Is Ted Lelie another Ashley Ginn?

Picking up Ginn for a 5th round pick is nice. having him and Kyle Williams on KR will be great. that is if they both make the team. Ginn is not going to be a starting WR. is he going to the 3rd WR not sure about that ether.

With Ginn we gave up a 5th? So if he contributes as a #4 receiver and returning kicks at the league average WITHOUT fumbling, he was a good pick up.

Originally posted by Ceadderman:

Originally posted by NoOffseason:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
From Curtis Conway to DJAX, to Ted Ginn (and all the TRASH in between).

We have a ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE track record of signing, drafting, trading for WRs. You can argue about coaching all you want, however, we suck at getting quality WRs.
The only decent WR we got was A. Bryant, and we let him walk. Lloyd, Lelie, B. Jones, DJAX, Conway, washed up I. Bruce, A. Battle, B. Williams.... The list goes on and on. How pathetic. If you follow football then you know these guys were not very good, not consistent, or their play was obviously declining. The teams who benefited trading us crap players for draft picks are smart.

The truth is that Ginn is not going to dominate anyone and be a star WR. It is NOT going to happen no matter what system he is in. He can't catch the ball very well, period. I think he just runs too fast and cannot control his body enough to adjust to the ball. I would prefer J. Hill over Ginn, who should only be used as a returner. We just have to hope he doesn't fumble punts like he did in Miami.

We do run a lot of WR screens so I would be comfortable tossing Ginn some of those. He could be handy in reverses, trick plays, etc. If we still had the WILD NINER, he could be used for those.

Well, although I think we could all agree that the Niners have been lacking good WRs for a long time, I would still disagree with you on some points, not to mention you leaving out our current starters out of your supposed track record, who were both drafted by the team.

First of all, sadly, the Niners are not alone in this. If you look only at first-round WRs drafted in the last decade, you will find, from around forty WRs drafted in the first round, there are exactly three superstuds: Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson. There also some decent guys and guys with potential, but that is it.

From nearly forty guys in the last ten years from the entire NFL in the first round, only three star WRs? If you want to talk about terrible track record, this is what you should be talking about (btw, the Niners added to this by drafting superdud Rahaun Woods during that span).

Then, there have not been a multitude of teams supposedly being smart by trading us their WRs for picks, because there has been exactly one team we traded with to get a WR to San Francisco and that was Seattle, all other guys were free agent acquisitions.

And lastly, I would guess that nearly everyone here is full well aware that Ginn will not be a star WR for us. He does not need to be. He was brought in a specifically as a return guy and on kick returns, he has shown that he can do that in the NFL, which he will do for us as well. On punt returns he is competing with some of our rookies, but after last years horrible "fair catch inside the 10 yard"-nightmare, whoever will return punts can only improve things…

I guess it may look like some of the guys are getting a little too excited about Ginn because he is a speedster and deep threat, adding some deep speed to our offense, but I believe that those guys are also aware that he will be our third WR at best (and I still think Jason Hill should get a good look at that job as well) and even as our No. 3 WR he would only be our fifth-best receiving threat (after Davis, Crabtree, Gore and Morgan). So if he gets maybe 30-40 receptions, around 400 yards and a TD or two as our No. 3 WR and No.5 receiver , I would think he would exceeded expectations and I would be very thrilled with those stats. Now guess what: Those were his receiving stats last year (38 rec, 454 yds, 1 TD, to be exact)

Agreed.

And trading a throw away pick for him could turn out to be genius in retrospect.

~Ceadder

Only three stud WRs in the first round? So what?
Why did you start talking about drafting studs in the first round. Nowhere did I mention anyhting about first round draft picks. I just said we don't draft WRs very well. And you go on to talk about only 3 studs in the first round? You are using arbitrary facts to help prove your "point."
You don't want players like Brandon Marshall, Desean Jackson, R. Moss, S. Smith, Greg Jennings, Reggie WAyne, Wes Welker, Sidney Rice, Vincent Jackson, Miles Austin, Percy Harvin, Hines Ward, Chad Ocho Cinco, who were all drafted in later rounds. We passed on many of these players mind you. These teams are able to get players. These WRs are from many Different teams. We haven't had a top WR in years and other teams do a good job of getting them. I just named bad ass wrs from 11 different teams and there are much more.

