Rebuilding strategy, forty-niners or saints?

St. Widge said
I don't count getting close to being a really good team but having your star QB retire because he got hurt behind your terrible OL working out. They had one good year getting to the conference championship game in 2014 and it was downhill after that to the point of being mediocre for many years. I can't imagine that was the goal when they sucked for Luck when post Luck they have basically had the same amount of success that we have had for the last 4 years.

That's fair. Your view is Super bowl or bust then.

St. Widge said
NFL teams occasionally do it, but it's not the norm and it fails miserably more often than it succeeds. It's just that you remember the times it works more than all the times it failed.

Not even. I completely understand it's not a guarantee that it will work. Just that this FO has shown they are incapable of building through drafting in the mid to late rounds. The higher you draft it significantly increases odds of drafting pro bowl/all pro talents. If we drafted well currently I would think different.

St. Widge said
And again, tanking for Tua didn't actually turn into a great result. They are a mediocre team and have been since they got Tua which is what the tank is supposed to be avoiding.

Anyway, the point is that tanking isn't the only way to turn a team around and staying mediocre is just as successful of a way to eventually become an elite team as tanking is. Tanking occasionally works to one degree or another, but it hasn't shown to be the only way or the best way to turn a team around.

I agree it's not the only way. You can draft normally and turn around but that requires elite talent evaluation which we have shown we do not have.

It'll be interesting to see how the Pats vs Saints futures play out.