I’m with you here…I have Anderson, Carter, and Young as the big 3. Murphy a 4 that isn’t nearly as close…but at least at #6, a name I keep seeing and go…“Nah, they wouldn’t, would they?” is Skoronski.
He seems like a guy they could kick inside for a couple years based on his shorter arms. Would they do it? Man, probably not…but I have a hard time ruling it out with Decker getting older, an immediate need at guard, and what could presumably be some non-elite talent at #6.
Yep. Let’s learn from the Rams. Not necessarily follow in their footsteps.
They got their Super Bowl. Now, they’re the SOR, and will be for the foreseeable future.
By the time they climb out of that hole, Stafford will have retired.
I love Skoronski, I think after the top 3 he’s the least likely to fail. At worst he’s a really good guard his whole career. I’ve mentioned a proposal I heard where they draft him in the 1st, play him at guard, then shift him to tackle when we move on from Decker.
My biggest problem with that is the resources. Four 1st rounders on the OL is too much. Yes it’s important but it’ll eventually skew our pay structure. We need to hit on another mid-rounder like we did with Jonah, especially since it happens all the time. I mentioned it earlier but the Chiefs used to draft to try and fill two iOL spots and nailed both, Creed Humphrey at the end of the 2nd and Trey Smith in the 5th. I hope we can do something like that, which is why I might keep Brown or Vaitai around as a bridge.
Yes, this is my thought process too. I just don’t know what the Lions do when the 4 guys I think they can draft there and feel okay with are gone and they’re starting at a bunch of guys I don’t know that they’ll see good value in.
Like I said before, of Carter, Anderson, and Murphy are all gone (I’m just gonna assume Young is), I think all bets are off and the Lions will try and move down or do something crazy people don’t expect. Like take Branch at 6.
They are significant cuts, and I completely agree with you that straight player slashes are not typical. I went back and forth on this, but I settled on it being a real possibility the more I thought about it.
Vatai is coming off back surgery. The biggest key to a player accepting a pay cut is whether or not they believe they can get more on the open market. There is a zero percent chance a team commits 9.4mil to Vatai in 2023 coming off a back injury. I would be shocked if he got 5mil. If he stays here it is in a scheme he knows next to players he is comfortable with. It is essentially restructuring his deal to a prove it type one year deal so we can hit the market in 2024. If he refuses then we should get rid of him.
Romeo is pretty much the same situation. He is making an 11mil base salary next season and I’m not sure what team would pay him close to that much coming off an achilles. Now Romeo does not have a clear path to playing time, so he may choose to rehab his value somewhere else. Staying here and running it back one more year with his brother may be tempting enough for him to want to stay, but I truly have no idea here.
Charles Harris is a little bit different. His injury is not a long term concern I believe. His play on the field this year is. He has been an inconsistent producer throughout his career. He had one good season and followed that up by not making much of an impact and then getting hurt. There is no way he gets 6mil on the open market either. He is another one that I would show the door if he refused a pay cut. I think he has a chance to bounce back and would love to have him as depth, but not for 6mil.
To me I cut all three and open up holes on the roster if they don’t accept. All have legitimate concerns in 2023 and are not worth their current salaries.
The athleticism you’ll see on Powers Field during Saturday’s Ivy League finale has always been there for Iosivas. He has been a standout for the Princeton track and field team, where he has earned First-Team All-America honors and set the Ivy League record in the heptathlon, the multi-event competition in the winter sport.
He has won the Ivy League title in the heptathlon every time he has competed in it, including the 2020 season. That title came one month before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down college sports.
One day before Hawaii went on lockdown, Andrei’s father bought workout equipment for his son to use for training. Day after day, Iosivas built his strength and honed his fundamentals. Footwork. Route running. Catching the ball.
Day after day. Workout after workout.
Would love to see this guy in a Lions uniform! Sounds like a perfect fit in WR room.
His juice is so easy to see, even playing against scrubs. And I really like the way he catches the ball too. Routes, footwork, etc… all need work, but that’s to be expected from a guy playing against that level of competition. It’s also teachable, whereas he has the stuff you can’t teach in spades.