And you think giving a 4th rounder for a returner in a deep draft was a good idea? Patriots got Moss for a 4th rounder. Marshal was traded for two second rounders.

If you want to talk about Crabs, he fell to us and everyone knew we needed a WR. We f**ked up with Desean Jackson the year before. And Morgan isn't turning any heads around the league so he is still under the catagory of sub par WR selections.

If you want to compare the niners to these "other teams" who make crappy trades and sign garbage players you are selling them short.

Oh, And we traded for TWO Wrs. Ginn and DJax. Not one.

And I don't see where you disagree with any of my points. It sounds like you agree with what I'm saying. You AGREE that we have a terrible track record. You AGREE that Ginn won't be a star. Those are the only points I made. I don't see why you came up with the other nonsense.

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by Ceadderman:

Originally posted by NoOffseason:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
From Curtis Conway to DJAX, to Ted Ginn (and all the TRASH in between).

We have a ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE track record of signing, drafting, trading for WRs. You can argue about coaching all you want, however, we suck at getting quality WRs.
The only decent WR we got was A. Bryant, and we let him walk. Lloyd, Lelie, B. Jones, DJAX, Conway, washed up I. Bruce, A. Battle, B. Williams.... The list goes on and on. How pathetic. If you follow football then you know these guys were not very good, not consistent, or their play was obviously declining. The teams who benefited trading us crap players for draft picks are smart.

The truth is that Ginn is not going to dominate anyone and be a star WR. It is NOT going to happen no matter what system he is in. He can't catch the ball very well, period. I think he just runs too fast and cannot control his body enough to adjust to the ball. I would prefer J. Hill over Ginn, who should only be used as a returner. We just have to hope he doesn't fumble punts like he did in Miami.

We do run a lot of WR screens so I would be comfortable tossing Ginn some of those. He could be handy in reverses, trick plays, etc. If we still had the WILD NINER, he could be used for those.

Well, although I think we could all agree that the Niners have been lacking good WRs for a long time, I would still disagree with you on some points, not to mention you leaving out our current starters out of your supposed track record, who were both drafted by the team.

First of all, sadly, the Niners are not alone in this. If you look only at first-round WRs drafted in the last decade, you will find, from around forty WRs drafted in the first round, there are exactly three superstuds: Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson. There also some decent guys and guys with potential, but that is it.

From nearly forty guys in the last ten years from the entire NFL in the first round, only three star WRs? If you want to talk about terrible track record, this is what you should be talking about (btw, the Niners added to this by drafting superdud Rahaun Woods during that span).

Then, there have not been a multitude of teams supposedly being smart by trading us their WRs for picks, because there has been exactly one team we traded with to get a WR to San Francisco and that was Seattle, all other guys were free agent acquisitions.

And lastly, I would guess that nearly everyone here is full well aware that Ginn will not be a star WR for us. He does not need to be. He was brought in a specifically as a return guy and on kick returns, he has shown that he can do that in the NFL, which he will do for us as well. On punt returns he is competing with some of our rookies, but after last years horrible "fair catch inside the 10 yard"-nightmare, whoever will return punts can only improve things…

I guess it may look like some of the guys are getting a little too excited about Ginn because he is a speedster and deep threat, adding some deep speed to our offense, but I believe that those guys are also aware that he will be our third WR at best (and I still think Jason Hill should get a good look at that job as well) and even as our No. 3 WR he would only be our fifth-best receiving threat (after Davis, Crabtree, Gore and Morgan). So if he gets maybe 30-40 receptions, around 400 yards and a TD or two as our No. 3 WR and No.5 receiver , I would think he would exceeded expectations and I would be very thrilled with those stats. Now guess what: Those were his receiving stats last year (38 rec, 454 yds, 1 TD, to be exact)

Agreed.

