The Consigliere

My limbic brain agrees with you, also mostly because this decision should be obvious, simply based on "risk" versus "floor" and "ceiling" and profile, it is obvious to me anyway, but otoh, nobody is good at this, and there is no magic sauce to being good, there are just some decent directions on what you can do to mitigate the risk of drafting a bust (avoid overage prospects who blew up very late, avoid guys w/a bad frame or size, avoid guys with tiny hands (a knock on Maye), avoid guys who dont throw with anticipation, and go through their progressions, avoid guys who aren't first in last out, avoid guys who have one of the worst P2S ratios ever since its been recorded etc), but actually hitting on QB? There is no magic GM that is actually going to be good at that, the best we might do is draft someone smart enough to avoid obvious pitfalls, which it sounds like Peters is not. The problem I see, is we get rid of Peters out of pique over a stupid decision, and we get a guy whose equally ---- at QB eval and also far worse at everything else compared to Peters. That is the most likely scenario if we follow your plan. I'm pissed too, I cant for the life of me believe why they'd be this <expletive> stupid, but it doesn't change the fact that its highly likely if we do ---- can him if Daniels hits his floor, we are going to be replacing Peters with an inferior GM 19 times out of 20, more than likely and just as bad, we cannot and will not find a guy who is better at making this precise decision, they all suck at this. Just some are lucky and some aren't.

And ftr I already listed the QB's drafted by the various teams he worked at the past 20 years. It's a whose who of busts, and floors reached other than, admittedly a beautiful hit with Purdy two years ago. Every guy they took in NE other than Cassell sucked. Brock Lobster and Tebow in Denver sucked, the big move in SF was Lance, a similar dual threat guy but w/a vastly inferior CV to Daniels who could not stay healthy and didn't look accurate when he was (though in fairness, right now I view him as an injury bust, I think he could be a Fields level player if he could ever get healthy), but they also drafted Driskel, a guy I loved as a day 3 guy eight years ago, and god awful CJ Beathard after that. I'm not ----ing on Peters here either, it's just to underline that whatever Peters does well, and he seems to do a ton well, identifying and drafting QB's that hit is not one of those things. Whatever org he's been on, the QB's drafted all busted, or disappointed save for Cassel who was largely a "QB you want to replace" level type, and Purdy who they clearly hit a home run on. How much role he had on various picks is open to question, it should be obvious he was a small voice in the room in the aughts and probably early on with Denver when they were drafting busts too, but as per usual, when you look at QB's, I don't see much evidence of magic fairy dust, seems like 1 hit for the career, and 1 league average and worse talent from when he was much lower on the totem pole. Like everyone else, its impossible to nail this thing. Nobody is good at this. You basically get hits because your picking early and/or your lucky, that is it.

The betting odds don't really agree. Last time I checked with Drake Maye he was at +145 to go at slot 2, that's an implied probability of about 40%. Has it changed much since then? Its basically 62-38ish as of Tuesday that its Daniels in the betting markets.

The sense I got from most of the people looking at these guys is that they viewed Daniels, and Maye and Caleb (at least pre-rip them apart in spring mode), as better than any college QB's since '12 other than probably Burrow, and Lawrence. If that's so, youre probably right in liking them so much more than '18. As I've spoken to it before, '18 kind of aged a helluvalot like the '99 class but a touch better. McNown and Akili were mega busts from day 1, those regimes knew immediately they'd screwed up (McNown and Carson Strong are the only guys I ever saw live that had first round buzz, and neither looked remotely like it: McNown because his arm was ghastly, Strong because of the knees), Couch took a bit longer, McNabb was a clear hit, and Culpepper (my guy at the time) was a kinda hit kinda miss in the vein of Winston (he could play, but he never became good or great). In '18 Darnold was a mess until late his rookie season, Rosen looked awful as you say (I had my dashed hopes), Baker was saberhagen, and Allen and Lamar showed early they were legit. But I also think even at the time, what was interesting about that group was that they were all good QB's for different reasons, somewhat reminscent of this class. Baker had so many key metrics nailed down, was very accurate and a great leader, mental make up guy, Darnold was so good so young before tailing off a bit, Lamar was a freak, if not accurate enough, Allen was another freak and also not accurate, Rosen looked pretty, but wasn't as it turned out, I remember reading a great article with scout breakdowns in the fall of '17, and nobody agreed about anything. The lists scout to scout were always super different, oh, I found the article, it's been 7 years, its kind of funny looking at it in retrospect: 2018 NFL Draft Quarterback Rankings According to Scouts - Sports Illustrated Anyway, thanks for your thoughtful response, I remain very unclear on how to feel if we take Daniels. I absolutely do not want him, but I am torn on if I'm being too harsh about his basic level ability to be a legit QB in the league. I'm not sure if I'm being too harsh...but thus far, I have a hard time seeing why the bulk of the warning signs arent signficant concerns. We'll see. I hope you're right, you're definitely better at picking hits than me after all, but I know I'm damn good at sniffing out busts....hope I'm wrong, hope it's 2020/2004 all over again. What a dream that would be, to actually hit on a QB big time.

