philibusters

Howell was a good runner, he is just not fast. I think he ran a 4.9. But he has contact balance, wiggle in open space, and vision when he is running. He'd be a fantastic runner if he ran a 4.5 rather than a 4.9.

The Patriots didn't have to go through the hiring process (including the Rooney rule) becasue Mayo supposedly had a provision in his current contract to be coach or something like that. I don't know the details, but they didn't have to go the required hiring process because of that.

I definitely agree. He is not super explosive like a Saquan Barkley either. He is you standard good back with excellent vision, decent power, and decent shiftiness. I think there is a chance he is available in the third.

I am willing to concede Daniels had the better 2023 season On the other hand, like you, I do not concede that Daniels is a better prospect. Daniels had the highest PFF grade amongst D1 QB's in college football. His team went 10-3. It was an amazing season. He had a better season than both Drake Maye and Caleb Williams who had lower PFF grades and whose teams disappointed. His PFF grade was 4.1 points higher than Mayes (94.7 to 90.6) and 4.4 points higher than Caleb Williams (90.3). But we are not rating 2023 seasons. We are drafting a guy for the future. Just looking at larger sample sizes Maye had a PFF grade 4 points higher than Daniels last year and Williams was 5 points higher (last year Daniels had a 87 grade, Maye 91, and Williams 92). So just enlarging the sample size changes the view. Further when you break down traits--I think the pecking order becomes clear 1) Caleb Williams 2) Drake Maye and 3) Jayden Daniels. Daniels is decent thrower but he does not have the arm talent of either Caleb Williams or Drake Maye. Daniels does have the best wheels but all three are good runners. Caleb Williams arm talent is slightly more versatile than Maye's (more ability to be accurate off platform) and Williams has a pocket presence that neither Maye or Daniels can match. On that front, Maye has significantly better pocket presence than Daniels. Daniels is look at read 1, look at read 2, then run (whether there is pressure or not). He has a timer but not an impressive awareness of the pocket. Williams has incredible pocket presence and Maye somewhere in between. To me, one you look at the tools, the pecking order is clear: Williams, then Maye, then Daniels. But Daniels legitimately had the best 2023 season. But its college, in college lots of QB's thrive who cannot make it in the NFL because you can get away with not having some tools you need in the NFL. Daniels is a good prospect. Worth a top 5 pick. If we had lost the tiebreaker to New England I am fine drafting him. And he could end up better than Maye. I am making up odds, but I'd say 44% chance Maye is significantly better than Daniels, 22% chance Daniels is significantly better than Maye, and 33% chance neither is significantly better than the other or something like that. I like Daniels a lot too. I don't get the lack of love for Drake Maye.

Could that work. Absolutely. That said, if Maye hits, he worth more than the three guys you picked with a three extra first round pick most likely. Fields is fine. He is your top 20ish QB. Super athletic, when throwing from a clean pocket can be really accurate, but I don't think its likely that his processing ever improves to the point where he is a top 10 QB. He would be the best QB we have since at minimum Alex Smith in his first year or possibly Kirk Cousins. That is nothing to scoff at, especially as you can use this year's 8 pick, plus the two future first to bolster the team. But again, if Maye hits, you way better off taking him because a franchise QB, especially when you get to enjoy their rookie contract is invaluable.

I would put the odds that we draft Drake Maye at maybe 80%. Small shot we can trade up, small shot we take Jayden Daniels instead, and small shot we trade down, but the overwhelming likelihood is we draft Maye.

I am assuming you are talking about Chris Spielman. It seems weird not to just name him because he is so famous in his own right. Growing up in the 1990's he was one of the top 5 or 6 LB'ers of that decade playing with the Lions with 5 pro bowls and 3 All Pro's selections (One 1st team and two 2nd teams). And then after the retired he was ubiquitous calling games for Fox for a decade or so.

I doubt the Bears are going to trade with us unless we offer a legitimate haul. Caleb Williams is a great QB prospect and the Bears are not stupid. If you scout by traits, Drake Maye is a very good prospect. Worthy of being the number 1 pick in probably 2 out of 3 drafts. This draft just happens to be in the 33% of drafts where he wouldn't go number 1. I think people will gradually come around to Maye. For a while it looked like we'd have a shot at Daniels but not Maye and I think a lot of us convinced ourselves they were equal prospects or that Daniels was actually the better prospect. Now that we have the second pick over the next two months people will come around to Maye. His traits are good. Look if we just go by the odds, the odds that Maye will become an elite QB or pretty low, maybe 10%, and the odds that he even becomes a consistent mid level franchise guy in the 12-14 range is probably 50-50. Those odds don't mean Maye isn't a great prospect, its just the nature of drafting QB's. I think the odds are worse for all the other QB's minus Caleb Williams (Caleb Williams is the bluechipper of the class) If you miss on a WR, they may never become a number 1 WR, but they can be a 2 or 3 and still be a decent starter like a Samuel or Dotson. It doesn't work like that at QB

I believe its a separate job.

