The Consigliere

We are the ones that spent 50> hours a week posting on a message board for a team that never came close to contending for anything in the 28 years that have passed since most of us set up their first dial up modem. Think of how insane that is. I shudder when I imagine how much time I spent the last 28 years thinking about, reading about, and posting about all things redskins, and if not for my significant draw down since my kid was born in '16, I would struggle to imagine how this was all that different from a severe drug addiction, but w/no pay off whatsoever (except the relationships built on the two forums I posted on). 🤣. Yeah, needless to say, not. I hope and pray he's good, I'm not some loon that will be hoping he sucks to back my take. That's 1000% idiocy, but it's not a move I'm can support, I just disagree w/it, period. Regardless, I hope I'm wrong, and if I am, I'll admit it whole hog. It's easily possible, I miss like everyone else on who hits a good 45-55% of the time. The joy of the team actually being good for a decade after the misery that's been ongoing from age 18 thru age 49 is well worth some braised or bbq's or sous vide crow, needless to say (sous-vide seems like a particularly rough method of preparation).

It is not and it would be nice if people would steel man takes instead of straw manning them, but alas, no such luck. How many people mentioned pressure to sack ratio? His 5th year breakout as an old as hell prospect beating up on 18-20 year olds (not many elite players stick around in college for 5 years, even during covid), how many are concerned about the lack of throws when under pressure, how many are worried that his QBR #'s are largely utterly anonymous until his 5th year in college (55th, 41st, 18th) how many are worried about his use of the field in its entirety, of his telegraphing intent (rarely throws on the run), his scary frame is alarming, like RGIII, and yes, that's a piece of the critique, but for many of us, certainly those of us who post most often critically of him, his frail build is just one of numerous issues we have of him, and to suggest its just RGIII is nonsense. Period. The RGIII analogy is bad enough, even if inaccurate, but the issues we have with him are legion. If it was just size/health, I'd be 1/5th to 1/10th as worrried as I am and ftr, I would have loved to have drafted Kyler, and Richardson, but no, not Daniels.

I definitely don't get focused on specific players beyond round 1 because it so rarely ever happens, there are simply too many players by round 2-7, and too many needs, so targeting and drafting exactly who you want is just so rare its kind of pointless. I much prefer just tiered out preferences for day 2 and day 3 options amongst the options we're gonna target, so for TE, it's probably: show me who you got for round 3 and after, or DB's, show me round 3 and day 3 etc. Just a preference to me because if you build out like SIP has, here are my WR's and where I think they go, his is more extensive, but it's also helpful, because if you list out WR's likely to be taken in round 2-5, one of those guys is almost certainly going to be drafted by us. As for the TE piece, I don't think the Detroit angle is helpful. Last year was understood to be the deepest TE class in terms of top end talent, since OJ, Evan and Njoku went in round 1 in '17, and then multiple hits happened on day 2 and day 3 including the best of them all on day 3 in Kittle. Last year's was top heavy, but it had a good day 2 and early day 3. This year is just not. I don't see anything like that trio of Kincaid-Mayer-Laporta or the later guys like Musgrave. It's basically 1 superstud, one guy with day 2 hype based on perception, and then a climber in Sinnott since the combine, and then day 3 guys (who sinnott might be too). Yes, it could just be that teams reach hoping to steal a guy themselves, but it's going to be like that old joke about Hollywood, "It's where thousands of producers and directors desperately run to and fro trying to get hit by the 2nd streak of lightning from a storm". Its doubling down on a '23 strategy in the wrong class, and pretty foolish. If you wanted your Laporta, you should have used top 35 draft capital last year, not this, because this class just have Bowers, nobody is remotely close to the profile of Laporta and Mayer and Kincaid after Bowers in terms of grade. I think its worth speculating on Sinnott in a trade down in round 3 or early 4, but otherwise I'd just pass. I have zero interest in going that direction unless someone falls into round 3 or 4. It's possible, his profile is weird as hell, pretty barren until '23, and breakout age is much bigger for WR's than QB's (since I've been ****ing about Jayden's breakout age). Thomas is a question mark: 5 star recruit, didn't do it until '23, why? He blew up the combine, so he's gonna go top 30, the question is, will somebody reach on his tantalizing gifts and not sweat the lack of productivity in prior seasons or will he fall because of it? And somebody mentioned he's one of med flagged WR's too (though not a huge worry apparently).

