dice wrote:TheJordanRule wrote:Dresden wrote:
We've been dealt a very, very good hand, but Poles has also played it like a champ. His decision not to take a QB last year, and then TO take a QB this year were both decisions that got criticized by many, and opened him up to a lot of second guessing, but ultimately ended up being exactly the right way to play things. We got a massive haul for #1 last year, and took a generational talent at QB this year.
What we got out of passing on a QB last year for that haul is unprecedented. DJ Moore, legit #1 WR. Darnell Wright, our best OL and starting RT. Tyrique Stevenson, our best starting CB. Caleb Williams, who not only was the consensus pick at #1 this year, but who woulda been the first draft pick last year if he had entered. And we still have a second rounder next year to spend on some other potential stud. Addresses a ton of team needs in one deal. Never seen this before.
wright is certainly not our best OL...yet? and stevenson is FAR from what JJ did last season
enough with the pissing away of draft picks for short-term and/or expensive fixes
and people need to stop pretending that taking justin fields over CJ stroud was poles shrewdly playing the long game. the plan was not to get extremely lucky. the realistic plan (a reasonable one!) was to take a mccarthy/penix-level talent if fields didn't work out. anything more than that was a bonus or require substantial draft capital to move up. carolina could have just as easily had a season like the texans last season. and everything in-between
winning the lottery does not earn credit for being a sound financial planner
Poles was keeping his options open and maintaining a lot of flexibility when it came to the QB position. The way he did things, he gave Justin one more season to prove himself, and he had a ready made back up plan in case he didn't. Very smart. He knew he would have 2 FRP's, one or both of which would be fairly high, so he had the ability to move up in the draft if he needed to. That doesn't take a leap of faith to see that that was his plan.