JayhawkMike":3hxuc9n9 said:
I agree it is too early to put a final grade on Collier and Brooks. There are two ways to evaluate draft picks:
1. Did we draft them in the correct spot In the draft based on their perceived value at the time? The answer to both is absolutely not. Sure, a rumor or two always comes out that team X would have picked them if we hadn’t but those are just rumors and rarely verified, could we have drafted Collier a round or two later? Yes. Meaning we could have had a different and likely better first pick.
2. Performance on the field based on expected performance based on draft position. Collier so far has been a failure. Brooks is an incomplete. Yes, you can blame injuries but that means that the team is not taking that into account when drafting. Is there really any other team that keeps drafting players that lose significant time in Year one or two with early draft picks?
Time will tell. But there is no reason we have to wait to discuss the issues. Hence, a “forum”. The “shut up Pete and JS know what they are doing and we are all idiot fans who don’t know crap” crowd is pretty insufferable here at times.
Regarding point #1, you cannot answer that, and you certainly cannot deride "rumors" that come out about where a player would've gone, because the big boards and mock drafts you're basing the value of a player on are literally formed by rumors about players. That's what media-reported draft stock is. Rumors that come out AFTER the fact would be more accurate, not less, because smokescreening would be less advantageous.
Brooks was going no later than 33. You've got too many people saying it for it to be totally unfounded. Also, here's a take: Brooks is playing better football than Queen. It's an outrageously small sample size, but Brooks so far is better. Queen is raw, lost in coverage, but has made a couple splash plays inbetween. I've corroborated this with tape, PFF, and checking out Queen threads on Ravens forums.
Regarding point 2, sure. If you judge Collier for his full career including an injury-riddled waste of 2019, then he's been a bust. If you apply context and look at his play now where he's healthy, leaner, faster, versatile, and applying pressure at roughly the same rate as 2019 Quinton Jefferson, then the jury is very much so still out, and calling him a bust is a projection based on little concrete evidence.
P.S.
The only thing more tiring than people blindly defending the front office are the naysaying crowd that don't listen to reason.