Yep, I hope I get surprised, but now I'll mostly ignore Daniels beyond dynasty purposes and just hope and pray I'm wrong. If nothing else, at least he has a pretty nice cv, especially at LSU, and if not for covid, it probably looks better too. Gonna hope they have some secret sauce reason that is justifiable. #2 and #1 ranked dual threat QB coming out of high school, #2 or #3 ranked QB overall as well, 35th ranked prospect period, but a 4 star (which seems low?). Interesting to scroll through the top 34 and see guys who clearly didn't pan out, a whole lot of them.

Can't figure out if that's an obscure reference to the famed Seinfeld episode at the Chinese Restaurant, "Cartwright! Cartwright! Table of 4! or to the 7th rounder that stuck, Rock Cartwright, or something else entirely. Nice!! Of course my buddy, Shelton, would probably reference Willard Reeves as his drawing card historically and there's like 1 fan in 50,000 that would get that reference (and yes, he's the only person in the world that owns a Willard Reaves jersey, other than possibly Willard Reaves who probably does not).

I don't disagree, I just think that if the Giants have Maye above McCarthy tier wise, then they will pay far more than just normal moving from 6 to 3 $$$ because part of this is its a QB and part of this is tiers, if you think McCarthy is closer to Penix than to Maye, you are going to pay moving up for Maye similarly to the Raiders going up for Daniels regardless of draft value charts or the Jimmy Johnson chart etc because it's QB, so there is no real valid chart for trade ups.

I think it will be pretty close to one because it's a tier break, for a lot of teams. Some teams probably have a big 3 or big 4, but if you want to move up for Maye and you're the giants, the bet is you have JJ in a separate tier because JJ has a 50/50 shot of just falling into your lap.

I would assume the decline started a long time ago, but maybe it's like me and it didn't I think the internet kept my attention on the redskins for an extra decade or 15 years because I suddenly just met redskins fans that were DC locals. Before the internet, it was just myself and a handful of friends that followed my older brother's example and picked the Redskins over the Niners in the bay area in the late 70's/early 80's. The decline to hellscape started in Petitbone's lone season of '93, it's really been horrible for 30 years, not 10, and the Snyder Sentence of '99-'23 is what people remember even though the six years preceeding Snyder were god awful too, just w/o horrendously evil ownership which at least took the edge off. Anyway, I managed to keep following my fandom via the internet, and travel to watch games at bay area sports bars for a decade beyond Gibbs I and high school graduation in '93, but something about what the USMNT gave me starting in 1999 (and as far back as 1989), and then what the Indians/Guardians did in baseball, and the Ovy Caps years, slowly took over fandom, expos didn't really because they were the leagues farm system, but when they moved to DC and landed back to back generational talents 15 years ago I was in on that too....all the while redskins seasons followed the familiar pattern, on average 3 to 4 of every 4 to 5 seasons were god awful, and we'd get a random playoff birth, never repeated in a following season ('99, '05, '07, '12, '15, '20), and so it continued to bleed off, the mishandling of RGIII's injury dealt a death blow, that I barely recovered from, then the McLoughan treatment and the unfolding Snyder isn't just an idiot and a bit of a ----, he's legit evil, pushed it beyond the pall, when they were total morons and drafted an edge rather than a QB in 2020, I officially tuned out. In fairness, since 1998, I've probably been Fantasy Football 60%, Redskins 30% general NFL 10%, and then once I discovered Dynasty Fantasy it became, Dynasty Fantasy 85-90%, Redskins 5% general 5%...so there's that too. I have some faith restored with Snyder having been ejected, I know there's genuine hope now, the truth is, if Daniels is a bust, the team will be terrible and try again in two years, I get that, and I'm fine with it, but part of my problem is I feel this is self inflicted. I didn't feel like tampa getting a bust in Winston was self inflicted, he just didnt become what they hoped, same deal with Darnold and Baker in '18, same deal with Fields (to me) in '22, but when you miss like this, when to me, its obvious Maye is the long term better bet in terms of floor and ceiling, it feels like your the bears taking Trubisky over Watson and Mahomes, it feels like your the Jets taking Wilson over Fields, it feels like your the Giants taking Danny Nickels, rather than a top prospect who can actually succeed and waiting for QB until the much better '20 draft. When a miss seems obvious, like what Jets fans have been comedically experiencing for 40 years, it feels different than taking a guy like RGIII or Darnold and the guy just gets hurt or never pans out, but always had at least a lot of what you wanted, just didn't make it. This seems obvious: overage, didnt do it for five years, doesnt throw with anticipation, frail frame, weird personality and mom is a nut too....there are so many alarms being checked, pressure to sack ratio etc....and ignoring them all...it will be really hard to stomach him busting in a different way from what it would if you took Lawrence and he's just average, or Maye or Caleb Williams and they are just Andy Dalton's or whatever, I can live with those misses in that fashion, but not doing something stupid like taking a Zach Wilson, or in this case, a Daniels with THIS MANY CONCERNS, it feels crazy and extremely self-inflicted. Like Forbes busting and the pats stealing Gonzalez. Bad enough we didn't get Gonzalez, infinitely worse we were so freaking stupid we thought we made the right decision (like the Raiders taking Ruggs over Lamb). But I'll be ecstatic if I'm wrong, and I may be, nearly half of these guys bust lately, and more than half historically in recent decades, so maybe they hit, maybe they don't, and if Daniels busts in the way we think, it will likely be a spectacular implosion like RGIII that should gift us a top pick in '26 or '27. And then we can try again, but i'll be pissed and entirely focused on the USMNT and the WC at that point.

