Bruce Allen, Scot McCloughlan, Jay Gruden, and all that stuff like that there

[Darth Tater]

11 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

GMs get credit for hits, and blame for misses.  At this moment, Cravens is a miss, and that's on SM's room bill.  

 

 

I would remove the picks from this year, but year.  He did a better job later in the draft.  Also that safety (I can't remember his name) that suffered the somewhat tragic career ending injury.  

 

As far as Doctson, at this very moment in time, he's a miss.  Because he's mostly been hurt, and was trending toward He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named territory. (2nd round pick in 2008 who was hurt and never played, nickname was a hair styling product.)  

 

That said, he seems to be healthy, and progressing, so he can pull himself out of that distinction.  But you judge based on current information.  He essentially red-shirted his rookie year, and was hurt for most of his sophomore year training camp.  That wasn't good. 

 

I'm really hopeful that he's turned the corner, and will continue to grow and be a star in the offense.  He's got the talent to do it.  But he needs the reps.  Both practice and game.  

 

EDIT: I should add, I'm not a Scot critic.  I think he did an ok job.  I also think that he brought an energy to the locker room which was necessary.  And finally, I think that he had a lot to do with convincing the owner/president to give Kirk a shot over Griffin.  

 

He also had some good picks.  But he had some misses.  FA was uneven.  I'd say overall I'd grade his tenure as a B.  

 

Of course, with HWSNBN the information that he'd be a likely fail was out there while with Docston, while some have made that claim, that claim has pretty much been debunked. I really suspect that Scott's greatest contribution might have been giving Gruden the balls to start KC and bench RG3.

[757SeanTaylor21]

But it's not a MISS as cravens failed ON the field. Nobody even knew about his past (or we believe that). And cravens chose to take himself OFF the field not because of performance but whatever is going on that neither you nor myseld know about. That can't be the gm fault bro. If you judge cravens based on the 1 year he played he did pretty good and was slotted to be our starter so obviously he was doing something. I don't agree with you that Scot is responsible for cravens actions right now. If that's the case the person who hired you is responsible for your actions. If you quit right now...they are responsible for that. (Which isn't fair)

[NickyJ]

23 minutes ago, 757SeanTaylor21 said:

But it's not a MISS as cravens failed ON the field. Nobody even knew about his past (or we believe that). And cravens chose to take himself OFF the field not because of performance but whatever is going on that neither you nor myseld know about. That can't be the gm fault bro. If you judge cravens based on the 1 year he played he did pretty good and was slotted to be our starter so obviously he was doing something. I don't agree with you that Scot is responsible for cravens actions right now. If that's the case the person who hired you is responsible for your actions. If you quit right now...they are responsible for that. (Which isn't fair)

Eh, I've defended Scot's picks before, but the failure of Sua is absolutely on SM. Freak injuries like Jarrett can be let by, but a player who doesn't want to put the effort in? That's on the GM. Who knows how good Ryan Leaf could have been if he put in the effort. He was a bust because he didn't try, just as surely as Cravens is a bust because he didn't try. Same for Haynesworth *vomit*. He had all the tools, even did pretty well his first year here, but he quit on us. I don't see anyone trying to write him off of Vinny's record.

[Bunny Kelly]

You blame GMSM for reading Sua Cravens desire wrong but is it not fair to say the attitude in the locker room, in general, continued to improve in Scot's time there? So much so that other players weren't happy with Cravens behaviour at the end of last season, he helped created a culture of accountibility

 

We all agree you will miss on plenty of draft picks, that can be as much from misjudging attitude as it is misreading talent so overall I wouldn't be too harsh, I do feel like we have a lot more 'football guys' on the roster now than when GMSM turned up. He wasn't perfect but when you look at the overall picture he left us in better shape than when he arrived so I think he deserves credit

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

1 hour ago, NickyJ said:

Eh, I've defended Scot's picks before, but the failure of Sua is absolutely on SM. Freak injuries like Jarrett can be let by, but a player who doesn't want to put the effort in? That's on the GM. Who knows how good Ryan Leaf could have been if he put in the effort. He was a bust because he didn't try, just as surely as Cravens is a bust because he didn't try. Same for Haynesworth *vomit*. He had all the tools, even did pretty well his first year here, but he quit on us. I don't see anyone trying to write him off of Vinny's record.

