Idle Time for Some Analysis

Between the time the National Football League draft began and the Chargers made their first round choice Sunday, an entire football game could be played.

Heck, an America’s Cup race could be started and completed . . . in light winds.

That presents considerable dead time for an idle mind, unless you care to pollute your mind with inane patter from broadcasters analyzing this tedious procedure beyond the point of anyone caring but them.

My time was better spent.

I analyzed events of the weekend and concluded that Randy Myers was skippering Il Moro di Venezia Saturday when it blew a lead of 4 minutes 20 seconds on the last leg against New Zealand.

This was interesting stuff.

I yawned my way through the Raiders drafting a player larger than their head coach, as hard as that might be to imagine, Cincinnati drafting a quarterback it doesn’t seem to need and Green Bay drafting yet another player who thinks Green Bay is in northern Canada.

I contemplated what the Chargers’ greatest need might be, but concluded that no owners were on the board.

I also considered having brunch with Eric Moten, the Chargers’ real first pick in the 1992 draft. So what if he is already on the roster? After all, Bobby (The Genius) Beathard traded the Chargers’ highest pick in the 1992 first round to choose Moten as their third second round pick last year.

At along about 11:30, exactly 3 1/2 hours after the draft began, it came time for the Chargers to exercise the first round pick they acquired last year when they dispatched Lee Williams to Houston.

My conclusion was that all the waiting would be for naught. Surely, Beathard would trade this No. 1 pick for maybe a second-rounder in the 1993 draft, just in case there is one.

Nope.

Beathard went for a body.

A big one.

In a mere six minutes, virtually split-second decision making in this interminable process, the Chargers chose Tennessee defensive lineman Chris Mims. Most teams take all but the last few seconds of their allotted 15 minutes, either to build drama or because they cannot make up their minds.

Obviously, there was absolutely no question in Beathard’s mind that this 6-foot-4, 272-pounder was the player he would take. Any question he might have had was erased when Chicago, drafting just ahead of the Chargers, took Ohio State’s Alonzo Spellman, another defensive lineman.

“We got what we were hoping to get,” Beathard said.

I hate to harp on draft day cliches, so I won’t say anything about hoping to someday hear a general manager apologize and admit none of the players he wanted was still available. These guys are probably effusively thankful for the ugliest Christmas morning ties.

Now, I’m not saying Chris Mims is football’s version of an ugly tie. I’m not that stupid. The guy weighs 272 pounds.

In truth, time will determine the quality of this draft choice. The Chargers have gotten guys like Kellen Winslow, Gary Johnson, Russ Washington and Walt Sweeney in the first round, but they have also gotten guys like James (Fats) Fitzpatrick, Mossy Cade, Leon Burns and Walker Gillette.

It is a little bit harder to miss in the first round than it is later. And Chris Mims is no compromise pick. He is not a player the Chargers got because he was all that was left. Beathard likes this kid. He wouldn’t be the choice if the Chargers had that sixth pick they traded to Washington, but he was a nice pick for 23rd in the first round.

This is Beathard’s third Charger draft. His first two first round picks, Junior Seau and Stanley Richard, made immediate impacts. Those guys were fifth and ninth choices, respectively, and thus better bets than a 23rd choice.

Of more significance, perhaps, in the measurement of a general manager are the high choices beyond the first round. The first such player chosen Sunday was Fresno State defensive back Marquez Pope. The fifth pick in the second round, he was only 10 players after Mims.

Pope, in fact, was one of a flurry of defensive backs chosen in that part of the draft.

John Fox, the Chargers’ defensive backfield coach said: “We had him as the third corner in the draft.”

This, of course, is another one of those draft day cliches. The Chargers once drafted a quarterback 101st and announced they had him rated among the top 15 players on the board. Rhetoric is part of the game.

The game is much different on this last Sunday in April than it is on the first Sunday in September. Those are times when words are worthless and performance is everything.

That will be the time when folks like Mims, Pope and, yes, Beathard will begin to be measured. The evaluation is done.

Those Sundays are much more interesting.