The_Philster
08-05-2003, 09:08 PM
It's a sad fact of NFL life that far too often more is written and spoken about a player on draft day than ever again in his career. Spring blooms eternal in April only to see the bitter reality of late summer turn into the anguish of autumn and the misery of winter. The glorious promise of a new draft class is rarely, if ever, fully realized, and that's one of the reasons NFL evaluators say you have to wait three to five years to judge the success of any draft.
The wisdom of time has revealed that the Bears had some wretched drafts in the mid-to-late 1990s, a fact that was reflected in some miserable seasons on the field. Things picked up considerably from 1998-2000, when the Bears started landing multiple starters every year.
Sure, first-round draft picks Curtis Enis (1998) and Cade McNown (1999) turned out to be full-fledged busts. But the 1998 draft class landed three starters--albeit only one is left on the roster--and a key supporting player in long snapper Patrick Mannelly. The starters were Pro Bowl center Olin Kreutz, the only one left on the team, along with safety Tony Parrish (now a key player for San Francisco) and sixth-round linebacker Chris Draft, a starter for Atlanta....
more (http://www.suntimes.com/output/bears/cst-spt-mully05.html)
The wisdom of time has revealed that the Bears had some wretched drafts in the mid-to-late 1990s, a fact that was reflected in some miserable seasons on the field. Things picked up considerably from 1998-2000, when the Bears started landing multiple starters every year.
Sure, first-round draft picks Curtis Enis (1998) and Cade McNown (1999) turned out to be full-fledged busts. But the 1998 draft class landed three starters--albeit only one is left on the roster--and a key supporting player in long snapper Patrick Mannelly. The starters were Pro Bowl center Olin Kreutz, the only one left on the team, along with safety Tony Parrish (now a key player for San Francisco) and sixth-round linebacker Chris Draft, a starter for Atlanta....
more (http://www.suntimes.com/output/bears/cst-spt-mully05.html)