D.
A completely missed opportunity to drastically improve this roster with the only redeeming factor being we will get some starters. We get starters while other teams collect prospects who will become some of the best players at their positions in a few years. A great example would be the 2010 draft. Odrick, Misi, John Jerry worked their way into the starting lineup. Meanwhile, the Saints, Panthers, 49'ers, and Bengals spent the last few years laughing up their sleeves at everyone who passed on Jimmy Graham, Geno Atkins, NaVarro Bowman, and Greg Hardy.
In an absolutely loaded draft class we reached for a 2nd round pick with the 19th overall selection. The best people can say about him is "hes the 5th best tackle prospect", which i dont consider all that great of a praise. Especially not at 19. This is going to be the warning lesson for all teams when it comes to drafting for need for years to come. It almost always leads to reaches, sometimes massive ones.
I like Landry the player, i dont like Landry the selection. We had an opportunity to grab explosive players and instead settled for another possession receiver. Again, i like the tough son of a bitch, but we could have improved that unit a whole lot more by doing things differently. He will eventually replace Hartline. We made a lateral move there instead of stepping forward.
Billy Turner...im completely indifferent towards. Maybe the first few rounds took it out of me. Relying on yet another tackle prospect to covert to guard hasnt worked for us yet, but who knows. If i had a gun to my head and had to make a decision, id say he will be competent. He wont provide the kind of impact other players would have in that same round. Im not a fan of trading up for him though, would have rather kept the fourth.
The rest of the draft was depth moves. Ive been at the head of that bandwagon complaining about our lack of depth, so i cant complain all that much. Like most everyone else, i was intrigued by Pierre Desir and would have felt a lot more comfortable taking him over Walt Aikens, but thats hardly my biggest complaint of the draft.
Our draft was a lot more reminiscent of the Cowboys drafts than the Packers. And as the Cowboys have repeatedly shown, drafting for need leads to failure. We spun the tires, while teams like the Packers, Saints, and even the Jaguars and ****ing Jets took 3 steps forward. That leaves us 3 steps behind. Again. For all the money we've dropped the last few years and all the draft picks we've made, i still believe our 2010 team was superior to any unit we've fielded since with the exception of Ryan Tannehill over Chad Henne. But how much could Tannehill improve a 7-9 team by himself? 2 wins? 3? Either way, that team wouldnt have competed for a Superbowl and this team sure as hell wont.
This draft knocked us back by 2 years. At least. So it gets a D. And it could easily have gotten an F if this class wasnt so talented that we could scoop up some starters. But grabbing starters over stars was a poor show.