The Consigliere

Man, that's just mean lol. Still wonder why anyone thought dudes wondering around like that was anything other than creepy as hell.

The weirdest and saddest one, was some due diligence guy area scout type guy, I feel like NFC South, just staked out a bar Blackmon was rumored to hit on the regular, and saw him get hammered there repeatedly, and that team took Blackmon off their board (I think it was the Bucs). They definitely gather a lot more than we think. That's one of the reasons I found the Derrius Guice thing so freaking weird. They were even telling hardship stories about him on draft day (his dad died when he was young if I remember right), and then it turns out a couple years later, the guy was a certifiable domestic monster. You'd think that would be easy to figure out. Kirby Puckett is another one of those too. Hard to figure when they simply don't find it out till later, or did they just ignore it. Sounds like the Leaf stories were easy to pick up if you did any leg work, kind of like with Blackmon. Blackmon was supposedly great with fans and kids, not a bad person, just had a career wrecking addiction issues. And honestly, if he's introverted, rather than simply shy, that kind of set up is inherently a disaster in waiting. Especially if he's been draining his social battery night and day for weeks engaging with these meetings, and now he has to do some bizarre, impossible to prepare for, social get together with his competitors. I don't say this as a criticism of the idea, just more, if I am introverted and Jayden Daniels, rather than just shy, that whole thing would be a nightmare, and would bring out the most sort of introverted, wallflower, response. There's only so much social engagement an introvert can do before shutting down, and routine, and predictability are tools that help manage those kinds of anxieties, those kinds of curve balls are the exact sort that would pull the worst performance out of someone.

Always, except the clown part, male clowns frighten me, especially the ones driving panel vans.

I think it more depends upon how closely tiered together they are. As an example, for me, back in '20 or was it '21, I had Lamb clearly ahead of Jefferson, Reagor, Ruggs, Aiyuk, Pittman, Mims, Higgins, and Shenault etc, but after Jefferson and Reagor (ugh, don't remind me about Reagor, so many wasted draft picks on that dude), I had to sort the pile of similarly rated guys in Ruggs, Aiyuk, Pittman, Mims, Higgins, Generally I came out of this butchering the living hell out of it: My memory is I tiered this out: Tier 1: Lamb (by his lonesome) Tier 2: Jeudy Reagor Jefferson Reagor and Jefferson painfully tied, w/me giving a slight edge to Reagor, unfortunately Tier 3: Shenault Higgins Mims Ruggs Pittman Aiyuk Now needless to say, I butchered the hell out of my rankings and came out of my drafts that covid summer heavy on Mims and Shenault, Lamb and Reagor, light on jefferson, Pittman, and Aiyuk. But for me, quite often, tier 3 was a toss up for me, and I'd often pick players simply based upon what was left: people usually peeled Higgins off the board before I could get him, but I did get him twice, I got Pittman once and Aiyuk once, and often, I was simply left with 3 of those guys, and usually I'd simply take whichever between Shenault, Higgins or Mims was left, and then in latter drafts, to diversify, I took an Aiyuk here, a Pittman there, a Ruggs there, to balance out the risk, thank god (because needless to say, I totally butchered ranking everyone outside of tier 1 Lamb). What makes my tier 3 similar to this debate is that I had all of those guys neck and neck. Anything could tiebreak them: I was worried that Shenault's final year was sketchy, I was worried about Higgins athleticism, I was worried about where Mims went to school, Ruggs just seemed like a guy who wasn't valuable in fantasy while going of vague memory, I think Pittman and Aiyuk were just okay athletes and had poor breakout age #'s. But when it comes to daniels, I'd be cross checking all that stuff, praying I wasn't as bad as <me> back in 2020 with those WR's, and If Daniels were as close as I had Reagor and Jefferson, those details would be a tiebreaking quantity. We all know iffy mental make up can be a killer for QB's. I'm not gonna worry about it if I just think daniels is better period, but if I have them as close as say I had Reagor and Jefferson, well, then I go with the cleaner off the field thing if everything else results in a relatively even score. But again, if they've just ended up with Daniels having a 6.87 grade, and Maye have a 6.71, you go with Daniels, period, it's more when they're both 6.8's or 6.7's and the differences are minute that I'd use that piece of information as a potential tiebreaker.

