Wednesday evening, a day after a crushing Fiesta Bowl loss, Stanford Cardinal offensive linemen David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin both made it known that they would be entering the 2012 NFL Draft. It remains to be seen if they officially filed their paperwork, but they are taking their talents to the next level.
The NFL Draft process will take close to four months to shake out, but as it currently stands, both linemen are likely first round picks. Late last month, Mel Kiper, Jr. released his latest Big Board and he ranks Martin No. 9 and DeCastro No. 14. He has Martin as the third offensive tackle behind USC's Matt Kalil and Iowa's Riley Reiff. He has DeCastro as the number one guard, moving him up from No. 17 to No. 14 overall.
Todd McShay released a mock draft in late December, just before Matt Barkley declared his plans to return to USC for another year. In his mock draft, he had Martin going No. 12 to the Kansas City Chiefs and DeCastro going No. 18 to the Cincinnati Bengals with the pick they received from the Oakland Raiders in the Carson Palmer trade.
SB Nation released their own NFL mock draft earlier this week and they actually have DeCastro going ninth to the Miami Dolphins and Martin at thirteenth to the Arizona Cardinals. It goes against some of the conventional wisdom about the two in comparison to each other, but still follows the idea that they could be mid to high first round picks.