Hurney

that's what I was thinking.

Here's another way to look at your list, pitch:

Starting O-line:

Wharton - 3rd round pick
Wahle - Free Agent
Hartwig - Free Agent
Unknown, either a pick or Bridges
Gross - 1st round pick.

The depth on the line is pretty much all draft picks.

TE:

King, Gaines - Draft picks

RB:

Foster, Williams, Shelton, Goings. ALL drafted.

FB:

Hoover - drafted.

WR:

Smitty - 3rd round pick
Keyshawn - free agent

QB:

Delhomme - Free Agent.

So on offense - 7 of 11 starters are draft picks. Most all of the depth is draft picks.

Defense:


DL:

Rucker - 2nd round pick
Jenks - 2nd round pick
Kemo - Free Agent
Peppers - 1st round pick

Most of the depth are draft picks, the exception being Lewis.


LB:

Davis - 1st round pick
Morgan - 1st round pick (or ) Seward - day 2 pick
Diggs - Free agent, Anderson - 3rd rounder.

Depth is mostly picks, we need another day 1 here I think.

Safety:

Minter - Pick
Salley - Pick

Need depth, likely will come in the draft.

CB:

Gamble - 1st round pick
Lucas - Free agent
Marshall - 2nd round pick

So that's either 7 or 8 starters are draft picks, and a great deal of the depth comes from draft picks.

Also - Diggs may lose out to Anderson.

If you look at last years 53 man roster, I believe that more than 35 of them were draft picks.

How does this compare leaguewide?

If I'm disapointed in anything the FO has done, it's develop the o-line. They've drafted and signed the shit out of guys, but haven't gotten anything to stick. Meadows, Brez, Nelson, etc. Ugly.

 

True, but at the same time we've let better players at the same position we drafted slide by also.

 

and that's somewhere we need to get better - 2nd especially (and obviously). There needs to be more "hit" and less "miss". But that the greater portion of the list says "gone" isn't critical.

Guys don't generally stay around that much past four years, and guys who are second day generally aren't expected to - you pay $600-800k for a backup who wasn't able to start in four years, to be a backup again?

 

Which isn't bad. Other than the money we "had to spend", which I'm still fine with. And I like our depth being young. You grow a line that way. Plus they're cheap.

And only one costs, and not an incredible amount.
Hoover and Goings were UDFA, but yeah. They're homegrown.

Yep. Which is part of why coaching left on O - we had an O that should've been mature and powerful.

And the D, as well, which is a point you made. Chances are, whoever succeeds Rucker will end up being a draft pick. Same with Morgan, and probably Minter.
We've groomed two OLB to start, have a third as depth. We've done well keeping a young D together - a D that was young in 2001.


Other than Butler, who I see little redeeming in at this point, and Anderson, who did show some promise, we weed out the crap if we draft the crap. Ellison, Nelson were disappointments, but they're gone. We're not holding their spots in hope they'll be something in two years.

In the case of Morgan, specifically, we kinda are.

 

Other than Peppers, have ANY Fox/Hurney draft picks ever made the pro bowl?

 

no, and that kinda blows.
They've made guys into Pro Bowlers - Rucker, Morgan, Jenkins, Smith (Muhammad had already been one). They've signed them - Wahle, Davis, Fields.

By logic, we should've gotten one out of Gross. Certainly haven't.

 

The reason you could blame JR is because Hurney should have never been our GM in the first place. We had Polian, who has built perennial powers, but JR had to go and promote his son instead of Polian, so Polian obviously left, and went and built a SB winner in Indy.

 

Not yet....Witherspoon was deserving.....Gamble, T. Davis, and Marshall all have potential......you could possibly add DeAngelo to that list.

However, I jugde by results on the field rather than number of Pro Bowls. For me its 2 NFC Championship games and 1 Super Bowl in the last 4 years and I'd take that every 4 years. Not many teams in the league have seen that level of success the last 4 years.

 

Everybody does it, the Panthers are no different...I'd be inclined to believe in the Curse of the Black Cat before blaming Hurney for the draft. There are a few teams that draft really well, others do it through FA. The Panthers are kind of on the fence, they tend to get players based on the roles they need filled and sometimes go for the lesser player. To me it's more philosophy within the entire organization than it is Hurney.

 

Imo we made a tactical error back in 1995 by deciding to try to win quick with old timers....I was always under the impression that was Polian's brainchild, with JR's support. I fault Polian for hindering the team's development because of that approach.

Polian has been in charge at Indy for 9 years and he should be given his props for winning it all. However, don't forget that going into this year, Indy was arguably the biggest playoff flop team in the entire NFL the last several years.

Now compare to Hurney's tenure taking over the team in 2002 after the 1-15 disaster. He's had 5 years to Polian's 9 and as been to 2 NFC Championships to Polian's 1 and each has been to 1 Super Bowl. Polian gets points for winning, but I sure don't see how you can put Polian's tenure in Indy ahead of Hurney's in Carolina.