Follow Up: The 2003 Draft Class

I’m starting to think the Gazette reads our blog for story ideas.  Last week in our “Draft Memory Lane” segment we covered the terrible 2003 Draft Class.  The Gazette has a new article out on the “rough” 2003, and 2004 Bronco drafts.  They also have a nice spotlight on what Terry Pierce has been up to.  Pierce has now moved on from football and is a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch in Kansas.  He also started a business networking website for fellow Kansas State Alums.  With the Broncos recent troubles at middle linebacker maybe he could come give us another tryout?  Probably not though…

“I went ahead and moved on,” said Pierce, who also started a networking Web site for business owners who are Kansas State alumni. “I wouldn’t have done it had there been another chance in football.”

The rest of the article details what a lot of the players from those two draft have moved on to do.  Canadian Football League, Arena Football, dentistry, and soccer round out the interesting career choices.  A worthy statistic is that both draft classes had a 95% failure rate.  Shows where our issues are coming from now.  I give Denver a better grade on 2004 because we did get D.J. Williams in the first round and Tatum Bell put up respectable numbers and was of some value in the Dre Bly trade.  Other than Watts, most of those guys were long shot prospects anyway.  Shanahan sums up the 03′-04′ situation honestly.

“Those weren’t good drafts or free agency, obviously,” Denver coach Mike Shanahan said after last season. “That stands for itself.”

“If we had some of those drafts, it would be different,” Shanahan said.

The whole article is a well written “Where are They Now” piece and is a good follow up on our segment from last week.  Here’s hoping 2008 fares much better for the Broncos.

Broncos unable to revise rough 2003, 2004 drafts – [Colorado Springs Gazette]