Not true at all. The lower one drafts, the fewer prospects one has to choose from among. In the case of the best QBs, pass rushers, LTs, etc., they're gone by the teens in the first round if not by the #10 pick. If you're drafting in the 20s or lower, you're SOL. You can still get good players, but unless you give up the farm to trade up ala Tanny, or can find someone to enable you to trade down, you have to miss out on players, reach, or just get the best you can (which usually aren't good enough).
None of us ever get a single game back again. Every loss is another day that you spent watching the Jets lose. The Patriots built a dynasty off of mid to late 1st round picks. They had a crappy record in 2000 and got the 6 pick and took Richard Seymour who really helped. But the guys other than him that dynasty was built around were all drafted in the teens the twenties and the 6th round. You never want to lose a game to get a better draft pick. You want to win every game you can and then draft well with what you get. That's what a team does when it wants to reward its fans for their loyalty and support.
They built their dynasty off of a 6th round winning lottery ticket, a nice cheating advantage helped out too and everything else is more or less incidental. A team can't survive picking year after year in the late 20's without a superstar at QB, it's that simple. The best chance to get a superstar at QB is picking early in the 1st. There are no guarantees in this world but the percentages average out and smart money plays the percentages, the dumb money doesn't care and plays against them. I'll always root for the team until they're out of the hunt, but once they are I'm rooting for the best chance to draft franchise changing players and the mediocre product that's out there can shove it as far as my loyalty and support is concerned.
Matt Hasslebeck and Jake Delhomme both started SB's within the last decade and were a 6th and UDFA respectively. Obviously you need a good team around you as well but I do believe you are really set up to struggle if you don't get your elite QB in the top half of the 1st round. Parcells was a great coach for this franchise but his personel decisions really set the team up for failure once he was gone. 1997 draft Farrior - good player, turned into elite player with Steelers Rick Terry in round 2 - bust Dedric Ward in Rd 3 - good solid mid round player Terry Day in Round 4 - who Lamont Burns RD 5 - WTF Raymond Austin Rd 5- again who Tim Sharf Rd 6 - ummmm yeah David Rosga Rd 7 - you go Jason Ferguson Rd 7 - great pick in the 7th round 1998 Draft No 1st round pick but Randy Moss and Alan Faneca both would have been on the board where we would have picked. Dorian Boose RD 2 - ouch Scott Frost RD 3- yikes Shrek aka Jason Fabini RD 4 - finally a starter Casey Daley, Blake Spence and Eric Bateman RD 5 - good gravy (might have been better off with Justine Bateman) Eric Ogubu RD 6 - servicable DE Chris Brazzell RD 6 - yeah buddy Duston Johnson RD 7 - nothing to say 1999 No 1st round picks again Randy Thomas RD 2 - finally a quality 2nd round player David Loverne RD 3 - Loverne and Shirly would have given more production Jason Wiltz RD 4 - ugggghhhh Jermaine Jones RD 5 - the answer to all our problems JP Macahdo RD 6 - I remember this scrub Ryan Young RD 7 - not bad but the 5th OL we drafted that year JJ Syrvud RD 7 - the last pick with Parcells at the helm We basically got 5 decent to good players from Parcells 20+ picks and no homeruns, throw in the cap hell he got us into and the mess with Bellichicken and it's hard to not want to punch this man in the face.
I can't root for the Jets to lose. When they're out of it like this season and last season, all it means is the disappointment when they lose is less, I'm still rooting them to win each game.
Agree. I also like with Parcelles said, You are what your record says you are. Which means take the wins and build on it. Never forget, position in the draft is a CONSOLATION prize. Never be happy with 2nd place. Take the wins all day, every day. Even in a down year, a late season win that knocks the Fish out of the playoff race is a glorious thing.
We all root for them to win DF. We just know that if they win, fine. If they lose out, that's ok too as we'll benefit from a draft pick perspective.
Yeah I'm just explaining why I wouldn't be able to trade wins for losses in my head. I still get upset when they lose, there is still disappointment, just less than if they were 9-2 or something. I still don't like seeing them lose ever, even the draft pick isn't enough to cancel it out all together for me.
If it weren't for those wins we wouldn't have had any reason to be hopeful up till week 11, at least we got to enjoy a little more than half the season.
Hitting it big at the top of the draft can SOMETIMES help a bottom feeding team get a bit better. Cam has helped the Panthers (albeit 3 years later), Luck is helping the Colts, and sure, Sheldon Richardson is helping the Jets. But for every Sheldon, there's a Gholston. For every Manning, there's a Ryan Leaf, so drafting high is no panacea, and it's certainly no short cut to elite-ness. But the 'elite' teams that have picked in the BOTTOM every year for the last 10 years are somehow STILL the elite teams. Maybe it's harder 'becoming' an elite team than it is staying there once you've arrived. Or maybe elite teams in becoming elite teams have proven their metal in 100 different areas that have nothing to do with the draft (management, vision, coaching, GM, owner support, etc). Maybe it's these intangibles that determine which teams become elite and which teams never seem to get it right. Maybe a teams draft position has almost nothing to do with it.
Can't argue, but to be fair, should he not also get credit for 2000 draft Pennington, Abraham, Ellis, Becht & Coles
In general I'm a bit torn on the parameters of the poll; however, it's not clear how much it applies here. Particularly the option doesn't seem to fit. There haven't really been too many big positives among the young players being evaluated. The emergence of DeMario Davis as a solid ILB is the biggest positive, while Hill isn't looking like a good pick. The Jets have the second biggest negative point differential in the NFL behind only JAX. Originally applied to baseball, the idea of a "pythagorean" record is based on the idea that close games are usually split pretty evenly. To get where they are despite being outscored by 121 points so far, the Jets have seen close games break strongly in their favor. Bill Parcells was a great coach but his famous saying doesn't capture to what extent a team's record agrees with it's play at a fundamental level. Anyway, this awful point differential demonstrates a dire need to upgrade the talent level (particularly on offense). It would help to have the better draft position in this case.
Using one team, the Pats, as your evidence is hardly compelling. They're the only team that has won that way, and that is largely due to one player, Brady. As for your last sentence, I disagree. We obviously see things very differently. IMO if a team wants to reward its fans it does what it needs to do (within the rules) to get the talent they need so they can build a winner and consistently be competitive. By competitive, I mean a topflight team with a realistic shot at going deep in the playoffs, not a team that overachieves, hopes to sneak into the playoffs, and then hopes to get hot and go on a win streak. Winning another game or two is not only completely meaningless imo if they don't make the playoffs, it can be counterproductive in that it can keep an inept CS in place, can harm draft position which can cause it to miss out on players that it needs to get to the next level, and keep it mired in mediocrity.
All that proves is what a lousy GM Millen was and how clueless he and and possibly his scouting dept. were in talent evaluation and putting together a roster.