And trading a throw away pick for him could turn out to be genius in retrospect.

~Ceadder

Only three stud WRs in the first round? So what?
Why did you start talking about drafting studs in the first round. Nowhere did I mention anyhting about first round draft picks. I just said we don't draft WRs very well. And you go on to talk about only 3 studs in the first round? You are using arbitrary facts to help prove your "point."
You don't want players like Brandon Marshall, Desean Jackson, R. Moss, S. Smith, Greg Jennings, Reggie WAyne, Wes Welker, Sidney Rice, Vincent Jackson, Miles Austin, Percy Harvin, Hines Ward, Chad Ocho Cinco, who were all drafted in later rounds. We passed on many of these players mind you. These teams are able to get players. These WRs are from many Different teams. We haven't had a top WR in years and other teams do a good job of getting them. I just named bad ass wrs from 11 different teams and there are much more.

And you think giving a 4th rounder for a returner in a deep draft was a good idea? Patriots got Moss for a 4th rounder. Marshal was traded for two second rounders.

If you want to talk about Crabs, he fell to us and everyone knew we needed a WR. We f**ked up with Desean Jackson the year before. And Morgan isn't turning any heads around the league so he is still under the catagory of sub par WR selections.

If you want to compare the niners to these "other teams" who make crappy trades and sign garbage players you are selling them short.

Oh, And we traded for TWO Wrs. Ginn and DJax. Not one.

And I don't see where you disagree with any of my points. It sounds like you agree with what I'm saying. You AGREE that we have a terrible track record. You AGREE that Ginn won't be a star. Those are the only points I made. I don't see why you came up with the other nonsense.

Calm down, I´m sorry if my post sounded rude to you, it was not intended that way. I just wanted to clarify that yes, you are right the Niners have had a terrible track record about WRs for some time now and I really do not expect Ginn to be a star. Still I have to disagree with you on some points

The way you phrased your post and now the second one strongly implies that you think the Niners are bad at acquiring WR talent and that other teams fare much better. It is the second part I have to disagree with. I think that drafting a WR is an even bigger crapshoot in the entire NFL than the draft already is.

Of course those WRs you mentioned from lower rounds are great and of course I wish some of them were drafted by the Niners, but to imply those teams all have a flawless track record in drafting or acquiring WRs while the Niners do not is too short-sighted in my view, because even those teams have more than their fair share of recent WR draft blunders:

The team that drafted Vincent Jackson also drafted Craig Davis in the first round after they already had Vincent Jackson. They also drafted Reche Caldwell in the second round.

The team with Miles Austin also traded a first- and third-round pick for Roy Williams while Austin was already on the roster. They also drafted Antonio Bryant in the second round and he only became a productive WR after he left Dallas.

The team that drafted Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin once tried to replace Randy Moss by drafting Troy Williamson in the first round.

The team that drafted Brandon Marshall also drafted Ashley Lelie (he of the failed stint with the Niners) in the first round and Darius Watts in the second round.

You see, there are a lot of examples of bad receiver drafting even from teams who actually did draft good ones and I left out some obvious ones (the Matt Millen-era Lions come to mind )

Even the reigning Super Bowl Champion, the team that found Marques Colston in the seventh round drafted Robert Meachem in the first round after they already had Colston. They also spend first- and second-round picks on Donte' Stallworth and Devery Henderson, so they drafted quite a few WRs even with high picks, not all of them panned out.

That gets me to another point: The thing with the Niners might be that, yes they did a crappy job of drafting WRs until recently, like the entire NFL seems to do, but they also did not draft very many WRs, especially not with high picks. Since the Ericksson era, we spend only six picks on WRs (about one per year), half of them in the fifth round or lower, two in the third and one in the first round, with no secound-round, or fourth round picks on WRs. That is not a lot of picks and very few "quality" picks, especially when your team has been lacking a great receiver for quite some time now.

