woah, 2 teams out of 32 had a 2nd round grade on him? Well I'm sold!
If you need validation from a large group of people you've been beating for over a decade before making a decision, you really shouldn't be making those decisions.
Yes, BB missed on Wilson. He's missed on lots of picks, as has every GM in the game.
But he's also had the conviction to draft guys higher than most had them, from Brady to Mankins to Vollmer to others who may not have made the Kiper Jr. magazine.
And while this is the draft sub-forum, I think most of the time, we overlook the purpose of all of this, including the draft. It isn't to maximize efficiency from draft picks. To loosely borrow from Coach Edwards, YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME.
If the goal of the coach is to optimize draft picks, you would start Tavon Wilson and feed him to the wolves and let him play for several years and try to make something of him because he has potentially more upside than Steve Gregory. You would force Bequette onto the field to try and justify his 3rd-round choice. Maybe if we let Butler play more, he would have become something here instead of a nickel corner in Indy.
Of course, when you are not playing for anything, when your team is crap, of course your draft picks will play more and get to do more. And if we started our kids more and played them more, we might not win as many games. But maybe we'd have fewer busts.
You see lots of bad teams develop lots of young players because they get lots of PT, lots more chances to develop and learn from their mistakes. For teams going nowhere, for teams developing a base, that's fine. That's why a team like the Titans can be patient when developing solid young corners (Finnegan, McCourty, Verner). That's why Oakland can give lots of reps to players like Ford, Streater, and Moore, who are at various levels but Oakland hopes they can take a step up with more experience.
But you don't judge a team solely by the fewest busts in the draft class. That doesn't factor into the rankings of best teams. What matters is winning. You play to win the game.
I can't repeat this enough because you still don't get it.
You play to win the game.
HELLO???
YOU PLAY. TO WIN. THE GAME.
On this team, if Bequette can't do more to help us win than Michael Buchanan, he doesn't play. And if those two can't do more to help us win than old man Carter, they don't play.
This franchise is built to win games, not maximize draft choices. It's why 6th-rounder Tom Brady started over 1st-overall Pro Bowler Drew Bledsoe, and David Givens played more than Bethel Johnson, and now Harmon over Wilson. It's not about minimizing draft busts, but winning games.
The sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll feel less ashamed about not getting league-wide approval for some of our players.