FWIW, I remember this board when Rodgers was drafted and virtually no one on the sight advocated drafting him because he was a Tedford QB. When it comes to who we draft, I put little stock into what fans project and want.
I didn't want him. I was new here but Rodgers had some things I didn't like, such as the weird Tedford sideways ball positioning and a tendency to throw short. I attended a USC vs Cal game in 2004 at the Coliseum in which Rodgers finished with a ridiculously high completion percentage, but it was all safe short throws and at least a half dozen times he refused to throw to deep receivers who were wide open. It was laughable. In fact, there were sorority girls sitting one row behind me who were laughing at Aaron Rodgers: "Why didn't he throw it to that guy? That was a touchdown. How stupid is he?"
That is what I was hearing at the Coliseum, and it matched what I was seeing. Months later just before the draft Merrill Hodge ran a lengthy segment on ESPN spotlighting that game and all the deep open shots that Rodgers refused to attempt.
It was 100% accurate. Cal lost that game in tight fashion against a great USC team that went on to win the national championship. But the game should have been stolen if Aaron Rodgers had a fleck of downfield guts that day.
Obviously that has no relationship to Rodgers that we know now, or throughout his NFL tenure. Very rare situation because the patience worked. It wasn't really adjustment because Packer fans were ready to give up on him. The first couple of years the mechanics did not improve and all the flaws were there. That career could have unfolded markedly different if Rodgers had been forced to play immediately somewhere else.
However, to be fair ckparrothead was the poster here who championed Aaron Rodgers more than anyone leading to that draft. I had no idea who ckparrothead was but his overall analysis stood out as very sharp, no matter if I disagreed from player to player.
The aspect I tried to emphasize from outset here in 2005 is that you have got to look at a player's history and resume, prioritizing early excellence and not merely what he looks like in the final months of the draft process. Otherwise you are going to be fooled time and again. I like TedSlimm because he gets this stuff out there very early...a year or more in advance. Often he finds a guy and places him at or near the top, even if the rest of us have yet to hear of him.
Often I'll know about a freshman mostly because he was prominently involved in bets I won or lost. That is unintentional scouting.