I think it's more the tier drop. it seems pretty clear to now, based on reporting, the boards of most teams look like a tier breakdown of this: Tier 1: Caleb Williams Tier 2: Some grouping of Maye, Daniels and JJ Tier 3: Penix Tier 4: Nix We don't want to drop out of 2, so we're sticking. I'm surprised we are unwilling to move from our #2 to #3 ranked prospect, but not at all surprised we have zero interest in moving down a tier entirely to say Minny or Oakland's pick. You can't move that far w/o almost assuredly moving outside the zone to acquire JJ or Maye (I suppose you could do a Champ Bailey deal, and try to move back up to the Chargers pick, but that's the only move there is-move down to Raiders/Minny, then repackage and move back up to 5 if Card's don't trade down, but the Chargers may just sit tight and take their OT there).

Nobody ever was remotely like Barry in '88. I've never seen anything like that or even close to it, since. You are definitely way way way higher on Corum than anyone I've ever come across the past year. It will be interesting if this eval proves out. Personally I don't see it. I think he's a solid round 3 prospect, I don't think he's particular special, especially post injury, but I think he should be fine w/his skill set, able to carry a committee or win a job, but difference maker w/elite talent in the way of an AP, a Taylor, a Breece Hall or Gibbs, Bijan etc. Just don't see the same player. I just see a solid decent back that will belong. W/regards to Barry, there's some footage out there, I was just in 8th grade when it happened, but what stuck out for me beyond the footage was the guy just ran off 200+ yard games every week for a crappy team in the was it Big 12 or SWAC or what? Can't remember back then. It was insane, and when you watch him, the hips, explosion, change of direction were just orders of magnitude superior to anything I'd ever seen before or since. Closest was maybe Faulk, but Faulk didn't have the "alien" quality he had, but he did have the explosion piece.

Ertz is catch and fall at this point, he knows how to play but he offers nothing in the + sense. We can't hit every need and this isn't a good TE draft (like almost all drafts except last year and '17), there are some interesting guys that might drop to day 3 that are worth speculative selections, but I'm not trying to grab one on day 2, and if that means all my guys are gone, so be it. Sinnott and Bell seem like the most interesting after Bowers to me. I tend to think Sinnott will go too early and Bell may be regarded as too much of a hybrid.

He is a HUGE risk play. But he's also super weird. if he's slow as hell and crap, why was he used on special teams? Well, he is slow, it was timed, well, can we make sense of his weird explosion scores (vertical leap and broad jump) and why he actually had some weird splits in his 40. He reminds me a little of the conversation w/Mingo last year, where some were all in, and some were totally out (me)....not as a prospect, but how much some like him and some have them entirely off their boards... He's weird. I'd much rather just go after guys like McConkey, and Pearsall who seem safer, or Wilson, who has similar bust risk but more inviting traits and profile. Keon is very much: this guy is either a home run like Anquan, or gonna go the way of Hakeem Butler and N'Keal Harry. No idea which and I'd rather someone else take the risk. Maybe also could play out like Benjamin too. Scares me too much, him and Leggette are guys I just want someone else to devour the risk on.

It seems pretty locked in that the Cardinals are taking Harrison and that the Chargers are either taking Alt at slot, or trading down, likely for an OT (betting markets have gone w/trading down for OL). If the Giants like JJ, they probably stay at slot or switch with Chargers, if they want Maye, I'd imagine they move up to the Pats spot to make certain of it. Seems pretty clear for now: Williams, Daniels, Maye, Harrison Jr, somebody trading up for JJ. Only wild card seems like whether Maye is a faller or not and whether the JJ in the top 5-6 stuff is bull---- or not.

