Pyrite Gal Posted March 30, 2007 Posted March 30, 2007 And we can get a RB in Rnd 2 that is of the same quality of any back we're going to get at 12. The big problem is that it appears to me that there is no big quality gain for any of the players likely available at #12 over many of the choices likely available to us with a second round pick. This appears to be true at both LB and RB. If one looks at last year's draft which most people agree was actually a pretty strong set of candidates, of the 32 players chosen in round 1, 18 of them were first on their team's depth charts at their position as of a couple of weeks ago. There seems to be a general expectation of a 1st round pick being an immediate starter, but here in the real world it worked out that almost half of them were not even slated to start in their second year. Were they busts? No, but welcome to reality and many forms of conventional wisdom regarding the draft such as the immediate start expectation and the idea that safeties should be drafted late in the first round if at all early were true in the past but this is not folks Grandmother's NFL anymore nd the reality is different from things which were statistically true in the past. Willis is the best college LB I am pretty sure, but this LB class is relatively thin in terms of their not being an AJ Hawk type who is a definite top 10 player. SF may be so enamored with Willis because some of their folks got to coach him in a post season game, but folks need to acknowledge that our scheme calls for the MLB to both play like a DT against the run and like a safety against the pass and there will be a premium on him making vet reads and a rookie is pretty unlikely to do this for a while. We need an LB badly in this draft, and if it is Willis I hope we start him at SLB because if this rookie is our MLB starter it likely will be painful. I hope we can trade down and still get him because we need the additional draft picks and SF may be sending signals they are gonna take Willis in an attempt to induce us into giving up resources for a player who in the long run I think will be good but is not gonna be the difference maker for a team which needs multiple players. Even worse if he starts in the short term things are likely to be quite painful. Likewise on RBs as it seems doubtful that the most sought after RB in this draft Peterson will fall to 12 and if he does it raises questions that we may be able to answer (he is tough to pass by at 12 given that our current option at RB starter is a good #2 but very doubtful #1. Though there seems to be general agreement that Lynch is the 2nd best back there is also general agreement that he is about the #18 player giving us plenty of room to trade down. This is a draft where by far the best option for this team is trade down and trade down twice if we can.
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