I’m not remotely out on AP, and we all know more picks will bust than hit.
But I think anyone who says they don’t feel the seed of doubt growing in their gut, even a little, over AP’s first draft (other than Jayden) is lying to themselves or is protecting their heart because they’ve once again anointed someone as the franchise savior. We all thought five Day 2 picks in 2024 was an incredible bounty and would form the foundation of our rebuilt roster. Jayden, 3 2nds, and 2 3rds.
Watching teams with homegrown studs on offense and defense should absolutely freak us the fuck out given most of that bounty don’t seem to be the foundation for anything right now.
It’s not about bailing already, or being “out”, or a chicken little, or thinking we’re armchair GM’s, or even thinking that those players should be finished products in year two. It’s simply acknowledging that anyone not worried about that “draft haul” right now are acting as irrational as they accuse worried fans of being.
Those 5 picks were supposed to be AP’s war chest to start the rebuild, to the point people were getting crazy and asking in threads if it was a problem that they’d all be due to hit FA at the same time in four years.
It is absolutely a bit worrying that so many of those picks aren’t getting meaningful snaps or touches (and the ones that are, aren’t distinguishing themselves much). It’s not totally normal and even if you’re a patient fan, you have to fear (a little bit!) that if this regime doesn’t work out, that will have been the early red flag.
It’s not crazy or paranoid to worry about that group of pedigreed draft picks. It’s very rational.
There's some worry but i also think theres a little pessimistic cherry picking going on too, compounded by the fact we just got our asses kicked.
Lets do some optimistic cherry picking.
There were 6 picks in the top 100.
Jayden by all accounts is a superstar, that could change we've seen it before but from what we know now he's a grand slam pick.
Newton is what you could expect to see from an early second round pick, he's not tearing it up like we'd obviously like to see but he's contributing and he's showing flashes, time will tell.
Sainristil is by all accounts a big hit, he played inside and outside his rookie year looking great, had 2 picks in the lions game that were game changers, hes being overshadowed by the fact that we traded away the chance to get cooper dejean but he's on the path to being a stud, maybe not a grand slam but a two run homer for sure.
Sinnot so far looks like a bust but as has been stated things could change.
Coleman had a solid rookie year especially being asked to start at left tackle as a 3rd round rookie, he held his own and theres no reason to believe he wont be a solid b plus type guard as he transitions to his new position, at this point id call him a good pick.
Mccaffrey so far has been a disappointment but as has been stated he was a qb in college and a late position switch almost always takes years to get positive results, look at logan thomas, he didn’t do squat until his 5th year in the league.
So, out of the 6 picks, as of right now just 19 games in, 3 are hits, one is up in the air and 2 are busts, thats not a bad hit rate for any gm despite them all being top 100, even the first round is 50/50 and after that the odds drop dramatically every round.
Some of the bad vibes are probably associated with the fact that we're briefly forgetting just how bad rivera left this roster because he couldn't draft at all, quite possibly the worst 4 year stretch in the history of the nfl and thats not hyperbole.
If we had a decent roster where these guys weren't all being expected to come in and be immediate superstars for us i believe we'd be a little happier with these results.