Re-examining the Johnathan Sullivan pick

I think a lot of people are forgettng that Sullivan, out of the DT's available, had the best college production of all of them. He was a very good player at Georgia and guys like Seymore and Richt spoke very highly of him. If you go back and read what all the draft guys said about him it was very positive, most saying he had a non-stop motor and played till the whistle.

Sullivan had (and quite honestly still does) the talent to become a very good DT in the NFL. What he didn't have was the desire. Why? I don't really know but something was strangely wrong from the time he was at Georgia to the time he spent here and with New England. Was it the big contract? Was it the fame? Was it the availabliy of anythnig he wanted? I don't know. However I have a strong idea.

Haslett's coaching staff had a severe inability to develop players. I have made several posts about this in the past, but I will revisit it one more time. It just seemed like no matter who we picked they ended up busting in some way. Even guys like Deuce McAllister underachieved at times. And for some reason Haslett always seemed like he wanted guys to be heavier than they should. For several years we all complained that Deuce was over wieght, and he was. Even a guy like Sullivan, who played in college under 300lbs, they wanted him at 315lbs here. Haslett era draft pickes seemed to regress with the years instead of progressing. Sullivan had a decent rookie year, then went downhill. In Courtney Watsons rookie year we were all looking forward to having a real linebacker for a change.

I still attest that no matter who we would have drafted they would have not had the sucess we expected because of Haslett and his coaching staff's inability to coach players up. Maybe not on the extreme level of guys like Sullivan and Watson (who have the ability) but in some similar way the players would have underachieved. Look at what Payton's staff did with what I believe is less talent. They have the ability to coach players up, to get the most out of the players they have. I would love to see a player with the abilities of Sullivan or Watson get a chance with a Sean Payton coached team. I strongly believe the team results would be drastically different.

Like I said, Haslett's record speaks for itself. While guys like Robertson, Williams, Kennedy, Warren, went on to have relitive sucess here is Sullivan with the death touch of Haslett out of the league after 3 years. I also think most draft "experts" at the time believed Sullivan was the 2nd most talented player of the group, behind Robertson.