I like Sam a lot, truth be told, in a lot of ways I like him better than any QB in this class other than Maye and Williams, I just wish he was bigger, and better w/the whole pressure thing. I'd be shocked if Geno keeps the job, I'm probably being too unfair to Geno though, he finished 7th and 14th the past two years in QBR, might be a bit much to expect Howell to produce a top 10ish season in '24 if he was made starter, even considering they have a loaded playmaking room (Metcalf, JSN, Walker II, the other RB whose name I never remember). Will be interesting to see if he can win that gig. Geno can't really be cut until '25, so I wonder how they handle that, both QB's on the books through '25.

Well, the donkeys drafted Tebow and Brock Lobster, both busts, the Niners drafted Lance and Purdy, 1 of the 2 busts, the patriots drafted Kingsbury, Cassel, and O'Connell. In fairness, none of those guys were taken early other than Lance, but there aren't really any signs that he's nailed this thing down and what kind of role he had for the draftees is open to question. I'd be tempted to can him, but I can understand why some people would think thats idiotic, especially since other than the QB piece, theres plenty of ammo he's very good at this (and in fairness, nobody is good at QB).

No, it's not a case where I think my ideas are the right ones, I just think over the past several decades we've found a pile of different data points, of different factors that can clearly be associated with a higher risk of a player busting: like a player being an overrage draft prospect, a player not hitting those peak production seasons early, or a QB not really being asked and illustrating they can throw with anticipation, player frame's also matter, hand size, technically can even matter at the extreme ends of the spectrum etc. There's a ton of individual little bits of data little traits that really have outsized value. *Not having the Danny Weurffel arm. *Throwing with anticipation *Processing *Mental Make Up (First in last out, versus last in first out) *Eating and drinking the game itself, (which can't be measured but people can tell the difference between a Michael Westbrook who did not love football, and a Steve Smith who absolutely obsessed about it). *Working through Progressions You can go on and on, there are a bunch of them, loads and loads, and some that have really been relevant in recent busts have been "late in career big season disease (Zach Wilson and Pickett being classic examples)," not enough starts/reps (Trubisky, and for Maye a genuine issue), Processing (S2), throwing with anticipation into tight windows on the regular, I'm just repeating myself but I think what it really comes down to for me is simple: For me Daniels hits a lot of checked boxes for future busts like Wilson, Pickett, Trubisky, RGIII etc...he hits A LOT of them.....and that for me lowers my interest in drafting him progressively as each box of "alarm bell trait" is checked. For Maye for me: He checks the "not enough starts" box. He checks the 2nd year regression box. He checks the pressure to sack ratio box. He checks the mechanics box which I undersell compared to others. For some he checks the accuracy concern box while others disagree. The problem is, I don't care as much about #1 as long as they reach a threshold of two years as a starter and he does. The 2nd year regression box is one I largely ignore because I think it doesnt address the fact of graduations, and I have not ever noticed a pattern of players who regressed sucking, in fact Marino and more recently Howell, are two great examples of guys who were severely downgraded for final year Meh's, who ended up being tops in their draft class level talents and I'm sure there are plenty more examples. I am worried about Maye with the P2S, but Daniels is even worse, so its not a plus for Daniels, its just a minus for both. For mechanics, while I think the concerns are real for some, historically I see zero evidence at all that mechanics issues are prospect killers, indeed I find a huge percentage of the stud/HOF QB's over the past 25 years to have been guys with weird as hell mechanics who were criticized for it from Rivers to Rodgers to Mahomes to Herbert, I could literally go on forever talking about both how many guys were called mechanically wack, who ended up being HOF's, and or current mega studs, to examples of how some who hated their footwork or mechanics and others who were totally fine with it. As a result, I simply ignore it. If it bites me in the rear, so be it, but I'm not gonna worry about it, because when we do autopsy's of busts, I can't recall many if any, that were regarded as being ruined by their own inability to fix their mechanics. Hell even in the NBA I saw an exchange between Wizards fans about how loving MKG 12 years ago was stupid because of his broken shot, meanwhile, a year earlier "broken shot" Kawhi Leonard became the best or near best draftee of the entire decade. Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesnt. That pretty much covers it, I don't really think this is very arguable, they both have holes, I think it's patently obvious the holes Daniels has are more closely associated with bust potential than those which Maye has which are more nebulous, other than P2S. That's why it seems obvious to me. Its not that I think I'm a genius or better at any of this. I'm clearly not, my QB hit rate ranges from suck to meh after all. It's that I've spent enough time watching QB's bust, and seeing what traits are correlated with busting to know what should be alarming. Its like looking at a used car before you buy it, and checking the maintenenance reports. Oooh, erratic oil changes, steering column replaced, ball bearing problems, ouch, blown gasket (the subaru special) at 85,000 instead of 100,000 miles: YIKES. There's a checklist of traits that really are associated with busting, and traits that sometimes matter and