Bye bye Ahmad Carroll. No more blown coverage. No more illegal hands to the face. No more defensive holding. No more arguing with officials before the play is whistled dead. No more #28.
To celebrate this amazing first round bust, let’s take a peak at some of the other wonderful draft choices Mike Sherman made from ‘01-’04. There were some good ones:
2001: World class disaster
1st round – Jamal Reynolds – No longer with the team
2nd round – Robert Ferguson – Huge disappointment
3rd round – Bhawoh Jue – No longer with the team (thank God!)
3rd round – Torrance Marshall – No longer with the team
4th round – Bill Ferrerio – Who?
5th round – David Martin – still with us, hasn’t done anything
2002: A little less of a failure
1st round – Javon Walker – tons of talent, no longer with the team
3rd round – Marques Anderson – no longer with the team
4th round – Najeh Davenport – no longer with the team
5th round – Aaron Kampmann – diamond in the rough
5th round – Craig Nall – no longer with the team
6th round – Mike Houghton – did he even survive training camp?
2003: Wow
1st round – Nick Barnett – can’t make an open-field tackle, but a starter nonetheless
3rd round – Kenny Peterson – no longer with the team
5th round – James Lee – no longer with the team
5th round – Hunter Hillenmeyer
6th round – Brennan Curtin
7th round – Chris Johnson
7th round – DeAndrew Rubin
7th round – Carl Ford
7th round – Steve Josue
From Hunter Hillenmeyer on, I think the only player to even make the PRACTICE SQUAD was Carl Ford. Beyond that, what is the advantage in getting FOUR 7th round picks? That’s like trading in your Mercedes Benz for a parking lot full of rusty tricycles. It makes no sense!
2004: Yikes
1st round – Ahmad Carroll – Was with the team way too long
3rd round – Joey Thomas – no longer with the team
3rd round – Donnell Washington – no longer with the team
3rd round – B.J. Sander – that was a smart pick… I think he runs a car wash these days
6th round – Corey Williams – hey, someone who stuck around!
7th round – Scott Wells – a starter, probably because there is little other choice right now.
So let’s see… that’s 27 draft picks over 4 years. 6 of those players are still with the Packers. I’d easily believe that of the 21 players that have been shown the door, probably 10-15 of them aren’t even playing football right now (aside from in the back yard with the kids). That’s frightening. You could have your neighbor’s pet finch randomly peck the controller during the draft in Madden and come up with better prospects. By way of comparison, if you go back 6-7 years, to the 1999/2000 drafts (the last 2 Ron Wolf conducted), there are still 5 of those players with the Packers. All 5 of which are starting and some of the most productive players on the team (Bubba Franks, Donald Driver, Chad Clifton, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Mark Tauscher).  If you go back a couple more years, Wolf drafted studs like Mike Wahle, Matt Hasselbeck, Darren Sharper, Marco Rivera and Mike Flanagan. All household names for an NFL fan. You think people will remember DeAndrew Rubin 8 years from now? I don’t think people remembered him long after draft day.
Just more proof that the further we get from the Sherman era, the better we all are.