 

You are presuming that's the story with Su'a. He just decided he doesn't want to play anymore for no other reason but that he just doesn't want to.  Maybe that's the story that ultimately comes out.  But at the moment, beat reporters have strongly hinted there is a deep family issue cooking with him and a health issue that has nothing to do with football.

 

The thing about Su'a that struck me last year when i was at a couple of games was his energy-enthusiasm.  If I recall I even said that on a thread -- wish the defense had more guys who played with Su'a's oomph.  When I googled old articles about Su'a, talked a lot about his passion for the game with his dad joking that he wanted to be a football player since he was an infant. 

 

I'd presume the guy who scouted Su'a the most closely would be whomever is the Pacific/PAC 12 scout.  They are the ones going to all the games of the respective teams in that conference and talking to the coaches and people around the team.   Still, the Cravens things might have been really hard to smoke out.  And if its a family issue or personal health issue -- unless those issues existed in college and people knew about them -- I don't see how you can catch it.   Cravens wasn't one of my radar list prospects in 2016 so I didn't spend much time looking at him but I do recall the buzz that Belichick liked him.

 

And who knows it might not be over?  Cravens seemed move by the fan outpouring during his T-shirt giveaway, he seemed to hint at coming back.  He's really young.

 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/04/29/washington-pounces-on-cravens-before-pats-can/

Washington pounces on Cravens before Pats can

Posted by Mike Florio on April 29, 2016, 9:29 PM EDT

 

AP

One of the more intriguing prospects in the draft has landed with his first NFL team, even though he thought it would be another one.

Washington made former USC linebacker Su’a Cravens the 53rd pick in the draft.

Via Tarik El-Bashir of CSN Mid-Atlantic, Cravens said he was surprised by the selection. He thought he would be picked by the Patriots.

[NickyJ]

Regardless of who scouted him, the buck stops with Scot. Scot made good picks: Scherff, Crowder, etc. He made good FA signings too. All of those were the results of scouts telling him what they think, some of those were likely just getting lucky and finding a gem in their sack of picks. If Scot's going to get credit for the picks that pan out, he's going to have to take his lumps with the ones that are bad.

 

I liked the work he did, and I think he did contribute some important pieces to the team. But I don't think it's right to cherry-pick the draft picks and FAs he's signed. At the end of the day, Scot made the pick, and Sua's success or failure is as much attributed to Scot as is Jamison Crowder's.

 

And as far as the reason for Sua's quitting, he himself hasn't stated that it's for family or health. Until he or the team clarifies, the official story is that he quit. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is guess-work, which I put no stock in.

[Alexa]

On 9/20/2017 at 8:11 AM, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

Even the greatest talent evaluators typically have more misses than hits at the QB position.  I'm not sure we even have a great talent evaluator in Ashburn.  But the real point here is that it's hard to find a legit QB in the draft even if you have a great evaluator making the selection.  Dan having a say in it only makes it that much worse. 

True, but I think at the time of the RG3 trade we had the correct people in the building to disagree with the owner... Campbell, Shanahan. I believe AJ Smith was still over there too. That was all Snyder and Allen. 

 

Giving up that many pick for anyone is stupid, none the less a spread qb who lacked fundamentals.

[Est.1974]

28 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Via Tarik El-Bashir of CSN Mid-Atlantic, Cravens said he was surprised by the selection. He thought he would be picked by the Patriots.

 

Of course he thought the Pats would pick him, seems he was deluded about his greatness much earlier than we thought.

[Voice_of_Reason]

2 hours ago, Darth Tater said:

 

Of course, with HWSNBN the information that he'd be a likely fail was out there while with Docston, while some have made that claim, that claim has pretty much been debunked. I really suspect that Scott's greatest contribution might have been giving Gruden the balls to start KC and bench RG3.

It's very true. If Doctson ends up injured forever, I think it's more bad luck.  HWSNBN was just a ridiculous pick at that spot.  Both because they'd just picked 2 pass-catchers, and because the medical staff said he had no knees.  

[Skinsinparadise]

41 minutes ago, NickyJ said:

 

And as far as the reason for Sua's quitting, he himself hasn't stated that it's for family or health. Until he or the team clarifies, the official story is that he quit. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

 Beat reporters are practically screaming that they've heard major family issue along with a personal health issue.   Your theory that he quit for really no good reason other than he simply doesn't want to put the effort in -- at the moment is an outlier theory judging by beat reporters who have talked to the team about it.  You never know.  But in good spirits, I disagree with your "its nothing more nothing less" slam dunk take of this.  I felt your way initially to a degree.  But I've been following what the beat guys are saying, and that's not what they are hearing.  But will see. 

