saintswhodi

Kool, I guess we aren\'t coming to a consensus on this one. I look at the teams that are good now and I see recently where they were bad. Cycles can vary from team to team based on front offices and coaching. If a team has a run of good coaches, they may be able to maintain a high level with a minimum of lulls. But the lull comes. I still don\'t see an example of a team this hasn\'t happened for. From the 90s on, at the heights of free sgency and the cap. Except mainly us that is, cause we keep floundering down the same road. If we weren\'t 9-7 3 years ago, here\'s who we could have: Mike Vick, Ladanian Tomlinson, Dam Morgan, Nate Clements, Casey Hampton, Santana Moss. If we weren\'t 7-9 a year later we could have had: David Carr, Julius Peppers, Bryant McKinnie, Roy Williams(Dallas), or Dwight Freeney. If we don;t go 8-8 the next year we could have, Carson Palmer, Andre Johnson, Dewayne Robertson. Dominant players that were the difference between being mediocre, and being just plain down in any one of those years. SO I see a HUGE difference between picking 16th and picking 5th. That cycle means a lot to me cause it shows you don\'t have to be down long to get better. But if you stay where we are, you continue to draft middle of the road players with middle of the road attributes and reach for others.

JKool

Whodi,

I actually think that we aren\'t disagreeing at all.

I agree that teams will have lulls (some longer than others and some sooner than others). What I\'m saying is that having a lull isn\'t necessarily the key to getting better. If someone could tell me how long a lull should be if no mistakes are made during it, then maybe I\'d buy that it is a causal factor 0 as at least we could make predictions and analyze why it didn\'t happen. However, since lulls seem to happen all of the sudden and not at regular intervals, I don\'t see how one can call claim they are much of a factor in making a team better. Here is a rough analogy: if I were to say that all teams go through shmulls every so often and that after they do, they get better, could anyone refute this? Teams get better and worse somewhat periodically, so my shmull theory is as good as the lull theory. Thus, I suggest this idea of lulls and cyclicality should be fleshed out or dropped.

Importantly though, you and I agree to these things being the key to getting better: (1) good drafting (independent of how high a draft pick is, getting value is key), (2) good free agency (which has nothing to do with one\'s previous record), (3) good coaching (which has nothing to do with one\'s previous record), (4) retaining good players (which has little to do with one\'s previous record), (5) developing the players on the team (which has nothing to do with one\'s previous record), (6) solid game planing for the players you have (which has nothing to do with one\'s previous record), and (7) execution by the players (which has nothing to do with one\'s previous record). Thus, I was trying to say that one\'s record the year before (i.e. having a lull) has very little or nothing to do with becoming a good to great team the following year.

Furthermore, for every great player in the top 5 there is a bust. Also, here are some of the players we got outside of the top five (in fact, in the range that we will be picking): Naeole (10), McAllister (23), Turnbull (14), Stallworth (13), Smith (18). It seems to me that we CAN make a difference in our position with these picks. Also consider some of our stellar picks: Molden (11), Sullivan (6), Rickey (5) - though I\'m willing to say this wasn\'t too bad a pick,

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks