If we take Luke Kuechly who plays MLB?

[frash.exe]

I did a search to see how long the average first rounder played in the NFL and it was 9.3 years. Then I looked to see the average length of a career of a guy who had gone to one probowl and it was 11 years. So the argument could be made that finding the best talent in the first round and a potential probowler would offer the best statistical chance of finding a long term player for your team.

On the other hand I couldn't find it broken down by position so we could see if that longevity was all offensive and defensive linemen plus quarterbacks and how many linebackers were included. It could vary by position quite a bit. Plus the question could be how productive where they throughout their career or did they stick around a long time because they were a first rounder no one wanted to give up on too soon versus a lower pick with as much talent who could have abandoned sooner because they has much less at stake. Beason could come back and play for another 5 years even if he was only 50% of his former self.

well in your defense it's really hard to find those stats and they are skewed slightly because a huge chunk of players don't last 3 years in this league.

I just know that we've gotten terrible long term results out of our first round linebackers historically, and anywhere else we've invested in that round has given us better results. I forgot to mention Gamble in one of my previous posts but he's another one that has given us a lengthy productive career so far and he's only going to be 29 in a few days.

[CPF4LIFE]

And Poe, Brockers, Cox, Rieff, and Jenkins are? SMH.

Having a game changing DT, shutdown corner or elite LT are more valuable then having a game changing LB thats just the way it is. And Patrick Willis is the best in the game but people give him just a little to much credit, that team didnt really turn things around until they actually put great players around him.They have great talent at every position on D now, they could barely win a couple games when they only had Willis.