 

The rest of these points aren't directed at you.  My larger point is I think it's off to dissect drafts as if the odds should be in favor of every pick working out.  The odds are actually staggering in the other direction.  For example people go nuts that Matt Jones didn't work out as if its some colossal failure. If you look at the odds, 16% shot you will land a starting caliber running back in the 3rd round.  11% in the 4th round.  Jones was a late third rounder.    Jones not working out fits the odds completely.  Yeah you want your GM to defy the odds as much as possible.  But he's not superman, he's not going to do it all the time.  It's just not reality. 

 

Scot lands Crowder in the 4th round after Jones.  That's a great pick.   IMO, you look at a draft in its totality versus isolating a player and focusing on heck they really blew it in this round.  If you are pulling 3 good starters in any draft, its a good one.  It doesn't matter what backstory exists for whatever round the failures happen. The failures always happen. Would it make me feel better today for example that they took Ioannidis or Fuller in the 2nd round and Su'a in the 3rd/5th?   You got examples of this in just about every team's draft every year.  Do the Giants care that Corey Webster was "meh" as a 2nd rounder but Justin Tuck taken a round later in the same draft was a stud?

 

You are going to have some good finds in certain rounds and bad picks in other rounds. And its rarely linear where it fits from a round by round basis --best player is the first rounder, then the 2nd rounder, then the 3rd on and on.   Moving to a Shanny draft.  Amerson as a 2nd rounder, "meh" they released the dude. Jordan Reed a round later -- great pick.  Then in the 4th round Philip Thomas was a bust.  Then in the 5th round, they drafted Chris Thompson.  Great pick.  I could judge the draft by focusing on Amerson or Thomas.  But that's either cherry picking just to make the drafter look bad or its not really paying attention to how the typical draft works around the league. 

 

And this point has ZERO to do with Scot.  It's about giving whomever is the key draft guy a break and I gather right now that's Kyle Smith.  I can confidently say in advance:  there will be some picks that don't pan out and some of them will feel out of sequence.  How is it that the 4th rounder is good and the 2nd rounder isn't? Or whatever.  That's just the life of an NFL draft.   And that's why you judge IMO a draft as a whole meal versus parsing it into pieces.  If you parse just about any draft in pieces, its very easy to pick it apart.

 

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round

 

[ColonialWBSkinsFan]

6 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

SiP, you're like the Yoda of this message board... once again, you've nailed it perfectly.... well said

 

6 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 Beat reporters are practically screaming that they've heard major family issue along with a personal health issue.   Your theory that he quit for really no good reason other than he simply doesn't want to put the effort in -- at the moment is an outlier theory judging by beat reporters who have talked to the team about it.  You never know.  But in good spirits, I disagree with your "its nothing more nothing less" slam dunk take of this.  I felt your way initially to a degree.  But I've been following what the beat guys are saying, and that's not what they are hearing.  But will see. 

 

The rest of these points aren't directed at you.  My larger point is I think it's off to dissect drafts as if the odds should be in favor of every pick working out.  The odds are actually staggering in the other direction.  For example people go nuts that Matt Jones didn't work out as if its some colossal failure. If you look at the odds, 16% shot you will land a starting caliber running back in the 3rd round.  11% in the 4th round.  Jones was a late third rounder.    Jones not working out fits the odds completely.  Yeah you want your GM to defy the odds as much as possible.  But he's not superman, he's not going to do it all the time.  It's just not reality. 

 

Scot lands Crowder in the 4th round after Jones.  That's a great pick.   IMO, you look at a draft in its totality versus isolating a player and focusing on heck they really blew it in this round.  If you are pulling 3 good starters in any draft, its a good one.  It doesn't matter what backstory exists for whatever round the failures happen. The failures always happen. Would it make me feel better today for example that they took Ioannidis in the 2nd round and Su'a in the 5th?  Nope.  It's irrelevant.   Lets run with Su'a is a bust and all the alarm bells were screaming to Scot and he blew them off and took him anyway.  Does Fuller in the third round and Ioannidis in the 5th look like good picks, yeah. They came after Su'a.  You got examples of this in just about every team's draft every year.  Do the Giants care that Corey Webster was "meh" as a 2nd rounder but Justin Tuck taken a round later in the same draft was a stud?

