10000%.
He has to have the worst highlight reel of any running QB with his athletic profile I’ve ever seen. His arm talent is real. His deep ball is pretty.
However I doubt a guy from Liberty would be in the convo if it was for his legs and supposed 4.3 speed.
I see a guy who runs more like Jamal Williams than Lamar Jackson. Even Murray, Russ etc look smooth and silky running the ball. For as much supposed speed as Willis has, it’s almost like he embraces the contact.
My favorite draft would be Devin Lloyd, Boye Mafe and Travis Jones…. I would have 100% confidence in our front 7 week one.
3 guys of ideal size, solid to great production and epic athletic profiles.
Yep! We have a good QB. We need a good defense.
For 12 years this fan base was clamouring for the next Erin Rogers when they had Matt Stafford.
What we needed was a complete team.
That’s still where we are.
Wasting high draft picks on pieces you don’t “need” is no way to get there.
Goff has had success and shown he can be a successful QB. The Oline is solid. I’m pretty comfortable with WR and RB
The defense though needs a talent infusion. And has for a long time. Last year we ranked 30th in sacks
Since 2000 the lions rank 27th in sacks. Only Bengals, Cleveland Atlanta Raiders and Houston (who has played two fewer seasons) rank lower.
Lions in that span have allowed a passer rating of 93.1 - Dead last. Top three teams have been Baltimore, Pitts and NE. They are annual playoff teams
The last time I remember the Lions being legitimately competitive was when we had Suh, Fairley and Ansah up front.
We had our ‘franchise QB’ for the last 12 of those 22 years, and what did it get us? I say we stop chasing fools gold and get more talent to knock QBs on their butt. Guys like Rodgers have seen playing the Lions as basically an off week. It’s why Rodgers looks so legitimately offended when we do actually muster a sack
At number two we will get to draft either Hutch or Thibodeaux. Or even Walker. If we don’t, and instead draft an undersized small school running QB who won’t play this year, then I will have lost some confidence in the brass already
Really solid post.
For all the comparing some posters do regarding us and the Rams… you think the fact that the last 2 SB winners being pocket passing QBs over 39 on new teams would resonate more. Then factor in Jimmy G and Tannehill?
Hell maybe even Matt Ryan and Wentz?
I get that Goff might not ever be a top 10 QB….
I know for a fact that Stafford had zero playoff wins in 12 years with a shifty team, and one SB ring in one year with a good team.
I would argue the 21’ Rams had an easier path, and a better overall roster than the 18’ Rams. I would also argue Stafford is definitely a notch above Goff.
That said- building a great team and letting Goff ply QB for a year or 2 gives us a far better chance than FINDING ANOTHER Stafford- and hoping to hurry up and build around them.
The Bears are worse off today than they were 2 first round QBs that cost multiple futures draft picks ago?
GOING ALL IN WHEN YOU DONT HAVE THE CARDS IS HOW YOU ELIMINATE YOURSELF!!!
The Dolphins threw a couple years of serious draft capital and 30M per year at a 28 year old WR…. I’m sorry, but Tua didn’t look like the answer last year, and Ty Hill for 2 years isn’t what will get them a ring… now if they go 10-7 or 11-6 and sneak into the playoffs the next 2 years… do they throw huge money at Tua?? Knowing Hill will be gone right after they pay him?
But are you really saying that, for example, 8 more bench press reps means David Bakhtiari has the strength to thrive in the NFL while Cross doesn’t? Trent Williams, the best OT in the game, only put up 23 reps, does that 3-rep difference mean Cross is doomed?
Then what do you do with guys like Taylor Decker (20 reps), Von Miller (21 reps), Orlando Brown (14 reps), Trent Brown (20 reps), Trey Hendrickson (18 reps), Chandler Jones (22 reps), Maxx Crosby (18 reps), Nate Solder (21 reps), La’el Collins (21 reps), Jason Pierre-Paul (19 reps), Terrell Suggs (19 reps), Andrew Thomas (21 reps), Emmanuel Ogbah (20 reps), Rob Havenstein (16 reps), TJ Watt (21 reps), Jason Peters (21 reps), DeForest Buckner (21 reps), Walter Jones (22 reps), Demarcus Lawrence (20 reps), Montez Sweat (21 reps), Brian O’Neill (22 reps), or any of the other players around the 20 mark?
