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College football and the NFL Draft

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Moriarty
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Inspired by another thread, here are my worst Bear Draft Picks of 1993-2017
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14390&p=241523#p241523



Ranks are based on a combination of:
• The overall NFL careers of the selection
• The level of stupidity involved in the selection


GMs responsible were as follows:
Graves/Wanny/Phillips?/MMcCaskey?/shitshow 1993 1997 5
Hatley 1998 2001 4
Angelo 2002 2011 10
Emery 2012 2014 3
Pace 2015 2017* 3*

(The list may make Angelo look good by comparison, but as a caveat, virtually all my ‘near misses because they were just Bad, but not quite Legendarily Bad’ are his.)



Round Three

In round 3, there’ve been enough complete disasters that I just can’t find a dividing line to limit it to 5. Honestly, you could legitimately put the 7 in almost any order.


7) 2002 Angelo CB Roosevelt Williams
You can draft small school successes with great physical traits and you can draft huge collegiate stars with iffy physical traits. And you can draft small schoolers with subpar measurables, too, I guess, but this is what you tend to get.

6) 1997 Graves/Wanny G Bob Sapp
Technique and questionable mental toughness led to 1 career NFL appearance. Life after the NFL was a lot more interesting.

5) 2012 Emery S Brandon Hardin
Came with a history of injury problems and only added to it. Never saw the field.

4) 2000 Hatley TE Dustin Lyman
After the success of using a R5 pick to convert Jerry Azumah from a small school RB to an NFL CB, Hatley became mad with arrogance and decided to use a top 100 pick to shift a player from LB to TE. Turns out, radical position switches are longshots and not something you should typically go in intending to do with high picks. Who knew? Everyone? No way!

3) 2009 Angelo DE Jarron Gilbert
5 NFL games to his name. Here's the highlight of his career:

2) 2009 Angelo WR Juaquin Iglesias
Beats Jarron with only 1 lifetime NFL appearance

1) 2007 Angelo LB Michael Okwo
Never made an NFL roster

Round Two

5) 2014 Emery DT Ego Ferguson
2 NFL seasons and 27 tackles. Thanks for the memories.

4) 2017 Pace TE Adam Shaheen
Overdrafted by at least 1 round, injuries, and work ethic problems netted 249 yards in 3 seasons.

3) 2007 Angelo DE Dan Bazuin
Hurt in rookie minicamp and never played again

2) 1997 Graves/Wanny TE John Allred
The yardstick by which all reaches are measured. A slightly small TE with very, very modest college success and dreadful combine numbers. Projected to be drafted in the 7th round, somehow Wanny became convinced everyone else was as deeply in love with his intangibles as he was, and the only way to land him was to use a 2nd rounder. A HIGH second rounder. 281 career yards

1) 1995 Graves/Wanny DT Patrick Riley
Appeared in 1 NFL game, compiling no stats. Such a nobody, I don’t even remember him or how I felt about the pick.

Round One

5) 2003 Angelo DE Michael Haynes
Very productive in college, but had a lousy combine, which the Bears ignored to take him high (14). 3 years and 5.5 sacks later, his NFL career was over.

4) 2015 Pace WR Kevin White
Bears needed a top receiver badly, but there was only 1 blue-chipper, then a steep cliff. The one went early, as expected, then Pace reached hard at 7.

3) 2012 Emery LB Shea McClellin
You might notice that I listed him as a LB, rather than DE, which is what he was drafted as. That's because everyone with an ounce of sense agreed he was much better suited to LB at the pro level…which excluded Phil Emery, unfortunately

2) 1998 Hatley HB Curtis (P)Enis
Enis was the consensus player at this spot - but the Bears needed other things much more than HB and they had trade offers. Hatley felt they were 'too light' and he had to establish himself in his first draft as someone who couldn't be pushed around. So he stubbornly took Enis out of spite. And from there, Enis held out all summer, got hurt (coincidence, I’m sure), and sucked so much he got moved to FB, before everyone called it quits.

1) 1999 Hatley QB Cade McNown
A colossal disaster in all regards. Everyone knew the Bears desperately needed a franchise QB in this draft, but fortunately there were 3-5 legit prospects, depending on your source, and the Bears were picking 12th. Well, the Bears stood pat while all 4 got snapped up, leaving them to overreach horribly on a vastly overrated prospect. He had poor size, bad mechanics, and a subpar arm, but he was supposed to get by on swagger. So much for that theory.
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dplank
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Excellent post, really interesting read man. Wish some folks at the Sun or Trib would do this good a job!

