Seven Brownlow medal votes. Jack Watts, the 2008 AFL number one pick, has amassed a total of seven Brownlow medal votes in his seven-year, 115-game career as a Melbourne Demon.

His contemporaries, those shouldered with the doubtlessly heavy burden of being judged the best available player of their class, have earned the praise of the umpiring fraternity at least twice as often. In the case of some number one picks from the start of the decade, more than seven times as frequently.

Year Taken	Player	Brownlow votes	Games	Votes per 100 games
2000	Nick Reiwoldt	124	298	41.61
2001	Luke Hodge	115	268	42.91
2002	Brendon Goddard	74	269	27.51
2003	Adam Cooney	82	230	35.65
2004	Brett Deledio	67	232	28.88
2005	Marc Murphy	82	204	40.2
2006	Bryce Gibbs	55	187	29.41
2007	Matthew Kreuzer	15	119	12.61
2008	Jack Watts	7	115	6.09
2009	Tom Scully	11	103	10.68
2010	David Swallow	9	79	11.39

It’s a narrow criteria, and influenced by so many things outside of an individual’s control, and a little bit churlish of me to bring up. But the magnitude of the difference between Watts and his contemporaries is, well it’s notable.

Melbourne’s number four was dropped from the Round 23 team which played against Greater Western Sydney at a cavernous Etihad Stadium, with the dreaded ‘omitted’ tag next to his name. It capped off another bland, mediocre season for the one-time Melbourne white knight, and that seven letter word set tongues wagging across the AFL.

Coach Paul Roos was asked the question directly on AFL360 last Monday night, to which he replied “I can’t guarantee any Melbourne player [will be at the club next year].” While that may be factually correct, they are not the words of a coach that has slapped a ‘required’ sticker on his player’s forehead.

Watts is one of a few interesting wrinkles to be ironed out at Melbourne over the next 12 months, as the Demon hierarchy transitions from the reign of Roos to a relatively unknown quantity in Simon Goodwin. The Paul Roos incursion has, to this point, yielded 11 wins from 44 games, which is a very clear improvement on what he inherited in 2013.

What does the post-Roos era hold for the oldest professional football organisation in the world? There’s plenty to consider, but a lot, somewhat unsurprisingly, rests on one question: what to do about Jack?

I reckon Roos had it pretty good.

He was a champion, 350-game player. As a coach, he kickstarted Sydney’s current era of success. He converted that, and a natural warmth in front of the camera, into a plum gig in the football media.

When he and Melbourne came together at the end of the 2013 season, the Dees certainly did not have it good. In fact, they were terrible. A rabble, masquerading as a football club, certainly on the field but by all reports off the field too. The club, a division of the Melbourne Cricket Club, recorded a net operating loss of $1.7 million in the 2013 football year, and a comprehensive loss (sort of like a business’ profit and loss) of $3.1 million.

A fair chunk of that change was used to restructure the football department, of which the AFL picked up a portion of the tab. That was what allowed Roos to come into the organisation – or, if you like, the place was reformed in order to bring him in.

The club’s finances were suffering under the auspices of some terrible football-related decisions, which are too numerous to cover in the appropriate level of detail here. As ever, a lot of it comes back to drafting and player development, and boy did the Dees make some stinking calls. Again, there’s probably too many to run through here, but the 2009 draft sticks out. Melbourne had four picks inside the top 20.

Here’s who they picked.

Tom Scully (#1)
Jack Trengove (#2)
Jordan Gysberts (#11)
Luke Tapscott (#18)

And here’s who they didn’t.

Dustin Martin	Kane Lucas
Anthony Morabito	Daniel Talia
Ben Cunnington	Lewis Jetta
Gary Rohan	Christian Howard
Brad Sheppard	Jasper Pittard
John Butcher	Daniel Menzel
Andrew Moore	Ben Griffiths
Jake Melksham	Nathan Fyfe

Just one of Melbourne’s four top 20 picks from the 2009 draft are still on their list, while there is a fair bit of talent among those 16 players who were on the board while the Dees were active. And while they dodged a Butcher or two, they also skipped out on some very good to generational talent.