Maybe the Niners were scared by the league-wide terrible track record in drafting WRs and therefore did not spend picks on WRs, but the combination of low number of picks, lack of high-round picks and the general crapfest that is drafting WRs in the NFL, I think it is no wonder that we struggled at the position for so long, we did not try hard enough in the draft to get a great WRs and filling the position with free agents also did not pan out well, most of those guys were available for a reason.

So, in short, I think the Niners could have tried much more to draft a good WR until very recently, but to accuse only them of ineptitude and absolve other teams when generally, all NFL teams do a crappy job of drafting WRs, yeah, I have to disagree on that.

Regarding Ted Ginn: I only take exception to being lumped together with those few who are delusional enough to really believe Ted Ginn will become an instant stud at WR and get anywhere near our top receiving targets, which I fully expect to be Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree. If you don´t mind, we can happily bash those guys together

I expect Ginn to be our primary KR and to be an average-to-good NFL return guy. He was that in Miami and for our team, that should be an improvement. I think our special teams did well on kick and punt return coverage last season like they did the years before, but we got killed on our awful returns. He should help on KR with that. On PR, I will wait whether he can win that job too, it would alright with me, but I would be alright as well if one of our rookies does the PR duties. Anything will be better than what we had last year

Now on offense, I think Ginn gets into some of our 3WR sets and runs deep routes. Most of those will be decoys, although I think if Vernon Davis and Ted Ginn line up on the same side with the intention of going deep, quite a few Cornerback-Safety Combos in the NFL will pee a little

Maybe he will get one or two deep balls thrown to him per game, he drops a few of them like he usually does, and at the end of the season, he will then have about two or three good Crabtree games as his season stats (20 rec, 200-ish yards, maybe a TD or two). I do not think those are unrealistic expectations. And for a fifth-round pick, I will take that.

But I will not include him into any part of our track record. He has not played a single down for us yet! So why should I include him into the track record and why should he be mentioned as an example of teams who got the better of us when we traded picks for a WR with them? The one we did with Seattle? Yeah, they got the better end of it, we know that now. But the Ginn trade? I would say let us wait for the season before we crown´em

I hope this makes my point clearer. I do not disagree with your points, I only disagree with the implication that the Niners are the only ones who are terrible in acquiring WRs. For me, that is a sad league-wide trend which no team is immune against, but I have hope that the Niners have finally bucked the trend and got some good wideouts on their own

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by Ceadderman:

Originally posted by NoOffseason:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
From Curtis Conway to DJAX, to Ted Ginn (and all the TRASH in between).

We have a ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE track record of signing, drafting, trading for WRs. You can argue about coaching all you want, however, we suck at getting quality WRs.
The only decent WR we got was A. Bryant, and we let him walk. Lloyd, Lelie, B. Jones, DJAX, Conway, washed up I. Bruce, A. Battle, B. Williams.... The list goes on and on. How pathetic. If you follow football then you know these guys were not very good, not consistent, or their play was obviously declining. The teams who benefited trading us crap players for draft picks are smart.

The truth is that Ginn is not going to dominate anyone and be a star WR. It is NOT going to happen no matter what system he is in. He can't catch the ball very well, period. I think he just runs too fast and cannot control his body enough to adjust to the ball. I would prefer J. Hill over Ginn, who should only be used as a returner. We just have to hope he doesn't fumble punts like he did in Miami.

We do run a lot of WR screens so I would be comfortable tossing Ginn some of those. He could be handy in reverses, trick plays, etc. If we still had the WILD NINER, he could be used for those.

Well, although I think we could all agree that the Niners have been lacking good WRs for a long time, I would still disagree with you on some points, not to mention you leaving out our current starters out of your supposed track record, who were both drafted by the team.

