I’ll give you all that. What I’m really talking about, though, comes from that Wash interview where he refers to Mack as “can’t get any lower” referring to his physique and technique. He already plays with a low center of gravity due to his conditioning and build. Does he need more conditioning? 100%.
Maybe instead of “conditioning” for Levi, we can say he needs a bit of a transformation? The “blown off the ball” comments are not overstatements. Part of that is because every Guard in the NFL is better than the best Guard he ever faced in college.
To Levi I say “And if you don’t know, now you know”.
If he doesn’t want to get his butt whooped every Sunday, he better do as coach says this off-season or he’ll be on the couch at home like Hand and the other myriad “talented” players that Kelvin Shepherd went off on this season.
The thing that gives me hope with Levi is his mindset. This guy is aggressive and wants to embarass his opponent. Hell the first thing he said after he got drafted is he was ready to F*** some people up this year. He has definitely got a mean streak in him and I bet he is embarassed by the way he played this year. That has to be one hell of a motivator for a guy with his mindset and it wouldn’t shock me to see him look like a completely different player in 2022.
I think that’s what’s led to so much disappointment. If you’re going to talk the talk you better walk the walk. Get your behind in the gym and come back with a purpose to couple with the attitude.
Maybe he’s not worth a second round pick. Most draft picks don’t live up to their draft position. Levi was injured, I’m not ready to write him off as a total loss yet.
In any case, Holmes drafted a wide receiver in the fourth that played more like a late 1st/2nd round pick. So even by your math, which doesn’t seem very reasonable to me (moves that work out worse than expected are Holmes’ fault, moves that work out better were just luck), then at the worst, those picks should be a wash.
I just think you are viewing this through a particularly unforgiving and not very realistic lens. By any historic standard, this was a successful draft class.
I agree that it’s a wash with St.Brown he played like a 1st Rd pic, and it’s not a bad draft it turned out pretty good due to St.Brown. but doesn’t change the fact that Levi was is a development type prospect and was taken to high it was a Tavi type pick, and then he comes out and says the Dline is a strength when he could say they didn’t live up to there potential. I like Campbell because he could admit to mistakes and then change it. Holmes on the other hand is blowing smoke up people’s asses with the whole Dline is a strength. I know we’re at the stage were you can’t question Holmes but , I believe the coaching staff made him look better then he was. He said he liked our wr room and safety room last year and they both were bad. You have a honest straight forward coach that can admit and make changes to his mistakes but our GM is stroking his own ego trying to make The Dline better then it is
Not exactly a glowing endorsement of McNeill’s addition to the All rookie team.
“There is no obvious candidate for the second interior defender spot, but McNeill earns the nod as PFF’s second-highest graded rookie at the position with a 60.3 overall grade”
#2 — Of course Holmes is blowing smoke… it is the draft season and smoke screens are to be expected. Lions have only a few guys under contract to play the 3-4 DE slash nickel DT pass rusher role… so they will need to add talent/depth there.
In the interview at season end, Holmes said that they didn’t even expect Levi to play this year, and said his development is AHEAD OF where they thought it would be.
This leads me to wonder if we might sneak in and take the WR that got hurt in the national title game
These cats are most definitely picking with the future in mind
It’s gonna be interesting to find out. I really don’t think he is. I think we do DE in the first round, Levi dramatically improves, McNeil dramatically improves, and next offseason we go DL high again.
Levi got hurt beginning of the offseason which I think stunted his growth. Still liked the pick when we made it and will be interested to see what he looks like with a full offseason and NFL caliber strength training.
I agree for sure. Alim really came on down the stretch and even started showing some pass rush potential. He had a couple sacks after the bye. Another good sign is both Alim and Levi made it through a 17 game regular season without any real injuries or missing time. That must feel like a crazy long season for a rookie coming from the college schedule. In 2020, the college season was like 8 games for most teams and Levi didn’t even play at all.
Exactly right! These NFL guards have the old man strength and all the vet tricks in the trenches. They know exactly what they can and can’t get away with when it comes to penalties. In college, you can get away with sloppy technique and just use brute force over most dudes, that stuff doesn’t work in the NFL. Technique couldn’t be more important.
I trust Brad, and because of that, I think Levi will have a floor of a C+, though average isn’t the goal, and he hasn’t really even shown that yet …
Faith in Brad.
And for good reason, he’s terrible and as slow as me on an afternoon stroll at the park. lol
Tavai was a 5th round at best prospect. Some scouts had him going undrafted. Still have no idea the amount of drugs that Bob Quinn must have been on to make that pick.
I don’t know why you would take anything a GM says seriously in the weeks leading up to the draft. His job is not to provide an honest assessment of various Lions position groups. It’s to do everything in his power to improve the Lions’ chances of getting the guys they want in the draft. Would you really prefer that he stood up there and said “Yeah, edge is definitely the biggest area we need to improve, and we’ll be looking to address that early in the draft”?
It’s not a huge mystery where the Lions need help and where the strength of this draft is where we’re picking. But anything Holmes can do to make other teams believe the Lions might consider going in another direction is worth doing. No matter what, he should absolutely NOT be saying anything that other teams could potentially use to out-maneuver the Lions on draft day, and that includes providing an honest assessment of position groups to media.
You hear this crap every year as a matter a fact people said it last year when Holmes skipped the safety position . It’s not the big lying game you guys try to say. He said he liked the wr group and he did but they turned out to be shit, and he liked Harris then precided to do nothing at the safety position. Now he says the Dline is a strength but you pretend it’s just smoke. I think your a little nieve in your evaluation.