You even mentioned hearing it elsewhere yourself, as it turns out:
So maybe you’re misremembering. Either way, even going just by things that show up on a google search, no, you were not the only one to utter that blasphemy. I thought it actually came up during the draft broadcast, but Walter Football is the only one I definitely remember.
You’re right, though, these are two separate issues. Admittedly, I’m just shooting off on the subject because people aren’t concluding what I want them to conclude. I’d only point out that it isn’t hindsight to talk about his evaluation; that’s really what I’m trying to say. He was always just another player, which is why he was a 4th round pick, right about the spot where they took Keenan Clayton and Quintin Demps. It’s not a controversial or convenient ex post facto thing to point out that he wasn’t a standout prospect.
The only thing in this entire story that separates him from thousands of other forgettable players is that the Eagles put him in this position, and that that somehow convinced other people to treat it like that was the appropriate expectation for a while. Even this past Sunday, Bob Ford had a story in the Inquirer about what did Matthews’ move from the middle to the outside mean in the long term, and does Castillo not really see him as his middle linebacker of the future? As if we can’t just say that their 4th round pick who looks like a bad player is a bad player, when the reality is that if you keep the 116th pick on your roster all year, you did pretty well. At draft time, they had bad linebackers. Preseason, it was obvious that they had bad linebackers. Now the linebackers unit is playing terribly, and it’s like well, we have to bench Matthews, what a disappointment. Why be disappointed?! At what point did this seem like it wasn’t going to happen?