I agree with you . It’s never just one pick. One silver bullet. The Seahawks got the major bonus by getting Wilson in the 3rd. Great QB play with a 0.2% of the cap for the first 4 years? Huge benefit. We didn’t get that benefit with Stafford (especially considering his injuries first 2 years) because he was drafted before the new rookie cap. And he’s been taking a huge chunk of the cap ever since we drafted him.
Drafting is huge, but it’s only one aspect. Signing good FAs too. Once the rookie contract is up, that dude is virtually a FA.
It’s a 4 year cycle. If you draft a good balance of defense and offense starters up and down the draft (especially the first 3 rounds), you’re going to make a strong team in about 3-4 years.
I say the same thing about the Millen era. Its crazy to think that after 2001 we could have literally traded our next five (5) 1st round picks for an average NFL starter (name anyone) and we would have ended up better off than using those picks. Insane.
Lions got screwed by the rookie salary inflation. Imagine having Megatron, Stafford and Suh on current rookie contracts … history might have been a lot kinder to Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz.
Still, Stafford has never had a top 16 run game (24th, 23rd, 29th, 23rd, 17th, 28th, 32nd, 30th, 32nd and 23rd last year) and only 4 top 16 defenses (32nd, 21st, 23rd, 13th, 16th, 2nd, 18th, 18th, 27th, 10th) to help him in all his years. Take all that into account and I think it’s clear he’s been a huge success. Not every QB is lucky enough to have a good front office and coaching situation.
Yep. And NOTHING should ever stop you from choosing a different QB if the situation calls for it. They moved on from their big free agent pickup Matt Flynn. What people may forget is that Drew Bledsoe was still in his 20s and had just recently signed the highest contract in NFL history at $103M. And by recently, I mean he signed it in the spring of 2001 and by fall of 2001 he was out of a job! What a ballsy frickin move by the Pats.
The defense was good in 2013. It was actually the offense that hurt that defense. If you recall, in 2013 the offense was explosive but turned the ball over at a damn near record pace. They also stalled and went 3 and 4 and out on 3, 4, 5 drives in a row often…not giving the defense time to rest…on top of the turnovers. It reminded me of the 2000 Rams. At any rate, had that offense turned the ball over a little less and if they could have sustained drives a little better…that defense would have easily been top 10.
Exactly. The current process of tanking per se was impossible during that time due to the gigantic rookie salaries versus the current rookie salary cap in place.
Its a game changer. Not only can you draft the highest rated players at a discount, but the fact that they are now discounted offers up trade opportunities to acquire more picks that we never had.
