Going Commando

I'll chime in too and say Suamataia for me. He's the highest one on my board of the three.

That was more of a list where i noticed I was a lot higher on X player than the mock draft consensus, more so than guys I would definitely bang the table for. Most of them are the ones I either drafted in the Mock Draft, or would have if they'd been there. That's the only dibs I call on players. If I were to simplify my list to just a few of my absolute favorite players in the class, the ones I literally hope the Commanders draft, no question that this would be it for me: - Drake Maye - Blake Corum - Jared Verse (I'd trade both seconds if he fell into range) - Cooper Beebe - Jamari Thrash - Kingsley Suamataia - Sione Vaki Taking Tykee Smith over Vaki in the mock draft is one of my early regrets. I didn't realize how good he was until after the picks were in. Georgia players are much higher on my radar because I live in Georgia and football season is nothing but UGA here.

My bang the table list: QB - Drake Maye RB - Blake Corum, Audric Estime, Kendall Milton, Tyrone Tracy WR - Jamari Thrash, Jacob Cowing TE - Brock Bowers OT - Taliese Fuaga, Kingsley Suamataia, Caedan Wallace, Ethan Driskell IOL - Cooper Beebe, Sedrick Van Pran, Zak Zinter, Mason McCormick Edge - Jared Verse, Bralen Trice, Laiatu Latu IDL - T'Vondre Sweat, Brandon Dorlus LB - none CB - Jarrian Jones, Chau Smith-Wade S - Sione Vaki, Tykee Smith These are players that I am meaningfully higher on than the consensus. The variance gets finer and more meaningful earlier in the draft. For instance everyone likes Maye, Bowers, Verse, Fuaga, and Latu in the first round, but very few are putting them as high as they deserve IMO. I've got Maye #2 in the class, Bowers #3, Verse #6, Fuaga #8, and Latu #10.

I placed him high because he showed out at the SB. It's a pure upside projection because his film is garbage, even as a sixth year senior. The edge class gets really speculative after that Elliss/Trice/Booker tier in the third round, and even Booker is a pretty speculative prospect. The SB weighed pretty heavily for me this year. It's the reason I placed Kneeland so high on my board, because I thought his film sucked too, which was surprising and disappointing because his PFF score was so good. It's also the reason I left Adisa Isaac off. His film was meh, but he spent SB week getting destroyed on every rep. Couldn't match up with anybody, so that plus his Achilles injury puts him in UDFA territory for me.

I left the Murphy brothers off my list because I didn't watch them. I only watched Latu and they didn't go the to SB, so I never developed a take on them. There were a couple of guys who would probably have made the list if I'd had time to watch them. Gabe Hall, Ainias Smith, Edefuan Ulofoshio, etc. I leave off players who I don't form takes on, because I'd rather not shoot in the dark. I usually only focus on top 100 players because I find it difficult to go deeper than that, but this year I went 20 deep on the positions I spent the most time on.

Let someone reach for him. I've been going back through the the tackles, rewatched the SB practices, and he just isn't as good as Fuaga, Morgan, and Suamataia. Fuaga absolutely shut it down, he's a top ten pick and the OT1. Even Guyton had better reps, although he still had some turd reps that were in character. That guy either dominates his rep or gets utterly destroyed in the first two steps. Paul looked like a JAG and spent a bunch of the week holding. He's traitsy and his in game film is better than his practice week, but he's absolutely not a first round caliber player. He's in that late second, early third round mix with Blake Fisher and Roger Rosengarten and Caedan Wallace. I think he'll be there at 40 but I don't think he'll be anywhere close to BPA. Not even sure he would be at 67.

I've got him sixth overall on my board. I think he and Turner are the two elite defensive players of the class. I'm almost there on Quinyon and Latu, but not quite.

