purpleneer":1prgjqxu said:
KiwiHawk":1prgjqxu said:
Jerramy Stevens. I blame this one less on Holmgren than I do on Itula Mili. Mili was supposed to be the superstar tight end, but was injured most of the time. Then he had one decent season, so he held out the next year for more money. With Mili unreliable and a gaping hole at tight end, Holmgren pulled the trigger on Stevens, who was either going to be a super star or a head case, and turned out to be the latter. Had Mili not been such a flake or had Shurmur been there to advise, we would have drafted Ed Reed, and possibly launched a dynasty.
Whatever created the TE need, it existed. He went into the draft needing a starter there, had a preference (Graham), and missed him by trading down. And I won't say it's certain we don't draft Reed, but it's certainly wishful to assume we do and his career is as good on a team built extremely differently than those Ravens.
The Galloway part is true; he got lucky *allas gave that gift for the name, but he also didn't exactly take full advantage of the abundance of good first round picks.
I also doubt he ever would have truly allowed any sort of "defense-first" team building. Losing Shurmur hurt, but thinking he puts a bunch of resources to the D and makes a successful or even decent O on the cheap seems fantastical.
Actually the TE in that draft was Shockey, and with him gone, Daniel Graham and Jerramy Stevens were a coin flip so it wasn't worth standing pat since one would be available if we traded down. For what it's worth they had similar careers as well, which proves the coin flip but also shows neither were worthy of a first-round selection.
It's wishful thinking about Ed Reed, although I called it at the time because Reed was the reason for the success of Buchanan and Rumph (Miami's corners) who were also taken in the first. As we know, having an Earl Thomas can make your cornerbacks look amazing. Take them out of Seattle (Browner, Maxwell, etc.) and they don't look as good.
I disagree about the first round picks from the Galloway trade. While one of them eventually became Koren Robinson, who I grant was a sputter at best, the other one was Shaun Alexander who became Seattle's only league MVP.
The guys we took with our regular picks, though one was a trade via Green Bay, were Chris McIntosh (neck injury kiled his career, so difficult to determine what sort of a pro he could have been), and Steve Hutchinson who is one of the best guards ever to play the game.
So we weren't exactly bad at first-round picks (on the offensive side of the ball anyway).
