Jeff Ireland is much maligned, and the Falcons are heralded as the model for building, the Gallant to our Goofus. I'm planning on doing a few of these, because no one even takes me up on comparing drafts between two teams. Basically, I'm going to break down the draft picks in the same range into a few categories. All arguments and disagreements are encouraged, as are factual corrections. As an aside, I have not individually watched all of these players, and in some case will be using context/PFF. Picks 4th round are higher are held to the standard of being solid rotational players. Unqualified Successes- Picks that are excellent, either producing elite players or doing disproportionately well for their round selected. 2008 Dolphins LT Jake Long ----------------------------------- 2008 Falcons QB Matt Ryan =============================================================================================================== Solid- Picks that are appropriate for their round selection. 2008 Dolphins QB Chad Henne(He might end up a career back-up in a couple years, but still prompts a tremendous amount of argument in his 4th year for a 2nd round pick QB. OG Donald Thomas(Didn't stick around, but a season as a solid starter is well above and beyond average 6th round pick) RB/FB Lex Hilliard DE Kendall Langford- I want to put him in "unqualified successes", as he's been one of the best 3-4 DEs in the league, and disproportionate to the round he was drafted in, but he's had a bad start to 2011. 2009 Dolphins CB Vontae Davis CB Sean Smith WR Brian Hartline FS Chris Clemons 2010 Dolphins DE Jared Odrick- Missed his rookie season, but has become solid rotational player in his first quarter-season of games. LB Koa Misi- Probably will take heat for not making him a bust, but he's been a quality run defender and coverage guy as an OLB. Coaching staff convinced he can't pass rush, but there are expensive, 2-down starting LB/edge rushers in this league. 2011 Dolphins- C Mike Pouncey RB Daniel Thomas CB Jimmy Wilson- Has had one game with significant snaps, but had an INT, a pass defended, but a game-winning touchdown against him. ----------------------------------------- 2008 Falcons DE Kroy Bierman- Wasn't sure if I should put him in the first column or the second. He's a rotational DE as a 5th round pick. S Thomas DeCloud LB Curtis Lofton- Is a solid starting linebacker, and put up 130 tackles in his best season, but is wildly inconsistent. Will look like a top linebacker at times, then a guy who should not start the next week. 2009 Falcons OG Garrett Reynolds- Currently started RG. Not playing particularly well, but is started as a lower round selection. DT Vance Walker- Currently a starter/heavy sub, not a particularly good player but starting as a lower round selection. 2010 Falcons- C Joe Hawley- Starter at Center in his second year, not performing all that well but still starting as a 2nd year 4th rounder. 2011 Falcons- WR Julio Jones- High pick that has put up good numbers, but catching 50% of his passes while being highly targeted is problematic. =========================================================================================================== Busts/Disappointments- Picks that are inappropriate for their spot, below the curve. 2008 Dolphins DE Phillip Merling- Loathe to put him here, as there are players whom are more highly drafted by supposed better front offices who start for teams like Ziggy Hood and both the Chiefs DEs. OG Shawn Murphy 2009 Dolphins QB Pat White WR Patrick Turner 2010 Dolphins G John Jerry- Bad started in 2010, had awful preseason. LB AJ Edds- Currently on another teams practice squad in essentially his rookie season. ----------------------------------------- 2008 Falcons LT Sam Baker- He's consistently started since 2008, but he's consistently been awful. He's currently Pro Football Focus' worst-rated Tackle, and has never had a positive grade on a season. CB Chevis Jackson WR Harry Douglas- A 3rd round pick whose career best is 320 yards. 2009 Falcons DT Peria Jerry- A mediocre DT, best snap count was 214 in 2010. S- William Moore- Arguably falls somewhere in between "solid" and here, didn't play rookie season, had a pretty bad 2009(-7.6 PFF rating), and is currently a starter. CB Chris Owens- Mediocre Nickel back who lost his job in 2010 after an awful stint, but looks to have gotten it back for good or ill in 2011. Regardless, inappropriate for a 3rd rounder. DE Lawrence Sidbury- Wasn't sure to put him here or N/A, a 4th round pick who is still on the roster but can't get on the field at a position that lends itself to rotation on a team that had a need. 2010 Falcons- LB Sean Witherspoon- Rookie starter, was solid vs. the run but got destroyed in coverage to a degree he lost his starting job and had his snaps curtailed to a degree he was seeing about 50% of snaps. DT Corey Peters- A 3rd round pick who was the #2 DT as a rookie and performed not particularly well, has the #4-most snaps as a Falcons DT in 2011. OG Mike Johnson- A 3rd round pick who has seen 0 snaps. ========================================================================================================= N/A- Late round players who weren't expected to do much, and didn't, or players who are lower round picks that have had too much asked of them. 2008 Dolphins RB Jalen Parmele DE Lionel Dotson 2009 Dolphins TE John Nalbone T Andrew Gardner LB JD Folsom 2010 Dolphins CB Nolan Carroll- Has had an awful 2011, but he was supposed to be the #4/#5 guy, and is now starting. He's had too much asked of him. S Reshad Jones- Has played awful, but is a 5th round pick in his second year. LB Chris McCoy LB Austin Spitler 2011 Dolphins NT Frank Kearse ------------------------------------------------------------------ 2008 Falcons LB Robert James RB Thomas Brown CB Wilrey Fontenot TE Keith Zinger 2009 Falcons CB William Middleton LB Spencer Adkins 2010 Falcons CB Dominique Franks WR Kerry Meier S Shann Schillinger ========================================================================================================== 2011 Picks/Too Early to Tell 2011 Dolphins- WR Clyde Gates FB/TE Charles Clay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2011 Falcons LB Akeem Dent RB Jaquizz Rogers P/K Matt Bosher OG Andrew Jackson DE Cliff Matthews Conclusion: Jake Long vs. Matt Ryan will be something discussed a decade from now, but the jury is out. Jake Long has been a better player, but Ryan plays a more important position, and his 2010 is a better year than the Dolphins have had since Marino, but Ryan is up and down. He had a mediocre sophmore season, and as it stands right now in year 4 for both of them, Chad Henne is outperforming Matt Ryan. Overall, the Dolphins have drafted better than the Falcons. The Falcons have had way more disappointing high round picks than the Dolphins had, and haven't had as much success in later rounds.
They were pretty poor in talent as well though and if I remember correctly they had some younger veterans than the guys we had. Ireland hasn't done a poor job in the draft, I've said that for a while. It's FA where his biggest fault lies. He's also very weak in the third and fourth rounds of the draft. That said this is the first era of Dolphin football where Miami has hit on their first round picks for a while. Jeff Ireland is the 7/10 in an era of 3/10s. Had Ireland been GM from 2004-2007 we would probably be a much better football team. Aaron Rodgers would very likely be a Dolphin. Since we can't read them Disgustipate what do the offensive line's numbers look like on PFF? I know Incognito has struggled. Carey has been miserable and Colombo probably in the bottom quarter of the league.
They don't have the 3rd game up, but it's -0.3 for Long, -3.5 Incognito, +4.4 for Pouncey, -2.5 for Carey, and -4.3 for Columbo.
Good study. However, Atlanta has never been the model I have been touting. I'm in the process of looking at each team's drafts over the past 3 years. I'm through Cleveland at this point. (Hey. I just opened my practice and I'm waiting on patients to come in....hasn't got busy yet.) Speaking of Cleveland, Tom Heckert Jr is the guy I wanted back in 2008 instead of Parcells. He may not have final say on Cleveland's decisions with Mike Holmgren around, but I'm sure he has a lot of input. Over the past three years, Cleveland has drafted 21 players. Now, this was with two, maybe three different regimes. I think Heckert and crew only have one draft in this study. The Browns have drafted 21 players, 2 of which are unqualified successes IMO (Ahtyba Rubin and Joe Haden). They have drafted 11 solid players and have only had 3 busts/disappointments. I consider busts/disappointments to be 1st - 4th round picks who disappoint/don't make an impact. Under Heckert's watch, they have had 0 disappointments and 1 unqualified success along with 7 of their 11 solid players. The early returns on their 2011 draft shows that they have added potentially 6 more solid picks with Phil Taylor looking like a potential unqualified success. Through Cleveland though, only 2 teams have had more busts/disappointments than Miami at this point. To Jeff's credit, only 2 have had more solid picks.
