Doug's Mock -- And in the second round...

The idea behind these dueling mocks is obviously to take who we think Tim Ruskell would take, but I'm somewhat conflicted with my second-round selection. There are two safeties I'm looking at. One is a 51-game college starter with ninja aggressiveness, dynamic hitting skills, and some coverage ability. He's also from a big school. The other is a 44-game starter (33 at free safety, 11 at left cornerback) with the best coverage ability in this draft class among all the safeties.  He fits the notion of interchangeable safeties that the Seahawks want and currently don't have because of the obvious Vortex of Suck. On the downside, he shares a little bit of that's Vortex's predilection for iffy tackling (he's a kamikaze), and he's from the MAC.

Contestant #1 is Patrick Chung, and Contestant #2 is Louis Delmas. I have had the good fortune to interview both of them in the last month (links on their names), and I would have no problem recommending either one from a character and intensity perspective. I think that Ruskell would prefer Chung because of specific attributes he's tended to prefer, but I'm going to write up Delmas because the pick simply makes more sense.

Second Round (37) - Louis Delmas, FS, Western Michigan

So, about the whole small-school thing. It's not really defensible in this case. In 2008, Delmas racked up 11 tackles, a pick, and a deflected pass against Nebraska, eight tackles and a pick against Buffalo (and if you follow college ball even at a surface level, you know that Buffalo's no joke), further excelling against Illinois and Ball State, and against Rice in the Texas Bowl, and then at the Senior Bowl and the Combine. He's not intimidated by the big time. What I really like about him is that he understands the concept of formation diversity, and his role in different schemes.

"In the defenses we ran, I was usually directed to cover, because my coaches felt that I was a playmaker," he remembered. "No matter where the ball went, I was in the play. I was maybe 20 percent in the box in any given game. We'd run halves, thirds, hard Cover-2, a man Cover-2, we'd run a lot of Fire Zone (the zone blitz concept explained very well here), and three-man deep."

Four-year starter, second-team All-MAC as a true freshman, a guy who's going to go balls-out on every play. He will, on the other hand, be prone to some pretty enormous whiffs, and he can get turned around when run-tackling in space. But he can cover, and he won't pick off Trufant when he's covering Ted Ginn because he has to be in on the action.

If Ruskell passes because he needs a deep threat at receiver, fine. If he passes because Delmas didn't go to Auburn or because he isn't sufficiently "gritty", we have ourselves a problem. Delmas would go a long way towards making the safety position a plus, as opposed to the howling minus it has become. Right now, you take the talent and work on the discipline, to fill a hole currently occupied by a player who possesses neither. And you have Deon Grant to help with the latter.