Was I the only one hoping for a loss

[andrews31cain21 460]

I for one care a whole lot more about getting a good draft pick than I care about breaking the back to back winning seasons "curse." A high draft pick sets us up for future success more than meaningless wins in a season where we can't make the playoffs anyway. 6-10 would have gotten us in the top ten in the draft. 9-7 would get us the 20th pick or so. There is a significant talent gap between 10 and 20 in the draft. 20 means we are out of the running for guys like CB Joe Haden, OT Trent Williams, and DE Derrick Morgan. There is no elite talent at positions of need for us at 20.

Before anyone numbnuts come with the predictable "any real fan will want to win" comment, please remeber that real fans want the best for their team. I think there is no significance in going 9-7 rather than going 6-10. Hopefully we lose these last two and at least get a top 15 pick. Worse case scenarion (which I believe will happen) is we go 8-8, don't break the curse, and don't get a high pick.

AFMB really should give IQ test to everyone who applies for a screen name..seriously

[yesmann 46]

Dude, it is a total crapshoot. The real question is how you evaluate the talent available. If the draft wasn't such a crapshoot, then why do teams like the Raiders, Rams, and Browns continue to draft high, yet continue to miss on those picks. At the same time, teams like the Steelers, Colts, and Pats continue to draft in the late 20s, and somehow continue to find excellent players.

The high teams continue to draft high because they are terrible organizations. They would still lose if they swapped their top ten picks for later round picks. In fact, they would be even worse. If the good teams swapped their late round picks for high picks, they would be even better. The draft is not a crapshoot. Crapshoot means a later pick has the same liklihood of being good as a high pick. This isn't the case. High picks tend to be better players than low picks. That's why high picks are so valuable. It would take a second round pick to trade from 20 to 10 because 10 is a much more valuable slot.

I would beg to differ. Think about the start of this year. The team came out of the gate winning 4 out of their first five before the injuries began to mount.

The hot start had more to do with the teams we played. The schedule was easy at the start.

Dude, you don't read much. Any GM worth his salt will tell you that for the money involved, a pick in the early in the second round is a MUCH better value. And, there are trades involving a 1st rounder for a 2nd rounder straight up done all the time. Do you not remember Dan Reeves doing it so he could draft Reggie Kelly? I completely disagree with you about the multiple first rounders idea. In an uncapped league, which we may be staring at next year, that might be the case. But, in a league that must take the cap into consideration, most GMs want those middle round picks. Look at how the dynasties of the salary cap era have been built (Pats, Steelers): through compiling middle round picks or making good use of those late first round picks.

You said that GMs think late rounders are more valuable, based on return in investment. If this was the case, teams would trade their first round picks for 2nd round picks straight up. This doesn't happen because high picks are more valuable. That's why it takes a package in 2nd and 3rd round picks to move into the first. I don't know anything about Reeves trading back in the draft with no compensation, but this would be an anomoly. And very, very stupid. Smart GMs don't do that because high picks are more valuable.

[Falcons Ace 279]

Why is it that every year the crap teams pick late in the draft, while all the consistent winners pick later in the draft? It's because good teams draft well, and there is talent to be had in the late first of every draft. Winning is what is important, why overpay for a early first rounder when we can get similar talent later in the 1st at a much cheaper price tag. There's a reason the Patriots love to stock up on 2nd round pick and always seem to be winning.

[yesmann 46]

I think you are mistaken. The top 10 doesn't necessarily get you a better player, but it does absolutely get you a much higher bill.... Which means less free agents.

It means that you have a high probability of getting a better player. Last year, if we drafted 22nd instead of 24th, we would have drafted Oher instead of Jerry. That's a big improvement. A smart GM at a late pick might get a better player than a dumb GM at a high pick. But a smart GM at a high pick will almost always get a better player than a smart GM at a low pick. There's more talent earlier in the draft.

Look at all the teams that draft at the top of the draft every year and they are always the same teams. Look at all the teams at the bottom of the draft every year and they are always the same teams. How do the teams at the bottom of the draft always have quality talent to plug in if they never draft in the top 10?

I addressed this in the post above. "The high teams continue to draft high because they are terrible organizations. They would still lose if they swapped their top ten picks for later round picks. In fact, they would be even worse. If the good teams swapped their late round picks for high picks, they would be even better."

So I ask you, would you rather one expensive gamble of a top 10 draft pick (JA98!), or a few proven quality free agents AND a bottom half draft pick?

I don't think the salary gap is that big between 10 and 20, certainly no enough to draft "a few proven quality free agents." Also, JA98 was a dumb pick by a dumb GM. You can't blame the slot, you have to blame the dumb GM. TD probably would have drafted a guy like Pat Willis.

