How early do you think he was picked? He is the best offensive player on an NFL team and he is only 24 years old.Which brings me back to, yeah he's been a pretty good draft pick even though he hasn't quite lived up to his selection.
As with all things NFL these things need to be viewed through the lens of the current "Fuck hard nosed football, air that shit out!" style the league is pushing so fuckin' hard. Used to get 8-10 RBs a year with 300+ carries, and 5-10 more with 250+. Numbers for those are pretty much cut in half over the last 3 years.
It's interesting looking back at the hits and misses at wideout in the 1st round. Looking through the draft I guess you're sort of right although it varies from year to year a lot more now it seems like. In the last 8 years ('05-'12) you had 2 or less WR taken in the 1st round 3 times, but to find the last time that happened before '05, you have to go all the way back to the '92 Draft when there was just 1.
Well, part of that is the lens thing. Seems counter-intuitive I guess, but when no one CB can make that big a difference teams are less inclined to invest so heavy in them. You pay 17mil a year for a guy to shut down one receiver when the other team can't gameplan to get him a better match up, that leaves 3-5 other receiving threats that he has nothing to do with.
I'm drawing a blank as to who was really out there in FA at LT and considered high end talent, not on the back end of a career or shaky at the position. Jake Long got an alright payday though. And isn't LT expected to be the first overall this year?
My LT comment was more about the position in general, not necessarily in free agency. And it's not so much that LT is less important as it is the other line spots are becoming more important.
What did you expect him to say? "I'm here to get 3'rd place in the division"?
LT still seems to be the second most important position on offense. One always goes in the top 10, if not top 5. We are about to have two go in the top 5. Part of the thing with LTs is it is incredibly hard to find a great one. Very few lineman have the skill set to play the position at a high level. DE has continued to rise in importance and as long as that is true the LT will remain extremely important.
Isn't there a happy medium? Something along the lines of "I'm here to do the best I can at making this team better". Even Bills fans probably laughed at the Super Bowl comment.
Correct me if I'm wrong but E. Manning made his "im elite" comment to then go onto win the superbowl that year... then Joe Flacco did it last year..
