What Is Baalke's Preoccupation With 7th Round Draft Choices?

Originally posted by Gore_21:

I think there is a much better chance we trade down and get picks for 2015 than there is of trading them all for Clowney. Not worth trading that entire draft for one player. Who knows could turn the 3rds into 2nds in 2015... 2nds and another pick for 2015 first. As for the 7ths expect us to do what we did and use them to move up 3-5 spots in rounds to MAKE sure we get the player we want.

This is much more realistic! Baalke had a he'll of a time trying to trade away ANY picks last year...he tried though!

Originally posted by NCommand:
This is much more realistic! Baalke had a he'll of a time trying to trade away ANY picks last year...he tried though!

Yeah, it's hard to get a team to bit for a round higher the next year but if we throw in say a 2nd plus mid or a few late it might work. If we can't get a round higher next year don't be surprised if we trade down from say 2nd 10-20 spots and pick up a 4th next year or whatever. Doesn't have to be higher; we can trade down and pick up picks for next year. Seems like Baalke wants to keep rolling over his picks... keep stocked every year. He does an amazing job.

Also, if we decide to keep most picks a lot of guys will be gone via FA next year and we will have to replace them. We can certainly use those picks with Goodwin, Whitner, Brown, Asomugha, Cox, Brock, Wright, Boldin, Manningham, Williams, Moore, a few few others being FA's.

And like I said in the last post expect some of those 7s to be packaged to move up 3-5 or so picks up to make sure we get our guy like we have been doing the past few years. I have no problem if you get 7ths for moving down why not use them. You earn them he has the right to use them.

Gore_21, you must be right, because this yr with 13 picks we ended up taking....13 picks. I was certain that TB was going to move up (we did once early for Reid) but the rest of the time, hey we got 13 picks. So if anything is going to happen, maybe move up once, but down a bunch for 2015. Do I understand that? nope. But as NC noted above, TB did try to trade up...unsuccessfully. So maybe we do shift to trading our extras down in 2015. With Baalke, it is whatever way he deems best for us, and after a really bad AJ pick, he made up for it both financially with cap, as well as a 2yr starter with 40 receptions. To me THAT was a terrific trade, acknowledging a bad pick and passing it on, with money in F.O.s pocket. Wouldn't have happened tho, if not for the bad blood between Baldwin and the guy who sucker punched him when he was going thru rookie hazing. Bad blood trades aren't frequent, but you can do pretty well with them on the receiving end. Andy was stuck and got unstuck...at a price.

I am sure Ballke would have loved to keep Cam Johnson. However, there are only so many roster spots. He would rather use that roster spot for a young WR/TE Harper. (Who, by the way, was a 4th round draft pick.)

Let me ask this - would you feel differently about the move if we had an additional 4th round draft pick and we drafted Harper in the 4th round?

I'm with the OP on this one. Don't like it. Cam Johnson was coming along nicely as Fangio confirmed.

We had Brooks and Aldon playing with one shoulder in the playoffs. When you're making a deep playoff run that's when that extra pass rusher or two can come in handy, especially if a starter suffers a season ending injury. It happened to the Seahawks in the playoffs with Chris Clemons who could've been the difference in them beating Atlanta.

Whats better? Releasing Cam and getting nothing, zilch, nada to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle or trade him for a 7th to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle?

Originally posted by Afrikan:
since you are a poster and not a real life GM I wouldn't expect you to understand.... but it's pretty simple and obvious, it's to trade up and have an opportunity to get high picks (who obviously would be better players) like say




1 (30) - A.J. Jenkins, WR, Illinois
2 (61) -LaMichael James, RB, Oregon
4 (117) - Joe Looney, OG, Wake Forest
5 (165) - Darius Fleming, OLB, Notre Dame
6 (180) - Trent Robinson, FS, Michigan State

I respectfully disagree... Although there maybe a few exceptions, not too many teams are willing to trade their higher picks for a bunch of 7th rounders... More likely, with extra seventh round picks, the team can afford to take a flyer on a player that might not otherwise be drafted (see B.J. Daniels). Thus the team is not obligated to compete with other teams for said un-drafted free agents.

Agree with Vermonator. If anybody was ever going to trade down for more picks it would have been Bellicheat. But he didn't. They had really few picks and I don't recall them moving down for more picks...but honestly I forgot.

Originally posted by WINiner:
Whats better? Releasing Cam and getting nothing, zilch, nada to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle or trade him for a 7th to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle?

Why would they release Cam Johnson? Especially over someone like Nate Stupar who was lucky to make the roster.

Originally posted by SFrush:
I'm with the OP on this one. Don't like it. Cam Johnson was coming along nicely as Fangio confirmed.

