If we aren’t “inherently bad” at drafting receivers how do you explain Chad Jackson, Taylor Price, Bethel Johnson (as a WR not kick returner), Brandon Tate, Josh Boyce, and Aaron Dobson.
The only players of this list that are relevant to my point are Dobson and Boyce as I have been looking at the drafts since 2010. Boyce was a fourth round pick which doesnt even fit my criteria (day 1, day 2) when it comes to "big investment of resources".
So this leaves us with Dobson who looked fine and was coming on well (i.e. Pittsburgh game in 2013) until he broke his foot, rebroke it and then was never the same again. Medical busts suck but there is literally nothing you can do about that.
The last actual receiver prospect they evaluated and drafted that had a good career was Deion Branch. Edelman was a full time college QB and David Givens was a RB for most of college.
And none of this matters to my point. If you go bargain shopping on day 3 this is the result you will
most probably get unless you luck out on the likes of Edelman or Antonio Brown.
The problem with getting free agents is you have to pay them more than you would a rookie. They take up more cap space and you also miss out on a few years of their prime.
Except that this is not a problem at all. Because whatever marginal amount they cost more you dont need to waste 1-2 seasons on developing them and can project players with NFL level tape a lot better as they have been playing against pro level defenses using pro level routes.
The prime argument is also kinda pointless to me. Nobody cares if a player is in their prime or not as long as they are used in the right role. Hell, used on one year contracts veterans on cheaper deals are right now the best way to fill out your roster when it comes to overall economics. Also who is to say that you will wont miss out prime years of drafted players ? If anything it is more likely that successful WR in their prime might leave for a bigger paycheck.
Also we aren’t hitting it out of the park on every FA WR we bring in. For every Brandon Lafell, Randy Moss, or Wes Welker you have a Chad Johnson, Joey Galloway, Tory Holt, Reggie Wayne, or Donald Hayes.
And yet the offense has been consistently a top 5 unit for the entire timeframe I have been looking at and -- apart from the Hernandez debacle -- we never ended up with cap issues. So whats your point again ?
The bottomline is that saying we have been bad at drafting WR when we barely use any resources in the first 3 rounds of the draft for it is similar to saying you are bad at guessing a number between 1-10 if you only take one guess compared to others that have five guesses.