sometimes dont, and traits that dont seem sticky. Daniels just has more code red alarms, period. I think I've made plain, I don't know whose gonna hit. I have no idea, and my track record is erratic at best w/hitting on the guys I like. I can comb through them, but suffice it to say, I'm probably 35-45% on top 15-20 drafted QB's, maybe better, but my "oh he's a bust vibe, my danny nickels meter?" That, historically I'm about a 90% on, hell maybe 95% when it comes to (bust or just not what they had hoped for (think Tannehill)). Btw, I don't actually think I'm E. It's not that I think Daniels will bust and Maye will hit. I simply do not trust AT ALL my ability to evaluate who will be good or great. Period. It's that I think one of these guys has a much, much higher risk of just being a mega bust, or at best, a kind of Fields level, "oh ----, we need to draft a QB again," miss like Rosen and Nickels etc. Maye doesn't have that concern in my view. Looking at what he did w/that talent, from the second he stepped onto the field, with those traits? Its virtually impossible for me to believe he'll bust. He could disappoint, he could, and this is probably the best example, be what a former #1 I loved and was shocked at became, Jameis Winston. He could take all those tools and traits, and flash a big arm, and throw for big yards, and TD's, but also make a crapload of mistakes, and just never improve enough to be more than a big time YOLO idiot QB. That's his floor to me. A guy you can plug in who will make lots of stat accumulating performances, but will cause you to tear your hair out because he just makes too many dumb --- mistakes, and relies too much on his arm talent and his yolo attitude and not enough on that Brady quoted video from the offseason (which was him talking about how being great for him was about decision making" making the right play consistently every time, whether it be the short gainer, the long gainer, the throw away, not taking the sack etc). For me if Maye busts, its gonna be an overreliance on his physical tools and not enough happening between the ears problem. He'll work, but will it be a work smarter, not harder thing, or will it be a work longer, and dumber thing? I don't know. And that's the gist to me, and it some ways, btw, it recommends Daniels. Because to me, the only thing worse than drafting a bust, like Zach Wilson, is drafting a Ryan Tannehill or a Jameis Winston, a guy good enough to get you to .4000, but not good enough to make you great, or bad enough to send you right back to the top of the draft like Bortles, Trubisky, Rosen, Nickels, Lance/Wilson were. So from that standpoint, the floor concern is bigger with Maye because its largely impossible for me to believe he'll be Zach Wilson out there, completing 11 of 31 for 78 yards and 3 picks. He's not gonna do that, if he goes wrong, it's gonna be more like 19-37-320-2-3. Like Jay Schreoder ball, but more accurate. Btw, I do pay some attention to narratives, and story, but it has to be reasonable and reliable. Like, Howell and Maye struggling at UNC? Everyone graduated and the talent their final year sucked. That's a narrative, but it's true and makes logical sense. Otoh, if you're selling, "Daniels P2S ratio sucks, but if you look at the individual plays, you can see how the RB failed to pick up the blitzer here, and over there the TE went left instead of right" and I'm yeah, tuning it out because it's literally 5 years and like 5 dozen starts worth of crap data. If we wanted we could narrative out every crap play anyone made, this is a sport where anyone failing to execute their assignment can cause a cascade effect of failures after all, but eventually when you have half a decade worth of data and sample size, it is what it is right? I'm open to narrative to some degree, but it has to make sense. McLaurin caused me to reevaluate breakout age. Now, when I see a guy whose blowing up, like Leggette, I do wonder what the hell is happening? was he crowded out in the receiver room? Did his coaches focus on other players? What about the portal? There are things...I try to make money with dynasty, so what I am doing is prioritizing those bits of data that are more closely associated w/production after the jump to the NFL, but when I get weird things happening like McLaurin, I do rethink it: "Hey? Mega athlete, crowded WR with multiple day 1 and day 2 picks, McLaurin tested as a freak, maybe the coach was just a bit of an idiot in terms of depth chart, or just chose to use them this way because that produced the best on field results, but the NFL is another thing entirely and it will be different....." So I don't know.... I keep going back and forth. I try to close my eyes and see whats the up and down of these guys, and I can see all of them busting and hitting in different ways....I do think there are a lot of universes where Daniels is just an elite athlete and good enough thrower, and maybe the processing thing is on point, and he just ends up a legit sort of poor mans wilson zone of production (7th-12th in the league), but I can also envision an RGIII injury nightmare very easily, a Pickett-took him too long angle, all of it. This post is too long lol but hopefully you get my points. More than anything, I just see Maye, JJ and Daniels as all relatively risky in different ways for different reasons, and JJ and Daniels as more risky, period, in terms of ceiling or upside, I think they all have potential of varying degrees, it's the floor worries, that push me to Maye, rather than an iron clad belief he'll hit and be a stud. At the end of the day, hit and be a stud, or hit and be at least league average, I'm similar with both of them (probably 40-45% stud, 55-70% stud or usable for Maye, and probably 30-40% stud and 45-50% usable for Daniels), but I also trust that bit least, it's more than "bust factor" where I'm more certain, with Maye probably at 20-30%, and Daniels at more 45-55% bust risk.

