Good teams find good players in the later rounds

It's true. Remember the old 49ers? We had Haley a 4th round pick become a great player, we had Brent Jones a 5th round pick, Don Griffin was a 6th round pick, Kevin f*gan was a 4th round pick, Jeff Fuller was a 5th round pick, Michael Carter was a 5th round pick. Then McKittrick took later round OL guys and made them into good starters.

Or look at the Saints this year. Mike Bell and Pierre Thomas? 2 UDFAs. Marques Colston was a 7th rounder. Jahri Evans was a 4th round pick. Carl Nicks was a 5th round pick. That's 2 starters on the OL drafted below the 3rd round.

Or you can look at other playoff teams this year:

Dallas: Tashard Choice was a 4th round pick I think. Miles Austin and Romo were UDFAs they developed. They drafted Marion Barber in the 4th round. Jay Ratliff was a 7th round pick. I hate them but they've done a really good job developing fringe guys or unpolished or small school guys into starters and good players.

Baltimore: Jared Gaither was a 5th round pick. Dawan Landry was a 5th round pick. LeRon McClain was a 4th round pick. Jarret Johnson was a 4th round pick. They've done a decent job getting guys later on, and other guys they picked later on are contributors also.

Green Bay: Ryan Grant their starting RB was a UDFA. Donald Driver was a 7th round pick and has been like a 10 year starter and multi time pro bowler for them. Tramon Williams wasn't drafted and is their nickle corner I think. Cullen Jenkins was another sleeper they brought in and is a starter for them. They got a couple other late round/udfa contributors also.

So my point is, where are our late round guys? Josh Morgan who is okay and who else? We need to find some guys later on in the draft and we need to coach them up into good players. Hopefully with Solari as OL coach now he can mold some unpolished OL players into starters or good back ups. Right now on the OL we got guys who were 2nd and 3rd round picks who were between mediocre/showing potential/downright not getting the job done(Baas/Chilo/Snyder). Maybe they just need coaching up(Chilo), or maybe we could find a better player with a coach that knows how to spot talent at that position later on in the draft rather than wasting a pick on a guy like him(Snyder) because he looks like the highest ranked prospect and we need a guy at his position. We used a 3rd on Coffee and he doesn't really fill a role, we needed a big bruising running back and instead of getting a guy who is 6'0'' 230 or something, we get a 6'1'' guy that's 212 and really pretty skinny, but at the same time he doesn't have breakaway speed? If we had moved up a little bit we could've had Greene, the RB from the jets who would've fit our needs perfectly.

Right now we have like 3 guys who were picked later on in the draft, Heitmann(from the old regime), Morgan(who is okay but not great and doesn't bring another element to our offense), and Goldson(who looks like a legit starter for 5 more years if we can resign him). We've hit on some first rounders(VD, Willis, Staley, Crabtree, possibly Smith although we've waited a long time for him to come through, possibly Lawson although he's more of an all around OLB than a pass rusher), missed on majority of our second rounders(Chilo could potentially be good, Baas didn't really work out the way we planned, luckily we traded last years for a 1st this year so Scotty couldn't mess that up, we traded our 2nd with our 08 first for the pick that became Staley which was overpaying a bit, and we traded it in 06 to move up to grab Lawson IIRC). Coffee didn't do much as a rookie for a 3rd rounder. Jason Hill's had some opportunities and hasn't done as much as he was expected too, even though some of it wasn't his fault. Reggie Smith is still on the bench and developing. For Smith and Hill, if we were keeping them around as 4th/5th/6th round picks developing them, that'd be one thing. But to get guys 3 years in a row in the 3rd round that don't play very much? That's not good enough IMO.

With all this we've gotten some good FA pick ups and having hit on the majority of our firsts we have the structure to be a pretty good team. But to take that next level we need to get starters/contributors from later on past the 3rd round. If we want to make the playoffs and eventually become a super bowl team, you got to get value in your picks and get multiple good players per draft, not just 1-2 which is what we've been doing. The only draft we had that was really good was 07.

With that said, what are some guys you guys like later on in the draft who are sleepers but have potential? What are your thoughts on the guys we've drafted and the value we've gotten from our picks?

