Going Commando

I'm 100% out on Guyton.  I get the appeals to upside.  I see the mirror speed and the size.  But he doesn't have that dog in him.  Motor sucks.  Zero nastiness.  The softest run blocker in the class by far.  Actually looks sulky when he's asked to move block in the run game, when that is what good OLs live for.  He's also pretty stiff and has bad grip strength in addition to the effort, awareness, focus, and aggression issues.

He's better than Jaelyn Duncan, but he reminds me of Jaelyn Duncan.  Duncan was horrendous on film, and was one of the worst players in the NFL as a rookie.  He managed to give up 9 sacks in just 364 snaps and had a 32.9 PFF grade.  Guyton isn't the absolute trainwreck in pass pro that Duncan was, but he's also a baby **** soft player who put too many flat out bad reps on film to ignore.  Guys like this bust.

We'd be better off lighting our card on fire and picking nobody than drafting Guyton at 36.

3 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

Mims is the home run swing to end all home run swings at T. If he hits you're getting Trent Williams 2.0. But man is it a massive risk. 

I think his best case scenario is even more than Trent.  To me Kinglsey is more like the Trent of the class if he hits his absolute best case scenario.  Mims is like Jonathan Ogden in physical stature.  Dawand without the sloppy weight, or like a rich man's Jordan Mailata.  You're talking about the biggest and longest OT in the NFL, only without any bad weight on him.  His spider chart is insane:

https://www.mockdraftable.com/player/amarius-mims

39 minutes ago, Dexter said:

If Cooper Beebe is there in Round 3 then you sprint to the podium.  

 

But overall I am really excited about Round 2.  I think we are going to get a stud to fall to us at #36.  Could be Mims or even Barton....I just hope we keep getting QBs to go in the first round, it will only push more talent into Round 2.

 

I'm having a little trouble sussing out Beebe's draft stock.  Mick drafters are super low on him, but he feels like a top 40 player to me.  I don't understand the case against him.  I would be stoked about the value on Beebe if we trade down from 40 into the mid 50s.  I feel like hedge against "reaching" on him in the mid second by getting another player from the exchange.

I've been thinking about who I want the most at 36, and I think the final answer for me is Kingsley (provided the work ethic and character checks out).  I think his upside is All Pro OT.  I think he's smart and he has the best natural strength and hand eye coordination and hand speed in the class.  There's a lot reps where he loses the hand battle early and guys get leverage on him and they just can't bench him.  He can anchor just by leaning into them, and meanwhile he clears your hands and now he's got his hands on you and he's snatching you down before you can even react.

If this kid was efficient and consistently got early wins, I think he would have a case for OT1.  His run blocking is meh, but his potential in pass pro is elite.  I really hope this isn't a situation where the mock drafters are far lower on this guy than the NFL is.  I hope he doesn't end up going in the first round.

11 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

That's how I feel too. But obviously you and I and the rest of Maye Nation appear to be missing something. 

Either New England and New York and Minnesota have all been waging an incredibly effective of campaign to get Maye to drop, or the kid has major skeletons in his closet.  Like serial arsonist or a having a compulsion to torture animals level skeletons.

I hope this has all been a bunch of nonsense and we pick Maye.

6 minutes ago, mhd24 said:

 

I'd add Brooks to your list for 67.  Maybe Tez Walker (although he's truly boom/bust).

Agreed.  I go back and forth on Walker more than any other receiver in the class.  I want to give him the benefit of the doubt because he missed a lot of time early and had to play catch up all year, and that UNC offense was so dysfunctional.  But the moments where he ****ed up big and lost games for his team really bother me because they typically showed a genuine lack of competitiveness and toughness.  I can stomach lapses in focus, but not being soft and quitting on plays.  And then all of the drops at the SB and even during Drake Maye's throwing session at the UNC Pro Day... these are not in game situations where the pressure is ramped up.  He is too risky to draft before the fifth round IMO.  I'd pass on him and let someone else take the big swing.