 

You are going to have some good finds in certain rounds and bad picks in other rounds. And its rarely linear where it fits from a round by round basis.  Moving to a Shanny draft.  Amerson as a 2nd rounder, "meh" they released the dude. Jordan Reed a round later -- great pick.  Then in the 4th round Philip Thomas was a bust.  Then in the 5th round, they drafted Chris Thompson.  Great pick.  I could judge the draft by focusing on Amerson or Thomas.  But that's either cherry picking just to make the drafter look bad or its not really paying attention to how the typical draft works around the league. 

 

And this point has ZERO to do with Scot.  It's about giving whomever is the key draft guy a break and I gather right now that's Kyle Smith.  I can confidently say in advance.  There will be some picks that don't pan out and some of them will feel out of sequence.  How is it that the 4th rounder is good and the 2nd rounder isn't? Or whatever.  That's just the life of an NFL draft.   And that's why you judge IMO a draft as a whole meal versus parsing it into pieces.  If you parse just about any draft in pieces, its very easy to pick it apart.

 

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round

 

 

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

26 minutes ago, Alexa said:

True, but I think at the time of the RG3 trade we had the correct people in the building to disagree with the owner... Campbell, Shanahan. I believe AJ Smith was still over there too. That was all Snyder and Allen. 

 

Giving up that many pick for anyone is stupid, none the less a spread qb who lacked fundamentals.

 

I thought AJ Smith came once Shanny left?  I recall reading a story about Smith not being an RG3 guy and it caused tension with Dan.

[NewCliche21]

2 minutes ago, ColonialWBSkinsFan said:

 

SiP, you're like the Yoda of this message board... once again, you've nailed it perfectly.... well said

 

 

Right?  There are a handful of posters whose names get my attention, and in the past year @Skinsinparadise has jumped near the top of that list!

 

Just FYI, you're gonna want to avoid quoting large posts.  You can always click inside of it and edit it just like the non-quoted part.  Often times people will do something like:

 

Quote

<snip>
 

Part relevant to what I'm responding

<snip>

 

Something like that.  It just helps avoid clutter on the board.

[Bunny Kelly]

It's amazing how blatantly Shanny's drafting sums up his time here, good offence, terrible D, he really had zero clue when it came to the other side of the ball.

 

Also it's important to remember what we would have said about Jordan Reed after 15 games & his injury problems, anyone regret drafting him now? so maybe we should give Doctson a break, injuries happen 

[NewCliche21]

12 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

<SNIP>

Would it make me feel better today for example that they took Ioannidis or Fuller in the 2nd round and Su'a in the 3rd/5th?   You got examples of this in just about every team's draft every year.  Do the Giants care that Corey Webster was "meh" as a 2nd rounder but Justin Tuck taken a round later in the same draft was a stud?

<SNIP>

Excellent post as always.  I think this is a huge point.  Anyone worth remembering fondly is worth the pick no matter where it came.  Manley?  Clark?  Bostic?  The list goes on.  As long as we get good players, the round is irrelevant.  Sure it sucks when you take a shot and miss, especially at a higher round, but the higher round just means a greater chance at getting a hit; it doesn't mean that all the good players are taken in the higher rounds.

If anything, getting a good player in a later round can help financially (lesser rookie contract) and with loyalty (You guys gave me my shot).

[Skinsinparadise]

1 hour ago, NewCliche21 said:

Excellent post as always.  I think this is a huge point.  Anyone worth remembering fondly is worth the pick no matter where it came.  Manley?  Clark?  Bostic?  The list goes on.  As long as we get good players, the round is irrelevant.  Sure it sucks when you take a shot and miss, especially at a higher round, but the higher round just means a greater chance at getting a hit; it doesn't mean that all the good players are taken in the higher rounds.

If anything, getting a good player in a later round can help financially (lesser rookie contract) and with loyalty (You guys gave me my shot).

 

Thanks.  Ditto, excellent posts on your end.  Playing off of your post: as for the draft, once you escape the first round the odds start working against you.  See breakdown below.  Taking Scot's drafts for example.  Succeeding with Preston in the 2nd round statistically speaking beat about 4:1 odds.  Missing with Matt Jones puts him in company with 84% of others who took RBs in the third round.  Crowder's success represents him beating almost 10 to 1 odds. If Spaight is successful its even better than 10 to 1 odds.  He did some really good stuff in that draft.  He got a pro bowler, an alternate pro bowler, the leader on the team in sacks, a guy who played well on Sunday as the MLB, likely a starting FS who had a fluke injury.  That's a killer draft.   2016 IMO isn't as good but its a decent one if Doctson emerges.