After a rough rookie year where Trevor Lawrence had a PFF grade of 59 (1 point lower than Howell who finished at 60.3 this season), Lawrence has become a franchise QB. The past two seasons he has had a 77 and 79 PFF grade. That is not elite, not even top 12. But its much better QB than we have gotten lately. When was the last time we had QB at that level? In the three season of 2015, 2016, and 2017, Kirk Cousins had PFF grades of 74, 81, and 71. So that is effectively the level Lawrence has played the past two years. Decent QB, but still needs to take it the next level. So no you don't want a poor man's version of that. But Lawrence was considered the best since probably Andrew Luck. Some may have had Joe Burrow from the prior years class ahead of Lawrence, but the consensus take was Lawrence was a slightly better prospect than Burrow. So if he is a poor man's version of Trevor Lawrence as a prospect --that is fine. Since Andrew Luck in 2012, I think Lawrence, Burrow, and now Caleb Williams made up the tier 1. I suspect Drake Maye would be at the top of tier 2.

Emmanuel Forbes final season PFF grade was 50.9. That is bad, but not historically bad by any means and there are almost certainly corners around the NFL with significant snaps lower than that around the league. In fact, we had a corner last year with a lower grade (barely) in William Jackson III who played in 5 games before being benched who who had a 49.6 grade. For what its worth, Benjamin St. Juste finished at 59.9 (he finished at 53 his rookie year), Kendall Fuller finished at 83.1, and Danny Johnson finished at 49.1. What interesting is the lack of depth, Danny Johnson was the player who replaced Forbes for a while, and he finished 1.8 points lower. Generally speaking 80 is a good starter, 70 probably is a mid level starter, 60 is on the borderline between quality depth and starter and 50 is depth, not necessarily quality depth. And while 50.9 is a bad grade, I think some people think Forbes is even lower because his bad games where he had like a 28 grade and a 32 grade, his grade was posted, but in his better games in say the mid 70's a lot of time his grade wasn't posted .

Addison actually had his most impressive season with Kenny Pickett at Pitt. before he transferred to USC. I think Addison did make Pickett look a little better than he was.

Agreed

Roughly three options 1. Take QB: By far the most likely 2. Take non-QB: Very unlikely 3. Trade down: Unlikely If I am a GM, I am probably taking Drake Maye. If not I am trading down. There is no shot I am taking a non-QB player at #2 given what I could get in a trade down. How confident am I that taking a QB will be better than trading down. Not confident. However, the payoff on the QB is so much bigger potentially. This is the analogy to me: 1. Take QB: In real people terms, its equal to maybe having a 40% chance at winning a million dollars 2. Trading down: In real people terms, its equal to say having an 80% chance of winning a quarter of a million dollars 3. Taking best non-QB player: Having an 85% chance of winning $125,000 Look given to that there is a 60% chance you don't win anything in that analogy, there is close to a 48% chance you come out better trading down (80% of 60%=48%) and a 12% chance you come out the same meaning if you compared trading down to taking a QB: You only do better 40% of the time taking the QB, 48% of the time trading down, and 12% of the time you lose no matter what. However if you win on taking the QB, you win a million dollars whereas if you win trading down you win only 1/4th of that. So if you win you win big taking the QB. Translating that to the NFL, if you win big on QB, you set yourself up to be good for 10 to 15 years. That is kind of how I see the issue. If you hate getting nothing and losing out, trading down or just taking the best player is the best choice. But in terms of maximizing value, you got to go for the QB. Obviously this analogy has flaws, but its gives a basic picture of how I am seeing things.

From listening to podcasts, analytics people are most confident that analytics tells you what to do 1) In game situations 2) And general roster building strategy, like how much to value certain positions, or certain draft picks. I hear people talk about analytics less when it comes to player evaluation. To the extent I hear about analytics is player evaluation it is that they value certain stats more than others. For example some stats are more stable than others. For example with QB two of the more stable stats are sacks allowed and accuracy from a clean pocket. Other stats like effectiveness under pressure have greater variability and to the extent you are going to use them you need to use as big of a smaple size as possible, not just one season. For example, Zach Wilson was really efficient with how he played under pressure his last year in college and he has been terrible at in the NFL. But my main point, it that at least from what I have gathered a little bit, analytics is less focused on player evaluation and more focused on team building strategies and in game strategies.

