Every year analysts from the evil four-lettered company debate which teams could be considered risers and fallers. For various reasons teams are deemed to be reloading or rebuilding and others are expected to stay on pace with recent years.

To break this down to a Jaguars standpoint, we are going to discuss a few players who could be the new faces of the franchise and who could be on their way out.

 

Rising

Mike Thomas: Thomas exploded on the scene last year and led the Jaguars with 820 receiving yards on 66 receptions and surprised many with his many successful runs on trick plays, netting a 9 yard average. Still those are average numbers, but on a team who has not had an impactful wide receiver since the Thunder & Lightning Era those are promising. The only downfalls is very few of those receptions resulted in touchdowns, only 4, but that may have been due to the successful seasons of Mercedes Lewis and Maurice Jones-Drew demanding more balls to them. With the departure of Mike Sims-Walker, and the potential combination of no free agency and the likelihood of a defensive minded draft, Thomas’ role in the offense has the potential will grow. But that may be hampered by the next riser.

When Tyson Alualu was drafted at 10th overall in the 2010 Draft anybody and everybody with a voice shouted from the rooftops that it was a reach. Mel Kiper gave the Jaguars a D in his draft grades, the lowest grade of 2010, because the Jaguars reached by half of a round to take Alualu. Chris Steuber of Scout.com called the pick an "obvious panic move."

A year later he hasn't proven to be the best player out of the 2010 Draft, but most would argue that he lived up to the expectations of a rookie drafted in the top 10. For some that proved that Alualu wasn't a reach and that he was a good decision by Gene Smith. For others, including Kiper, he is and will always be a reach even if he turns out to be a Hall of Famer.

Kiper argued that even if Alualu has a Hall of Fame career, the Jaguars still didn't need to take him at the 10th pick and cost themselves value by doing so. To sum up his argument, even if you know a player that will be drafted in the 7th round is better every player in the 2nd round and in between, you don't draft him in the 2nd round. You take the player as low as you can and maximize the value of your picks.

Unfortunately for Kiper there are some serious flaws in his logic. So much so that I don't believe there is any such thing as a reach or a steal, at least there isn't until the players see the field.

I recently participated in TheXLog.com's 2011 NFL Media Mock Draft in which they received a pick from media members of each NFL team when it was their turn to pick. The first 16 picks, including who I selected for the Jaguars is on display at their site.

Click the link here to see the mock so far.

Among the media members that made the picks for other teams were the Charlotte Observer's Darin Gantt, the Denver Post's sports columnist and ESPN Around the Horn personality, Woody Paige, CincinnatiBengals.com editor Geoff Hobson and The Tennesseean's Jim Wyatt, among others.

I guess you could call them high standards, or maybe I was spoiled by Eugene Monroe in 2009, but I've always liked the idea of drafting a player that isn't just worth your draft pick, but is higher rated than that and should've been picked earlier. Monroe, for example, was considered by most to be the best offensive tackle in the 2009 draft and a sure-fire top 5 pick. On my board, Monroe was the 2nd rated player behind only Aaron Curry and a steal for the Jaguars at 8th overall.

In 2010, the Jaguars again drafted someone that people didn't expect them to when they took Tyson Alualu at 10th, but that was unexpected for the completely opposite reason. In hindsight, Alualu may or may not have been one of the elite prospects in the draft that was worth the 10th pick, but at the time just prior to the draft he was not considered a candidate.

So barring another left field Alualu pick that doesn't make sense until afterwards and knowing what we know now, how many players would be considered a steal at the 16th pick and how many would be worth staying put instead of trading down to acquire more value? My answer to that would be nine.

In 2008 the Jaguars bottomed out and finished 5-11. The rebuild began and they exceeded expectations finishing 7-9 in 2009 and again exceeded expectations finishing 8-8 in 2010. 

Based on that alone it wasn't all that surprising when Wayne Weaver told reporters following a press conference in January that, "If we're not in the playoffs (in 2011), it's pretty apparent we'll have a different coach." It made sense. Why would a team full of young talent that went 8-8 be happy with anything less than playoffs in the following year?

So three months later Weaver is now saying that he wants the Jaguars to have an "opportunity" to participate in the 2011 postseason.

“We are realistically one or two drafts and one or two free agency periods away from being able to compete at the very highest level. That’s when we can realistically getting into the postseason and having the opportunity to bringing a Super Bowl championship to Jacksonville.”

Brad Hill, also known as CaliforniaJag on Big Cat Country and Twitter, has recently asked me to get on board for a project called MockThree. Simply put, the idea is that it will be a live mock draft that takes place on Twitter where managers will take control of teams and simulate the draft with trades and selections. Among the participants in MockThree are Aaron Aloysius of DraftBreakdown.com, Evan Silva of NBC Sports and writers from ProFootballFocus.com.

In preparation for MockThree, which is scheduled to begin on April 18, Brad Hill, Justin Wendel and I are busy putting together our draft board, by first ranking players in each position. At defensive end we reached a sticking point trying to sort out Cameron Jordan, J.J. Watt, Ryan Kerrigan and Aldon Smith. While all are considered defensive ends, stylistically the differences are obvious.

Yesterday I talked about finding receivers late in the draft that have all the athleticism necessary to be successful at the NFL level, but are passed on due to their school. I use Marques Colston as the perfect example of a player that likely would've been drafted earlier had he not attended Hofstra and had instead gone to Florida, USC or Ohio State. Granted there are plenty of these unknowns that never made the transition; however, in the 6th and 7th round isn't it worth it to take a home run swing?

With players like Marc Mariani, Julian Edelman, Marques Colston and Pierre Garcon all making impacts on their teams, the Jaguars can afford to take a swing for the fences on smaller school talents like Lester Jean of Florida Atlantic, Ricardo Lockette of Fort Valley State, Edmond Gates of Abilene Christian or Dwayne Harris of East Carolina. One more name that can be added to that mix as a player that the Jaguars have brought in for a visit is Arkansas-Pine Bluff's receiver, Raymond Webber.