Now that we've had the opportunity to digest the 2011 NFL Draft, we're firing three teams that sucker punched themselves for years to come by picking poorly. But first, a shout-out to Al Davis and the Raiders for miraculously, inexplicably (luckily?) not ending up on the list of fired teams. On with the show:
 |
| Jones has to be a star to justify this choice. |
Fire the Atlanta Falcons - The Falcons traded away their first-, second- and fourth-round picks this year plus their first- and fourth-round picks in 2012 along with a bag of balls and 4 tickets to any home game in 2014 to the Browns so they could move up and take WR Julio Jones. Wait, don't the Falcons still have Roddy White - the guy who had 115 catches for 1,389 yards and 10 TDs last year? Why, yes, they do still have Roddy White! So what were the Falcons thinking? They wanted to improve their passing game, which was 15th in the NFL in terms of yards per game, and Jones will certainly help since he was the consensus No. 2 receiver in the draft.
But at what cost? The Falcons gave up so many picks that Jones has to become a Pro Bowler for this trade to be a success. In the first 4 rounds of the draft, teams can get future starters pretty easily so the Falcons basically gave up 3-4 starters for 1. This high price for Jones suggests the Falcons felt they were just one player away from the Super Bowl, and they're wrong. Atlanta had a great regular season in 2010 (14-2) despite a pretty bad defense. They gave up 20+ points 6 times (including 30+ points twice) in the regular season, then yielded 48 in their first-round playoff loss. Great teams (see the Patriots) stockpile picks and build teams through the draft. Bad teams (see the Redskins) frequently trade picks away. The Falcons will regret this trade.
Fire the Cincinnati Bengals - The Bengals had a lot of needs, so no one pick was necessarily a terrible one. With their first pick they took WR AJ Green, the consensus No. 1 receiver in the draft. The team will surely need someone to replace the Tocho Show, but was that their most pressing need? Since Carson Palmer isn't going to play for them ever again, the Bengals need a new QB. They took QB Andy Dalton in the second round, a guy who has upside but isn't projected to be elite at this point. No matter how good Green is, he probably won't be throwing the ball to himself. Friend of the HR Department and Bengals fan Kevin Chaney said that Coach Marvin Lewis at a recent fan day responded to a question about who will throw Green the ball by saying "the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals with throw him the football." Your 2011 Bengals, everyone!
Fire the Minnesota Vikings - The Vikings are also in serious need of QB help and are supposedly very interested in Redskins QB Donovan McNabb. The team chose QB Christian Ponder in the first round, even though he was projected to be around in the second or third rounds. Some say the Vikings, who were desperate for a QB, had no alternative. The team is going to stink in 2011 no matter who their QB is, so why waste their high pick? The Vikings should have addressed another need and tried to pull off the McNabb trade or wait and see what happens with free agency when normal operations resume in the NFL. If the Vikings were dead set on drafting a QB in the first round, they should have traded up to get someone better. No matter how you look at it, this was a terrible move.
No comments:
Post a Comment