Here are my defensive position rankings. I keep moving people around, so I'm just going to post them and be done with it: Edge: 1 - Jared Verse 2 - Dallas Turner 3 - Laiatu Latu 4 - Darius Robinson 5 - Chop Robinson 6 - Bralen Trice 7 - Austin Booker 8 - Jonah Elliss 9 - Chris Braswell 10 - Marshawn Kneeland 11 - Myles Cole 12 - Nelson Caesar 13 - Javon Solomon 14 - Jalen Green 15 - Mohamed Kamara 16 - Eric Watts 17 - Brennan Jackson 18 - Jalyx Hunt 19 - Xavier Thomas 20 - Braiden McGreggor IDL: 1 - Byron Murphy 2 - Johnny Newton 3 - T'Vondre Sweat 4 - Kris Jenkins 5 - Braden Fiske 6 - Michael Hall 7 - Brandon Dorlus 8 - DeWayne Carter 9 - McKinley Jackson 10 - Marcus Harris 11 - Ruke Orhorhoro 12 - Jordan Jefferson 13 - Justin Eboigbe LB: 1 - Payton Wilson 2 - Edgerrin Cooper 3 - Junior Colson 4 - Jeremiah Trotter Jr 5 - Cedric Gray 6 - Marist Liufu 7 - Nathaniel Watson 8 - Tommy Eichenberg 9 - Trevin Wallace 10 - Kalen Deloach CB: 1 - Quinyon Mitchell 2 - Nate Wiggins 3 - Cooper Dejean 4 - Terrion Arnold 5 - Kool-Aid McKinstry 6 - Kamari Lassiter 7 - TJ Tampa 8 - Mike Sainristil 9 - Max Melton 10 - Renardo Green 11 - Jarrian Jones 12 - Ennis Rakestraw 13 - Khyree Jackson 14 - Elijah Jones 15 - Caelen Carson 16 - Cam Hart 17 - Kris Abrams-Draine 18 - Andrew Phillips 19 - Chau Smith-Wade 20 - Nehemiah Pritchett S: 1 - Tyler Nubin 2 - Cole Bishop 3 - Dadrion Taylor-Demerson 4 - Tykee Smith 5 - Kam Kinchens 6 - Sione Vaki 7 - Javon Bullard 8 - Kitan Oladapo 9 - Jaylinn Simpson 10 - Jaden Hicks 11 - Calen Bullock

Here's the last of my offensive position rankings. QB and TE. QB: 1 - Caleb Wilson 2 - Drake Maye 3 - Jayden Daniels 4 - Michael Penix 5 - JJ McCarthy 6 - Bo Nix 7 - Spencer Rattler 8 - Michael Pratt 9 - Joe Milton TE: 1 - Brock Bowers 2 - Ben Sinnott 3 - Ja'Tavion Sanders 4 - Cade Stover 5 - Jared Wiley 6 - Jaheim Bell 7 - Erick All 8 - Tip Reiman 9 - Dallin Holker

I'd trust my medical team to help make the call on his recovery, but it's definitely possible that he makes it back perfectly fine from his injury. He's said there is a chance he'll be ready for rookie minicamps. I'd expect him to be available by TC.

You're going to outlive us all my friend. You'll be arguing about whether or not the fourth generation cyborg Manning is elite.

Yeah I think he'll be there at 67. His injury kept him from building up his stock during draft season. I think Beebe might still be there at 67 too, but my best guess is he goes in the 50s. If we miss out on the Kingsley/Morgan/Barton shelf of OTs at 36, there will still be lots of BPA opportunities at IOL on day 2. I like a draft where we trade down from 36 or 40 to get into the 50s, draft Beebe, then use a third on Zinter. IMO that puts our best OL configuration at Wylie, Beebe, Biadasz, Zinter, Cosmi going from left to right. And I think that line could be dominant. Really good group to run the ball with and help our young QB out, much like Dallas did in the early days with Dak. Corum is going to get picked in the third round IMO. I think all of the RBs this year are getting discounted by at least a round compared to where they would normally go. Corum's age and tiny size put his absolute draft ceiling in the second round, and he's much more likely to go in the third. A Beebe/Corum/Zinter string of picks would make me happy, and still leave a pick to get someone like Bralen Trice in the third following the trade down for Beebe.

Rosengarten at IOL6 ahead of McCormick. Barton would be IOL2 behind Beebe for me. Morgan would be IOL3 behind JPJ. I think Morgan stays at OT though. I also would be surprised if a team kicks Rosengarten inside given his speed. Usually you want your fast guys who may not be as powerful on the outside. Ultimately, these guys will have to play where the starting jobs for their next teams are, so you can't really tell where they will end up. I would just expect there to be more OT job openings.

