There are a few points that I want to make or highlight:
Casserly is not the first GM in Houston to pass on a native Houston product.
This doesn't mean Casserly has failed yet in this sense, because we don't know how Young will pan out. Yes you can say it was his non-pick, sure. He did however say to blame him, not Mario for passing on Bush and Young. If not, then put it on Kubiak ( that's even better for this topic because Kubiak and Sherman are Aggies from 1993 )
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The main reason for tagging this onto the end of a Brad Hopkins FA thread/topic is to highlight that a native was passed up before in the past and it turned out so-so for the city. That is to say you don't have to be Casserly to make that kind of call.
There are a few threads floating around that talk about how 'can you' pass up on a sure fire winner from your own city... and I couldn't find a single person that remembers Strahan. ( so here is one )
With that I will refresh some memories and tell the story of that which is at least known to most of the dogs that I ran with in west Houston 93'.
Strahan was overshadowed in the local media/common mouths because of the Aggies and RC Slocum's Wrecking Crew defense. They were just coming off a killing of what was then a powerhouse Florida football team in the Cotton Bowl. And the bulk of scouts/coaches/media folks were in love with this trendy attacking defense ( see draft 92 ). The Aggies then went undefeated until they met up with Notre Dame... but the locals were still howling Aggie going into 93.
It's ironic that Sherman and Kubiak were part of that particular Aggie squad that dampened Strahan.
I remember saying I hope we pick Strahan up and thinking how it would help out having a local super-hero come in when times were at their all time low ( and it didn't get any lower then 1993 Houston ).
The same debate went on then, as it is now, did for the past 6 months, as it will go on for a few more years. Granted then the city home boy faction was much smaller with Strahan then it is with Young, but all the same stuff was said by the same sides. We need O to score, we need D, you don't draft a guy because he is from your city, you draft for need, you draft the best guy available, and so forth.
Houston actually traded up to get Brad Hopkins, when Strahan was still out there. What we had on the D-line was an ageing 3
Childress ( Texas A&M )
Jones ( Northeastern )
Fuller ( North Carolina )
The point here is that we had good guys just like we have a good QB now ( when we passed on Young ). They passed on Strahan and he went on to have his soon to be HOF career elsewhere. If Young does the same thing, it will have not be so novel, because Strahan did it before.
I am not saying it is a perfect fit, exact same scenario kinda thing, but there are parallels. There are differences too... Strahan was from a small school ( but famous: Kenny Burrough ) and didn't have HOF written on his resume` before he was drafted. BUT there was a handful of us that wanted him because he was a good player and from Houston... along with being from a worthy school and conference that has put out some extremely good HOFers in the past ( perhaps two of the best that have ever played ).
here's a link
http://www.collegefootballnews.com/Almanac/Draft/DraftShouldve_1993.htm
What if Mario Williams turns out like Brad Hopkins and Young like a Strahan? I don't think I could fault Casserly either way, but Aggies... now that's a different story.
