The Consigliere

I don’t mind your take at all here, my problem w/guys like McLaurin who have that kind of profile is that you’re deliberately playing the longest odds w/good draft capital. To be fair, sometimes that pays off. Greece did win Euro ‘04, Denmark won Euro ‘92, the Rams won the super bowl in ‘99, the Pats in ‘01. Outliers do pay off sometimes, it’s just incredibly rare. For every NC State or Villanova college championship there are dozens of Cinderella’s made road apples by the likes of UNC, or Alabama or Duke or Clemson etc. What McLaurin did for me is take a second look at Ruggs lol for all that good did me, but it did create a caveat for me. If you’re an elite athlete it is possible to get buried at an elite program like Ohio State or Alabama or Georgia etc. I now take that into consideration w/prospects now that College football has concentrated so much elite talent at just a handful of Elite football schools. I grabbed a few shares of Ruggs 18 months ago after my favs were gone basically because of McLaurin. Oh well, at least I was able to sell off a share before he went nutjob and killed somebody and their dog.

Could be. I didn't have a problem with the Lance pick other than I thought it should be Fields, not Lance, and not Jones. I remain utterly flummoxed at the Jets decision which was and remains, to me anyway, the most perplexing of all of them. I like Willis and still fully expect him to go top 5-10 in the draft, we'll see if I'm dead wrong, but that's what I expect to happen and I'm fine with it. In a weak QB class w/no top end blue chip talent, it's not a bad idea to swing for the fences on an elite prospect profile that needs work, if you hit, you're a contender a la KC, Buffalo etc, and if you miss, you can just go right back to the front of the QB drafting line like Chicago did after Trubisky or the Jags did w/literally 3 QB's in what, 9 years (Gabbert, Bortles, Lawrence). It's not the end of the world. The end of the world is perpetually living on the merry go round of irrelevant QB's. A swing and a miss on these guys hurts you for 2 years, 3 max, we've been misery for thirty, who gives a ---- about 3 more years? Not me. That being said, my fandom has slowly evaporated over the past 15 years, so maybe that's part of the reason I'm so patient, my first love now is the USMNT rather than the Redskins as it had been since I was four back in the late seventies.

Lance was always a project. Dude had one full season, a start in '20, and 2 starts in '18, for North Dakota State. It was always going to take time to develop him which is why they didn't trade Jimmy G last offseason. It's ugly, for now anyway, but if they can coach Lance up, he'll be ridiculous. I would agree w/the argument that there is a huge "IF" w/that, but that "IF" was present every day of 2021.

WR's most critical factor is breakout age, not dominator factor, though there are others. The weird thing about WR is how little athleticism seems to matter so long as the prospects fit within the particular generalized window. Bench press is particularly funny, more hits with weaker guys than stronger ones, so bp appears to just be white noise. Anyway I was pretty specific about what McLaurin needed to be to hit, a massive outlier, and he was. When I nix a guy, it's because the hit rate on productive WR's at the position say that basically around 85+% of the time the receiver has to have a reasonable breakout age. In that particular offseason if memory serves there were 6 or 7 WR's in the league in the top 50 at the position with a profile analogous to his. That's it, and going back decades, the #1 most important indicator alongside production itself was breaking out early. What made McLaurin so bizarre and literally one of a kind (not 15% of a kind) was tha tnot only did he not breakout in college, indeed he did nothing at all of note period beyond dirty work. A bet on him was a bet on athleticism and profile, an enormously risky bet that basically was historically nearly impossible to hit on. We hit on him. The funniest part of it is that we missed on literally dozens of guys with better profiles from 1982-2018 and then hit on a guy w/his profile of all people. Remains one of the craziest hits ever, but also a bummer in some ways because he was an overage prospect (not as important as RB but still relevant, WR's best years are mid to late twenties and he's already 27 for kickoff next year), so we've already wasted more than half of his prime :(. For an example, '17 prospect Juju, whose already a forgotten man (and maybe justifiably so due to knee injuries), is nearly a full year younger than McLaurin. Anyway, we can go back and forth on these guys all day, I preferr best practices/good process, if you hit using bad process, in the long term, if you don't correct for that, you'll actually be hurt more over time, I'll take misses w/best practices and good process in place, over a hit that is out of bad process every time because in the end, it's the former approach that will win out and produce the best results over time, rather than one off good fortune. A good example of that is the eratic stupidity of the cowboys under Jerruh before his son took over (and maybe still in place) or even Snyder here. In the latter case they hit on back to back franchise QB's in Romo and Dak w/mega long shots by accident but because they operate w/poor practices in place during his reign it was immaterial. W/Snyder, it was always possible his regime could have correctly evaluated Rodgers, or Russell Wilson, or even Mahomes, or Josh Allen but would it have mattered w/Snyder behind the wheel? I tend to doubt it. But I don't want to dig too deep into that possibility because it's too depressing.

