This HAS to be said ... Draft Day One (Now Two) M.E.T.

[SkinsLover]

Don't forget about the Tampa Bay game either. Threw it in the corner towards a short Sanatan Moss. If we would've had bigger targets, we might have scored and win that game by a point. We were down 13-19 with 25 secs left on the 16.

and what game am I remembering ( dont think it was this one, cause we still had ample time left I believe....) when Santana heading towards the endzone and a beautiful pass by Jason...but he had to throw high cause of the defense, and it was jjjjjuuuuuuust out of SM's reach...end of that play he turns around and makes a motion smiling to Jason...."just missed it by an inch" sort of thing.....

[SkinsNoles21]

Shameless bump ... but I'm shameless bumping because the Skins did what I felt they could do with the man Joe Bugel.

Draft an o-lineman and then sign four undrafted free agent lineman.

Heres what Im seeing with all these guys ... big physical have the ability and talent to play in the NFL ... BUT ARE LACKING TECHNIQUE.

Who will teach then technique?

Joe Bugel.

Stephon Heyer ....

So the third round pick is a solid guy and Im banking on one of this four to make the team coming opening day ...

That would give us three young o-lineman to start the year...

[ZoEd]

Didn't want to start a new thread so this one seems a good home for my thoughts.

So with all the whining and crying about a pass rush DE not being taken in the draft I decided to do a little research and was suprised to find that only 8 DE's had more sacks than our own Carter. That means 24 teams in the NFL also needs pass rush specialists. With all the top DE's gone in the first round what the hell else were we supposed to do? Draft a DE just to appease the masses. Should we have taken a defensive player just because most of you had us needing one? Why draft a player with mediocre talent when better talent is available?

By the numbers; 7 of the 31 first round picks were DL's.

15 of the first 31 were defensive players.

Now keep in mind that Phillip Merling was picked right before us making him the 16th defensive player taken before our first pick. So with pick number one we take the highest rated WR in the draft addressing a specific need; one that most have been whining about us needing for quite some time.

6 more defensive players were drafted before our next pick, the pick where most of you seem to think we should have addressed DE/DL. Do the math; 22 defensive players were taken off the board before we picked one of the highest rated TE's in the draft (some had him #1 by the way) and another was taken off the board before we drafted Kelly.

We drafted two of the top WR's in the draft and possibly the best TE. That's three skill positions filled with top notch prospects at their position instead of reaching for players in positions that were pretty well fleeced by the time we picked. Did we miss out on possible DT/DE starters? Possibly. However, we chose top tier players instead of reaching for a defensive player simply because we perceive that there's a need.

Now back to my pass rushing DE. With the picks we had coupled with the fact that the top rated DE's were already off the board why the hell is there so much whining? Would we have traded back out of the first round if one of the top tier guys was sitting there when we picked? Doubtful. We made the most out of the cards dealt us and acquired top rated guys. We already have a 10 sack guy on our team and still have a ton of money to lure some FA's our way before the season starts. It's impossible to fill all the holes on a team in one draft (unless your the Chiefs, ****s) so you have to take the BPA in positions of need. Can anyone say that we didn't need a big WR, OL, P, QB, CB, S, or TE? Okay, so maybe not the TE but he was a top tier guy and we're screwed if Cooley ever goes down. Bottom line there wasn't a pass rushind DE left in the draft when we picked. There wasn't a top tier CB there when we picked. There will always be some gems that will make us "what if" but our FO went with the safest picks by choosing top rated guys. We should be happy with the results of this draft. :2cents:

[Jumbo]

Very good analysis, ZoEd. Your usual rational and well-thought effort. That post would have made a good thread-starter.

[ZoEd]

Very good analysis, ZoEd. Your usual rational and well-thought effort. That post would have made a good thread-starter.

Enough stuff on the front page to wade through without me adding to it. I'm content with putting my thoughts here. I just don't understand why so many people have such a hard time seeing anything good even when it's staring them right in the face.

[turbodiesel#44]

only 8 DE's had more sacks than our own Carter. That means 24 teams in the NFL also needs pass rush specialists.

You can show all the numbers, and you can point at ST's death and a banged up OL, but we lost mostly close games for 3 reasons:

1. Conservative playcalling, trying to sit on a tiny second half lead without the ability to ball control
   
2. No real passing game
   
3. No real pass rush. Andre Carter is one DE, he shouldn't be our entire pass rush
   

The conservative game left the stadium with JG. We had a potentially fruitful draft towards solving our reciever problems. We didn't really do anything for our ability to pressure QB's. At all. Yes, the tight games we could have won with a more productive O. Or by simply applying QB pressure as nearly every team we lost to came from behind to kill us from the air late. But we got curb stomped by NE 52-7 because we couldn't get close enough to Brady to hit him with a rock. How are we going to do on the next level ignoring one of our 3 major weaknesses? Did you see the SB? The DL won that game for the gints by themselves except for the stickum on the top of a WR's helmet. We still need a pass rush, and Andre can't do it all by himself.