Those are just guys who play on the edges of the line, and there’s far, far too many of them to call them outliers. And that’s without mentioning all the guys who skipped the bench at both the combine and their pro day despite being healthy, like Brian Burns.
7-8 of these guys weight 30-50 pounds less. That matters.
It’s like comparing Edge to WR bench numbers?
I couldn’t source that Walter Jones bench since he didn’t do it at the combine. I can also tell you the average height, weight speed between 1997 and 2022 is real! Guys that W Jones weren’t training yesterday round and going to cross fit facilities to prepare for the combine…
Trent Williams was also drafted 12 years ago, but even then he was 15 pounds heavier, still did 10% more reps, and was superior in all other drills.
Jason Peters was a college TE who went undrafted and added 35 pounds to his frame in the NFL.
Brother - these are deep pulls!
I like Decker, but I doubt a team drafted top 5-10 wants Decker, Andrew Thomas or R Havenstein as their outcome.
Montez Sweat’s 21 reps put him in the 47th % of all edge rushers ever.
Andrew Thomas’s 21 reps put him in the 42nd % of all offenstive tackles ever.
Obviously the bigger you are, the more you can bench. But once you reach a certain size, those differences become negligible. That shows here. Edge rush bench #’s are very similar to OT.
If I compared DT to OT they’d be even closer but it wouldn’t make any sense to do that. This is a conversation about whether or not a guy is strong enough to play tackle in the league, and tackles, 99% of the time, block edge guys. So I looked at the “strength” based on bench press of the guys literally going head-to-head.
Andrew Thomas is on his way to stardom IMO but that will play out one way or the other, and whether you like Decker as a top ten pick or not, do you think he’s strong enough to play in the league?
I never said I thought Cross would be as good as Trent Williams, it’s nuts to predict anyone would be as good as the best player in the league at their position. I’m talking specificially about his bench press numbers as an indicator of overall strength when it comes to playing the position. You said Cross wasn’t strong enough because he only did 20 bench press reps. That’s what we’re talking about.
And still it’s three more reps. If you put Cross in a gym for a month and had him train solely the bench press, he’s add at least five more reps to his total. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like the bench as a strength metric, it’s too easy to train up. Hell I have a feeling a lot of them hit 20 or 21 and just stop cause they’ve hit the minimum threshold their agents told them they needed to hit.
Anyway it’s clear we’re never going to agree on this, we’ll just have to see how Cross turns out as a player. To be clear I never said he was gonna be a mauler, that’s not the type of player he is. But he’ll protect the QB better than any other OT in this class even if it’s with more of a finesse style, he’ll be a terror on the move, and IMO he’ll be the best tackle in the class. I could be wrong, I’m wrong a lot, and of course it’s fine if you don’t like him as a prospect. I just think holding up the bench press as the reason he’s not strong enough has been proven incorrect over the years. Examples of lack of strength on tape are far better, and there are some, though not very many from 2021.
And to be fair I’ve probably overstated my concerns about him.
Hutch arms
Thibz interest
JJ win rate
T Walker production
Bell 40
Leal combine
Cross weight/Strength
Spiller speed
Picketts hands
Aside from injuries a bunch of guys have warts of varying sizes. How about Deans size and the talent around him? Combine that with surgery last spring, and being hurt again now? Then factor we don’t know how crazy athletic he is, or isn’t?
How about Stingleys awful sophomore year stats. Allowed completions on 50% of his targets
To me all of that is a very small part of their overall evaluation, what matters is the tape, the tape, the tape. The numbers either confirm what I’ve seen on tape or send me back to watch more.
Some metrics are more important than others (I really wish I could get the GPS tracking data, actual game speed would be inredibly helpful), especially for miminum thresholds. I had to move Elijah Holyfield completely off my board after his testing, I knew that level of athleticism wouldn’t hold up in the league. I only had him as a day 3 pick but even that was too high once we saw his testing.
I did the same with him ironically.
You could very well be right on the train for 2 months, add 5 reps. With so much Exeos stuff, you’d think that is what he was or should have been doing though?
Either way we aren’t taking an OT in this class so it’s moot.
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