Let me add that when it comes to QB's, man, I don't think there's any magic sauce to evaluation. I listed the prereq's because if they don't have those elements I think the success rate automatically drops close to zero, so that's a good rubric for the bare minimum requirements. The craziness of the position for me, superficially anyway, could be really well represented by Jake Locker vs Josh Allen. Honestly, what's the difference, at least in terms of what they brought to the table as athletes who played the position and the production they brought to bear in college? It was nearly identical: they both shared the exact same attributes: Big, strong armed, super athletic, but unusually inaccurate for the position in their era (especially Allen, Locker was bad too, but by '18 QB's were even more accurate than they were back a decade earlier). How the heck did Allen figure out how to be more accurate in the much tougher NFL than in the wack conference he made his bones in? I have no idea. I imagine the big difference is coaching, and supporting cast, but is it enough to make that much of a difference? All Pro versus wash out? Don't know, it's just weird as hell. I'm sure there's plenty between the ears involved there too, maybe health luck, but man, the position is one where there isn't ever and shouldn't be close to certainty about anything. There just seem to be generally tiered out guys and usually the nfl is kinda right, more or less, about who should be in what tier, but generally no more accurate than a coin flip regarding who will actually make it and who wont in the top tier (and nobody seems to be reliably more accurate either). I know I suck at evaluating the position beyond sniffing out sure busts, it's rare that a guy I think will be a bust hits (Allen is the only one off the top of my head), but hitting on guys? No better, and probably plenty worse than many others.

