The Consigliere

Bryce Young Lets Go!!!!!

Anyone is in trading distance, it just depends upon what you're willing to give up. Since Fields was the #2 QB and player on my board overall I would have given up far more than the Redskins FO was willing to give. As for whether he was a bust, I think several things are equally true: #1: Fields played like crap for most of 2021. #2: Matt Nagy failed to produce any quality seasons from former top QB prospects Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields, and the entire reason he was brought in was that he was supposedly an offense and QB whisperer. #3: Justin Fields has been electric everywhere he's ever played since high school when he was neck and neck with Trevor Lawrence as the #1 overall recruit period (not just QB) in his high school class. He's been spectacular everywhere. So yeah, I'm extremely, and let me underline it, EXTREMELY skeptical that Fields is a bust, and far more inclined to put most of Fields struggles on the fact that he was drafted buy a team that hasn't drafted and developed a franchise QB since either Jim McMahon forty years ago (who most wouldn't tag that way due to his injury shortened career) or Sid Freaking Luckman 90 years ago. When I see an organization and a coach that's failed utterly to develop QB's, I tend to put the preponderance of the criticism on them rather than the prospect, especially when the prospect has a CV as incredible as Fields, while the organizations CV, particularly with the QB position, is hot garbage (not to mention the HC). We'll see what happens, 2021 was not encouraging, but, if I was picking a landing spot for a QB, of all the QB landing spots in the '21 draft, the Chicago landing spot would be dead last for me. So Fields landing there was a disaster for his career: San Francisco, Jacksonville, New England, and even the freaking Jets would've been more appealing landing spots (not to mention the redskins either).

It doesn't matter. Carolina didn't let Jimmy Clausen cloud their feelings about Cam Newton, and as you love to remind me, the Cardinals didn't like Josh Rosen get in the way of targeting Kyler Murray. If you have a chance for a franchise QB, and you don't have one on your roster, you take them. Doesn't matter that Haskins was on the roster, at all. Haskins had proven nothing whatsoever in '19 other than that he had the potential to not be complete garbage. He showed signs that he had the potential for competence, but never signs that he was better than that, and as we know now, he was a "last one in, first one out" guy, and the first second you notice that, THE FIRST, you have to be out on the QB, and you sure as hell can't let such a QB block you from targeting a legit option. Haskins was a 2nd round graded QB (3rd in some parts apparently) who climbed in a bad class. Tua and Herbert and Burrow were top 1-5 selections in a good to average class. It was obvious. As for '21. What's the moon? Seriously? IF they're asking for our '21 bust, and our '22 (I'm being half sarcastic, it was more a stupid pick than a bust, for now) so what? Getting a QB ranked 1b for the '21 class for two years for two firsts is a no brainer, two firsts and a player is also a no brainer, a day 2 pick and Chase, yes, I still do it. What is they're version of the moon? To my mind they simply don't understand the value of QB's. Hell our own fanbase doesn't. They still think trading for RGIII was stupid. It wasn't. You hit on RGIII, the picks lost are irrelevant, you miss, then you suck, and eventually try again. We hit on Cousins which created a weird, exceptionally rare alternate road. The RGIII trade was never stupid in terms of his value, as understood at the time, complain about the eval, and the poor scouting of Wilson, sure, do that, but trading a pile of firsts for a QB that's a legit franchise QB prospect? Yes, yes again, yes tomorrow and yes the next year and always. You do it till you have him period. The teams that don't have these guys are irrelevant. We don't have to just look at ourselves, we can look at Buffalo and Miami. Twin stories of teams that road high on HOF QB's in the eighties and nineties, and then fell to total irrelevance for decades. One finally found his replacement twenty years later and boom, just two years later they're legit Super Bowl contenders. I think they fundamentally just don't understand QB value AT ALL, they may be scouting them well, but that's it, they don't understand the value of the position. The way they played the Cousins issue, and the way they went after Alex Smith instead of long term solutions, the way they've played the draft. It doesn't seem as if anyone in place no matter when we look, gets it, at all. Now we dumpster dive in a BAD QB draft for the 2nd time in four years because of just how badly we don't get this, and then fans will again, blame the idea of drafting a QB, instead of the problem of having a team that's incompetent in terms of handling the position and addressing it properly. Mark my words, we will see more of the same, and more whining about building the lines, and stop wasting picks on bust QB's if we draft one again and he busts (which will be higher than 50% chance in my view).

