And why do Wilson and Durant and Hitchens play as sparingly as they did?
Because they aren't good enough to warrant staying on the field for long. In other words, let's say instead of Hitchens at MLB last year you had Bobby Wagner at MLB. He'd play 90+% of the snaps too with Lee.
Now if you believed a LB you were taking at 19 could be that type of MLB, why wouldn't you choose him?
As I said to stash in another thread, this "maximizing" snaps component to who should be a first round pick would indicate that you should never use a first round pick on anything other than an OL, a QB or maybe a CB.
And as I corrected you there, that claim disregards both need and value of the player matching the pick. Both of which coincide here. Apples to oranges comparison on your part.
Further, the snap counts angle seems to be a new argument for an OG when people realized just how silly it sounds arguing that the thing holding back the arguably the best LT, C and RG in football from being a great OL is a rookie LG..............
How exactly is it "silly"? Is Tyron Smith supposed to play left guard in addition to left tackle? Is that what's now required of him?
Or is it Travis Free it's job to do it? Not just be a great center, but do the next next you'd job as well!
You're right, that makes much more sense...
Did you happen to watch the first few games of the 2017 season with Chaz Green in there? Plenty of people thought that he'd be "good enough too". But he wasn't. And the entire line suffered as a result, along with the running game. The offense didn't gel until Cooper came into the lineup, and the guys on the line could trust the guy next to them rather than worrying about him.
They were then able to focus on their own job rather than babysitting someone else. Did you not see this or do you now not want to?