We didn't see Mundy coming either

"People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be."

--Don Draper

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The Question:

Ace: Which Michigan alum—aside from Tom Brady—most surprised you with his NFL/NBA/NHL success, and which most surprised you by not panning out?

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The Successes:

David Nasternak: Jamal Crawford. This is probably a controversial choice for several reasons. A). He only played about half a year at M. 2). His M career ended rather notoriously. C). He's kinda the forgotten man, associated with M, that just keeps churning out respectable NBA years.

The thing I remember most about Jamal Crawford is the way the NCAA handled him was the moment that separated me from the NCAA party line on extra benefits, as it was so obvious the NCAA was way more the bad guys than the players they went after.

Never known for his defense, Crawford has found his niche coming off the bench and providing instant offense, over the last half-decade or so. He's a career 35% 3PT shooter, hits 86% of his FTs, and has never averaged less than 13.9 ppg since 02-03, his third year in the NBA. Crawford has been a little hard to keep track of because of the six different uniforms that he's worn. He reinvented himself with his stellar bench play in 09-10 with Atlanta, winning the 6th Man of the Year. He also won it again in 13-14 and was highly considered two other times (10-11 and 12-13). Crawford also passed Reggie Miller for most career 4 point plays...he is sitting at 44, currently. Until 2010, he had the record for longest tenured player to never make the playoffs. Once breaking into the postseason, Crawford showed he belonged, averaging 15.0 ppg off the bench in 42 games.

I don't think that Jamal Crawford is/was one of the best players in the NBA at any time during his career. He was never an elite shooter. But he could always find a way to score the ball. After embracing his 6th man role, Crawford became a very credible asset. His numbers have continued to remain steady with the Clippers in his 16th (!!!) year in the NBA (only one significantly shortened to 11 games). Jamal Crawford has been M's longest presence in the NBA since Juwan Howard (who somehow managed to play 19 years??? Although, the last 7 years of Howard's career didn't touch any of Crawford's stats, including Games Played). Watching him play, I still think Crawford has a couple solid years left...even at the young age of 35. Love him or hate him, Dude just keeps contributing.

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Ace: Mundy isn't a star by any means, but he's started 28 games over the last three seasons, including all 16 last year for Chicago. Anyone who remembers Mundy's much-maligned stint as a starting safety—before he played his fifth year at West Virginia—is probably surprised by this. While the Bears defense was bad last year, Mundy managed to be something of a bright spot with over 100 tackles and four interceptions. Just by remaining in the league this long, he's surpassed most expectations; not many undrafted players get starts at age 30.

[After the jump: what's a safety, and Don Draper]

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Seth: You mentioned Ryan Mundy; the same breath usually carries Stevie Brown. Both were liabilities in coverage with the rare explosive moment to justify the recruiting stars. But where Mundy turned into an NFL safety under Tony Gibson of all people, Stevie struggled until Michigan made him a Spur, a two-parts-linebacker/one-part safety hybrid space player in the 2009 3-3-5. This he was pretty good at, but setting the edge and fighting tight ends said nothing about his ability to cover NFL receivers over the top.

That he turned into an NFL safety may say things about Michigan's coaching when he was here, but that was the same Tony Gibson who fixed Mundy. And except for some coffee cups (Jamar Adams, the older Curry brother), Michigan's safety representation in the NFL was non-existent before two guys this fanbase remembers as the goats of the late aughts. I am ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

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Brian: Cato June! How am I the last person to answer this and Cato June is still on the board? June's main contribution at Michigan seemed to be standing over guys other people tackled, looking fierce. Then he makes the Pro Bowl in the NFL. 

As a linebacker. He obviously should have been playing there all along, but Michigan's recruiting then was the opposite of what Miami did. Miami took the fastest guy they could find and moved him down; Michigan took big guys and put 'em wherever. I'll never forget June getting smoked by Jason Witten in that Citrus Bowl hammering. Witten turned out to be a really good tight end, but having your safety lose five yards on a TE is just.... woof.

Stevie Brown doesn't fit in this category because his last year at Michigan was actually very good.

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Adam: Charles Woodson.

If you'd kindly take a step back and lower your torch and pitchfork I think I can explain without getting more of my eyebrows singed off. I'm judging success (and failure) on two components: one is temporal and the other achievement-based. Woodson has surpassed expectations in both.