I'd kill to have someone's positional breakdown of fav day1, day2, day3 OT's, IOL's, DL's, LB's and DB's......That's my dream

You're right and thanks for the correction, he won't turn 24 until the last month of his rookie year. You're also right on the processing piece, but we also need to note, how skilled are we at testing for processing? The Big Purdy S2 Hypetrain derailed in '23 when Bryce Young's rocket blew up on the launchpad, and processing challenged Stroud put together the best rookie year since Marino '83. Do we really know if they're good, and in what ways it matters? I'm not sure or sold they've figured that out yet. I would agree that that, along with the ability to throw with anticipation and the production profile mental make up piece are several keys, processing is a huge one, more important than a rocket arm (a good enough arm is every bit as worth it as a rocket after all, you only really have to worry if it isn't good enough, howtizers might have been qualitatively more impactful than french 75's, but in the NFL, if you've got a cannon, or just a nice arm, either way, you're fine. I remain, worried.

I'm referring to his take.

I don't disagree, and I've made a point of mentioning that he hit the breakout age threshold his freshmen year, and he was always good at ASU and even at LSU. He was good, period. But his breakout, that brought him to the attention of the NFL as a legit first round prospect? He didn't come close to that until his age 23 season/5 year as a starter. May did it in his first year as a starter at age 20, that is what matters to me, Maye Broke out, HUGE, immediately, and leapt to the top of the ranks as a result. Daniels was a later day 2 to early day 3 pick for the vast bulk of his college career. The profiles aren't remotely close until Daniels finished a fifth chance at finally producing a season like Maye did in his very first year as a starter. The difference there, when you really note it is stark. Pickett and him aren't the same. Pickett was basically a meh college starter until his final year, rather than "good" like Daniels was, he was basically a UDFA, but the difference between Pickett his prior years and his final year is damn near identical to the scale difference between Daniels '19-'22, and Daniels '23, and that's where the analogy actually kind of works. In terms of the moron piece. I've just seen far too many wise F.O.'s completely botch QB to believe that many are smart, at all at this, I think most range from lucky to stupid and little in-between. Lance and Wilson over Fields was idiotic in '21, its still stupid now, even if all 3 busted to varying degrees. All those guys over Howell and Purdy in '22 was totally asinine, in '23 a majority of teams had Young ahead of Stroud. In '20 most of the teams picked Herbert apart, meanwhile Herbert's the best prospect since Luck in 2012 not named Mahomes, or Burrow....I just don't trust them at this and I think I have a mountain of data that suggests that they suck at this like everyone else. It's not that I think Peters is a moron, it's that I think his process, if it puts Daniels #2, is nonsense and stupid, period. You can't have Daniels #2 in my view and also have good process. It doesn't mean he is gonna miss or that Maye's gonna hit, it just means that the info that matters most in terms of why and how guys bust, and what should scare you off are clear here, and if we still come up with Daniels at the top of our process after all that...it says nothing good about Peters whose already worked at multiple spots where they've repeatedly blown QB evals (not that anyone is good at this, nobody is).....

