Our drafting has sucked lately

[Whatever]

(01-29-2024, 05:47 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: It's late January, cold, rainy, and I'm a little pissed we weren't playing this weekend...so, let's talk about our recent drafts.

This current team's success was mainly built on can't miss draft picks and free agent signings.

The non drafted signings/trades of impact players over the past 3 years include:
Reader, Awuzie, Hendrickson, Hilton, Larry Ogunjobi (remember that guy?), Eli Apple, Vonn Bell, Alex Cappa, Ted Karras, B.J. Hill (trade), and Orlando Brown Jr

That is an absolute **** ton of contribution from free agents. If you couple that with the can't miss picks of Burrow and Chase, that is the reason for the success.

This leaves the question of "well, what about the draft picks?"

I wasn't sure when to start this sample size, so I went back to 2019 when the ZT era began. Since then (and not including the most recent class, because its honestly too early to tell), there are a total of six quality players from those four draft classes, and two of those were can't miss, no brainer picks (Burrow, Chase). Jonah Williams, Germain Pratt, Tee Higgins, and Logan Wilson round out that group.

What is even more concerning is how bad we've been at drafting in the trenches. Since 2018, here is a list of our OL/DL player draft picks:

Myles Murphy
Zach Carter
Cordell Volson
Jackson Carman
Joseph Ossai
Cam Sample
Tyler Shelvin
Dante Smith
Trey Hill
Wyatt Hubert
Khalid Kareem
Hakeem Adeniji
Rebel Wren
Michael Jordan G
Billy Price
Sam Hubbard
Andrew brown
Rod Taylor

and if we want to keep going through 2013:

Jordan Willis
Carl Lawson
Ryan Glasnow
Andrew Billings
Christian Westerman
Ced Ogbuehi
Jake Fisher
Marcus Hardison
Will Clarke
Russell Bodine
Margus Hunt
Tanner Hawkinson
Reid Fragel
Tj Johnson

That's what, two pretty good players (Hubbard, Lawson), an average-below average player (Volson), and a guy that showed some potential this year (Murphy)? That is SHOCKINGLY bad. 4 decent players in 10 years. I mean the majority of those guys aren't even back up quality players. Just HUGE misses.

So, the point of this whole thing is that with looming cap ramifications for star players, drafting now more than ever is going to be MASSIVELY important and we 1000% need to be better at it. I have high hopes for the 2023 class, but we REALLY need to start hitting on more picks, especially on the offensive and defensive lines.

I'm not sure who's responsible for talent evaluation along those fronts, but they should really be questioned by the results over the past decade.

It's honestly not as bad you think.  Keep in mind that only about 40% of 4th round picks wind up playing out their rookie deals and getting a second contract someplace else.  Guys like Cam Sample, who's been a solid 3 year rotation player, would be a hit by virtually any NFL GM's standards.  Guys like Trey Hill and Adeniji would be considered hits based on the round they were drafted.

Even though Billy Price was a disappointment to the fan base, he was still traded for a starting player that got a 2nd contract and he's still a starter in the league.

Part of the issue is that the team was so good at drafting DL in the middle rounds for so long (Geno, Peko, MJ, Geathers, Lawson, etc.) that our fan base thinks that's the norm, not the exception.  Now that they've fallen back to league average, people think the system is busted.