These are the players who should just be coming into their prime, in a team rising up the ladder with a core group of older and veteran players around them. But that’s not what’s happening.

What’s worse than a basket case?
The 2013 Melbourne Demons had a record of 2-20, with a percentage of 54.1, which was bested by the second-year Greater Western Sydney Giants (1-21). GWS had an excuse though: they were a team full of 19-year-olds, playing at a bunch of different stadiums and based in a region that prefers their footballs white.

Melbourne are the oldest professional football team in the world.

Melbourne were the worst offence (-28.6) and second-worst defence (-31.7) on my offensive and defensive efficiency ratings in that year, which puts them in the ‘worst team of the modern era’ conversation.

The Dees were consistently smacked in close (circa -23.5; on contested possessions and -9.5 on clearances per game), but were equally as awful once the ball was out in space (-56.7 on uncontested possessions, and allowed their opponents to kick 228 times compared to their 181). These were all ranked 18th in the competition. Essentially, pick any stat, and Melbourne were in the bottom quartile, if they weren’t dead, stinking last.

The best thing about 2013 Melbourne was Jeremy Howe’s tendency to take a specky or two per game. Colin Sylvia led the Demons in more statistical categories than he should (that number is zero). Their playing list was a wasteland of meek talent and injury. Just two players played the full 22-game season (Nathan Jones and Matt Jones), and the team changed week to week. There were nine changes to the team after the first two weeks of football.

But there was some talent – the cupboard wasn’t completely bare. I mean, a forward line of Mitch Clark, Chris Dawes, Howe, Watts, Aaron Davey and Shannon Byrnes doesn’t exactly scream great, but all-time bad?

Depth was the biggest problem, and that’s where poor drafting comes squarely into focus. A number of recycled bit-part players had serious game time in that year: David Rodan played nine games, Cameron Pedersen 10, James Sellar suited up seven times. Tom Gillies (two) and even Joel Macdonald (one) also played a role.

That team was the culmination of more than half a decade of terrible decisions, poor management and aforementioned drafting catastrophes. The team churned through six coaches (three of them caretaker, admittedly) between 2007 and 2013, starting with the mid-season sacking of 10-year Neale Daniher in 2007 and ending with the half-year leadership of Neil Craig.

There were allegations of tanking (the un-AFL sanctioned kind) levelled at the end of the 2009 season, and while the word was never officially stamped on the administrators’ foreheads, that didn’t matter much.

Losing is our priority
In a lot of ways, that episode was the death knell for the previously quantitative approach to allocating priority picks. Well, that plus the fact that Gold Coast would have received a top-tier priority pick in 2012, and Greater Western Sydney in 2013, under the quantitative guidelines.

Between 1993 and 2012, a team was handed an extra draft pick, which was always a pick in the first three selections of the draft, despite the rule stating it could be anywhere between the first and second rounds. Teams were formerly granted an extra pick if they fell beneath a certain threshold of wins (initially five, but reduced to four wins with two seasons of record taken into account 2006), and this was the rule Melbourne was allegedly seeking to exploit.

Ironically, Melbourne would have likely received a priority pick at the end of the first round in 2012, a first round priority pick in 2013, and another first round priority pick in 2014, under the old system. As it happened, they didn’t receive anything.

And that’s because picks are now awarded on a discretionary basis by the AFL Commission, although there is supposedly a formula that helps guide deliberations. The threshold has been set remarkably high, it seems.

Indeed, Melbourne were the last team to receive a priority pick, in that fateful 2009 draft. Other teams that would have received a pick under the old guidelines include St Kilda (2014, end of first round), Melbourne (2014, first round), Carlton (2015, end of first round) and Brisbane (2015, end of first round).