First of all, sadly, the Niners are not alone in this. If you look only at first-round WRs drafted in the last decade, you will find, from around forty WRs drafted in the first round, there are exactly three superstuds: Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson. There also some decent guys and guys with potential, but that is it.

From nearly forty guys in the last ten years from the entire NFL in the first round, only three star WRs? If you want to talk about terrible track record, this is what you should be talking about (btw, the Niners added to this by drafting superdud Rahaun Woods during that span).

Then, there have not been a multitude of teams supposedly being smart by trading us their WRs for picks, because there has been exactly one team we traded with to get a WR to San Francisco and that was Seattle, all other guys were free agent acquisitions.

And lastly, I would guess that nearly everyone here is full well aware that Ginn will not be a star WR for us. He does not need to be. He was brought in a specifically as a return guy and on kick returns, he has shown that he can do that in the NFL, which he will do for us as well. On punt returns he is competing with some of our rookies, but after last years horrible "fair catch inside the 10 yard"-nightmare, whoever will return punts can only improve things…

I guess it may look like some of the guys are getting a little too excited about Ginn because he is a speedster and deep threat, adding some deep speed to our offense, but I believe that those guys are also aware that he will be our third WR at best (and I still think Jason Hill should get a good look at that job as well) and even as our No. 3 WR he would only be our fifth-best receiving threat (after Davis, Crabtree, Gore and Morgan). So if he gets maybe 30-40 receptions, around 400 yards and a TD or two as our No. 3 WR and No.5 receiver , I would think he would exceeded expectations and I would be very thrilled with those stats. Now guess what: Those were his receiving stats last year (38 rec, 454 yds, 1 TD, to be exact)

Agreed.

And trading a throw away pick for him could turn out to be genius in retrospect.

~Ceadder

Only three stud WRs in the first round? So what?
Why did you start talking about drafting studs in the first round. Nowhere did I mention anyhting about first round draft picks. I just said we don't draft WRs very well. And you go on to talk about only 3 studs in the first round? You are using arbitrary facts to help prove your "point."
You don't want players like Brandon Marshall, Desean Jackson, R. Moss, S. Smith, Greg Jennings, Reggie WAyne, Wes Welker, Sidney Rice, Vincent Jackson, Miles Austin, Percy Harvin, Hines Ward, Chad Ocho Cinco, who were all drafted in later rounds. We passed on many of these players mind you. These teams are able to get players. These WRs are from many Different teams. We haven't had a top WR in years and other teams do a good job of getting them. I just named bad ass wrs from 11 different teams and there are much more.

And you think giving a 4th rounder for a returner in a deep draft was a good idea? Patriots got Moss for a 4th rounder. Marshal was traded for two second rounders.

If you want to talk about Crabs, he fell to us and everyone knew we needed a WR. We f**ked up with Desean Jackson the year before. And Morgan isn't turning any heads around the league so he is still under the catagory of sub par WR selections.

If you want to compare the niners to these "other teams" who make crappy trades and sign garbage players you are selling them short.

Oh, And we traded for TWO Wrs. Ginn and DJax. Not one.

And I don't see where you disagree with any of my points. It sounds like you agree with what I'm saying. You AGREE that we have a terrible track record. You AGREE that Ginn won't be a star. Those are the only points I made. I don't see why you came up with the other nonsense.

*Ahem* Why was I dragged in the middle of all this?

I think trading a 5th for Ginn while not Randy Moss level of trade is still something that this team needed. Who knew we would get Vann AND Williams also. So in retrospect Ginn as a Return man for a 5th rounder was a no brainer. If all he does is return kicks, I would probably STILL have spent as high as a 4th rounder for him maybe even as high as a 3rd given how deep this team is in a lot of positions.

Reason being is our 3 Stooge return unit was only entertaining to see what goofball mistake they would make next. It was so bad you couldn't take your eyes off them just so you could make sure you weren't hallucinating that shat. Ginn may have his faults but nothing like that group did. I felt bad for Battle cause he didn't even need to be in that.

