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And keep in mind, there's a difference between making a calculated risk and being stupid. The Willie Roaf trade was brilliant not because it worked out but because we spent very little draft stock (which we apparently didn't need anyway because the Vermeil drafts sucked dick) to potentially have in our possession one of the greatest LTs to play the game.
Poe rides the line of risk/stupidity in a very delicate way. On the one hand he possessed the highest upside of any NT in the draft that we've seen in years. Picking him could be validated very easily if we just had ANY kind of evidence that he was capable of doing what he was doing at the college level. Perhaps a flash here or there that demonstrates his unbelievable speed for a dude his size. Or maybe just instances where he DIDN'T get shoved off the line of scrimmage on nearly every play against Arkansas State and other C-USA schools. People would have understood the pick far better if we just had that little morsel of hope to look at in his college tape, I think.
Instead, all we could think about was a Bruce Campbell-type of combine performance combined with Bruce Campbell-type lack of production. Except instead of getting him in the 4th like the Raiders did, we drafted Poe in the top half of the 1st. That was the frustrating and potentially idiotic part of what made people angry about selecting Poe at the time.
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