MadCardDisease, what Brad is saying is not that our WR corp is stronger than the rest of the league, it's not. He's saying compared to our team units, the WR corp is stronger than the rest. I agree with that.
If you took WR, RB's, QB's, DLine, OLine, LB's, TE, Secondary, and Special Teams and put them in order strongest to weakest, which would you put first?
It sure as hell wouldn't be anything on our defense.
That's the point those of use who are against taking a WR first round are desperately trying to make. We can get Evans, Woods, Clayton or Jenkins in the second round. Would they be as good as Fitz or Williams? Well, realistically, they could, we have no idea if Roy Williams is the next Desmond Howard or not, just like we don't know if Rashaun Woods is the next Quan. Even if the top 3 WR's are head and shoulders above the second tier WR's in the draft, drafting one of these second tier wideouts would improve our WR corp and the team as a whole.
Not only do we still not have a lockdown corner in the pass wackiest division in the NFL, but we don't even have a #1 corner. No, I don't count Starks, this isn't Madden '04 where you can just say "oh he's rated a 90, we're good to go", the man hasn't played in almost a season and a half. Macklin was a good addition but grabing a few tipped passes in one game (even though it happened to be the AFC Championship game) does not immediately make you a #1 corner.
We also talk about getting Winslow Jr. And the inevitable comparison to Shockey and Heap comes out. To that I say
A) The Baltimore offense sucked even with Heap, in fact they sucked so bad that it's probably why Heap gets so many grabs. Go to footballoutsiders.com, read about their efficiency ratings (they won't make sense unless you do) then look at the offensive efficieny ratings for the NFL in 2003, the one team worse than us is Baltimore. And thats WITH a 2000 yard rusher.
B) Shockey had another good year, and the Giants WR corp as a whole is probably a little better than ours. Their QB is better, and Tiki still produces yards despite having the fumbley bumblies. And guess what, despite the Giants offensive units being across the board better than ours (except Oline, they are both sad) the Giants still ended up 4-12 like us. Why? No special teams. Carolina basically made the playoffs and by extension the Super Bowl becuase of their clutch special teams.
Once you're done checking out the offensive efficiency ratings, take a look at the defensive efficieny ratings, IT MAKES OUR OFFENSIVE EFFICIENCY LOOK GOOD. We are dead last in defensive efficieny.
Do I even need to point out how our Oline is paid better than they play. McCown sacked 25 times in three starts (I know they didn't all come in the three starts), are you kidding me? Before you throw out the "Season was over" line, ask yourself if that's the kind of attitude you want protecting your QB.
And while we're talking about how our recievers don't have depth, tell me where we DO have depth. We have one FA starter on the DLine and a bunch of second stringers fighting for the rest of the starting spots. We have two solid LB's in Thompson and McKinnon. Unfortuneatly we don't know if one will be able to stay out of trouble and the other is getting old. Do we have suitable backups for these guys?
But no, we absolutely positively have to have Fitz at #3. Is anyone familiar with the Pythagorean Theory of Baseball? Where you can pretty much predict a teams record based on runs scored and allowed? Well, you can do it for football too. The formula is (points for)^1.82/((points for^1.82) + (points allowed^1.82))
Using this formula the projected record for AZ in 2003 was between 3-13 and 4-12. Which is magically how we did. Very rarely is this formula off by more than two games and is a great idicator of teams that either get lucky wins or win alot of close games (or don't win as often as they should). Case in point, Carolina points for and allowed projected to a 8-8 record. But because they were so clutch on Special teams (winning games by a mere few points because of them) they became one of the few teams in history to outscore their Pythagorean record by three games.
Now, let's suppose we take Fitz and now we have a top recieving corp. Let's also assume Fitz has his amazing streak continue of TD's, and for the hell of it lets say Boldin keeps pace this year with Fitz. Thats 16x7 + 8x7 more points scored. Let's also assume our defense sucks again this year and gives up as many points. Our projected record is now between 6-10 and 7-9, not bad.
Now, let's assume we don't take Fitz, but a second round wideout instead. This wideout gives us a modest 5 TD's this year and Bodin improves to let's say 12 TD's. That's 4x7 + 5x7 more points scored. Now let's assume instead of getting shelled for FOUR TD'S EVERY SINGLE GAME, like we averaged last year, we bring it down to only a 21 point beat down. That's 7x16 less points allowed. Suprise surprise. The projected wins is IDENTICAL.
The difference is, scenerio two is FAR more likely to occur than having two guys with 1 year NFL experience combined grabbing a combined 32 TD's
Scenerio two also assumes we still have a bad defense, just nowhere near as bad as last years.
Scenerio two would allow us to trade down, getting more picks and maybe even a player. Either way we can use the additional picks and player to improve defense (even less points scored) or pick up more offensive players who may not have the individual production of Fitz, but OVERALL will score us more points.
And the real sad thing is, we could trade down and STILL get either Williams.
But no, Fitz is the only answer.
I think I've ranted enough.
