It's almost here. After months and months of waiting and endless speculation, the 2011 NFL Draft is very nearly here. The festivities will get started at Radio City Music Hall on Thursday night. In the meantime, we have more of that idle speculation I was just talking about for you. SB Nation just released the latest edition of their 2011 NFL Mock Draft, and they have the Bucs filling their hole at defensive end with Purdue's Ryan Kerrigan. Here is their rationale.
In desperate need of a defensive end, the Bucs will value Kerrigan's intangibles and hustle over Adrian Clayborn with this pick.
Kerrigan is by now means the perfect player for the Bucs at defensive end, but he is probably the Bucs best option at this point. It will be interesting to see what the Bucs will do if they get to this point in the draft and all of the top DE prospects are off the board. But hopefully it doesn't come to that.
The first round of the 2011 NFL Draft starts at 8 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, April 28, and SB Nation has everything you need to prepare: NFL mock drafts, draft projections, scouting reports, the full NFL draft schedule and more. Check it out at SB Nation's NFL Draft page and our NFL Draft blog, Mocking the Draft.