I don't like Daniels and would never pick him over Maye.  But I would never pick McCarthy over Daniels either.

Valuing McCarthy over Daniels requires a complete abandonment of a film based evaluation.  It's banking everything on this nebulous, Q-Rating based assessment of intangibles.  There is no way in Hell I would ever do that if I were in charge.  A GM can make a weak case for Daniels at 2 and still have some claim to competence, but not with McCarthy.  That would be proof of incompetence for me.  His tape sucks and he wouldn't sniff the first round if his team hadn't won the NC.  Maybe he ends up on a loaded NFL team and plays in a training wheels offense again, and continues winning while having zero individual playmaking burden.  But valuing this kid over Maye is tantamount to valuing Jimmie Garappalo and Alex Smith over Josh Allen.  It's something only an incompetent GM would do.  John Keim reversing course and floating this kid week of the draft proves he doesn't have **** this year.  He's blowing with the winds and getting played by the last person he talked to.

Maye is the only good choice.  We have beaten this dead horse into dust, and he has been the only good choice the entire time.  He is the one a competent FO would draft at 2, and I hope we do.

Yeah 67 feels like the right range for Sainristil.  I think he gets picked some where between there and 78.  Guys like him don't really star in the NFL, unless featured in a D like KC does with their zone slot defenders, but they also don't really bust.

But 67 is the pick I'm eyeballing guys like Corum, Cooper Beebe, and Bralen Trice at. I'm dreaming big there.  Probably none of them will still be on the board, but maybe.  I'm also trying to guess where T'Vondre Sweat will go.  Might still be able to get him at 100, but if he's got a serious drinking problem, I'll pass until 139.  On sheer talent, he's huge value at 67 though.

Maybe Austin Booker or Jonah Elliss are in play around 67 too.  Elliss was an All American like Sainristil too, and Booker is a true home run swing.  Zierlein's comp on him is freaking Maxx Crosby, and I don't think he's way off base.  The guy is shockingly skilled and creative for a late comer to football with almost no starting experience. His basketball background is a big plus for pass rushing because he has such good CoD and hand eye foot coordination.  But he's strong and tough enough for football.

Point being, I'm still hunting for potential stars at 67, and Sainristil would be down my list for favorite outcomes at that spot.  I also think we can snag good corner value in the fourth round.

15 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

I haven't watched him in eons but liked him when i did.  Some smoke that Colson ends up the first LB taken

I can see it.  It looks like teams are going to pay a Michigan player premium this year, on everyone except for the actual best player on the team, Blake Corum, who is being mocked a round and a half below where he should be going.  It's happened with Georgia players the past couple of years.  I will never understand Travon Walker going #1 overall, he was one of the worst reaches I've ever seen.  Nobody really does post mortems on these horrendous draft failures, and the draft media never seems to learn from them.

Just going to reiterate that Corum's film is amazing.  If we pick Corum and Drake Maye, we will have one of the best offenses in the NFL in like two years.  We should pick them.

7 hours ago, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

What about Antoine Winfield Sr as a comparison? Maybe I'm overvaluing Kenny Moore, but he's an above average to really good Nickel corner. I think that's valuable enough to spend a 2nd rounder on.

 

I get not wanting to spend #36 or #40 on Sainristil. But trading back and grabbing him at #50+? 4 years of 80% snaps at above average play is great value.

I'm a Kenny Moore fan, and I always get suckered into these kinds of players.  I was a big Clark Phillips fan too, and he was actually pretty good for a surprisingly excellent Atlanta secondary last year.  But note the places where Moore and Phillips were drafted.  Even if Sainristil is a richer version of those guys, that's still not top 50 value for me.

Add Elijah Molden into the pile too.  And Honey Badger was like the Bill Gates version of this kind of player, and he's had a feast or famine NFL career where his scheme/situation has been the determinant for whether he is good or downright bad.  He's either an All Pro or a journeyman cap cut with like 5 AV, and many more bad seasons than great ones.

Guys like this can't hold up in man coverage, and a lot of teams don't want to feature/build their schemes around limited players like them.

