MacMahon: Why were Cowboys high on Hitchens?

Can't discuss this year's draft until 3 years down the road. Can't discuss the 2011 draft because it's water under the bridge.
 
Kbrown said:
Can't discuss this year's draft until 3 years down the road. Can't discuss the 2011 draft because it's water under the bridge.
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Who said you can't discuss the draft? All I said is for me I see no point in lamenting over what has already been done. You guys can discuss it all you want.
 
jsmith6919 said:
If Hitchens was picked as late as Brady was this wouldn't be an issue
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That may very well be valid, I'm just saying you can't know when you haven't even see him in a single practice. But some people make statements with such certainty that this was a bad pick or that was a bad pick when it hasn't even had a chance to play out.

If the guy ends up being a 16 game stater that makes All Pro, it was a good pick no matter where it was acquired.
 
hstour said:
That may very well be valid, I'm just saying you can't know when you haven't even see him in a single practice. But some people make statements with such certainty that this was a bad pick or that was a bad pick when it hasn't even had a chance to play out.

If the guy ends up being a 16 game stater that makes All Pro, it was a good pick no matter where it was acquired.
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He may very well turn out to be decent though he looks like a st/career backup to me, that he was drafted based on our mid round drafting strategy of whichever coordinator yells the loudest is the stigma that's attached to him though fair or not
 
You should play fantasy football with LT Fan and hstour.

"For my first pick, I'll take Baltimore Defense."
 
VA Cowboy said:
That explains it. You'd obviously have no problem if they just picked names out of a hat. That's cool. But some of us realize that draft should be about rating the players and selecting the best ones first. But hey, why fret over details.
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I will say this though, some people get way too wrapped up in draft magazines and Mel Kiper's ratings. We see a bunch of draft sites rating a guy as a sixth or seventh round pick and we all immediately freak out like he is a huge reach in the fourth. What we need to understand are those draft sites aren't even close to accurate depictions of any individual teams draft boards. Half the NFL will have a guy rated as a third round pick and the other half may have the same player as a UDFA.

Not saying that I expected Hitchens to go in the fourth round but I'm also not going to say he was going to go undrafted simply because Mel Kiper had him rated there. In recent history Dallas has done a pretty good job rating LBers. So if Dallas gave the guy a third round rating and took him in the fourth I'm completely ok with it. Now if we gave him a fifth round rating we have problems.
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
I will say this though, some people get way too wrapped up in draft magazines and Mel Kiper's ratings. We see a bunch of draft sites rating a guy as a sixth or seventh round pick and we all immediately freak out like he is a huge reach in the fourth. What we need to understand are those draft sites aren't even close to accurate depictions of any individual teams draft boards. Half the NFL will have a guy rated as a third round pick and the other half may have the same player as a UDFA.

Not saying that I expected Hitchens to go in the fourth round but I'm also not going to say he was going to go undrafted simply because Mel Kiper had him rated there. In recent history Dallas has done a pretty good job rating LBers. So if Dallas gave the guy a third round rating and took him in the fourth I'm completely ok with it. Now if we gave him a fifth round rating we have problems.
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Yep. Like somebody mentioned earlier, people would have been perfectly happy if we had taken guys like Jackson Jeffcoat or Kelcy Quarles in the 3rd or 4th. Hell, I was one of them. Mainly because of what we read about them from so-called draft experts in the months leading up to it. Certainly not because we scouted them like it was our jobs. But the people that count, the 32 teams, didn't agree with us. But that will easily be forgotten...
 
There's something to be said for brand recognition, it gives a certain peace of mind if the 10-20 "experts" that put out their guides and do this for a living give their thumbs up.
On the other hand if ALL these same "experts" rate him as an UDFA... It would be different if you had at least 1 who considered him a 4th rounder, or he was from an obscure college that might have been overlooked by most, but his LB mates were constantly scouted and rated above him. With all these guys watching so much tape on Kirksey he should have jumped out to someone...
 
