Raise your hand if you were right

[Cugel]

How the hell does anybody know who's right at this point?

After his rookie season, everybody said that Mario Williams was a "bust" because he didn't set the world on fire immediately. Looks pretty damn good to everybody right now though.

Joe Staley should be a good LT in the future. Right now he's played moderately well as a rookie for a horrible team.

Meanwhile Moss was injured and didn't do much his rookie year.

This is like calling the election with 10 percent of the precincts counted! How about just waiting a bit and seeing how each player does this year? Hmmmn?

[Cutler2007]

Moreover, based on the percentages you mentioned (great find, by the way and I would appreciate the link as well), Staley gave up a whopping 9 sacks, while Pears, at 20% of the Broncos' 32 sacks gave up 6.5. Bear in mind now that Staley is a first-round pick whereas Pears was an undrafted fee-agent.

http://www.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=5474153

Hard to find stats on Oline, but stumbled across this.

Not going to argue the virtues of a player not on the Broncos (who cares right) I just feel that out of last years draft and this one, Staley is the 2nd best OT to come out only to Thomas and those that wanted us to take him saw the need for a top end LT and now we are in a position where we need to spend #12 pick to get one, when we could have got one last year at #21 and still had a third rounder this year.

One decision (and yes just my lowly opinion, a bad one) has put us in a bad spot this year.

[Mat'hir Uth Gan]

Well, everyone knows that I'm never one to toot my own horn or anything, but I was driving the Joe Staley bus long before anyone on these forums knew about him. We had an awful lot of debates last year about where in the draft he would go (I called it) and how good he would be (I called that too).

He was my preferred selection for the Broncos. Also, Mel Kiper in a recent chat said:

Mike Nolan (San Francisco): Is Joe Staley worthy of the 7th overall pick in this draft?

Mel Kiper: Yeah, I think he was. For this reason, how does he compare to Ryan Clady, Jake Long? He's shown real well. He could be a heckuva LT. He's as good as Clady, Long. I have no problem with that. The thing is the 49ers still have a first round pick.

From Mel Kiper's March 19th chat log:

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=19788

Let's play fun with quotations and history!

*Me on Feb. 6th, 2007, before the draft process was even underway, said this:*

Joe Staley will be a solid mid-late 1st round pick after the combine, and he fits our *type* of OT better then anyone in years. If he's there, and I think he will be, and nobody slips that shouldn't, I think he's the best value. He, Carriker, Landry, Nelson, or Griffin seem to be the value picks for that area. Most won't be there.

All things considered, I think Joe Staley is the safest and most likely pick.

To which my good buddy Mindfield said this:

I disagree with your assesment of Joe Staley; he really struggled at the Sr. Bowl and I don't see a whole lot of difference between him and Tony Ugoh. Both are developmental players with raw techniques but who are very good athletically. What this means to me is that they will both be second rounders, because neither is close to NFL ready at this point. But one of them should be there at our second round pick area.

Found at thread:

http://forums.denverbroncos.com/showthread.php?t=85310&highlight=Staley

[japfaff]

I doubt if Stayley would even be a first day Tackle this year let alone a first round. Plus you can also add in Baker from USC and Gosder from BC, and probably Gosder from Nebraska. This years tackle class is far superior to last years. Joe Thomas (who I think would be tops this year) is the only one that is better than this years top four (long, clady, williams, otah). Levi Brown would still carry a first round grade, but definatly not staley. As far as Moss, i think moving up was a mistake. i thought that the run on DE's was done and he would have slid to Denver...But I was and still am glad that they made the selection. I wish that the kid could stay healthy, but he did show some things last year in limited min. that make you see that this kid is a player? Also Harvey was nothing compared to Moss when they played together, and as prospects I would rather have Moss then harvey