Baalke Has a Fetish for Drafting Injured Players

I remember a player Coach Walsh signed from the Cowboys, Mike Sherrard. He played wide out and was a #1 pick of the Cowboys. He broke his leg in successive years while with the Boys. Coach signed him, let him heal and he wound up playing 3 years with the 49ers. If a player is young he can heal, I can't see sticking with an older player that has major injuries.

Well its better than Rex Ryan's fetish! WTF is the problem here? Do you wish Baalke has a fetish on a fetish that you would have a fetish on?

when you have a talented roster you are able to do those things. It allows you to place players on the PUP list rather than just getting 5th-7th round picks. I think its a good thing, not a bad thing. Now it would be different if we were drafting injured players in the first round every year. When you get later into the draft you are just throwing darts anyways, might as well go with a early round talent that dropped.

I don't mind the Dial / Carradine picks and Carradine and Lattimore were both projected as 1st rounders before their injuries

It's great when you can turn UDFA into players -- Boone, Brock, TJE, Williams (before he got hurt)

Fat girls err pertty

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:
I agree with you. The Lattimore pick in the 4th I liked because it was a compensatory pick and cannot be traded and he's worth a redshirt and eventually take over for gore gamble. Its worth it but about that Tank dude, I sooo hated that pick. We needed a DE with size to give Justin & RayMac breathers, someone like Kendall Reyes the year before!!!!

Needed ? You mean to say YOU wanted a DE with size. Tony Jerrod-Eddie has that size and has been able to fill the role you mentioned. Glenn Dorsey also possessed the ability to contribute at end (as well as at nose) and possesses the size you wanted, plus we also drafted Dial who also brought size up front. Though when we selected Carradine, Dial was still on the board, but we were still in possession of a boatload of picks thus if the staff wanted more size they had the ability to get a guy who fits that mold, and they did.

You also seemingly fail to realize we are not always playing the 3-4 base, as each game differs (and how the game plays out dictates) in just how we will approach the formations we will use on defense and just how much we actually will play in the base formation. I think Carradine going forward (and in due time) will be able to contribute at end in the base defense as well as at end and tackle in 4 man front nickle and dime situations.

But to say we needed, is your opinion on the matter not fact, and to date your opinion has not proven itself true.

Originally posted by 49erfanatic:
I think Baalke overdoes it with drafting injured players. This year, we used a 2nd, a 4th and a 5th on injured players who haven't helped us this year at all. Last year, he did the same thing with Joe Looney and Cam Johnson. Most rookie contracts are for only 4 years, so getting no production out of a draft pick for one year is significant. When you add in that we have hardly used high draft picks like LaMichael James for two years, and got nothing out of A.J. Jenkins, we are killing ourselves by under-utilizing our draft picks. It doesn't help to accumulate all these draft picks if a lot of them are hardly ever on the field.

A.) Rookies on most complete/championship-caliber teams don't play much at all anyways (if your rookies have to play it usually means your team has a big weakness somewhere). 1st round picks usually being the only exception.

B.) Drafting injured players allows a team to get GREAT value from their picks. It normally allows a team to get 1st round talent in the later rounds because the majority of the teams in the NFL need to use their picks on players that will be playing day one. That is one of the benefits the 49ers have right now. They are so deep at most positions (see A.) they can take risks on players that, if healthy coming out of college, would have been taken much earlier.

Do you think Frank Gore would have been a 3rd round pick had he not had torn ACLs in both knees in college?

thats wat happens when your team drafted an injured hall of famer named frank gore. hes trying to be the next star GM who discovers talent nobody took a chance on. but i do think that psychologically for that player it makes them play harder. everyone passed on gore because of his injury, he was already super talented in school but he had an added motivation to prove people wrong and an increased loyalty for the niners because they gave him a shot despite his injuries. i dont think itll work all the time but it will work out more times than it fails i think if they select the right players

Steve Wallace and Kevin f*gan from the great 1986 draft. Both were seriously injured their last year in college and sat a while for the 49ers. Both went on to have great careers for the 49ers.

How is this a complaint? not like many rookies could even make this roster. Redshirt them and enjoy the benefits next year.

Plus a 2nd-round contract on Carradine (or a 4th-round contract on Lattimore) is a lot cheaper than the 1st-round contract that they would've gotten if uninjured. So the "wasting cheap contract" argument doesn't hold water, either.

Walsh drafted many injured players.

Yeah Walsh drafted f*gan and Steve Wallace injured BUT.......they were drafted in the 4th round!!!!!!!!!!!!! They weren't drafted in the top 40 as 'Tank" was.

Do you expect every rookie to make major contributions? Because if you did, you would have at least 7 changes to your rotation every single year. Not much continuity in that.

Originally posted by ElephantHaley:

Yeah Walsh drafted f*gan and Steve Wallace injured BUT.......they were drafted in the 4th round!!!!!!!!!!!!! They weren't drafted in the top 40 as 'Tank" was.

Add to that Michael Carter.

As for Tank, some scouting reports had him as a top 10 pick in the first round before the injury. Then you have guys like Dobbs and Jerrod Eddie who were UDFA. I wouldn't question too much this front office's ability to judge D Line and LB talent. It's WR's that they have a problem evaluating.

Giedi