6th Rd draft pick

[RunNGun]

I was just thinking about our lack of depth at ILB, considering we had to sign Spence off the streets. We are also fairly thin at safety. We could have addressed this issue with our 6th rd pick. Instead we drafted a long snapper who ironically plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars now. At the time I was okay with the pick, but now it has arrogance written all over it.

Maybe the 6th rd pick of an ILB or safety doesn't pan out, maybe they're the next AB, but at least you're attempting to add depth to a position that affects a football game. That was a boneheaded pick no matter how you look at it.

[steelreserve]

I think out of your typical 6th-round draft pick, you can expect a guy who is not going to make the roster, or if he does, is going to be a problem player who you always go "what the fuck is that bum doing in there?" Think Ryan Mundy, Justin Brown, etc.

At best, you get a guy who can be an average to below-average starter as long as there are good players around him, but who has obvious flaws (think Kemoeatu, Chickillo, V. Williams, etc.)

Finding someone like Brown happens about once a decade across the entire league. Odds are extremely heavy that we wouldn't have found Shazier's replacement in Round 6, so you can't consider that pick "wasted."

It's also worth noting that rounds 6-7 can often be a great place to find niche positions like special-teamers and fullbacks. You can often get the best player in the draft there with about a 50-50 chance he will fill your need there for 10 years. It sucks that it didn't work out for us, but I'd take those odds over the >10% odds a 6th-round pick is going to be an impact player at a regular position.

[RunNGun]

I think out of your typical 6th-round draft pick, you can expect a guy who is not going to make the roster, or if he does, is going to be a problem player who you always go "what the fuck is that bum doing in there?" Think Ryan Mundy, Justin Brown, etc.

At best, you get a guy who can be an average to below-average starter as long as there are good players around him, but who has obvious flaws (think Kemoeatu, Chickillo, V. Williams, etc.)

Finding someone like Brown happens about once a decade across the entire league. Odds are extremely heavy that we wouldn't have found Shazier's replacement in Round 6, so you can't consider that pick "wasted."

It's also worth noting that rounds 6-7 can often be a great place to find niche positions like special-teamers and fullbacks. You can often get the best player in the draft there with about a 50-50 chance he will fill your need there for 10 years. It sucks that it didn't work out for us, but I'd take those odds over the >10% odds a 6th-round pick is going to be an impact player at a regular position.

I agree 100% with you, but I would take that 10% chance of him being a solid player over drafting a longsnapper, kicker, punter, or a fullback. We could have easily found a longsnapper that went undrafted. Holba may have gone undrafted. It's not likely we would find a star, but I like the chances of getting a player with more upside than Spence, even if they are slim as well.

[steelreserve]

Yeah out of those positions, we don't really need a kicker, punter or fullback, and I have no idea how often a long snapper is actually drafted as opposed to just signed as UDFA (my guess is very rarely). So I guess I agree with you that it was not a very good use of a pick to begin with. I just don't think we could've expected much out of it anyway.

On the other hand, if we can use one of our lower-round picks THIS year to trade for an actual NFL player at safety or ILB, that would be much better than trying to draft someone to fill that role. You won't get a superstar, but it seems like there's always an OK to pretty-good player that some team is looking to unload because they're unhappy with each other, so they ship him out for whatever they can get. Santonio Holmes, Bryant McFadden, William Gay, I think were all in that category going in one direction or the other. Lawrence Timmons might be just such a player this year if he's not released outright.

Yes, we need to try to find the safety/ILB of the future in the draft, but we also need to add at least one player at each who is proven to be not a replacement-level scrub, and that's what you can get with a trade like that.

[st33lersguy]

Yep, drafting a long snapper made zero sense