Thanks for your thoughts. In terms of my pov, I definitely come across that way to people, that's obvious lol, it's not what I intend, lol, but that's the results. This is a situation more where: #1 I absolutely believe there is a right way to approach offseasons and teams habitually don't do this right because the interests of owners, GM's, coaches and fans are different than what actually typically is the most efficacious approach. #2 I have no idea who the right players are to target, within the apporach. I think I'm 100% right about team building, I do think it's fact based because the evidence is there. I haven't discovered it or did the work, I've just read the work that others have done and it's based on cold hard facts and studies done over years upon years of sampling data. If you know something is 63% successful given 10000 simulations, and something else is 49% successful in 10000 simulations, it seems to me you should do the former, not the latter. That's where my beliefs about team building come from (in terms of QB, and in terms of targeting of positions in round 1, w/fifth year options versus other positions and how much to spend in FA etc). The works been done on that stuff and it's understood. It's the details I don't know about, who really is the best player? I don't know. I can tell you in round 1, especially in a blue chip zone, if you don't like a QB, OL, DL, Edge, CB or WR (or safety if he's a complete safety, and not a box guy) you should trade down, period. Full Stop. You should not be pulling Jamin Davis picks top 16ish. But again within the parameters of that, I have no idea. I got everything wrong in the '18 QB draft except for Lamar. I got the '20 QB draft backwards for the most part. I love Fields and Lawrence and they were uninspiring for now etc. I don't know the answers for any of these players, just guesses, I have a damn good hit rate on WR's and RB's and okay hit rate on QB's when it comes to dynasty lol, but that's all I focus on in the offseason because that's my jam after 30 years of reskins misery. I know less about the rest beyond team building strategies. I also think QB is just flat out the hardest thing to project in sports period beyond soccer players that are 12, 17-18 year old baseball players etc. But I will say this, after a billion years of 50/50 QB success rates in round 1 of the draft, it does seem like certain things matter a lot more than others namely: 1. The arm (if it's Danny woeful, it won't work, but beyond that, it's irrelevant, as long as it's adequate, your fine, see Manning, Brees, Montana, even velocity Watson, none have rockets all were/are elite). 2.Processing Speed. 3. First In/Last Out: The kind of guy that eats/drinks/sleeps with the ball and dreams the game. That kind of passion matters, it provides the leadership, and work rate to build on the natural talent. 4. Mental Make Up: Is he a George/RGIII/Haskins, or is he a Brady? Or something close? Mental Makeup matters. That's what I'd want from interviews, and study. How much of that can we learn from tape, from interviews etc? It's absolutely critical, beyond that to me it's luck. The first two traits are game tape skills you can generally figure out that way, the latter two require interviews and information we wont have, but teams will if they do due diligence. But again, after all that, it's up to the fates, who the hell knows if they'll hit, but at this point, I think if you can check mark those four traits, you at least have improved the liklihood that you have something legit. I should have added Clean Medicals too.

It's all a risk, but once he makes it that far, he's through, he's safe, he's clean bill of health with a complete college CV for scouts to look at. Your take is your take, I've already explained why I think it's 1000% wrong. The Quitters angle might make sense if they're paid pro's but they are non, they are volunteers playing a game that can provide them and their family a life time of financial security, or they can lose it all on one play. The reason players skip bowl games is because of what happened to Jake Butt, what happened to Jaylon Smith, what happened to Bryce Love, players who went from big $$$ and security, to nothing in the blink of an eye. They made it through the tunnel, they have nothing left to prove and this is essentially the unpaid internship for a career as an NFL football player. How much more risk must they pile up for them to not be quitters in your eyes? You need not reply. We'll never agree on this. All of the weight of risk is dumped on the unpaid player, none on the team or college, and if it goes wrong, tough ----, he loses. That's ridiculous, and you'll call him a quitter for skipping his last game after risking that career and pay day every practice, every scrimmage and every game for four years (or three). How much risk is enough to sate your demand that he risk everything for that college and the NCAA to rake in giant piles of $$$ for the program w/o earning a single thin dime for himself? Apparently the last second of the last play of the last bowl game, which many teams don't even make in the first place. Have your take, I just think it's fundamentally wrong to demand that of players, and call them quitters if for once in four years, ONCE, they finally put themselves and their family first, after risking it all thousands upon thousands of times. I get why you and others love and respect that these guys want to play to the final whistle of the final game, but it's the same exact reason RGIII wanted to come in and risk blowing apart his knee, which he did, in that playoff game nearly a decade ago, and like I thought then, and think now, RGIII, and these college players sometimes need to be protected from themselves in these cases. I get why they play, why they want to and why coaches, teammates, and fans laud them for it, but I also 1000% get, and respect those who decide to put themselves and their family first for the first time after decades of putting their body on the line in pop warner, high school football, and college football for their teammates and coaches already. I'd love for this to be the last I say on the subject since I've spoken to it way too much already and am clearly annoying plenty of you about it. That's my opinion on it, needless to say.