 

I am not saying drafts should be strictly judged by the odds.  But its hard for me to come up with a draft where you can't find a narrative where you can slam picks -- especially if the narrative is centered on the round the player was taken in.  Hey this dude is a 2nd rounder, how can you blow a 2nd round pick?  Well, the answer is plenty of teams blow 2nd round picks every year.  2nd rounders are 50-50 at best.  But that conversation is IMO wildly off point -- my point is who cares what round you had what type of success or even for that matter if you get the guys as an UDFA.   Just bring in good young players every year and it adds up.

 

 As long as you get 3 good starters out of a draft, you've done well according to just about every draft geek on the planet.   Why for example is Matt Jones more important than Robert Kelley?    Lets say the season plays out where the more ballyhooed Ryan Anderson doesn't make an impact and Nicholson does?  So what?  It's why guys like Kiper say as much as they enjoy dissecting players -- the best way to succeed in the draft is to increase your odds by having more picks.  That's why for example, in my view, Scot adding 3 picks to the 2017 draft by making trades in the 2016 draft was a big deal. 

 

I've used the exact same argument to defend Bruce's draft years back when Trent Murphy was slammed.  I recall arguing on twitter with Grant Paulsen about it (in 2015) with him saying how can you blow a 2nd round pick?  My response was:  plenty of 2nd round picks don't make it. It's not a big deal.  Judge the whole draft.  If Moses was the better pick in the third round, great.   That's how drafts typically play out.  It's rare for each pick's success to lay out in perfect sequence.  And every draft every GM will have misses. 

 

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/2/20/8072877/what-the-statistics-tell-us-about-the-draft-by-round

1st Round - OL (83%) LB (70%) TE (67%) DB (64%) QB (63%) WR (58%) RB (58%) DL (58%)

2nd Round - OL (70%) LB (55%) TE (50%) WR (49%) DB (46%) QB (27%) DL (26%) RB (25%)

3rd Round - OL (40%) TE (39%) LB (34%) DL (27%) WR (25%) DB (24%) QB (17%) RB (16%)

4th Round - DL (37%) TE (33%) OL (29%) LB (16%) WR(12%) DB (11%) RB (11%) QB (8%)

5th Round - TE (32%) DB (17%) WR (16%) OL (16%) DL (13%) RB (9%) LB (4%) QB (0%)

6th Round - TE (26%) OL (16%) DL (13%) WR (9%) DB (8%) RB (6%) LB (5%) QB (0%)

7th Round - DB (11%) OL (9%) QB (6%) WR (5%) DL (3%) LB (2%) RB (0%) TE (0%)

 

[NewCliche21]

This reminds me of the fourth down attempt stats.  You would think that going for it on fourth is a bad idea, but someone did a study either 2015 or 2016 that showed that something like between the 40's, going for it on 4th pays off in terms of points per 4th down attempt.  You wouldn't think it, but the stats revealed otherwise.

In the draft, you would think "Hey, how can you **** up when selecting a top-64 player (someone in the first two rounds)?" but it's way more frequent than people think.  Thank you for the research and the numbers, especially by position.  

 

I think that our fanbase would be best served by remembering that it really doesn't matter how you get the best 53 as long as you do.  No one is a guarantee at any position in any round.  Ditka traded a draft for one can't-miss player who chose the bong over the ball.  The Patriots took a flyer on an undersized quarterback who's the undisputed GOAT.  Ultimately it's all a means to an end, and as long as the end is a Lombardi, who cares?  Draft hits and misses aren't something that champions talk about because they're too busy celebrating.

[skinzplay]

I think it was late in the 2014 season, but we were playing the Rams at home, and Gregg (second 'G' for genius) was chatting with Snyder on the field before the game. Allen saw that and hauled ass across the field to get over there so he could hear what was being said. Might've been faster than Scherff and Long on last week's screen passes, even in wingtips on sod. Dude doesn't want anybody getting Snyder's ear except for him. He's a legacy hire whose name resonates with the owner, and knows that he won't get another such job for any other team in the league if Snyder lets him go (he would, however, have a potential role in the league office).