Would it have helped Melbourne? Or St Kilda? Or indeed, will it help Carlton and Brisbane to receive priority picks this year? Like the debate surrounding future picks earlier in the year, the issue isn’t just about getting more or better picks, it’s about enhancing clubs’ collective capacity to make the best decisions possible. And that’s where the AFL’s insertion of Roos into Melbourne has been so important to their recent history.

Arise, Sir Paul
So anyway, the point of all this is to say Paul Roos had it pretty good. Yet at the end of the 2013 season, he decided that taking on the stewardship of this team would make things better.

Roos was bought in at the behest of the AFL, and committed to at least a two-year term, with a third year option on his behalf, which he has since exercised. The plan was, and still is, to hand over the reins to an assistant coach at the end of Roos’ term, with Simon Goodwin anointed as the chosen one.

Their first year together wasn’t particularly stellar: the Dees finished 17th again, and scored just 1336 points for the home-and-away season (Hawthorn, the premiers, scored 2458). Significant improvement came on the defensive end, though, with Melbourne conceding just 1954 points, which was 12th in the league and a ridiculous 700-point turnaround (about five goals per game) on their 2013 season.

The two are very much related – after all, you can only score if you have the ball in hand. But Melbourne took this theory and flipped it: no matter who has the ball, no one is scoring.

In that 2014 season, games that Melbourne played in saw just 149 points scored by both teams, compared to the AFL average for that year of 173. Games Melbourne played in resulted in just 43 scoring shots per team, compared to 48 for the rest of the competition, and there were fewer possessions and fewer inside 50s, too. It was the birth of the Paul Roos Clogged Toilet strategy (patent pending). And it didn’t amount to much where it counts.

But what it did do is lead to that reduced tendency to have big scores kick against his team, which has translated to a still-strong defensive performance in season 2015.

In year two of Roos’ term, the Dees clocked up seven wins, with their largest win tally and best percentage (76.9 per cent) since 2011. Melbourne circa 2015 scored almost as many points per game as their 2012 iteration (71.5 points, versus 71.8 points), but did so conceding significantly fewer points off to their opponents (92.1 points, versus 106.4 points).

The win tally is the important indicator here, though. The 2015 Melbourne Demons put more wins on the board than 2013 and 2014 combined, despite there being no easy-beat expansion side or abjectly terrible Western Bulldogs or St Kilda to beat up on. They beat Geelong at Geelong, and Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs and Richmond at the MCG.

Five of their seven victories have come as a result of attacking play, with scores of 90-plus. Their victory over the Tigers was driven by accuracy (Richmond kicked 6.15 to 12.11 for Melbourne), while we’ve all wiped that skid mark of a game against Brisbane from our memories, right?

It’s all pointing in the right direction. When Melbourne have clicked this season, they have looked like a genuine, competitive football team. And Roos has evolved the Clogged Toilet into an inside, clearance-driven machine capable of muscling sides who don’t come to play. Melbourne essentially broke even on contested possessions for the season, which is an astronomical improvement on their 2013 effort. But when they won, they slayed their opponent around the contest, which more often than not then translated to wins on the outside, too.

Melbourne still get smoked in the battle for territory more often than not, winning the inside 50 count on just six occasions for the season (which is less than everyone bar Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast). This suggests they still struggle to contain their opposition if the ball ends up on the outside of the contest. But that comes with time.

When you take this sort of macro view, it all starts to fall into place.

Step one: stop the haemorrhaging
Step two: get on top of clearances
Step three: start to beat the opponent around the ball
Step four: learn to play better on the outside, and score more as a result
Step five: free up the midfield, and allow them to play as conditions suit

Roos has ticked the first three boxes, and at the end of the second year of a three-year term has shown his players and his scheme can push his charges to step four. Progress on the AFL field is very rarely linear (ask Port Adelaide, the Western Bulldogs and West Coast), but Melbourne may be proving that there is an exception for every rule.

