You have stated the theory. It just doesn't hold water.
There were lots of roster spots for which we could have used an upgrade, if it were available. To check, just review the opening day roster, and consider whether 5 quality players could ahve made the team.
I decided to save us the trouble. The following were on the opening day roster:
DE Thomas
ILB Herron
ILB Mays
S Baker
OT Britt
OG Yates
QB Cassell
QB Gutierrez
NT Brown
ILB Alexander
This was the bottom of our roster. Some of thes players have been fine contributers. That is not the issue. The issue is whether we would have happy to see upgrades for these positions from the draft.
The fact is that we did well to get what we could for our picks. We traded for players. We traded into 2008. But we still had NINE choices in an aweful draft. Others did better with their choices. It was not a good year drafting for Team Pioli.
We decided NOT to trade up in the first, and settled on Meriweather. It is hard to see why we saved our choices. The jets moved up to 14 grab a fine corner in Revis. One presumes that we could have traded up a bit to get our choice of defensive backs (Hall, Griffin and Nelson). Our Day Two choices limited our ability to trade up, but we could have traded up some. And BTW, this is NOT hindsight. We discussed Revis, Hall, Griffin and Nelson for months.
Even when we picked, and presuming that we couldn't trade down, we had other options. Certainly Harris comes to minds. There were three LB's avilable after all. We also could have added to our OL depth with Grubbs or Staley.
I am not questioning Pioli. In the end, he passed on the 2007 Draft. It was that aweful.
Yeah, but there were so few holes on this team going into camp and into the draft that a lot of those picks were bound to end up cuts. Meriweather might turn into a beast, and then when you combine that with the Welker, Moss & SF trades, the 07 draft looks nasty. I also think Mike Richardson might turn into something serviceable, looked good in preseason.
