I agree with you on everything. People here want to act like Beane has never missed and every play, no matter how bad, is just somebody not recognizing their talent, because Beane picked them. It’s insane. I think he’s had some massive whiffs and they seemed pretty obvious even in the moment. The big thing though, they identified Allen and made it happen. That single move pretty much solidifies the team. Can’t take that away, they really defied a lot of doubters and went for it.
If it weren’t for Allen, we would be talking about a new regime right now. I don’t think that’s a stretch at all. No Allen and I don’t think they would have gone after Diggs (though it could easily be argued that Jefferson turned out to be the better value there), aside from that the track record is pretty sketchy at best. I like Knox, but he is still a work in progress. I think it’s pretty fair to say that every first and second round pick aside from Allen, has not played up to their draft position. I know the Oliver fan boys will say that’s wrong, but there’s nothing about his play that says Top 10 pick. So overall, I think Beane has to be given credit for Allen, Diggs, Knox, Wallace and Brown was a really nice pick. Allen is the crown jewel, outside of that, his drafting has been pretty average or worse. He’s really yet to hit on a FA win, I suppose one could argue Williams was a good one, but there’s been a lot more misses than hits there. His first draft, because of Allen is a winner, the rest? Meh. He’s put a team on the field that’s pretty starved of star level talent, but McD has gotten a lot out of it. As a tandem, they have done well. Would it be enough to beat the prime Patriots? I don’t think so. Maybe last year, but that’s debatable.