Quote:I think there's a lot of arguing across each other. BAP doesn't ignore need, it just puts the better player first. If two players are judged roughly equal, then by all means take the guy who fits a need. Don't reach for a position, but if the evaluation is very close then fill the need. Likewise, need drafting usually factors in more than one position of need, and also factors in how long a position will still be set. MJD was a need pick even though Fred Taylor was still going strong and the Jags had other holes. The Jags were very interested in RB Deangelo Williams that year, and would have taken him in Rd 1 had he not been picked by Carolina.


 

In 2004, there was a huge drop off in value after Roethlisberger. This wasn't an evaluation problem, The Jags had Roethlisberger rated that highly. Reggie Williams was listed as the next WR taken on every mock I saw that year, and it was considered a WR-rich draft. Lee Evans was behind him because of a previous knee injury. In 2004 picking need instead of BAP was the failure.


 

Gene Smith's problem was not BAP/need. Evaluation was poor at times, but that was only part of it. Gene had a tendency to fall in love with a player and then do everything he could to avoid the risk of having him picked first. Gene also poorly estimated what other teams would do with their picks.


 

And Nate, in spite of what some pundits say it's not all that difficult to make a trade to maximize value. There are lots of trades made every draft. Shack Harris was a very good trader.

 

Have you got a copy of 2004s draft board just lying about the house? Even if you do and it says what you say, Big Ben being top of the board doesn't mean he was streets ahead of where they had Williams or if they thought he was better than Leftwich. You're using 20/20 hindsight when trying to guess what happened in a secret room 10 years ago.

 

Even Vic, the grand wizard of BAP himself says QB is a position where you make an exception for when drafting BAP (especially back in the old CBA days) and seeing as we had a 1 year guy who had just cost a first round pick a heck of a lot of $ and who had shown some flashes in his less than ideally prepared for rookie year, there was no way we were taking Roethlisberger. Another thing to consider is that if he was that lusted after, there is no doubt we could have traded the pick for him, but we and all the teams behind us didn't. Did we really love Reggie Williams that much that we wouldn't have taken a trade down? I really doubt it.

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