Quote:
Originally Posted by Direckshun
Aaaaand I don't think he's worth a 1st. There's not nearly enough tape on him, and he's crapped his pants in most of his bigger games, and he's going to need time. I'd spend our 2nd on him, but he'll be overdrafted by then.
And it's worthless talking about anyway because Pioli's not going to draft a guy with only 20 starts. Although he has surprised before.
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Here's why I'm willing to take a big risk with that 1st rounder - look at what we'd otherwise be getting.
Say we take Richardson - 1/2 the top 20 backs in the league last year were in some way, shape or form flyers. Lynch for a lousy draft pick, Bush for free, Foster undrafted, blah blah blah. It's really not that hard to find a good RB, especially a good
complementary RB.
Say we take Rief to play RT - well Bryant McKinnie could've been had for nothing, the Gaither story is a dead horse at this point as well. Frankly, RTs are not too tough to find either if you just keep turning over rocks.
Where else would we look there? We're clearly content with the DEs, there are no LBs that would rate that high, I'm on record with my fury over the idea of taking a CB to replace the CB that we should never let walk. We're not going to grab another 1st round WR and the NTs that are likely to be available there just aren't that great. There are no BJ Rajii's this year.
Frankly, if we go after Tannehill and the guy busts
hard, our opportunity cost given our needs this year isn't truly that high.
If there's ever a draft, ever a year, to take an extremely high risk on an extremely high reward player, it's this year's draft. We're not looking at passing on a surefire NT. We don't need to find a speed-rusher to take our defense up a step. We don't have a problem in the secondary (because, again, if Carr goes and we use a 1st to replace him, there will be murders). We definitely need an upgrade at RT, but that's a secondary spot that can be filled in the 2nd or 3rd - not like we're replacing our LT or anything.
At worst, we lose the luxury of having a fantastic backup RB in Trent Richardson. And like I said, RBs aren't that tough to find if you're willing to throw numbers at the problem. Don't you think the Saints are regretting the hell out of that Ingrahm pick right now? The pundits loved it, but they had enough numbers and enough versatility in the backfield through turning over stones that Ingrahm was a complete luxury item that ultimately yielded nothing when needed most.
The only thing I could see changing this would be if
Bowe walks, we use the franchise tag on Carr and we go after someone like Kendall Wright to complement Baldwin.
This is the year to take that bold chance because the downside of abject failure really isn't that cataclysmic.