It would be pretty hilarious no matter how it played out (other than both hitting). Either a billion I Told You so's, or "thank God they didn't listen to me's,". In my case, I'll just be depressed as hell, and indulging in a lot of gallows humor. I don't want Maye or Daniels landing in that ---- heap or New England, but it would still be hilarious. I would love to know if they're reviewing tape from '19-'22 with Daniels, or Maye's '22 tape. Or are they all just drenched in recency bias, just looking at '23? Needless to say, I think all these people (in media take land) are looking at '23 stuff. It's ridiculous.

I totally hear you. I used to drive upwards of 50 miles to San Jose Live to catch games at a giant sports bar complex in the bay in '96-'97 as a college student, a much shorter drive to the Englander and Ricky's in the East bay '98-'04, I've watched an average of 1-2 games since my kid was born in '16 every season, the fandom collapsed by probably a good 70-85% since the end of the RGIII era in early '13 and the McCloughan debacle kicked in a bit of what was left. Once they ignored QB in '20 and '21, that killed nearly all of it. If you check my posting history until this year you can see it, I basically only posted during the draft process every year until now because I didn't pay attention to anything else, especially after the typically disappointing drafts. The big but slow move probably happened circa '02 when USMNT just gave me much more joy, and over the years the Caps as well, to some extent the Nats and Guardians (it would take a while to explain how I ended up picking two baseball teams as an elementary school kid a gazillion years ago but it half makes sense)....but everything that has happened since '93 has worked to torch a good 80-90% of my childhood fandom. Snyder getting ejected via trebuchet gave it a chance again, but it will never be what it once was, because it was magical when I was a kid, and horrible ever since, just a source of pain, frustration and misery to the extent that I made sure my kid completely ignored the team (he vacillates between the Raiders and the Niners-those being the local teams). Botching this gimme will only make it worse, I take solace in the fact that a lot of people and analytics types I respect disagree me, but not that much, the alarms of bust risk have been ear shattering for months. I will be surprised if he has an elite or very good career, not totally shocked though, as I've said, I'm more alarmed because it seems so obvious why the risk he presents is so much higher, and the ceiling not higher at all, than with Maye. Seems so obvious to me. Pray I'm wrong.

It won't be it for me, it will just be a further diminishment of my attention. This team had about 80-90% of my sporting attention 1979-1993, and probably 70-75% of it 1994-2012, but the past decade its dropped to 10-20%, and botching this will drop it further. I just have other teams either performing far better and giving me much more joy on a consistent level, or at least building properly. Nothing about this pick makes sense to me at all, the good news is I'm wrong a large percentage of the time on who will be great, the bad news is guys Im convinced will be bad almost always are. Otoh, I don't really feel the same way I did about Zach Wilson or Pickett, where I was nearly 100% sure, the bad news is its kind of close to that.

Feeling like a Jets fan, watching the Zach Wilson stupidity, screaming, and there's nothing I can do to stop it, like most Jets drafts. What a nightmare, and yes, I agree on '12. Just helpless, and left with only the ashes of hopes that somehow this isn't another zach wilson moment of stupidity.

I think it comes down to franchising # and those kinds of requirements alongside the salary cap #'s of the top producing options. The Best TE's in the league make 12-15 mill on their 2nd and 3rd deals, if you're picked top five you're making around 9-10 mill. It's not the best use of cap money to be investing draft capital and salary cap $$$ on guys like that. It just isn't, you have to think of how to allocate your $$$, and if you can find Laporta's and Mayer's and Kincaids and Mark Andrews on the regular between slot 25-75 for a fraction of that money, why are you spending top 5 draft capital as well? Just doesn't make sense. TE, like RB, is a situation where the salary cap #'s and value get distorted to the greatest degree (Center is probably another). Bowers is almost certainly gonna hit, but if you take him where he belongs (top 5 or 6) he's already being paid 4-5x Laporta's salary, and around 65-80% of top 3-5 veteran TE salary. Your money and draft capital could just be better used on the positions that are far more costly in free agency, where the benefits to your cap are far more pronounced (QB, OT, WR, Edge, DT, maybe CB).

In recent weeks I've seen a ton of guys argue that they are the best top 3 since '14, Scott Barrett poo poo'd the idea, he see's it as similar to '22, but I don't think the top of '22 was really close to these guys. I don't think Odunze is w/them, I think Nabers had one of those metrics based god mode years like Chase in '19, MHJR is just considered one of the best prospects ever and Odunze seems more like a guy whose typically the top WR in a really good class, like Garrett Wilson, which makes it the best top end I've ever seen or at least since like '96 and '14.

Yeah, I love them both too, and its nice he has the athleticism, but I'm not sold it's all that meaningful, once you're reasonably fast and athletic, your fine, the data from combine testing on WR's doesn't seem to connect w/success rate beyond being in basic thresholds, and Pearsall is beyond fine in terms of the thresholds.

