Did an interesting little exercise just now, for kicks: looked up the other pass rushers that were chosen after our Sherrod pick in 2011, just to see what we missed out on. Man, going back to the end of R3, there was ONE player that really did well, Jabaal Sheard, chosen 5 picks after Sherrod by CLE in R2 (#37). He had 8.5 sacks last year. Most of the rest were lucky to get 1 or 2 sacks, or to get onto the field.
Out of 13 DL chosen that year in R2 and R3, only 1 had more than 2.5 sacks (Sheard's 8.5).
Aldon Smith, the first DL chosen #7 overall by SF in R1 had more than both the top two DL R2-3 put together (11) with 14.5. In looking further down the line in R1 from 2011, out of the 10 DL selected before Sherrod, there were a handful of guys that had 5 sacks after Smith, something like 3 or 4 players.
I guess that is part of my reasoning for wanting to land two of these big dudes in R1 this year, by trading up. The further down you go, those pickings can get really slim. And we need that big impact DL help this year. I'm hoping for the best.
Oh, please,
Oh please....