The Consigliere

Well, we've only finished the bottom 2 in the league once in my lifetime, so it kinda makes sense. Then add a dash of 0 quality drafts under Ron, and next to no veteran help from the Bruce Allen craptacular era, and it makes sense. As I mentioned before FA, in terms of position Groups: QB: D OL; D- TE: F WR: D+ RB: D+ Edge: F DT: B- LB: F CB: D- S: D- ST's: I don't know but it sounds like we have a nice punter and nothing else. People will disagree w/some of those, but to my mind, nearly our entire line needed replacement, our entire QB room, our entire TE room, nearly all our RB room, our Edge room, most of our LB's are total ---, our secondary is patently god awful and the only guy that didn't suck was leaving. It's definitely gonna take more than one offseason to fix all that. The OL is particularly interesting as it had basically one or two quality lineman, in Stromberg an injured late 3rd rounder, and then some underperforming vets, and utter horse manure that couldn't beat out the worst OL's in the league at multiple positions (or close to it). This will take years to fix. If you botch every offseason for the most part for a decade, and all four of the Ron ones, you aren't gonna fix all that with some heavy cap room and like 2 more draft picks than usual. The good news is unlike the past, when we had fewer picks than anyone else, this time we had more, and we traded zero future picks which was a nice change of pace.

Do you think he might have gone higher if he'd spent more of his time there rather than on the bench at Ohio State? Reading about him, seems like the floor is reasonably decent, and there's more upside than usual for a 7th round edge we draft (I think we haven't hit on a late round edge since Richie Redskin in '94 or '95 whenever he came out-can't remember how late round he was). Part of me is optimistic, but the experienced me just tosses him the bin with the rest of late day 3 edge's who've sucked 96% of the time.

Anyone have data on how effectively RAS ratings translate going forward? I'm too lazy to dig beyond finding a teeny bit of data from last year (Richardson was great, our injury riddled center was great, packers TE Musgrave was great, our should've been DB Gonzalez was great).

3 of our top 6 picks on day 1 and day 2 were offense including the most valuable draft capital we had. It doesn't really matter that a couple of 5th rounders and a 7th were on the defensive side of the ball as day 3 picks miss the vast majority of the time. We were unlikely to get offensive help there anyway. I'm not happy either, in some ways, I don't love what we did with Philly in the trade, and I don't love the Sinnott pick at 53 or the McCaffrey pick at 100, and I hope they weren't trying to fix a defense I was told a few months ago when I projected a crap '24 season, was actually good in '22, and maybe not the disaster it looked because well, its ron's fault or whatever, but anyway....the reality is, this team is and was a mess at DB, LB, Edge, OL, WR, RB, TE and QB. You can't fix it all in one draft or one offseason. I'm alarmed they didn't do more for the OL either, but nobody was terribly interested in trading down to our slot, and we ended up with an OL in Coleman that's both versatile, and considered by the NFL.Com dude and Brugler to be of the same tier as Paul, Rosegarten, and the guy with the long hard to spell name.... Im very torn, part of me feels like you do, but part of me gets it, and just views what happened as a situation in which he took advantage of the talent that fell to him. My one major gripe is that they didn't turn 5 day 2 picks into any 2025 draft capital at all and we aren't getting compensatories either after the free agency palozza we just had. I'm bummed we didnt spin some golden loom for next year...we should have. Maybe we end up trading some vets for picks before the dealine again, but we don't have many anyone would want.

It's more a "don't get enamored with specific players you think we may draft outside of a top 2-3 pick". Every year people have their favorites on day 3 and day 2 and 95% of the time we don't take them. Better to tier out your favorites by position, by day of the draft, so you're familiar w/the guys we do take, amongst the ones you liked, or ignored/didn't.

Matt Kelley over at player profiler has him basically in his like top 5 or so at RB, and he landed in a great spot.

Unfortunately the one example I heard of that was Kyle pounding the table for Joe Williams, who, needless to say, left no mark on the game whatsoever. I appreciate the idea, though, honestly, I want the GM to collect the information available, hold their meetings and make a choice on draft day, I don't want some position coach trumping the GM w/a pounding the table move at like 1023am on a saturday, either you convinced the GM the previous four months, or you didn't. Otoh, Tom Brady, more or less, was the product of a similar effort with the Patriots brain test, lower level officials advocating hard for him way back in 2000.

