FanPost

Jenkins Or Spencer




Let me be the first to say that I am very hopeful that Morris Claiborne becomes the best cb that we ever had. I hope that the draft that we just had makes us better. In fact, I'm sure that we will be better this year. But....

I am not happy with what could have been. Who would have been our first round pick at 14 and who would have been our second round pick?

The consequences of drafting Claiborne was obvious to me. Did Jerry & Jason not know what was predictable? That Jenkins would become disgruntled. It is my feeling that we saw an opportunity to get the best available player but was he the best player for us? I say no! The best player/players would have been to draft that 14th and 2nd round 45th pick. BTW, didn't we in essence trade Jenkins's positive attitude toward the Cowboys also to get him? Claiborne is not better than the right picks for what we needed. He is not worth giving up a second rounder to move up 8 spots. Those 2 players ended up being Michael Brockers and Alshon Jeffery. Of course, I know that we likely would not have drafted those 2 players but does anyone believe that Claiborne is of equal value of having those two guys? I hope our fans are smarter than that.

The reason I titled this post "Jenkins or Spencer" is because the trade up, in my opinion, represents the choice that we made. As stated earlier, the move up instantly alienated Jenkins. Jenkins was our best cb last year and battled through injuries the whole season to prove it. And how do we thank him? We make it clear that we are getting rid of him. Scandrick gets a deal. Carr, an outsider, gets a deal. And then we move up to get yet another cb.

But am I the only one who would prefer that we had not franchised Spencer and drafted an olb to replace him instead of drafting another cb? I'd rather have a Carr, Scandrick, Jenkins @ cb and Brandon Taylor at SS with Melvin Ingram playing in Spencer's spot. We could have had Melvin Ingram at 14 and still had a 2nd round pick for a cb or safety(Brandon Taylor). I'll bet that Ingram will be better than Spencer and MUCH CHEAPER....oh yeah..and yet again...we still have the 45th pick for too possibly take Brandon Taylor, LSU safety or a number of other players at safety. Maybe it's just me, but in lieu of the 10 million we lost from the salary cap. I'd much prefer to have Ingram at 3 mill per year than give Spencer 8.8 to continue to underachieve. And don't feed me the "good against the run" line.

Other 2nd round options: We could actually have drafted Alshon Jeffery at wr (the actual #45 pick). He would have been perfect to play outside with Miles in the slot in 3 wr's sets. We could have drafted Peter Konz to play center, another unsettled position.

I am sorry but I wrote this post because our fans are getting overly excited about Claiborne but it more likely that he is a symbol that we are continuing to make the wrong snap decisions. Ironically, everyone is claiming that we have changed. That we are making the sound decisions. But have we? Moving up to get the best player available is not yet who we are. We were not a playoff team that's one player away. Outside of Claiborne, we also reached for unknown players trying to prove that we are smarter than everyone else. For Example, Tyrone Crawford started all of 1 year at Boise, but Pittsburgh took Alameda Taamu, a 348 lb monster nose tackle for their 3-4 defense...after Crawford!!! Yet we still insist on playing a 287 nt in Ratliff!!!

I'm sorry but I can't get excited about drafting 1 well known player. I can see how this easily can be a draft of one player who in fact may be overrated. Claiborne is not Deion Sanders...SORRY...he is not!!!. Terence Newman was once our next Deion. He was never that. It is not that I don't want us to be happy and excited but when our fans are excited about what is likely to be a dumb move, it makes us just look dumb.

Melvin Ingram and Brandon Taylor both went to the Chargers. In fact, Taylor didn't even go in the second round. But I'd bet that we will wish we had them both along with a Happy-Jenkins at CB than Morris Claiborne, by this time next year. We'll also wish we had Taamu instead of Crawford. I honestly hope that I am wrong, but I know that I am right.

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