Were not as good a drafting team as everyone thinks

[Bronze Bengal]

(02-25-2017, 06:44 PM)Housh Wrote: We build through the draft, ignore free agency and play the cheap game when it comes to resigning our young talent. The Mike Brown model indeed works. If you have knockout drafts every couple of years. When I say knockout drafts I mean you drafted 4 starters in that draft.

With all this said I think its surprising how bad weve gotten at drafting over the past couple years. in 2008 and 2009 we drafted 5 guys each who stayed near the top of whatever team's depth charts they were on. That's great drafting. Your getting consistent talent.

2010 we drafted 4 guys who had the talent to be high on any team's depth chart. Once again great drafting. We lost Jordan Shipley to injuries but he had talent. You cant consider Shipley a failure in the draft department. The count is now 3 knockout drafts IN A FREAKING ROW. WOW. We would piggyback off these drafts for years to come. Heres something funny as well. In true "We pay our own" fashion of those 14 great players we drafted only 3 are currently signed to the team today.

2012 we got lucky. We hit on 5 freaking starters. And all 5 are really really good. In true Mike Brown "we pay our own" fashion its possible that by the time we kickoff the 2017 only one of those guys is on the team due to free agency. Mike Brown lies to our face and people don't care. We DONT pay our own as often as people think. We pay the undeniable superstars that people would riot over if we didn't resign but we let a lot of good players WALK for NOTHING. Good teams don't do that as often as we do flat out. Mike Brown is CHEAP and doesn't get called out enough for it by fans.

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So in conclusion the Mike Brown model works, if you have a knockout draft every 4 to 5 years. Or have 2 or 3 in a row. But even when you catch lightning in a bottle and do it, Mikey wont resign the talent we do get anyway. Who would wanna be this man's coach? Why do we roll all this money over year to year for again?
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I agree wholly with the OP. Truth is a team has to build through the draft and free agency, both.   I firmly believe 70-80% of your team should be from draft picks and homegrown talent and FA should fill in the rest.  Drafting is crucial but there's no way one source can fill all of a teams holes.

In Washington The Redskins are the exact opposite; Snyder, the owner, ignores the draft, save for the first round, and tries to build solely through Free Agency, unsuccessfully I must add.  With that model it is impossible to build continuaity and depth.  And while Snyder is far from cheap he is unwilling to keep talent in house.  Often times letting a solid to good player go, replacing him with a high priced  replacement who only stays for two seasons  and Danny boy reapeats the pattern all over again.

The Skins finally had a draft guru in Scott McCloughan but after two years, with the team being competitive; winning the division title his first and only missing the playoffs by one game in his second and last season, Snyder sacked him.  When a team is concistently struggling; with a constant turn over of players and coaches but are always bad it starts at the top.  The owners are the only constant.  In The Bengals case the owner wants to win only his way.  If the team struuggles and losses so be it.