There have been many comments on many posts about our “freak of nature” and “athletic outlier” guys… Van Ness the latest. Looking to form some logic to make me feel better about our front office (or not).
My POV: In a league that values Ws TODAY… why aren’t we drafting guys who are ready to play and make an impact? Why nurture high draft picks for 2-4 years, hoping they’ll stay? It’s not like their rookie contracts are any less than immediate-impact guys.
Brian Gutekunst departs from Ted Thompson here quite a bit. Gutey is definitely willing to swing big early in the draft and grab someone with rare athleticism on the chance that player becomes an absolute superstar. Those guys are usually less refined because they’re able to win in college on their athletic abilities alone.
Ted was far more likely to take a lesser athlete who was more “league ready” even if it meant they weren’t necessarily grade A athletes in the league. Like AJ Hawk, Bryan Bulaga Iowa, and he lived on solid athletes who were technically sound on offense (Davante Adams, Greg Jennings, Nick Collins, Randall Cobb) to compliment his laser precise QB.
Interestingly, when Ted did swing big, he hit pretty successfully (Jordy Nelson, trading back into the first round for Clay Matthews).
Gutey is definitely more willing to find the technician types on day three and he’s done a pretty decent job of it.
There are different philosophies on the draft. Both of these have proven to be pretty successful, overall. Taking the big swing on a freak athlete is definitely more worthwhile when you have veteran depth ahead of it, but when those players hit, they become megastars. When they don’t, they usually “bust”