Assume Bailey, Bain, and Reese are gone. You can’t trade down (Tre Downs is off the board). You’ve heard that Brad is taking a DE. Who would you want Brad to pick?
For me, its TJ Parker. I like the fact that he’s good at defending both the run AND the pass, he was pretty productive, and I don’t think he has reached his ceiling. Defintely over Mesidor (too old), and Faulk who is your edge setter, but to me lacks the juice we need. (This is not who you THINK Brad will take - its who you WANT him to take, Brad may take Faulk).
I haven’t really looked at Lawrence, Young nor Howell – any fans of them at 17, if you’re forced to vote on Edge?
I do like Howell and Young, but I think 17 may be a bit too rich on those guys. But they both show dominant pass rushing chops IMHO. With a trade down, I’d look hard at both of those guys, but with the OP’s restriction on staying at 17 for me it’s Grampa Messidor over Faulk. I think any DE we take will shed snaps to Wonnum on early downs. So I’ll take more of a pass rush specialist than an edge setter (again what I want not what BH will do). Messidor can be fine through a second contract at his age and really after that, how many players really stick on the roster anyway? If he gives us high level pass rush for 8 years, that’s excellent value out of pick 17. I’m not conceding pass rush ability because I want to make sure he’s young enough to see contract 3 here, which won’t happen anyway.
This is very much the same conversation as the Max vs Miller debate for OT. The Clemson kids have a higher floor, but the other has a higher ceiling IMO. I’d be happy with either… I’d probably take Faulk first bc I like the potential more.
I think that if we go edge, Parker is the most likely honestly. He’s got the least amount of flaws of the 2nd tier guys. In fact if I was doing an overall ‘most likely’ player, he’d probably be 2nd for me behind Miller, though that would still be a pretty low percentage. And I think both Miller and Parker would still be slightly behind “trade up.”
The only one I would want is Caleb Banks and that is because we believe he has fully recovered from the foot injury. He is the DE for 2 downs and slides inside on 3rd down, Wonnum becomes the rotational DE with plenty of snaps to keep Hutch and Banks fresh.
I actually like the idea of moving up if it can be done at a price that is less than typical. I’m hearing from guys like Jeremiah that everybody wants to move back. That means the price goes down in theory? We don’t have a lot of capital though
I think we can maybe get up 4-5 spots with one of our 4th rounders. And I also think there’s a good chance that one of Bain, Downs, Mauigoa, Styles or Freeling falls into that range, so it just matters which one they like the most and would be willing to move for. I just saw a mock where we used a 4th to trade up to 13 for Mauigoa and I would be in dreamland with that one.
And Rich Hill does indeed say we could do that with a 4th round pick. The JJ chart is embedded in my mind like a childhood trauma and won’t go away. I wish it would.
Still, I want to keep all of our picks for my viewing pleasure.
This is a really difficult draft to predict. Usually have an idea where guys are slotted but I’m not even sure who is the second guy off the board this year. I’m good with Faulk, Parker, freeling, Proctor at 17 but not sure they will be there.