Will Melbourne make the 2016 finals? I don’t think so, mostly because of who is around them more than they themselves. Roos has taught his team how to play football his way, and he’s teaching the coaches around him how to coach his way, too. For all of the knocks on the overtly defensive, congested game style, there is little doubt that Roos has his finger firmly on the pulse of his team, and he knows what works for them.

The building blocks are in place now, and all is ready for Goodwin, a renowned tactician in his time at Essendon, to take over and make the team his own. That will inevitably result in a greater emphasis on attacking play through the middle of the ground, a hallmark of the 2014 Essendon team that he led with Mark Thompson.

The handover between the two will be a critical issue for Melbourne towards the second half of 2016, but it isn’t the only issue that will keep Melbourne’s leadership focussed next year.

The talent is there
Finally, finally, the draft and player acquisition is being treated with the respect it deserves. Melbourne’s playing stocks have soared in recent years, particularly at the bottom end of the list, and it’s meant the days of being the league’s dumping ground are over. Consider this list of players:

Jesse Hogan
Jimmy Toumpas
Jack Viney
Christian Salem
Dean Kent
Matt Jones
Aaron Vandenberg
Jay Kennedy-Harris
Angus Brayshaw
Christian Petrecca
Bernie Vince
Jeff Garlett
Heretier Lumumba
Daniel Cross
Chris Dawes

This is the talent the Dees have brought into the fold since the 2012 draft, mostly through the national draft but also through trade. The veterans haven’t exactly been world-beaters (although Vince has been excellent) but their inclusion is as much about off-field method as it is on-field performance. While they’re not all slam dunks, or big-impact players in their own right, they are a damn sight better than the tyre-fire of players they have bought in and subsequently tossed out over the previous decade.

Mark Jamar lived to tell the tale, and has been unfortunately discarded at the conclusion of this season. Jamar was perhaps the most underrated ruckman in the AFL for a couple of years, although he did make the All Australian team in 2010. The list management team are clearly comfortable that 208 centimetre Max Gawn has what it takes to become a Todd Goldstein-Sam Jacobs lone-hand type over the next couple of years, with Jake Spencer destined to be a bench scrub by many in the know.

Otherwise, Melbourne’s list cleanout at the end of the 2015 season was by the book. The players that were pruned simply weren’t up to AFL standard, despite the number of games they ended up tallying.

But the young talent is certainly there now. Add to it another couple of reasonably high picks this year, and the list is almost to the point where you’d consider it of AFL standard.

But in the new, hyper-competitive AFL, no list is ever safe, even one that has gone through the trials and tribulations of the Demons in recent years. The trade winds are blowing across the MCG, straight into the headquarters of the Melbourne Football Club.

Most of the list is signed on for 2016, with two players in particular waiting to put pen to paper on an agreement either at the Dees or elsewhere.

Midsized defender Colin Garland, who appears to be a required player, is a restricted free agent, but there’s been little by way of public talk about him moving clubs. His fellow mid-sized team mate, Jeremy Howe, has been the subject of much speculation throughout the year.

Howe is what you would call an above-average talent; certainly not a player to take a game apart by himself, but one who’s capable of making a strong contribution on a week-to-week basis. His high marking abilities are prodigious, but he’s yet to show anything more than a capability to be a third banana at either end of the ground.

It made the call for a $600,000 salary, which no one came forward to verify, somewhat laughable, and it’s no wonder a deal is yet to be struck. You would expect him to remain a Dee for at least another three years, after which time he’ll become a restricted free agent (or, indeed, a fully-fledged free agent if the AFL Players Association gets its way).

What to do about Jack?
That leaves Jack Watts.

Watts still has a year to run on his current deal, his third with the club, after which he will become a restricted free agent (if we assume he’s in the top 25 per cent of player payments, which he probably is). This is critical. If Watts was a regular, uncontracted player, there would be no talk of him being shopped around. But that he will be a restricted free agent at the conclusion of the 2016 season means Melbourne lose an element of control over the compensation they receive for his departure – should it eventuate.

