Re-examining the Johnathan Sullivan pick (4 Viewers)

[Pure Energy]

In summary, I think that Sully was the beginning of the end for the Haslett regime, he had it all going until then and for that combined with Turley, Delhomme, and Roaf leaving becuase of contract disputes that year, it was the end for Haslett.

What I find surprising was how hard Haslett fought on for so long after 2002, he stayed for almost 4 more years, we could have fallen apart so many times and yet we didnt until a hurricane arguably did the job for us and almost tore up the team from this city.

But as it is I think Sullivan was perhaps a good example of not trusting your instincts and not going with your own knowledge and being smart instead of going on gut feeling, Sully failed as a NFL pick and as a player, but he remains the best example of perhaps the worse player ever picked by this franchise.

I think the beginning of the end for Haslett came in 2001 the year after the 10 - 6 season and Playoff win when the Saints went 7 - 9. There was dissension.in the locker room and the team quit on Haslett down the stretch losing 4 in a row and being beaten by roughly 30 point margin in those games. Then again in 2002 the team quit down the stretch and Haslett stuck to an injured Aaron Brooks over a healthy Jake Delhomme when they were playing 3 teams with the worst records in the NFL (Cincy, Vikings, Carolina)

Most franchises would have fired him at that point. By 2003, Haslett was desperate. In 2002 the Saints had a 28th ranked Defense and a DE by the name of Julius Peppers had just made a significant impact for the Panthers. 2003 draft was probably the greatest numbest number of DLineman in the history of the draft taken in the top 15 with more than half of all picks (8) being a DE or DT. Haslett and Co. got caught up in the wave of hype surrounding these DLineman and thought a young athletic DT would come in and make an immediate impact.

Bottom Line...The Saints rolled the dice with Sully...he was too little too late. We could argue that Haslett did what no other Saints Coach would have been able to do...take a 3 - 13 team to 10 - 6 and win a Playoff game with Brooks at the helm for the last 6 games down the stretch; Haslett was an average Coach who had one big season and Sullivan was not the beginning of the end but rather a symptom of the poor decision making that mired the Haslett regime in mediocrity.

 

[hammernnails]

Bottom Line...The Saints rolled the dice with Sully...he was too little too late. We could argue that Haslett did what no other Saints Coach would have been able to do...take a 3 - 13 team to 10 - 6 and win a Playoff game with Brooks at the helm for the last 6 games down the stretch; Haslett was an average Coach who had one big season and Sullivan was not the beginning of the end but rather a symptom of the poor decision making that mired the Haslett regime in mediocrity.

Very well put...... I was going to post this but I figured I'd wait for you to do it.... I didnt want to steal your thunder..... ;-]

 

[Crusader]

All you guys trashing Sullivan are just not real Saints fans like I am. Sullivan just needs a few years to develop and then he will be a Pro-Bowler! If you can't see that then your just not a 'real' fan. Who cares if Warren Sapp had a better read on him (said Sullivan was "lazy" when we drafted him) than Jim Haslett did. He is our #1 pick and therefore a pro-bowler in the making!

Sully if your reading this then keep trying your best and don't listen to the "Haters"!!!

 

[Pure Energy]

Sullivan just needs a few years to develop...

Develop into WHAT?

 

[Pure Energy]

Very well put...... I was going to post this but I figured I'd wait for you to do it.... I didnt want to steal your thunder..... ;-]

Thanks for giving me the opportunity.:za_thanx:

 

[RJ in Lafayette]

Firing Randy Mueller led to a dysfunctional organization resulting in bad free agency decisions, the horrible draft of 2003, and Haslett's live-or-die loyalty to Aaron Brooks.

I am not saying that Randy Mueller was always right and didn't make mistakes. I am saying that for Jim Haslett to make it as a head coach, he needed badly a strong general manager who could provide direction on the type of team we wanted to build, who would be mainly responsible for personnel asquisition, and who could counsel Haslett when he was screwing up. Mueller left, uproar, power vacuum in the organization, and Haslett became de facto general manager.

 

[BigJ]

I still remember people writing articles after that draft and acted like we ripped the Cardinals off.

 

[Saint Greg]

I still remember people writing articles after that draft and acted like we ripped the Cardinals off.

Most likely because value wise, we got the better end of the deal when it comes to the picks we gave up vs. the picks we got in return. We should've given up more for the tradeup.

 

[mvtrucking]

Sully got many more chances than he should have had. Isn't he out of football altogether now? New England kicked his butt to the curb also I believe?

 

[daninmn]

Yeah, Sully is a fat, lazy piece of garbage. He's not interested in doing what's necessary to be a good player. Good riddance. I wonder if he's on anybody's roster now?

 

[rubberneck]

Here is the funny thing. I thought Sully was progressing his rookie season. Getting stronger and playing better. We all thought he would break out his sophomore season. During that offseason he gained weight, and obviously starting smoking grass quite a bit. That was it. No maturity. He had the tools to be a good player in this league, but lacked interest. Best sully moment is when he showed up in the press box before a game, to get a plate of food. There was another player with him, who got cut the next day. Haz was mortified over that incident.

 

[RockyMtnSaint]

You're going to think I'm crazy for saying this but I liked the move then and I still don't have a problem with it. Why? Because the Saints made a strong, aggressive move to go up in the draft and get a guy they thought was going to be an impact player. I will always support that type of move. The failure was in the player we took, not in moving up to get him.

