, D'Brickashaw
3 Young, Vince
4 Leinart, Matt
5 Williams, Mario
6 Hawk, A.J.
7 Hali, Tamba
8 Ngata, Haloti
9 Justice, Winston
10 Cutler, Jay
11 Huff, Michael
12 Greenway, Chad
13 Jean-Gilles, Max
14 Kiwanuka, Mathias
15 Holmes, Santonio
16 Williams, Jimmy
17 Ryans, DeMeco
18 Jackson, Chad
19 Hill, Tye
20 Watson, Gabe
21 Carpenter, Bobby
22 Davis, Vernon
23 McNeill, Marcus
24 Bing, Darnell
25 Youboty, Ashton
26 Howard, Thomas
27 White, LenDale
28 Pope, Leonard
29 Maroney, Laurence
30 Williams, DeAngelo
31 Tapp, Darryl
32 Wright, Rodrique
Bonus Pats Pick: Carpenter, Bobby

I was one of five winners in this contest in 1999 and actually won the grand prize of this whole contest that same year. I was competing against four other draft contest winner contestants, the members of the newspaper staff and a penny (coin flip, you know.) For reaching the top five (in which my name was pulled out of a hat to break a tie for the fifth spot) I won a Patriots pull-over jacket, which I still have and wear. The second contest, was a weekly picks contest where you had to guess the winner of the games played each week. At the end of the season, the person with the best overall record won the grand prize, which was a pair of season tickets for the 2000 season. Unfortunately for me, the seats were lousy, in old Foxboro Stadium AND the Patriots went 5-11 in 2000. I sat through some truly horrible games but had fun being part of the crowd. The Patriots won the Super Bowl for the first time the next season, in 2001 (game played Feb. 3, 2002) against the St. Louis Rams (XXXVI.)