Aseahawkfan wrote:If they didn't hit a few out of the park when they do hit including the entire Legion of Boom, it would look worse. Even though their first round picks haven't been great, they have really mined some amazing talent in later rounds.
Their best first round picks are Earl and Okung (when healthy). That was their first year. They have literally missed or had middling luck with every other 1st round pick up that first year. John and Pete must be one of the worst draft people in the first round in the NFL. 2 1st round picks that performed very well in 11 years is pretty terrible.
2nd and later rounds they've done much better.
The first round picks during the Carroll-Schneider Era have been embarrassingly bad.
Okung was the 6th overall and was the top rated OT in the draft. It was pretty hard to strike out when you're picking that high. Okung's injury problems were completely unpredictable as he had something like 50 starts at OkState.
Earl was the 2nd ranked safety in the class, behind only Eric Berry. No one expected HOF out of him when he was drafted, but he was a pretty safe pick that addressed a need. We used a #13 overall on him. They mostly followed conventional wisdom as neither of those two could be considered a reach. They were on everyone's list.
But the following year, they started getting cute. James Carpenter was a big reach. Even his head coach was surprised that we took him in the first round. He was a complete bust as a tackle, got beat out for the starting guard by a journeyman and didn't even suit up for several games in the playoffs. Bruce Irvin was a specialist at best and although he did a fair job in the roles given to him, didn't justify a 15th overall selection. We didn't pick up his option and we let him go in FA. Germain Ifedi struggled, was moved to guard for a season, was a penalty machine, but eventually became a decent RT before we chose not to resign him.
The jury is still out on the rest. Rashaad Penny is a backup change of pace RB coming off a serious injury. LJ Collier has shown some flashes of brilliance but hasn't had that breakout season yet. Jordyn Brooks looks like he's going to be a solid starter.
That's one of the reasons why I wasn't as bummed as others were when we make the Adams trade. Our talent evaluation at the top of the draft has been so poor that it's probably best to trade it for a known quantity.