Looking at the Coulda Shoulda Woulda from past drafts an exercise in futility

With the Raiders now in offseason mode, the talk naturally turns towards the draft. The Raiders will have either the #3 or #4 pick depending on the outcome of a coin flip with the Atlanta Falcons. With the 2008 draft approaching, naturally Raider fans will be looking at the success and failure of past picks as a guide towards the current pick. Without a doubt one of the arguments against Jake Long will be the near bust status of Robert Gallery. Another topic that will come up will be the inevitable the Raiders should not have taken X player whilst Y player is still on the board. The number one example of that is the Raiders selection of kicker Sebastian Janikowski when Shaun Alexander was still on the board. All of these looks back, while great fodder for barroom and Internet debate are nothing more than a fool's errand. There are far too many factors that go into why a player was picked at a certain time by a certain team and how the player was developed by their selected team to say with any certainty that the same result would have occurred with any other team.