Because even if his coverage skills improve, I doubt opposing quarterbacks will hesistate to throw at him.

That was a very interesting and logical approach to evaluating the potential added value of Jenkins on the existing roster. But, with all due respect, I think you are missing a couple other logical points. One, we have to be prepared for injury. It happens. Second, improving the effectiveness of the secondary by 20 points (not 20%), on a defense that ranked 28th in pass defense, may vault it into the top 10. It could mean the difference between a 7-9 season and an 11-5 season. There is no way to know since there is no way to correlate your values to results. Flattered that my fan post was worthy of your evaluation, nonetheless. It was intended to make people think.

At the end of the day, I suspect you could do the same evaluation for every position of need and arrive at virtually the same conclusion. While I am a Crabtree fan, and would be excited to see him on the team, I doubt Ruskell will go that way, particularly in a draft where there are 6-7 other very good WR prospects. So, what IS the lowest risk choice? I still think it’s Jenkins. He’s big, fast, and could start opposite Trufant. If we retain Hill, the only other position where a very talented rookie could start would be WR, DE or DT. We spent a 1st round pick on Jackson last year, so doubt we’ll go back to the DE well again. Jennings was 3 years ago, so it’s time to fix the error. He’s simply not tall enough or talented enough to be our starting corner. I don’t see any DT’s worthy of a #4 pick. If Monroe fell to us, we could make that work. He could start at guard alongside Jones and be his eventual replacement. I’m not convinced Andre Smith or the other elite tackles would be any better at guard than Wahle and Sims/Wrotto. And we are already heavily invested in Locklear. AND Ruskell is vocal about believing O-line can be built from 3r and 4th round picks.

and trade BR?

I’m sure we’ll get atleast a 3rd rounder for his grit, and a 2nd rounder for his vetereness.

We’re playing with fire at #4, whiffing on the pick could have disastrous cap consequences. So IMO it’s best to go with the Safest/BPA regardless of need or position, and then worrying about sorting out the rest of the roster. And IMO, from that perspective, Jenkins makes a lot of sense.

The past 3 contracts handed out at the #4 spot have been: 6yr/$60M (McFadden) 6yr/$42M (Adams) and 6yr/$37.5M (Ferguson). That McFadden contract really puts us in a bind (curse Oakland for throwing around $$$)

Anyway, if you figure that you’re going to be paying the #4 pick the equivalent of a Pro-Bowl level starter’s salary … then it makes sense to draft the one player that you think is the safest bet to become that Pro-Bowl level starter – and then balance that against how you have our cap structured and which positions are deemed worthy of premium contracts (usually the skill positions).

Yeah, it would reduce Jennings & Wilson’s overall value …. but comparatively those guys make chump change. They are both due o be FA’s at the same time, in ‘11. With Jenkins on board, the team could afford to eat Jennings’ contract – by either flipping him to acquire a mid round pick or swap him for some other team’s struggling prospect (similar to how we turned Boulware into Babin)

The team has now locked up a top-notch CB tandem for 5-6 years with Wilson at a good price for a Nickel.

But I’m not sure about Jenkins. He seems like an excellent prospect, but there is just the nagging doubt about the ability of some of these “big talent” guys from the Big Ten. Colt McCoy threw for over 400 yards against Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. Sanchez threw 4 touchdowns against them in September. The rest of their schedule was filled with cannon fodder. I think that the we should bring in a FA safety and corner, and use our pick on either an offensive weapon or a lineman that can actually block.