Quote:I totally DIS-agree with that last part. 

 

You should always try to get a player as late as you possibly can in the draft, otherwise, you are just threw value away. 

 

For instance, yes Tom Brady turned out to be great - we all know that - but why draft him with a 3rd rounder when he's not likely to be drafted until after the 5th?....you can grab players more commensurate to their value in the rounds leading up to Brady's approx perceived value and then take him there. 

 

Trading up in later rounds a few spots to get your player I don't mind....but doing stuff like the Alualu reach and Gabbert deals, I do not like. He'd have been better waiting to see if Gabbert merely fell to 16, and if he didn't, the Kaepernick or Mallett options were still there...this goes back to my point of being too rigid and making the cardinal sin of falling in love with "his" players. 

 

 

Gene was never good at figuring out where players would be taken.  But if Alualu turned out to be an Elite DT, and given that we didn't have a 2nd round pick and allegedly couldn't trade down, that pick would have turned out fine.  

 

Trading up for a QB isn't a bad thing either.  If Gabbert had turned out to be a Top 10~ QB in the league right now, nobody would complain about trading up to grab him.  I don't think the Redskins are complaining that they traded up for RGIII when they could have waited around for Tannehill.

 

The problem wasn't that he picked the players when he did.  The problem was that he picked bad players.  Lot's of players are 'surprise picks'.

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