M,M,and MM - Marques Colston, Maurice Jones-Drew, and that guy you never heard of, Marcus McNeill

by James on January 27th, 2007

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Marques says Look my name is in that title!

Now Gil Brandt, senior analyst for NFL.com says that you can not evaluate a draft after just one year. He is right, but what do we care?

We need to look at some of these rookies and see what they did. Maybe even draft them next year for our fantasy team. It was a great year for rookies. Yesterday, we looked at the cream of the crop.

You could argue that this group is just as valuable.

Marques Colston

Down in New Orleans there was a revival. It was a revival of football, the NFL variety. One of the biggest surprises was Marques Colston.

Everybody knew that Marques was going to be great, right? Wrong!

For gosh sakes, Marques Colston was a 7th round pick out of Hofstra. You know, Hofstra, that school that produces just oodles of NFL talent, Not.

Marques became a favorite target of Drew Brees, which helped because Joe Horn had a year of nagging injuries. After 10 games, Colston had 7 touchdowns and 4 100+ yard games. He ended up with over 1,000 receiving yards in spite of missing 3 games.

Interestingly enough, Marques was marked as a TE and Receiver for Fantasy Football. Your intrepid author passed on Marques not knowing what to do with him, but if you played him at TE you racked up a ton of points for a TE.

Marques caught 5 passes in the NFC Championship game against the Bears.

Maurice Jones-Drew

He had become short yardage man. Able to leap over really short buildings and score touchdowns. Maurice Jones-Drew never lost the faith. Then along came the Colts in a December 10 upset by the Jaguars 44 - 17.

Maurice had 166 yards on only 15 carries and 2 touchdowns. Fred Taylor the starting back had over 130 yards in the same game. Jones-Drew followed it up with 98 yards and 1 touchdown against Tennessee and 131 yards and 2 touchdowns against New England. He led all the rookies with 16 touchdowns and proved he could be an every down back.

Marcus McNeill

The San Diego Chargers had no shortage of talent with LT, Shawne Merriman, and Phillip Rivers, but largely unnoticed went Offensive Tackle Marcus McNeill. All he did was start all 16 games and earn a spot on the Pro Bowl as a Rookie.

Drafted in the second round from Auburn, Marcus stands 6′7″ tall and weighs in at 337. He is one big boy helping to pave the way for all those LaDainian Tomlinson touchdowns.

Rookies, rookies, and more rookies

Wow! So many excellent rookies. What a year. How about that kicker for the Patriots, Stephen Gostkowski. He made all his pressure kicks in the playoffs. And what about Mark Anderson of the Bears with 12 sacks and Tamba Hali with the Chiefs with 8 sacks and 5 forced fumbles.

And what about…Ahh, you get the point, the league was loaded with great rookies!

NFL Football Fan Question Who was your favorite rookie?

As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.

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