If it wasn't true, and it may not be, it still should be. Your franchise is run by morons if you don't have a legit QB, and AREN'T willing to put anyone on the block to get one. I'll add the caveat that I'm not interested in old ones like Rodgers and Wilson, top tier though they be, they aren't worth selling a giant pile of future for. That's the problem, it's not the cost, it's the age of the asset being pursued. How many bridge QB's have we wasted hugely valuable assets on over the years from Boonell to Johnson to McNabb to Alex Smith, it never works, and it never works for a reason (I know there are people that disagree, like with Brad Johnson, but he was never, ever worth a top 10 pick, period, if you're trading a top 10 pick, you need to be getting a HOF, preferabbly a young one, not a Cousins like compiler).

lol, no kidding, which is exactly why I was right all 2020 offseason (but, lol, not right about the guy to get). It was and always should have been QB at 2, period. Kind of hilarious that people still were arguing this, even in an espn article last summer. It goes w/o saying but must be said, if you don't have a legit QB, you don't matter, period.

You already know my take here but the evals can't be good if they have Fields and Mac Jones w/in trading distance, and pass for FitzMagic, Heinicke and a freaking LB. Great to know they had Herbert right, but they totally blew it by not selecting him with that knowledge in '20, and not taking a QB in '21 which renders the whole argument that they know what they're doing a complete non-starter.

I don't think the mobility matters when you're as bad as he is as a thrower. He's just god awful. I've seen Jimmy G play well in multiple seasons (and I don't want him), I've never seen Trubisky string together multiple games of quality let alone seasons. I see zero point in it personally beyond helping the tank for the '23 QB class, it would definitely help there.

Nope, I've heard that supposedly Carolina was fixated on Howell, which is odd, and I find it nearly impossible to believe that Willis would slip below 10 or 11, Pickett, for whatever reason is #1 for a lot of people, inexplicably to me, but his status means he's going top 20, I'm just assuming Corral will.

All you have to do is line up the final fours going back freaking decades and the hit rate for legit franchise QB's vs the Jimmy G's of the world in Final four's is nearly 80-20. Final Four after Final Four is littered with Mannings, Brady's, Favre's, Rodgers, Mahomes, Josh Allen's, Russel Wilson's etc. The DL's, OL's, etc, those grades ebb and flow, those rankings ebb and flow, the only thing that doesn't is the QB factor, and the other clincher is that the team's that beat the game, and manage to sneak in w/---- QB's, virtually all of them vanish w/o a trace afterwards. For every Ravens Elite D, but middling QB that made Final Four's, nearly 90% of the other squads that pulled it off were like the Titans last year, they made their run and vanished w/o a trace because the QB play sabotaged them. Other than the early aughteen Niner's who made I think 3 Final Four's in like four years, and Ravens who've been the rare exception, nobody else has managed to sustain any final four relevance to speak of for several years in a row unless they had an elite franchise/HOF caliber QB (and it's worth noting, the teams that didnt have the elite QB', almost always had a middling QB in the middle of a career year). There's nothing more insane to me than continuing to pretend there's any other route to relevance beyond getting the elite QB and going from there. There is no other model that's repeatable, especially for a ---- franchise like ours that can't attract talent to coaching staff's, and F.O.'s that want to stick around because of the stink on the franchise. Baltimore can hire elite people and keep them because they have decades of proven elite performance, they're a great stepping stone, and a great place to build and sustain a career, they figured out an end a round that hasn't worked for anyone else and eventually got a potential franchise guy in Lamar. Any other team pull it off? Nope. The Niners eventually fell apart due to aging out the defense and bad QB play, the Bucs of the early aughts aged out at QB and on defense and that was that. Once the Steelers couldn't get even an average season out of broken down Ben they were garbage. You want to have a chance and to build something that can last, you need the QB, and the line that keeps him from being David Carr'd. I agree it's murderously difficult to do it, and it's beyond infuriating that the freaking Cowboys not only managed to have drafted and developed nearly a half dozen since we did the same with Baugh and later Kirk Cousins (whose sort of half a franchise QB, basically a QB compiler without big game skills), Staubach, White, Aikman, Romo, and then literally a year or two after Romo they got freaking Dak from the discount aisle as well. Just insane. But it's THE WAY, there is no other way. We have to keep trying until we finally do it. Till we get him, we'll never be relevant and we're always working behind the starting blocks of others because of our owner which makes it even more difficult. This is what made our ignoring the position in '20 and '21 so infuriating. It was known for years that the '13, and '14 classes sucked, that '15 and '16 were top heavy (and busted), that '17 and '18 were good, but that '19 wasn't, that '20 and '21 were special and '22 was trash, and '23 was impressive if top heavy, and yet we continually avoided the position in the cream years, and dumpster dived in the lean years ('19 and now possibly '22). Last year was borderline criminal incompetence and a fireable offense. You can't be so arrogant as to believe you can go diving through someone's trash for a 40something, and go with a guy who wasn't even in the league and be serious about the position while shopping in the luxury aisle for amonst the least valuable positions to draft in round 1, only to have the error compounded by the superior prospect, JOK, that wasn't picked, outplay your guy and have been available a full freaking round later, and all of that, while avoiding trading up for a QB ranked dead even with Lawrence as a recruit, and having been elite at Ohio State, and having another Alabama stud available 1 slot in front of you, and nah, you're good, ignore the position, depending upon what exactly, a million year old Fitzmagic, and Heinickie being long term solutions? at best that was a risky proposition for a seasonable bet, and as a long term solution it was flat out clinicially insane, and to compound the stupidity, everyone and their mother knew that any of the top 5 guys in '21 would've been ranked ahead FAR ahead of any QB prospect in '22, ANY OF THEM, and yet we still pulled the trigger on a LB. Just insane. We don't get it. The single positive to me is that the decision was such a catastrophe, that unless we solve the position this year, we could implode in time for a better class in '23, but again, in my running of the '21 draft, I either would have gotten Fields or Jones, or traded down to provide assets for a trade up in '23, alas we didn't do either, and we won't trade down in '22 (which I would do for '23 ammo), and now no matter how we play this, it's nearly impossible to believe we'll solve this problem unless we get the miracle 0 balls, 2 strikes, grand slam selection on the scale of the Josh Allen hit a few years ago etc. Maybe we get lucky in that way, but even with Allen, who I didn't like due to the terrible inaccuracy issues, if nothing else, the guy had literally every other box checked in his profile. Literally NONE of these guys have that, none of them (I suppose maybe Willis?). If we hit on a QB in this class it will be inspite of good process, not because of it, it will be the same kind of blind luck the Cowboys had when they missed out on their preferred QB's, and ended up taking Dak not because they wanted to, but because Connor Cook was already gone, and was it Paxton Lynch that they wanted to take? Forget which other guy they were trying to get. Dak wasn't genius, Dak was an accident, very much in the same way that Billl Walsh really liked Steve Dills, but he was gone so he went after Montana who'd looked great in a Notre Dame workout where he was actually supposedly more interested in the WR until he saw Montana throwing. We deserve some luck as fans, hopefully we get it, but trusting this FO or organization doing the smart thing is something nobody would or should ever bet on, and getting lucky at this point isn't in their DNA either.