I have a few nits but will focus on just one. I'd put Enis as the worst pick in this list ahead of McLoser. Enis was an absolutely terrible pick, just absolutely awful. But what really puts it over the top for me was choosing him over Randy Moss. I remember that draft so well, it was the Peyton/Leaf draft. And I remember screaming from the rooftops for us to draft Randy Moss, even though folks had dropped him down for 'character concerns'....aka smoking weed lmao. That guy jumped off the highlight screen like a man among boys, the only thing comparable was how Marshall Faulk blew up lesser talent at SD State.
Back then many of us were on the old Chicago Bear Report board, Yogi, Wulfy, a bunch more. And I was just as annoying that year about Moss as I was a couple years ago about Deshaun Watson. Those two players were the two guys I just had so much conviction about and knew we had an opportunity to get, and both times was crushed with disappointment. Then the orange jumpsuit, and the rest was history. My fantasy football team still to this day is called Enis Envy.

Our draft history is absolute trash.
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just to be clear, we traded the 11th pick for rick mirer and drafted a tight end in the second john allred. who went at number 13? tony gonzales, only the best tight end ever. effin bears
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Nice read, Mori.

FWIW, Randy Moss had plenty of red flags, it wasn't just smoking grass -- phenomenal physical skills or no. It's a testament to his hard work that he became a Hall of Fame player, but to suggest it was a sure thing is 20/20 hindsight and not a little unfair.

Enis was a bad pick anyway, of course.
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dplank wrote:I agree with Rich here
RichH55 wrote: Dplank is correct
:shocked:
RichH55
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Yeah......The Moss stuff was more than Weed - They don't kick a kid like that out of the State of Florida for "just weed" IMHO
RichH55
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On the 2007 Draft (Bazuin and I feel like G. Wolfe should be higher) - the one thing I'd note

That's a shitty draft overall from the Bazuin pick on (Some very notable exceptions like Marshall Yanda mind you)

Bazuin was Pick 62 and it's not til like Pick 83 (*) Charles Johnson where you are really like Oh that would have been a ton better (**)

(*) One's mileage as to Jacoby Jones may very - Actually a really really good ST player

(**) Most anyone would have had a better career than Bazuin - but you aren't really crying tears over Jay Alford or Tank Tyler
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RichH55 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:21 am Yeah......The Moss stuff was more than Weed - They don't kick a kid like that out of the State of Florida for "just weed" IMHO
They sure did! Weed had a much worse stigma back then. He had a bad rap because of a fight he was in from high school (BFD), and then Bowden considered the weed smoking a termination level event. Article from when it happened:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... cc2b326fc/

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... -from-fsu/

He didn't have issues at Marshall, those offenses were years in his rear view when the draft came along and I felt STRONGLY that teams were dropping him for no good reason.

Of course there's no such thing as a 'sure thing', I'm just speaking for myself personally. I've had a super, super high confidence level in only a handful of college players that came out since I've been paying attention to such things, really only 3 stand out: Marshall Faulk, Randy Moss, and DeShaun Watson.
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RichH55 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:32 am On the 2007 Draft (Bazuin and I feel like G. Wolfe should be higher)
Garrett Wolfe definitely was on my short list and very narrowly missed the cut.

But 6/7 names on the R3 list had 5 or fewer NFL appearances ever. Wolfe and Lyman both had 4 seasons to their career. While Wolfe was projected for 6 and was a terrible reach in 3, at least he was a HB that they intended to play at HB. The position switch for Lyman gave him the edge.
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RichH55
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dplank wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:10 pm
RichH55 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:21 am Yeah......The Moss stuff was more than Weed - They don't kick a kid like that out of the State of Florida for "just weed" IMHO
They sure did! Weed had a much worse stigma back then. He had a bad rap because of a fight he was in from high school (BFD), and then Bowden considered the weed smoking a termination level event. Article from when it happened:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... cc2b326fc/

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... -from-fsu/

He didn't have issues at Marshall, those offenses were years in his rear view when the draft came along and I felt STRONGLY that teams were dropping him for no good reason.

Of course there's no such thing as a 'sure thing', I'm just speaking for myself personally. I've had a super, super high confidence level in only a handful of college players that came out since I've been paying attention to such things, really only 3 stand out: Marshall Faulk, Randy Moss, and DeShaun Watson.

It wasn't just weed (the fight alone means that) But I advocate for taking " " Character risks a decent chunk of the time - Moss included

But the man has a pattern of behavior too - I do not believe for a second it was weed alone
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Moriarty wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 3:30 pm
RichH55 wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:32 am On the 2007 Draft (Bazuin and I feel like G. Wolfe should be higher)
Garrett Wolfe definitely was on my short list and very narrowly missed the cut.

But 6/7 names on the R3 list had 5 or fewer NFL appearances ever. Wolfe and Lyman both had 4 seasons to their career. While Wolfe was projected for 6 and was a terrible reach in 3, at least he was a HB that they intended to play at HB. The position switch for Lyman gave him the edge.


Did the rest of that poor draft factor into Bazuin's rating one way or the other? (I know, I know one can cherry pick Marshall Yanda though)
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RichH55 wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 5:13 pm
Moriarty wrote: Mon Aug 17, 2020 3:30 pm

Garrett Wolfe definitely was on my short list and very narrowly missed the cut.