Edited December 22, 2009 by Lucifer

[GEORGIAfan 18,723]

For the life of me, I've never understood why anyone would want "their team" to lose, period.

real fans never cheer to lose.

[yesmann 46]

OK, I used to be one of those who wanted the team to lose at the end if the playoffs were out of reach to gain better draft picks, but I have changed my way of thinking for these reasons...

I realized that your team will be better the next year with momentum rather than a few spots higher in the draft.

Why is the team better? It is fairly simple.

If you are trying to attract Free Agents you are more likely to get a guy to sign with your team if you have promise and potential and have momentum. Would you rather play for a 6-10 team or a 9-7 team that had injuries, a tough schedule and went 11-5 the year before. As you build momentum with winning seasons you begin to have a stronger core team and you go into the year with more confidence. Confidence will do more for you team. Next year if they are 8-5 and looking to need 2-3 wins at the end of the year they will remember how they finished strong rather than lost 3 or 4 at the end of the year.

I am really excited about next year b/c the Falcons are not losing any major free agents and they will be picking up guys who were hurt this year. They get their first and second round pick from this year plus several others who were hurt. Just add a few quality Free Agents and a couple of young guys from the draft and the Falcons will be better than this year or last year.

But if we would have lost these games at the end and ended up 6-10....well, a draft pick 8 spots higher wouldn't help this team. They need to get it out of their head that they can't win back to back to back years and keep it going!

I respect this view, although I don't agree with it. I don't think going 6-10 would damage the psyche of the team at all. The Saints went from the bottom of the division to the top of the conference in one offseason. The turnaround we had in Ryans rookie year also comes to mind. Terrible record the year before, 11-5 immediately after. Imagine if we had gone 9-7 that year. We wouldn't have Matt Ryan. Draft position is very important.

[CraigSmackDaddy 2,073]

You are not the only one who thinks this way... although I think it's crazy as s**t. No reason to say the same thing others have one more time so I'll just say I want us to win the next 2 games. 9-7 and a 20th pick > 7-9 and a 13th pick.

[yesmann 46]

Why is it that every year the crap teams pick late in the draft, while all the consistent winners pick later in the draft? It's because good teams draft well, and there is talent to be had in the late first of every draft. Winning is what is important, why overpay for a early first rounder when we can get similar talent later in the 1st at a much cheaper price tag. There's a reason the Patriots love to stock up on 2nd round pick and always seem to be winning.

They draft well because they're smart organizations. Their draft picks would be even better if they drafted higher. The dumb teams picks would be even worse if they drafted late. We have a smart GM. I want to see what he can do with another top 10 pick. He got Ryan last time.

[the evil emperor 32]

I for one care a whole lot more about getting a good draft pick than I care about breaking the back to back winning seasons "curse." A high draft pick sets us up for future success more than meaningless wins in a season where we can't make the playoffs anyway. 6-10 would have gotten us in the top ten in the draft. 9-7 would get us the 20th pick or so. There is a significant talent gap between 10 and 20 in the draft. 20 means we are out of the running for guys like CB Joe Haden, OT Trent Williams, and DE Derrick Morgan. There is no elite talent at positions of need for us at 20.

Before anyone numbnuts come with the predictable "any real fan will want to win" comment, please remeber that real fans want the best for their team. I think there is no significance in going 9-7 rather than going 6-10. Hopefully we lose these last two and at least get a top 15 pick. Worse case scenarion (which I believe will happen) is we go 8-8, don't break the curse, and don't get a high pick.

While I would never cheer for the Falcons to lose, I get your point about getting the better draft pick.

Especially for what we gave up to get Gonzales.

[yesmann 46]

real fans never cheer to lose.

You aren't glad the falcons sucked enough to ge the third pick to draft Matt Ryan? Would you have preferred to see us get a meaningless 8-8 record, no playoffs, and no Matt Ryan? Sometimes you have to lose a meaningless battle to win the war. Look at the Cavs in the NBA. The sucked enough to get Lebron with the first pick. Worked out pretty well for them.

[Cody Anderson 1]

The draft is fun to watch, but it's just a crap shoot. How many UDFA's are in the HOF? How many late round picks end up pro bowlers? And on the other side of the spectrum, I leave you with 2 words:

Jamarcus Russell

I'll throw in 2 more...Ryan Leaf

[yesmann 46]

I'll throw in 2 more...Ryan Leaf

Peyton Manning.

[Falcons0081 44]

C'mon Dude, yeah the Falcons season is over, yeah I'm upset about it, yeah I wish I had good credit but I always want the Falcons to win, even "win" there is nothing to play for. C'mon Dude!

