Wow, Vilma has been around 2 years, played his butt off and he is being persecuted. I do not really care for the Pro Bowl, but he did make it. But if you watch week after week, this guy is pleasure to watch and will be one of the great linebackers in the game for years to come. Average is certainly not a word that comes to mind when speaking about Vilma.
See the difference with your HO champ is that you try to inforce it as the "correct" manor of thinking. When, generally speaking, 90% of the board thinks you're completely wrong. Before you say Vilma is only average again, what would a player have to do in his first two years to be considered "good" by you? To play things your way, compare Vilma's first two seasons to the first two seasons of LT, Butkus, Ray Lewis, etc... and get back to us. It takes time to develope into a HOF caliber player, it just doesn't happen the first time you step on an NFL field. By the way, the pro bowl is a popularity contest, if it was only coaches and players who voted, the probowl rosters would look quite different. Its just like prom king and queen way back in high school.
half the "late round selections" you mentioned were day-1 picks. Two of them 2nd-rounders at that. Rhodes was a 4th-rounder which is not "late" Or is everything after the first round a late-rounder? Rhodes = 4th round Hobson = 2nd round (and is decidedly NOT a "gem" for a 2nd-rounder) Miller = 2nd round McKenzie = 3rd round And Reed is hardly a "gem". Coleman was an excellent pick (or he seemed so in 2004), but an early 5th-rounder is borderline-at-best to be considered a "late-rounder". "Late" picks are very-bottom 5th-round and the 6th/7th rounds. Bradway's drafts: 1st-rounders: - Moss (also cost a 4th) - Thomas - Robertson - Robertson (he cost 2 first rounders, and a 4th) - Vilma - [Nugent + Jolley + Houston] 2nd-rounders: - Jordan - McGraw - Hobson - (McCarriens, with a $31M contract) - (Nugent) - Miller 3rd-rounders: - McKenzie - Baker - Askew - Strait - Pouha 4th-rounders: - (nothing; traded for Moss) - Henderson - Harper - (nothing; traded w/2 1sts for DRob) - Jones - Rhodes (also cost a 6th) 5th-rounders: - Reed - Goodwin - Walters - Coleman - Maddox 6th-rounders: - Peko - Bollinger - Cavka - Houston - Driessen 7th-rounders: - Yovanovits - Washington - Ward - Johnson - McClover - Williams
So Bradway has had the opportunity to use 28 draft picks after the 2nd round. TWENTY-EIGHT, from the 3rd-round onward. Out of 28 picks, he has found 4 (FOUR!!!) players who were starters within 3 years: - McKenzie - Jones - Rhodes - Coleman from the 5th-round on, he has had 17 picks to work with & came away with exactly 1 starter, Eric Coleman. Reed is not a real starter. He's a backup finally thrust into the starting role his 5th season b/c Bradway didn't acquire anyone else to put in there after Ferguson was not re-signed. Judging by these #'s, I'd say that any decent picks he had could just as easily be attributed to the law of averages as Bradway scouting & finding "gems".
JV will always be average cause he is to small & not strong enough to contend with with the other sides larger lineman. Plain & simple that is the problem with JV. No matter if you dislike what I said or not you will see he will NEVER leave his mark on the NFL which then makes him just average. Also I think right now if we put him on the block we would get less then what we drafted him out in return.
LT and Butkus blow away Vilma's first two years. Vilma shouldn't ever be used in the same sentence as those two players. LT was first team all pro his rookie year. He was the NFL Defensive player of the year in his first two years. Butkus besides being the single most feared defensive player maybe in NFL history had 5 INT and 7 fumble recoveries in his rookie year. Vilma makes tackles LT and Butkus forced offenses to change their approach to the game. Vilma is a very good player, he isn't even close to being what LT or Butkus were and frankly Ray Lewis isn't either but at least Ray Lewis was the anchor to one of the great all time defenses that carried a team to a SB. I disagree with Champ that Vilma is a JAG he is an excellent LB. He is not anywhere near the guys you mentioned who played at HOF level from the first day they steped on the football field.