The problem is that stud linebackers are very, very cheap in the draft and FA unless they are edges. Knowing that, you target them later. Yes there are occasional LB's that go very high that aren't traditional pass rushers, but those are rare, and also rarely worth the cost when you add in bust risk. Just think about the loads of elite LB's that hit over the years that aren't edge types. Nearly all of the best of them go basically somewhere between the mid and late first and early third. You don't use top 10 picks on these guys. If you can get them in the late teens to late 2nd, that's what you do. I hated the Jamin Davis pick, and I hated it 50x as much when JOK was available, as these guys typically are, literally a full round later. When you look at the cost of these guys in terms of replacements in FA, when you look at where the 2nd to 3rd to 4th best LB goes in a given draft? It makes so much more sense to go LB hunting in round 2 than it ever does in round 1. Don't fall in love with the #1 guy, go hunting in FA, where they're cheaper, or go after guys in round 2 or 3 where usually most of the top 5 Mike LB's and other assorted non edge LB's are available cheap. You will land as many or close to as many hits, and for a much cheaper contract # while you try to hit on Edge's, corners, DT's, QB's, and WR's that are much more expensive in FA, and sometimes impossible to sign away to boot. Landing elite edge, DT, CB, WR, and QB talent in round 1 gives you a very expensive position, locked in for 5 years if you use the option at way below cost. FA LB's are so much cheaper, and getting those guys even in the draft is also way cheaper. It doesn't make cap or draft sense to fall in love w/those guys, especially in the top 10ish, and pay through the nose for them when you consider these factors. Instead just find OL's, DL's, QB's, WR's and the guys that cover them to fall in love with, and target guys like JOK in round 1, and celebrate that you got him a full round later than we got Jamin Davis while also developing another position of need like QB or WR, or corner, or whatever. I know I sound like a broken record, but at the end of the day, there's a way to do this that just gives you better odds of success, period, it doesn't guarantee you hit, you can still miss, and if you miss on a Ray Lewis, you will never stop weeping, but honestly, how many Ray Lewis's have their been? Not many, and even Ray Lewis went, where? That's right, late first. Save your picks and cap money and just distribute them in the way that allows you to build the most fiscally sound, highest likely return structure and go from there. Again, other than QB, I'm not demanding you draft a WR, or a LT, or a DT or whatever, I'm saying, round 1, go after huge collections of positions: OL/DL, WR/CB, QB, there's an endless pile of positions that can be filled doing that, and you'll rarely if ever reach like we did for Davis, then attack those positions like MIKE in round 2 when it makes more cap and draft pick value sense. You can never have enough OL Depth, and we need secondary and WR help beyond QB, so it's not like we don't have guys worth going after.

There's no reason to be concerned about that or filled with regret. Either we land the elite to top 10ish QB or we do not, other positions simply are irrelevant if you don't have a QB. The Ravens Model is historically nearly impossible to duplicate. Nearly every team that matters has an elite QB. There are exceptions, but they are rare, check through decade by decade to see who makes the final four consistently and it is always the same teams, teams with legit QB's, the only exception teams were the Ravens the last 20 years, and the Niners a decade ago, and the Bucs in the early aughts, but that method rarely has staying power, you saw the Bucs fall off pretty quickly, they had their short window and then it closed, and it's not a coindence that most of the time these teams sneak through, its because the elite QB's in the conference have retired, or the teams around the elite QB's fell apart. Get the QB, everything else is irrelevant other than the line to protect him. I get that you still try to build other aspects of your team, mind you, it's just if you don't have the QB, everything else other than the OL that will be needed to prevent the David Carr effect, won't move the needle substantially beyond typically either side of .500. Hopefully we find the QB this year, one can pray, we have a lot more pieces to give him than we had to give Shuler, or Frerotte or Ramsey or Campbell or RGIII or Haskins, so at least there's that. There's no reason to have pangs for guys like Hamilton, or Chase Young for that matter, we were reminded for the billonth time how little it matters to have elite ALL PRO talent on a DL if your QB is 32nd in the league. You just don't matter, period. The old Gibbs model does not work, the league has simply changed way too much, and is built far more for the QB than it ever was, especially during Gibbs I.

