文章基本信息

标题：Chargers are limited
作者：then ; some teams will already have made three picks.
期刊名称：The Topeka Capital-Journal
印刷版ISSN：1067-1994
出版年度：1999
卷号：Apr 14, 1999
出版社：Morris Multimedia, Inc.

Chargers are limited

then, some teams will already have made three picks.

in draft

The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- Bobby Beathard doesn't have next year's first-round draft pick to trade away. He did that last year. He's not inclined to part with his No. 1 in 2001 -- yet. A rather boring Saturday is shaping up for the San Diego Chargers, who won't surface in the NFL draft until the next-to-last pick in the second round, the 60th overall. "It'll be a long day Saturday," Beathard said, rather wistfully. Beathard usually livens up the draft -- and confounds the fans -- by giving away the following year's first-round pick for the chance to take a no-name player in the second round. That won't happen this year, because Beathard is out of bullets, the result of too much wheeling and dealing last year. "We could possibly change positions, but I don't really think we have ammunition to do it," Beathard said. Not after including this year's first-rounder, along with last year's Nos. 1 and 2, plus two players, in the megadeal with Arizona that allowed him to move up one spot last April to claim quarterback Ryan Leaf with the second pick overall. Arizona, which made the playoffs, thus gets the eighth pick overall in this year's draft, plus its own at No. 21. San Diego, meanwhile, is still waiting for Leaf to grow up and produce. The Chargers even had to go out and sign Jim Harbaugh to help get through 1999. One round after raking in Leaf, Beathard just couldn't resist going even deeper in debt, trading his 2000 first-rounder to Tampa Bay for the right to take 6-foot-5 wide receiver Mikhael Ricks in the second round. Ricks got into Kevin Gilbride's doghouse, was liberated by June Jones, showed promise, but dropped too many balls. Even after a 5-11 season, Beathard doesn't second-guess himself. He'd still rather forfeit a future first-round pick for the right to take a player now. As for the Leaf deal, Beathard said, "We still think that he's going to be the quarterback that we expected him to be."