Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
I'm sick of the Stanford busts this team picks and keeps adding to our roster. Just because a College is close is no reason to get overwhelmed by all their players and hype. You have to scout the whole country and find hidden gems all over. It's like this organization takes the laziest way and just watches and evaluates close schools. The seem to get very over hyped by Stanford prospects. How many much better players could we have picked than this?
Joshua Garnett......2016......Round 1......Pick 28 overall......Total bust......
Solomon Thomas.....2017.....Round 1......Pick 3 overall......Total bust......
Richard Sherman.....Yes we got Sherman. In FA! He was a proven prospect coming off an injury. We signed him to a fair deal. We didn't draft him or scout him out in that sense. He was a proven player for years. So he didn't come to us through the draft and we didn't pick him. He doesn't count in this argument IMO.
Kaden Smith......6th round pick 2019. I can live with this in the 6th round. I don't think it's bad there. But his 4.92 forty will likely make him not useful to this team.
They seem to massively over value this school based on close proximity and familiarity. Which speaks of laziness in the scouting department IMO. Especially the high picks in the 1st round have really been costly to the possibility of this team improving. It set us back a lot. Probably years of set back from those choices. If we landed on those we would be much further ahead no doubt about it.
I am sure we're not picking these guys "just because they're close" to us. I was never a fan of Garnett's college tape and very vocally opposed the selection of him, but to be fair, he hasn't been so bad in limited action lately but he's definitely in for the fight of his life to earn a roster spot. I want every spot to be earned.
Jury is still out of Solomon, and obviously it's way to early to make predictions on Kaden. Nick Boyle of the Ravens ran a 5.04 forty time and he's been with that organization since 2015 and they just gave him a three year extension. There is far more to being a tight end than a forty yard dash. Lynch was clear about Smith being here for his blocking and his ability to make clutch catches. 600+ yards for a TE is nothing to sneeze at.
So yes, we have selected 3 Stanford players since 2016, 2 have been underwhelming so far, but at least both have recently shown a glimmer of hope. We'll see how that goes this year. Long post short, I really don't think there's an issue here. At least not yet.
[ Edited by OnTheClock on May 4, 2019 at 9:49 AM ]