Recently I was reading the National Football Post  and saw that Andy Studebaker, had his rookie contract extended.  And that my fellow BBV'ers is when it all clicked for me.

About this time many a BBV reader is saying, "Who on God's green Earth is Andy Studewhatever?"

Let me elucidate. Andy is a DE turned LB from you guessed it the grand ole LB producing juggernaut of drum roll please...Wheaton (6th round draft pick). This year he was a stud in preseason and beat out a number of other players on the KC line to be paired with more well known commodities like Dorsey and Co.

The propensity of our fan nature to jump on a particular player for producing or not producing at the NFL level within the allotted incubation period of oh say ten whole minutes is well documented. Furthermore we all expound the virtues of waiting 3-4 years before declaring any one particular draft a success or failure and then say that our esteemed GM's (including one Mr. Jerry Reece) have lost their touch when Clint Sintim fails to produce a starting roll in his second year.

Maybe Andy holds the key though...who despite playing DE at a small school has now been extended four years (about $1.5M per year on avg). He is still playing out the third year of his original rookie contract and the Chiefs a young budding defense have very solid depth at a very competitive price. Studebaker is far from the exception though; while from a larger school (FSU) Lawrence Timmons is a similar guy in Pittsburgh who has taken every bit of three plus years (yes his 56 tackles and 7 sacks were career highs last year-his 3rd in the league) to develop.

Key difference for these two can be made in that while both played DE in college one came from a small school and the other a solid D1 football program. Also one was plugged into a heck of a defense with some pretty solid mentorship talent while the other is taking the stage on a young D trying to make some noise this year.

In either case both took time to develop and while Timmons will get a lot more pub than Studebaker, it shouldn't be hard for us Giants fans to relate these scenarios to certain products from Virgina or William and Mary.  

Patience guys it's a long road in building through the draft over multiple seasons and Jerry is building a larger puzzle than many of us realize.