Sainristil has special intangibles and some of the best ball skills you could want.  He is probably closer to Honey Badger than he is to Phillips.  But that would still put him in the third round.

11 hours ago, mhd24 said:

 

Is Peyton Wilson off your draft board?  He's a top tier player on film, but that injury history is truly scary.  Where would you say it's ok to take him?  

I would probably put him in the top 30 if he didn't have the knee injury history.  The shoulder stuff isn't as worrisome to me because of the success of Allen here.  I would take Wilson in the 50s, as I think there is a shelf in quality there where he's so much better than typical 50s ranked guys like Braden Fiske, that I can live with the risk.  I suspect he'll go before that though.  If he goes much later than that, then we can safely assume the knee issues are worse than we thought.

You can really get a feel for the magic of JJ McCarthy when you watch the cut ups of just his runs and throws.  The magic is that the Michigan score keeps going up and the other team's score doesn't change at all, all while JJ makes zero plays.

JFC the lengths people will go to in order to pretend like Drake Maye isn't the obvious choice.  At least with Daniels, he had a dominant year where he carried an offense and made a ****load of plays.  He is obviously better than McCarthy.  I don't want to even say McCarthy in the top five is Mac Jones at 3 all over again, because Mac Jones carried his offense too for the one year he played.  McCarthy ran a training wheels offense where he did absolutely zero individual playmaking outside of a few runs per game, and his elite defense and run game won all of his games for him.  There is nothing in his film that suggests first rounder, much less top five pick.

5 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

I really like the idea of drafting a MLB type that can learn from Wagner for a year. I think we can find one in round 3. A top 40 pick on any LB from this class seems like bad value.

I'm not sure how valuable this kind of mentorship really is.  Guys can either play or can't, and being around greatness won't eventually turn a mediocre player into a good one.

4 hours ago, Conn said:

 

I like the player, but he's different than Branch and Pitre.  They weren't undersized.  Tiny zone corners are bad value in the first round.  There is a much bigger chance he's Clark Phillips than he's Branch/Pitre.  We're looking at a player whose best case scenario is someone like Kenny Moore--which is good, but that is the best case scenario, and it's not that valuable.

11 hours ago, mhd24 said:

I wonder if Harbaugh takes him with their early 3rd?  Heck, if he's as highly rated as you have him, LAC should take him with their early 2nd.  Jim knows him more than anyone would.

I think he's going to go in the second round, and then hindsight will set in pretty quickly with him that he should have been a first rounder, like with Jonathan Taylor.  But if he makes it to round three, I want us to draft him.  Don't care that we've got Ekeler and BRob, he's better than both of them today, and probably far better over a window of the next four years.

I honestly don't think I've ever seen someone with better vision, instincts, and elusiveness at the college level.  I'm way too young for OK St Barry, but that's what he feels like. I do remember MJD at UCLA, and Corum was way better.  Definitely never seen anyone reverse field and string together moves as efficiently as him.  And his big play finishing is as special as it ever gets.  His toolkit is massive and I think he can star in either gap or zone heavy schemes.

It's kind of incredible that he's going under the radar.  He's one of the faces of the sport, and was a historic player on a National Champion with tons of fans in the football media.

11 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

SEC also had a down year, especially on defense.

 

Also, didn't Daniels get injured in the Alabama game? So the one game that comes closest to NFL defenders and...he got hurt. Kinda proves the point.

Yep.  And that Alabama defense was terrible in that LSU game.  They got beaten at the LoS and couldn't get any pressure, and the coverages got lost on very basic presnap motions.  They tried playing man all day and left Jayden free to pick up huge yardage on the ground.  One play where Terrion Arnold had his back to the LoS the entire snap, 20 yards down field, totally unaware that Jayden is running by him stands out.  That game is why I'm lower on Arnold than the room.  Dallas Turner hit Jayden hard twice in that game.  The first was a preview of what will happen to him in the NFL when he scrambles up the middle of a defense and tries to string those runs out long enough for pursuit to reach him.  The second one that came in the pocket took him out of the game, and that is a preview of life in the NFL when he doesn't have tackles getting easy wins all day, and he has to stand tall in the pocket to deliver the throw.

