By Donal (Sports Editor)

Tomorrow at approximately 3:10pm eastern, a red(ish) haired man in a suit will walk up to a podium and call out a football team and a persons name. Ten minutes later, he will do the same thing. Ten minutes after that, the same again….and so on and on throughout the evening.

I can barely contain my excitement. Seriously

The 2008 NFL draft looks like it could be one of the most unpredictable drafts in years. All we know for certain is that Bill Parcells did not take my advice. Beyond that, its anyones guess. Or given that this is Hubdub, anyones prediction.

Now, I may have pretty funky hair, but I’m no Mel Kiper. So instead of embarrassing myself by offering up my own predictions, I’m going take a look at some of the more interesting NFL Draft questions in play right now on Hubdub and what Hubdubbers are predicting.

St Louis Rams on the clock.
The uncertainty begins with St Louis whose selection will have a big impact on how the rest of the top ten picks unfold. It looks like Glenn Dorsey versus Chris Long with Hubdubbers split on who the Rams will pick.

If the Rams select Glenn Dorsey, they could also be sending Matt Ryan to Atlanta and Chris Long out of the top five. Opting for Chris Long would probably result in Dorsey going to Atlanta and things getting rather interesting and uncertain for Matt Ryan.

Who will the St. Louis Rams choose as their first draft choice of 2008?

The other Long.
Howie’s boy was once thought of as a potential first overall pick. With that honor (or curse) now bestowed upon the other Long, there is a chance that Chris Long may not even be drafted in the top 5 if both St Louis and Atlanta pass on him. Hubdubbers however seem confident (overly confident if you ask me)that the Virginia DE will be spared that indignation.

NFL - Will Chris Long be drafted in the top five (5) of the NFL draft in 2008?

Darren McFadden
Darren McFadden is probably the most interesting player at the top of the draft for a number of reasons.

For many, he is the most talented player in the 2008 class, but he plays in a position where year on year, better value is found in later rounds. Add to that the alleged character issues and the fact that many mock drafts and Hubdub users are predicting that he will be selected by Oakland, who are stacked at running back; and you have a pretty intriguing draft story-line.

What team will pick Darren McFadden?

Quarterbacks, Quarterbacks, Quarterbacks!!
Increasingly Quarterbacks are what the NFL is all about. After Steve McNairs retirement, my beloved Ravens are in need of a QB (when aren’t they?), but Hubdubbers are predicting (marginally, I might add) that they won’t draft one in the first round.

Will the Baltimore Ravens draft a Quarterback in the first round of the 2008 draft?

It all begins with Matt Ryan whose future looks very much up in the air. Atlanta is the destination favored on Hubdub. But Hubdubbers could be wrong on two counts if Ryan were to be drafted by the Ravens (a prospect I would have very mixed feelings about)

Which team will draft Matt Ryan?

But Matt Ryan may not be the only QB drafted in round one. This years late first or early second round QB pool is quite crowded and there may well be some jostling for position amongst the teams that passed on Ryan, to pick up one of Misters Brohm, Flacco or Henne.

Who will be the second Quarterback selected in the NFL Draft?

How many quarterbacks will be picked in the first round of the NFL draft this weekend?

Some other Questions
For good measure….

Will Miami’s Jason Taylor be traded before this weekend’s NFL draft?

Will Vernon Gholston be a top-5 pick in the 2008 NFL Draft?

Which of the players invited to attend the NFL Draft will be last to be selected?

What kind of player will the Washington Redskins draft with their first pick in the first round of this year’s NFL draft?

There isn’ t much time left, so get on Hubdub (join if necessary), make your predictions and try and prove yourself to be the next Mel Kiper (funky hair or not).

Popularity: 19% [?]

By Donal (Sports Editor)

Its bad enough that the Miami Dolphins just went 1-15. What makes it worse is their timing.

As their season descended into the depths of awfulness last year, I’m sure there were some Miami fans consoling themselves with the thought of possessing the first overall pick in the draft. Right now however, faced with one of the most uninspiring selection of players at the top in years (bar maybe 2005),Fins fans are probably thinking: why couldn’t this be 1998, 2003, 2006, or even 2007.

But it isn’t just the lack of a can’t miss prospect this year that makes possession of the first overall pick as much of a penance as a privilege. The money demanded by top picks is increasingly becoming an issue and somewhat alarmingly, for the second time in three years, the signability (add that to the dictionary!) of a player will be a key determinant of who goes first overall.

Its on that basis that Jake Long looks the likely pick. But even if they select him because they can sign him, Miami will still have to give Long a contract guaranteeing at least $25m (using Joe Thomas’s contract as a basis), without any guarantee for them that Long will be the next Joe Thomas as opposed to the next Robert Gallery.

While I don’t belief that teams should be immune to the consequences of a bad draft choice, rookie salaries are making the cost of getting a top pick wrong too punitive. Increasingly, this is undermining the promotion of parity upon which the draft is based and which the NFL owes much of its success to.

It’s in that context that I’d have the following recommendation for Bill Parcells.

Let the time limit on the first pick expire without submitting a selection, wait until the Rams, Falcons, and Raiders have submitted their picks and then chose whoever remains from Gholston, the Longs and Dorsey. It would save the team some money and might just compel the NFL to take a look at and possibly take action on rookie salary levels.

He’d be doing the Dolphins and the NFL a favor.

Predict if Bill Parcells will take my advice, or if not; what the Dolphins will do with the pick:
Will the Dolphins submit their choice for the first overall pick on time?

Who will the Miami Dolphins select with the 1st overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft?

Popularity: 14% [?]

  By Donal

When Nigel first pitched the idea of Hubdub to me, one of my immediate reactions was; “this will be great for the NFL off-season”. The coaching changes, free agency, trades and most importantly: the NFL draft. With a dramatic Superbowl XLII in the books, now is the time to find out.

For an event whose appeal owes much to our efforts at forecasting its outcome; prediction market sites devote surprisingly little attention to the NFL Draft. Perhaps this lack of coverage is attributable to the more established practice of forecasting the 1st round of the Draft in its entirety; something the prediction market model doesn’t really cater for. But there is so much going on in the draft, it offers the potential for many interesting prediction markets.

Just drawing on previous experience, here are a few that come to mind:

• Who will be the first player picked in a given position (QB, HB, WR)?

• Who will be this years Brady Quinn or Aaron Rodgers?

• Which round will some Troy Smith, Eric Crouch, Maurice Clarett or Marcus Vick like figure be drafted in (if at all)?

At Hubdub, connecting these markets with their associated news flows and tracing news reports to outcome percentages over time adds an extra dimension of interest. Just imagine how dramatically this would have worked in a “Who will the Texans pick” market the day before the 2006 Draft.

Plus, at Hubdub, aspiring Draft Gurus will have the accuracy of their predictions reflected in their $ gains (or losses). Unlike certain other Draft forecasters, there won’t be a rush to obfuscate a slew of inaccurate predictions by immediately grading the selections of every team (I’m sure there is someone who gave the Chargers an A grade back in 1998).

So although we at Hubdub are looking forward to March Madness, a new MLB season and the business end of the NBA season, we are pretty excited about the NFL Draft. I’m sure there will be a lot of interesting markets and hopefully we will find a number of Draft Gurus amongst the ever expanding Hubdub membership.

We will be announcing more on our coverage of the NFL Draft shortly… …in the mean time check out the Hubdub sports category for the top open sports markets.

Popularity: 19% [?]