(02-12-2023, 03:09 PM)NYC4jags Wrote:

(02-12-2023, 01:50 PM)cat bells Wrote: I'd lean towards agreeing with the duke here. Being at 24 is a massive change from being top 5 or 6 again too a huge amount more variables/players in play.. I just hope we don't force it ... As.mentioned Issue Newsome was the master at it ... Let the draft come to us, and if you need to go up for a top player fine, If you can drop down fine, otherwise sit tight, don't get tempted into reaching for need and draft the best player you can and just keep improving your team.

I'm with you here, in principle. 

The problem some folks get hung up on is that even Ozzie considered his needs in his drafting, just like every team does, every year. 

The word "reach" that you mentioned is where the trouble comes along. "How far?" is the million dollar question. 

If you've got the equivalent of Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas at starting safeties and neither has imminent contract issues - you aren't selecting that safety who sits atop your team's prospect grades/big board at pick number 48. You're seeing which similarly graded prospects just below him might make sense to your roster needs without reaching too far down that list. 

We have some folks around here that will tell you that many GMs don't do this, shouldn't do this, and that it is bad. 
You take the third safety there, no matter what. 
They are wrong, but we get to have this fun little debate about it every year between February and April anyway 

All these years and you haven't paid attention.  There is very rare occurrences where you don't take the top player.  For instance if a QB falls and is the top player, you trade back being we have Trevor and 2 QBs can't play at once.  If we are so stacked at a position and the player won't even see the field, trade back and let someone else get him.  If you are the only team that has that player at the top of your board you might want to ask yourself why.  This problem you bring up, what if we have Thomas and Chancellor and a S is the top player is an issue we have never had to deal with so we won't worry about that just yet.  Just take the top guy, and when our team is so stacked and we have all these All Pros and future HOF that we can't fit in the top guy mabey we can adjust our draft strategy, or just trade back.

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