I picked Atlanta because of the symbolism basically. What teams have you done? Just alphabetically from there? Also, I missed/left out Davone Bess and Dan Carpenter as UDFAs.
KB21, while I think it's cool that you're doing all this research, keep in mind that there is a lot of just plain old dumb luck involved with draft picks panning out. Be sure to have a large sample size if you're going to make conclusions.
Look what the Lions have built since their 0-16 season in less time than the Dolphins. They found a franchise QB...let's just see if he can stay healthy. I mean look what they did Sunday, came back from being 20 points down on the road against a division rival. When's the last time we had a big comeback? I don't really like when people say we had 1 win in 2007, so it should take longer. Falcons went from 4 wins in 07 and losing their QB to 11-5, 9-7, 13-3. Frustrating for us to watch this year after year.
Lions are a terrible example. They have put together a good team in a short time (too early to tell if they are playoff bound), but they also had 2 #1 picks (Stafford, Suh) and early picks in other drafts.
If we picked Matt Ryan over Long but the rest of the drafts stood still we wouldn't be having this debate. You get 5 OL and only one QB. Getting a premier LT yet a shoddy O line gives us what? Matt ryan did what, with a shoddy LT? Sam Baker is that bad yet they still have a great season last year? Makes no sense they don't have an elite LT! Ryan is having down 3 games for sure. If you're looking at stats how is Henne having a better year? Ryan's sophmore season was still better than any of Henne's seasons so far. And he was injured that year but still had a winning record as a starter. It wasn't great by any measure, but still better than anything we've done since short of Pennington's season.
Falcons had better pieces moving forward from 2007 to begin with, a couple of OL's, Roddy White etc. Which to me means their GM did a better job since then it was 4 yrs ago after all the results on the field are completely different.
I'm through Houston so far. The best drafting team out of the group I've looked at is Green Bay. The worst is Denver. In the past three years, Denver has drafted an elite left tackle but only 5 solid players overall. 10 of their picks have been busts/disappointments. Green Bay has drafted 4 unqualified successes (Clay Matthews Jr, Josh Sitton, Jermichael Finley, and BJ Raji), 12 solid, and only 3 busts/diasppointments in the past 3 years. This is out of 24 total picks.
Atlanta wasn't a one win team in 2007 but they were pretty bad. They had resorted to Joey Harrington at QB. [A Dolphins castoff, how bad is that] Their whole franchise and the city for that matter had been shaken by the Mike Vick dogfighting scandal. I lived in Augusta at the time, there was a lot of negativity surrounding the future of the franchise. They weren't exactly established winners stacked with talent. It's not like the 07 Dolphins didn't have any good players at all. They brought back Joey Porter who gave them a ton of sacks in 08. And of course we brought back Ronnie and Ricky which shouldn't be overlooked. Without Ronnie who knows how effective the wildcat would have been. We had solid veterans like Yeremiah Bell and Vonnie Holliday returning from the 07 squad. So yeah Atlanta won three more games but that 07 Atlanta team was really bad, just like ours. I don't believe it's fair to say they had some kind of big advantage going into this rebuilding.
Exactly. After Bill Parcells spurned them ATL was the bottom of the barrel in the NFL, even with our 1-15 record it was ATL everyone was looking down on. We went 1-15 but were in a lot of those games. The ball just didn't bounce our way
I like our drafts but my main concern is free agency. I think it's because Ireland can pick his players in drafts where as Ireland needs to "sell" the franchise to FAs. Ireland is not a good seller...he has no personality. He comes off too dictatorial and egotistical like you should play for us rather than we need you or something like that.. When Sporano speaks you get a feeling you don't buy it. Maybe if Ireland wasn't seen as such an A Hole we could attract some good FAs....but that's his own doing. We can only get his old Cowboys castoffs. I'm pretty sure he hasn't got a great reputation among players due to the whole dez bryant thing. I don't think this FO gets a lot of respect thus the product is not not very attractive and it spirals. Sorry for going off topic.