Blake Corum is the best zone runner I've ever seen at the college level.  His vision and creativity are as elite as elite gets, and I don't care how old he is.  He's going to be in my top 25, and I think he's going to be one of the best players in the NFL early in his career.  He's also the best RB that Michigan has ever had, and was far and away the best player on Michigan's stacked team.  JJ McCarthy got to play in a backfield with prime Barry Sanders.

Here's my RB rankings:

1 - Blake Corum
2 - Jonathan Brooks
3 - Audric Estime
4 - Trey Benson
5 - Kendall Milton
6 - Cody Schrader
7 - Tyrone Tracy
8 - Jaylen Wright
9 - Bucky Irving
10 - Marhsawn Lloyd
11 - Ray Davis

Here's Jeff Legworld's top 100 from last year: https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2023/story/_/id/36184202/2023-nfl-draft-jeff-legwold-ranking-top-100-prospects

Stroud was ranked 7th and Young was 8th, and Stroud has already completely torpedoed the case that any of the top six guys are close to him.  He's systematically underrating QB prospects, and that speaks to a flaw in the system of big boarding draft prospects that is common.  QBs can be ranked against each other, but they can't accurately be valued against the field of players from all positions because their draft value for teams hinges entirely upon these two questions:

1 - Do I need a QB? 

If no, then QBs might as well not even be in my top 100.  At most, you'd be fishing for third stringers on Day 3. 

But if the answer is yes, then:

2 - Am I comfortable with making this QB prospect my long term plan at the position? 

If the answer is a confident yes, then no draft pick is too early for them.  They should be at the top of your draft board in every scenario. 

If the answer is "eh, maybe," then you have to find the price point where the potential value overtakes the risk for you.  This seems to be the late first or second round for most QB prospects who have a more checkered profile in most years.  Teams have proven unwilling to take more speculative QB prospects over elite prospects at other positions, but are willing to do so after that cream of elite position players is largely gone.

I think draftniks might as well exclude QB from their big boards and create a second QB only board where they rank and tier the prospects like this:

Tier 1: QBs you're confident in drafting to be a long term starter.

Tier 2: QBs that you can see having long term starting potential but have enough flags to make you hesitate.

Tier 3: QBs that are a lottery ticket.

Tier 4: QBs that are end of roster bodies.

For me, the only Tier 1 QBs this year are Williams and Maye.  The Tier 2 QBs are Daniels, McCarthy, and Penix.  The Tier 3 QBs are Nix, Rattler, Pratt, and Milton.

The big disconnect generating the Maye vs Daniels debate is whether or not Maye and Daniels are truly Tier 1 prospects.  Some think both are.  Some think Maye is not.  Some think Daniels is not. 

I think a better system of Big Boarding would be to put breaks in your board where you think it's appropriate to draft QBs from each tier.  Tier 1 should be the top of your board, without exception.  Tier 2 should be where you think the elite position player player cutoff begins.  You eliminate the problem of systematically undervaluing QBs this way, and then the remaining issues are just about accurately judging who should be a Tier 1 or Tier 2 QB, and accurately determining where that elite position prospect cutoff begins.

49 minutes ago, Dah-Dee said:

 

Regardless of the fact Legwold has been attending combines for almost 40 years and doing these rankings for almost 30, and is on the HOF selection panel and the smaller seniors selection committee, and therefore has an educated opinion I'd hope we all accord at least some respect/value, I wasn't interested in the absolute rankings but rather the QB rankings relative to each other and his related comments, which is why I listed only QBs and not Harrison/Nabers/whoever.

 

But please do carry on. 😋

Why ignore the overall rankings?  They tell us how he views the game and values players.  And at the very least, if your system of valuing players puts the best and most valuable players in the class at 5, 6, and 23, then your system is bad.

