Posted on 02/14/2011 10:24:19 PM PST by DemforBush
Every year, one NFL player has the dubious distinction to be the last player picked in the NFL draft. Dubbed "Mr. Irrelevant,"... In the third installment of the Draft Dose series, we examine how the five most recent Mr. Irrelevants have fared on the field.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Mr. Irrelevant for the decade-—Barack Hussein Obama
LOLOL.....at first glance I thought this was going to be an article about the ‘won’.
I never liked the Mr Irrelevant label, last player of the draft really isn’t the last guy in, because there’s still the supplemental draft, and of course undrafted free agency.
The funny thing is that there seem to be a lot more success stories among undrafted players and supplemental picks than among Messrs. Irrelevant. Undrafted FAs like Kurt Warner, Priest Holmes, and Warren Moon, and supplementals like Cris Carter and Bernie Kosar.
Of course, there are reasons other than lack of perceived ability that would cause a good player not to be drafted, but it’s still interesting that some of these teams with the last overall pick could have taken a potential hall of famer with a little better scouting.
Well there’s also a larger sample set. Only 1 guy a year gets to be the last one in the main draft. 50 or 60 guys a year get into the league after that “last” pick. The draft certainly is an inexact science though. That’s how we wind up with Ryan Leaf a second pick and Tom Brady a 6th rounder.
The huge misses tend to stand out, though, and there have been some huge misses. Joe Montana was a third rounder. Dan Marino, although taken in the first round, was the fifth QB taken in his draft. Tom Brady was a sixth rounder. Brett Favre was a second rounder.
Course, Favre had to do a lot of changing to become a top QB. In Atlanta, IIRC, he had four passes, two interceptions, no completions, one pass returned for a TD, and a sack for an eleven yard loss. He was also noted as being a party animal who showed up hung over and slept in team meetings. So, some of it has to do with guys growing up after they get drafted.
Certainly. I meant it more as a curiosity than as a indictment of teams’ decision-making in the draft.
Players often land in the supplemental draft for reasons totally unrelated to playing ability. Cris Carter was left out of the draft because of an agent scandal (sounds familiar....) and Bernie Kosar was held out of the regular draft because he was technically an underclassman with two years of college eligibility left (even though he was going to graduate that summer) and failed to timely notify the league of his draft eligibility. Kosar’s case also involved a bidding war with the USFL and what looked like some collusion to allow Kosar to play for the team of his choice, his home town Browns (poor fool, but we love him for it).
Sometimes it really is lack of scouting, though. My favorite story is Antonio Gates. A basketball player for Kent State who hadn’t played football since high school, he was given a private workout with NFL scouts after he decided not to enter the NBA draft. Scouts noticed that his numbers, including his 40 and shuttle run times and his vertical leap, were good but not great for an NFL tight end. The Chargers scout, however, knew something that the other scouts didn’t - Gates was nursing a sprained ankle. The rest is history...
Yeah there’s a lot of oddball events that lead to where anybody gets drafted if at all. Going to the “wrong” college, having the wrong agent, showing up to the combine with a head cold or just a bad day. I don’t really pay attention to the draft since it’s such a crap shoot, the 4 years later report on Football Outsiders can be interesting though.
Exactly. I think a lot of it too has to do with the fact that the pro game is totally different from the college game in a lot of ways. The biggest difference is that a lot of players are able to dominate the college game through sheer athletic ability - they’re simply the strongest or fastest guy on the field. In the NFL, though, EVERYONE is strong and fast, and you have to play accordingly. There’s a reason the spread option offense - so increasingly popular in college - doesn’t work in the NFL. It’s tough to evaluate a guy’s talent by watching him play what is in many ways a different sport.
This is often true of running backs, where the NFL tends to reward grinding it out between the tackles instead of breaking loose big plays outside. One of the better examples is Reggie Bush. During his rookie year, he would often try to bounce plays outside, something he was successful at with USC because of his speed and agility. It never worked in the NFL because NFL tight ends and linebackers are often almost as fast and agile as he is. Bush turned out to be a success anyway because he was able to adapt and carve himself a niche in the Saints’ offense, but it quickly became apparent that he isn’t cut out to be an every down back in the NFL.
Your post got me to thinking about Mike Vick. When he started this year for the Eagles, for the first few games he was superman. What you said about the athletes being better is a big part of it, but also, there are only 32 teams, sixteen per conference and three others in your division. By the end of the season, these guys KNEW Mike Vick, and knew how to force him into mistakes.
The defenses in the NFL are not going to sit there and let a great player make plays. They're going to figure out a way to neutralize him. That's part of what happened with Bush. Those linebackers did not sit inside when their game film told them he bounced outside. With Vick, they figured out that you play coverage, keep outside contain and send a couple of guys in to knock the ever loving snot out of him if he tries to stay in the pocket and he turns into the old Mike Vick. The Packers did a nice job on Polamalu in the SB by forcing him into coverage and not letting him free range. They totally neutralized him.
You left out that Tight End from The Chargers.
Antonio Gates. Yeah, I talked about his story at post #9. It’s an interesting one.
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