"our scouts like this guy" is the best player available in the eyes of that team. Why is that so difficult to see? Obviously all of us can look back in hindsight and see that a pick our team thought was the BPA at the time didn't turn out that way. That is how the draft works. In the past 19 months, we can see what happened with Coburn versus Phaneuf. Coburn, at that time, was the BPA to Atlanta. He was very, very safe. Still is. Of course, Atlanta can look back now and say...humm, we should have grabbed Phaneuf. But that's ridiculous.
I just don't see how your argument "holds water." You seem to be saying that a team can't call a prospect the BPA to it without at least a few years of post-draft observation.
On the same note, can I ask how many hours you spent in arenas watching Gordon play? I would suspect that those scouts spent many, many hours in small, cold arenas watching him play and collectively came to the educated conclusion that he was the BPA at that time. Of course, at the time you disagreed which is fine. That is our right as fans. But it's not like they didn't spend the time researching. Washington certainly didn't through a damn dart at a chart and somehow pick off Boyd Gordon. At that time, he was the BPA to Washington in the eyes of the organization.