If Ginn gets on the field Offensively, I think that it's to add speed to suck DBs' off Tree and Duke. Oh the ball WILL be thrown his way. But if he has 40 or 50 receptions(I doubt even this many will be thrown his way) then for a 5th rounder that is a genius move. I think that Morgan and Hill will probably see more catches as a result of Ginn being on the field as well. Which makes that 5th rounder a steal. But I think that his main purpose is as KR with the added threat of seeing the field offensively. And as someone pointed out the occasional Bubble Screen and Reverse thrown in.

Imagine a 3 player reverse if you will... Ginn/Tree/Davis. Mix it up with Walker

~Ceadder

Originally posted by NoOffseason:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:

Originally posted by Ceadderman:

Originally posted by NoOffseason:

Originally posted by Young2Rice:
From Curtis Conway to DJAX, to Ted Ginn (and all the TRASH in between).

We have a ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE track record of signing, drafting, trading for WRs. You can argue about coaching all you want, however, we suck at getting quality WRs.
The only decent WR we got was A. Bryant, and we let him walk. Lloyd, Lelie, B. Jones, DJAX, Conway, washed up I. Bruce, A. Battle, B. Williams.... The list goes on and on. How pathetic. If you follow football then you know these guys were not very good, not consistent, or their play was obviously declining. The teams who benefited trading us crap players for draft picks are smart.

The truth is that Ginn is not going to dominate anyone and be a star WR. It is NOT going to happen no matter what system he is in. He can't catch the ball very well, period. I think he just runs too fast and cannot control his body enough to adjust to the ball. I would prefer J. Hill over Ginn, who should only be used as a returner. We just have to hope he doesn't fumble punts like he did in Miami.

We do run a lot of WR screens so I would be comfortable tossing Ginn some of those. He could be handy in reverses, trick plays, etc. If we still had the WILD NINER, he could be used for those.

Well, although I think we could all agree that the Niners have been lacking good WRs for a long time, I would still disagree with you on some points, not to mention you leaving out our current starters out of your supposed track record, who were both drafted by the team.

First of all, sadly, the Niners are not alone in this. If you look only at first-round WRs drafted in the last decade, you will find, from around forty WRs drafted in the first round, there are exactly three superstuds: Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson. There also some decent guys and guys with potential, but that is it.

From nearly forty guys in the last ten years from the entire NFL in the first round, only three star WRs? If you want to talk about terrible track record, this is what you should be talking about (btw, the Niners added to this by drafting superdud Rahaun Woods during that span).

Then, there have not been a multitude of teams supposedly being smart by trading us their WRs for picks, because there has been exactly one team we traded with to get a WR to San Francisco and that was Seattle, all other guys were free agent acquisitions.

And lastly, I would guess that nearly everyone here is full well aware that Ginn will not be a star WR for us. He does not need to be. He was brought in a specifically as a return guy and on kick returns, he has shown that he can do that in the NFL, which he will do for us as well. On punt returns he is competing with some of our rookies, but after last years horrible "fair catch inside the 10 yard"-nightmare, whoever will return punts can only improve things…

I guess it may look like some of the guys are getting a little too excited about Ginn because he is a speedster and deep threat, adding some deep speed to our offense, but I believe that those guys are also aware that he will be our third WR at best (and I still think Jason Hill should get a good look at that job as well) and even as our No. 3 WR he would only be our fifth-best receiving threat (after Davis, Crabtree, Gore and Morgan). So if he gets maybe 30-40 receptions, around 400 yards and a TD or two as our No. 3 WR and No.5 receiver , I would think he would exceeded expectations and I would be very thrilled with those stats. Now guess what: Those were his receiving stats last year (38 rec, 454 yds, 1 TD, to be exact)

Agreed.

And trading a throw away pick for him could turn out to be genius in retrospect.