Do you think they'll fall to us? I'm a little worried we may be picking just too low for them. Thankfully it may be the NYG are just too stupid to go QB. But there are quite a few other teams that could target the position, namely Miami, Carolina, Pittsburgh, maybe Cleveland, Denver, Oakland, Seattle, Atlanta, Minny, all those teams you think could pip us in the '23 class to the supermodels of the QB class as I think you put it. There's greater hope for us here because it does look like we'll pick ahead of most of those teams, and I think like you, I think Willis will go MUCH MUCH higher than many people think. I expect him to be the first or second QB off the board simply because if he hits, he will be a grand slam, so somebody early is going to be willing to roll the dice on that, especially considering if it blows up in their face, the '23 class offers elite QB's w/better grades than him. Willis has mouth watering attributes and risks, I would guess, for now, that he and Corral go earlier than expected. After those guys are gone Howell is the only guy I'm interested in. Pickett's too old and sketchy for me, and I don't like the others with a 1st rounder. I love QB's that have explicable mediocre final years (it's a problem lol) because so often they present tantalizing value. Alas, they usually end up more like Clausen than Marino, but I can dream.

I think I take it that way because I see a bit of a gratuitious approach to references my misses. So on the one hand, I think it's silly to say rip me, instead of rip my opinions, on the other hand since i hear about Rosen, or Darnold, or whomever any time I mention anything w/the draft, it does feel a bit specific to me since i don't see the same dedication to referencing misses w/the draft w/others. That being said, it's no big deal, I'm not the kind of person who hides from misses, I have a ton of them over the years, especially at QB...a sampling of some of them below, but not nearly all of them. Ftr: I also missed on Locker (thought he was gonna be a late first value, instaed he got picked high) I also missed on RGIII (loved him, though I do think his career might have been different if he'd had a coach more inclined to protect his health than Shanny) I also missed on Baker (and the entire '18 class really (had them 1. Baker 2. Rosen 3. Darnold 4. Jackson 5 Josh Allen who I wouldn't have even selected due to the accuracy issues, he's the only guy I've ever seen improve like this ever so I don't feel as bad about missing on him as I do about.... Deshaun Watson, who I loved, until I overrated the living hell out of his velocity score. Back then I thought the velocity score reflected arm strength, clearly either it doesn't, or his was faulty or both. We'll see how I did on the more recent ones: '19: I hated Danny Dimes, loved Kyler, was okay with taking Haskins there as a roll of the dice, but was ambivalent about his talent. '20: loved Tua, liked Herbert and Burrow. '21: had them Lawrence and FIelds nearly tied, big drop off, then Lance, and then drop off then Jones. Not a fan of any of the others for round 1. '22: Corral, and Willis are probably my two favorite followed by Howell, and then I'm off. Corral scares me, so does Willis, so does Howell, although I loved how Howell played when he actually had weapons ('19-'20). Curious what Vols taught you, or persuaded you to look for in particular? I tend to distrust tape grinding, i know it's necessary but I tend to view it as the least reliable technique to evaluate guys, especially once you've tiered out, all people carry in biases, and biases in what they look for tend to shade the heck out of tape evaluations. I get that analytics misses plenty too, but in terms of probabilities, it's still a more reliable approach when you find and refine tools that improve that methodology. In terms of betting on the '23 class, it's not what I wanted, and your reasoning is very sound in terms of how hard it will be to move up, but I'm not sold your right. Most of the bottom of the barrell sides likely to hit rock bottom next year have their QB's, or will be going after guys like Rodgers, Watson and Wilson. Only sides I can think of that could go splat and totally would take one are probably Pittsburgh, maybe Houston, Denver, Oakland, NYG, Atlanta, Detroit, Seattle, Carolina, hmmm, anyone else, maybe Minny? But most of these teams still seem like 6+ win teams, so I'm not sold that the teams that sit in the 1 and 2 or 3 slot in '23 are a lock to be taking QB. Could easily be a team that gets to ransom the pick which is why I'd trade down this year and add a 1st, but it's also, 100% why I felt getting Fields (or failing that Mac) should have been 