IT'S TOO EARLY TO PICK NFL DRAFT'S GEMS, JOKERS.

Byline: Dave Goldberg Associated Press

Some observations from last week's NFL draft:

One New York football pundit thought the New York Giants made a great pick in the third round with Roman Oben, an offensive tackle from Louisville.

Another thought it was an awful choice that will relegate the Giants to the depths until the 21st century. And yet another thought the Cowboys gained another step in that same round when they took wide receiver Stepfret Williams.

That pick, of course, was casually derided by the guy who liked Oben.

Enough. Fans and the media are needlessly obsessed with grades on drafts.

Anyone who's paid any attention to drafts knows that instant evaluations are futile. Mel Kiper Jr., who makes a living by instantly assessing every draft pick, predicted that Mike Fox ``will be a Pro Bowler for a decade.''

Fox turned into a journeyman defensive lineman.

It can take one year for a pick to produce. Curtis Martin and Terrell Davis were 1,000-yard rushers chosen on the third and sixth rounds last season. Or it can take three years or it can take five.

Savvy football people know that one injury can make a brilliant draft pick into a bust.

``If I was so smart, I'd have taken him in the first round,'' the late Jim Finks once said after his third-round pick for New Orleans, running back Reuben Mayes, became Rookie of the Year.

Eight years is a better time frame by which to evaluate a player's career.

The first round of the 1988 draft yielded a group of All-Pros or near All-Pros, including Neil Smith, Bennie Blades, Paul Gruber, Tim Brown, Sterling Sharpe, Michael Irvin, Ken Harvey, Keith Jackson, Terry McDaniel, Anthony Miller and Randall McDaniel.

It also yielded a lot of duds: Aundray Bruce, the first overall pick by Atlanta, Rickey Dixon, Eric Moore, Dave Cadigan, Gaston Green, Eric Kumerow, Aaron Jones, Brian Bosworth (taken in the 1987 supplemental draft and cost Seattle its first 1988 choice), Clifford Charlton, Scott Davis and Ted Gregory.

The second round produced a crop of players approaching the best of the first rounders: Chris Spielman, Eric Allen, Jumbo Elliott, Pierce Holt, Thurman Thomas, Ken Norton, Vincent Brown, Dermontti Dawson, Flipper Anderson, Brian Blades, Michael Dean Perry and Brett Perriman.

The best example of the hit-and-miss nature of the draft is Elliott, an offensive tackle. He was taken by the Giants in the second round after they took another OT, Moore, in the first round, one pick before Dallas chose Irvin.

San Francisco got Bill Romanowski in the third round. Houston got Cris Dishman in the fifth, the same round that James Washington, who nearly was a Super Bowl MVP for Dallas, went to the Rams.