Blaming personnel decisions made by Grigson on Pagano isn't productive. Guy was a productive player here, but was inexplicably cut, just like Freeman was inexplicably allowed to walk. Hughes never got a shot under Pagano because he was behind Freeney and Mathis in 2012 and got traded in 2013. Mario Addison was even deeper on that depth chart.

It is very convenient that such high draft picks were so easily dismissed by the great dam as complete trash.

Pagano can't change the depth chart? Fucking poor guy had his hands tied didn't he

Simple answer: Grigson sucked at drafting, and so did/do the Browns. Richardson wasn't worth trading a 1 for, and Werner's ceiling was never elite, and that was what I said at the time in each case. High draft pick + bad GM = No talent.

I think it's more ... why does Pagano get credit for Henry Anderson (who is way overrated here, FWIW) but Grigson gets blamed for, say, Montori Hughes, and that's not Pagano's fault? What is the logic to that?

I mean, I could argue players on your list like Mewhort and Allen actually REGRESSED under Pagano.

And there are a ton of notable absences, including D'Joun Smith & TJ Green, who Pagano personally advocated for.

Khalid Holmes, who Pags personally worked out.

To me when develop is used that means the coach takes someone and makes them better, or help reach their potential that they would have done otherwise.

The one that really comes to mind in terms of pagano "developing" would be vontae. I didnt really follow his career in miami, but wasnt he kind of a mess there? He came here, got his shit together and became a really good CB. Pags was supposed to be a good DB coach so I could see that.

Could make a case for McGill and Freeman... other than that?

(I am not including Doyle as I doubt pagano had any influence in his success)

This is all opinion, though. No one really knows how much of an impact Pagano did or didn't have on any player's development. But the fact remains that a good number of players have improved under Pagano, enough that it seems plausible that the ones who didn't either had bad circumstances like injuries, or just didn't have the talent to make it work at the NFL level, and this theory becomes even more plausible when you consider that Ryan Grigson was the GM and was awful at talent acquisition throughout his tenure here.

The answer to why Grigson catches the blame for bad draft picks is that these guys don't go on to other teams and become productive players. If that was happening consistently (And I don't consider 3 players over 5 seasons "consistently", the fact that Lawrence Guy was being used by Pagano as a rotational backup here when Grigson cut him notwithstanding), then there's a strong argument for bad player development. But when they don't produce here, go somewhere else and don't produce, and lather, rinse, repeat until they're out of the league, that's not Pagano failing to develop a player any more than it is any other team failing to develop that player. Scouting is not an exact science, and the absolute best in the business at it have success rates in the 40-50% range. Grigson's success rate was more like 25%, which is why he's no longer here.

Not that I agree with your assessment, but assuming I did, injuries would be the biggest factor in both cases. I think the strength and conditioning group that this team was using had done an awful job for a long time, and I was happy when I heard the Colts switched, but they haven't seemed to produce much better results to date.

I left Smith off because, again, injuries were the biggest factor. It's not really possible to develop an injured player. As for Green, he's a second year player, and he was always going to be a project. Early returns don't look promising, but it's too early to completely write him off.

Two words on player development where it is obvious Pags is inept: Jerry Hughes