1000% the action taken last year. Fields was a #1 to #2 overall type talent in many QB classes, I was not as sold on Mac but warmed up to him. This draft doesnt have anyone close to either of them to me, which is why the trade up was mandatory, why take a LB when the next class has nobody close to Fields in it as a prospect? Why pass on mac, when Mac would have likely gone 1-2 in '22? You are taking (if you go QB) a guy who probably wouldn't have been a 1st rounder, period, in last years class other than Corral, Howell, and maybe this years version of Willis, and in the former cases, those guys were behind all of the big 5 last year). Alas they passed, and now we're stuck, pulling a 2019 again, or trying to hoard assets to move up in '23 (I very much doubt they'd do what I would). Also wished I had a different tone when I post about these topics as I know I piss people off w/my takes on this stuff, in some area's, I view things as implied and understood and they're not, like for instance positional approach in round 1, when I discuss that, I get the sense that people don't understand it's about a combination of efficacy and probability, not a situation where it's a 100% right at all times in terms of hit rate approach. When it comes to targeting positions in round 1, the reason why is the same reason why a random encounter in college is better w/a condom then not. It doesn't mean the condom is going to deliver the protection 100% of the time, just means it will be safer, and reliably more safer, but not 100% safer. In these draft instances, its not nearly at that level (the 90%'s) but to me, if you know going in that positions cost more in FA than others, and you know hit rates, and you know more or less the WAR value a la baseball of positions, and impact, then getting guys on rookie deals that play specific positions over others makes more sense. It doesn't mean Ray Lewis isn't Ray Lewis, he is, it just means probabilities suggest the best use of cap room and top draft picks for generating the most value over time, clearly sit in some area's positionally. You know this as I think you deal more with statistics and probabilities in your work and what not, and are likely infinitely more talented in math than me lol (I'm terrible), it's just, if math tells you something, well, you should listen. If there's a 60% chance a bad thing happens if I do A, and a 40% chance if I do B, well, do B. Right? That seems simple to me. It doesn't mean, again, the players will automatically hit, sometimes the lesser probabilities end up being Ray Lewis, or just a hit in general, while the higher probability is a bust, or just a lesser player (like say Erick Flowers vs Scherff, Flowers position carried more value, but Scherrf was signicantly more talented). Again, I know you get this, but for whatever reason, when I argue this point when people want a RB top 10, or an inside LB of some sort top 10, or to spend a ton of cap money on a safety that can only be effective as a box option, it's seen as viewing my opinion as fact, when it's just viewing math, as well, math. If we know some of these things, than we know them. It's not that I'm smarter, as you and I have shown, I've been wrong and will continue to be wrong about a litany of things, players in particular, but things like this: positional scarcity and value, cost of replacement in FA, hit rate in round 1, etc, other people did the work. It's done. You can fall in love with a RB high, but you still shouldn't take them high. The math is in. It's not a value selection. It's why the Jamin Davis pick was such a huge mistake last year, its why nearly all the teams that took RB's so high in recent years were messy, poorly run teams. They're late to the party. I still see RB as a potential value late in round 1, really late, because the guaranteed fifth year option represents value since hopefully it will allow teams to be smart like the chargers, and avoid paying that horrible 2nd contract that teams like dallas, and LA paid Zeke, and Gurley, and instead let said player go and draft another one. That's where taking that Chubb, or Taylor in round 2 forces your hand in terms of an extension. Seems intutive, but I could be totally wrong. Anyway, definitely wrong about plenty.

Feels like it could be slightly worse, but a bunch of the teams that could jump us also play eacchother, is 11th the worst case scenario or more like 12th-13th? Got a class rolling in so can't check now. Very much a relief that we're not repeating last year's run that cost Fields/Mac Jones, hopefully we get lucky, but no matter what, picking six-eight slots higher than we might have as of a few weeks ago can only potentially help.