I apologize, it's early and I can't read the whole thing. While it's true that good teams find good players in late rounds, they don't necessarily do it on a consistent basis. We have found good value in later rounds (Goldson, Gore, Morgan). I think that if we get two stars in this year's draft people will feel very differently about McC. He drafted for 2-3 years from now, not for this season, and that's what pissed people off IMO.

From what I can tell even the best drafting teams only have 3-4 late-round stars, It's not like we're devoid of late-round talent.

[ Edited by foreign49er on Mar 29, 2010 at 06:49:31 ]

~ Not on a consistent basis is correct.
~ Sometimes the key parts are so good they make other lessor players around them look really good (EX: Peyton Manning).

oh really

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
~ Not on a consistent basis is correct.
~ Sometimes the key parts are so good they make other lessor players around them look really good (EX: Peyton Manning).

Yes that does help out alot.

I don't even count 3rd round as late picks. Which really spotlights how Scot has wasted 3rd picks minus Gore. Niners recent 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th rounders have been lackluster. but for the most part many of the teams late round picks are. Goldson hopefully has a consistent year and becomes that special late round pick. McDonald contributes at times, and that's really about it from the late round guys. You would expect them to at least be able to stick with the team and become quality depth guys but that really hasn't even happened. Folks were down on McKillop but at least he's contributing to the team in some capacity. Look at Cohen, Pascoe, R. Smith, and Wallace. They were just picks flushed down the drain basically. Should have been talking some shots on OT's.

I miss Bill Walsh.

Coaching plays a big part as well

Originally posted by lamontb:
I don't even count 3rd round as late picks. Which really spotlights how Scot has wasted 3rd picks minus Gore. Niners recent 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th rounders have been lackluster. but for the most part many of the teams late round picks are. Goldson hopefully has a consistent year and becomes that special late round pick. McDonald contributes at times, and that's really about it from the late round guys. You would expect them to at least be able to stick with the team and become quality depth guys but that really hasn't even happened. Folks were down on McKillop but at least he's contributing to the team in some capacity. Look at Cohen, Pascoe, R. Smith, and Wallace. They were just picks flushed down the drain basically. Should have been talking some shots on OT's.

Yeah that is a good point. Your last sentence is one of my main points. If we had a good OL coach who could develop talent we should've been taking shots on RTs we could develop for the last few years, since that's been a problem spot. We knew we needed a capable young back up when Jonas Jennings was the RT and when we had Kwame before him. One of/if not the only late round OL guy we've taken later on(I don't remember if there were any others for sure) was Cody Wallace. Whether or not he has/had talent, we knew he was going to be stuck behind Heitmann for the forseeable future. I think later on in that same draft the Saints drafted Carl Nicks and got a starter at one of the guard spots. It's not like JJ just got injured all of a sudden, or that we didn't know Smiley was becoming a FA. JJ was injury prone from the start and we knew Smiley was becoming a FA, and instead we counted on Baas(who is injury prone unfortunately for him), Wragge(a back up at best IMO) to replace Smiley and we tried to fit a converted guard to RT to replace JJ(Snyder).

Ray Mac did pretty well for a guy picked as late as he was. I forgot about him and Haralson and T. Brown. T. Brown is actually a good example of a type of player I'm talking about. He had more talent than most 5th round players but he had some character or injury concerns(dont remember which), but we took a flyer on him later on and developed him. Haralson is decent but I'm not sure if he's the starting pass rushing OLB we need, a year ago he looked like he might be, after he got paid he didn't play so well. He only had 5 sacks last year and got beat a few times when we needed him to make the tackle/sack(Chris Johnson beat him badly for a TD on a fourth down in that TN game, old ass McNabb ran away from him when he nearly had a sack and McNabb turned it into a first down).

I'm just saying that if we expect to make the playoffs, some of these late round guys have got to do better for us. Or we can't miss on our 2nd 1st rounder(we've had 2 in 3 of the last 5 drafts counting this one)/our 3rd rounders. Our 2nd 1st rounder we've done pretty good(Lawson/Staley), but our only 3rd rounder in the last five years who has really contributed is Gore.

What are the percentages of success as you step down by round?
1st- 50% ?
2ed- 40% ?
and so on.