The consensus in the dynasty analytics and dynasty tape grinders community has been that Burks is a legit weapon, a poor man's Andre Johnson is a comp I've seen, a little bit of Chris Godwin from some as well, forget the other comp, but the consensus I've heard is consistently: Tier 1: 1. Burks 2. G. Wilson Tier 2: 3. D. London Tier 3: 4. J. Williams-Injured 5. C. Olave 6. D. Bell 7. G. Pickens-Injured Tier 4: J. Dotson: I think the most volatile guys are Olave, Bell, and Wilson, as I've seen people rank all 3 of those guys anywhere from 1st, to 2nd, to 7th or lower. A lot of disagreement on where they should be valued, and Pickens, and Williams are particularly interesting since Williams just got hurt, and Pickens is just coming back from an injury last spring. Personally I love Burks, and London the most, and then probably Bell and Wilson, and view Pickens as a HUGE potential value if his injury pushes him anywhere in the later stages of day 2. Olave is the guy that strikes me as high floor but not so high ceiling, but there are people who love them some Olave. Justyn Ross is a real unusual one. He was one of the top guys in this class a few years ago, maybe top 2-3, and then had a career threatening issue that wiped out all of '20, and left him looking far less explosive in '21, so I'd be real curious about him if his medicals came back good.

I definitely see it as kind of lazy. Tiering it out, I'd put: Tier 1: Quarterback Massive chasm Tier 2: Average or better OL, and average or better front 4. Tier 3: Reasonably good or better secondary Tier 4: Reasonable weapons for passing game. That's the wish list. There's a reason you use First rounders, and especially high end first rounders on QB's, DL's, OL's and corners, and it's because of how they can impact the game. All world safeties that can play the pass and the run (not box safeties like Collins), and WR's come next. Everything else is secondary or lower.

They proved that when they avoided QB the previous two drafts.

We're near duplicates lol. only disagreement in terms of the past was Herbert (but I didn't see this Herbert coming, jut thought he was a normal coin toss top 10 pick caliber guy). I do like Willis, but if you hate him, well, if he blows people away here, and has the typically strong workouts, he'll go too high for us to get him anyway. Always viewed the 2nd round or late 1st as nonsense, the arm and dual threat ability always meant somebody would use a top 5-10 pick after what has happened with so many dual threat guys the past several years.

