No doubt, to me quarterback is a position of need, but I don't think that we can go into next season with a rookie and call it a serious alternative to Bradford being down until our offensive line is in order.
Having said that, there are too many holes in our line to say that we need to draft this or that guy to plug in here or there, especially to start the season. We'll need to try to hold on to Barksdale if for no other reason that he stays healthy and he is average. But that doesn't mean we can't draft a tackle who we can plug in at guard indefinitely, in a similar situation as Robinson.
But that obviously only helps us out at guard. We still need another guard and a center, so we'll obviously looking at veteran help throughout the line next year.
With Quick and hopefully a re-signed Britt, and Austin and Bailey coming along, we all know that this team is going to improve even more next year at wide receiver. We actually still need to see how some of these picks develop.
The defensive backs, what can I say? Major improvement everywhere. Barron helps us out at linebacker as we guessed. I think it's a matter of time before it just really clicks for one of our free safeties and we at least have excellent depth throughout our young secondary as has already been put on display with the injuries. For the first time in a long while, I'm officially not worried about our secondary.
So, my priority to inject youth for this team is obviously at the offensive line, but we want to try to take the best player available throughout the draft as much as possible, so we'll be seeing some veteran signings, but we desperately need quality youth at Center, both Guard positions and tackle. In all we should be have an eye towards a line with the physical ability to establish the run regardless of what defenses do.
Finally, quality youth at linebacker to push Ogletree and backup Laurinaitis should always be something they consider.
So, Guard, Center, Tackle, Linebacker, Quarterback and crazy as it may sound, a real Fullback are my "priorities", which are loosely based on best player available pending veteran signings that improve our position to actually take the BPA.