Originally posted by Sickaa:
Originally posted by 49ers81:
Originally posted by Sickaa:
The expectations are gonna be through the roof for a kicker being drafted so high. I hope he's mentally prepared for the challenge.
Why? He was drafted in what was essentially the 4th round. Why should the expectations be any different for him than any other player drafted in the 4th round? If some team decided to take a flyer on a small school guard prospect should we anticipate that the expectations for him will be "through the roof" well. Or maybe someone selected an undersized corner with good ball skills. Should the expectations be through the roof for him?
I really don't get all the drama around this pick. People talk about it as though the 4th round was some kind of jackpot lottery round where everyone who was drafted is going to go on a be a star and taking the consensus best player at his position instead of someone who could very well be out of the league by the end of pre-season is somehow this huge misallocation of resources. It really is all pretty silly.
Being the first kicker taken In the 2023 draft Is more than enough for him to have high expectations.
Don't you think a Rb who's drafted In round 2 would have more expectations than a RB who was drafted later on?
Besides, 3rd/4th rd Is early for a Kickers being drafted.
I'll be rooting for him either way 
Whose expectations are we talking about? The team's, the league's, the fans? The team showed what they thought Moody's value to them was by picking him where they did, the league probably doesn't care, it just means there is another 2nd string guard available for someone else to pick up. Seems to me that it's mostly the fans who are complaining.
There were two years where the Niner's drafted a running back in the third round and they picked up another one as an UDFA or as a 6th round pick, I think. Williams and Breida and then Sermon and Mitchell. In each year they ended up getting a running back that became an important contributor to their offense, just not in the round they might have anticipated. But they ended up getting a running back which was what they wanted.
I think there is a lot of draft snobbery that fuels some of these arguments, guys who are more invested in the "process" of the draft and how much "value" should be assigned to each pick and position and less interested in what the actual outcome of the draft is as far as improving the team goes.
If Moody comes in and does his job the way they anticipate him to, then it will mean, at the very least, that they've added a player who, simply by the nature of his position, will lead the team in scoring. He will also have the ability to impact the outcome of the game, for good or ill, every time he steps out on the field, which is more than you can say for most 4th round picks.
In a draft that seemed, pretty much by consensus, to be short of blue-ribbon talent but long on players that could add depth to your roster. and in a year in which the team also had most of its starters set they would have had to believe that any other player available at that pick would end up being better than whoever it was they already had on the roster. Was there and edge rusher there who they thought was going to be better than Drake Jackson? Or a tackle that they thought was going to be better than McKivitz? Or a DB to take over for Jimmy Ward? I don't pretend to know but I imagine that the FO has a pretty well-informed opinion about that.
They ended up addressing all of those positions in the draft safety, CB, LB, tackle, defensive line and DE. They seem to like the guys they picked so they would also have to believe that there wasn't anybody on their board who represented better value at those positions than Moody represented at his. Who knows, maybe there was another player they really liked at a different position but somebody else had already drafted him. With all of the success they've had at identifying late round gems there is a good chance that at least a couple of the other guys they picked up after Moody could end up making a contribution as well. Seems to me that's how a draft should be judged, players who end up contributing and players who don't. Outside of the first two rounds perhaps it doesn't matter to me at all where they get drafted.
Now to be clear, I'm like everyone else, I hope Moddy turns out to be a really good kicker for them for a long time. If he doesn't, I don't see how that is any different than any other 4th rounder not working out. It simply isn't that big of a deal. Just another roll of the dice in the annual crapshoot that is the NFL draft.
