Who the hell will they draft 2008: Notre Dame's DT Trevor Laws

DT Trevor Laws' stock is on the rise.

I'll make no attempt to hide this: I love Trevor Laws and I'd do back-flipped cartwheels if he landed to the Colts in the second round. It's a long shot to get him though, as most mock drafts have Laws going in the high or mid second round. But, it is still possible for him to fall to the late second, and if he is there the Colts should snatch him up in a heartbeat.

The one constant with Bill Polian is he looks for draft picks that are football smart, high character individuals who understand the importance of their contribution to the game. "Football smart" has less to do with being book smart and more to do with the ability to process information quickly in a highly stressful, physically violent environment. Sure, I can read a playbook, commit it to memory, and recite the plays on cue, but it's a different matter entirely to do this while also trying to overpower a 300 pound guard in the middle of a snowstorm with thousands of people watching. If you read most scouting reports on Laws, he is everything Bill Polian and Tony Dungy look for in a player:

Laws fills a need at pass rusher for the Colts, but not quite at the position of need: Defensive End. Laws is a DT, and would be a prototypical DT in a Cover 2. He relies on speed and quickness to penetrate into the backfield and disrupt the opposing team's offense. His unrelenting motor allowed him to excel at this at Notre Dame. Laws was the only good player on an otherwise horrible Notre Dame team. If you read SB Nation's Rakes of Mallow, you'll see that one universal observation of Laws is his motor. He'd get in and out of plays quickly, not casually jog on and off the field. Despite double and triple teams, he was unrelenting in his pursuit of the QB.

At 6'1, 304 pounds, he's bigger than Ed Johnson. However, Laws clocked a 40 time of 5.09 at the Combine, and showed impressive upper body strength. According to Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune (read previous link), Laws underwent a total body transformation, adding 30 pounds of lean muscle. The guy exercises three times a day, and his stock has shot up so much he's listed as a top 5 DT in the entire draft. During the 2007 season, Laws was the only down lineman in all of college football to register more than 100 tackles (112 total). He had 4 sacks, 7 QB pressures, and 8 tackles for a loss. That is excellent for any DT, and for a DT on a bad defense, it's great.

Laws could very well be one of those special DTs that forces other teams to double him. If left to single blocked, he has the speed and quickness to knife past the blocker and wreck havoc. If doubled, that means either Dwight Freeney or Robert Mathis is single blocked (aka, the opposing QB is getting sacked). With Laws, the Colts would have an impressive corral of pass rushers, giving them the necessary depth to make a Championship run.

Again, with Laws stock so much on the rise, he could be gone before Indy drafts in the late second round.  However, if he is there, he'd bring a totally new dimension to Indy's d-line should the Colts draft him.