Anyone who reckons that Hodge is better than Judd at the moment is deluded, but to say that it was a huge recruiting blunder to take Hodge at 1 is premature.
Statistically (keeping in mind that Hodge's versatility has seen him abused all over the park by Schwab) Hodge is up there with any player in the comp in terms of possessions for minutes in the middle, as my previous post demonstrated.
How has Hodge compared this year to the 'top 10' players from the same draft THIS YEAR?
1 - Judd is the clear standout - 22.8 ppg, 0.85 g
2 - SAM MITCHELL - 19.63 ppg
3 - Dal Santo - 18.86 ppg, 0.4 g
4 - Ball - 18.57 ppg, 0.5g
5 - Kelly - 17.85ppg
6 - HODGE - 15 ppg, 1g
7 - Ablett - 11.8 ppg, 1.8g
8 - Clarke - 11ppg
9 - Sampi 10ppg
10 - Polak 8.8ppg, 4.5mpg
Now consider this:
-Hodge played the first month of football with a broken foot (injections before every game).
-Hodge is played in the middle for 60 minutes less per game than the top 5 disposal winners,
-Despite playing less than half of what his counterparts do in the middle, he is only averaging 3 possessions per game less than Kelly, Ball and Dal Santo -> negligable. If anything it shows that Hodge finds the ball comfortably, even better than said players.
-As expected, given his time forward he averages more goals per game than those higher than him on possession.
-Playing forward in the worst side in the league (less I50 than any other side) obviously means he has with less opportunity to find the ball.
-Given the ineptitude of our other forwards, Hodge has played a fair chunk of the year at CHF or FF - on bigger and stronger opponents.
Hodge will get better and better, all he needs is to settle into the team and he will be as good as, if not better than every player in his draft (excluding Judd).
Even then, they are only three years into their careers...a lot can and will happen over the next decade.