skinny21

I’ve moved past other such comments, because it’s kind of nitpicking, but the article above saying Maye has been qb 2 for “two full years” - man, those 10 throws from 2021 must have been truly amazing…

Having the two 2nds gives us some serious flexibility, particularly when looking at OT. If that next group of tackles are all still available, you can move off 36 and then draft one at 40 (especially if one or more go before 40). If they’re all still there at 40, you could wait to see who lasts to wherever you traded back to, assuming the team like more than one of these guys. And that depth applies to other positions I assume we’re going to look closely at - DE, corner, wr, S and perhaps ILB. And acquiring (even) more ammo in the 3rd-5th would be helpful in our situation. Obviously it depends on who might fall to you (particularly at other positions) and whether you find a trading partner.

That’s my stance exactly. His statement to his recruiting class (and subsequently losing one game in 2 years, along with winning a title) showing he’s wired differently - that’s an added bonus that is really compelling for me. While I lean toward Maye and think Daniels could be a stud for us, I can’t say I’d mind if McCarthy was our pick (as unlikely and against the grain as that is).

Man, as a dad of 3 teens, this breaks my heart. Love that you have wonderful memories though. You aren’t kidding about training….

I could be way off here, but if I had to guess as to that missing ingredient, number one might be the throwing with touch you mentioned. You don’t really see those bucket throws down field or those lobs to backs in the flat or on wheel routes - hitting them on the run. And another point I’d raise relates to how often they ran the ball - I don’t know that you see those random stretches of 8 (or whatever) consecutive pass plays you might see in other offenses that can make you feel like the qb is dicing up the defense. All speculation on my end though. In some ways, I feel like McCarthy might be the cleanest of the qb prospects, but the odd flip side is I think he requires more projection than the other guys (aside from projecting Daniels/Penix to stay healthy).

I’d be fascinated to see some sort of a metrics aggregate. It’s a shame so much great info is buried throughout this (voluminous) thread.

I am too. I’m also confident Penix is not in consideration at 2. And I’m confident they value their 30 visits. Something’s gotta give there, right? I have to say I’m coming around on McCarthy. Or rather, he’s been steadily rising in my estimation. Young, pedigreed, good arm, good under pressure, very athletic, excellent numbers on 3rd/4th and long, and seems like he has high end leadership traits. Slight frame doesn’t bother me too much - I see more of a path to add good weight than with Daniels. His statement to his fellow recruiting class blew me away. In short, I see a solid floor, a relatively unknown ceiling, and the intangibles that make you think he has a reasonable shot at reaching that ceiling. I’ll be happy with any of the 3, though while I’ll be hoping for the best, I can’t help expecting the worst (the worst being mediocrity, ala the Giants with Jones, not our choice busting hard).

I’d put pretty good money on us sticking at 2 (and I’m quite cautious). Bringing in Penix though gives me the feeling Peters is putting bait in the water to see what kind of bites he gets. I think we can all agree Penix isn’t going to be the pick at 2 and top 30 visits are valuable. IMO, basically a zero percent chance he’d move back to 11, but if Minny can get up to 4 or 5? Who knows (I’d still doubt it though).

I can envision them being able to break up in groups and cycle through guys, but I’m curious how that would break down - like maybe Peters and Quinn together, Kliff and Johnson together, and Pritchard and Blough together? Which still leaves Newmark, Gribble, the Marty’s, maybe Toub and/or scouts? Interesting situation for sure.

I’m assuming this means you don’t count QBR and EPA as advanced metrics?

To be fair, Nussmeier (4 star recruit 12th ranked qb) was a junior that played (presumably minimally though) in 18 games with 219 passes, vs Harrell (3 star recruit, 42nd qb) who was a redshirt freshman playing in his first game. Not discounting your point, it’s definitely something to factor in, it’s just tricky to view it as apples to apples though.

Oline factor is an interesting point, in the context of wr/qb improvement. I still have to question Nabers and Thomas’ sudden leap in production being attributed to their growth as opposed to Daniels’ growth. I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong, and I’m certainly not arguing their improvement was all on Daniels. However, between his coaches talking/raving about his improvement, articles about how VR helped him tremendously, it being his second year in the system, his extended study habits, etc, it just seems like a shaky argument to pin so much of his ultra productive ‘23 season on his receivers when he played with those guys the year before. I mean, I don’t watch college ball, I get most of my info from what’s posted on this thread. So color me surprised when I looked it up and discovered he’d played with Nabers/Thomas the previous year… something I’d never seen mentioned on here. Regarding the oline, does anyone have numbers on time to throw from the pocket between these qbs? I’m imagining Drake and Caleb extending plays increases their overall time to throw significantly, and since Daniels often didn’t throw after buying time, a straight up time to throw number won’t tell the whole story. I’m curious how much we can parse out the difference in/impact of oline play (obviously other factors play in as well - how quickly wrs separate, route depth, scheme, etc. Yeah, this is one of my bigger concerns with Daniels and one of the bigger reasons I lean toward Maye. Going back to my above point though, its interesting that he played with good receivers across multiple years, but his explosion in ‘23 is attributed (by many) to his receivers…

It’s a huge advantage for Daniels, and one of several reasons I lean towards Maye. I do have a question though - those two were with him in 2022, so why do they become the rationale (or maybe primary driver) for his improvement in 2023?

Is EPA a stat (or set of stats) people care about? Not trying to be snarky, just the “all the analytics favor Maye” obviously doesn’t factor EPA.

Kinda feel like 3-5 (though 5 feels doubtful) of those DEs could go in round 2. Say roughly - several corners go, a couple/few safeties, something like 6-8 receivers, a couple/few linebackers, maybe Nix, maybe one of the TEs… that leaves something like 10+ spots for DL. Maybe I’m way off base though?

As far as I know, (Although you could multi quote to get around it I suppose. Like quoting yourself, as well as my response, then replying. The multi quote feature was so one person could reply to multiple posters w/o having to post multiple, separate posts.)

Yeah, 100% agree with questioning how good the league is at testing for processing. My guess is not very good, though that’s not necessarily a reflection on their acumen. With that said, maybe I’m naive/ignorant, but it seems like it should be possible to have a group of scouts (or whoever) charting games, watching in slow motion to time stamp each progression a qb goes through. Compare data across games and seasons to come up with averages and chart improvement. Contrary to my previous statements, I’m worried too due to the nature of the difficulty with evaluating the position. I think I’m just at peace with the fact that it’ll work out or it won’t, and if it doesn’t, we’ve got adults in the room that won’t panic, but rather go back to the drawing board. And meanwhile, I think they’ll build up a team that is relatively easy to root for. Barring some major mistakes (aside from picking the wrong qb, if that happens), I think Peters and Quinn will get 5 years together and at least 2 bites at the qb apple.

As in, you’re trying to quote multiple posts to reply to each one of them (ie putting them all into one post)? If so, you should be able to hit the + on each post you want to reply to and then a box comes up to click on saying “Quote (x number of) posts”. Of course I’m not sure how different devices operate (I’m on an iPad).

Exactly right, and maybe I wasn’t clear earlier, but the idea of its utility as an evaluation tool is one of the two points I was making. As for timing, who knows. The two guys seemed to make a lot of progress in year 1 (and I’m sure there are other outfits), so who knows when they start taking orders, build out a staff/team, and how much that fast tracks the process. I wouldn’t be surprised if some teams start using it as early as next draft cycle, but for it to become a widespread, heavily utilized tool, it could indeed be years off. Things move fast though when NFL type money is involved, particularly when it comes to finding an edge. @The Consigliere Isn’t Daniels 23? My one caveat to your points (beyond the context I mentioned previously), is processing. Given a baseline of reasonable arm talent, athleticism, personality, etc, I think processing becomes king. With that said, I have a hard time believing FOs can make an accurate determination on that based on an extended meeting with a prospect… which is why I’m with you in the sense that Maye seems like a safer/cleaner pick given both the baseline stuff and the analytics. Just to be clear, while my preference is Maye based on the process you’ve outlined quite well (including in previous posts), there’s a part of me that doesn’t care what they do. I’m not going to grab a pitchfork if Peters/Quinn fail where the vast majority of the league fails year in and year out. Perhaps I’m just feeling the glow of finally having competency at the top levels of our team. And with that comes a bit of faith that this group will do their utmost to insulate/protect, develop and support whoever they end up with. I might not be quite to the level Going Commando is on franchise guys being “made”, but I do believe its a huge piece of the puzzle. I do get your stance though that not following the protocols, followed by failure would be a black mark. I’m pretty forgiving by nature though. 🤷‍♂️ Sidenote: I was blown away that McCarthy, at 17 or 18 told his recruiting class not to come if they were into partying/chasing girls. I mean, that is such a boss move.

No, it was from the article about Daniels using it (a German team testing/building it in conjunction with Daniels’ usage/feedback). Or rather, not that I know of. I hear you, but I’m talking about imputing pro defenses. The idea behind inputting their college offense (for evaluation purposes) is just to take that learning variable out. I haven’t heard of any other qb (college or otherwise)) using it - at least that company’s development was new/in progress, but that’s all I know. Obviously I don’t know what the Impact will be, but the potential is there to be completely transformative IMO.

Slightly off topic, but I just can’t get out of my head how transformative the VR thing could be to both quarterbacks and to teams evaluation of qbs. For evaluation purposes, connect the VR to a screen so coaches can see what the qb sees, input their college offense, and then throw in various defensive looks to test their processing/decision-making. And for qbs, the ability to essentially play full field without needing other players present - how massive is that? Eventually you can microchip balls and put these guys solo on a practice field. Better yet, give coaches control to set/redo plays - “try it again but with a bit more touch”, “this time without the heel click”, etc. Total game changer IMO, and those are just some off the cuff (relatively) basic uses. I’m betting this explodes in the next several years.

Frankly, I’m pretty much with you. The difficulty I have with truly landing smack dab in alignment with you is (my) lack of information, and the fact that many people who should (at least in theory) have a lot more information than I tout him. As an example, one of my concerns was his lack (or at least paucity) of middle field throws. But then I hear Jay Gruden saying the offense didn’t have a lot of middle field throws, and that those are some of the easiest throws to make, so he wasn’t worried about it. Is Jay right? I have no clue, but it makes some sense anyway. If I’m taking a Devil’s Advocate stance on the p2s ratio and the low number of throws after breaking the pocket, a few bits of information and some theories/questions play into for me. With fewer routes to the middle of the field, was this to give Daniels more space to navigate when he ran? Was he coached to run (as Herm coached him to at ASU)? Was his low number of pressures in part because defenses didn’t want to risk attacking him (ie played to keep him in the pocket more often)? Do defenses playing contain effect p2s ratios? Did his team practice broken plays? What does the tape say about his improvement on the ps2 ratio this year? Purely better oline play? Was a 2nd year in the system a factor? Did the VR thingy help his play/processing speed? Just so many things I don’t know. Regarding throwing with anticipation, was this a timing offense (my understanding is no)? Did the offense face mostly zone (not wanting to turn their backs on Daniels) and that, coupled with talented pass catchers reduced the need to throw with anticipation? How hard is it to improve in this area? Doesn’t seem the “experts” are too concerned about this facet, though I can’t recall hearing why exactly. To me, there are 4 major selling points with Daniels - his running, his accuracy at all levels, his ability to go through progressions (this is mainly based on others takes), and his marked improvement in certain areas. I might throw in his openness to working with the VR and changing his work habits - he seems very willing to be coached and to put in the work. The big question, for me, is how well can our FO gauge his processing ability. If they believe he has a big leg up on this facet, I suppose I can see how they might choose to pick him. Personally, the red flags and question marks with Daniels, vs the number of things Maye has going for him (and small number of flags) make Maye the fairly easy choice for me.

I think the one thing that gives me hope that these execs/coaches might be wrong is this staff has the luxury of time. And when you add to that 1) the insanely low bar this franchise has set, and 2) the positive cap situation going forward (and additional draft picks this year), we could see substantial improvement from the team even if (big if) our young qb takes 2-3 years to really start realizing their potential.

Given my take on traits Quinn et al might be looking for, I’m curious who in the 2nd-5th fits: FS - good-very good ball skills, decent-good tackler, not afraid to stick their nose in DE - relentless/great motor, is a “dawg”, is either good at run stuffing/setting the edge or a good rusher (obviously both would be ideal). Anything you’d add/argue with in terms of traits these coaches might be after?

Is it just me or does Daniels have a habit of kicking his front foot out when throwing? Not saying all the time, or even a majority of the time, but I feel like I saw it a lot. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but if I’m right, it seems to me that would have a semi-significant impact on velocity (IMO, it automatically opens his hips/shoulders and therefore reduces torque). Again, if I’m right about that, on one hand, perhaps he needs (or at least could use) more work on his mechanics than we think. On the other hand, if breaking that habit results in an improved ability to drive the ball more consistently, that would be a bonus. (I feel like I must be crazy as I haven’t noticed anyone else mention this) Edit: Just rewatched his Alabama game and each time he kicked that foot out it was on short throws to his left…