Quote:Not to be a downer, but I remember thinking the same thing about Gene Smith with the Alualu pick. I loved that he did his homework and took who he thought was best for the organization and the consensus be damned. To be clear, I still respect Smith for that stance but it's more than obvious that his scouting / evaluation skills were less than ideal.

 

I have a lot of respect for the conviction that this regime is showing towards how they think this whole build-a-long-term-winning-team thing should be done. But as I've said in the past "It doesn't matter how you do it, just get it right."

 

Plenty of people mocked Bortles in the Top 10 though.  Nobody mocked Alualu in the Top 20 for the most part (I didn't see any in any case).  So it's not THAT far against the consensus.  And his scouts independently came to the same conclusion.

 

I hated the Alualu pick -- I still remember it vividly.  Our internet was out.  Our T.V. was out.  So I was sitting in my car listening to the draft on the Radio.  Redskins homers because I live in Virginia.  They announced Tyson Alualu.  My first thought was "WHO?"  And when our phone lines were finally fixed the next day, I was still very upset about it.  (Granted, I wanted Jimmy Clausen, and was happy we didn't take Tebow... but back then I didn't follow football nearly as well as I do now.  I was also a fan of Joe Flacco when he came out)

 

Bortles isn't so far off the consensus that it makes you go "We took.. who?"  We're actually getting decent grades from most for the pick, aside from the people who are like 'HERP DERP he won't get to sit like he needs to cuz he's behind Chad Henne HERP DERP"

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