~Ceadder

Only three stud WRs in the first round? So what?
Why did you start talking about drafting studs in the first round. Nowhere did I mention anyhting about first round draft picks. I just said we don't draft WRs very well. And you go on to talk about only 3 studs in the first round? You are using arbitrary facts to help prove your "point."
You don't want players like Brandon Marshall, Desean Jackson, R. Moss, S. Smith, Greg Jennings, Reggie WAyne, Wes Welker, Sidney Rice, Vincent Jackson, Miles Austin, Percy Harvin, Hines Ward, Chad Ocho Cinco, who were all drafted in later rounds. We passed on many of these players mind you. These teams are able to get players. These WRs are from many Different teams. We haven't had a top WR in years and other teams do a good job of getting them. I just named bad ass wrs from 11 different teams and there are much more.

And you think giving a 4th rounder for a returner in a deep draft was a good idea? Patriots got Moss for a 4th rounder. Marshal was traded for two second rounders.

If you want to talk about Crabs, he fell to us and everyone knew we needed a WR. We f**ked up with Desean Jackson the year before. And Morgan isn't turning any heads around the league so he is still under the catagory of sub par WR selections.

If you want to compare the niners to these "other teams" who make crappy trades and sign garbage players you are selling them short.

Oh, And we traded for TWO Wrs. Ginn and DJax. Not one.

And I don't see where you disagree with any of my points. It sounds like you agree with what I'm saying. You AGREE that we have a terrible track record. You AGREE that Ginn won't be a star. Those are the only points I made. I don't see why you came up with the other nonsense.

Calm down, I´m sorry if my post sounded rude to you, it was not intended that way. I just wanted to clarify that yes, you are right the Niners have had a terrible track record about WRs for some time now and I really do not expect Ginn to be a star. Still I have to disagree with you on some points

The way you phrased your post and now the second one strongly implies that you think the Niners are bad at acquiring WR talent and that other teams fare much better. It is the second part I have to disagree with. I think that drafting a WR is an even bigger crapshoot in the entire NFL than the draft already is.

Of course those WRs you mentioned from lower rounds are great and of course I wish some of them were drafted by the Niners, but to imply those teams all have a flawless track record in drafting or acquiring WRs while the Niners do not is too short-sighted in my view, because even those teams have more than their fair share of recent WR draft blunders:

The team that drafted Vincent Jackson also drafted Craig Davis in the first round after they already had Vincent Jackson. They also drafted Reche Caldwell in the second round.

The team with Miles Austin also traded a first- and third-round pick for Roy Williams while Austin was already on the roster. They also drafted Antonio Bryant in the second round and he only became a productive WR after he left Dallas.

The team that drafted Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin once tried to replace Randy Moss by drafting Troy Williamson in the first round.

The team that drafted Brandon Marshall also drafted Ashley Lelie (he of the failed stint with the Niners) in the first round and Darius Watts in the second round.

You see, there are a lot of examples of bad receiver drafting even from teams who actually did draft good ones and I left out some obvious ones (the Matt Millen-era Lions come to mind )

Even the reigning Super Bowl Champion, the team that found Marques Colston in the seventh round drafted Robert Meachem in the first round after they already had Colston. They also spend first- and second-round picks on Donte' Stallworth and Devery Henderson, so they drafted quite a few WRs even with high picks, not all of them panned out.

That gets me to another point: The thing with the Niners might be that, yes they did a crappy job of drafting WRs until recently, like the entire NFL seems to do, but they also did not draft very many WRs, especially not with high picks. Since the Ericksson era, we spend only six picks on WRs (about one per year), half of them in the fifth round or lower, two in the third and one in the first round, with no secound-round, or fourth round picks on WRs. That is not a lot of picks and very few "quality" picks, especially when your team has been lacking a great receiver for quite some time now.