And I would say hell no to that. Last years class combined w/this years weakness totally justified such a move this years is the opposite (especially when considering the strength of the ‘23 class). It would be SO REDSKINS/WFT to refuse to throw away future assets for legit QB prospects only to do it a year later for an inferior classes prospects while using future assets of far higher value than the ‘22 picks we held so tightly too last spring.

I would not trade sweat to move up for any of these guys.

+1. I don’t have Pickett in my top 3 and I think it’s crazy to ignore how irrelevant he was till ‘21, and how Howell got it from day 1 as a teen. I never understand the attraction to prospects that needed to be overage to be competent or better. I like the guys that smash as 18-20 year olds (20 at worst) because that means they have elite talent typically to overcome the issues of youth and inexperience. Again, maybe Pickett just took time to make the leap a la Burrow, maybe, but if you do lean that way, caution and prudence would naturally drop his ranking to 3-5 but it doesn’t seem to for some.

Was anyone down on him? The story of Herbert going into the season was he was going 4-8 in that class after Tua. The seasons story was Burrow had the best college QB season ever, Tua had a catastrophic injury (that he was cleared on a few weeks before the draft) and that Herbert didn’t improve or hurt his stock much, just had one persistent critique from the tape grinders. Whoever saw Herbert being THIS good props to you, I don’t think anybody saw that, but he always had a 50/50 chance of being a franchise guy and he’s basically hit a grand slam on his upside like Mahomes, Watson, Allen and Burrow. Why doesn’t Pickett being utterly anonymous until now matter? In fairness Burrow had a similar non-description cv till his final year, but guys w/that crappy record till they were seniors is usually a Vegas sized STAY AWAY sign for prospects in any sport. Howell lost a top 3 and top 8 rb in last years class and two drafted WRs snd was still solid to good. I have 10x as much Concern w/Picketts career, as I do w/Howell’s final season.

Kind of a funny thought on your last paragraph but that immediately filled my head w/the thought of like a character in a Godzilla film worrying over a laceration from falling when the real concern is that Godzilla just ripped its head off muto style. Yeah the batted balls are annoying but if you have a Kyler or Brees and have to worry about batted balls who cares, you got Kyler or Brees and if you have some run of the mill mediocrity or worse the battled balls are also secondary to the problem that the QB isn’t a difference maker. If he ain’t one, you’ve got to go back to the QB craps table and roll the dice again. Either guys like Corrall, Willis or Howell are franchise guys or they aren’t you know? There is a middle ground I grant but none of us want yet another 17th-26th rated QB right? I can see a lot of talking ourselves into second tier guys but honestly other than tier 1 seasons we haven’t drafted and developed a legit stud franchise QB since Sammy Baugh. The closest we’ve got is Cousins. The Freaking Chargers have done it 3 times alone since 2001. I want mine lol and yeah I can even make do w/a guy in that 8th-12th zone but at this point I could care less about linebackers and find the detailed nuance some our bringing to that particular need interesting but also kind of funny. For me nothing matters but QB period for every draft going forward (along w/OL maintenance to help him) beyond somehow unloading Snyder. Those two issues are about 50,000,000x more important than a nice MLB, though I appreciate the need, I just find the interest a little puzzling, otoh, it’s one of the cheapest positions to go after in terms of draft capital snd free agent $$$ so at least that is good news.

Not a like for like comp. Love was a moronic speculative pick to send Rodgers a message, he’s much more analogous to say Jimmy Clausen a decade ago than Cam Newton or any other QB drafted to become the franchise guy. I cede your point but I don’t think Love was anything beyond a kind of Junk Bond caliber speculative investment. Willis may sit a year or 8 games but if he’s taken w/top 10-20 draft capital they aren’t taking him to sit him 2 years.

I’d trade multiple firsts for Lance, niners wouldn’t. Don’t understand the shock he didn’t play, they hoped he’d pull it off but it was hoped not a plan, that’s why they didn’t trade Jimmy G.

No QBs sits multiple years, the value is the rookie contract.