2 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

I'm fine with KK having an input. He's the OC and was hired for his expertise with QBs. But we shouldn't make the decision based on who fits what KK wants to do. Make him fit the offense around the QB he has.

 

Like Kevin Costner's character says in Draft Day: "Your job is the coach the team I give you."

Yep.

Also OCs have ridiculously high turnover.  Almost none tenure beyond two years.  It's absurd to draft a QB for a two year window.

43 minutes ago, Dah-Dee said:

2024 NFL draft: Jeff Legwold ranks the top 100 prospects

People often underrate QBs on these things, as a cheap out in case the QB fails or falls.  But it's a meaningless hedge, no one in the world actually believes Marvin Harrison is better and more valuable than the top QBs, or that he should be picked in front of them.  And the truth is that superstar QBs are the best and most valuable football players in every level of the sport, regardless of position.  Harrison isn't even close to as good a player as Williams or Maye are.

22 minutes ago, Koolblue13 said:

I'd have Frazier at 3 and Limmer at 4. Not sure why you're so down on Frazier.

 

Zinter might be the best IOL in the group and might be there in the 4rth.

I think Frazier is just a guy and I don't really see what is special about him.  I like his nastiness, but that's about it.  Good balance and power but his body and his reading and movement skills feel very mediocre to me.  He's not bad, I'm going to have him towards the end of the top 100, and I've got him as a fourth round value.

Yeah I think Zinter will be there in the fourth because of his injury, but if he were fully healthy, I think I would have him as a late second round talent.  Probable somewhere between 55-75.  He's a king-sized guard and should be able to single block NFL IDLs.  He's got super sticky hands and is a very controlled, fundamentally excellent player.  I thought his film had the most clean reps of the IOLs this year.  I'm assuming his leg will heal and he'll be ready to go as a rookie, and if that's the case, then I think he will be an immediate starter.

This is my IOL ranking:

1 - Jackson Powers Johnson
2 - Cooper Beebe
3 - Christian Haynes
4 - Sedrick Van Pran
5 - Mason McCormick
6 - Zak Zinter
7 - Beaux Limmer
8 - Christian Mahogany
9 - Kingsley Eguakun
10 - Zach Frazier

This is not a deep IOL class.  It's going to be bolstered by OTs that end up playing inside, but even still, I struggled to find 10 players with top 100 viability.

24 minutes ago, DiscoBob said:

I'm happy that Jay isn't the coach anymore, but most of the "Jay is an idiot" takes seem to be based on his coaching record here.

Well yeah.  We know Jay is a drunken clown who is emblematic of the mom and pop hiring their idiot nephews culture of nepotism that riddles the NFL.  Why would we take anything he does seriously?

5 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Yep I forsee a draft day fall for Daniels if we pass on him. Its set up perfectly. ESPN feeds him down everyone's throat for three months, then milks the crap out of his fall on primetime.

I don't think he falls far if we pass him at 2.  Someone will trade up for him.  You just have to find the spot where the trade ammunition matches the willingness to jump down.  The Giants and Cardinals both feel like great candidates to take Godfather trade offers because they might be looking at what Chicago did and think they took will be QB shopping in 2025 once they have the financial flexibility to cut their albatross contracts. The dead cap for cutting Murray or Jones drops by like 50 million next off-season.

28 minutes ago, mistertim said:

Jay is an idiot, I don't care what nice things he might say about Maye. I basically ignore him when he talks about QBs, regardless of who it is. Colt is better, but still hit or miss. I do like listening to him more than Jay because he's better at breaking down tape and explaining what's going on. Jay just sounds like a goober.

Colt isn't bad.  Jay is.  They both struggle to synthesize the information they glean into a coherent, well-reasoned take.  And that fundamental inability to see the wood for the trees is super common among the former QBs and experts who are suddenly moonlighting as draft media analysts.  Good scouts take years of focusing on this one job to hone their perspective, and they also possess intuition for identifying player personality and growth potential that is different than what players and coaches develop when they watch film for the purpose of game planning.