Before the draft....

[Dback Jon]

Many of the "Draft Experts" (Kiper, Clayton, etc) were saying that once you got beyond the top 5-10, there wasn't a lot of difference in the next 30-60 players. So once we traded out of the top 10, we ended up with 4 picks in that top group, instead of one "elite" pick and 2 "good" picks.

And if there is little difference between players 11 - 70, can any player that was rated in the top 75 really be considered a reach?

 

[JeffGollin]

I agree with that.

But my issue is over whether the dropoff between the top 12 and the next 40 was so shallow that 2 guys in the middle of the round were worth (a) a top 6 guy at a position of need plus (b) the swap of a #54 for a #37 plus (c) a #102.

I think the dropoff was far steeper than that, and we may have passed up a future Pro Bowl DE.

But having said that:

- The Cards had dropped Suggs to #16 on their board (they had Sullivan rated #6)

- If you read between the lines of Graves' comments about Calvin Pace (i.e. "there are no off the field problems with him that we know of") it suggests that Suggs' reputation for partying and his recent brush with the law was considered a much bigger deal than Rod revealed at the time.

- There were other teams that rated Pace right behind McDougle on their DE rankings.

Personally, I think we got hosed in the trade, but that doesn't mean that Pace won't turn out to be just what we needed. Funny thing, but the difference between making or not making that trade takes our draft from an "A" to a "C+" or "D" - the more I look at the other picks, the better I like them.