That argument, needless to say, lol, doesn't hold water with me. The bad pressure to sack #'s come across 5 college seasons. Not 2023, not 2022, all five. At what point does context go out the window, and you have to admit: this is a flaw. It's not like the dude is in like the 45th percentile, he's at the very, very bottom historically, period. You can't start writing a narrative to explain away the numbers at that point, that kind of trend line is sticky as hell at the next level. For Maye, it isn't great either, we already saw that Howell suffered at UNC and with us for a plethora of reasons of which he has to have some ownership of: he is poor at avoiding sacks, holds onto the ball too long and can run into sacks, and played with a crap offensive line. All those things factored him, some his fault, some not. Maye isn't much better than Howell was, though he is better. I suspect Maye will be below average or a bit worse than that at the NFL level, there's little evidence to suggest Daniels will be anything other than hot garbage when it comes to that metric at the next level. The fact that he improved to a "bad" Maye/Howell type level in '23 is again, not a selling point because #1 the people that fixate on that, are ignoring nearly 80% of his college career and #2 they're ignoring that he had peak talent available and peak opportunity to avoid mistakes in '23 compared to his prior seasons. He will not be playing in the same kind of dreamy, feathered cleopatra bed that he enjoyed last season, with us, or NYG, or New England in the NFL. All 3 of those teams are horse ----, all 3 of those teams lack anything like the playmakers he had at LSU compared to their competition and all 3 of those teams have poor to mediocre OL's and running games at best. Just yuck. I wish these guys at least sounded smarter, they do not. You can't cherry pick excuses for a metric like P2S when you're staring horrific #'s in the face for 80% of the career and subpar/below average for the other 20%....If I show up late to work 80% of the time, and occasionally late 20% of the time, my ---- is getting fired. They aren't interested in the narrative behind traffic, my 8 year olds frustration with his ipad, or my inability to find my backpack because someone put it behind a swinging door....they're just moving on. This kind of stuff strikes me as silly. It would be one thing if it was one season, and there were a ton of injuries, and a bad supporting cast, or his OL sucked etc based on every metric, but it isn't, its 5 seasons, with a manifold of different and largely strong supporting casts. Weak Sauce, period.

In fairness, sometimes you're just going to project something you aren't. I have to be social because of the nature of my work, but I definitely find it difficult as an introvert, and can definitely throw off vibes that are contrary to what I actually am like in person. Jayden supposedly is either shy, introverted or both, and if he is both, he's just not going to come off as well in interviews period because he'll be misread, period. Otoh, part of your criticism is based upon what he specifically said, and that is that, you can't change that, but part is also the vibe he gives off (the attitude), and that may just be misconstrued. I am curious if he's just shy or not, because, to put it bluntly, introverts, by nature, are going to be less likely to pursue positions like QB simply because of the social demands of playing it (unbelievably draining).

Well, he's going inside the top 10, probably inside the top 6, so he's almost certainly going ahead of where Herbert did. I think its pretty simple, there's data that's intriguing, but a really incredibly incomplete cv, you're basically taking a huge risk w/a guy with that limited a profile. He could hit a grand slam, but a single or strike out seems more likely. Id take him over Daniels via trade down though (but to be fair, I'd trade down over taking Daniels period in any scenario, maybe even Nix).

Pretty much, I appreciate the breakdown on potential explanations too. A lot of college's have a weird balance between how much they're doing to develop the guys for the pro's in their process, versus how much they're doing to win games on saturday, and in my experience, the throw with anticipation piece isn't getting better. Warhead's point is really important btw. This is one of the oldest elite QB's to come out the past decade. High end QB's do not go into the draft at age 24, virtually ever anymore. It's exceptionally rare. You enter the draft your age 21/22 season, period. Every once in a while there's a 24 year old. Part of this is covid wrecking '20, but part of this is also just the stories of the players themselves. Penix wasn't good enough and was too injured to come out earlier, Daniels wasn't good enough to make it worth it, JJ, Maye and Caleb all are good enough. Sometimes being young doesn't matter, Darnold was great and young in '16, less great and less young in '17, and then busted, is that gonna be Maye? I don't know, but I do know that I strongly value guys that do it from the jump and are so good they can declare and get top 10 draft capital at age 20-22 far more than guys that spent half a decade playing college ball before their draft stock rose high enough to pull a Pickett. This isn't the 1960's, 1970s and 1980s, these guys aren't sticking around for 3-4 years every single class, and in fact other than Weeden, I struggle to remember any QB who was 24 and over that anyone anywhere liked the past 12 years. Its hugely alarming. I do not understand for the life of me why the league doesn't care, but as I mentioned earlier, when I've noted the league ignoring very obvious concerns in prior draft classes, we've tended to get Pickett's and Zach Wilson's and Trey Lance's out of said process. Guys like Ponder, and EJ Manuel? Any other fellow FSU fan around here can probably underline that when those guys came out last decade, there wasn't anyone I knew anywhere that thought they'd ever even stick for a starter for beyond. There are guys that send out those alarms. The NFL just sometimes has no clue, or just gets enamored. I think its totally possible Daniels goes out there, and he's just a big play machine, some cross between Vick, Lamar, and former WR Tannehill. Who knows, it could happen. Its hard to imagine them this in love, and totally wrong. It's not like Lance and Trubisky where there aren't a lot of starts in his bag. He's had a long productive career. Its not hard for me to imagine he becomes solid or good. I'm not scared in the same way I'd have been with Wilson or Ponder or Manuel or even Pickett where I literally could not see a way period, where they'd be anything other than bust. But, I also just don't see any way in which he should be rated ahead of Maye, or even some of the other guys in the class. There are too many signature alarm bells in his profile to justify a top 2 pick. Its crazy.

