This is the strangest draft season ever…. Half the guys we are talking about only exist based low probability nfl player comps….
Will Levis and AR15- are either player being hyped if Allen doesn’t exist? I mean one super athletic guy with a cannon, shitty mechanics, and middling stats becomes a stud, and suddenly that has become a “draft worthy profile” atop round 1?
Chris Jones, Javon Hargrave, V Vea, and A Donald have all played in the SB over the last 3 years…. Guys like Hargrave, Donald and Vea were insanely productive in college- crazy productive…. But Chris Jones had a similarly pedestrian college career to Jalen Carter. If it weren’t for Chris Jones, a non productive 3T wouldn’t seem like a top 5-6 overall pick, but former #37 overall pick Chris Jones, seems to make drafting Carter logical?
We have one CB with great testing and marginal game tape, and another with good film, but concerning size and testing numbers?
Calijah Kancey- if there wasn’t another 6’1 285 pound DT from Pitt destined for the HOF, would Lancet be getting hyped? Donald was more explosive, heavier, had longer arms, and had 28.5 TFL vs 14 his last year. AD was an anomaly, and somehow a guy who is smaller, weaker, shorter armed and less productive seems draft worthy simply because Donald exists?
When guys say- “why wouldn’t they just wait til 2024” to get their QB it seems insane. Wasn’t M Penix the #5 rated prospect in this class 2-3 months ago? He was never, ever discussed as an option at #6 or 18…. How are there 3 sure bets at QB next year? Even if Maye and King Caleb repeat, and survive the pre draft mircorscope- there are only 2 of them…. So Tampa wastes this year, tries to pick in the top 2 next year and hopes the 2 QBs pan out?
OG- we have J Jackson not yet extended, and not sure if it’s worth 4 years and 56M? We have he, Big V, and GG all on 1 year deals…?
RB- Monty is solid, but not spectacular, and he’s on a sizable, but. It crazy deal, and Swift is gone after 23’
DT- McNeill and Buggs are solid, but need more juice and bulk in there.
SS- Walker is fairly expensive and coming off achilles, and CGJ feels like our heavy nickel…
LB- we don’t have a truly explosive guy that could be a threat for 3 ints and 4-5 sacks in a year
WR- three of our 5 guys in 1 year deals?
QB- backup QBs are expensive and have low upside. Let’s get a mobile backup and let Sudfeld hold the clipboard
K- I’d rather get lucky in round 6 than pay 4-5M at kicker-
Skoronski
Bijan
K Benton
Jack Campbell/D Overshown
S Brown
Charlie Jones
DTR
C Ryland
we can talk about positional value all day long, but in the roles we would deploy them in, I’d have trouble not seeing mostly successes above.
K Joseph
Sydney Brown/T Walker
CGJ/W Harris
Okudah/Moseley
Sutton/Jacobs
Plus Lucas, Moore and Iffy…. I like that!!!
Campbell/Rodrigo
Anzalone/Barnes/JRM
I like that too
Hutch/Romeo/Houston
McNeill/B Jones
Benton/Buggs/Levi O
Commish/Paschal/C Harris
people want to keep throwing up Aaron Donald, great player , but we need to breakdown THESE prospects…and not throw out names like Donald-we never had.
My point was Kancey is a 3rd pick if it’s not for A Donald’s existence… AR15 is a mid rounder that teams may have tried to convert to WR or RB if it weren’t for Lamar and Josh Allen…
Analysts are using extremely rare outcomes, UNICORNS… as justifications as to why prospects with lacking traits are still worthy of top 5-20 picks…
I doubt teams will do the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if Levis and/or Richardson fall out of the first round. Nor will I be surprised when guys like Carter, Smith-Njigba slip into the bottom half of the first round.
Love your bullets here. I feel this is the year to trade 1st rounders for real players. Rather than scrutinize which mid 1st player to overdraft at #6, use that pick to get a guy like Simmons from Tennessee.
We added Romeo, C Harris, CGJ, Paschal, Walker, Sutton, and Moseley to our D from last year… yes a few guys listed played a few plays, but none over 290 snaps….
We lost Chark, E Brown and Swaggy…. And added Glasgow, M Jones and Monty….
Our net gain on defense was absurd…. I’d say we were closer to net neutral on offense, with less long term upside?
Skoronski- gives us V replacement, or at least major flexibility with whether to pay 55M to Jackson?
Bijan- an elite talent in offense on a 3.5M AAV deal…
E Forbes
K Benton
AT Perry- gives us 6’4” fast red zone guy…
TE
QB
QB
With 2 bullets with probably land a solid backup QB with upside…. We can swing for a freaky matchup type TE…. We add a piece to DT and upside piece at CB…. But get a red zone X WR, and Elite OG and RB-
When we look at our needs list next year- it will possibly look like Edge, DT, and LB??
The 24/7 sports/news coverage has forced talking heads to become tabloid journalists where “clicks” are more important than facts. Most people/fans are gullible and eat it up.
Watch a player in complete games against the better competition they played. Usually just 2-3 games is enough to get an initial impression “Is this guy an NFL player”. Watch that player on each play. Was it a plus, minus or neutral play. NFL players should be having a lot of plusses with very few minuses.
Avoid highlights when forming initial impressions. The are edited to only show the plusses.
Yep, I do it—make favorable, optimist comparisons with established players to buttress my promotion of draft crushes. It’s easier that defending them in more substantial ways. But that’s excusable for fanboys like me…
My only concern is…. How many of these guys are physically superior or equitably productive to “their comps?”
If Aaron Donald was a less muscular, less dominant, shorter armed player in college than Kancey is, and then had his HOF career… then the projection would make sense-
If Witherspoon had a 9.7 RAS, then the D Ward comps would make sense.
If Carter destroyed college football within 85 tackles 20 for loss and 12 sacks his final year- then the game wrecker moniker would fit… then the Suh comp would make sense. Hell… screw the production- let’s say Carter had a 9.5 RAS with elite agility scores and dominant bench numbers….
my issue is these defensive prospects are being comped to significantly more athletic and more productive versions of them….
Add OG and CB. If you draft Skoronski at 6, you’ll have $46M committed to your OL in 2024 excluding Jackson (19.1M Decker, 12.8 Ragnow, 7.9M Sewell, 5.4M Skoronski) and will have Sewell coming up for extension the following year. If we take an OG in the first round, I don’t think we resign Jackson otherwise you end up with 1/3 of your cap (60M) tied up on the OL with Sewell’s extension the following year.