Let's hop in the wayback machine and set the stage. We had just come off a 2002 season where the offense lit everybody up (until Brooks got hurt) but the defense couldn't stop the run. We were gashed all season right up the middle. It was clear we needed a disrupter in the middle. If you recall, there were about 5 highly touted DTs in that draft and in the weeks leading up to draft day, they all started moving up the board. We were sitting at #17 & #18 by virtue of the Rickey Williams trade and it was actually starting to look like there was going to be a run on DTs to the point where there wouldn't be any left by #17. Dewayne Robertson was the guy we really coveted but the Jets moved up to get him at #4. That left Jimmy Kennedy, William Joseph, Kevin Williams and Sullivan. On draft day, Loomis engineered a masterful trade with Arizona to move up to #6 and we picked Sully.

In hindsight, the guy we probably should have grabbed was Williams. As I said, I think the place where we screwed up was taking Sullivan, not in moving up. If you're going to move up that far, you better be damned sure that the player you pick is the player you think he is. That's a failure of the Scouting Dept., not Loomis. Note that right after that, we hired Rick Reiprish to handle college scouting and left Mueller to mainly deal with pro scouting. So to the person who said that they hope that the FO learns from this, I think they have. The lesson is don't let Mueller anywhere near the draft board.

The other lesson they learned is not to reach for need. There was a fundamental change in draft philosophy following the Sullivan debacle. Now the Saints try to fill holes with free agency and draft best player available. I think this has worked out pretty well so far. Will Smith was a great pick even though we really didn't have a need at DE. A lot of us were scratching our heads over that one but tell me: do you miss Darren Howard right now? OT was a need when we traded up to get Jamaal Brown but we only traded a few spots because another team (the Panthers?) were planning to take him. And it wasn't a reach. The Bush pick you can't really include in that list because he fell into our lap. There was no way to screw that up.

I think this year we'll see more of the same. We'll be active in free agency to fill the big holes we have (CB, LB, DLine) and we'll draft BPA on draft day. I don't think we'll be going after the "name brand" players too much. We never do because you have to pay too much to get them. I don't think that's Benson being cheap; I think it's just smart football.

I also expect us to take a QB in a late round. In fact, I expect us to do this almost every year. Eventually we'll need to replace Brees. So we draft a guy and start grooming him now. If he develops and we don't need him, we can trade him for a higher round pick than we spent on him. Buy low, sell high. If we do need him, we'll have him. If he doesn't develop, it hasn't cost us much. We draft another late-round QB the following year. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[keefresh2]

The FO was in denial about what we really needed. If they wanted to trade up to draft for need, then they should have taken Trufant. That draft class was full of DT's. For Petes's sake we still need a fwiggin corner!

 

[SunshinePumper]

You're going to think I'm crazy for saying this but I liked the move then and I still don't have a problem with it. Why? Because the Saints made a strong, aggressive move to go up in the draft and get a guy they thought was going to be an impact player. I will always support that type of move. The failure was in the player we took, not in moving up to get him.

Let's hop in the wayback machine and set the stage. We had just come off a 2002 season where the offense lit everybody up (until Brooks got hurt) but the defense couldn't stop the run. We were gashed all season right up the middle. It was clear we needed a disrupter in the middle. If you recall, there were about 5 highly touted DTs in that draft and in the weeks leading up to draft day, they all started moving up the board. We were sitting at #17 & #18 by virtue of the Rickey Williams trade and it was actually starting to look like there was going to be a run on DTs to the point where there wouldn't be any left by #17. Dewayne Robertson was the guy we really coveted but the Jets moved up to get him at #4. That left Jimmy Kennedy, William Joseph, Kevin Williams and Sullivan. On draft day, Loomis engineered a masterful trade with Arizona to move up to #6 and we picked Sully.

In hindsight, the guy we probably should have grabbed was Williams. As I said, I think the place where we screwed up was taking Sullivan, not in moving up. If you're going to move up that far, you better be damned sure that the player you pick is the player you think he is. That's a failure of the Scouting Dept., not Loomis. Note that right after that, we hired Rick Reiprish to handle college scouting and left Mueller to mainly deal with pro scouting. So to the person who said that they hope that the FO learns from this, I think they have. The lesson is don't let Mueller anywhere near the draft board.

The other lesson they learned is not to reach for need. There was a fundamental change in draft philosophy following the Sullivan debacle. Now the Saints try to fill holes with free agency and draft best player available. I think this has worked out pretty well so far. Will Smith was a great pick even though we really didn't have a need at DE. A lot of us were scratching our heads over that one but tell me: do you miss Darren Howard right now? OT was a need when we traded up to get Jamaal Brown but we only traded a few spots because another team (the Panthers?) were planning to take him. And it wasn't a reach. The Bush pick you can't really include in that list because he fell into our lap. There was no way to screw that up.

I think this year we'll see more of the same. We'll be active in free agency to fill the big holes we have (CB, LB, DLine) and we'll draft BPA on draft day. I don't think we'll be going after the "name brand" players too much. We never do because you have to pay too much to get them. I don't think that's Benson being cheap; I think it's just smart football.

I also expect us to take a QB in a late round. In fact, I expect us to do this almost every year. Eventually we'll need to replace Brees. So we draft a guy and start grooming him now. If he develops and we don't need him, we can trade him for a higher round pick than we spent on him. Buy low, sell high. If we do need him, we'll have him. If he doesn't develop, it hasn't cost us much. We draft another late-round QB the following year. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I nominate this for Best. Post. Ever.

 

[Damarabi]

Good analysis and general agreement. Let me ask a "what if" question, just for the sake of discussion.

What if Sullivan had turned out to be a "Hollis Thomas"? What would you think of the pick then?