Rufus is always funny when he does it. Others, much less so.

Yep, definitely should have been his Tom Hagen there.

#1 I think that's a tone thing more than anything, and I own it, I think for the most part. A lot of times, especially in the past, when I would post my opinion it comes across in tone as my facts. A flaw in my writing that I've worked on tweaking to make my opinion more clear with caveats, sometimes, it feels a bit empty calorieish. Like Im negating my own take with caveats, but I do it anyway to underline the take so I feel like my position is better understood. Commando and I are in a similar place w/our QB eval, but I think probably the main difference is that at this point, I can own, I don't know whose gonna hit, I just know which guys scare me more, and which guys I like more, but I've been in love with enough prospect profiles over the years to understand that I just can't tell how and why guys hit. Sure, I had strong feelings about Kyler, and Burrow, and Luck, but I also had equally strong feelings for Lawrence and Winston....so? I don't really trust myself, and that goes all the way back to Culpepper in '99, Ware in '90 etc when I was 15. Yada Yada. #2 On the lines I don't cross, there's a reason, and I actually wrote out the analogy in a post earlier in the week, decided it was too inappropriate, and deleted it, but now, it just feels apropos again, so I'll try another approach instead. If you go out in the rain, you probably get wet, if you go out in the rain in a jacket and cold weather clothes, you probably don't, add an umbrella and your for sure dry 99% of the time, I just like to reduce risk, and if I find looking at data from playerprofiler or rotoviz, that the hit rate with a profile is well lower than comparable dudes, I'm gonna go w/the safer options, doesn't mean I'm right, N'Keal Harry was safer but still risky in '19, and he busted, after all. But profiles when you look at these models are suggestive, and I am inclined towards risk avoidance, there's no perfect way to do it, but you can avoid a lot of mistakes when you simply swerve away from profiles associated far more heavily with negative outcomes. I don't want to get wet, so I'm gonna put on a bunch of clothes and grab that umbrella going out. That's what I tend to be doing. My old analogy was a sex ed one lol, but I thought better of it. 3. Peters. I know zilch about what makes a great Edge, DT, LB, Interior OL, OT etc, I am at best, borderline hopeless at understanding the cap beyond dead cap hit stuff I can dig up on spotrac etc, I also don't know squat about mental make up traits that are desirable around football players. I imagine it wouldn't be that different from the guys I grew up playing with in sports that did it make it to the pro's in various sports, but that's a pretty small sample size and largely worthless.

Yeah, I'd definitely appreciate PFF for that. It's clear as heck, nobody has cracked Quarterbacking, period, the funniest example being: Purdy blowing up with a great S2 score in '22, so in '23, S2 talk is everywhere, and then Stroud's status is a prospect is ripped to the hell to the extent that Stroud just publically ----'s all over the S2 and euphemistically calls it horse ----, and then in the fall, S2 wunderkind Young is total ---, and Stroud goes nuclear all season long...and now, nobody anywhere is talking S2 anything anymore. Nobody knows this thing. The best anyone can do is build models (at least to me anyway), that are suggestive of warning signs. I haven't seen anyone build a sustained period of success w/any approach they have at evaluating QB's, and in fairness, part of this is simply the fact that QB classes sometimes collectively fail horribly ('13-'16) and there was nothing in the class to begin with, and part of this is just, its freaking hard, and nothing is terribly predictive of success, just to me, some things are more predictive of failure, that's the best we got, but some keep insisting they can tell hit from busts, when I think the truth is more, I can tell players more likely to bust, than others that might be less, but whose gonna hit? No idea, especially the hit it big types. Lawrence remains a startling what the hell happened prospect to me. Not a bust, but wow, just so so so very average. Not at all what I was expecting.

