re: Looks like the Falcons coulda had Gurley and a better DE than Beasley

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You consistently compare Beasley to Mack as the standard. So, you are predicting Mack second year numbers for second year Beasley? If not quit comparing them as it is Mack's second year improvement on which your argument rests.

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I already explained they play different positions, so no I was NOT directly comparing them.

My point was clear that bleak rookie numbers are not always definitively indicative of future performance, and Mack is a shining example of this. No prediction was made by me or even needs to made to make that point. Several of the vocal detractors in this thread have clearly suggested that the #8 pick not being a superstar from day 1 means it was a bad pick. My point is look at Mack to see that making such a definitive statement is dumb.

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Also, Freeman was probably the surprise player of the year, so any discounting of Gurley has absolutely nothing to do with Freeman.

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Who "discounted" Gurley? I certainly didn't.

My point with this was that if we would have picked Gurley, as some folks here have suggested, we'd be sitting on two superstar RB's, which would mean one of them is being wasted and/or we were less than optimally efficient with our picks.

I'm not using hindsight or claiming Freeman was a known commodity. I'm stating what the end result would have actually been if we picked Gurley. If Gurley were on the Falcons right now, we would in fact have two superstar elite RB's, and likely not know that Freeman is as good as he is. And, we'd be even worse off at pass rush. We have absolutely no idea who we would have picked in the second round and if they would be better than Beasley.

And lastly, it has already been established that Quinn and Pioli have more to do with player scouting and evaluation now than Dimitroff. TD is the football operations guy more than he is the lead on draft selection anymore. Blank held press conferences explaining this. Hence why everyone the entire offseason was asking why keep him then if he's not going to have final say on personnel. Remember this? It was pretty widely discussed and questioned.