I know what he did and why he did it and I wish players had people to protect them from these instincts. I don’t disagree w/your premise. I’m not blind to this character trait being a part of the metal make up you want in a player and especially in a QB but sometimes good traits can be used to hurt you and your own interests. You keep thinking this is about money as if there isn’t two sides to the issue here. Loves career is over, same w/Butt’s, jaylon Smith’s was harmed irreparably, Heck Marcus Lattimore, an October injury to be sure, showed what can happen. Gurley before Gurley but that injury left his entire career in the dustbin, bad luck, it happens, but when you can actually protect yourself, you should, Chase took a lot of stick for protecting himself last year and now. He’s helping guide Cincy to their first division title in decades. I get we’ll never agree on this, but it needs to be understood that the it’s about money digs on my take are misdirected. These players have a career to prioritize just like their fellow university students, and that prioritization is 1000% justifiable especially considering the consequences when things go wrong when they and their potential career have already long been forgotten and moved on from by their alma mater.

No, I’m good. Feel free to disagree, or not, but people have done the work on slaray cap efficiency and hit rate w/picks and contract value returns and all of that regarding positions in round 1. Best targets in terms of value returned are positions like QB, Edge, LT, RT, CB and oddly, WR ( would have never guessed that). Worst values tend to be RB, ILB, box safeties, centers, Fb’s back in the day etc. interior OL gets more valuable as you slide deeper into round 1. Can’t remember how DT’s did in the studies but I think they were reasonable returns as well. Basically round 1 is best utilized on the lines, QB, corners and WR’s though I think WR’s hit plenty on day 2 to justify crossing them off (they also have a horrific hit rate after round 4). OL’s at least until recently (not sure if the data still holds, assume it does) are consistently great value to target through about slot 130ish in terms of success rate.

Greed. Whose. Ole Miss me thinks. It’s the kids career. The NFL doesn’t suddenly gift Jake Butt. 4 year contract w$20 mill guaranteed if he tears his ACL in his final Bowl game. Nope, he loses that shot. Jaylon Smith tears his acl in his last game for Norte dame and goes from top 5 pick to day 2 after thought Bryce Love goes from most explosive back in college to out of the nfl after 2 seasons and no starts following his final Stanford game catastrophe. There’s a litany of careers lost by players who risked this and lost the gamble and their career in the process. My sympathy and prerogative is for these players and their careers, it has zilch to do w/greed unless we’re talking the uni’s and the ncaa that raked in mountains of cash while paying the players nothing and shifting all the risk to them while enculcating in them a sense that somehow, prioritizing their career, for once, over that of others is somehow wrong. Just strikes me as absurd, I get the high minded ideals of being there for your teammates but by that point it’s time a player look after #1 in a sport so violent and w/careers already so short.

You don’t waste first round picks on LB’s unless they’re edge rushers. It’s poor use of draft capital and salary cap room efficiency. Safety is a bit more complicated and worthwhile if the player is a strong asset in pass defense/coverage.

No, he risked serious injury in a game that wouldn’t impact his stock as much as his combine+pro day would and then he got hurt. You’re arguing sentiment, I’m arguing risk management and his career. He gambled w/his career and got lucky he didn’t suffer an even worse injury. You can support the cause of ole miss or the character of playing these games as he and howell did and scouts do credit them for this but that credit doesn’t outweigh how much they’re punished on draft day if they get hurt.

That take is ludicrous. If he can’t be 100% for the combine and pro day it will only hurt him. People casually assuring us that risking your entire future as a pro for the bowl season is just so rich. Let me point to Jake Butt, Bryce Love, that LB the cowboys took a doubtless others who saw their futures flushed down the toilet for last career game appearances. I hope Corral is fine but nothing is guaranteed as he found out last night. Bad medicals on him and he drops rounds, not slots.

