The Consigliere

3 broken tackles last year, 10 in his career. He either beats you or he catches it and falls down. Not really dynamic beyond running faster than coverage.

A lot of people had Burks, Skyy Moore and Watson ahead of him. I think generally it broke down as: Tier 1: London Wilson Olave Williams Tier 2: Burks Moore Dotson Williams within tiers people just go w/need and fit. I find it odd that after taking Brown last year we went w/Dotson, but I think it seems clear that we just liked some guys rather than had a particular need we wanted. London, Olave and Dotson are all pretty different from one another. The bad: it feels a lot like last year when they forced a pick for need and could have taken a better player w/the 2nd rounder and fixed QB w/a trade or addressed other needs. We’ll know if we can justify ****ing to that extent if a guy falls into the 40s. More likel trade creep would have made more sense. I don’t care about missing on Olave, I care more about missing out on Hamilton and Williamson who had higher ceilings (Dotson strikes me as a higher ceiling lower floor guy when compared to Olave). The Good: I’ll be very surprised if he busts. Most positive comps are guys like Hilton and Moss, not bad at all but yes a reach. I prefer Pickens and Moore but not by much and Pickens has a lot of red flags. I also liked Burks better but some scary N’Keal Harry vibes w/him. Not great, to justify, you need to hit on one of those trade down picks or get a home run in Dotson, maybe we get lucky and get both. Especially since Pickett’s upside is Dalton.

I am bummed we missed on Hamilton, but I’m fine w/missing on Olave.

I would in a second. Moore is legit and you get cheap control for several years. Yes please.

I’d give center more value because of the horrific rb age cliff, but I wouldn’t touch either position in the top 16, rb only in late 20s, center late teens and only for monster prospects w/positional flexibility.

I love this take so much I accidentally double quoted it. Anyone that can look like a stud on the jets w/Wilson throwing to him is a monster. Good to know the jets are still clinically insane. Apparently never bothered to check Samuels career medical. X1000 Jets are idiots, niners are too if they haven’t pounded accept on this offer if real.

That’s true but if the comp for Payne would suck and it will since he’s a one year rental, how does it matter? I get that if we could turn him into a 23 2nd, it’s stupid to hold the asset but whose offering that? I don’t see it. Normally I’d side w/you, trading Trent, Kirk, Scherff earlier was the move but we had idiots in charge, we still do, but there argument here is at least reasonable. My indictment is the grand mal stupidity at QB, it’s so embarrassingly stupid that I find the franchise utterly hopeless when noted in conjunction w/ownership.

I don’t know how you make this argument but then view Linderbaum, Hamilton and Lloyd as value. Linderbaum is a center And lacks positional flexibility, Hamilton’s 40 was a thousand red flags and he may be a positionally limited safety, Lloyd is a redshirt senior who plays one of the cheapest positions to address in free agency and in terms of draft capital. Hamilton, Linderbaum and Lloyd would all be massive reaches at 11 w/their flags. They all could be great pro’s too but value? Not really beyond landing a hit rather than a bust. I’m not married to London either btw, I think it’s kind of nuts that we have Wilson behind London and Olave supposedly but it may be a lazy “fit” thing rather than a talent and value thing. Would be the 4th consecutive draft we steered wrong in that sense so no surprise there. This team doesn’t understand value at least in round 1 anyway. They seem to prefer fit and defensive need.

Why do you think that would happen? His deal is about up so why is anyone trading that much for him? I’d dance a jig if it happened but I suspect it’s some kind of nothing day 3 pick. He’s a rental.

It’s interesting to think about. How many teams have won in spite of incompetent destructive owners. It’s happened. Just not so often. I’m just observing from enemy territory (Raiders and 49ers land), we aren’t relevant and won’t be, but it’s an interesting watch to see how mistakes and bad luck and bad by design can combine to lead you to a place like here.

What do you think? More 4-8?

It’s not going to be great at any point. We still don’t have the QB and barring getting Willis and rolling the dice there, which we won’t, a great QB won’t be here and so in the short term, the aim is a mediocre tough team that’s a hard out, but still irrelevant as we’ve been for brief moments when we weren’t bad the past thirty years. Nothing interesting beyond 8-10 wins and one and done if we make the playoffs is happening in ‘22, ‘23 or ‘24. We blew it at QB and that’s a wrap on this iteration of the team barring some crazy Jim Plunkett Renaissance w/Wentz which is unlikely but possible.

I’m fine w/it.