Maybe the Niners were scared by the league-wide terrible track record in drafting WRs and therefore did not spend picks on WRs, but the combination of low number of picks, lack of high-round picks and the general crapfest that is drafting WRs in the NFL, I think it is no wonder that we struggled at the position for so long, we did not try hard enough in the draft to get a great WRs and filling the position with free agents also did not pan out well, most of those guys were available for a reason.

So, in short, I think the Niners could have tried much more to draft a good WR until very recently, but to accuse only them of ineptitude and absolve other teams when generally, all NFL teams do a crappy job of drafting WRs, yeah, I have to disagree on that.

Regarding Ted Ginn: I only take exception to being lumped together with those few who are delusional enough to really believe Ted Ginn will become an instant stud at WR and get anywhere near our top receiving targets, which I fully expect to be Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree. If you don´t mind, we can happily bash those guys together

I expect Ginn to be our primary KR and to be an average-to-good NFL return guy. He was that in Miami and for our team, that should be an improvement. I think our special teams did well on kick and punt return coverage last season like they did the years before, but we got killed on our awful returns. He should help on KR with that. On PR, I will wait whether he can win that job too, it would alright with me, but I would be alright as well if one of our rookies does the PR duties. Anything will be better than what we had last year

Now on offense, I think Ginn gets into some of our 3WR sets and runs deep routes. Most of those will be decoys, although I think if Vernon Davis and Ted Ginn line up on the same side with the intention of going deep, quite a few Cornerback-Safety Combos in the NFL will pee a little

Maybe he will get one or two deep balls thrown to him per game, he drops a few of them like he usually does, and at the end of the season, he will then have about two or three good Crabtree games as his season stats (20 rec, 200-ish yards, maybe a TD or two). I do not think those are unrealistic expectations. And for a fifth-round pick, I will take that.

But I will not include him into any part of our track record. He has not played a single down for us yet! So why should I include him into the track record and why should he be mentioned as an example of teams who got the better of us when we traded picks for a WR with them? The one we did with Seattle? Yeah, they got the better end of it, we know that now. But the Ginn trade? I would say let us wait for the season before we crown´em

I hope this makes my point clearer. I do not disagree with your points, I only disagree with the implication that the Niners are the only ones who are terrible in acquiring WRs. For me, that is a sad league-wide trend which no team is immune against, but I have hope that the Niners have finally bucked the trend and got some good wideouts on their own

On a warm summer's evenin' on a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness
'Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.

He said, "Son, I've made my life out of readin' people's faces,
And knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.
so if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice."

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression.
Said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Ev'ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
'Cause ev'ry hand's a winner and ev'ry hand's a loser,
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

When he'd finished speakin', he turned back towards the window,
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even.
But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Originally posted by global_nomad:
I don't think Lelie was a top 10 pick.

Ginn was a surprise selection. He was projected to go much later in round 1. It was widely considered he was drafted to high.

We just need Ginn to return the ball anything else is gravy.

Originally posted by mayo63:
We just need Ginn to return the ball anything else is gravy.

agreed why all the hype saying hes not worth a 5th rd pick

reasons for 49ers doing this trade

1) he is 1 of the best returners in the game
2) he can make a inpact right away
3) he can coach our youngsters to excell
4) he can be used as a 3 or 4 w/r for long balls even if he cant catch half the long balls anything he does catch is a plus and gives defences something else to cover

as it is im very happy and what we have done threw draft and see alot to be positive about

Our QB's have a knack for making average WR's look really bad. Unless you something special, every WR on the niners roster is a ted lelie or ashley ginn...

Originally posted by fister30:
Our OLs have a knack for making average WR's look really bad. Unless you can pass block worth a damn, your WRs are severely disadvantaged.

Fixed... oh, and the receivers also have to HANG ON to the passes in their vicinity.

Originally posted by DANADA:
I think he will be better because even if Ginn cant pan out as a WR he is still a pro bowl caliber KR/PR

Agreed, this is the only reason Ginn was brought to S.F. and that was his return skills. Besides that, you have another W.R. who's trying to make a name of him self.