2007 Draft Grades Revisted - DawgTalkers.net

DawgTalkers.net

Just thought that this was kind of interesting ... what with snap judgements on drafts and all .....

Unfortunately, we can (and are specifically allowed to by the author) "rip" him mercilessly .....

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/10157575?tag=pageRow;pageContainer

Draft grades: Finally, we can start with Browns on top
April 29, 2007
By Pete Prisco
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Pete your opinion!

It's that time again. Time for all general managers, scouts and fans to hate me.

It's grade time.

Yeah, it's only a day after the completion of the NFL Draft, but we live in an era of immediacy. It's now, now and even faster.

So it's time to grade this weekend's draft, too-soon talk be damned.

Gripe. Moan. Complain. Tell me I should be doing something else for a living. But I stick to my convictions, stubbornly sometimes. If I like a player, I mean it. Nobody else's viewpoint will change it.

That impacts these grades.

Just remember one thing: Three years from now, when you can really judge a draft, you can rip me if Brady Quinn stinks. You can rip me if Jamaal Anderson isn't in the Pro Bowl or JaMarcus Russell is the next John Elway.

For now, these grades will have to do.

Bring on the hate.

Cleveland Browns

Best pick: Going back into the first round to get Brady Quinn was a bold move, but one that will pay off in a big way.

Questionable move: Second-round pick Eric Wright has first-round ability, but there are character concerns. This team can't afford to have this pick blow up on them.

Second-day gem: Fifth-round pick Brandon McDonald is a raw corner who made the move from receiver. With some seasoning, he can be a nice cover player.

Overall grade: A+. They get a franchise left tackle and a franchise quarterback. And if Wright can stay out of trouble they got a franchise corner. That's three key pieces.

We wound up with Thomas (an A+ for certain), Eric Wright and Brandon McDonald from this draft.

Our Draft Choices:

Joe Thomas
Brady Quinn
Eric Wright
Brandon McDonald
Mellia Purcell
Chase Pittman
Syndric Steptoe

I would call this a solid B draft if it weren't for the fact that we gave up so much to get Quinn, who turned out to be a massive disappointment. He cost us a #2 and the following year's #1. Given that waste of draft picks ... even the talents of Thomas and Wtight can only salvage a C+ in my book.

Really, outside of Wright and Thomas, this draft was a giant miss.

Purcell and Pittman never even saw the field. McDonald has been (kindly put) up and down. Steptoe is an undersized receiver, who managed a whopping 18 catches in his only year's worth of action. (some of that as a ... get ready for it ...... starter)

3 years later we have 3 guys (and maybe only 2 if McDonald doesn't make it) left on the roster. That's both astonishing and abysmal given the perpetual dearth of talent on Browns rosters over the past 10 years.

Of course .... we then went to 2008 .... which made us look back longingly at 2007's draft ......

(We have Rubin left out of that draft .... plus we traded for Rogers who may be in jail and/or suspended when the season kicks off)

I tell ya .. it's enough to make a grown man cry .....

Anytime you get a perennial Pro Bowler out of a draft, you really can't give it a bad grade. Quinn ended up being costly, but Thomas and Wright made the draft for us.

McDonald was serviceable as a 5th rounder. And Steptoe actually contributed for a short time as a 7th rounder. It actually IMO was a solid draft, but because of the Quinn move, it cost us dearly for 2008 when we picked.

So, with JT, I guess a "C+" would be OK. Maybe B -

The Quinn thing nearly renders it useless,....

We got the best Left Tackle in the league and a Top 15 in the league Cornerback.
I don't care who ya are, I call that an A+.

It'd be nice if we'd have gotten more role players out of the bottom rounds, but having McDonald fill in (even poorly) as a starter is a big bonus, and he should be an outstanding role player as a backup.

Yup, agreed, I'd have to give it an A. If Quinn ended up being the face of the franchise like they thought he'd be, it'd be an A+.

No Kidding.. 1 Probowler, 1 guy that gets the job done week in and week out and a servicable guy in the later rounds.... At minimum, its an A....

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No Kidding.. 1 Probowler, 1 guy that gets the job done week in and week out and a servicable guy in the later rounds.... At minimum, its an A....

We spent 2 #1s, 2 #2s, and the rest of the draft, and 3 years later are left with 2 starters and 1 backup ?

You must grade on a curve.

I just cannot give that any more than a C+ - B-.

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Anytime you get a perennial Pro Bowler out of a draft, you really can't give it a bad grade. Quinn ended up being costly, but Thomas and Wright made the draft for us.

McDonald was serviceable as a 5th rounder. And Steptoe actually contributed for a short time as a 7th rounder. It actually IMO was a solid draft, but because of the Quinn move, it cost us dearly for 2008 when we picked.

So, one draft netted us the now best left tackle in the NFL, a quality starting corner, a quality nickle-corner/ short-term starter in McDonald, and a busted QB who came at the cost of a 1st and a 2nd.

While the Quinn debacle set us back BIGTIME, it was a successful draft. It gave us two quality starters and one quality backup, which is all you can ask for with a 5th round pick. Had the busted failure not been at the most important position in the game, it would be an A+ grade.

But it can't be.

Because we STILL don't have a QB due to that gamble, I can't give it anything more than a B. We ended up giving up two 1st round picks and a 2nd round pick for nothing.

