I think that a Center, if good enough, can be drafted in the 1st round.
I always cringe whenever I see a team draft a Kicker or a punter in the first five rounds. It always happens, and it happened again this year.
Remember, Brady was pick # 199, Round six. Johnny Unitas was TRADED to the Baltimore Colts via a DIME in a phone booth lo those many years ago( boy the Steelers really regretted that move...)
There are many examples of players that excel today that for many reasons, did not excel during College, the Combines, workouts, camp-invites, etc. CLE DB Joe Haden supposedly finished dead last in the basics: run( 40 YD), catch, leap/jump, and 2nd to last in size.
Otis Sistrunk was a walk-on wherever the Oakland Raiders held their camp in the 1970's. John Madden stuck his neck out for him and that was a great non-draft gift from the heavens.
Bill Walsh stuck his neck out for Jerry Rice, from tiny Div. lll Mississippi Valley State( they might be Div. 2 these days), as the scouts on Rice was that he was too frail and small for the NFL, and Rice had to overcome that injury in his Rookie year before he flourished. Everyone wanted Rice gone once he was injured, but Bill Walsh fought everyone. People don't like to remember Walsh as a fiery, hard-to-get-along with man but he was indeed. Yet to get that position he worked his ass off for, he was totally Politically correct, kissed ass, etc. until he got to the TOP. Then he punched down, and created that dynasty where the 49ers won 5 Lombardi's.
Walsh had the final say on the draft picks. Very few Head Coaches today has that say, I can only think of ONE: the hooded one in Boston. That is why we won't be seeing anymore dynasties; the NFL Owners and Teams won't give that power to a HC.
Yes it sounds like I am ranting a bit, but today's NFL smells like Medocrity on the March. Only the smell of money really counts to the Owners. Sure, they want to win, but not at the expense of the other competing Owners, and the Jimmy Johnson's of the world are too few and far between the reaches of any NFL Owner.
Bring back Steinbrenner of the Yankees; he was an Owner( baseball) that was willing to commit 100% to put the Winner on the field, no matter the cost and he pizzed off every other Owner with the huge salary figures paid. He did not care. Jerry Jones SAYS he cares, but he does not. That's the booze talking when he says he will write that check to the man who leads the 'pokes to their next Lombardi. Even with his current lucky team, he won't ever win another Lombardi. Ever. Ever.
JX