Bill Walsh and the draft...

"The first year we will teach the players the system, the second year we will develop their skills within the system." Walsh thought overloading a rookie with the entire playbook was a bad mistake. He wanted to have a defined role for each first-year player, and then expand that role in Year 2. His biggest concern was making sure his guys played fast, which required them to react, not think first. With the lockout eliminating minicamps and OTAs this past offseason, teams were forced to cut down on overloading rookies with too much information. And many rookies went on to make significant contributions to their teams in the 2011-12 campaign, further proving Walsh's theory


This is exactly what the 9ers did with Aldon Smith, etc.

Enjoyed the article. Love how he thought saying a player was "a good third-round pick but a bad second-round pick" was ridiculous, since all that matters is performance afterwards, and they either contribute or they don't. But many people on this board would disagree with such a notion.

Originally posted by captain_planet:
Enjoyed the article. Love how he thought saying a player was "a good third-round pick but a bad second-round pick" was ridiculous, since all that matters is performance afterwards, and they either contribute or they don't. But many people on this board would disagree with such a notion.

Of course. People only look at immediate performance. Picking Frank Gore in the third round a few years ago, when people considered him the most overrated prospect in the entire draft, would've merited a FAIL grade back in 2005. Yet, when we look back at it, picking Frank Gore was one of the best moves we could've made for our franchise.

Always great to read these.

Originally posted by Wubbie:

Originally posted by captain_planet:
Enjoyed the article. Love how he thought saying a player was "a good third-round pick but a bad second-round pick" was ridiculous, since all that matters is performance afterwards, and they either contribute or they don't. But many people on this board would disagree with such a notion.

Of course. People only look at immediate performance. Picking Frank Gore in the third round a few years ago, when people considered him the most overrated prospect in the entire draft, would've merited a FAIL grade back in 2005. Yet, when we look back at it, picking Frank Gore was one of the best moves we could've made for our franchise.

Last years example if this point is Chris Culliver, all of the talking heads had him as 6th round grade or worse and then we pick him and he was one of the better nickel CBs in the league, could be better but for how well he did in 1 seasons it was one hell of successful pick, hopefully he continues to look good.

From the same article.

"It never matters where we pick them, it only matters how they play." Bill Walsh

Words of true wisdom.