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Al Davis likes to waste money—yours and his

Greg Shelley Written by Greg Shelley, Monday November 30 2009
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After 11 games this season, does Al Davis' decision to take WR Darrius Heyward-Bey with the #7 pick overall paint him as the wacky professor who some of his few remaining fans thought he was?  Or, does it just make him look wacky, like the rest of us thought?

 

The NFL should institute new fines for owners who make dumb moves and pool the money into discount tickets for the fans of their respective organizations. Bud Adams recently made it known that they already have fines for owners who do stupid things, and that money goes to the more-than-worthy humanitarian causes represented by The Brian Piccolo Cancer Fund, The Vincent T. Lombardi Cancer Research Center, The ALS Neuromuscular Research Foundation, and The NFLPA Player Assistance Trust. Still, the fans need a way to help mitigate their own suffering whenever an owner does irreparable damage to their favorite team.
 
Just consider one of the many blunders Al Davis has committed in recent years, leaving the once great Oakland Raiders as the laughing stock of the NFL. His choices to hire and fire coaches, to limit their ability to make significant decisions about staff and personnel, and his choices on draft picks should all be major fines to the benefit of the fans. He should also receive smaller fines for all the drama and trauma that the manifestation of his decisions have created for the organization.
 
While other organizations should be somewhat grateful for Davis’ inability to get solid coaching candidates even to interview there, his seemingly goofy decisions often have adverse affects on more than just his own team. No bigger blunder stands out more than his first round pick this year, and now that we are heading into week 13 of the season, the numbers clearly affirm what most everyone already believed—picking wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey with the seventh pick in the draft was outrageously silly.
 
Forget the fact that Michael Crabtree was clearly the best WR available in the draft, and just consider the fact that all five of the other WR’s who were selected in the first round all have far better numbers in their first year than Heyward-Bey. The chart below shows where all six WR’s stand at this point in the year:

Player
Catches
Yards
Average
TD's
Crabtree*
48
634
13.2
2
Harvin
42
602
14.3
5
Maclin
42
540
12.9
4
Nicks
32
538
16.8
4
Britt
33
521
15.8
2
Heyward-Bey
9
124
13.8
1
*Pro-rated out to 11 games based on first six games.

 
Heyward-Bey was considered an early second-round guy, with a few of the experts leaning toward a possible late first-round. His 4.3 forty-yard dash at the combine is what increased his value, but certainly not enough to vault him into the 7th pick by any reasonable person’s assessment. After three years of college at Maryland, he only had 2,089 yards receiving on 138 catches with 13 TD’s. Compare that to Crabtree’s two years at Texas Tech in which he delivered 3,127 yards on 231 catches for 41 TD’s. The Raiders’ organization apparently wanted to discount those numbers as well as the fact that Crabtree is the only two-time winner of the Biletnikoff Award, given to the best college receiver in the county each year.
 
Currently, Heyward-Bey has only nine catches in the NFL after 11 games. He has been targeted for passes 40 times and has managed to come down with just nine. That means he has caught less than 23% of the passes thrown to him. If you have seen a Raiders game this year, you have probably seen him drop a ball or two. On the other hand, Crabtree has been targeted 44 times and has come down with 26 of those, or 65%. That’s 65% of the passes thrown in his direction. Jeremy Maclin of the Eagles is another solid prospect the Raiders could have went with even though he is a little smaller than Crabtree or Heyward-Bey. He has caught 63% of the passes thrown his way this year and has 4 TD’s to show for it.
 
Those who are still willing to defend Davis and the Raiders’ organization will claim that Heyward-Bey is a victim of the lack of a passing game for the Raiders. But, if the addition of a WR was not going to help the passing game, perhaps they shouldn’t have wasted a pick on a receiver after all, especially when they could have easily picked up an equally-talented one in the later rounds. After all, while Maclin plays on an Eagles team that has relied rather heavily on the pass this year, Crabtree is playing on a 49ers team that is still trying to settle on a QB to hand Frank Gore the ball for the majority of plays. Apparently, Singletary is finally realizing what an asset he has in Crabtree and the passing game is making a renaissance, at least on the west side of The Bay.
 
Ultimately, Al Davis’ decision to draft Heyward-Bey adversely affected Crabtree, Maclin, the 49ers, and the Raiders. The Raiders signed a deal with Heyward-Bey for five years and 23.5 million, with the potential to get 38.25 million with incentives, or 7.65 million a year. As a result, the 49ers were looking at being able to get the talented Crabtree for a steal, offering some 14 million dollars less as the number 10 pick in the draft. Fans often put the majority of fault in holdouts on the players themselves, and that does seem to be a logical inclination.
 
Unfortunately, such deals are far more complicated than just one player’s desire or lack of desire to play. The outcome of those monetary negotiations impact agents, other organizations, and other position players. Al Davis’ willingness to waste his money and keep his organization mired in losing cost several more talented WR’s money in this year’s draft. And, it would have cost Crabtree considerably more money than he ended up losing, if not for his holdout. In the end, his holdout earned him an extra 8 million dollars in his contract. Did he have a shot at the rookie of the year if he had played all year?—definitely not on the run-focused 49ers, but then again, none of the other WR’s drafted in the first round have much of a shot either.
 

Ever play blackjack at a table with a player who has no idea what he is doing? He keeps taking cards when he shouldn’t, happily and ignorantly going bust, leaving the cards you and others could use wasted on the table. Such players should get fined. Too bad there are no fines for draft ignorance in the NFL either. Never play blackjack at a table with Al Davis; never expect a good draft from the Raiders as long as he is at the table.


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2 comments


0 up down 0
Greg ShelleyGreg Shelley, over 2 years ago said:

Definitely some sense and reason to that, TW. Once upon a time, I used to think that one player doesn't make much of a difference, until Elway left the Broncos and the team that won back-to-back Superbowls went straight into a losing season. Still, I do agree that any individual's success is fairly dependent on the level of talent around him and Darrius is not in a great place. Nonetheless, the numbers by which indivuduals in sports are measured do reveal tendencies about their talent or lack thereof. Darrius may end up in the long run with a positive career, and I hope for his sake he does. Al Davis has made lots of blunders in recent years, and you are correct that it all begins with the damage done at the coaching position. Thanks for the input.

0 up down 0
twhighamtwhigham, over 2 years ago said:

The problem with focusing on one player with numbers is that football is a team sport. Would his receptions statistically score higher if he had a better quarterback? Would the quarterback score better if he had a better offensive line? Would the offense score better if the defense kept the other team buried inside their own 40? Drafting a player is less of a science and more of a guessing game, like picking the winning horse. You can look at 40 speed, body fat percentage, and even the type of car he drives, if he even drives a car, but in the end the final arbiter is going to come down to the people around him. Case in point: Kurt Warner. In his golden years at St. Louis, he won a Super Bowl. He also had 3 good receivers, an O-line, and a running back. As the players around him fell off, so did his performance. He ended up in Arizona, playing in another Super Bowl, surrounded by quality players again. So, did Al Davis blunder with his draft pick? Maybe; maybe not. But he has blundered by having a revolving door at the coaching position.