There is always no evidence to the statement "we could have gotten him later". I always laugh at it because it is so easy to say and impossible to prove. Look at the Raiders pick at 4 . You do not know what other teams plans are!
That is always based on scouting reports of guys who are not good enough at it to get NFL jobs!
True. No way to prove.
But every team plays that game to some degree--some more than others.
I guess Pollard could've been taken early in the first round, and you could make that same argument.
No way to
prove he would've fallen further, but you can make a fairly educated guess.
Fwiw, I'm pretty excited about Pollard. The guy doesn't look like some little scat back.
6'0 , 210 lbs and tough....with all that speed and elusiveness.
I tend to think they could've gotten him later, but it's the 4th Rd. The later in the draft you get, the less important it is to pick someone early. Value wise, it's not massive like in the 1st round.
Feel pretty sure that Oakland could've gotten the guy they took at 4th overall AND a 2nd or 3rd round pick by trading down just a little...minimum.
But we'll never know.