Catching on? Drafting a wide receiver in 1st round no sure fix

? 88fingerslewy

That Donte guy from 2002 rings a bell....ppppffffttttt!!!!

Oldcrow1945

@dencyguy said:
Just out of curiosity, I looked at the QBs that have been drafted in the first round since 2000 to see how the Pro Bowl/Bust ratio worked out. Here is what I found:
23 QBs selected:

2000

Chad Pennington--Decent career, on his second team, no Pro Bowls

2001

Michael Vick--Went to the Pro Bowl, re-invented the QB position, currently employed elsewhere

2002

David Carr--On his third team, no Pro Bowls

Joey Harrington--On his fourth team, no Pro Bowls

Patrick Ramsey--On his third team, no Pro Bowls

2003

Carson Palmer--Very good when healthy, two Pro Bowls

Byron Leftwich--On his third team, no Pro Bowls

Kyle Boller--Got beaten out by cross-eyed midget Troy Smith. Surprisingly, no Pro Bowls

Rex Grossman--Actually plays both ways for the Bears. Plays QB, then puts on blackface and returns kicks as Devin Hester. As such, carried the Bears to the Super Bowl. Still, no Pro Bowls

2004--Otherwise known as what people were looking for in the QB class of 1999

Eli Manning--Super Bowl champ and Pro Bowler, which almost makes up for what collosal tools he and his daddy were on draft day

Phillip Rivers--Pro Bowler, has Ladanian Tomlinson around for people to blame when he throws three picks in a playoff game

Ben Roethliisberger--Pro Bowler, joins Hines Ward and Rod Woodson as Steelers Browns fans love to bash but would also secretly wish the team had drafted

J.P. Losman--Currently without a team, no Pro Bowls

2005

Alex Smith--No Pro Bowls

Aaron Rodgers--Decent start, no Pro Bowls

Jason Campbell--No Pro Bowls

2006

Vince Young--Oddly enough, a Pro Bowl

Matt Leinart--Can't use a condom, can't go to the Pro Bowl

Jay Cutler--Pro Bowl

2007

JaMarcus Russell--Makes Sebastian Janikowski look svelte, no Pro Bowls

Brady Quinn--Only pro accomplishment: beating out Ken Dorsey for #2. No Pro Bowls

2008

Matt Ryan--Probably should have gone, but no Pro Bowl

Joe Flacco--Ditto

So, 23 QBs 7 of whom have gone to the Pro Bowl. A better percentage? Yes. Does that tell us anything about Matthew Stafford? Nope. Sanchez? Nope. That other QB that will go in the first round? Nope.

Good teams don't take WRs? No, good teams don't take busts. Look at it this way--the Lions drafted Joey Harrington, then fifteen WRs before they finally got rid of Harrington (and half the WRs). If they take Stafford, they'll still suck. Is it because they took WRs? No, it's because they're the Lions. They could draft Jesus and it wouldn't work out.

Dennis

I have no idea what drafting Qb's in the 1st round means when it comes to drafting WR's in the 1st round. You completely lost me there.

But your last statement is the most obvious of all.....Of course teams will be bad when their draft picks do not work out.

That is obvious. Draft well and you'll be ok. Draft poorly and you'll be bad. That's obvious. I'm unsure of your point. Unless you are simply refering to certain franchises having a history of bad management... But again, none of this speaks to my point about it being a positional thing and not a personal thing.

Again, I'm not sure what your point is.

? mz.

Alo and Dennis nail it yet again.

Comparing Crabtree to "workout warriors" with crap college production (Williamson, Soward) or questionable intangibles (Mime Williams, Charles Rogers) is just plain silly.

dencyguy

oldcow1945 said:
I have no idea what drafting Qb's in the 1st round means when it comes to drafting WR's in the 1st round. You completely lost me there.
But your last statement is the most obvious of all.....Of course teams will be bad when their draft picks do not work out.

That is obvious. Draft well and you'll be ok. Draft poorly and you'll be bad. That's obvious. I'm unsure of your point. Unless you are simply refering to certain franchises having a history of bad management... But again, none of this speaks to my point about it being a positional thing and not a personal thing.

Again, I'm not sure what your point is.

My point with the QB breakdown is directly related to the original post in the thread, which referred to a story that, if I may be so bold as to boil it down to its main point, argued that you shouldn't take a WR in the first round, because the numbers show that most of them are busts (as always, without explaining what "bust" and it's besteroided cousin, the "major bust," mean). My point was that picking one position over another because of what a guy drafted in 2000 simply doesn't make sense. My final point--on the Lions--was about how bad teams skew the numbers; the Lions draft fifteen WRs in the first round, all of them bust, and everyone howls, "Look, twenty WRs have been drafted in the first round, and sixteen of them have been busts!" while ignoring the big statistical outlier.

Also, I'm slightly confused as to how my argument can be simultaneously head-slappingly obvious and obscure.

Dennis

Gips

I am not sold on crabtree at all or fully sold on any other WR this year...gut instinct tells me crabtree will bust and if we had to take a WR maclin will be an above average durable WR with some fringe benifits...fortunately we will get a LB instead which also doesnt give us a sure fix there either since curry will be gone...

OconRecon

It is interesting we have 2 young WR's, one drafted 3rd overall and the other 13th overall and we're looking for another.

As far as the offense goes, not sure I wouldn't prefer getting another O-lineman with a DA traded draft pick and concentrating on D otherwise.

? mz.

Ocon, if Dontae Stallworth was really the Dontae Stallworth some thought he might be we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. But he isn't so we are.

Oldcrow1945

@dencyguy said:
My point with the QB breakdown is directly related to the original post in the thread, which referred to a story that, if I may be so bold as to boil it down to its main point, argued that you shouldn't take a WR in the first round, because the numbers show that most of them are busts (as always, without explaining what "bust" and it's besteroided cousin, the "major bust," mean). My point was that picking one position over another because of what a guy drafted in 2000 simply doesn't make sense. My final point--on the Lions--was about how bad teams skew the numbers; the Lions draft fifteen WRs in the first round, all of them bust, and everyone howls, "Look, twenty WRs have been drafted in the first round, and sixteen of them have been busts!" while ignoring the big statistical outlier.
Also, I'm slightly confused as to how my argument can be simultaneously head-slappingly obvious and obscure.

Dennis

I guess Lions coach and long Time Titan Defensive coordinator doesn't make sense then. It's not something I came up with on my own. It was he who talked about this very thing concerning OT's taken in the first round. His point was the same as mine. That history shows what positions are solid #1's and that a team needs to be sure with that #1 pick.

Schwartz is a 'Stat" guy in the truest sense. He breaks down everything into numbers. You are arguing with one of the greatest defenive minds in the game today.

You are coming up with terms in this dicussion that I never used. The stats I used only made reference to "busts". Again, I have no idea where you are coming up with this. Out of no where the discussion turned to "Bust" and "Major busts".

The 14 bust of the 40 1st round picks in the last ten years I made reference to are those that are out of football today.

I believe firmly that failure to learn from history condemns you to repeat it. The Lions should know this more than anyone.

It's like going to Vegas. A person may know a lot of people that have gone to Vegas and have lost money, but this person is convinced that he will not lose because he is a different person. It doesn't matter what the odds have shown. That is a huge risk and the odds have shown (And Vegas itself is proof) that he is going to lose too.

I never said your points were obscure. I said they were were obvious. You said bad teams make bad picks. The obvious result of bad picks are bad teams. There is nothing more obvious than that.

dencyguy

oldcow1945 said:
I guess Lions coach and long Time Titan Defensive coordinator doesn't make sense then. It's not something I came up with on my own. It was he who talked about this very thing concerning OT's taken in the first round. His point was the same as mine. That history shows what positions are solid #1's and that a team needs to be sure with that #1 pick.
Schwartz is a 'Stat" guy in the truest sense. He breaks down everything into numbers. You are arguing with one of the greatest defenive minds in the game today.

I never said your points were obscure. I said they were were obvious. You said bad teams make bad picks. The obvious result of bad picks are bad teams. There is nothing more obvious than that.

I wasn't aware that I was responding to Schwartz...who knew that he posted on the Browns Board? Stan, you need to alert the media on this one, since it will only help to bring in new members!

The original post--which you will find at the top of the page--breaks down the number of wide receivers taken since 2000 in terms of how many of them have been to the Pro Bowl. My response to the original post--which you will find at the top of the page--was that looking at past drafts is, at best, of limited use, since each player is different and each team is different. It's quite simple, really.

As for the whole obvious/obscure thing, it was a reference to the fact that your last reply to one of my posts had some version of "that's really obvious" or "I don't know what you're arguing" in each sentence--sometimes one of each. It seemed to me that those are somewhat mutually exclusive.

Dennis

Oldcrow1945

@dencyguy said:
I wasn't aware that I was responding to Schwartz...who knew that he posted on the Browns Board? Stan, you need to alert the media on this one, since it will only help to bring in new members!
Dennis

This is what people do who have lost an argument. They become blithe.

PlaygroundLegend

I dont know how I feel about drafting Crabtree with Dez Bryant looming next year... hey... gotta think ahead

dencyguy

oldcow1945 said:
This is what people do who have lost an argument. They become blithe.

I wake up blithe. One has to do something to avoid getting bored when slowing things down for others.

Again, I refer to the first post of the board:

>>Thirty-seven wide receivers have been drafted in the first round since 2000. By our count, nine have been named to the Pro Bowl. <<

Premise of the argument? It's a dangerous idea--if not an outright bad one--to draft a WR in the first round. That was what I responded to at first. Incidentally, it's also what you responded to:

>>In the last ten drafts forty WR's have been drafted in the first round. Of those forty only SEVEN have become Pro bowlers while 14 have been complete bust. The rest are marginal players.

(One of those seven pro bowlers is Braylon Edwards!)

Think of that! Only one in six 1st round WR's in the last ten years have become big time players while almost 2 in 6 become complete bust!

Michael Crabtree is a bust in waiting. Between the history of WR failures in the first round and his lack of size and speed, he scares me to no end.

Any team drafting him high is going to be making a HUGE mistake!<<

Note the lack of references to offensive tackles or to Jim Schwartz, who apparently has become your L. Ron Hubbard in only a few months. The discussion was about WRs, I questioned the premise of said discussion, and away we went.

Again...the original post implied that it is a bad idea to draft a WR based on the history of people who have been drafted at that position. At best, the logic underlying the argument is flawed. If you want to make it an argument about taking an OT instead, I'm sure plenty of threads will open up about that (for the record, I'm in favor of taking one...I have questions about Crabtree's foot).

Dennis