Interesting, a bunch of these guys have elite athleticism, Sinnott, the LB, McCaffrey, maybe the DB, can't remember with him, the DT had ridiculous explosion too, sounds like Coleman has it too. A lot of elite athletes.

Nice pull.

Yep, Im hoping we trade down in the 5th and pick up a '25 day 3 pick as a part of it. The work in '25 begins with trade downs now.

Him over Bowers is just crazy pills ridiculous but I appreciate your passion for him and man, if you're right there (which for me is about 1 in 5000 chance), I'll eat heaps of crow and deserve it, that is going out on a limb lol.

He would have been my guy as well and I would've waited on Sinnott till the 3rd, but, judging by those other dudes Brugler and the nfl.com guy (is that jeremiah?), we took a guy from the same tier of OL's as the ones that went late 2nd, so....time will tell, plus Coleman clearly has the added value of being versatile, playing Guard in a pinch too, which at least some of those guys clearly did not, maybe we wanted the versatility since our entire OL is largely garbage beyond Center and a Guard spot and maybe Stromberg if he develops. So having versatile should be a plus, especially for playing time.

Oh I would've 100% taken one with the Sinnott pick. Pass on Sinnott, see if he lasts to 67 (I think he does, the TE run didnt really start until day 3, but maybe I end up being wrong, and Sinnott is not so special that I would've passed on OL's for him), otoh, Coleman was rated higher than Rosengarten by Brugler, if not Suamataia, and Paul, and the dude who does it for nfl.com, forgot his name, had Coleman above Rosengarten and Suamataia.... So? I don't know, maybe there's method to the madness, for two of the top guys doing this, they very much had Coleman in the same tier with either 2 of the guys you mention, or at least 1 in the other case....so? But yeah, I would've pulled the trigger with the Sinnott pick on OL, and waited on him.

The Over Under is 6.5. What are you expecting exactly? Btw, I'm not even being negative, I want us to be in position to continue building out the roster over two years, I don't want the team to get so good so fast that they outpace the talent they can land with good draft capital on day 1 and day 2. If we improve from 4 wins to 5, that's fine, 6 is pushing it, but I can live with it. 7 or 8 wins will make it harder to build out the roster. There's a lot of work to do. Fixing four years worth of stupidity under Ron, and a near decade's worth preceeding him takes time. It's fine. I'm actually quite hopeful long term. I think we got 3 starters and a reserve out of day 1 and day 2, that's actually a solid to good haul, if we can land one more on day 3, it's a very good one, and if the DT becomes what he seems like, and Daniels legit hits, that trumps the rest of it anyway. A QB hit transforms everything, as Houston illustrated in '23, Cincy in '20, Buffalo in '18, KC in '17 etc.

No, nearly all the good ones get cut, at least once.

So maybe he's a "athlete" bet? Wonder why it doesn't show up on tape for the guys evaluating him.

Like anyone he has more misses than hits....this reads like a miss, but time will tell, and to be fair, everyone misses a good 8 to 8.5/10 times on these guys.

From Brugler over at theathletic: A three-year starter at Temple, Magee was the Mike linebacker in defensive coordinator Everett Withers’ 4-2-5 base scheme. A high school quarterback, he fully transitioned to linebacker for the Owls, leading the team in tackles each of the last two seasons and earning a single-digit jersey number as a two-time captain. Although anticipation isn’t a true strength of his game, Magee trusts his keys and flies to the football once he loc ks onto his target. However, he feels small working downhill and his take-on skills leave a lot to be desired, which is why he projects to be more of a Will in the NFL. Overall, Magee’s average play strength will stand out versus pro competition, but his athletic range and competitive play style are NFL-quality assets. He should be an outstanding special teamer as a rookie while he competes for defensive snaps

Not like I can evaluate defensive players, but the read ups on him sound like ---. I'm expecting him to be cut, or to be bench depth or a bad field player. Not a fan of the pick at all. In fairness, the hit rate on guys at this point is like 10-25% tops, so, no matter he we took, it was always probably going to go sideways, not too often you find a Howell type talent in round 5 a stud RB like Aaron Jones on day 3 etc.