Somebody's quoting Casserly, the man, the myth, the 0 for the 90's first round picks until 1999.

Not trying to put you on the spot, but have you found any argument you've read them quoted on (any Daniels supporter) that is compelling? I haven't. Thats my problem. I'm ready for evidence that can make me lean back and take notice, data that can make me pause and reconsider. I can and I will. I'm not cement. But I need to see it. And I'm not. Tell me why it should be Daniels? What is it about being overrage, a bad frame, struggled for so many years before putting it all together, being awful with p2s across 5 years, not throwing with anticipation/tight windows, finally and only putting it together once, and only when he was overrage and everything was legit perfect? What's the selling point there, what am I missing. I could be missing something. Maybe he was always doing these things, and as a proportion of the production, his market share etc, he was always killing it, just at ASU (he was good there) maybe he was thrwoing into tight windows with aiyuk but never needed to with Nabers. I need to be pointed into a direction of evidence that is compelling and nobody anywhere is doing that. They're just pretending the litany of warning signs either don't exist, or aren't as important as flash plays, improvement and a huge final overage season. Personally, I don't find those arguments remotely compelling or convincing. Do they simply not look at QB's who failed and note the similarities? Do they not care? Do they have processing data from the S2, proprietary data,his workouts and in person scouting that is mind blowing but they can't say? Maybe they do, in which case I'll sit down, but what people have pointed to in these "Daniels is #2" articles, quotes, and arguments, is largely all horse ---- in my view. Its possible there is real, genuine, great info, great data, great tape, great S2 score info, great all manner of things that would assuage a lot of my concerns, but nobody has mentioned a single piece of any of it, ever. Not once. The closest is someone who threw up some clips and pointed them out as some examples of anticipation throws and going through progressions, but we all know its easy to just collect some examples, its another thing for it to be a consistent trait, or a random outlier moment. That's what bugs me. We know they have more information, so they may have skeletons on Maye, or data on daniels that alleviates my concerns but wont be shared till down the line, but historically speaking, when I've seen things like this happen, the way it turned out is that these guys turned into freaking Mitch Trubisky and Zach Wilson far more often than they turned into Josh Allen (like a 15-1 to 20-1 rate). I don't think I'm smarter, I don't, but all the arguments I've seen, are collectively largely idiotic and utterly unconvincing. If he is the pick, I pray they have other ones that actually are compelling (or info on Maye that is horrifying) because otherwise, they really are idiots.

I can't remember who did it but somebody posted a piece of research the past several months here or somewhere else illustrating how deleterious just sacks were alone, to drives and it was, just, mind blowing, needless to say. The rate at which sacks kill the potential to generate points on a possession is just I think significantly more than practically anyone intuits.

Bingo, he runs into sacks, and gives up on passing way way too much. And again, his pressure to sack ratio is one across years, if it was only '23, he and Maye would yes, but nearly locked in as equally below average to bad, before '23 Daniels was flat out horrific, approaching Fields levels, though I'd probably say an order of magnitude better than him (sounds like he's the apotheosis of p2s).

Yep, people aren't familiar with how the HOF, much like Pro Bowls, has gotten diluted. In terms of QB's, the raw #'s piece is going to allow for a lot of crazy to happen over the next several years. Ryan's career #'s are pretty ridiculous, top 10 in multiple categories all time. Now we know this is because: #1 he was a good QB #2 he played in the best era ever for good QB's to accumulate. The same thing is gonna happen with Cousins six or seven years from now. Some people will talk up his candidacy because his raw stats are insane, others will laugh at him because he left no imprint whatsoever on the game in the playoffs, and in Ryan's case he did, he had several big time playoff runs, all coming short. Should he be in the hall? For me? No. But the stats say yes, but the stats are funny money due to rule changes the past 20 years making playing defense 1/2 to 1/4 what it once was in terms of tamping down production #'s. The problem is you're using 2023. Not their careers. Jayden Daniels 2023 is not Daniels only season.