It doesn't matter though. The '21 class had a generational talent in Lawrence, didn't play like it, but he had the Luck 2.0 gloss. Fields took a myriad of hits but as a high school and college prospect, was always neck and neck with Lawrence, and for me put him in the same tier with Burrow, Lawrence, and Tua as the best QB prospects since Winston in '15 and Luck in '12 (please note, I'm ranking them as prospects, not as pro QB's that have disappointed or blown us away with their talent). After them you had another uber elite athlete big arm QB prospect in Lance, you had a prototype pocket guy in Mac Jones (basically a guy that would be the #2 QB in 1 blue chipper drafts or the first QB off the board in bad years (like '13, and '14). Yes we'll see how they pan out, but when the NFL and rotoviz and the rest of the excellent evaluators call these classes in advance they're pretty much always right when they think a class sucks (I can't think of a class where they were wrong), and they're generally right when they think it's good ('18 is looking like an exception). Right now '21 looks like the deepest class in terms of top end QB's of the past decade, and probably was the deepest class even before they played a down in the NFL, only '18 and '12 can compete, and of course '18 underdelivered, and '12 was odd in the fact that two of the 3 biggest hits were much later selections). This is my problem w/the decision. The '20 class had 3 legit options, the '21 class had 5 legit options, the '22 class has 0 legit options. This was known, for years, plural. Doesn't mean they're gonna pan out, hit rate delivered in '20 (2 of 3 are legit, Tua looks like a mediocrity for now), in '21 only Mac Jones delivered consistent quality play of the 5, but I have a lot of faith long term in Lawrence, and Fields coming around, and I think Lance is at least as good a bet as Willis even with a lost season....This is the source of my frustration. What did they think was gonna happen? Every other draft year that looked like crap ahead of time stayed crappy. Sure you end up sometimes pulling talent out of bad classes, Carr is an example of that, but it's rare that a class that is perceived as bad, suddenly becomes chock full of legit prospects. The only saving grace for me in this class is that it does have a good nice pile of second tier guys, basically the vast bulk of the top 5 this year at the position are guys who'd go 16-65 most years. I think Howell, Willis, and maybe Corral would be first rounders in any class, just not high ones (other than maybe Willis), I'm skeptical of the others sniffing round 1. So to my mind, if we pick 9-12 and go QB, well, we may end up reaching, but in truth, if we can get a Howell, a Willis, or a Corral there, the pick will basically look like the same roll of the dice most QB's taken after the top 10 look like save for Mahomes, and Allen (the former I loved, the latter, I was HUGELY skeptical of) who had elite, monstrous attributes which made them super attractive in ways that none of this class is at all beyond Willis. It's not the worst thing in the world, but Fields at 10 a year ago, for me anyway, is like getting the #1 overall selection QB in a lot of classes, and as it turned out Mac Jones 1 pick ahead of us basically looks like a Matt Ryan caliber home run, but in the mid 1st rather than the blue chip zone. You aren't getting anything near that in this draft, these guys would not be going top 10 or top 15 in a class like last years, period. So, frustrating, but it is what it is, if they hit, we won't care how it came about, and if they miss, we'll suck, and hopefully get another chance in '23 or '24 to try again, this is the kind of thing that you MUST keep trying to hit until you do it. There is no other way to play the game and build anything that can last. Period.

And needless to say, this is why so many of us were so irate when they didn't target an option in the loaded '21 class. Didn't matter if they weren't in love with the guys, it was obvious at the time, and before the time, FOR YEARS, that the '20, '21 and '23 classes all had great QB options and that '22 was the pot hole in that run of good classes much like 2019, 2016, '2013-2014 before it. Passing on QB last year was a catastrophic mistake, and now for the second time in four years, we choose the one poor year inbetween numerous quality years, to try and steal a franchise QB. Good luck with that approach, it's at best, blind fold, pin the tail on the donkey kind of approach. Hopefully they finally get lucky.

The problem with that is I've heard that said about guys a billion times, and how many of those guys actually hit? Not a lot unless they also have the rest of the profile. There are a gigantic pile of irrelevant careers sitting in a pile labled "Coaches beloved hardest working guy". What made McLaurin intriguing to people was that the intangibles when combined with the athleticism made for a potentially elite talent. In retrospect it's clear that just like with the Jags, Urban was utterly clueless when it came to utilizing his potential. In retrospect McLaurin was the best WR to come out of Ohio State since Michael Thomas, who, it need not be resaid, was also underutilized. For whatever reason, quite often, Urban could build incredible college teams despite repeatedly underusing some of his best talent, at least w/those two anyway.

I translate that to mental make up and study/work habits. Part of what insured Haskins would fail. I also think at least 50% of it is landing spot. Even someone as smart as Rodgers couldn’t appreciate how fortunate he was to land in Green Bay rather than SF or Washington or whatever (SF back then was a s show). Landing w/Pittsburgh for say Lawrence would have been 10,000x better for his career than Jacksonville. The coach, oc, an coach, GM and OL are also hugely important.