No it wasn’t. You can do the latter though and I understand why.

I don’t really care about the consensus here, I care what the people at rotoviz and rotounderworld think and the analytics community in dynasty generally. I compare the takes, watch a bit and make my views based on consensus w/my own hunches weighing in. precombine consensus had Swift and Taylor dualing for #1. Combine pushed Taylor into #1. Swift, Akers and Dobbins in a 3 way battle for #2 status w/CEH elevated by landing spot. Im not concerned w/ where these guys go in the actual draft as NFL teams are now drafting these guys later based on basically moneyball RB valuations and the rb age cliff. Personally I think the smarter play is to take these guys 30-32 so you can use the 5th year option and avoid the consistently horrible 2nd contact disasters w/the position but if you can get really youn rbs like javonte, or Akers it can still make sense because they will likely perfor, longer on a second contract. Najee’s age is why I viewed that steeler decision as moronic. Dude is 2 years older than Javonte, he’lol have to break the age cliff curse to be worth that selection. As for this years class. I care not a whit about what Michigan State did or did not do, I care about their athleticism, age, production, 3 down skill set. That’s it. Hall, Spiller and charbonnet trump Walker in terms of production, age and 3 down skill set for the most part. Athletic testing is the last data point. I wish, we,ve been habitually taking short cuts and quick fixes and then taking our medicine in bad draft classes (‘94, ‘02, ‘19) or targeting the wrong guy in good and bad classes (‘12 and ‘05).

Feel free to rip me or drag my old moronic takes all you want. I’m fine w/it. It’s a message board to argue one’s pov, if you’re wrong you should own it, nobody is losing employment over a random take on a message board. McQueen can —— on my Reagor love too (had him as the #3 over my #4 Jefferson). I had the ‘18 QB class backwards, I took seriously velocity testing w/Watson etc. My takes are a bit different from what you think, for instance I wanted to consider trading for Darnold for a day 3 pick not the insane overpay Carolina gave (and w/Fields still available!?!?). I had Rosen #2 in ‘18. I still have to evaluate these QBs for dynasty but overall there I’ve skated by thanks to hitting on Mahomes,Kyler And a bunch of dual threat not as good in real life QB’s. Im much better w/RBs and WR’s then QB’s though and even there I had plenty of misses in the ‘20 class at WR (liked Reagor, Mims and Edwards too much, thankfully I put the bulk of my stock in Lamb). As for the ‘22 class, my main issue is the prospects are uniformallyweaker than the ‘20, ‘21 and ‘23 classes. Just like five years ago we’ve settled on prioritizing QB in the wrong offseason. Maybe we get lucky but I’m skeptical.

In fairness to him it’s basically him vs Alabama. Michigan got an even worse beat down vs Georgia and their QB’s had far more surrounding talent to help them.

No, they’re tanking for ‘23. We aren’t relevant to the Cowboys. We’re relevant to teams ranking for Bryce Young. Nothing we do should be concerned w/the Cowboys.

I would not, not in a million years. ‘23 is a great draft, ‘22 isn’t.

It was not and is not hindsight. A team w/o a franchise QB should draft a franchise QB period. This should be obvious. I would have taken Tua or traded down and taken Tua (the latter) and gotten us a borderline bust rather than Herbert but that’s still preferable to the delusion that a franchise edge trumps a franchise QB. You always take the QB swing if you don’t have one, period. The only reason I’m skeptical this year is my concern that none of these guys are close to the prospect guys like Burrow, Tua, Herbert, Lawrence, and Fields we’re (I liked Lance (whose more of a Malik + to me and was okay with Mac, did not rate Wilson) while ‘23 is a vastly superior class so I’d try to gain assets for that class and bottom out in ‘22. Not gonna happen, I know. I think Wilson, Corral and Howell are the most attractive options of this years guys.