[DiscoBob]

Didn't want to start a new thread so this one seems a good home for my thoughts.

So with all the whining and crying about a pass rush DE not being taken in the draft I decided to do a little research and was suprised to find that only 8 DE's had more sacks than our own Carter. That means 24 teams in the NFL also needs pass rush specialists. With all the top DE's gone in the first round what the hell else were we supposed to do? Draft a DE just to appease the masses. Should we have taken a defensive player just because most of you had us needing one? Why draft a player with mediocre talent when better talent is available?

The only guy who we could've taken in the 2nd round was Quentin Groves, who should get sacks in the NFL, but will not be an every down player. That is really where our problem lies - Carter can play every down, but is not strong against the run. So if we want a new DE to pair with him, we really need an every down player or we are weak on both ends (i.e. sacrificing running yards for a better pass rush). Every down DE's that can rush the passer always go really early....so we never really had a shot at the type of player we wanted (P. Merling maybe except he wouldn't be a huge sack guy)....

[ZoEd]

You can show all the numbers, and you can point at ST's death and a banged up OL, but we lost mostly close games for 3 reasons:

1. Conservative playcalling, trying to sit on a tiny second half lead without the ability to ball control
   
2. No real passing game
   
3. No real pass rush. Andre Carter is one DE, he shouldn't be our entire pass rush
   

The conservative game left the stadium with JG. We had a potentially fruitful draft towards solving our reciever problems. We didn't really do anything for our ability to pressure QB's. At all. Yes, the tight games we could have won with a more productive O. Or by simply applying QB pressure as nearly every team we lost to came from behind to kill us from the air late. But we got curb stomped by NE 52-7 because we couldn't get close enough to Brady to hit him with a rock. How are we going to do on the next level ignoring one of our 3 major weaknesses? Did you see the SB? The DL won that game for the gints by themselves except for the stickum on the top of a WR's helmet. We still need a pass rush, and Andre can't do it all by himself.

The Gnats didn't have a pass rush early in the season either. They made some serious changes in philosophy and schemes finding ways to get to the QB. How many times did you hear Greg Williams say "They knew we were going to blitz so we didn't"? I think our inability to get to the QB was as much about play calling as it was about the personnel. Bend but don't break leaving all the pressure to the DL to create. NY brought pressure from every direction imaginable and you knew they were going to do it, it was up to you to stop it. Gregg refused to do that. Gregg instead chose to have his D sit back and allow you to pick us apart but try not to give up the big play.

What DL/DE was available when we picked that could have pressured the QB and still been solid against the run? So we lost a **** ton of games by three or less with no big receivers and defenses coming in knowing they had to stop our running game. We've added three big offensive targets causing serious matchup problems for defenses which should keep them honest getting them to unstack the box allowing our running game to open up. Portis had 1300yds last season with teams knowing we were going to run. It's scary to imagine what he can do with the field spread.

Yes I agree we need to pressure the QB more but I don't think the sky is falling because we didn't draft a DE/DL simply for the sake of drafting one. Especially since no top tier guys were left when we drafted. Sorry, that's just the way I see. For the first time since ST was drafted I think our FO had a good draft.

[turbodiesel#44]

What DL/DE was available when we picked that could have pressured the QB and still been solid against the run?

I agree part of our lack of pass rush was coaching, and I agree maybe there was no DL with better value on day 1 when we took our WR's. With Davis, the TE, not so sure he can help the team that much when we have Cooley. Not as much as a pass rush anyway.

But day 2 is where I am mystified. We took a very low rated DT, a DB that not even the big media outlets know what position he plays, two of them just list him as DB with no info, and a punter. Bugel got a slew of UDFA OL to work with. Can it really be true that there have been no DE's worth drafting in over a decade? Then, after the draft, no UDFA's worth rummaging through?

I think the inability to apply QB pressure will prevent us from reaching the next level. We hopefully will get some FA/Trade help with our DL. We need it.

[Fergasun]

I'd just like to say, that I'm bumping this post, because I used the Google search function... OP has the same idea that I had... our red zone offense made me want to throw up... too many times we put together a solid drive that staaaaaaaaaalllllleeeeeeed!

Envision us in the red zone in 2008. 5 OL + Campbell... where are the other playmakers? Let's put Multi-tool Alexander as an extra OL, and now choose 4 of: Portis, Sellers, Davis, Cooley, Kelly, Thomas, Moss, Mix/Thrash/Antwaan.... what are we going to do?! You can straight up run, you can play action to a TE, you can play action to Sellers in the flat, you can fade to Kelly, you can have Moss find a hole in the zone, you can send your TEs to a hole in the zone... are you Zorny yet?