Just food for thought. Here's who KC drafted while Terry was scouting players for them (1993-2000). Over this span, there were 60 players drafted. Now he wasn't the GM actually pulling the trigger on the picks, but for much/all of this time he was their chief scout (Bradway spent 3 years with Peterson in the USFL from 1983-1985). Round 1 1994 RB Greg Hill 1995 OT Trezelle Jenkins 1996 DB Jerome Woods 1997 TE Tony Gonzalez 1998 OT Victor Riley 1999 OT John Tait 2000 WR Sylvester Morris Round 2 1994 RB Donnell Bennett 1996 DB Reggie Tongue 1997 WR Kevin Lockett 1999 RB Mike Cloud 2000 DB William Bartee Round 3 1993 OG Will Shields 1994 WR Lake Dawson 1994 WR Chris Penn 1995 WR Tamarick Vanover 1995 LB Troy Dumas 1996 DE John Browning 1998 RB Rashaan Shehee 1999 LB Gary Stills 1999 DB Larry Atkins 2000 DB Gregory Wesley Round 4 1993 LB Jamie Fields 1994 DB Bracey Walker 1995 QB Steve Stenstrom 1996 LB Donnie Edwards 1997 QB Pat Barnes 1998 LB Greg Favors 1999 WR Larry Parker 2000 RB Frank Moreau Round 5 1993 G Lindsay Knapp 1994 DB James Burton 1994 DT Rob Waldrop 1995 DT Mike Pelton 1995 LB Jerrott Willard 1996 WR Joe Horn 1997 RB June Henley 1998 DB Robert Williams 2000 RB Dante Hall 2000 DB Patrick Dennis Round 6 1993 RB Darius Turner 1994 RB Anthony Daigle 1995 DT Bryan Proby 1995 OC Tom Burndt 1996 WR Dietrich Jells 1996 WR Philip Riley 1997 WR Isaac Byrd 1998 DE Derrick Ransom 2000 OG Darnell Alford Round 7 1993 WR Danan Hughes 1994 QB Steve Matthews 1994 TE Tracy Greene 1996 OC Beny Lynch 1996 OC Jeff Smith 1996 DB Darrell Williams 1997 OT Nathan Parks 1998 DB Eric Warfield 1998 RB Ernest Blackwell 1999 OG Eric King 2000 WR Desmond Kitching TOTALS: ------- QB's: 3 RB's: 10 WR's: 12 TE's: 2 OT's: 4 OG's: 4 OC: 3 ------- DE's: 2 DT's: 3 LB's: 6 DB's: 11
Its a problem all that argue with champ will always have. Champ grades players as HOF'ers and then average. We have been down this road many a time. There really is no in between. The problem with champs arguements have always been that if the Jets have shitty players..and a shitty gm...and a shitty coach..that usually takes you to shitty places. Something in his arugement is very flawed because the Jets were able to go to the playoffs 3 out 4 years at one point. He will then argue back that the playoffs arent winning the superbowl and it means nothing. Valid point..but not the way you judge performances. If that were the case this past year you had one great great team (Steelers) and the rest of the teams sucked. Thats the way champ sees it. My personal arguement with him is that you cant have your cake and eat it too. One of the above 3 things couldnt be correct. I always told him i thought the Jets have very good talent...but a horrible HC. That would never fly for him. Champ makes some very good points...but arguing with him whether a player is average or above average or very very good..or excellent...you might as well bang your head against the wall for a couple hours and then try to look in the mirror for answers. Its not happening.
Man why are you such a broken record? You've repeated the same exact things the last 2 days...Don't you get tired of hearing yourself over and over again?
If we had above average players in my HO I would say so. JV is not one of them nor is JMaC or DeW or Reed or SE or Jolly or LC or CP just to name some others who are not game changing players. Against his peers JV could not make it to the PB without Zach dropping out. I would suspect that if we placed JV on the trading block today he would bring us only a lower draft choice then when we drafted him. That means the rest of the league sees JV in the same way I do sorry to say. That is why I say he is just average. He will never/ever make the LT catagory so that is another reason why I say he is average. As a example if you watched closely enough last season you would have seen he was constantly being beaten by his man on passing plays . Of his 300 or so tackles how many were for losses? How many were for no gain? How many were for gains of 1-5 yards? How many were for gains over 6yards? I am sure you will find if you do the analysis that the over 6 will be in the majority then will come 1-5 then no gains & finally losses. That means he does not recongize the play fast enough to get to the hole to stop the runner before he chalks up yards against us
Not attacking you at all Ecko, but JV is a billion times better than James Farrior. He is better now, and his career will be better in the end too.