I'm revising my IOL rankings. Went back and re-watched some cut ups and ended up moving a couple of players around. Moved Frazier and Zinter and Beebe and Van Pran up. I liked Frazier's film a lot more this time, and I'm seeing more of the optimistic takes about him better now. Moved Zinter way up too. One of the byproducts of watching Corum so much is that Zinter really shines. He's a dominant run blocker and he's got a fantastic anchor. I think he, Beebe, Van Pran, and JPJ constitute the four elite IOLs of the class, and all have second round value. IOL: 1 - Cooper Beebe 2 - Jackson Powers Johnson 3 - Sedrick Van Pran 4 - Zak Zinter 5 - Christian Haynes 6 - Mason McCormick 7 - Beaux Limmer 8 - Zach Frazier 9 - Christian Mahogany 10 - Kingsley Eguakun

Nobody with options is excited to play here. That's the hard truth about this franchise. A current player doesn't care if we might finally be a nice place to play, with top notch facilities and a fully resuscitated brand in 5-10 years. Teammates come and go every year, and we don't have any name brand studs on the entire roster anyway. It's going to take a lot of time and improvement before this place becomes somewhere players want to play.

Yeah. There's no advantage for us in leaking our picks either. Last year the Texans were cagey about picking Stroud up until they were on the clock because they didn't want Carolina to know they liked Stroud over Young. If we come right out and advertise we love Daniels or Maye, then maybe Chicago starts taking a second look at them. And that's not something we want. There is only downside in revealing your picks before you are on the lock.

What?? Don't you need one of those to bend your knee?

I think Corum is one of the exceptional players that catches both the analytics and traditional eye test scouting people napping. His age is a long term issue, but it also means that he's probably going to be good immediately. And not just by rookie standards, but potential top five back standards if he ends up on a team like San Diego or Dallas where there is a major workload waiting for him. I remember seeing a stat earlier in this thread about how bad his yards after contact/forced missed tackles ratings were compared to other backs in the class, and thinking to myself "something doesn't feel right about that." What was going on finally clicked for me when I watched his magnificent 15 minute long career highlight video: His running is so phenomenally good that defenders aren't even getting into position to attempt a real tackle on him. Whether they are unblocked in the hole or at the edge. He's one of the most unique outside zone runners I've ever seen at the college level, and certainly one of the best at following downfield blocks. I have never seen someone so comfortable and efficient at cutting back or even reversing field on outside zone runs before. That's just not done in D1 football and up, and it's so next level to me. And when it comes to backfield creation, he presses the hole so well, that plays where normal good runners have to do something creative to make the first guy miss don't even typically come up for him. And yet he never runs up the back of his blocks. It's ridiculously good pace and timing--God given instincts and quickness. He is so good, that I'm struggling to explain to myself why I'm resisting putting him in my top 20. Guys who make high level football look easy, like they're playing Pop Warner at the Power 5 level are special. Sometimes you just need to turn your brain off and enjoy a special player, and that's what I think needs to be done with Corum. He had a team visit with New England. I think there is a good chance he goes at 34. Yes, there is a big chance that New England comes away with Drake Maye and Kingsley Suamataia.

Yeah. 40 is a reach by at least a full round for Rosengarten. That would give me Aaron Banks vibes.

If we pick Jayden Daniels and the Giants end up with Drake Maye, I'm going to go ahead and ban myself.

Except for the ones between the numbers.

My fandom has been hanging by a thread for years. This is the best shot we've had at genuinely escaping NFL poverty in a generation. If we blow it, I'm not going to tolerate getting kicked in the nuts by this team any more. Especially if we blow it in a way that I felt was totally predictable and avoidable. I'm not going to give up on the NFL, but I'll stop watching the Commanders.

I hear you. But I don't need my leg pissed on about Daniels. He can work out, I understand his strengths, and I wouldn't second guess picking him if we were at #3 and Maye was gone. But nothing anyone says is going to make it any better if we pick him and he busts and Maye hits. Peters just needs to be right if he picks Daniels.

Yeah. Kingsbury is the quintessential mercenary too, with a talent for latching on to bigger talents and failing upward. I would make zero long term plans for anything concerning him. I also wouldn't spend the second overall pick in the draft with a one year vision. Recapturing 2012 is not the best this franchise can do, I'm not listening to assholes like RGIII telling me I should be happy with that. I want us to tell the league to **** off with this "take Jayden Daniels and be happy and let the good teams get the franchise QB" crap.

No. I think they'll have made the best call they could have pre-draft. Picking Maye is following best practices for drafting a franchise QB, and it's what I would do if I were in charge. Picking Jayden over him is a super speculative prayer based on bad process, and it's a call I would never make. I can't be better at picking players from my couch than the team I root for, and still maintain faith in the organization.