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Excellent article on charcter in the Draft


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Interesting read. Didn't realize that we had one of the smallest scouting dept's in the league. That would explain some of the past draft flops.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft06/news/story?id=2407432

Some highlights:

The New England Patriots won three of four Super Bowls by seeking athletes who were willing to subjugate themselves for the good of the team; the selflessness of two-way player Troy Brown is a good example. The Pittsburgh Steelers, who place a similar premium on character, captured this year's Super Bowl title in Detroit.

"It's always important to get good people as well as good players," Steelers director of football operations Kevin Colbert said. "From the Steelers' point of view, from top to bottom, ownership demands that character is a big factor in this organization."

The Cincinnati Bengals, who have one of the smallest scouting staffs in the league, also have routinely ignored character as a measuring stick. It has hurt them over the years, particularly in the case of some of their high-profile first-round choices -- defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson and wide receiver Peter Warrick, to mention two.

Early on, we were just taking whatever players we could get," said Condon, who played guard for the Kansas City Chiefs for 11 seasons. "The two characteristics that determine success are intelligence and character. Now, it's a big factor for us.

"As I look through our last few classes of players, you could take virtually any of those guys home and be proud. It makes life so much easier. They're attractive to people in terms of marketing dollars, and later they can move more easily into the broadcast booth."

For the Steelers' Colbert, character will remain a draft key.

"The best-case scenario," he said, "is a good player with impeccable character. That means you have no concerns. Next level, you have one incident or a personality trait that raises concern. The guys with a couple of incidents that suggest a pattern are the ones you stay away from."

Makes you wish we would stop drafting the "bad character" guys like Chris Henry, P-Dub, Chad Johnson, Dan Wilkenson, etc...

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Go spout Steeler praise on their board - dont think we want to hear it here

per Bengal BillyBob--

"Let it go, and be positive about the future - that's my take. It's like we are so used to losing that when we are winner we have to find stuff to be miserable about. Time to do like coach says and not "baby and cry" anymore. Can you all handle that?

Now, on to the draft and stop the whining!!!!!"

Stop being a Steeler apologist and be a Bengal fan - If thats what you are?

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Chris Henry and Odell Thurman are the only guys with character issues that have been drafted by Marvin, the other guys were under different coaches, and can no longer be used in this debate.

Odell is working out great. Henry isn't quite as much... but isn't a lost cause yet either. But Marvin demanded that the scouting department be improved and added to before he came here, and if you look at the 3 drafts he's had, it is hard to argue that our scouting department is still hurting us.

I don't want him to take a ton of risks on character guys... but 2 guys out of the 3 drafts he's had here doesn't indicate that Marvin doesn't care about character at all. It looks more like these guys were talented enough to take a risk on (and their on-the-feild production seems to indicate he was right).

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