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
It's true. Remember the old 49ers? We had Haley a 4th round pick become a great player, we had Brent Jones a 5th round pick, Don Griffin was a 6th round pick, Kevin f*gan was a 4th round pick, Jeff Fuller was a 5th round pick, Michael Carter was a 5th round pick. Then McKittrick took later round OL guys and made them into good starters.

Or look at the Saints this year. Mike Bell and Pierre Thomas? 2 UDFAs. Marques Colston was a 7th rounder. Jahri Evans was a 4th round pick. Carl Nicks was a 5th round pick. That's 2 starters on the OL drafted below the 3rd round.

Or you can look at other playoff teams this year:

Dallas: Tashard Choice was a 4th round pick I think. Miles Austin and Romo were UDFAs they developed. They drafted Marion Barber in the 4th round. Jay Ratliff was a 7th round pick. I hate them but they've done a really good job developing fringe guys or unpolished or small school guys into starters and good players.

Baltimore: Jared Gaither was a 5th round pick. Dawan Landry was a 5th round pick. LeRon McClain was a 4th round pick. Jarret Johnson was a 4th round pick. They've done a decent job getting guys later on, and other guys they picked later on are contributors also.

Green Bay: Ryan Grant their starting RB was a UDFA. Donald Driver was a 7th round pick and has been like a 10 year starter and multi time pro bowler for them. Tramon Williams wasn't drafted and is their nickle corner I think. Cullen Jenkins was another sleeper they brought in and is a starter for them. They got a couple other late round/udfa contributors also.

So my point is, where are our late round guys? Josh Morgan who is okay and who else? We need to find some guys later on in the draft and we need to coach them up into good players. Hopefully with Solari as OL coach now he can mold some unpolished OL players into starters or good back ups. Right now on the OL we got guys who were 2nd and 3rd round picks who were between mediocre/showing potential/downright not getting the job done(Baas/Chilo/Snyder). Maybe they just need coaching up(Chilo), or maybe we could find a better player with a coach that knows how to spot talent at that position later on in the draft rather than wasting a pick on a guy like him(Snyder) because he looks like the highest ranked prospect and we need a guy at his position. We used a 3rd on Coffee and he doesn't really fill a role, we needed a big bruising running back and instead of getting a guy who is 6'0'' 230 or something, we get a 6'1'' guy that's 212 and really pretty skinny, but at the same time he doesn't have breakaway speed? If we had moved up a little bit we could've had Greene, the RB from the jets who would've fit our needs perfectly.

Right now we have like 3 guys who were picked later on in the draft, Heitmann(from the old regime), Morgan(who is okay but not great and doesn't bring another element to our offense), and Goldson(who looks like a legit starter for 5 more years if we can resign him). We've hit on some first rounders(VD, Willis, Staley, Crabtree, possibly Smith although we've waited a long time for him to come through, possibly Lawson although he's more of an all around OLB than a pass rusher), missed on majority of our second rounders(Chilo could potentially be good, Baas didn't really work out the way we planned, luckily we traded last years for a 1st this year so Scotty couldn't mess that up, we traded our 2nd with our 08 first for the pick that became Staley which was overpaying a bit, and we traded it in 06 to move up to grab Lawson IIRC). Coffee didn't do much as a rookie for a 3rd rounder. Jason Hill's had some opportunities and hasn't done as much as he was expected too, even though some of it wasn't his fault. Reggie Smith is still on the bench and developing. For Smith and Hill, if we were keeping them around as 4th/5th/6th round picks developing them, that'd be one thing. But to get guys 3 years in a row in the 3rd round that don't play very much? That's not good enough IMO.

With all this we've gotten some good FA pick ups and having hit on the majority of our firsts we have the structure to be a pretty good team. But to take that next level we need to get starters/contributors from later on past the 3rd round. If we want to make the playoffs and eventually become a super bowl team, you got to get value in your picks and get multiple good players per draft, not just 1-2 which is what we've been doing. The only draft we had that was really good was 07.

With that said, what are some guys you guys like later on in the draft who are sleepers but have potential? What are your thoughts on the guys we've drafted and the value we've gotten from our picks?

You make a very good point.. The 49ers have not had much recent success drafting guys later on that are the true sleepers. The best we have done is find a few OK guys but no stars, not even close.

Maybe it's because Scotty was half in the bag when it came time to draft in the later rounds.