Is the draft overrated in terms of building a team?

wesleysh21 · November 4, 2019, 2:54pm

I don’t think what the Seahawks did should be looked at as a model for other teams to follow. Pete Carroll had intimate knowledge of alot of damn guys in the draft. Some he coached, some he coached against, and some he recruited. He’d been watching these guys since high school and even since junior high for some of them. He’d been in their homes meeting their parents and chit. He knows what he’s looking at, but just as important he’d been following those kids in the draft longer than anybody. Just look at one of the first picks he made…Earl Thomas. He went hard after Earl because when scouting him in high school he thought he was the next Troy Polamalu. He lost the recruiting battle to Texas. When it was draft time, other people were surprised he took Earl over his own safety at USC…but Pete knew what he was doing.

Valionfan · November 4, 2019, 6:55pm

wesleysh21:

I don’t think what the Seahawks did should be looked at as a model for other teams to follow. Pete Carroll had intimate knowledge of alot of damn guys in the draft. Some he coached, some he coached against, and some he recruited. He’d been watching these guys since high school and even since junior high for some of them. He’d been in their homes meeting their parents and chit. He knows what he’s looking at, but just as important he’d been following those kids in the draft longer than anybody. Just look at one of the first picks he made…Earl Thomas. He went hard after Earl because when scouting him in high school he thought he was the next Troy Polamalu. He lost the recruiting battle to Texas. When it was draft time, other people were surprised he took Earl over his own safety at USC…but Pete knew what he was doing.

Exactly

Wrath-SRT · November 4, 2019, 9:31pm

wesleysh21:

epitomize what an NFL team needs to do to be great.

I don’t think what the Seahawks did should be looked at as a model for other teams to follow. Pete Carroll had intimate knowledge of alot of damn guys in the draft. Some he coached, some he coached against, and some he recruited. He’d been watching these guys since high school and even since junior high for some of them. He’d been in their homes meeting their parents and chit. He knows what he’s looking at, but just as important he’d been following those kids in the draft longer than anybody. Just look at one of the first picks he made…Earl Thomas. He went hard after Earl because when scouting him in high school he thought he was the next Troy Polamalu. He lost the recruiting battle to Texas. When it was draft time, other people were surprised he took Earl over his own safety at USC…but Pete knew what he was doing.

What’s really interesting is the further away Pete got from college the worse they have drafted.

They were drafting all pros in the 3rd or later from 2 or 3 years straight when Pete first got there.

In the last 2 or 3 years not so much.

LineBusy · November 4, 2019, 9:40pm

3rdRGR · November 4, 2019, 11:00pm

The only problem is the nature of Free Agency is that only a couple teams will acquire ELITE players each year at any position. So maybe you and not New England, or a team in California or Florida will be the winner. Then if you are very lucky, that one guy will only take up a huge chunk of of your cap and not that AND picks to acquire. Elite players cost insane money. That’s ok if you have a couple guys like that. But the rub is, that “good” free agents, end up costing “elite” money when you are in competition with the handful of teams each and every year that has 100m of cap room and have foolish GMs. Then it all trickles down to having to spend 4M for Jesse James. Bad combo for to have to “just build via FA.”

Agree with drafting RB’s. Strongly disagree with your QB philosophy as they are wasted picks if you have a franchise QB. Ultimately, you have to have a blend of hits in the draft and FA.

wesleysh21 · November 5, 2019, 4:48am

Wrath-SRT:

wesleysh21:

epitomize what an NFL team needs to do to be great.

I don’t think what the Seahawks did should be looked at as a model for other teams to follow. Pete Carroll had intimate knowledge of alot of damn guys in the draft. Some he coached, some he coached against, and some he recruited. He’d been watching these guys since high school and even since junior high for some of them. He’d been in their homes meeting their parents and chit. He knows what he’s looking at, but just as important he’d been following those kids in the draft longer than anybody. Just look at one of the first picks he made…Earl Thomas. He went hard after Earl because when scouting him in high school he thought he was the next Troy Polamalu. He lost the recruiting battle to Texas. When it was draft time, other people were surprised he took Earl over his own safety at USC…but Pete knew what he was doing.

What’s really interesting is the further away Pete got from college the worse they have drafted.

They were drafting all pros in the 3rd or later from 2 or 3 years straight when Pete first got there.

In the last 2 or 3 years not so much.

You definitely picked up on it. He lost his competitive advantage. He came out the gates landing haymakers. Now that’s faded big time. Watching him put the parts and pieces of the championship team together was fun to watch. One thing that isn’t talked about much was that he also benefitted from timing. If you go back to the 2013 season, it was a weird free agent market that year. Players complained that the teams were colluding to keep most player contracts down. Here in Detroit we talked about how Cliff Avril wanted a $100M deal, and we offered him somewhere in the 3 year $30M range. And since teams are always starved for edge talent, that might have been under bidding for him. But due to the weird market, Seattle was able to scoop him up for 1 year at $7.5M. Then they were able to secure Michael Bennett at 1 year at $5M. That made that strong roster even stronger.