It's funny you bring up the Quincy Carter pick while also whining about us not drafting a #1 receiver.
Because the Carter pick only happened because we tried to force it by drafting a new franchise QB (after Aikman left) in a year when there was no franchise QB available for us to pick. Vick and Brees both went too high for us to sniff them. We actually picked the 3rd best QB of that class, to our credit, so we did somehow manage to pick the best QB available to us in that year's draft. But he wasn't a franchise QB and forcing it with him proved fruitless.
I assume you'd argue we'd have been better off, after we missed out on Vick and Brees in 2001, simply waiting until 2002 instead of trying to force it and trying to build around Carter by pretending (or kidding ourselves) that he was something he wasn't. Of course, 2002 turned out to be a lousy year for QBs too. Which of the 2002 QBs do you wish we'd built our franchise around, out of curiosity? Carr? Ramsey? Harrington?
We had the bad luck of needing to replace Aikman at a time when there wasn't any franchise QB sitting there for us in the next couple of drafts.
Just like we had the bad luck of needing to replace a #1 WR this year when there was no #1 receiver there for us.
The next time we're on the clock and there's a #1 receiver there, I am confident we'll hungrily pounce on them. Proving all the "we don't need a #1" talk was just lip service that was less about us not wanting a #1 and was more about making do with the fact that there was no #1 available anyway.
