Bad Draft Picks

The worst draft picks of the 49ers.

Pretty sad to read about these players - some felled because of injury, but most because they couldn't learn, didn't have the skills, weren't mentally built to succeed, or were overrated to begin with.  I wonder what their lives must be like - having had such potential and hope at one time and then to never really make it and be viewed as a failure.  Strange.

Was thinking about winning and losing yesterday and how much our culture emphasizes what it means to be a "winner."  My current soccer team is uncompetitive in our 11 v. 11 league and we are losers by any definition.  We lost 6-2 on Sunday.  Then I find out after the game, some of the players on the other team were former pros.  Then I get an email about our Tuesday league - which is a subset of the players on our Sunday team - and we're in first place.  I didn't realize.  Same team.  Winners in one league, losers in the other...for obvious reasons, in one league the competition is much stiffer and the build of our team - we don't have a lot of depth.  But this provides, I think, a small metaphor for life, how a winner in one spot can easily be a loser in another spot -- and this is a strange thing to think about because this frame of reference can really shape the image of oneself, can shape ones entire fate.  So it is no small thing.