2nd round picks don't win flags. Sure you might get lucky - but have a look at what the premiership lists are built around.
Thats elite talent that come through either:
A. Drafting top end talent
B. Trading in top end talent
We have done neither of this.
To use the old internet saying "all we are doing is shuffling deck chairs on the titanic".
Losing Smack, Petrenko, Graham, Porps, Johnston - doesn't hurt us all.
Losing Picks 31, 47 doesn't hurt us.
Gaining Picks 35 doesnt help us
Gaining Cheney doesnt help us
All of the above doesn't impact our best 22 at all.
Lowden may help us.
Our decision to move from #10 to #14 potentially could really hurt us if a player we rate in the top 5-6 players slides over the next month. We are messing around with our 1 chance to improve our top end talent. Its stupid. So stupid.
You've blown your load early.
A. Drafting top talent, the reason this hasn't happened this season is because, wait for it, maybe we actually haven't had the draft yet? Give it time man.
B. Trading, well i'd argue this year wasn't the year for it in a lot of regards, getting elite talent is about timing and opportunity and perhaps it wasn't there without us crippling another area, something we can ill afford with draft sanctions.
Gaining Pick 35 could definitely help us, there is no guarantee that player will end up a spud, but that's wait till draft day.
Cheney will definitely help us purely because we actually finally have a match up on medium forwards that won't get destroyed (see... Kerridge on Fyfe, L.Thompson on Ziebell and Martin)... in fact i'd argue this to the point that could be the difference between 10th and 7th, he's B grade sure, but because it takes out a glaring weakness which was exposed to devastating effect at least 3 times that i can think of last season, this could end up a win for us.
Lowden does purely because at worse we have a backup ruck that isn't Graham, the best case scenario is he is one of the better rucks going around, a bit of a who knows proposition because he's been in an AFL system for 6 years (18-23). Be curious to see what happens and if it works, well it opens the question if we could create Jenkins into a full time forward. That would be a massive win.
10-14 most likely wont, if we've done it, it shows we rate the draft to be unbelievably even around that point... and that we hold no hope of anyone we rate in the top 6 sliding, I like this decision a lot considering we're back in the second round and it practically nullifies the loss we've made on Lowden and Cheney... especially considering said rating.