We had Brooks and Aldon playing with one shoulder in the playoffs. When you're making a deep playoff run that's when that extra pass rusher or two can come in handy, especially if a starter suffers a season ending injury. It happened to the Seahawks in the playoffs with Chris Clemons who could've been the difference in them beating Atlanta.

I agree. Just look at what happened to us last year after a season and deep playoff run...we were down to Clark Haggans having to step in and play some with Aldon hurting (there are a few SB still shots showing Haggans in the game...I didn't even see him in there, to be honest). Cam Johnson was progressing - Fangio doesn't just say that for the sake of...he's a straight shooter it seems. I know we now have Lemonier and Skuta...Lemonier will be a good fill in when needed but still is a rookie...Skuta is new to OLB. Would like to have seen Cam still be an option. For those who say, "Would you rather get nothing for Cam when we had to today make room on the roster in signing the new WR/TE, Harper"...to that I say, who says we had to release Cam? Why couldn't we release Stupar instead? We have five ILBs as it is...plus, despite his hustle and high motor, Stupar is just a so-so ILB from what I've seen.

Originally posted by SFrush:
I'm with the OP on this one. Don't like it. Cam Johnson was coming along nicely as Fangio confirmed.

We had Brooks and Aldon playing with one shoulder in the playoffs. When you're making a deep playoff run that's when that extra pass rusher or two can come in handy, especially if a starter suffers a season ending injury. It happened to the Seahawks in the playoffs with Chris Clemons who could've been the difference in them beating Atlanta.

Corey Lemonier is backing up at OLB, not Clark Hagans. Cam was never going to be active, unless someone went down.

Originally posted by SFrush:
I'm with the OP on this one. Don't like it. Cam Johnson was coming along nicely as Fangio confirmed.

We had Brooks and Aldon playing with one shoulder in the playoffs. When you're making a deep playoff run that's when that extra pass rusher or two can come in handy, especially if a starter suffers a season ending injury. It happened to the Seahawks in the playoffs with Chris Clemons who could've been the difference in them beating Atlanta.

This.

We're taking our eyes off the prize for this year.

Now, you can say last year we had two nobody's to back up the starting OLB's. ANd this year we have SKuta/LemonHead. But, really, don't we want an insurance policy? I think letting Haralson go was saying good bye to a proven run stuffer plus experience. I didn't like that. But everyone said "Hey, don't worry, we have all this athletic ability on our roster. Cam Johnson is a monster" Ok, well, Cam had a half way decent game against a right tackle that was cut the next day. Then Cam gets traded 24 hrs later for an unknown quantity (to us) for a position where we just let go a guy who 6 teams immediately asked for on the waiver wire.

Whut?

This looks to me like we're not focused on D. And we are not saying that we will not let happen again what happened last year to our D.

Do we really need as many TE as OLB's? That seems weird to me. I bet the attrition rate for OLB's is higher. One solution might be to call less 2TE sets. Would that be a bad thing?

It's just a little strange that we are talking up Cam, then trade him for .. a 7th. What's the difference between a 7th round draft choice and a UDFA for a super bowl participant? Nothing. ANd, it's not going to mean anything to teams we trade with either. I've read some of the posts here about why 7th rounders are valuable....but I'm not quite seeing it.

All I know is we're going to have A TON of draft picks next year. I think we have 12 of them not even including 3 probably compensatory picks (Goldson, RJF, Walker)

Originally posted by SFrush:

Originally posted by WINiner:

Whats better? Releasing Cam and getting nothing, zilch, nada to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle or trade him for a 7th to make room for the WR we signed from Seattle?

Why would they release Cam Johnson? Especially over someone like Nate Stupar who was lucky to make the roster.

Harper

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by SFrush:
I'm with the OP on this one. Don't like it. Cam Johnson was coming along nicely as Fangio confirmed.

We had Brooks and Aldon playing with one shoulder in the playoffs. When you're making a deep playoff run that's when that extra pass rusher or two can come in handy, especially if a starter suffers a season ending injury. It happened to the Seahawks in the playoffs with Chris Clemons who could've been the difference in them beating Atlanta.

Corey Lemonier is backing up at OLB, not Clark Hagans. Cam was never going to be active, unless someone went down.

Right, and though he's looking promising, Lemonier is still a rookie. Definitely a better option than Haggans, but this will definitely be a season of learning for Lemonier when he gets in and plays against teams' 1st string. As for Skuta, he's transitioning to OLB from ILB. Cam Johnson has had two full offseasons in our system and has shown significant progress, according to Fangio. Let me ask this: Who would you rather have on the roster right now, Cam Johnson (and thus five OLBs) or Nate Stupar (and five ILBs)? I'd take my chances with Cam any day over leaving Stupar on the roster. But, at the same time, you have to have faith in the decisions of Baalke, Harbaugh, etc. Also, I don't see Stupar being on the roster for much longer as more changes happen (Marecic?) in the next few weeks.