So nobody noticed that Jones QBR in his age 20 season was 75th in college, compared to Maye's 10th at the same age? That Jones QBR in his age 21 season was 34th, when Maye's supposedly awful season was 14th? It's so odd. Jones was a starter for 3 years, and 2 of his 3 years he was sub 50th in college football in QBR, just god awful, and the best he ever was was a full 20 spots lower than Maye's worst season. Kinda bizarre. I suppose they're just looking at the guys physically and stopping there.

Why do you think I flush all the mechanics and footwork ---- down the toilet? You can also tell when reading the takes, which people are just looking at clips from 2023, it's patently obvious. Far too many of these guys simply look at last season, which is just, utterly bizarre to me.

It's not that simple. I don't have some big board in my basement that I believe draft after draft is better than the pro's boards, I don't scout hundreds of linebackers, edge rushers, DT's, and Centers etc. I'm not remotely close to that. But I'm also smart enough to know that drafting Christian Ponder and EJ Manuel from FSU last decade was rage enducingly stupid. That the Trubisky love was idiotic, that Zach Wilson and Pickett were monstrously stupid picks. You do not have to be a genius to understand when GM's and scouts get lost in the trees and make stupid decisions. If you have distance from this, watch long enough, read long enough, analyze data enough you can sniff out stupid pretty easily. There was no universe in which Henry Ruggs should've gone ahead of CeeDee Lamb EVER. Figuring out Jefferson back then was much harder, but Ruggs vs Lamb was easy. As another example, with the RB age cliff, you know, its idiotic, period to take RB's with day 1 draft capital especially day 1 draft capital at the top of drafts, period, full stop. Again, am I smarter? Yes and no. There are guys that are in the league with there jobs because of connections and/or nepotism, period. We know when the coaching recycler is a mistake. There isn't a redskins fan w/a functioning brain that thought the Chargers made the right decision in hiring Turner, every last one of us with sense new after 1994-2000 that Turner was an OC period, that he simply lacked the mental make up and ability for a HC job period. The Chargers brass did not know that, we did. Are we smarter about everything? No. Not even about most things, but are all the guys in the league smarter than us ---- no, and if you think so, that's appeal to authority fallacy on crack, and speaking of crack, remember the coach shooting iphone video of himself sniffing coke before a team meeting and sending it to his shady as hell GF? I remember....so no, I don't automatically defer to the genius of these guys, Gettleman, Dorsey and the rest have proven 10 times over, it's just sometimes, who you know, not what you know...step out into the world for 2 seconds, and you realize that's true everywhere, too, not just the NFL.

See I feel the opposite about Allen. Coming into the league he was woefully inaccurate in college, and really just seemed like a cannon armed, athletic doofus, the kind of friendlier version of Jay Schreoder with more meat on his bones. He came in, turned in a 53% rate, not great, but darn close to his college #, so not a lot of degradation from college, 10-12 picks, started about 2/3's of the season....after this, I would say, no, he wasn't great, but looking at what he did, I came in thinking he was 1000% a bust, I had not seen a guy as inaccurate as he was in college, be productive in the NFL since the eighties or nineties so I thought it was insane...but he looked competent if not good, and the following year his accuracy jumped to better than he had ever been in college and his TD-Int ratio flipped from 50/50 or close, to 2/1 and boom, we were on. I would argue that while he wasn't good as a rookie, he also wasn't bad, he was just,adequate, to borderline adequate, especially for a guy who was barely 50% in a ---- conference against garbage players just a year earlier. He was not Zach Wilson. He could move the offense down the field. He also added 630 yards on the ground which was nuts and a huge value add for a guy w/that much to improve upon, and the team was 5-6 as a starter w/him, not too bad.

It's a bit weird. Otoh, I know I posted on the Chelsea Board when Pulisic was there a little, same with Leeds when Aaronson, Adams and McKennie went there. I suppose its just weird in that you're not really sure: Are these guys big fans of the player and just following where he might go, or fans of the team who are also fans of the player and the player and rebuild has them excited? Generally not sure, whereas when I was on Chelsea, or Leeds board, I was always quite up front in being a USMNT fan, and hoping my guys helped those teams (until I learned to entirely loathe each of those fanbases lol).