Nix has grown on me. He doesn't have the traits that Williams, Maye, or Daniels has, but he is really comfortable within structure. I think Nix would really benefit from working with a good OC who creates a scheme advantage. If you the OC creates a scheme advantage I feel like Nix won't waste it and he'll play reasonably well. By contrast, if Nix ends up with a lower level OC, he doesn't really do enough outside of structure to make you confident that he'll succeed.

And Chris Samuels for the 9 seasons between 2000 and 2008, where Samuels made 6 pro-bowls during those 9 years (no all pro teams first or second so he was consistently very good, but very absolutely dominant like Trent Williams).

There is a lot of moving parts, but my instinct would be to bring Leno back unless a really good opportunity presents itself at that position.

For what its worth PFF doesn't even hate Sam Howell. He has a 62 season grade. That is higher than Heinicke in 2021 and both Wentz and Heinicke last year. A 62 is not a good grade, but its not terrible. And their grade does factor in the sacks he is taking. Granted his grade has dropped quite a bit the last six games. After 10 games he had a 69 overall season grade. That is dropped to 62 meaning over the last 6 games his grade would average out to maybe the low 50's. PFF had been fair enough to Howell in my opinion. For example in the Jets game he got benched in they graded him in the high 50's (not good but not terrible) and gave him zero turnover worthy plays despite throwing two interceptions because one interception came off a deflection from Logan Thomas and the other interception came on an inbreaking route where Curtis Samuels slipped. One thing I have learned from the PFF podcast before this season that made view Howell a little differently is that sacks are heavily QB driven. Every sack could be driven be 3 or 4 units, the QB, O-Line, the back and TE's in protection, or the receivers not getting open. But its not a 25%-25%-25%-25% split and the unit that most drives that stat is QB. So it was ingrained in my head that QB heavily contribute to QB sacks coming into this season, so I never really bought the line that Howell was not playing a big part in our big sacks allowed total. All that said, when Howell was taking a lot of sacks, he was playing reasonably well. At about the same time the sack numbers dropped, he stopped playing as well.

I think about 1 generation talent is to be expected per draft. A generation for the NFL is about 10 years in that a good successful NFL career is about 10 years long. 90% of players have turned over in a 10 year period, yeah they are a few exceptions who stay in the league for significantly longer than 10 years but that is not the norm. So 10 years is a generation in the NFL. Then you add in there are QB's, RB's, WR's, TE's, O-Lineman, DT's, DE's, LB's, CB's, and S's (roughly 10 position groups) so yes you would expect about one generational talent per year. Is Marvin Harrison Jr. a generational talent? Maybe its been 3 years since there is been a similar prospect in Jamarr Chase, but before that you have to go back I think 10 years to 2011 (13 from this year) for Julio Jones to find a WR rated as highly as Marvn Harrison Jr.

That seems doable as according to this chart, our 2 second round picks are equal to roughly the 15th or 16th pick. https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart.asp

That true. We would lose about a million of cap space for next year, but gain a second round pick. In the future years we would have additional cap space. If you trade Payne, you definitely are not maximizing next season, but it could be part of a rebuild where you accrue assets.

Payne's deal makes him hard to trade and thus he is not really on the block. I believe we would be looking at a 22.4 million deadcap hit. His cap hit next year is 21.6 million so we would actually lose cap space by trading him for a second (though that could be a good long term move if say you got a high second for him) Its doable, but people excited about that 100 million of cap space would be disappointed to lose 22.4 million of it. I think we have about 34 guys under contract before trades taht will very likely be on the roster next year which means we have to sign another 20 guys. 100 million divided by 20 million is 5 million per guy, but obviously some guys will be way more expensive than that and others will be much cheaper and with the draft picks it will all be already scheduled.

My bad on the age thing. I was thinking it was 3 years and 3 months because this is Penix's 6th year and Maye's 3rd year, but Maye was 9 months older as a true freshman so the difference is only 2 years and 3 months.

I haven't studied the QB's, but the consensus is Maye is a good deal ahead of Penix. Penix is a sixth year player and is 3 years and 3.5 months older than Maye. 3 years ago when Penix was Maye's age he was having a very good season with Indiana, but the next year he regressed a ton going from a 136 QB college rating to a 101 rating. The other thing about Penix is I do think Washington has good x's and o's playcalling. I don't think that is necessarily true at UNC.