As the sports world hyperventilates over the announcement that Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, the consensus No. 1 overall pick, has decided to return to school for the 2011 season, it seems as good a time as any to start our 2011 NFL Mock Draft StoryStream.
Brian Galliford, with the help of Mocking the Draft's Dan Kadar, put together SB Nation's first mock draft on Monday. Of course, Luck was headed to the Carolina Panthers with the top pick. Patrick Peterson, LSU's cornerback and the team's best player, is slotted at the No. 2 position, which is the Denver Broncos' pick.
Meanwhile, Boston College's Anthony Castonzo is projected to be the top senior offensive tackle taken in the draft, currently slotted to go to the Chicago Bears with the No. 27 overall pick.
We love Jay Cutler, but we're pretty sure Jay Cutler doesn't love getting drilled into the turf a dozen times per game. Chicago needs an immediate O-Line contributor badly; Castonzo topped our list in that department.
BC Interruption highlights what this would mean for the Eagles' program:
If Castonzo is drafted in the first round of this year's Draft, he'll become the seventh Eagle drafted in the first round over the last 10 years. It would also mark 9 out of the last 10 years that a Boston College offensive or defensive lineman would be taken in the Draft.
As we've highlighted already this week, the mock draft has the New England Patriots drafting Ohio State's senior defensive end Cameron Heyward with the No. 17 pick (via Oakland) and then Marcus Cannon, a guard from TCU, with pick No. 32 (where the Patriots draft with their second first-round pick is determined based on their performance in the playoffs).