Welcome to Washington Jamin Davis LB Kentucky

[Burgold]

On 5/8/2021 at 1:38 AM, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

It's a reach if you pick a guy over different prospects who were ranked higher and end up being better.

the end up being better is dubious. After all, how many receivers are better than McClaurin? Were all the receivers in his draft classes picked before him reaches? What about Kurl? He was arguably the best safety picked in his rookie class. Were all the others reaches?

[seantaylor=god]

On 5/7/2021 at 10:38 PM, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

It's a reach if you pick a guy over different prospects who were ranked higher and end up being better.

Would you agree that Davis would not have lasted to our pick in the second? I think there was plenty of buzz that teams liked him in the first. I recall either Rivera and the Marty’s talking about how there are always discussions in trade-ups and trade downs but the value has to be there. 
 

I think it may have been a reach by a handful of picks but that isn’t poor allocation of resources when our need at ILB was so great. And it was a poor ILB class.

 

I take it you had the RBs graded higher, and maybe Farley or Newsome, but the CBs both had injury history/serious injury concerns. Darrisaw also just had surgery and I read some teams were turned off by him in the interview. 

 

As for RB, we will see how dynamic those picks end up being, and how productive those RBs are for their teams over the next 3-5 years.

 

I will say, I see Jamin Davis as more of a double than a home run pick. I don’t think he will bust, but I’m not sure he will be in the same class as previous Rivera LBs.

 

I think need and culture/character played an outsized role in the pick.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by seantaylor=god

[CurseReversed]

18 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

 

Are you guys really questioning whether it's possible to know if some players are better than others?

 

This stuff isn't impossibly subjective or relativistic.  It's football.

 

Also bifflog, teams value traits and types differently and some evaluators are better than others.  Evaluation and projection of prospects is difficult and leads to a wide divergence in conclusions.

If your methodology were accurate then a team could in theory just operate their draft boards in tandem with the consensus and always achieve more favorable results then if they diverged from common perception. In other words, if they reached.   The problem is that you take statistical correlations from the past, whether in judging what constitutes a reach or a QB's potential based on draft location, and draw preemptive conclusions about the propabilities of the same things happening in the future.  You might be able to say that history shows that something is more likely to happen, but you cannot say for sure that those are the exact same odds for something to happen or else every team could literally just follow the percentages for past success for every decision and expect to achieve the same results. 

 

They can't assume that, and neither can you.  If a team decides to draft a player at a certain spot it is not a reach until it is proven to be one.  And a QB selected in a particular spot in the draft is not a radical statistical long shot until they actually become one.   All a team can do is accumulate information, both statistical and otherwise, to try and predict the future as best they can.  Comparing a QB's draft position to others in the past, like comparing an opinion on a players draft value  to the consensus,  are just two of many models a team can use to try and predict results, but they don't operate in a vacuum. And there are plenty of other ways of modeling and scouting that show different results for different reasons.  I wonder what the odds of success for draft picks are based on school source?   If a statistic said that Players from a particular college have a drastically lower success rate, could you expect any player drafted from that school to have that same chance?   This logic can go on forever.  

 

There are tons of other factors that alter chances for success and nobody has the consensus recipe or the statistical source code to predicting it.  Its still a guessing game, and if you make a decision and guess right, you didn't beat the odds of one particular metric, you just better accounted for all the others.  Its not an statistical outlier, its just doing a better job.   Its cathartic to try and reverse engineer everything that happened and then try to model success out of the results like money ball,  but its only going to be informative not predictive.  There is a big difference.  

[Going Commando]

5 hours ago, Burgold said:

the end up being better is dubious. After all, how many receivers are better than McClaurin? Were all the receivers in his draft classes picked before him reaches? What about Kurl? He was arguably the best safety picked in his rookie class. Were all the others reaches?

 

I don't think anyone had those guys ranked higher than they were taken.  Kudos if they did.  Just because some guys end up being gems doesn't mean we can't identify reaches and value picks.  And plenty of guys get drafted about where they should have and still bust because **** happens in football, but that doesn't mean they were reaches.

