re: Looking back, was Sebastian Janikowski worth being a 1st Round pick?

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He was 121/161 for a 75.16% make rate.

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I have 100/121?

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I have 100/121?

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He had 100 50+ yard attempts, and made 55 of those. He was 121/161 on 40-49 yard attempts.

Your numbers are off. And if you want to talk about the greatest kickers of all time, then you better include everyone. I reduced the sample size to 10 years in the league: (a) to remove some of the guys above Jani and (b) because I didn't feel like doing all that work.

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Nice strawman argument

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How is it a strawman argument?

You agreed that it was a homerun because he "led the team in scoring." Fact is, that's not a big deal. 30 of the 32 NFL teams in 2016 were led by kickers. Same goes for total scoring for NFL teams - 30 of 32 NFL teams have a kicker as their all time leading scorer.

But Janikowski leading the Raiders is supposed to be a big deal?

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If you dont make it at least 10 years, you dont belong on an all time kicker list...

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Ok, that's fine. So with that criteria, he's tied for 4th best all time with 6 other guys. With 12 other guys within 3 percentage points.

And that's only the guys I bothered to look into. This isn't a comprehensive list.

ETA: And once these new batch of kickers reach 10 years, he will be pushed even further down that list.

People talk about playing in Oakland being tough, and it is, so I looked at the entire league from 2000-2016 using only road games. The Raiders are 3rd in the league in make % on FGs with a LOS between the 3 and the 30 (20-47ish YD FGAs) @ 89.0%. Teams 1 standard deviation from the mean of 84.9% are:

NWE - 90.1%
ARI - 89.5%
OAK - 89.0%
TEN - 88.9%
BAL - 88.0%
BUF - 87.7%
CLE - 87.7%

Also, despite Janikowski's leg strength, the Raiders are only 11th in FG make % with a LOS between the 31-40 yard line.

Janikowski is a good player, no doubt, but other teams had as good or better success without having to go into the 1st round to do it.

The only reason Janikowski makes sense in hindsight is because of how bad the rest of the 2000 draft class was.

Googe strawman argument.

I don't have time to explain basic concepts to simple-minded chads

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But my question is this - could they have gotten him in the 3rd round? 4th round?

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Unlikely in this case. He was a late first, early second round projection in the few mock drafts I could find. Pretty crazy.

Looking at who was picked after Janikowski, I'd still take Janikowski. Shaun Alexander was good for about 3 years. Keith Bulluck also had a long career as well.

Chad Pennington QB
Shaun Alexander RB
Stockar McDougle OT
Sylvester Morris WR
Chris McIntosh OT
Rashard Anderson CB
Ahmed Plummer CB
Chris Hovan DT
Erik Flowers DE
Anthony Becht TE
Rob Morris LB
R. Jay Soward WR
Keith Bulluck LB
Trung Canidate RB

The question serves as a good litmus test for ages.

People old enough to remember Seabass coming out, are old enough to remember the dire Raiders situation at the time.

The guy was the focal point for so many Raiders dismal seasons, when they had absolutely nothing else. They'd even feature him for hyping up game broadcasts-- he was that noteworthy and respected, and the Raiders were that bad.

If you get 15+ years out of a #1, even of average play, its justifiable. If you get specialized play with a half decade or more of All Pro consideration type performance, then you've gotten your money's worth, especially in the back half of the first round.

Yes, there are certainly bigger success stories in that part of the draft, historically. That doesn't mean Seabass wasn't worth it. He was.