It’s a crapshoot. That was my point. And to give up on a pick after 2/3 of a year isn’t wise. He might be useless. He might become a contributor. We can’t tell after 10 games.
Exactly. The only people who know if the player is getting it, and adjusting to the level of play, and their expectations are the coaches, the majority .of posters in this board thought James White was a bust who should have been cut for his first two seasons in New England. It wasn’t until his 3rd season that people started to realize what he could really contribute to their offense, and only then did those trashing him start to lay off of him. And that dynamic happens every season, with some of their targets busting, and others gradually turning into better and better players.
We don’t know or see the players when they show up to play for the Patriots. We don’t see how they adjust to being a professional athlete, or not. We don’t see their work ethic, or lack thereof.We don’t see them workout every day, and how they either do or don’t put the needed work in, We don’t see whether they can handle the mental and emotional expectations of a pro team. We don’t see whether they are improving in practice day to day and week to week, or not getting it at all. And we don’t see whether or not they are making their right plays and using the right techniques they have been taught in practice during the games, because we really don’t know what their roles and responsibilities are on each specific play, although some believe they do know all of these specifics. Only the coaches and football operations people know all of these things, and they aren’t in the business of sharing it with us. What we do see is the games, and how players perform on game day, and we base our judgement’s on that. And while game performance is the ultimate determinant of how good a player is, and can become, it doesn’t tell us how good a player can become if they are given the time, or whether they do or don’t deserve that time.
I love the draft, how you build and put together a team was what really drew me to football when I was a kid. And as far as message boards go I think this board has as good a draft site as any out there. There are a good number of poster’s here who know football, pay great attention to college football, and have a lot of knowledge of each draft. Unfortunately, like every other fan base, in every sport, there are also a good number of poster’s who think they know more than the people who actually spend every day working with the players, and their know it all critiques are relentless, and often drown out everything else. Like the blind squirrel they end up being right about some players, and wrong about many others, but the tie that binds them together is their negativity, as the vast majority of their content is trashing the mistakes, or perceived mistakes their franchise is making, with very little pertains to the successes they have. And when it comes specifically to this thread, and these players, and most of all to first year players, like Mapu or Keion White, the bottom line is that line is that they are talking 100% out of their asses, as they only have about 3% of the information needed to evaluate these players, if that.