Kbrown said:
Can't discuss this year's draft until 3 years down the road. Can't discuss the 2011 draft because it's water under the bridge.
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Yep..that's been the case ever since I first began posting on the net over 15 years ago. Its always either too early to judge or its "beating a dead horse. "
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
I will say this though, some people get way too wrapped up in draft magazines and Mel Kiper's ratings. We see a bunch of draft sites rating a guy as a sixth or seventh round pick and we all immediately freak out like he is a huge reach in the fourth. What we need to understand are those draft sites aren't even close to accurate depictions of any individual teams draft boards. Half the NFL will have a guy rated as a third round pick and the other half may have the same player as a UDFA.

Not saying that I expected Hitchens to go in the fourth round but I'm also not going to say he was going to go undrafted simply because Mel Kiper had him rated there. In recent history Dallas has done a pretty good job rating LBers. So if Dallas gave the guy a third round rating and took him in the fourth I'm completely ok with it. Now if we gave him a fifth round rating we have problems.
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I would agree that the Cowboys know more than every other draft expert/prognosticator if these types of discrepancies have historically proven the Cowboys to be right. But Ive seen too many Stanbacks, AOA's, Arkins, Brewsters, etc etc over the last 20 years to where we dont deserve the benefit of the doubt when a player is taken 2+ rounds higher than the overwhelming consensus has him rated.j
 
VA Cowboy said:
But Ive seen too many Stanbacks, AOA's, Arkins, Brewsters, etc etc over the last 20 years to where we dont deserve the benefit of the doubt when a player is taken 2+ rounds higher than the overwhelming consensus has him rated.j
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If he was a small schooler that I'd never heard of like those guys I would agree. Or just a crazy convert such as moving a QB to WR. I actually am very familiar with Hitchens and he comes from a school and conference that puts some excellent LBers in the NFL. This isn't the same bullshit gem find from Ball State.

Also 90 percent of the so called experts are just tweaking what the other ones say. What it comes to is that a lot of NFL teams weren't conveying to the experts their love of Hitchens.
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
If he was a small schooler that I'd never heard of like those guys I would agree. Or just a crazy convert such as moving a QB to WR. I actually am very familiar with Hitchens and he comes from a school and conference that puts some excellent LBers in the NFL. This isn't the same bullshit gem find from Ball State.

Also 90 percent of the so called experts are just tweaking what the other ones say. What it comes to is that a lot of NFL teams weren't conveying to the experts their love of Hitchens.
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The fact he was from a Big Ten school like Iowa is even bigger reason to agree with the consensus. It's not like he snuck through the crack from obscurity and we out-scouted everyone.

I also would be interested in seeing info showing other teams having him rated as high as the Cowboys. So far I've just seen a vast majority of projections having him as a 6th round to UDFA.
 
There may be some exaggeration as to where Hitchens was rated to go. After we picked Frederick a ton of articles was saying he was rated in the third round, when mostly I was seeing second round.
 
VA Cowboy said:
The fact he was from a Big Ten school like Iowa is even bigger reason to agree with the consensus. It's not like he snuck through the crack from obscurity and we out-scouted everyone.
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That's the point. We didn't necessarily out scout anyone. We out scouted Mel Kiper and Todd McShay. We have no idea what the other 31 NFL teams thought about the player.

I also find it funny how the Iowa LBers always seem to go higher then the TV experts have them rated. It happens every year. Pat Angerer went similary far higher in the draft then experts were projecting. In fact he ended up going in the second round to the Colts. AJ Edds in that same draft went in the fourth round when many were projecting him as a 7th/undrafted LBer. Kirksey went higher this year then experts projected.

It seems like NFL evaluators tend to give the Iowa LBers far more love then the TV experts.
 
Cowboysrock55 said:
That's the point. We didn't necessarily out scout anyone. We out scouted Mel Kiper and Todd McShay. We have no idea what the other 31 NFL teams thought about the player.
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You keep acting like it's only Kiper and McShay, but I've yet to see anyone else have him higher than the 6th round.

I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for once the Cowboys are right and everyone else is wrong, at least everyone who has publicly rated prospects.
 
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