And indeed, no one would be talking about Watts as a trade prospect were it not for the decision to drop him in Round 23.

To this point, speculation about Watts has been driven by the media, although Roos’ comments have done nothing to suggest there isn’t something more to that speculation.

Teams don’t exactly throw out their first round draft picks every day, and indeed only one of the number one draft picks taken over the 2000s shifted clubs by way of trade (Tom Scully, to GWS). Any public attempt to move him on would be treated with the sort of fervour reserved for Patrick Dangerfield and his two black garbage bags – Okay, maybe not quite at that level, but you catch my drift.

Watts’ tenure at Melbourne has been controversial from the get go. Brought in as the great white hope, the number four hasn’t emerged from his TAC Cup primordial ooze to this point in his professional career.

Heavy lies the crown, as they say, and Watts has always had unfair expectation loaded on his shoulders. Nic Naitanui is never referred to as ‘2008’s pick two Nic Naitanui’.

Its not all his fault, though. Watts was drafted as a forward line prospect, and made his debut in Round 11, 2009. His fellow 2008 top-10 draftees are Naitanui, Stephen Hill, Hamish Hartlett, Michael Hurley, Chris Yarran, Daniel Rich, Tyrone Vickery, Jack Ziebell and Phil Davis. It certainly wasn’t the deepest draft in the history of the AFL, but as far as role players go, well, its been pretty solid. Melbourne had the pick of the bunch, and they chose Watts.

He’s also operated under the tenure of six different head coaches, all with different thoughts on the role he can play in an AFL team. He was a forward, then he was a half forward, then he was a half back, then he played as a quarter back. I mean, Watts has spent material playing time as a ruckman, particularly this season.

He’s never been given time, or the opportunity, to settle into a role. Of the 2008 draft class, he’s really the only one you can say that of. Perhaps Vickery was given less of an opportunity to settle in, given he was tried as a key forward, a forward pocket, and a ruckman. But the second half of this season showed what can happen when a player is given a role and allowed the time to perfect the craft.

What Watts needs more than anything, either at Melbourne or at another club should that arise, is to be given a role and the space to work at it.

Watts’ ability to mark the ball is suited to the forward line, but his reportedly high football IQ – that is, his ability to make really good decisions with the ball in hand – is better suited to being someone who sets up the play. Playing him behind the ball as a quarterback suits both, but probably puts too great an emphasis on the football IQ side of things at the expense of his ability to mark.

The emergence of a Tom Lynch type – that player who starts up forward, but runs the wings and can be used as a distributor inside the attacking half – seems a role perfectly suited to Watts’ abilities. Lynch is slightly smaller but more bulky than Watts, and is perhaps a better defensive player than number four. But I would contend Watts is a better player with ball in hand, and is less likely to make a bad decision when the heat is on (as Lynch has shown a tendency to).

Watts as a high half forward suits his skills as well as any other position on the ground. The question then becomes: can he play that role at Melbourne? Is he destined to be played stubbornly out of position, like Jake Carlisle, and suffer the consequence of a mediocre career as a result? Or is there an opportunity for he and Melbourne to work out a trade that is in his, Melbourne’s, and his suitor’s best interest?

The great unknown is what Watts looks like at a club where he doesn’t have to be the best player – not that he has been at Melbourne. Watts in a successful, well-run team is a completely different proposition by my reckoning than Watts in a worn-out, unsuccessful one.

There’s been plenty of talk about Watts to Richmond over the past week or so, to the point that specific trades are being thrown around. Regardless of where he goes, if he goes, Watts’ pedigree and the green shoots he has shown at various times throughout his career command a high pick, plus a player of reasonable note.

Balance of probabilities says he stays, gives the club one more year, and perhaps tests the free agency waters in 2016. Melbourne, on the other hand, may see fit to cut their losses, and search for some value from another team.

The question then becomes theirs: what do we do about Jack?