The NFL says that the average career length for a player who makes a Pro Bowl is 11.7 years; Woodson's already played 50% longer. More impressive is that his role hasn't decreased as his age has increased. He's still a corner/safety/hybrid space player worthy of starting, and those numbers don't include his 113 tackles, four interceptions, and eight passes defensed from 2014.

I'm acutely aware of Woodson's accomplishments while at Michigan, and I expected him to have a successful NFL career. To say, however, that I expected him to play almost twenty high-quality seasons is like saying I know how Mad Men is going to end; there may be hints, but the end result is axiomatically unpredictable.

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Surprised he didn't pan out:

Seth: I'm sorry Adam, but Mad Men has been telling you how it's going to end at the start of every single episode. No, I don't know this like we knew from his freshman year that Woodson would be one of the greatest football players of all time, but the foreshadowing was apparent bordering on blatant. Weird things happen to upset expectations, but I believe in arcs, in spirals, in factors of Pi, and meaning in the things that went before to the transpiration of things after. Charles Woodson was destined to rise. Don Draper is going to fall.

(perhaps just metaphorically)

There are genuine surprises, but when a solid prediction goes sour we tend to rediscover the warning labels. I thought Braylon Edwards would have a Larry Fitzgerald-like impact his first year with the Browns. Perhaps the problem was the Browns because Browns problems usually are—rooming him with Kellen Winslow Jr. and sending him to LeBron's favorite night clubs was courting Brownsness. But there was always either a contract dispute, or injury, or off-field incident, or something limiting him to half the production he was capable of.

Twitter and that most Americans now carry a broadcast studio in their pockets exposed us to the personalities of our gladiators, so we now know things about Braylon's personality that he airs. Fairly, he's now the number one source for eye-rolling comments by Michigan football alumni. Even before that, the whole campus knew of Carr's acrobatics to keep Braylon focused—the jersey promise was only one (ha!) part of a constant effort to maintain page sameness.

I knew Braylon's friends in college, and know some of his teammates now. And I know a guy who started a business with him in California. All of these people talk about a side of Braylon he doesn't tweet: a guy with extraordinary everything who wants to be everything, but most of all wants to do something good for everyone he's ever around. Jim Harbaugh and then Pete Carroll took fliers on him. One Pro Bowl season tempted all the things we could have had. I'm surprised it didn't work out. Also sad.

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Brian: The other dominating wide receiver Michigan sent to the top ten of the draft who flamed out in no small part because of personality issues. That would be David "Bomb-Ass D" Terrell, who tore up Alabama's secondary in his final game, a game in which I spent most of the first half moaning "throw it to Terrell" to myself as Michigan pounded its head against the brick wall of the Tide's front seven.

But Terrell was too much of a diva to be an NFL wide receiver, which is just... how does Michigan have *two* guys with enormous talents that are too unstable to be wide receivers?

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Ace: Tyrone Wheatley entered the NFL as a first-round pick with commensurate expectations, and even as a child learning about football for the first time when he was a senior, it wasn't difficult to see why: his combination of size and track-star speed made him the rare home-run threat that could also take an every-down pounding between the tackles.

What happened to the ones of yesteryear? [Jonathan Daniel /Allsport via CBS]

While Wheatley stuck around for ten years—no small accomplishment—he never made the expected impact, breaking the 1000-yard barrier just one, after he'd gone from the Giants to the Raiders, and surpassing four yards per carry only twice. He did have a mid-career breakthrough sharing time with Napolean Kaufman for the Raiders, but on the whole his career was a disappointment, especially for those who remember his dominance at Michigan.

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David Nasternak: David Terrell. Terrell had a good sophomore year in 1999, a huge breakout game in the 2000 Orange Bowl (definitely one of my Top 5 M games of all time...maybe Top 3?), and great junior year in 2000. He was the first M receiver to have back-to-back 1,000 yard receiving years. I'll never forget that catch against Wisconsin in 2000 (start at 7:15 mark).

Quite the career at the Big House. Granted, he was on a couple of the most talented offenses that M has ever fielded. But he never really got anything going in the NFL. He had decent size (6'2" 216lbs). After being the 8th overall pick in the 2001 Draft for the Chicago Bears, he only managed to play 3 full seasons -in 2002 he only played 5 games with 9 catches but 3 TDs (!!). He tried out with the Broncos, Patriots, and Chiefs between 2005-2009...he was actually ironically beat out by Amani Toomer in 2009 in Kansas City. He also had some off-the-field issues. It's really too bad that he didn't have a longer NFL career. I sure did love watching him in Maize and Blue. That 2000 Orange Bowl was a performance for the ages.