 

You guys have been twisting yourselves into knots trying to convince yourselves that Jamin wasn't a reach at 19 with mental gymnastics, even going so far as to state that reaches can't exist and to question the epistemological possibility of knowing if one player is better than another.  It's OK to acknowledge that he was a reach and still have confidence in the team builders and the kid himself. He was a reach to fill a need, it happens.  It doesn't have to be that damaging either: in 2019 the Seahawks made a massive reach of several rounds when they drafted LJ Collier in the first.  It ended up not being that damaging for them because they had a strong team with good leadership elsewhere and they made back all of that lost value with the massive value pick of DK Metcalf.  Jamin wasn't anywhere near that big of a reach, maybe like half a round or even a little less as he inflated his draft stock with his Pro Day workouts.  A handful of guys picked after him were better players and were higher ranked than him, and they would confirm that Jamin was a reach if they end up being better pros: Etienne, Harris, Bateman, Darrisaw, Owusu-Koromoah, Newsome, Jenkins, Moehrig, etc.  But Jamin certainly wasn't one of the worst reaches of the first round and I think we more than made back the value we lost by reaching with our next choice because I think Cosmi was a value pick of almost a full round.

[Going Commando]

4 hours ago, seantaylor=god said:

I will say, I see Jamin Davis as more of a double than a home run pick. I don’t think he will bust, but I’m not sure he will be in the same class as previous Rivera LBs.

 

I think need and culture/character played an outsized role in the pick.

 

I agree, but I do think reaching for needs can be a problem over time.  It's not the best way to use the draft, and that to me is a truism that has practically become self evident.  Clusters of reaches and low value drafts can stunt your competitiveness and leave you churning through rosters that are mediocre.

 

EDIT: Wanted to add that I like the way you characterize the pick, double and not a homer.  I don't think he's Kuechly or Davis either, but I'm hoping he's better than Shaq Thompson, and I think he can be.  I think he can be a consistent 8-10 AV player but has an outside chance of being 13+ because of his athleticism.

Edited May 9, 2021 by stevemcqueen1

[KDawg]

Eh. I’m not into assigning designations of reach and value on these dudes when I clearly don’t have enough knowledge to know.

 

In my eyes Cosmi was properly drafted and Jamin went a bit earlier (5-20 picks) than I thought.

 

I don’t particularly care if my valuations are correct or not, though. So I’m not going to argue one way or the other.

 

Time will tell us who a reach is. But then again I’m less likely to classify someone as a reach of they would have been drafted within 31 slots of their draft position. 
 

You can argue for trading back but it takes two to tango.

[DC Lumber Co.]

The Giants were taking Jamin Davis at 20 if we had not drafted him. I don't see how that could be considered a reach by any means.

 

I'd rather take arguably the best linebacker in the class over the 2nd/3rd/4th best OT/CB/WR 

 

Parsons was off our board due to character, and JOK fell due to a combo of medical and being a tweener.

 

Is there a risk due to 1 year of production? Sure. But our Coaches have a proven track record of identifying good linebackers. It's also a very good possibility that if Jamin had another year of experience that he wouldn't have been available at 19.

 

I'm very confident in this pick, even if it takes him half a season for it to really "click" for him. I think we look back at this draft pick as a steal when it's all said and done.

 

[Going Commando]

6 minutes ago, KDawg said:

Time will tell us who a reach is. But then again I’m less likely to classify someone as a reach of they would have been drafted within 31 slots of their draft position. 
 

You can argue for trading back but it takes two to tango.

 

Getting married to a specific player is the trap that leads to reaching.  Saying we have to come away with Jamin no matter where we pick him nor who else is on the board is the problem.

 

I think it's fine to do with QBs, but not other positions.

[KDawg]

1 minute ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

Getting married to a specific player is the trap that leads to reaching.  Saying we have to come away with Jamin no matter where we pick him nor who else is on the board is the problem.

 

I think it's fine to do with QBs, but not other positions.

Who said that? If it’s a guy you had rated somewhere in the next 5-15 picks or so, why not take them if you like them better than other guys? They don’t know where other teams have these guys slotted necessarily. Why play games and miss your guy? That’s how you draft busts, too, and miss out on guys you had more highly ranked.

 

Trying to play 4D chess is dumb if you have a prospect ranked higher than the perceived value. 

[Going Commando]

9 minutes ago, DC Lumber Co. said:

The Giants were taking Jamin Davis at 20 if we had not drafted him. I don't see how that could be considered a reach by any means.

 

I'd rather take arguably the best linebacker in the class over the 2nd/3rd/4th best OT/CB/WR

 

The Giants can certainly reach for him too, and they did with Kadarius Toney.  I'd rather have the better player period.  If it's the third or fourth best OT/CB/WR I'm still better off than getting the best LB (Jamin wasn't BTW, Collins and JOK and probably Parsons were better than him) if those guys are better players than the LB.

