Dorsey’s “great drafting” wasn’t a product of only John Dorsey. It was a ****ing mega team that was as good as any team.

Andy, Dorsey, Ballard and Veach alone is a ****ing awesome team.

If you’re going to give Dorsey credit, give him fault too. Tanoh Kpassagnon, KeiVarae Russell , DJ White, Dadi Nicholas and Eric ****ing Murray were his last defensive picks and every single one of them were disasters.

Veach’s drafts have gotten a lot more traction from role players. Rashad Fenton, Michael Danna, Tershawn Wharton (undrafted). Those guys at least bring value.

And a lot of that is NOT only because of Veach. Spags and his staff have played a huge role in that.

You’re only as good as your team

I mean, has any GM ever significantly crushed the draft? I would have thought being able to do that would create a dynasty, and I can't think of any.

Are we counting dependable starters in the "good" category? Or maybe guys who start and play a lot and don't suck, but aren't elite? He's got a handful of those guys. What's the average for most GMs per draft in finding players like that? One? Two?

Veach chose to spend his top pick in 2019 on Frank Clark, so he's only ever had one 1st rounder to play with. Yeah, Kelce was a 3rd round pick and Hill was in the 5th round yadda yadda, but it also took a couple of years for even those guys to establish themselves as elite. And this is only going to be Veach's 4th draft, while acknowledging that his first one was a dud outside of Nnadi.

So in 3 years with only one first round pick (32 overall) and a team that was mostly already established at so many of its starting spots and a strategy to "run it back" with the same crew, Veach hasn't drafted anybody that has really popped?

I guess the expectations for calling a GM good at drafting are a little high. If he keeps churning out drafts like 2019 and 2020 we'll be pretty damn ok longterm.

Probably the 74 Steelers would be the closest thing with 4 HOFers. But if you're asking for just every pick being a pretty good player (at the minimum), I don't know. Somebody should look that up.

The Hardman pick will always sting a bit because Terry McLaurin was still on the board.

But I also wanted Amik and Veach's pick of Snead was way better.

48-16 Pretty good fitting revolving jigsaw pieces into winning teams.

A really odd shaped one at that.

I'd prefer we trade down unless some talent falls 10 or 15 picks to us like a LT or CB.

Being patient and trading back can help you accumulate picks for years. Having multiple picks in the top 100 can absolutely build the foundation of your team...

Junior Siavii says hello

So does Chris Jones.

Fair points.

I still feel like he's the best overall GM we've had in at least 25 years. His ability to juggle the salary cap to this point has been masterful, and he's hit more than he's missed. Agree 100% that the first few rounds this year are absolutely critical (Weird saying that coming off back to back SB's, but it's true).

He absolutely has a lot of contributors. He needs to hit on some pillars now and do so by getting some studs, although Sneed just may be one. We'll see. Thornhill is also a hell of a player if he gets back to 100% this year. Nnadi is definitely solid for his position. I want to see him hit on LT, DE, and CB in the next 2 drafts, at least. And get us some more Super Bowls.

Can't any draft set a team up for long term success? :shrug:


Draft quality talent, one of the most important things for a team to do.

Dorsey drafted Dee Ford and Marcus Peters too. For all of the talent, you don't get credit for drafting players that are broken, physically or mentally.

For all of the great work he did with the offense, Dorsey built a terrible defense, hamstrung by soft players and bad contracts.

EVERY GM in the league has busts.
A good GM will hit more than miss, and I think Veach has done that.