People have to remember that draft day deals like these aren't about trading players for players, but about trading picks. It was a great trade for both teams. For Cleveland, it was the kind of trade down scenario you dream of. Sometimes picks don't work out. Taylor was a very nice DT prospect. Weeden was dumb though.
Julio Jones is one of the elite WRs in the game. His career is just getting started, but if he retired tomorrow he'd probably have added more value to his team than the typical careers you would get out of the picks Atlanta gave up. Most teams are not like Seattle and struggle to add impact players after the 1st wave of talent runs off in the late-middle part of the first round, and Atlanta's two firsts they gave up were both late 1sts. Atlanta basically gave up a bunch of 2nd and 3rd tier talents to get a guy who might be in the HoF when it's over. And given how bad Atlanta's coaches were at developing non-elite talents, it made sense for them to give up five half court shots in exchange for a layup.
Atlanta's real problem is that they became too finesse, and part of that was from Mike Smith's inability to inspire or command respect. Dimitroff struck me as an average drafting GM who was betrayed by a lousy coaching staff that couldn't develop anybody. It wouldn't shock me at all if they bounce back very quickly with Dan Quinn.
Holmgren built a nice defense in Cleveland, but made some awful decisions on offense. I think his biggest mistake was not bringing in a veteran to play QB, with guys like Matt Hasselbeck, Tarvaris Jackson, Matt Cassel, and Alex Smith hitting UFA during his tenure. Holmgren also passed on Ryan Tannehill, Brock Osweiler, Nick Foles, and Russell Wilson in the 2012 draft.
ukeface:
