e16bball

The biggest problem with this offseason is the same thing that’s always been the biggest problem with this franchise: a lack of a truly coherent plan. They just “do things,” and you never really see how it all holds together as part of a long-term plan.

They knew from apparently pretty early in the offseason that Jayden was their guy. Okay, cool. It isn’t what I would have done, but you can work with it. Taking your franchise QB is a seminal decision, the most important one Peters has ever made in his career and certainly the most important one DQ will ever make here. That’s your centerpiece personnel move, and you have to build the rest of your plan moving forward around that guy.

But almost nothing they did this offseason appears to line up with Jayden’s particular skillset/needs. The one thing I will credit them for is signing Biadasz right out of the gate — interior pressure is a killer for Jayden, so having a terrible center would have been a big problem for him. That’s true of every QB, probably, but it’s a major issue for our guy. I guess you could lump Allegretti into this, as well, but I’m pretty hesitant to credit them for signing a 3rd-tier option at a position that had a lot of FA talent available. Perhaps he surprises.

Otherwise, what did they do? They go get two TEs and a pass-catching RB. We’ve all watched every play of Jayden’s college career at this point — how often do you ever see him throwing to TEs or RBs? A bit more to the RBs at ASU, at least, when he had Eno Benjamin and Rachaad White. Virtually nothing at LSU, and he had a very talented TE in Mason Taylor who just fell into anonymity last year. Until the bowl game, when he went 7/88 with Nussmeier, that is. 
 

Jayden loves to throw to WRs, especially on the perimeter, guys who separate easily and can win vertically. We go out and get him…a college QB turned mid-major receiver who will probably need some time and even long-term seems to read more “big slot” than “perimeter operator.” We’re just hoping/praying that Dotson’s terrible sophomore year was a Bieniemy-induced fever dreams — and we’re one injury to 17 away from having the worst WR room in the league.

Jayden loves to have time and comfort in the pocket. The luxury of time allows him to really engage that vaunted CPU of a brain, and it also tends to result in the back end of the defense breaking down and giving him lanes to really engage those vaunted legs of his. As noted, we grabbed a quality starting center, but we completely whiffed on the OT position. Out goes Leno from last year’s terrible OL, and in comes…absolutely no one. It’s hard to count Coleman, because he’s probably unplayable right now. Major project. It feels like borderline malpractice that the best case scenario on the roster at the moment is Lucas/Wylie as the starters — and if one or both of them go down, you can choose from various practice squad fodder. 
 

They go out and grab 6-8 defensive FAs, and then they use their top two picks after Jayden on even more defense. Pretty much every one of those moves is defensible (or legitimately good) in a vacuum. But there’s probably some irony in the reality that while we won in that vacuum, things still suck for our rookie QB.

In short, it’s mind-numbing to me that they planned to take this kid all along, but they made no special efforts to ensure that they’d be giving him a structure in which he can succeed. You’re trying to build a long-term franchise QB for a franchise that has not had one in my entire lifetime (c. 1985)! How is that not at the heart of everything you do?

36 minutes ago, Lovi said:

 

This is the guy who announced at the combine that he doesn't "believe in outer space."

And then promptly proceeded to destroy the testing until he pulled up lame in the 40.

1 minute ago, KDawg said:

Oh ****. The Pats took Joe Milton. 
 

Anyone concerned that they are going to make Maye nervous?

I'm not, but mostly because I've watched Joe Milton play.

He might give Maye some trouble in a "who can throw it through the uprights from furthest away" competition, though.

I’m not watching any longer, but if no one on the draft broadcasts made a Harold Carmichael reference when the Eagles took Johnny Wilson just now, they’re all fired.

Just now, Skinsinparadise said:

Different type of safety from Butler stylstically.

 

His strength IMO is to be a box safety but Washington used him everywhere.  Post safety-in the slot everywhere.

 

Even though he has the athleticism to play everywhere, he's much better suited IMO to play the box.  

 

Similar drill last year when I was trying to sell to some here Quan Martin.  Quan was burned as an outside corner. So forget that.  Don't play him there.  Play him at FS and or the slot.  And that's what they did.

 

I'd guess the same for Hampton, I doubt they use him as a post safety.  Use him as tone setter in the box.   Jeremy Chinn style.

This is a very reasoned take. 

From the little I’ve been able to watch so far, his major flaw is that he doesn’t manage space well. Which is a huge flaw for a post safety, probably a fatal one. He gets sucked up by playaction and crossers, and they throw it behind him. He gets sucked into the middle field and they’re bouncing runs outside on him. He’s coming in red-hot downhill and runs past the play. 

If you minimize the amount of space he has to be accountable for, maybe you can limit the mistakes.

2 minutes ago, Chump Bailey said:

 

I noticed that alien/freak OT you took in the 7th went in the 3rd or 4th. Nice job.

Thanks, that was a pretty lucky pull by me, I’d only first even heard of him like two days earlier 😂

Detroit makes perfect sense for him, though. They love size and physicality. Can see them using him as an eligible 3rd OT, just a gargantuan heat-seeking missile aimed at some pesky WILL linebacker or box safety. 

Just watched the first quarter of the National Championship game with an eye on Hampton. It’s an absolute bloodbath for our man 😂

The traits they like are easy to see. Explosive mover, high (almost frenetic) energy, doesn’t give you much room to breathe. But dear God, that was one undisciplined safety. He was like a kid who ate too much candy at lunch and just couldn’t sit still in his chair.

Let’s watch more, hoping he settles down.

Magee and Hampton both give off strong “kickoffs are back” vibes.

Which reminds me that it might be cool if we had anyone on the entire roster who could return kicks/punts.

The Rams GM in the ES Mock did nail that Corum pick. Kudos to that guy.

1 minute ago, KDawg said:

I’d be very disappointed with a forced OT pick here.

This is the fear. The two CBs, Jerzhan Newton, JPJ…a lot of talent, but taking some OT because you have to? That’s just poor strategy.

1 minute ago, mhd24 said:

Patriots-Chargers trade was:

 

34+137 for 37+110.

Patriots have to get in position behind us so they can take the guy we should have. Get a new schtick, one trick ponies.

1 minute ago, The Consigliere said:

So what would it cost? Could we get up there with a 2nd, a 3rd and a 5th, or are we going to have to include both 2nd's? 

That's the tough question. I would hate having to move both 2nds -- especially because I'd love to do the same two-step that @Going Commando just referenced above, by moving back from 40 to the mid-50s to pick up additional capital. I think there will be tons of value at our (myriad) positions of need at that late-2nd stage.

If we could do something like 36/67/139 for, say, pick 19 to take Mims (or other preferred/available OT) -- and then go back from 40 for something like 57/89 from TB? To me, that's the best way to position ourselves on the board.

At that point, you upgrade from Paul/Suamataia to Fautanu/Mims, and your only pick deficit is a 5th. Yes, you'll have lost draft position in both the 2nd and the 3rd -- but I don't expect to like the board much better at 40 than I will in the late 50s.

Losing both 2nds might just be too steep unless you absolutely love one of the OTs. Which I don't, really. I really like 6 of them, though.

1 hour ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Top heavy for LT not RT.   I'd trade up for Mims, Fashanu -- maybe Fautanu depending on price

 

https://x.com/JPFinlayNBCS/status/1783141141925253462

 

 

 

I totally agree with these guys. And have been saying this for a good while now: after the top 6 OTs (Alt, Fashanu, Fuaga, Latham, Fautanu, Mims...choose your order), there's a really steep drop-off. Which is why I'd like them to be aggressive in trying to move up. 

At a valuable pick like 36 or 40, I think that instead of trying to talk yourself into a favorite out of the next tier of "developmental" guys, you're better off just waiting to pick from whatever is left in that heap later on. Take a better player at a different position if you're insistent on sticking at those picks.

The one wild card for me is Jordan Morgan. I like him better as a guard, but if you like him at OT, he's sort of a one-man tier all to himself in the late 1st-early 2nd area. Because he's not a developmental guy with traits but a lot of bummer tape like the rest of these dudes.

I think the real dividing line between the two sides of this Daniels/Maye debate is in how you weigh 2023 versus prior years.

I see a lot of scouting comments (and metrics) that are focused entirely on 2023. Where the most recent data points seem to be overwhelmingly the most important ones. Traditionally, this gets cast aside by "well, that's who he is now" or "so you're saying it's a bad thing that he improved?" From this perspective, Daniels is far and away the better selection, as he was staggeringly good for the last 10 games of his college career. Maye, on the other hand, had 2-3 pretty dicey games to end his career.

But where things become tricky for me is that I believe the following statement is undeniably true: If you watched the first 85-90% of Maye's career (his first 25 games) and you watched the first 80-85% of Daniels's career (his first 45 games), there is absolutely no chance that you would have rated Daniels the better player.

Considering the overall picture of their respective college careers, it's a very narrow sliver in which Daniels actually exceeds Maye. I have some concern that the draft community as a whole is putting a ton of stock in the last things we've seen -- and forgetting a lot of what came before. Just as one example, this article was previously posted, and it cites serious concerns about Maye and his comparatively poor accuracy. But the stats they're looking at in putting together the big multi-colored graph about completions and on-target rate by distance is based solely on "final college season."

But what happens when you take into account "career" rather than just "2023"? All of a sudden, Maye is the career leader among the draft QBs in completion percentage over expectation -- and Jayden finds himself bringing up the rear. So does that go out the window because Jayden was exceptional in his final year? That's the question that I think is dividing everyone more than anything else.

2 hours ago, Dah-Dee said:

Daniels had all three of Nabers, Thomas and Lacy for both the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and none of them were 1st round picks at the end of 2022. It was apparently that second season in the same offense that flipped the switch for all of them.

Nabers was a 1st rounder before 2023 in many places, including about 1/3 of the way-too-early mock drafts I just scoured. Brugler had him 19th overall last May, for example. 

Thomas wasn’t, that’s true. 
 

I saw a lot of familiar names in those spring/summer 2023 mocks. Williams was usually #1. Maye was almost always top 5. Penix was usually there in the top 20, and McCarthy was in a lot of them in the same range. Nix occasionally showed up at the end of the 1st of a couple.

46 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Yep that's why I want Chop. He fits that Quinn prototype to a tee and a year learning from Dante Fowler would be huge.

Sure, I think lots of us would like Chop. But the odds of him making it to 36 are very slim. We aren’t the only team in search of highly explosive EDGE players who can create insta-pressure to combat all the quick passing games out there. And the idea of trading up for a player who won’t directly support the new QB (e.g., an OT or a WR or Bowers) is a non-starter for me. 

I think the tougher question is what do we do at EDGE if/when Chop is gone. I don’t see a lot of that speed rusher archetype with the burst and the bend in the mid-rounds.

Braswell is the only one who really comes close to that description in the 36/40 range. And I’m not sold there — to me, he’s a good-not-great athlete. Like him more in a heavy 3-4 OLB role like Baltimore. 

After that? I think you’re looking at rounds 3-5, the guys like Jonah Elliss, Mohamed Kamara, Jalyx Hunt. Which I’m okay with, but lots of folks seem dead-set on us taking an EDGE at 36/40.

Finally getting a minute to recap the LA Rams draft. 
 

The Picks

1 (19). DT Byron Murphy, Texas

2 (52). DE Marshawn Kneeland, Western Michigan

3 (83). LB Cedric Gray, North Carolina

3 (99). RB Blake Corum, Michigan

5 (154). WR Tahj Washington, Southern Cal

5 (155). DB Jaylin Simpson, Auburn

6 (196). TE Tip Reiman, Illinois

6 (209). CB M.J. Devonshire, Pittsburgh

6 (213). LB Nathaniel Watson, Mississippi State

6 (217). OT Frank Crum, Wyoming

7 (254). OL Giovanni Manu, British Columbia

My Thoughts

• Initially, I was very disappointed to see Latu go ahead of my pick at 19. Would have liked to keep the UCLA kid at home
• It actually worked out fine, because I probably like the Murphy/Kneeland combo better than Latu/2nd round DT.
• Would have moved up for Penix if he had fallen much further. Did not see the Panthers as a threat to take him there.
• If I had one do-over, I probably would have taken Jonathan Brooks over Cedric Gray at 83. I love Corum in that offense, but Brooks is a stud.
• Tahj Washington was my favorite Day 3 pick. Run routes, YAC, block — Sean McVay will make you famous.
• Big picture, I thought it was eye-opening looking at the LAR roster. There are genuine gaping holes in that depth chart, yet they’re a legitimate NFC contender. It’s a credit to McVay, but also a reminder that you don’t have to fill out all 22 positions with high-end starters to be a good team. Stars in the right places can take you a long way.

1 hour ago, mhd24 said:

Just last year, the Titans had to trade 41+72+future 3rd to get #33.

They also got #81 back in that deal. 
 

And 33 is a bit of an exception to the trade value rules, since everybody has all night to put together offers and negotiate over the pick. Moving to 33 for a QB is always going to be a bit more pricey than other deals. 
 

I think the JAX example you referenced is a good one, but so is the deal that was made for the previous pick (#26 in 2022):
 

26 and 101 for 35, 69, and 163. 

I would do that deal all day long if Mims made it that far. Probably not for Guyton or Morgan.

Realistically, I think they’ll have to go up a bit further than that to get where they want to be (in range of one of the top 6 OTs). I think the goal would be to do 36 + 67 + 152 to get up into the 20-22 range. And then try to trade back from 40 (into the mid-50s). to recoup some capital. I just don’t think sitting at 36 and 40 fits the board and our particular needs. I really hope they’re more creative about moving around the board than the last group.

13 minutes ago, mistertim said:

   Riddick got big mad about that one.

All the media guys are big mad today. Schefter’s fighting with McAfee, Breer is pissed about Vegas, Keim is salty as hell with people, and now Riddick tries to big boy this Twitter dude by pounding his chest about his knowledge of the “body of work” — and then conveniently providing one year’s worth of data out of a 5-year body of work. 
 

They are frustrated by this Daniels situation. They think it should be a done deal.

12 minutes ago, Dah-Dee said:

 

Then it was a weak response. The better response would have pointed out that Daniels did in fact regress at ASU, 2021 was worse than 2019 by any measure. 

 

No need to reference Pickett - who actually had three very similarly mediocre seasons before his final-season breakout -unless he was trying to compare the 2 players' final seasons, which was a bad comparison.

Not disagreeing with you as to the depth and clarity of the response. 
 

Just making the point that he’s technically correct, assuming that that’s what he was getting at. 
 

Which I’d already kinda wanted to do, because I find the “Daniels improved every single year” narrative as baffling as the “McCarthy beat Alabama with his arm when Michigan needed him to” narrative that I keep seeing. Actually, it’s still a little less baffling than the McCarthy-Alabama thing, because Daniels did improve his rushing production from 2019 to 2021 (and thereafter), which is something at least. 

22 minutes ago, Dah-Dee said:

Help me find Pickett on the top 100 list, I don't see him:

I would assume he was responding to the other half of the quoted post, which claimed that Jayden improved every year. 
 

Which he didn’t. But Pickett did.

1 hour ago, seantaylor=god said:

Yeah the only C I’m drafting that early is Graham Barton because he can play LG easily

Do you think Powers-Johnson would not be able to play LG?

I think a guy with his size and strength is more than capable of playing guard. Which he did in college, incidentally, during his sophomore.

For me, if either of those guys makes it to 36, they’re the starting LG next season — and eventually taking over the C spot from Biadasz. 
 

I do agree about Frazier, though. He’s a bit more of a fire hydrant, I see him more as center only.

7 hours ago, skinny21 said:

Edit:  I’m curious about the breakout age factor.  @The Consigliere - how much does that affect your thoughts on Thomas and others?  How do the (pertinent) analytics stack these guys?

I know I’m not who you were asking, but I think it’s a little bit different story with Thomas compared to a guy like Legette. 
 

Thomas is a 3-year college player who had 350+ yards in both of his first two seasons before the big “breakout” in his final year. In those first two seasons, he’s fighting for reps with Nabers, Kayshon Boutte (who was a preseason All-American in 2022), Trey Palmer (6th round pick of the Bucs), Kyren Lacy (who is legit), Jaray Jenkins (big body who was an LSU mainstay), and Chris Hilton (who can play a little).

Legette, on the other hand, was a 5th-year super senior who had played 40+ games at SC before 2023 and put up a total of about 400 yards. Not being able to get on the field over guys like Bryan Edwards and Shi Smith as a freshman is one thing — but as a true senior, in 2022, he was 10th on the Game****s roster in receiving yards. The list of receivers who were ahead of him for snaps and targets from 2020-2022 would be mostly unheard-of even to devoted college football followers.

To me, they’re the two ends of the spectrum when it comes to breakout age (as well as these sort of “dominator” metrics and career YPRR numbers). One of them (Thomas) became a star in his last season — but it was year 3 and previously he was just lower on the totem pole than some legitimate college star receivers. The other one (Legette) also became a star in his last season — but it was year 5, and until then he’d done absolutely nothing, and the guys who got reps over him until last year were nobodies.

In short, Legette is pretty much the poster child for what you’re trying to avoid biting too hard on. Doesn’t mean he can’t be a good player. But the red flags on his college career are real. I think there’s enough mitigating stuff with Thomas (elite WR room, decent first two seasons, big 3rd year breakout) that you can feel mostly comfortable with him on that basis.

1 hour ago, mac8887 said:

My best guess is that JJs charisma and abundance of football knowledge bestowed upon him by Harbaugh really wowed everyone there, and that’s what has Jayden’s agent doing this.

Tough for anyone to look good in comparison when JJ walks in like

1 minute ago, philibusters said:

 

I think Troy Fantanu should be with those top 5.

100%, good catch, totally slipped my mind 🤦🏻‍♂️