"He took off because it looks cool." If I was an owner that employed that scout, he'd be fired the second I read that story. What just appalling, baseless, horse ----. Yeah, Caleb's just trying to look cool, well, wtf is Daniels doing when he's getting Super Dave Osborned every other game on his scrambles into potential lifelong paralysis?

That's fair, when I think of Randall, I think of him more 1987-1990 rather than '85-'86, not surprised he was a bit on the thin side coming out of UNLV. Did he have crazy broad shoulders, or more crazy shoulder pads? He always seemed like he was running around like a Quetzalcoatlus

I wasn't speaking to flag or not. Someone else brought that up and I view it as totally immaterial. If you lose your franchise QB to another RGIII like knee debacle, you're not gonna give a ---- one way or the other about if the refs made the call right, or if they pulled an angel hernandez. No penalty called or uncalled is making up for a dumb --- career ending injury. My deal was, like you, wtf was he thinking? The Super Dave analogy is very apropos, much like Rufus' looney toons reference. On what planet does that make sense? You are going to get smashed periodicially in this league and it isn't gonna be your fault: sometimes you just don't see the guy coming, as our franchise became notorious for in 1985. You can't avoid that, but the reason people keep showing the 3 or 4 hits on repeat over and over is because they're all utterly inexplicable and moronic. They are all Jayden Daniels as "Brian Moorman" getting smashed by the late great Sean Taylor at the pro bowl" level stupid, but even worse, because at least Moorman was running into a God of hitting, playing on God Mode/Pete Rose All Star Game Setting at the pro bowl. In Daniels case, he keeps getting smashed over and over in multiple games, Moorman vs Sean Taylor style for no reason, in totally avoidable fashions over and over again against Joe Random players. Moorman was stupid enough to do that once, and never again, Daniels seems to make a habit of it, in the same freaking season, game to freaking game. It's beyond stupid, even if it just happened 4x in college, it should've been 1, and if you are being blown apart like Wile E Coyote, after you impact the ground following falling off the cliff, there's clearly something wrong in your approach. The guy is literally being ripped apart like the Sun going Supernova, over and over again, its beyond ridiculous. Even if it's a half dozen times or less, it's hard to find that many "Holy ----!" hits on any single individual player in their entire career, let alone a season or 2. And as you and I say, that run against FSU into the line? Seriously? That's Super Dave Osborne load me into the cannon at the carnival level stupid. It's literally impossible to even understand watching it, what the hell he was thinking.

I say this while acknowleding everyone everywhere in the league disagrees w/this take, but watching Howell, and watching Daniels and looking at the CV's, I 100% prefer Howell. If he can get the pressure thing under control, I have little doubt he can be a league average QB and maybe better. I think he showed last year what he could be with adequate talent, playing hard around him, he was consistently in the middle to low middle of most of the analytical categories one cares about, and the #'s only really slid during the team's quitting phase of the season (late November and December) from where they were the first 10-11 games. I'm deeply fearful that Daniels just may not make it in this league period, or may not be healthy enough to stick. I get that the league 1000% disagrees, but I view Howell's floor as significantly higher, even if his ceiling is 100% lower. Maye on the other hand, I view as having both the higher floor and higher ceiling.

Maybe RGIII didn't do leg day? Daniels just seems really, really whispy thin. When I saw Vick, and especially Lamar, and Randall, they just looked like coiled muscle, thick and strong, RGIII and Daniels seem more like track guys, slim and twitchy explosive, but without the thick musculature.

Yeah, I missed that game, I think I was following along on pbp, never saw it.

I could see that, but they are going to show the most vivid, holy ---- hits. It would be nice if they dug through the ASU games to find more though, I agree, but again, if you are that clueless running, doesn't matter if you're flagged or not. Ngata wasn't very nice on the play that started the end of RGIII's career, and flagged or not, the problem was RGIII risking that, not that players are sometimes scoundrels when it comes to hits, Howell took one of those last year as someone on here mentioned this past week, and considering it can happen to anyone at any time, best to avoid self-induced Super Dave Osborne moments to compound the physical risk.