The problem is, did Jayden suddenly only play one college season, and if not, why are we looking at his pressure to sack ratio in his best season? I mean if Brian Thomas was killing it every season like he did in '23, he'd be going top 5, he didn't, he was meh throughout college until last year so he's going much later in the draft. Daniels was sacked a whopping 43 times in '22 and then 64 the 3 previous years combined. There's two things that hugely have bothered me when people have brought it up, #1 is how its been presented, but even more glaring is how Daniels is treated almost like a guy whose only season was 23. We do get that there are pressure to sack ratios in '19-'22 right? I'll concede that he showed great improvement in '23 if people will concede that that could just as much be about randomness, being a fifth year QB, and having the most talent he'd ever had by far too work with (and far more than any of the other QB's) in '23, so maybe, I don't know, maybe it was an outlier? Or when we play fantasy football, do we only look at a given players best year, and project their '24 season based upon that? I feel like people are indulging things that they'd never do in their own analysis for their own fantasy teams, but doing it on the scale of our beloved Washington Football Team. We all know '23 was one season, AND IT WAS BY FAR HIS BEST in terms of Pressure to sack ratio/sacks given up etc. That could mean he's improved, finally, it could just as easily mean it was the nature of the '23 season, and has no sticking power, much like Pickett's '21 season. We just don't know, and even if '22 is things to come, its still a crap Pressure to sack ratio just like Maye's, its just its got another 4 people are ignoring in the shadows that were much, much, much worse and I don't know, considering sample size, probably tell the true story, or at least just as much as '23 did in terms of long term relevance.

I'm a half poisoned glass guy, which is part of it, and periodically I boil over and just start ranting lol, hopefully with logic and well reasoned posts and arguments. I will admit I'll find it hilarious if this class ends up like '04 and '00 rather than '99 or '18, and we just have a HOF type in Caleb, a Super bowl guy in Maye and a Lamar lite in Daniels and they're all great, maybe one of the latter 3 hit too lol. I totally think that could happen. I actually like Daniels, but this is a business where the bust, or "he's a guy your gonna dalton/tannehill after his rookie deal" rate sits at more than 50%. I expect Caleb to hit but I do think the mental make up (is this a George/Leaf/RGIII mental make up problem that lowers his ceiling by half) worry is legit, I think Maye at worst is just a stat accumulator in the vein of a bigger Cousins, and thats at worst, and I think Daniels athleticism, if he can stay healthy and arm, mean he has a good chance at being at worst, Fields plus and for one year, Fields was average. Its hard for me to see any of the 3 being utter wastelands of nothing like Zach Wilson and Trey Lance, other than maybe injury with Daniels. But for me, that's not really it, its more, "Come on, man, this isn't hard, I want to hear quotes from the FO and coaches and think, "we're in good hands," I don't want to think we've got a clown show at the wheel like Captain Edward Smith and friends, running full speed into an ice field. I want them to be so dorky smart, I can follow the bread crumbs and kinda get how they get there and buy the process. But everything I read makes me less confident rather than more.

The problem with the Bears and Fields was that he improved dramatically in '22 from '21. He climbed from the bottom of regular league starters based upon a threshold of snaps in '21, to the upper middle in '22 (I think 14th) in QBR. The Bears could ignore that, and take their toss up between Young and Stroud, and lets be straight, they weren't automatically taking Stroud, Stroud was getting hammered for his S2 score and soundly behind Young on a ton of boards last. If they had moved on last year the most likely scenario was they would have taken another bust at 1.01. Instead, they decided to give their league average starter from '22 another year to lock in the job while getting a ton of draft capital for moving down. It wasn't all that crazy. This wasn't the same thing as the Browns passing on QB in '18 because Manziel or Kizer still made them feel happy inside, or the Cardinals not taking Kyler because they had Rosen, or the Jets holding off on Wilson because Darnold was a stud etc. Fields was already understood to be an elite athlete back there, and as a thrower he was league average in '22. Do you move on, or take another shot? And additionally, they knew the Panthers roster was ---, the trade up would cost them the ability to add weapons and so the pick would probably be high again in a stacked '24 class. The Cardinals its different. Kyler was considered the best prospect from that '18-'19 combined cohort, Rosen looked like a bust, and even Kyler, for a long while people were worried he would bail and play baseball, but once he was all in? That was a no brainer. Seems like teams get that more now too. The Jets understood they whiffed on Wilson, they just couldn't do anything about it. Patriots took 2 years to realize they were screwed with Jones, Bears took 3 years with Fields but he gave them a good year, same with mac and the apts so they took longer....Teams know now, there's a much better understanding of threshold production metrics and what not associated with "he gets it/he may get it/this is hopeless".