And on a side note, it shows why Pete Prisco always has been a poor judge of talent. IMHO he's one of the lowest rated guys who cover the NFL.

Oh because of the trade, it turned the '08 draft into a monumental bomb, but we have had a lot of success with guys in the '07 draft not named Brady. I guess I am solely looking at '07 as it's own piece, and not including the mess we were left with for '08 when evaluating it.

No, not really, I think if you get your 10 to 14 year Probowl LT and a solid Corner,, I don't look at as a bad or even average draft.,.,

The only curves I"m interested in have blonde hair

Compared to some of our previous drafts I would take this one everyday of the week.

I still give it an A+. If the Quinn thing had worked out, it wouldn't have just been an A+, it would have been Historic as we'd have gotten a Franchise LT, Franchise QB and Franchise CB all in the same draft. That's unprecedented.

Getting a true Franchise LT alone is worthy of a high grade - as we all know how tough that is to do as we watched nearly a decade of drafts not produce anything worth noting at that position for most any teams. Year after year, every highly touted LT in the Draft came and went and we never took one - and one by one, they nearly all busted or failed to achieve lofty heights worthy of a top pick. We pulled it off.

It's nearly unprecedented to get the Franchise LT & Franchise CB in the same draft - and we did just that and got a solid backup CB to boot.

I tend to believe it's inbetween the A+ and B-, C+ crowd. I'm thinking B+ because while we got a franchise LT and a franchise CB, failing on Quinn cost us more than either Thomas or Wright failing would have cost us.

Very good draft, getting 2 great players and 1 serviceable player...I'll take that from any draft.

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I tend to believe it's inbetween the A+ and B-, C+ crowd. I'm thinking B+ because while we got a franchise LT and a franchise CB, failing on Quinn cost us more than either Thomas or Wright failing would have cost us.

Very good draft, getting 2 great players and 1 serviceable player...I'll take that from any draft.

And you also have to add in Hillis - who through trade- we effectively acquired in that draft.

Also consider that if we hadn't traded for Quinn then the 2008 pick would have been at #22. The next QB drafted was Brian Bohm at #56 - so we couldn't have plugged in a guy like that right away either. After that Henne went #57 and has shown promise, but was hardly a no brainer pick. O'Connell then went #94

Adding in Hillis does nothing. We don't know what his role will be and we don't know how well he will fill that role.

you left out Kevin Kolb in the '07 draft (we'd have our 2nd round pick w/o Quinn), but, then again, some considered him a reach for Philly in the 2nd and who knows if either of us would have traded up to get him. regardless, QB is always a murky position to get right, obviously.

anyways, i'd give this draft a solid B+. only reason it didn't get into the A's from me was giving up the 1st in 2008 draft. JoeT is a franchise player at a premium position. Wright has been our only good DB the past couple years, and McDonald has at least helped us get by back there (and should return to being a decent CB4).

Well, Kolb has had some success, but he isn't a proven winner long term yet.

in time perhaps...

i think he's shown more promise than the others listed above though.

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Well, Kolb has had some success, but he isn't a proven winner long term yet.

in time perhaps...

This is where I get hung up... Kolb isn't a proven anything yet...

He has thrown about the equivalent of 4 games worth of NFL passes... about 130 I think.. his QB rating is under 70. He has thrown 4 TDs and 7 Ints... He has had 1 real decent outing and that was against the freakin' Chiefs last year... I'm not sure what others are looking at that are so high on this kid... seems like a total unknown to me...

that's kinda what I was saying DC..

I'm not at all sure I'd have traded McNabb without seeing more from Kolb.

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Compared to some of our previous drafts I would take this one everyday of the week.

Can't say that's not believeable,...

Doesn't change the fact that a B- draft every year wouldn't really be all that bad, regardless of how it is measured/"graded" by us keyboard morons. While three starters (out of six) every year is good, the Browns hadn't done that in so long, it is still hard to positively measure before I consider it any better.

Playoffs THIS season (?), and THEN, I might give it an A. I'll stick to B- in the meantime.

So I grade hard,...always have.

It's a "show me" world. Semesters are long for a reason.

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Well, Kolb has had some success, but he isn't a proven winner long term yet.

in time perhaps...

This is where I get hung up... Kolb isn't a proven anything yet...

He has thrown about the equivalent of 4 games worth of NFL passes... about 130 I think.. his QB rating is under 70. He has thrown 4 TDs and 7 Ints... He has had 1 real decent outing and that was against the freakin' Chiefs last year... I'm not sure what others are looking at that are so high on this kid... seems like a total unknown to me...

I was real high on him in the '07 draft, so I am likely somewhat biased.

one, his overall QB rating is down because of the 2nd half of the Ravens game from '08 where Reid pulled McNabb because Baltimore was getting to the QB at will and he didn't want Donovan to literally be killed that day.

but, he also had a real good game against the Saints last year. 2 of his INTs were drops by the WR, but he continually moved the team and he made the correct reads and showed his accuracy.

yes, he is an unknown to some degree, but I think less so than Matt Schaub was when he was traded to the Texans. He is in a system he has learned over the past 3 seasons and he has shown to be incredibly accurate at all levels. I expect a year from him sort of like Rodgers in his rookie year. Lots of mistakes, not understanding how to win a game in the 4th quarter yet, but still showing lots of promise for the future.

that's my take on it at least.