Baalke clearly does not like BPA... Especially in 1st round

Originally posted by 49erFaithful6:

Baalke doesn't have to make up anything for taking Aldon over Watt.

No one in the history of the NFL has had more sacks in his first two years than Aldon. Watt included.

Your title is true though....

In 2011 we needed pass rusher above all else and that's what he picked
In 2012 we got killed by lack of receivers in the Championship game so that's what he drafted
This year safety was the biggest need position so that's what he took

He's drafting for need in round one not strictly best player available. Which is fine.

Who says taking best player available is the only way to go? Take the best player available every single year and you end up pulling a Matt Millen and taking the same position 3 years in a row because that's what your board says.

To be fair I was mad we didn't take Watt and still wish we did. It is fortunate Aldon turned out to be as great as he is. . As far as AJ I am still wondering what they saw?? I hope he proves his worth....I don't like that he barely has touched the field. I still hope we sign Woodson as depth as a db and as a possible mentor for Reid. I do like the choice of Reid and consider it a great pick.
If we were mearly drafting best player it would be Lacy! It would not be terrible considering Hunter is coming off injury....James is good. Gore is amazing but also turned thirty. Gore does need to be replaced soon it is a reality. We really need D-line help and corners.

I think if a comparison is done with the best teams it is clear to see it is better to address things sooner than later.

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by ChipDouglas510:

Armchair GM's... . Last I checked Baalke has an executive of the year award on his mantle...

if you are not an Armchair GM, then what the hell are you doing here in April

That goes for all you critics of critics. WHy are you even posting here in April if all you ever are going to post is things like

Trust Baalke
If Baalke Harbaugh made the pick I love the pick
etc etc etc

What are you guys contributing to this board exactly? Except for the obvious which is Harbaalke is an awesome GM-HC combo.

EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS THIS

It is my job as a fan to second guess every move!!!! I'm a hell of a GM on Madden and Fantasy football lol

Originally posted by Marvin49:

Holy Cow.

Overreact much?

Yeah...we should have Watt...its too bad we took that Aldon Smith bum instead.

Baalke said it last night...you DO draft for need when all the players sitting there are of similar grade. YOU rank Eifert, Rhodes, and Sly ahead of Reid, but clearly the 49ers did not. Ya know how I know that? They traded UP to get him.

Every year we see these ridiculous posts.

They took Aldon over Watt. I have no issue with that.
They took AJ over Martin. We'll have to see, but they were NEVER going to take a RB in round 1. LaMichael James aint half bad either.
You can't count ANYONE as blue-chip over Reid because none of them have played a down yet.

Elam? I like the guy, but he's a Whitner clone. We don't need 2 Whitners.

Bottom line? CHILL OUT.

I'm perfectly chill. Just noting a trend by Baalke. I will admit to being butthurt for not getting Eifert but I'm not freaking out at Baalke

What I know is that Baalke has hit on his "reaches" thus far more than not. We traded up for Anthony Davis and he has developed into one of the better players at his position. We "reached" for Aldon and all he has done is break records. Nobody has more sacks in their first two seasons as a pro football player. Then we traded up for Kaepernick when people said we should have just waited because he "probably" not definately but "probably" would have fallen to us. Instead his aggressive appraoch to getting Kaep got us a true franchise quarterback. Then the jury is still out on AJ Jenkins.

The point is, Baalke and his "reaching" style have continued to get us good football players. I trust the guy that has spent hours and hours of film study the last three months over us "armchair" analyst that base our conclusions on probably five percent of the study that the experts have put in.

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by Envy:

That's a well structured response to the trade and I respect your opinion. I don't necessarily agree with it mind, especially the Watt part, because I think you are trying to fit a player into our scheme. Aldon Smith has done all we can ask of him since he came here. He still has more to give.

I believe in Baalke because he doesn't get swayed by trends or hype. People often go on about BPA but what happens when you have a good roster? Surely if you only have 3 hole to fill then you should fill them? Or do we ignore holes and draft the BPA and then spend the whole season trying to work out how he fits in?

BPA is, in my opinion, for teams with losing records. Teams with winning records and more importantly NFC titles should be worrying about what they lack and not about what they can get.

You are both partly correct, but you are little more correct in this case.

Yes "BPA" is ideal for a rebuilding team, and "Fill Needs" is best for a winning team with few holes. That is all true. But the problem with the latter is you also increase your chances of becoming a window type of team as opposed to an all decade type of team.

I am ok with the GM approach up until this point, but starting very soon, hopefully in a couple of hourse, we do need to get back to BPA mode. Or else be ready for another bad stretch if this team continues to lose the Championship games.

I like both your responses. Gives context to the overall argument. You correctly perceived that I wasn't freaking out as much as I was factually observing the tendencies of the GM of my favorite team

I am getting tired of people hating on Baalke because of last year's first round pick. Yes, he took Jenkins over Doug Martin. We have Gore and Hunter and now people are wanting us to spend our first rounder on another running back, which is traditionally the easiest position to draft successfully in later rounds (Gore - 3rd round, Hunter - 4th round).

AJ Jenkins is not a bust. He is learning arguably the hardest position to learn on a team that rarely uses 4 WR sets, so he didn't make the field his first year. Neither did Wes Welker or Steve Smith from Carolina in their first years - and their careers turned out pretty well. It is simply too soon to second guess that pick.

