Three years and clout for Bolts, Bears, Jets; Bucs three and out May 10, 2007 By Pete Prisco / CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer We live in a world of immediacy. We want everything right now, which is why we grade NFL Drafts the day after they finish, time element be damned.But that's not really fair to the men who put in the work and make those picks, which is why people in the NFL hate those grades. For those of us who do the grading, we do so with an idea of how we think things will turn out, but we never really know. We're often as wrong as some of the teams doing the picking. Snagging a franchise QB like Philip Rivers in a draft-day deal helps you get an A-plus. Those grades are really just speculative in nature.The only fair way to grade a draft is to wait three years. That gives players the time to develop, the time to show their teams that they made the right moves.It's also enough time for the fair dissemination of those dreaded "bust" labels. So in keeping with the tradition here of grading the drafts three years later, we bring you the 2004 NFL Draft grades.Time has allowed these grades to become much more relevant than those we did the day after the 2004 draft. ~ ~ ~ New York Jets: First-round pick Jonathan Vilma was a hit; he's their best linebacker. But they missed on third-round corner Derrick Strait, which knocks the grade down. They made up for it getting starting receiver Jerricho Cotchery in the fourth round and safety Erik Coleman in the fifth. Coleman is one of the league's best safeties, even if he hasn't been to the Pro Bowl yet. Fourth-round pick Adrian Jones has started at tackle. Grade: A-minus The only thing that knocks this down from an A is the Strait pick > http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10175360
This will have to be revised again once the writer comes to the realization that JV is not & will never be a dominating MLB which means the grade will probably drop to B- or even C+
Can you paint the future or just see it? I thought that only happened on a show on NBC. Maybe you use crayons instead.
