RICHARD BURRIER
Last year a lot was made about the fact that Burrier basically went wire-to-wire with the exact same starting lineup. Meaning the exact same starting lineup in week one also played in the championship game. That’s pretty impressive, if you’re into that kind of thing.
However, those players weren’t all of Rich’s top picks. He actually drafted Knowshon Moreno in the third round, but thanks to injuries, he never started him. Of Rich’s eight top picks last year, seven were still on his roster at the end. Again, impressive. It got me thinking. In reality, the top-five picks are the one’s that matter.
Throughout Rich’s career, he has drafted 50 players in the top five rounds and 72-percent have survived the entire season on his roster. That’s slightly above the league average of 69-percent.
Officially Jeff is the champ of keeping his top-five picks. 83-percent of those picks stayed on his roster. However, his four-year sample size is probably not large enough (that’s what she said). Next up then is Eric. He has kept 80-percent of his top-five picks on his roster all season long.
Interesting, what does it say that the two teams who have kept the most top-five players on their roster throughout the season are also the two teams with the worst winning percentage?
Anyhow, five others, besides Eric, Jeff and Burrier, are above the league average (Griff at 76%, Don at 73%, Calderon and Masterson at 72% and Bob at 70%). Molly sits just below the average at 65-percent.
Three teams barely keep half of those top-five, myself (58%), Matt (57%) and the leader of not keeping their top-five picks, Colby at 53%. This actually makes sense since Colby, Matt and myself are the league leaders in trades.
Also, 11 of the 12 teams in this league has at least once kept all five of their top-five picks in a single season. The leader is Masterson, who has done it three times. Eric, Don and Molly have done it twice and everyone else has done it at least once…except for Colby. He has never kept the top-five players drafted in any season. Of course, having Jeff draft for you for half those seasons might have something to do with it.
Now wait a minute, this is suppose to be a post about Burrier. Yet, I’ve done a lot of writing about the whole league, especially Colby. Here’s the deal, there is one thing that Burrier has done that nobody else has ever done before, thus this makes Rich special.
In 2007, he ended the season with no player drafted in the first five rounds.
What happen to those guys?
Rd 1 – LaDainian Tomlinson, RB-SD After four years, Rich was going to have to get rid of the anchor of his team, thanks to new rules put in place that offseason limiting the years a keeper could stay on the team. Anyhow, after a rocky 4-4 start, Rich shipped Tomlinson off to me for three players, Chad Johnson, Jeremy Shockey and LeDale White. Both Johnson and Shockey would start for Rich the rest of the season, while White was left on the bench for the most part. Chad Johnson would actually end the season as the 5th best wide receiver, while Shockey finished a respectable 10th among all TE’s. Meanwhile, Tomlinson would end up playing no games for me, getting shipped off to Matt (for Brian Westbrook and Anquan Boldin). He would be a starting RB when Matt brought him his first title eight weeks later.
Rd 2 – Marshawn Lynch, RB-BUF After a so-so start to the season (307 yards in four games and three touchdowns), Rich sent Lynch packing to Colby for Santana Moss and Cadillac Williams. The trade would end up being a bust for Rich. Cadillac Williams would not play another game that season and Moss would be cut by week eight. Colby at the time was trying to halt a 0-4 start to the season, which happened the week he got Lynch. The Bills running back would go on to finish the season as a starter for Colby, banging out a couple of 100-yard games, but the 4-5 record down the stretch wasn’t be enough to lead the Pounders into the post-season.
Rd 3 – Drew Brees, QB-NO A week after unloading Lynch (three weeks before shipping Tomlinson off), Rich traded Brees to Calderon for Philip Rivers. This trade was one of the rarest breads. You don’t often see a straight-up position-for-position trade in Robioland. At the time though, both quarterbacks were struggling and neither was showing any signs of improving. Unfortunately for Burrier, it was Brees who actually got his act together. He would finish the season 4th among all quarterbacks, although it didn’t help Calderon too much, as he finished 3-6 down the stretch with Brees. Burrier ended the season 5-4 and made the playoffs, but I’m not sure if Rivers had a lot to do with it, finishing 15th among all quarterbacks. Both Calderon and Burrier would end up keeping both quarterbacks the following year.
Rd 4 – Mark Clayton, WR-BAL Clayton was entering his third year in the NFL and he had shown improvement in each of his first two. His receptions went from 44 to 67, his yards jump from 471 to 939 and his touchdowns went from two to five. It was logical that he would make the next step to elite wide receiver. Sadly for Rich, it didn’t happen. Clayton failed to gain a single yard in the season’s first two weeks and through six weeks caught just 13 balls for 104 yards and no touchdowns. Heading into week seven, Rich had seen enough and cut him for Brent Celek. Clayton would never find his groove and no one even bothered to pick him up.
Rd 5 – Chris Chambers, WR-MIA Mr. Chambers didn’t even last a week. Before playing a down for the Burrier Bruisers, Rich shipped him off to Colby for the Jaguars D. The Jacksonville D had been a keeper for Colby in the 12th. Still, it’s hard to imagine the Jaguars ever being a fifth-round pick. Rich would end up starting the Jaguars D from time to time, although they ended the season on his bench. They finished 13th among all D’s. Luckily for Rich, Chambers blew even worse. He was shipped off to San Diego, finishing 27th among all wide receivers. Colby would ship Chambers off to Matt in a five-player deal in week 10. Technically Chambers became the second of Rich’s top-five picks to earn a title with Matt, although Chambers never sniffed the starting lineup, enjoying Neatock’s pine.
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