Not to discredit our drafting team

[CJD]

(05-05-2016, 09:46 AM)Au165 Wrote: They know they are bad drafting teams, in fact the Giants owner publicly stated they have been a bad drafting team, yet they took Eli Apple at 10. Mel Kiper and Todd McShay have whiffed horribly at times, in fact they routinely only get 5 or 6 picks right in their mock drafts. If they were really as good as people think they are they would be GM's....but they aren't. The reality is the analysts don't know as much as they think they do. We took Billings in the 4th obviously they were much higher on him then any NFL team was. If we were just taking best available then we should have taken him in the 2nd and the 3rd. Remember when he proclaimed he'd see everyone at Det WR Mike Williams Hall of Fame ceremony?

It really does come across as ignorant that you think it is so easy. If it was that easy, everyone would do it.

I never said drafting was easy...but appreciate the words being put in my mouth.

I merely said that, "if our best picks were just us picking what the media pundits had coined as the best players at the time of our pick.....couldn't you or I theoretically draft just as well as the Bengals?"



I'm pointing out the curiosity behind us being acclaimed as great drafters when the picks that define us as great drafters are the picks that make the pundits go wild.


Our drafts have gotten a lot of acclaim, but are never really re-visited a few years later. Devon Still was met with rave reviews because he was projected as a first rounder.


Then he became a bust.


The concept of draft grades is so bizarre to me because the only people who get good grades are the teams that draft players that the media pundits already think are great.


It would be different if a team's draft made people go back and watch film to try to justify why a team would draft a relative unknown in the 2nd or 3rd round. Instead, they just assign it a "millen" grade and move on.


And then the next year, they follow the same formula.


I love the way we draft because it creates optimism. We drafted guys we know. We recognize their names and have watched their highlight films. But if so much fan fare is going to occur directly after the draft, why is there never any real coverage of how the draft turned out.


Sure, they do an article 3 or 4 years out calling for a redraft of the first round, but it's never heavily publicized and it's usually a one off article.


I hear it a lot when looking at the Baltimore Ravens. In Ozzie we trust and all that shit. He has a great draft every year.


Then, his team does not perform. Here are some of his amazing picks that have not really worked out:




Timmy Jernigan
Matt Elam

Arthur Brown
Courtney Upshaw
Bernard Pierce
Jimmy Smith
Torrey Smirth
Tanden Doss
Sergio Kindle
Terrence Cody
Arthur Jones
Michael Oher
Tavares Gooden


All of these players were considered steals at their respective draft positions. The pundits had them rated high and they fell for whatever reason. And all of them had middling careers or worse.

They never once examined why they fell, they just gave them A+ grades for having the foresight to draft the player that everyone in America was watching fall in the draft.

And the Bengals have done similar things as well.

My question is should we be excited about a draft filled with "steals" when, in reality, they were just very publicly known players that any one of us could have chosen?