Why did John and Pete finally change their draft strategy to back to 2010/12?

[Scout]

The NFL landscape changes quickly within a few years.

Going back to fundamentals of team building is essential and also reveals that they had over valued many of the players at premium positions for a long time. Sometimes the best answer is the one staring you in the face.

 

[themunn]

McCloughan was here for our awful 2013 and 2014 (fired a week before, but his scouting would have factored into our draft plan) drafts. His influence is overblown.

The main difference between this year and every year since 2012 is this is the first time we have had picks in the top half of the draft since that period. It's as simple as that, easier to draft known commodities when they are still available when you pick...

 

[Sgt. Largent]

Lots of reasons, mainly Jody Allen sitting in the front row of the draft room.

I kid. I think Pete and John now have FAR more input from their new coaching staff and scouts helping them identify fits and needs. The staff is now full of young, bright and influential minds.

So no more getting cute and trading down to grab the next LJ Collier or McDowell, thus the drafting of far more sure thing players who had accomplished college careers at ONE position, and not the dumb "hey this guy's so versatile!" nonsense we've been hearing for the past 7-8 years.

Bottom line: Nail down your consensus philosophies in all three phases, and draft the best players that fit those positions.

That's what I saw this weekend.

 

[TwistedHusky]

The Irony is that drafting like this when we had a good/great team would have likely helped us progress farther in the playoffs, if not make one more run at a SB earlier.

Drafting for upside works. We have seen it work. It is just impossible to fill holes.

And then funny enough, now that we are near threadbare with a blatantly average roster (if not worse) we are leaving the approach for upside - which is the time you need it most...when you are looking to upgrade the overall talent level of a roster but don't care much where that talent manifests (ie not trying to upgrade any particular part, just happy to get difference makers and field tilters wherever you can)

So weirdly backwards. But I get it, we cannot afford to do an upside draft because we have to show progress this year to avoid bleeding fan interest any worse. Getting guys that will produce in 2-3 years isn't an option right now.

The interesting part of this is that choosing this strategy almost assures we will be bang average or worse moving forward. So we have that to look forward to.

 

[Sgt. Largent]

The Irony is that drafting like this when we had a good/great team would have likely helped us progress farther in the playoffs, if not make one more run at a SB earlier.

To be fair to John and Pete during those brief 3-4 years? Hard to draft for position of need when there are only a couple positions of need.

The problem was they KEPT drafting like their roster was stacked for years after looking for upside over proven players at position of need.

 

[TwistedHusky]

There were plenty of holes. We just tried to fill them with FAs, guys off the street, pizza deliverymen, guys that never played the position, etc.

However, you are right. Drafting for upside instead of need squandered several years we could have made playoff runs but for gaping holes.
(Remember when we got rid of our productive long snapper in order to draft some athletic snapper because he could also play special teams? that was a nightmare. We had a lot of guys that could not play being shoved into positions they needed to learn...at a time we just needed someone solid in that position. Quite a few on the OL, the gap that Irvin left when he left, I imagine there were 6-7 that really hurt us. Remember when we were having Richard Sherman and freaking Earl Thomas return punts because we never bothered to just get a punt returner? I was vocally pissed because we kept Procise, when we needed to keep that kid who returned punts. He wasn't going to be a great RB but he was a good returner and that was what we needed. The resulting short fields from bad returns probably almost certainly cost us key playoff position if not home field playoff opportunity.

We had plenty of holes. We just never filled them or filled them with people that really were not prepared for that role.)