So lets take a look at this past Aprils draft and look at what could have happened if we didn't make any number of trades. Hindsight is 20/20. I'm just looking to have a discussion about the draft not rip apart or praise the front office. This would have been our picks if we didn't for Thomas Jones, Barlow, David Harris and Revis. Round 1 25th pick- Jon Beason Carolina Round 2 37th pick- Eric Weddle- SD 59th pick- Ryan Kalil Carolina Round 3 89th pick- Aaron Rouse Packers Round 4 124th pick, traded to Seattle for Barlow, Mansfield Wrotto Round 5 164th pick- Tim Shaw Carolina Nothing to really write home about with those picks. Now who could those picks have been: players available at 25: Anthony Spencer Joe Staley, David Harris, Ben Grubbs players avaialble at 37: David Harris, Eric Weddle, Justin Blalock, Tony Ugoh, Zach Miller, Lamarr Woodley, Players available at 59: Brandon Jackson, Dan Bauzin, James Marten players available at 89: Really no one taken in this area that is of any interest to me. players available at 124: Kareen Brown (now on Jets), Josh Beekman, can't find anyone else who is doing anything this year. Tons of guys who didn't make rosters. My conclusion is that this draft was about 50-55 players deep. Very few players taken after that have done anything as rookies. The only guy I can find after the 2nd round that I would have liked is Marshal Yanda. He was a guy I wanted all along. He started at RT for the Ravens last night as they ran the ball down the Pats throats. So would we be better off with Anthony Spencer, David Harris and Yanda with the first three picks? I have to give credit to the front office for recognizing that it was a crappy draft and going after two of the premium players. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NFL_Draft
No one has any comment? Are you happy we got Harris, Revis and Thomas Jones as opposed to the garbage that was available in this draft?
Beason isn't garbage. If Patrick Willis wasn't in the NFC, Beason would probably be the NFC Rookie of the Year. His stats compare to Harris'.
I don't think Beason is garbage but I didn't see him working in a 3-4. Like I said the draft was really really solid from 1 to 55 or so and then it nose dived.
An interesting way to look at it. we still could have had Harris, and added either Grubbs, Staley or Blalock. But that costs us Revis and Jones. For myself i like what we ahve in Revis and Harris. Would I have loved to add one of the O-Line...hell yes. Would we be that much better off? Not sure. It will be hard to tell for a year or two. The Though of Dyson and Barret playing CB for us all year is scary. Not that we could have been much worse off record wise.
Your analysis is spot on. It shows even on a Monday Morning draft day lookback that the FO did the right thing w/T. Jones, Revis and Harris. In the years to come, I think the 2007 draft will be proven that it lacked even a decent amount of depth after the 2nd round. Even w/the hindsight ability, and seeing what Revis + Harris are about, I still wouldn't take a chance on Beason, Weddle & Co.
They did a good jobs of making power moves at the right time and taking quality over quantity in a draft that didn't have much depth in talent. They get a B+ by experts.. here is the link to the review http://www.nfldraftcountdown.com/features/reviews/teams/newyorkjets.html
I like the additions of Revis and Harris. I'm not sold on Jones because I think he is a sub-par running back that excels only when he is behind an all-star offensive line(like he was in Chicago). Lets not forget that Jones failed to produce with Arizona because of that fact. Revis is developing nicely and last I checked, shut down TO and held him to 1 touchdown. Harris is consistently pulling in sacks, forced fumbles and loads of tackles. We didn't address enough areas in last year's draft because we tried to get two quality guys but we can fix that this upcoming year.
We easily had a top 5 draft in the league and with Revis and Harris 2 of the top 10 players chosen in 07 as of right now.
Really nice analysis. I think this puts our draft into good perspective, without coming off as a sunshine homer. I think your work shows our front office did their homework, had a plan and got it done. Unfortunately for us fans, last year's draft wasn't deep enough to fill all our holes, and with some bad luck thrown in, our season really stumbled. Now, not to sound too much like a sunshiner myself however, we look like we'll have a pretty good draft postion so hopefully we can get more than two impact players this year.
The best part of the 2007 draft is that we were able to move up without trading any high 2008 picks. It was all set up by what turned out to be Rocky McIntosh for Kellen Clemens, Thomas Jones and a second round pick.
That's right. The trade w/Washington Redskins. We traded the 3rd pick of the 2nd round & we got the 17th pick of the 2nd round for 2006 plus their 2007 2nd round pick. I understand we bumped that around w/Chicago for T. Jones, but what number pick did that end up to be in the tradeup for Revis?