I could buy the Daniels angle simply from the fact that their coach is a former player (relatively recently) and vets hated dealing with rookie hiccups. That's a stretch I know, but I could imagine Mayo wants a QB who can just walk in and start, period. Otoh, definitely feels like Maye is a better QB for that type of fan base (-------'s), and for that type of weather (New England, and Buffalo seems worse in terms of weather than New Jersey/Washington DC). Praying we get Maye. I would laugh if they traded down, but I tend to doubt they will, it would just be too far unless it was NYG to justify the move.

And as an oldster (I'm curious what the floor is on the ages of posters heres? I'd imagine 25-30?) I can tell you, with Caleb, while I didn't like people overreacting to him crying with his mom or painting his fingernails, it is worth noting: he doesn't have ideal size (which can be a problem) and he's at bare minimum, got a real quirky personality, and if it's actually more "mental make up is an issue" he could bust. I bet on his talent 1000% but am I as confident on him delivering on his potential as Luck or Lawrence? I am not. Luck and Lawrence didn't send off any warning signs about anything off the field at all, period. Zilch. Caleb's has some mild rumbling here and there, enough to drop me from 90% sure he's at least average to elite, to around 80-85%. There's some risk, and I imagine the Bears simply sent their due diligence guys to dig up everything on his off the field habits to make sure they don't find themselves dealing with a Justin Blackmon or Ryan Leaf scenario.

You're really that dedicated to that interpretation of what the take away should be on that play? I watch that and I see someone w/the same ability to avoid body trauma as Super Dave Osborne. That's the take away, not that that evil meanie on FSU decided to hit the idiot who decided to run head first, upright, into a gigantic pile of defenders and thank god there was a penalty.

Remember to avoid looking too closely at my fingernails when you open the hatch.

That's what I was getting at with my kerfluffle with another poster a few days ago regarding why I don't give a ---- about most of the knocks on Maye. Most, not all, but most, are related to things that are nebulous, in the eye of the beholder, sometimes just bull----, and consistently something easily resolved, if a problem, at the next level. We can point to zillions of guys with weird releases or odd footwork over the years that were just fine, either because it worked for them, or got coached up from Rivers to Rodgers, from Mahomes, to Herbert, and I'm sure if we dug up every QB that hit over the years, while there would be some, that had beautiful, and clean throwing motions and feet, there would be a majority that did not. It just doesn't seem sticky when it come to guys that become special. Could there be a dustbin filled with guys that didn't hit, and that was the reason why? Maybe, but I'm skeptical, for most busts, there's an absolute litany of things that explain the failure, I can't remember many if any that were strictly mechanics failures. It's why I don't care. It's not that I want Maye, so I'm ignoring honest criticism, it's that I like Maye, and have noticed a trend line for decades that guys picked at for these reasons, tend to hit anyway, if they're any good. If they're good, it isn't consequential. I'm a lot more worried about things like pressure 2 sack ratio which are sticky as a problem, unlike mechanics and feet which can be improved with repetition and coaching and reps (and sometimes it ends up immaterial), and Maye is a problem there, just like Daniels (just not as bad). I'm also concerned, a little with only 2 years as a starter, I'd prefer 3, but it's not a Trubisky situation, so I'm not overly concerned....but yeah, p2s, that worries me, some alarming accuracy #'s, that bothers me, there are definitely some metrics, i would have preferred 3 years as a starter than 2, but yeah, that quote is yet another lovely example of why the Maye stuff doesn't bother me to the same degree as the stuff on Daniels...There was that yucky Maye stat someone posted yesterday afternoon with Maye was it unpressured? I can't remember, but let me cosign on the fact that yeah, that would bother me too. I'm not a Maye uber alles kind of person, as mentioned earlier, I'm more about collecting and sorting the piles of alarming data, and trying to avoid the guy with the ones I most closely associate with busting. Both guys have some, Maye just has more of the sort that scares me, that's all.