It's more some of us know the warning signs of future busts because we overresearch the hell out of it. Daniels is deeply connected to an absolute ton of bust list trademarks: 1. Doesn't throw with anticipation/not much tight window throwing: Check 2. Health risk due to the way he plays: Check 3. Had breakout year only after he'd been in college a thousand years and was playing primarily against players several years younger: Check 4. Surrounded by far more talent than his peers (the alabama/SEC halo effect): Check 5. Runs when early reads aren't open: Check 6. god awful pressure to sack ratio: Check 7. Excuse making sold as positive: "he really grew/improved each year" ie: he didn't break out and play like an elite player until the elite players from his graduating class had long since left for the pro's and he was playing against kids/ie we aren't worried about why 2019-2022 disappointed, we're celebrating the Kenny Pickett Glory of his final year. He clearly GETS IT NOW!!! And there's a lot more. He checks SO MANY alarm bells of bust boxes its ridiculous, and the way his boosters quoted in the media, igore all of it, or flip the criticism to become a positive as in "its not important that he totally failed to breakout at ASU, what matters is that in one of his five years, the most recent one, he was finally better than Maye (1 of his 5 years better than Maye's 2 years, 4 of the 5 worse, but somehow that's inexplicably a positive?!?!?!). I'm not here crapping on Penix or Caleb, I get their strengths and worries and why people are both entranced or worried about each. It's the Daniels stuff that just reads like classic predraft bull---- that everyone is gonna pretend they didn't say 2-3-4 years later like with Picket, like with Howel in comparison, like with Lance, Wilson and Fields and Mac Jones, like with Herbert. The bull---- meter is raging off the hook the same way it was when mediots tried to explain why taking Barkely at QB at the 1.02 in '18 wasn't idiotic, which it was. like it was when the mediots were trying to tell us why Zach Wilson was the next Patrick Mahomes in '17, or Trey Lance the next Randall in '21, or why Mac Jones could go #3, or why the fact that Pickett who was a nothing burger for nearly half a decade in college, proved he was ready for the NFL with his sterling final year performance at age 57 in 2021. We've all walked this road before, and the Daniels boosting is so very much of a piece with that stupidity, even to the same extent that quoted fired execs, scouts and gm's are pretending they liked Burrow in '20, when they were ripping him, and quietly not mentioning that their failed QB evals are precisely why they are "unemployed GM #3" and "unemployed coach #4". Again, feels like crazy pills. And its worth noting, some of us, certainly me, aren't even arguing Maye is gonna hit, and Daniels is gonna bust. It isn't that, it's that Daniels cv has a ton of warning signs for QB's, and Maye has far fewer and the one's he has tend to be in the eyes of the beholder, rather than clear, factual, data, period. I don't know if even any of these guys will hit, they could all bust, I just know which ones have the most alarming bust bells in terms of historical trend lines and traits, and those are Daniels for what he does on the field, Penix for the time he's sent off of it, JJ for how little he did on it, and Caleb for his personality being a problem, Nix for all things Nix, and Maye for concerns with how many games he played (not a lot), and mechanics which both can be a problem, and can be much ado about zilch. They all have warts, but Daniels and Penix and JJ are the guys w/the warts that are blaring warning signs and patently obvious ones at that. For anyone that doesn't see that, just seems like your probably not paying attention to QB's that hit and didn't the last 25 years. There are clear and coherent trend lines associated with miss rate. Hit rate? That's impossible, but miss rate? There are clear things virtually all of the busts have in common w/at least some of the traits and statistical modeling and #'s.

Yep, this is part of what made me so frustrated with the idea that we had no idea what our board was when we hired the OC and the staff. That's fine, right, but I don't want those potential clowns dictating a pick that will be here for a decade or more longer than the coach will, if they do this right. Do not dictate the freaking #2 overall pick in the best QB class in 20 years based upon the whims of some failed OC, and failed Atlanta HC, both of whom had franchise QB's and did largley ---- all with them (in fairness to Quinn, he came within a miracle comeback of winning a super bowl), most coaches have to make do with average or worse QB's, like idiot Ron, they don't get potential future HOF's like Matt Ryan, or #1 overall studs like Kyler. These two guys lucked into those talents and shouldn't have a damn thing to do with who we pick. Our pick should be based upon the most talented long term prospect there is at our slot, period, full stop. We are not and should not be trying to fit a QB, a once a decade potential talent, square peg, round hole style into the whims of the fiftieth freaking coach/or OC we've had in 30 years. Most of us can't even name the OC's we had say in 1995 or 2001, or 2006 or 2014 or 2018 etc without looking back, but we all know who was behind center, and failing each of those miserable years. The idea that a QB prospect is trumped by a retread HC and retread OC is just so ridiculous it beggars belief, but here we are.