I agree with Harry/Miller being in a battle for playing time, but as mentioned--Harry is in the exact same situation in New England, fighting for playing time as the 3/4/5th WR in the WR room alone, not counting other pass-catching options. If he's bitching about Belichick's WR room and his spot there, it isn't going to magically get better here short term with no guarantees long term. In hindsight, this is entirely correct. But at the time, with the information available--his one year of elite production was his biggest knock, with the other things I mentioned earlier needing polishing. He started in Jr. college before transferring to WV, where he was a part-time guy in 2013 with 40 catches on the year to his major year in 2014 that got him picked 7th. A 3rd year at WV repeating his 2nd year could have made a lot of people feel better about him being a top 7 pick, but in reality--kid wants to make money and played 4 years of college. Teams believed he could be adaptable to learning routes even starting at the beginning which is what Frodo and John Fox had him doing when we saw a glimpse of him prior to the injury. White was running 5 and outs, quick slants, and quick hitches. The route-running,initial hand fighting/adjusting to NFL caliber DBs from better NCAA ones could be fixed--him being pre-injured couldn't. Furthermore--going back to the information at the time--White was the best size/speed combo in 2015. It was a gamble (that obviously didn't pay off) but I see why he was such a high pick. If he clicks, you have an elite/rare WR that everybody wants. However--being picked 7th, there's not a lot of room for error and missing on a pick that high is exactly as you said--beyond terrible. Expectations aren't going to be lenient being taken that high, and our genius GM had to dump Marshall and Jeffery to put himself in the position of taking a WR 7th overall because Torrey Smith/Jeremy Maclin were the best WR FAs at the time and got overpaid by SF/KC while Pace shot his wad of FA $$$ on Pernell McKnee and Antrel Rolle. With the info at the time, I can see White being the 7th pick 9/10 times with the position the Bears were in. No other WR in the draft could be substituted at 7 or even a minor trade down without needing the same polishing/improvements White needed from a college scouting report level. Gotta cut here. Someone on CCS said that losing Buster Skrine is bad for the secondary and I'm unable to listen to my brain telling me to 'let it go, he's just an idiot.'
I think thats a very good way of putting it, he was a gamble. He was a project. I just have a big problem with making project picks in the top10 of a draft. Draft picks can always fail of course, but top10 i really feel you need to be picking players that arent projects. As well all know tho, this was a forced pick brought on by bad roster management by the GM. And i think thats where i'll leave it. Breaking down the mind-blowingly bad roster building moves of Ryan Pace again will only cause me to unravel. Great job dropping in Pernell McKnee. Always loved that nickname.
