Universal Love The Jason Taylor Appreciation Thread

Pretty simple concept.
Is it great drafting that got us a heap of players from the later picks or does great coaching turn any one drafted into a very good player.

Depends on the player. Plenty of great coaches have never been able to get anything out of dud picks. Plenty of players have achieved great things under crap coaches.
 
Those Port players as a collective haven’t had anything near the impact of Jackson, Kossie and Rivers. Butters obviously is a freak who was held back by injury this year but Rozee and Duursma have been average to good in 2020/21 in a top 2 side while being a year older. They all had great debut seasons but have stagnated or even regressed a bit since then in spite of the team improving.
 
Have it your guys way, Melbourne's the best of all time at everything 😂

Just for clarity, your argument is suggesting that JT may be overrated as the influence of the coaches could make ordinary draft picks into genuine players. But following that logic doesn't that make our coaches amazing?
 

Topkent

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Just for clarity, your argument is suggesting that JT may be overrated as the influence of the coaches could make ordinary draft picks into genuine players. But following that logic doesn't that make our coaches amazing?
I'm saying how could anyone ever know? Thus the chicken and the egg analogy I used.
Same way that everyone says Prendergast sucked at drafting, but it's widely acknowledged our training and development sucked. So maybe he drafted guns who weren't developed.
 
I'm saying how could anyone ever know? Thus the chicken and the egg analogy I used.
Same way that everyone says Prendergast sucked at drafting, but it's widely acknowledged our training and development sucked. So maybe he drafted guns who weren't developed.
I guess so. Either way we've done well. The only thing you can do is see how players were rated in other phantom drafts and see if we just picked the general consensus like Petracca at 2 or if we picked something a bit left field like Jackson at 3. We've clearly traded into the draft targeting specific players in mind with Jason Taylor.
 
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I'm saying how could anyone ever know? Thus the chicken and the egg analogy I used.
Same way that everyone says Prendergast sucked at drafting, but it's widely acknowledged our training and development sucked. So maybe he drafted guns who weren't developed.
There’s a lot of merit to what you’re saying but I reckon we were a bit guilty of overrating certain pieces of the list around 07/08. We likely thought that McLean, Moloney and Sylvia were our generational inside mids with Bate, Dunn and Juice Newton as our gun forwards to replace Neitz. As a result we took too many luxuries at the draft on pretty types, the likes of Strauss, Blease etc when we really should’ve been picking the best available. But as you say our culture and development sucked so I’m also doubtful that even Dusty would’ve become a star for us…
 
Richmond were pretty close to turfing Dusty to GWS in 2012 for cultural reasons, it took a lot to get him right but I think realistically he’s so good that he probably would have turned out well enough anywhere. Drafting was still a bit of a crap shoot back then though, it’s a different science in the post-expansion era IMO.
 
Drafting was still a bit of a crap shoot back then though, it’s a different science in the post-expansion era IMO.
Mostly because we're good at it these days.

In the 2017 draft, Carlton took Dow at 3 and O'Brien at 10. St Kilda took Coffield at 8, Brander to WCE at 13, Ling to Sydney at 14.
 
I don’t know if this is a Jason Taylorism but there seems to have been a focus in the last few years on drafting kids who are really mentally mature - soft spoken but very focused and applied. The 2019 group maybe is an exception to this (not that there’s anything wrong with them - their character is just a bit more exuberant) but the rest all seem to strike a very similar tone in my mind. Could just be a coincidence, but it is something I’ve picked up a bit on in some of the BTS work featuring JT, where he repeatedly talks about kids who love footy and are leaders etc. Seems like a cornerstone of his approach, and I know it was a big pet of the reason he was such a Lever fan.
 
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He’s the Picasso or Rembrandt of AFL drafting.
Probably more Rembrandt than Picasso. Rembrandt's work is pretty standard so picking players that have good fundermentals. Good kicking, tackling, work ethic ect. As an artist it's a safe bet. Guys like anb, Spargo, Rivers and petty.

Picasso is an abstract artist more your x factor types they can do some extraordinary things and are more memorable but as an artist it's a risk. Guys like Jackson and Pickett maybe Fritsch.



Edit: that youtube clip should say "best scene in any movie ever" btw.
 
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