Most importantly, he fits the Brad’s PFF score profile! Lol
Nice! He’s a legit stud athlete so I suspect he’ll fit the RAS profile too. I mean he was #15 on Feldman’s freaks list:
“One of the best players in the Ivy League also is one of the top track athletes in the country. On the field, the 6-3, 205-pound Hawaiian — his name is pronounced “Yoshi-vas” — had 41 catches for 703 yards. In track, he finished fourth in the country in the heptathlon and ran the fastest 60 in NCAA heptathlon history (6.71). Iosivas bench pressed 370 pounds this month and has vertical-jumped 39 inches. His 60-yard dash time would, by his own estimation, translate into a 4.2-something 40, but he points out that it was also out of the blocks and on a track, so maybe not. His position coach, Brian Flinn, predicts when Iosivas goes through the draft process and performs those tests he will “destroy them all. He trains year-around on how to start and sprint.” Iosivas bought a Jugs machine when he was quarantined during COVID to keep honing his skills.”
Is he a leader? Competitor? Douchebag? TBD.
Has anyone seen anything to suggest that Brad would consider a Guard before the 3rd round?
The Chiefs are either incredibly good in the FO, or damn lucky to be able to fill holes like that. They hit paydirt on exactly what they needed.
It’s definitely a bind, all of them have some issue that makes them feel like they’re not worth #6 overall, we’re left trying to talk ourselves into the guys who should be there around then. Hence my post on Tyree Wilson and @CuriousHusker 's on Quentin Johnston.
I suspect at some point over the coming months Ringo, Skoronski, Gonzalez, Richardson, Branch, Bresee, as well as some other badass testers (Van Ness? Simpson? Sanders?), will all be floated as options too.
My issue with some of these guys is that they don’t pass the threshold for Brad’s PFF scores. Not that he couldn’t diverge or that the two draft sample size is a complete enough data set, but he’s never drafted a guy in rounds 1-3 pick who has a PFF score in their final season of under 81.6 (JaMo - who has godlike speed) and only 2 of them are under 90. Other PFF scores for his picks by number: 2 - 94.5, 7 - 95.8, 12 - 81.6, 41 - 82.5, 46 - 90, 72 - 90.7, 97 - 90.4.
Even further, in the first 4 rounds, he’s only ever drafted 2 guys who’ve had grades lower than 71.7 in any of their final 3 seasons heading into the draft - aside from Derrick Barnes. (JaMo has 2 at BAMA and Joseph’s third year removed was 52.6).
I just can’t look at those trends and seeing some of these guys like Bresee (73.5, 69.4, 68.2) even being in the conversation at #6 regardless of how they test, because the on-field results are so far removed from a clear trend that Holmes has established.
Like I said, he could always diverge, but the data speaks for itself. But I think I’m going to believe Holmes when he says they just want the best players.
My ideal draft pre FA/prospect testting period would look something like this
1a Gonzalez
1b Branch
2a Mauch
2b Kancey
3 Insert RB. Evans, Charbonnet, Brown. etc. It’s a good class
5. Coburn
6a Cam Jones
6b Dorian Thompson-Robinson
A couple immediate contributors and a few depth pieces that could outplay their draft pick.
Great post…well thought out…i agree with you on most maybe a few tweaks here or there but it was a great read. Thank you
Yeah I don’t really see Bresee as likely for that reason and a lot of others. Though I suspect he’ll be discussed ad nauseam on here as our potential pick. That’s more what I meant. Thankfully we can fire back with “he doesn’t fit the PFF profile” and hope it holds lol.
I will say that it might be different for Richardson as a project QB, but I really don’t expect us to go that route either.
So who fits the profile of those guys? I guess Gonzales is just a shade short, though maybe Brad will be more lenient due to lesser coaching at Colorado. I assume Skoronski will and I know Branch does. Also it looks like Van Ness was showing really good growth over two years, maybe he would have crushed his 3rd year?
Good find with Dre’Mont Jones need to check out his hip injury but would fill the need IMO on DT spot
I’ll make a post tonight that details all the fits (Pre RAS and intangibles) for players currently on PFFs Big Board. Their board will change after the combine, obviously, but the only player drafted who wasn’t on their board was James Houston, so I think their big board is a good place to pick through.
My off-season plan:
Other than that enjoy watching what magic Brad does in free agency and the draft.
A draft pick posters are not looking close enough to is Tuli Tuipulotu HEIGHT 6’4" WEIGHT 290 lbs
He had 13.5 sacks in 2022 What we are looking for is a DT that can rush the QB from middle of DL to support are edge players.
Just someone to look at.