This is my view as well. I think we manage to ruin any chance at a great QB in the next 3+ years w/that trade. Our only chance was to bottom out or trade up for Fields or Mac last year. We botched it going both directions and to make it even worse deliberately pulled ourselves out of the Willis lottery. A few years from now fans will be shaking their heads wondering how we manage to dodge every franchise QB imaginable from the ‘20-‘23 classes. Such is life as a redskins fan, praying Wentz finally becomes something neither his previous teams nor their fans see any chance in hell of happening. Maybe it does though. You never know and to be fair were we gonna be worse than the other bottom feeders likely to want a QB? Probably not AND quite a few of them now have multiple ‘23 1sts to trade up with and we don’t. I think for now anyway we probably win 7-9 giving us a pick in the 10th to 19th area. No Wentz trade and it’s probably 4-6 wins and a pick in the 4-10 zone but still outside the area where the top 2 or 3 QBs go w/o a trade up. Rock and a hard place.

Why are you concerned? Smart teams keep their books clean for flexibility and let guys go for comp picks unless they’re elite difference makers. Payne’s good but he’s not elite. Something on the order of 80-85% of draftees from what I recall get their second contract w/a different team. That’s just the way the NFL works. Not sure he would’ve fetched much more last offseason so what would you have the team do? We’re prioritizing Allen, Young and Sweat which makes sense as they are greater difference makers AND would fetch more in a trade anyway (not sure on Allen in terms of trade value).

What do you think accounts for the speed issue? Was he carrying a knock or is he just not fast? I can honestly say I could have accepted him at 11 considering some of the write up, but the 40 was potentially so bad to borderline okay but not close to elite (4.59 to 4.70 which could be as bad as 4.75 considering it was hand timed) that it ruined him as a guy that could justify a selection that high. If your going to overreach positionally in round 1 that high it should be for a guy that checks every box and then some and that lack of top end speed is scary to me. I will add the strong caveat that he did test quite well in the explosion drills (vert and broad) so it might suggest more than meets the eye. I hope you’re right about him, I’m nervous as hell and Olave over Wilson to me and even Jameson Williams strikes me as flat out nuts(not your take, just redskin preference apparently). I feel they got WR rankings completely backwards. Hope they’re right like they were w/McLaurin. Olave should be a solid WR but the upside is super limited.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like Mims was a big winner in '20, was it Deebo that was a winner in '19 along with McLaurin? I can't remember. My memory of '20 was that Mims basically dominated and Gandy Golden stunk, and now both of them have been awful in the pros. You never really know with some of this.

Pretty much. I think it's beyond idiotic. Unless he was injured this spring, late winter, then the times he put in in the 40 make him a non starter because he doesnt have difference making speed, and isn't quite the athlete that could justify taking a safety that high but that isn't even why I'm bothered the most. What bothers me the most is prioritizing a system based player for a team that might fire the coaching staff next offseason. When you have a top half of the draft 1st, or really any first, you should be trying to draft key building block pieces at QB, Edge, CB, OT, and WR, that's it, guys that can play in anybody's system because if you're a team with a ---- owner, and a notoriously bad F.O. and turnstile approach to coaching staffs, no picks should ever be predicated on someone's particular system to that degree. It's insane. But this team is moronic, and always has been, so using top assets as disposable trash is par for the course. I get that Hamilton the football player is seen as elite, nor does he pay an expensive position in terms of free agency replacement, and draft asset management, and when you can add that he doesn't have univorn level athleticism, it should be an easy pass.

Sure but I also think it's kind of a lazy way of explaining what these tools accomplish and what they don't. The 40 and really practically everything WR's do at a combine are totally irrelevant as long as the WR has some reasonable degree of athleticism (4.65 or faster which nearly always works as a cut off with prospects), but with RB's and TE's, the #'s in shorts are MASSIVELY correlated to chances for future success, particularly when merged with other helpful production markers. RB's who don't time in the 40 well at all have a miniscule hit rate, TE's who don't test out very athletic tend to be JAG's at the next level quite consistently, if you're looking for a game breaking TE, generally, you want to find yourself an elite athlete, and go from there. It's complicated, like all things. But yeah, for WR's, I really dont care about the combine as long as he can run reasonably fast (4.4, 4.5 speed), and is reasonably explosive, if not, I'll get a little worried unless he's nailed everything else down, and even then it still may be a problem, but it shouldn't be a difficult filter because virtually all WR's that make any list at all, hit the athleticism markers you want anyway, it's the other stuff (Breakout age, production, tape stuff) that then can help you figure out how interested you are.

