NEW YORK (AP) – Brett Favre was the 33rd pick in the 1991 NFL draft and his good pal Michael Strahan went 40th two years later. Ray Lewis was 26th overall in 1997 and Ed Reed 24th three years ago.

Which proves you don’t always need a high pick to corral stars, a development likely to be demonstrated again Saturday when commissioner Paul Tagliabue opens this year’s auction. This is a draft where the top 10 is a crap shoot and a lot of good players will be available later – the four above-mentioned players include a three-time MVP and three defensive players of the year.

“There is not that much difference between when we pick and the late part of the first round,” said New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi, who gave up this year’s first-round pick in the 2004 deal that got the Giants Eli Manning.

“I think it is the same quality of athlete. But I don’t think that in any way is disparaging toward the draft,” Accorsi said. “I think it really speaks to how deep the draft is, at least the first half of the draft.”

That’s because scouts can only project what they think a player can do over the course of his career. In fact, scouting may be e more difficult.

The NFL scouting combine, coupled with the “Pro Days” now held routinely on college campuses, can lead to overanalysis, especially since big-time agents and agencies now run schools on how to perform better in workouts.

Not how to play better, how to work out better.

Smart executives go with playing over working out and testing. “You can’t beat performing well at a high level,” Detroit Lions president Matt Millen said.

“The combine is nice, the measures are great, but a lot of people run around in T-shirts and shorts that can’t play the game,” San Diego general manager A.J. Smith said. “If a player we like backs it up with numbers, then he goes up a notch.”

Still, it’s hard not to be tempted by workout figures – a guy who runs a 4.3 second 40-yard-dash opens eyes even when he hasn’t had much of a college career.

Especially this year.

San Francisco, which for so many years picked at the end, now opens the draft after a 2-14 season and has identified three players as possibilities: quarterbacks Alex Smith of Utah and Aaron Rodgers of California and wide receiver Braylon Edwards of Michigan. It looks like Smith is the favorite, although agent Tom Condon wants more money than he got last year from the Giants for Manning after they dealt up to get him. San Francisco’s dilemma, however, is that this is a draft with no single standout. And it’s deepest from around 20 to 60 or 80 – places where Favre, Strahan, Lewis and Reed were taken in past years.

So a lot of good players should come out of the second and early third rounds. Near the top is riskier, because most scouts don’t think Smith or Rodgers is as good a prospect as last year’s top three QBS: Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger.

So teams with high picks want to trade out, although there are few takers.

“Just because you have the second pick in the draft doesn’t mean it’s surefire. Everything is time and circumstance,” whined Nick Saban, the new Miami coach, who seems to want to trade the pick.

“We can only take the best player who is available. You know who is out there. Is there a Julius Peppers out there? Do you see one?” Saban added in a reference to Carolina’s All-Pro defensive end, second overall in 2002.

Saban’s lament only emphasizes what football people know about all drafts: there is no sure thing, even at the top. It’s more so in this year’s selections.

“If you are looking for a certain type of player, there is going to be a group that really appeals to you and there is going to be another group that you just really don’t have much use for but are going to be drafted because teams are going to looking for those types of players,” said New England coach Bill Belichick, whose best pick ever was a lucky one: quarterback Tom Brady in the sixth round of the 2000 draft.