First, almost no draft can be fairly judged until at least three years down the road, so you can see what the players picked have contributed in a reasonable sample size. So the fact that we’ve retained so many players from the last two years is meaningless…we’ve retained those players because a) the team hasn’t evaluated them yet, b) the team has not been very good for the last couple of years so the fact that a player is holding a roster spot does not necessarily mean that this player is any good, and c) it gives us a chance to see if any of the players we didn’t like were picked up by anyone else.

So now is probably the year that we can render a final verdict on the 2005 draft and start evaluating the 2006 draft. For 2005, our draft was pretty pitiful. We came out of it with Derrick Johnson (a very solid linebacker) and Dustin Colquitt (a punter we selected in the 3rd round) and that’s it out of nine picks. Both of them have been very solid, but punters are not particularly difficult to find in the NFL (although Colquitt is certainly among the best) and Johnson has been a good starter but has not been a dominating player (which may or may not change this year). Will Svitek hung around for a few years but he was a backup for one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL and couldn’t get any serious playing time so I don’t think you can argue that he was anything more than a scrub and we finally dumped him this year. Boomer Grigsby was a sub-par linebacker and fullback and was notable only because people found him amusing. The rest of the 2005 draft was a complete waste.

For 2006 we cut ties with Tre Stallings (a guy who couldn’t secure a starting job on a rotten offensive line). Marcus Maxey was a cornerback we dumped before the 2006 season was even finished. Jeff Webb hasn’t yet proven he’s an NFL caliber wide receiver. Tamba Hali has yet to prove that he’s capable of being a standout defensive end (which is what you need from a first-round pick). Brodie Croyle has yet to prove he’s starting material. Bernard Pollard’s been solid (sometimes even better than that) and has shown continual improvement and Jarrad Page was a steal in the 7th round, so they’re keeping the 2006 draft respectable for now, but if Croyle and Hali don’t make big improvements this year this draft goes from good to terrible pretty quick.

Still far too early to start seriously analyzing the 2007 or 2008 drafts.