If you're going to second guess Aldon Smith at this point because there was someone else that we could have drafted that would have put up basically the same statistics ... I don't even know how to respond to that. J.J Watt is a great player, so is Aldon Smith. Why the complaint?

I personally like the Reid pick even if we had to go up and get him. This selection had Harbaugh/Baalke written all over it. Reid is a terrific leader, smart kid with a high GPA. He comes from a good football program, he's faster than the other FS prospects and most importantly our number one need has now been met.

It's doubtful Reid would have lasted to #31.

All in all I'm very happy because I DID NOT WANT Elam or Swearinger at FS because they are too slow and FS/SS hybrids. Trust in Harbaugh/Baalke. We got the right guy!

For the record I'm not second guessing picks. I'm just showing that he doesn't follow a pure BPA method, which might get us in trouble down the road

Originally posted by Big_Daddy:
I'm not drinking the kool-aid on Reid. He's fast, can jump high, and is a good person. But to trade up and forgo BPA, especially when Safety is considered deep, was a waste of pick #74 IMO.

I'm not trying to be a Baalke homer, but I want to point something out: just because there are a lot of quality safety prospects doesn't mean they are all comparable. There are quotes floating around that say that Reid was the top safety on the 49ers board -- without explicitly saying it, this means that they thought even more of him that Vaccaro.

For all we know, the 49ers viewed Reid as an elite safety prospect, and the other goods as "good" but not great prospects.

Even teams that allegedly draft "best player available" don't follow that mantra completely literally. The Niners weren't going to draft a quarterback with their Top 10 pick in '06/'07 after drafting Alex Smith, even if the QB's available were the "best" players there. Teams always draft to need to some extent. For instance, with Staley and Davis locked up, there's no way San Francisco would've taken a tackle at 18 this year, nor would they have taken a quarterback, nor would they have taken a middle linebacker. You can't take BPA completely literally.

Originally posted by Marvin49:
Holy Cow.

Overreact much?

Yeah...we should have Watt...its too bad we took that Aldon Smith bum instead.

Baalke said it last night...you DO draft for need when all the players sitting there are of similar grade. YOU rank Eifert, Rhodes, and Sly ahead of Reid, but clearly the 49ers did not. Ya know how I know that? They traded UP to get him.

Every year we see these ridiculous posts.

They took Aldon over Watt. I have no issue with that.
They took AJ over Martin. We'll have to see, but they were NEVER going to take a RB in round 1. LaMichael James aint half bad either.
You can't count ANYONE as blue-chip over Reid because none of them have played a down yet.

Elam? I like the guy, but he's a Whitner clone. We don't need 2 Whitners.

Bottom line? CHILL OUT.

Exactly. For those who have problems with this approach, consider the tiered ranking systems many devise in helping your fantasy pools. Categories players into tiers and start looking for a balance of: (1) team need; (2) who's available; (3) how thin will the pools be later in draft of positions you'll be looking for.

In the case of Watt versus Aldon, you can argue Baalke made a mistake of having Aldon Smith and JJ Watt rated as "A" when perhaps it should have been A and A+. Whoop-di-do. Aldon Smith had what? 19 sacks last year? I know that makes me depressed (not).

Eric Reid was clearly a "need" pick but it was necessary. Goldson had priced himself off the team and the need to replace him with the best quality player possible was self-evident. All rumors seem to indicate that Reid was better than any other safety on the board and would not be there at 31. Thus it appears "need" and BPA were closely matched in this situation.

Originally posted by dj43:
Eric Reid was clearly a "need" pick but it was necessary. Goldson had priced himself off the team and the need to replace him with the best quality player possible was self-evident. All rumors seem to indicate that Reid was better than any other safety on the board and would not be there at 31. Thus it appears "need" and BPA were closely matched in this situation.

Further, he appears (at least from what i've been reading) to be a schematic fit for the 49ers (aggressive, hard hitter, etc.). Essentially they hope this pick will replicate Goldson for about 5 million/year less.

Originally posted by danimal:

Originally posted by ChipDouglas510:
Armchair GM's... . Last I checked Baalke has an executive of the year award on his mantle...

if you are not an Armchair GM, then what the hell are you doing here in April

That goes for all you critics of critics. WHy are you even posting here in April if all you ever are going to post is things like

Trust Baalke
If Baalke Harbaugh made the pick I love the pick
etc etc etc

What are you guys contributing to this board exactly? Except for the obvious which is Harbaalke is an awesome GM-HC combo.

EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS THIS

Apparently everyone doesn't know this...Flipping out over a pick who has yet to set foot on an NFL field yet. The OP is talking like he has seen every draft board in the NFl, pretty ridiculous IMO.

Originally posted by Big_Daddy:
For the record I'm not second guessing picks. I'm just showing that he doesn't follow a pure BPA method, which might get us in trouble down the road

But BPA according to who? Mock drafts? Mel Kiper?

Originally posted by Big_Daddy:

For the record I'm not second guessing picks. I'm just showing that he doesn't follow a pure BPA method, which might get us in trouble down the road

How do u know he didn't follow tha BPA rule??? Maybe Reid was his BPA? ??? We don't know cause we're not in tha war room...