But 6/7 names on the R3 list had 5 or fewer NFL appearances ever. Wolfe and Lyman both had 4 seasons to their career. While Wolfe was projected for 6 and was a terrible reach in 3, at least he was a HB that they intended to play at HB. The position switch for Lyman gave him the edge.


Did the rest of that poor draft factor into Bazuin's rating one way or the other? (I know, I know one can cherry pick Marshall Yanda though)
No.
I didn't recall that being the case and compiling this already took a lot of time without trying to research strength of other options.

I did give him/Angelo a little break, based on the situation being at least partially injury related - otherwise you can't get much worse than never making a roster - and him not having any meaningful predraft health problems that I can find.
However, it's also entirely unclear if the injury was the whole problem or not:
Bazuin was sidelined for much of the Bears’ offseason program after injuring his knee during the rookie minicamp in early May. But he returned for the final two weeks of OTA workouts in June and has been cleared to participate in training camp.

“I’d say I’m 95 percent,” he said Wednesday. “I’ll have no problems doing anything in practice. I’m going to continue to rehab it, but for the most part there’s nothing to be worried about.”
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Would Moss have been “Moss” if we drafted him?

In Minny he always had a good QB, here we would have had Shane Matthews, Cade McClown, Jim Miller (wouldn’t have been bad), Chandler, Burris, Kordell, Grossman, Krenzel, Hutchinson, Quinn, Orion, Griese. We suck.
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Good post, fun read! My only criticism is the Kevin White pick. Thats pretty revisionist history. Kevin White was widely considered a top half of the first round pick and some considered him the WR with the most upside. It didn't work out but to say he reached hard on a widely regarded top pick is just false.

https://www.nfl.com/news/2015-nfl-draft ... 0000479835
2. Kevin White, West Virginia

Zierlein's bottom line: He's not just a product of West Virginia's system -- he's talented. White showed off 23 reps on the bench press and a blazing 4.35 40 at the combine, proving he has the top-end speed to go with the size and strength. White came into West Virginia with very limited confidence, according to team insiders, but when he left, he had realized his rare talent. White lacks the polish of Amari Cooper, but some teams already believe he has the best upside of any wide receiver in this draft.


https://walterfootball.com/draft2015WR.php
2. Kevin White, WR, West Virginia
Height: 6-3. Weight: 215.
40 Time: 4.35.
Projected Round (2015): Top-16 Pick.
4/27/15: White didn't take many pre-draft visits prior to the 2015 NFL Draft, but teams say that is because their character reports on White are good and they don't have questions about his make up. He looks likely to go in the top 10 of the first round.

White was a star of the Combine with a surprisingly fast 40 time. At his size, that speed is very rare. White has a unique combination with size and quickness. He can get separation and can make contested catches with the strength to outfight defensive backs for the ball.

For the NFL, White is a future No. 1 receiver who could lead a potent passing attack. He has a unique combination of size and speed. White consistently achieved separation, yet he also made contested catches with the strength to outfight defensive backs for the ball. White can get downfield quickly while beating cornerbacks with his speed and burn defenses for long touchdowns. He's too fast for safeties and corners struggle to run with him as he easily gets separation out of his breaks. White is a deep-threat receiver who has the ability to work all levels of the field.

White was one of the best wideouts in college football in 2014. He had 109 receptions for 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns. It took until late October for White to be kept under 100 yards receiving as he was held to three receptions for 27 yards and a score against Oklahoma State. A week earlier, White impressed against Baylor as he totaled eight receptions for 132 yards and two touchdowns to help upset the Bears. White also drew multiple pass interference penalties. Late in the season, his numbers declined as teams sent a lot of bracket coverage his direction.

White made 35 receptions for 507 yards with five touchdowns in 2013 after transferring from junior college. He took his game to a completely different level in 2014.

https://www.sbnation.com/nfl-mock-draft ... nte-parker
Leading the way is Alabama’s Amari Cooper. He may not be a flawless wide receiver, but it’s hard to find any glaring negatives in his play. He’s fast enough, slippery after the catch and has good hands. There might not be a Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans or Odell Beckham in this year, but Cooper would be right behind them.

After Cooper is West Virginia’s Kevin White. He’s more physical, faster and bigger than Cooper, but he’s raw. His route-running isn’t as good and he only had one good season for the Mountaineers. This class could feature three top 15 picks, including Cooper, White and Louisville’s DeVante Parker. He missed some time last season, but is a well-rounded receiver who will go up after the ball and do work over the middle.
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My “favorite” goes way back to 1970. The Bears and Steelers finished with identical1-13 records. The Bears, of course, lost a coin flip and the Steelers took a QB named Terry Bradshaw. The Bears then traded the #2 pick to the Pack( (!) for a broken down RB named Elijah Pitts and the proverbial bag of beans. The late ‘60s/early ‘70s weren’t auspicious for Bears draft pics.
Drafts are like snowflakes, no two are alike.
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