I would like to think most of us are sticking to takes more because of alarm sensors about potential bust rate than anyone. I know I am. Supposedly Caleb is at that Luck/Burrow/Lawrence level of certainty (and 2 of the 3 hit more or less at that level while the other was a disappointment rather than bust), but honestly, with all of them save Caleb, who I haven't paid as much attention too, the chances of landing a mega stud are 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 probably, the chances of an adequate starter ramp it up to like 2.5 out of 5.25 and like 3 out of 5 or something on that level, that isn't close to certainty. For me, its just, bust risk I see with some is around 15-25% (Maye) and with others it feels like 35-55% (Daniels, JJ, Penix).... But how many here are positive they're guy is going to be a stud? I don't see much. Even with Warheads and Commando, I think the take is much more connected to confidence/conviction of the bust risk w/a Daniels versus the belief that Maye will be a star, hopefully I'm not getting their take wrong, but I certainly get that feeling. I'm not convince Maye is a star, I'm just a lot more worried Daniels either busts or is injury riddled or both, and that JJ is no more than a placeholder guy. That's why I'd rather go a different direction.

Oh you smashed it did you? Well, good news, as I think we all smashed the Wentz argument, or most anyway, except for the people that mattered :(. As for Lamar, we just disagree, and you are going to throw out #'s that don't agree w/what you saw on the tape, and his admittedly alarming, at best accuracy #'s, otoh, the adot # posted above is nuts and would explain some of it, possibly most (an adot that high is naturally going to result in poor completion #'s). But we are as far apart as two people could be on this topic, so further discussion is pointless.

In a purely selfish sense, I'd be super bummed if the Vikes got Maye as I'm trying to steal him in dynasty and if Maye gets Jefferson and Addison, nobody is letting him fall in rookie drafts. Good for him if it happens though.

You could read the arguments. It's really quite simple: Daniels: Checks a gazillion boxes suggestive of high bust rate, including very late big time breakout/overage prospect. Maye: Accuracy issues, and mechanics/feet. JJ: Small sample size trap, not enough reps period, some issues clearly in the data, along with some surprising positives in data that still can't negate the negative concerns. Penix: Injured, injured, injured, freaking sixth year senior, erratic accuracy issues etc. All of them have boxes checked suggestive of potential for bust. In my experience, the bulk of the data we have on Daniels is the most alarming of the available data because its most consistently linked with future bust issues, but of course, that's just an opinion. Take it as you see. For most of the Maye group, of which I'm part, the argument is simple: he's got some good metric data, he blew up immediately in his first starts, he has the ideal traits and measurements, and he did it all young, while the alarming traits are almost uniformly less alarming then the traits associated with Daniels, JJ and Penix (you can fix mechanics, and footwork, you can't change what happened at age 19/20/21 in college-either you were elite or you were not, you can't change being 6'4-235 or whatever, you either are tall with a big frame, or you're not etc). People are gonna disagree, there are different thinks people believe in or trust w/prospects. All I can tell you is that I've come to terms with the fact that its impossible to predict who will hit, nobody can do it with reliability, but you can unearth traits that are frequently amongst those associated with busts, and at least put yourself in a position where you know which prospects share traits associated with the Pickett's and the Zach Wilson's and Trubisky's etc. That's basically the best I think anyone can do. At that point you have to decide for yourself who you think has more of the most alarming, commonly held traits, and who doesn't, and if they're similar amounts, which are you more concerned with. For me, Daniels scares the hell out of me more, so I don't want him. Simple as that. too many of the neg's I see from misses in the past. That being said, if, and that's a big if, but if, the processing is so next level as said, it could reduce the risk, but even there, I'm suspicious of such things, after the yo-yo of the processing tests like S2, which told us Young would be much better than stroud and clearly was wrong....and yet it helped find Purdy so......? There's no easy answer....I just view Maye the least long term risky.....

I don't like Florio, lol, at all, I actually dislike him a bit, but his site was a rumor aggregator and as a result, got some stuff wrong and some right like any site. It's annoying, maybe its worse than annoying, but I don't really mind it. But Edelstein, my gawd man, just think of the exact polar opposite of espn's much beloved late, great John Clayton and Chris Mortenson, as an insider, smug, d-bagy, wrong litrerally every time he reports anything ever, real used car salesman vibe, and you've got him. There's like two edelstein bits uploaded to youtube for reasons unknown, one about the '91 draft, one about rich kotite, looks like he might have been right on the latter (at least his opinion of kotite's talent anyway). But my gosh, I still can't figure out how some people got some gigs. Just mind boggling.