By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I’ve mentioned before how little faith I put into mock drafts and after this year’s first round you can see why. If there was a NFL Draft Bracket, similar to March Madness, predicting the events of Thursday night would’ve been like predicting South Carolina to make it to the Final Four.

Well, I put about as much stock into the post-draft grades as I do the mock drafts. So, rather than give each team a grade that will surely come back to bite me at some point, I’ve listed each team, along with the best and worst outcome they can expect from their drafted players. Some of these may or may not be realistic. I’ll let you decide.

Atlanta Falcons: Best– 1st round pick Takkarist McKinley turns into a pass rushing giant to compliment Vic Beasley.

Linebacker Duke Riley copies the success of fellow LSU teammate, Deion Jones, and adds depth to an already strong linebacking core.

Sean Harlow, the former Oregon State guard, becomes a solid starter. The Falcons pick up right where they left off last season and make a run to the Super Bowl.

Worst: McKinley struggles and is forced to use his UCLA connection to sign with Big Baller Brand, his only endorsement deal. Within 6 weeks all McKinley jersey’s are on the clearance rack, or found in your local Goodwill store.

Duke Riley and Sean Harlow leave football to join the WWE. The Falcon’s fire Dan Quinn after receiving a call from Bobby Petrino, who is interested in returning to the NFL.

Carolina Panthers: Best: Mike Shula is able to figure out how to utilize Christian McCaffrey. All the women in North Carolina start paying attention to Panther games; 9 months later North Carolina hospitals see a tremendous uptick in newborns.

Worst: Mike Shula does Mike Shula things, causing McCaffrey to be traded to the New England Patriots for a 5th round pick and a handful of magic beans that turn out to just be regular black beans. Local women have nobody to fantasize about now that McCaffrey is gone and North Carolina becomes the movie Mad Max.

New Orleans Saints: Best: Marshon Lattimore and Marcus Williams both help shore up a leaky secondary. Mark Ingram and Adrian Peterson are playing so well that Alvin Kamara never sees the field.

Worst: Alvin Kamara becomes the featured back since Mark Ingram spends the offseason training with Trent Richardson and Adrian Peterson loses his leg after getting caught in the gears of a combine.

Lattimore and Williams leave the Saints to become private investigators. Their popularity in New Orleans skyrockets and they guest star in CBS’s newest nighttime drama CSI: New Orleans (completely different from NCIS: New Orleans). Meanwhile, people never learn how to correctly pronounce 2nd round draft pick, Ryan Ranczyk’s last name.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Best: OJ Howard becomes the next Rob Gronkowski. He is then invited to the White House (just because) where he interrupts Press Secretary, Sean Spicer during one of his briefings. The video goes viral to great fanfare, causing the president to replace Sean Spicer with OJ Howard.

Worst: None of those things take place and we are robbed of the opportunity to say the words “Press Secretary, OJ Howard.”

Only time will tell if any of these come to fruition, but I’m not holding out much hope. Except for the OJ Howard thing. I really hope that actually takes place.