[vagus_x 13]

Detroit and Oakland have been picking first for the past 10 years and they are now winning superbowls

[nativefalcon 314]

Dude, the draft is a complete and total crapshoot. Sure, it makes more sense to think that a guy taken in the top 10 is going to be a better player than a guy taken in the 20s. However, that is not the case. My opinion is that winning is a mindset that young players need to learn. You should never, EVER take the field if you don't plan on putting everything you can into winning. And, winning out this year would set a tone with the young guys on this team heading into next year.

Another point is that a lot of GMs these days think that players drafted in the 2nd round are 10 times more valuable than first rounders, based simply on return on investment. Personally, I would love to see the Falcons trade out of the first round and stock up on as many 2nd and 3rd rounders as possible.

Case in point the Rams the last 2 years they have had the top 1-3 pick and this year they will get the No. 1 pick, is it helping them? Except to go broke.

[putnam6 5,004]

I for one care a whole lot more about getting a good draft pick than I care about breaking the back to back winning seasons "curse." A high draft pick sets us up for future success more than meaningless wins in a season where we can't make the playoffs anyway. 6-10 would have gotten us in the top ten in the draft. 9-7 would get us the 20th pick or so. There is a significant talent gap between 10 and 20 in the draft. 20 means we are out of the running for guys like CB Joe Haden, OT Trent Williams, and DE Derrick Morgan. There is no elite talent at positions of need for us at 20.

Before anyone numbnuts come with the predictable "any real fan will want to win" comment, please remeber that real fans want the best for their team. I think there is no significance in going 9-7 rather than going 6-10. Hopefully we lose these last two and at least get a top 15 pick. Worse case scenarion (which I believe will happen) is we go 8-8, don't break the curse, and don't get a high pick.

[putnam6 5,004]

You would think it would work that way, then all the sucky teams would all the sudden get better. Besides I have watched the Falcons get the maximum draft pick a number of years for what seems like forever and what happens they crap out on a Jamal Anderson,a Bruce Pickens, a Aundray Bruce and Marcus Cotton, **** they drafted Jammi German a wide receiver in third round when Hines Ward a wide receiver was still on the boards. I could go on and on, this team needs a winning mentality one way to start is getting that 40+ year old gorilla off their backs by having back to back winning seasons, a small step absolutely but a step that needs to be taken.

Remember the 1997 team that lost so many games to open the season but won 5 straight I think at the end of the year,they didn't improve their draft position but that team went 14-2 the next year.

Injuries killed any chance the Falcons had this year, **** good players can be found in the later rounds anyway.

[GEORGIAfan 18,723]

You aren't glad the falcons sucked enough to ge the third pick to draft Matt Ryan? Would you have preferred to see us get a meaningless 8-8 record, no playoffs, and no Matt Ryan? Sometimes you have to lose a meaningless battle to win the war. Look at the Cavs in the NBA. The sucked enough to get Lebron with the first pick. Worked out pretty well for them.

last time i checked people wanted us the lose, so we get the third pick, but we won the last game, and still got the third pick. always cheer to win. i always want my team to be winners. gems are in the draft all the time. number 1 draft picks can be busts.

[Templar 49]

If you had been a fan for 30 years and were sick to G D death of hearing about the frakin curse, then there is no way you would pull for them to lose.

Then, Have a look at some of the players the Falcons have historically taken higher than 20th in the draft.

TJ Duckett, 18th

Jamaal Anderson, 8th

MeAngelo Hall, 8th

Michael Vick, 1st

Michael Booker, 11th

Bruce Pickens, 3rd

Tony Smith, 19th

Aundray Bruce, 1st

Keith Brooking, 12th

Matt Ryan, 3rd

Deion Sanders. 5th

That's not all of them, but most of them since 1988, and aside from Ryan,Brooking, and Sanders, it's a pretty unimpressive list, and Sanders was not a long term contributor to building a winning organization.

Roddy White was taken 27th overall

Patrick Kerney, 30th

Michael Jenkins, 29th,

Sam Baker, 21st

Peria Jerry, 24th

Devin Bush, 26th

Now here is the scary part...since 1990, that is ALL the 20th or lower first round picks the Falcons have had. Obviously all those really high picks did nothing to build a winning organization.

[Bubba Bean's Beans 20]

The original poster needs to pull his head out of something.

If we lose at home to a mediocre Buffalo team or on the road to a mediocre Tampa team, that means one of two things:

1 ) We're not trying as hard as we can to win

2 ) We're not good enough to beat a mediocre Buffalo team or a mediocre Tampa team

#1 would be a serious organizational issue and #2 means we have even more holes to fill than we thought. We've already seen enough holes to fill this off-season. I want to win the final two games comfortably while seeing some bright spots and doing away with that stupid streak.

Just win, baby.

[falconsd56 26,503]

Yea because picking in the top 10 surely guarantees greatness that's why the lions are the nfls best team................. oh yea I forgot they suck ***.

