Who is the best player taken in round 1 2004 draft?

stopped reading after fitz

crazy # of miami u players here huh

this is probably the best draft of the decade?

at least the best 1st rd, the rest just at a quick browse isnt that hot

superstars/franchise players:

eli, fitz, rivers, big ben, steven jackson

perennial pro bowlers:

vilma, wilfork

solid nfl starters:

winslow, dunta, evans, dj williams, will smith, vernon carey, michael jenkins

promising careers derailed by freak injury/death:

udezi, sean taylor

tommie harris also was really good but can't stay healthy & i guess shawn andrews is a starter? i can't remember if he got benched or not

his backs been screwed up, i dont think he was benched iirc

it's kinda funny/weird how the mid-decade redskins were like the lions of safeties

I am kinda torn. I never ever watch the Rams, so all I know of Steven Jackson is that he is productive even when nobody else on the team is any good. I like Rivers the most of the three QBs (I guess four QBs, but LOL @ JP Losman), but this is mostly just personal style preference. Fitz in comparison to the other WRs in the league stands out more than Rivers/Manning/Roethlisberger do against Peyton et al, but I value QBs more than WRs.

Aaaaghhhh this is hard.

fitz, no question

Big Ben = 2 rings. I guess that makes a difference, and he's a pretty good anchor when the Steelers are playing well. But for showmanship, talent and seemingly unhuman abilities, Fitzgerald wins this easy.

steven jackson

yeah, it kinda defies reason how Steven Jackson has stayed productive. my homer pick would be big Vince, and he's not too far off, but i have to vote Jackson. him and Fitz over the QBs anyway.

i went with rivers.

shawn andrews is just a headcase, iirc his back was fine this year

gallery's actually become one of the league's best guards

marcus tubbs was good, but he's out of the league now - injuries just sent him off the rails

ahmad carroll and rashaun woods are both out of the league now, and michael clayton isnt but should be

tommie harris was pretty dominant for a couple seasons there, but injuries seem to have taken away all his explosiveness, now he's Just A Guy

eli, for always and ever, because of just one game.

gotta be fitzgerald

tho, put steven jackson on the right team and who knows

rivers or fitz, i can't decide yet

even as a UM fan, i'd say these ^^^^^^^ -- or rothlesberger -- are the choices.

jackson's a great player but i think the only running back i would choose in one of these polls over the last ~10 years is ldt

and even then i don't know who else was drafted that year

i think you could make a p good case for AP in 07

revis

then a.p. not a great draft i think?

revis, thomas, willis, beason - you could make an argument for AP over any of them tho imo

jackson is obv great, but i don't think he's head and shoulders over the best RBs -- say a pete & chris johnson. the only person who comes close to fitz imo is andre johnson

what do yall think about the raiders picks in the first round in the 2000s? obv the heyward-bey thing was good for some laughs, but for as much shit as they take they ended up taking a few guys who were near unanimous can't miss prospects: gallery, russell, mcfadden. heyward-bey & michael huff are really the only two that sort of stunk right from the get go. did they get unlucky or do they just suck at developing players?

bit of both

well i think there was some consensus at the time that russell needed development--between his attitude and the raiders org it's safe to say he'll never live up to potential. would he have in another org? no idea.

can't remember what gallery's problem was (tho i'm sure ade does) but yes he was extremely well-regarded.

fwiw the raiders can take some credit for making him into a good guard

mcfadden was one of the best RBs of the decade in college, and not in a ron dayne/mike hart way where you knew he just wasn't gonna make -- dude was a fucking beast

mcfadden got hurt pretty quick, and then got buried by tom cable for no reason i'm aware of.

i assume he'd have been successful in a better situation

Of the skills guys, Fitzgerald is the only one you can argue as about the best at his position. The QBs are good, but they have others above them. The RB are good, but maybe not the best...Larry Fitzgerald was pretty much the best reciever in the game for a year or so (maybe fell off a slight bit this year).

yeah that's true -- looking back at their later rounds, they didn't develop damn near anyone in rounds 2-3 -- they kinda struck gold with nnmadi at the end of the first, and louis murphy could turn out to be pretty productive moving forward

it would be interesting to me to instead of looking at which nfl teams produced the most busts, which college programs produced the most busts

that would be a great study

whoa, when was russell a near unanimous cant miss prospect? i think he might literally be the most predictable bust in the history of the amateur draft... i didn't know a single person who thought he was going to succeed in the nfl, much less that he would be worth a first rounder.

like, LSU has had hella washouts this decade -- maybe not more than any other team tho i guess

i should've reworded re: russell to say not that he was a unanimous can't miss, but that any team picking #1 overall that year with any sort of QB deficiency would've selected him

jamarcus russell would've been a terrible football player no matter what situation he was in - i feel as confident about this as anything i've ever said. anyone who paid attention to SEC football could see that he was a joke, just a fat guy with a big arm and a terrible work ethic who would be a worthless pro - i wouldnt have taken him in the 7th round, and any team that had him near the top of their board should be named and shamed

that was absolutely not a great draft if you needed a quarterback

mcfadden's an interesting case - i can remember before the draft there were a decent number of people who had jonathan stewart ranked higher than him because he appeared to have a better pro skill-set. personally, i just didn't know what to make of mcfadden, he had - and has - one of the weirdest combinations of body types and skill-sets that i've ever seen at the position. huge guy but he can't break tackles, really skinny legs, stiff laterally but super explosive vertically - just a weird player and very difficult to project. i'm not really high on him going forward, but at the same time i wouldn't be comfortable writing him off either.

also, LF is a delightful person

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"which college programs produced the most busts"

Considering how many yards they put up in college, pretty much all of Spurrier's QBs had about as much success in the NFL as he did.

Jeff Tedford coached alot of QBs into the pros, but so far only Aaron Rogers has turned into a Probowl caliber player (and he got the benefit of a couple of years on the bench).

All of those U of Houston QBs were huge flops.