[fansince62]

Didn't want to start a new thread so this one seems a good home for my thoughts.

So with all the whining and crying about a pass rush DE not being taken in the draft I decided to do a little research and was suprised to find that only 8 DE's had more sacks than our own Carter. That means 24 teams in the NFL also needs pass rush specialists. With all the top DE's gone in the first round what the hell else were we supposed to do? Draft a DE just to appease the masses. Should we have taken a defensive player just because most of you had us needing one? Why draft a player with mediocre talent when better talent is available?

By the numbers; 7 of the 31 first round picks were DL's.

15 of the first 31 were defensive players.

Now keep in mind that Phillip Merling was picked right before us making him the 16th defensive player taken before our first pick. So with pick number one we take the highest rated WR in the draft addressing a specific need; one that most have been whining about us needing for quite some time.

6 more defensive players were drafted before our next pick, the pick where most of you seem to think we should have addressed DE/DL. Do the math; 22 defensive players were taken off the board before we picked one of the highest rated TE's in the draft (some had him #1 by the way) and another was taken off the board before we drafted Kelly.

We drafted two of the top WR's in the draft and possibly the best TE. That's three skill positions filled with top notch prospects at their position instead of reaching for players in positions that were pretty well fleeced by the time we picked. Did we miss out on possible DT/DE starters? Possibly. However, we chose top tier players instead of reaching for a defensive player simply because we perceive that there's a need.

Now back to my pass rushing DE. With the picks we had coupled with the fact that the top rated DE's were already off the board why the hell is there so much whining? Would we have traded back out of the first round if one of the top tier guys was sitting there when we picked? Doubtful. We made the most out of the cards dealt us and acquired top rated guys. We already have a 10 sack guy on our team and still have a ton of money to lure some FA's our way before the season starts. It's impossible to fill all the holes on a team in one draft (unless your the Chiefs, ****s) so you have to take the BPA in positions of need. Can anyone say that we didn't need a big WR, OL, P, QB, CB, S, or TE? Okay, so maybe not the TE but he was a top tier guy and we're screwed if Cooley ever goes down. Bottom line there wasn't a pass rushind DE left in the draft when we picked. There wasn't a top tier CB there when we picked. There will always be some gems that will make us "what if" but our FO went with the safest picks by choosing top rated guys. We should be happy with the results of this draft. :2cents:

nice post with a couple thoughts:

- we didn't "do the best with the cards dealt us"...we influenced how those cards were dealt. the draft picks were a profduct of the moves the Skins themselves made.

- you make a reasonable argument...while some such as you have grown weary of the whining...others like me...see how pathetic the Skins have been over the years in terms of a coherent strategy for both its lines. it's not so much what they did or did not do in this draft....it's what they haven't done for years and how it invariably comes back to bite them in the arse almost every time. like yourself...I can enjoy what we have and wait patiently to see if this was just more candy shopping or part of a longer term plan to rebuild the roster with youth and talent.

too early to tell. so let's all get on the "hey..they're tall" bandwagon of football philosophy!!! I hope we take advantage of the expected benefits while we can...this will inevitably drive a movement to bigger CBs in the mould of ST.....anyone know how tough these guys are? bigger receivers are also bigger targets.

[mhearn]

i would have liked to grab a DL instead of davis and grab a TE later in the draft, there were still some good players available in that position. But i am happy overall with our coaching staff and their ability to help players adapt to the nfl level

[36HAMMER]

while i agree with your thoughts about the offense. i disagree about the d. it's not depth so much as i am worried about potential starters. smoot no. 2 only, rogers won't be same til 09, and springs is questionable. at his age the speed and all can just go on you without warning. and he's also had some injury issues his whole career. we need another capable starter, possibly 2. thats why i said p/u law if he checks out for a 1 year contract and then see what the eagles are askin for shepard. if you get both we should be fine. perfect world get a good de like taylor as well for a 4th or 5th and sheppard and law and if the oline stays healthy and this team p/u up the offense quick, we make some noise and surprise some people.the secondary more than the d line is the position of concern. we have no depth, with no pressure i fear our d will resemble swiss cheese and you younger guys will witness the second coming of the pearl harbor crew (bombs away).i don't beleive with all my being that we are as strong at the cb position as the team mgmt is saying.hope i'm wrong but i will be genuinely surprised if they hold their own.

[box8276]

If you ever got pissed when you heard other teams say they knew what play we were fixing to run, then you cant be pissed cause the Skins took arguably the best TE in the draft. Running a two TE set is gonna cause a lot of confusion for oppossing teams.

The FO figured the best way to help the D was to score more points. I saw the D getting pressure on teams but not sustaining it over the course of an entire game. Put 30 on the board, take pressure of the D to be perfect. Makes sense to me.