Look @ the saints offense.. its Best player is a 2nd round pick, its best running back is undrafted ( Thomas) its best wr is a 7th round pick, the starting Olines are a bunch of nobody's' low round picks......

For every big star in the nfl that was picked in top 10, there are 2 others picked bottom first or lower.

good players are found anywhere and every where, you do not need to be in the top 10.... in fact I think its s better not to pick in the top 10.......... because there is not as much pressure to "get it right" like they had too..... HAD to do with Matt Ryan.

[falconsd56 26,503]

Peyton Manning.

2 more ( well 5 I guess)

Mike Vick or Drew Brees

[Duff_Man 12,091]

Over their first five years, players drafted in the first round spend about as many seasons out of the league (8%) or not starting

a single game (8%) as in the Pro Bowl (9%).

We have conducted numerous unreported analyses to check the robustness of our interpretation

that high draft-picks are bad investments. For example, a simple performance measure for running backs

and wide receivers, "yards gained per dollar of compensation", increases with draft order at the top of the

draft. Similarly, "starts per dollar" increases through the first two rounds.

We began this study with the strong intuition that teams were putting too high a value on

choosing early in the draft. We thought it crazy for the Giants to give up so many picks for the

opportunity to move up from the fourth pick to the first one (regardless of which player they chose). But

we concede that we did not expect the findings to be as strong as those we report. Rather than a treasure,

the right to pick first appears to be a curse. If picks are valued by the surplus they produce, then the first

pick in the first round is the worst pick in the round, not the best. In paying a steep price to trade up,

teams seem to be getting the sign wrong! We have conducted numerous "reality checks" to see whether

these surprising conclusions are robust, and every analysis gives qualitatively similar results.

So, suppose our analyses are taken at face value. Can they be right? This is a big market, after

all, with franchises worth perhaps $1 billion or more. We think that while our results are surprising, they

are plausible. We suspect that some teams have not fully come to grips with the implications of the salary

cap, a relatively new innovation. Buying expensive players, even if they turn out to be great performers,

imposes opportunity costs elsewhere on the roster. Spending $10 million on a star quarterback instead of

$5 million on a journeyman implies having $5 million less to spend on offensive linemen to block or

linebackers to tackle. Some of the successful franchises seem to understand these concepts, most notably

the New England Patriots, but others do not.23 Whether because they are smart about these ideas or others,

the Patriots have been doing well recently, and so have not had high draft picks to use. We can only

speculate about whether they would trade down if they somehow ended up with one of the earliest and

most overvalued picks. But notice that if a few teams do learn and have winning records, there is no

market action they can take to make the implied value of draft picks rational. Indeed, the irony of our

results is that the supposed benefit bestowed on the worst team in the league, the right to pick first in the

draft, is only a benefit if the team trades it away. The first pick in the draft is the loser's curse.

[Delosky 17]

We need to win out for a couple of reasons.

1) The draft will be heavy in D linemen next year. The difference between a top 10 DL/DE and a top 20 DL/DE won't be talent, it will be money. We'll only end up spending more money for not that large of a jump in a player. By the time we get to rounds 3+, it doesn't matter if we're at the beginning of the round or the end. It's all a toss up at that point.

2) Momentum. Some people say it doesn't mean anything the next season to end a previous one on a high note, but I disagree. I keep thinking back to 1997 when we started 0-5 but won 5 of the last 6 to finish the season. I'm not going to say that is the reason we went to the Super Bowl the next year, but anyone familiar with those years has heard numerous times how confident the team was the following year and that the way they ended 1997 carried over into 1998. The 2010 Atlanta Falcons won't look substantially different than the 2009 Falcons.

3) I'm a fan and I never concern myself with next season. Even when we went 4-12 in 2007, I was thrilled when we beat the Seahawks in the final game because I WANTED TO WIN. I wanted to see who had the heart and desire to play in the worst conditions or in the worst season because those are the players that I want on my team when we need a win late in a season down the road. I don't want a bunch of players giving up. I want a bunch of players with heart to win. Based on what I saw against the Jets, I feel good that in 2010 and beyond, we have a core group of players that won't give up and won't quit regardless of who gets injured or how big of a losing streak we might go through in the middle of the season. Next year, if we need a win in week 12, 13, 14...I feel confident that this team, with a piece here or a piece there, has what it takes to pull out a gutsy hard fought win to stay in a playoff race.

Why would I want my team to just give up and lay down and get beat by really bad teams just to get a lineman or DB who might be a half an inch taller than another or run the 40 in .02 seconds faster? I wouldn't.

[BruceReville 445]

Lucifer should never hope for a loss - according to the good book - Lucifer loses and he gets chained - then later dipped into a very hot bath.