Pretty glad we didn't do it. Very boom bust guy, I'm not sure he would've been worth the cost (probably the DT, the DB and something else). I expect Thomas to be great, but he has a much higher bust risk than guys typically that go in that zone, for me anyway.

Its pretty clear from what happened that they had a bunch of guys who went in round 1 they liked that they couldn't get any deal done to move up for and nobody on their board was close to rated top 50ish. Generally speaking, the NFL agreed with their evaluation. All the OT's went undrafted until the last 9 or 10 picks of round 2 went a mini run started again.

Such a horrible pick in a long, long line of terrible 2nd rounders other than Cosmi (cautiously optimistic about last years nickel).

Went through the over unders just now, the teams with lower O/U's are the titans, giants, patriots, panthers, and broncos. So we're projected by Vegas, for now, to pick 6 in '25.

I loved the DT, liked the DB, I like Sinnott and think we have our TE now, but yeah I think it was early, but hey, probably our new pass catching TE, so I'll take that, Coleman is legit depth and potential starter at OT or G though the ceiling I think is average (but that's better than we have). I don't like the McCaffrey pick at all, just felt stupid, with much better talent on the board, reports from the senior bowl at least from one sight suggested he couldn't translate his athleticism later shown at the combine to the senior bowl practices where he wasn't getting separation. I hated that pick, especially with Franklin falling like a stone, and Baker still available, Jaylen Wright at RB, and some interesting OL, and Defensive fallers still there. It felt like a reach luxury pick based on name, just betting on genetic heritage and combine results, but not on the player. Hated that, especially with us not picking again for 39 picks. Just stupid. I hope I'm wrong, like with Daniels, but at least with Daniels, I get it, I just just am seriously skeptical that it is translatable long term, but with Luke, it's just the combine, and genes...I need more. For now, my take away: We got our starting QB, if he stays healthy and the word on his processing and hopefulness w/anticipation is on point, the p2s issue can get fixed and more, he's a stud. I hope. We got a top 7-8 OL that should be able to develop into a starter by '25, and emergency starter in '24. We got a nickel corner and leader for the DB's. We got our replacement for Allen, and a rotational DT for now. We got a guy who should win the starting TE job by '25, and we'll make do with catch and fall slugs as he learns in '24. In a lot of ways this is kind of ideal because it gives us long term help that isn't going to effect the bottom line too much in '24 (I don't see Sinnott, or Newton or Coleman or McCaffrey starting, Newton and Coleman will probably see a good chunk of snaps though), and for me, it's important that this team only win 4-6 games this year, and the nice FA haul meant w/a '24 steelers level draft, we'd potentially move towards 6-8 wins, I now don't see that happening. I think we've only pulled 1 immediate starter from this draft, maybe 2 if you include the DB who will be on the field a ton as a nickel eventually. For now, the O/U on the win total is 6.5. The betting for now is predicting 7 wins (-130 on the over). I look at this draft, and the free agent hault. Its pretty clear we aren't fixing the OL this year (it was nigh on impossible so not a criticism, that looked like a 2 year project), we aren't fixing edge, LB is improved but not great, the secondary may be improved, Forbes can't be that bad again though losing Curl sucks. The WR group is not improved, RB is not improved, QB is. For me that's a net: meh. Not a criticism, they are plugging holes, and the draft looks like a draft a team does when its looking to '25 and '26 more than '24. Fine w/me. I see 4-6 wins still, ceiling of 7, that should slot us 3-13, I would project a middle of 5-6 wins, which is more like 5th-12th zone. I don't much about '25 other than that the QB's stink, RB's are a bit better, WR's are worse, not sure on TE, don't know the rest. Our needs next year look like OL, Edge, LB, WR, RB, maybe DB, we'll see. I am okay with this, so far, I hated the Daniels pick, and I hated the McCaffrey pick, but felt the rest ranged from fine to good or very good. So far mostly good and if Daniels hits and stays healthy, it creates a 10x value boost period.

Thank you! This morning I was enjoying Paul's bass bit in Baby You're a rich man, and now I can enjoy my wife's all time favorite Zeppelin song and its bass line. Thanks!