As sacrilegious as it is to say, I'd pass and for one reason. The guy has a long, real long, injury history stretching back from the '20 season, to college, to even high school. Couldn't stay consistently healthy anywhere. I don't know why we'd want to pay trade capital, and a huge contract, w/a guy with his injury history.

The tape lies endlessly. Or the interpreters of tape anyawy. Nah, I will say this though, there doesn't seem to be much relevance w/the combine with the WR position at all beyond some threshold speed markers that periodically have odd outliers (Rice was 4.65 supposedly, Boldin and Keenan Allen were incredibly bad, though I think both were injured), the much bigger deal with WR's is breakout age and to a lesser extent market share/dominator #'s, but even then there are 1 in 9 type outliers amongst the productive WR's around the league who didn't fit that tag.

Other busts: Mecole Hardman: Not a fan Parris Campbell: Not a fan, but it was injuries that did him in. Andy Isabella: Big fan and very sad that he busted. Jalen Hurd: Converted RB Miles Boykin: Just didn't pan out for Baltimore Henry Ruggs: was starting to break out, then headed to indictment for vehicular homicide. KJ Hamler: injury issues and overdraft. Shenault: I was a big fan :(. But he's totally guilty of bubble screen production. Van Jefferson: Rams seem like the new Al Davis Raiders, absolute morons when it comes to drafting WR's. He's panned out as something, but was a huge overdraft, in '21 they'd be even bigger idiots with the Atwell pick. D. Eskeridge and T. Atwell: I'm willing to already call them busts because they were massive reaches at the time and have already been replaced on their rosters. It's an interesting idea though, could guys that pile up yardage #'s this way be frauds? Maybe, but it sure feels like using 2 or 3 draft classes is not enough sample size for an accurate picture. Interesting trend though.

Strikes me as a silly take. Teams aren't getting better at identifying them, we've just had quite a few good classes in a row after some weak years earlier the previous decade. '19-'21 were all good to great, '15-'18 were more erratic, '14 was the best class probably ever alongside '01 and '96 (maybe instead of ever you just say over the past 35 years?). All positions go through good and bad years and inbetween. WR's had a run lately, same with QB, same with RB, TE has been more scattershot. This year is particularly bad at QB and RB, with WR strong again, next year's one of the best QB-RB-WR-TE drafts in a long line time, while 2016 was probably the worst in recent memory. Classes are classes. In terms of WR, note how expensive the position is becoming, note the sense through studies that WR just made the top value position list for top draft picks behind the regulars (QB, OT, Edge, DT, and corner) and seems to have jumped ahead of corner for now, probably based more on the FA class (CB class was very weak in FA), than true valuation. If you like a WR, go after them, but next year's class is good too, so you don't need to force it, especially since this isn't a class deep in game changing WR's of the Julio Jones, AJ Brown, Jamar Chase and Jefferson types, it feels more like a class with DJ Moore's, and Jerry Jeudy's and Mike Williams types, interesting good prospects, legit weapons, but game breaking, defining top 10 or better types. I don't see any. Maybe Wilson, but that's it. We'll see.

The Sierra Nevada's over where I'm at started with like 9 feet of snow the last two weeks of December, and then no storms. Zilch, in January or in February until around the last week of the month, got another set of storms in early mid march, then nothing for another month, we turned in the ski season rentals for my 5 year old and my wife, and put our snowboards up after temps hit the mid 70's in early April. Boom, 45 inches since last week Thursday Night till now. Just NUTS. Bummer, as we might have been able to preserve more of the snow pack if this storm had hit a little earlier :(. Literally had kids crying at the tee ball game thursday night due to the low temps and winds, not used to the insane comitment little league has for playing in horrid conditions.

Based on the odds, every single one of those WR's, even Dyami, should be looked at as bridge WR holdovers. Unless they suddenly break out (which would be a long odds hit at this point), we should assume that they're temporary depth until they're shoved off the roster for legit weapons. Anyone banking on Sims, on Harmon, on Brown, or anyone else being a legit building block long term is basically doing the equivalent of assuming a late 2nd rounder in an NBA draft will be an NBA regular. Could it happen? Yep. Will it? Almost certainly not (as in less than a 20% chance). For sure enjoy any contribution they might add, but nobody should consider any of those guys a reason to skip over WR for another position because none of them are likely to be long term or even short term answers or solutions.