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I remember looking at a Steelers board after the Elam pick and they were angry/envious about the pick. I don't watch film (or even college football) so I don't have a perspective on why that miss was so bad, but we were pretty desperate for a safety at the time. It was also a later pick than Perriman, whom even I could point to as having an unacceptable characteristic in a receiver, so I'd tend to put Elam behind that.
But wow - Ozzie had a lot of spectacular early round misses late in his tenure. Can't complain at all about mid-late rounds, but early - wow. Too early to tell just how well EDC has done with drafting, but the remainder of the personnel changes (Ingram, Thomas, Peters and even the trade of Vedvik, who I think just signed with the Bills), has been nothing short of A+.
That’s over-egging it a bit his first round picks this decade have been on the whole pretty excellent:
Jimmy Smith
Matt Elam
CJ Mosley
Beshad Perriman
Ronnie Stanley
Marlon Humphrey
Hayden Hurst + Lamar Jackson
He’s picked 3 guys in his last 3 years who just made the all-pro team and in 2014 he picked someone who made multiple 2nd team all-pros while he was with us
It looked like he might have lost it for a little bit and then he closed it out with some pretty great picks