4 minutes ago, KDawg said:

Who said that? If it’s a guy you had rated somewhere in the next 5-15 picks or so, why not take them if you like them better than other guys? They don’t know where other teams have these guys slotted necessarily. Why play games and miss your guy? That’s how you draft busts, too, and miss out on guys you had more highly ranked.

 

Trying to play 4D chess is dumb if you have a prospect ranked higher than the perceived value. 

 

Maybe they are smarter than the room and accurately had Jamin ranked higher than a number of players taken after him that were ranked higher and certainly seemed to be better players to my eye.  If that's what happened, we'll see over time if they were right.  Reaching comes from misevaluating players too, not just getting married to certain guys to fill your needs.

 

Drafting BPA isn't playing 4-D chess BTW.  It's the simplest and safest strategy for using the draft.  You guys are making this more complicated than it needs to be. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by stevemcqueen1

[KDawg]

4 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

The Giants can certainly reach for him too, and they did with Kadarius Toney.  I'd rather have the better player period.  If it's the third or fourth best OT/CB/WR I'm still better off than getting the best LB (Jamin wasn't BTW, Collins and JOK and probably Parsons were better than him) if those guys are better players than the LB.

 

Maybe they are smarter than the room and accurately had Jamin ranked higher than a number of players taken after him that were ranked higher and certainly seemed to be better players to my eye.  If that's what happened, we'll see over time if they were right.  Reaching comes from misevaluating players too, not just getting married to certain guys to fill your needs.

“Reaching” is a state of a poorly run scouting department. It’s not a state of immediate knowledge. If Leatherwood turns out to be a top tackle in this draft, do you think he’ll still be rated as a reach? I don’t. 
 

The Raiders stuck to their board. Which is what  their scouts are paid to do. If they screw it up then the FO is accountable for it. 
 

Rumor is Jamin was going to go at 20. Is that true? Who knows. But if it’s true... is it a reach now if multiple teams have the guy highly rated? Is it a reach if every team has him highly rated but he’s not good? Is it reach if nobody has a guy highly rated except the team that takes him and he’s an all-pro?

 

I thought we could have gotten Jamin late first early second. Maybe WFT did as well but they had him more highly ranked than guys that draftniks liked. 
 

Why take a different guy there if that’s who they liked? It doesn’t make sense. If they do routinely, and the picks stink, the scouting staff needs to be changed.

 

I don’t think JOK is as good as many do here. I don’t think he was a “value” pick for instance. There’s a good chance I’m wrong there and I’m open to that possibility. The NFL was more with me (I thought someone would take him due to upside for sure so I’m a little shocked myself) than other draftnik’s. But that doesn’t mean the pro JOK crowd misevaluated him. Maybe I did. And the league did.

 

All ties to my point. We can use words like those to discuss our perceived value all day. But until we see them for a year + on the field, we’re all just flinging poo.

[Dark Acre]

Half a round is not a reach.  By that definition, to avoid a reach, teams would simply have to forgo a player they really want and have no shot at getting because someone else will get him 16 picks later and that is not a reach.  A reach is drafting a guy a round earlier than you could've gotten him.  Was any other team seriously going to draft Spencer Long in the 3rd round or before our 4th pick?  (That pick shocked me.)  If no, then WFT could've gotten him in the 4th and he was a reach in the 3rd.  

[mistertim]

27 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

The Giants can certainly reach for him too, and they did with Kadarius Toney.  I'd rather have the better player period.  If it's the third or fourth best OT/CB/WR I'm still better off than getting the best LB (Jamin wasn't BTW, Collins and JOK and probably Parsons were better than him) if those guys are better players than the LB.

 

 

I think "better" is a bit relative here, depending on what a team is looking for in their guy. WFT was looking for high character so Parsons was obviously not a fit due to his major character concerns. JOK had medical issues as well as questions about size, where he'd fit as more of a tweener and whether he could be a true 3 down backer. Collins is super talented but to me his size at 270lbs gave me pause as far as how well he'd be able to cover in the NFL, and clearly WFT was looking for a guy with good coverage ability. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by mistertim

[RawRebel]

3 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I don't think anyone had those guys ranked higher than they were taken.  Kudos if they did.  Just because some guys end up being gems doesn't mean we can't identify reaches and value picks.  And plenty of guys get drafted about where they should have and still bust because **** happens in football, but that doesn't mean they were reaches.

 

You guys have been twisting yourselves into knots trying to convince yourselves that Jamin wasn't a reach at 19 with mental gymnastics, even going so far as to state that reaches can't exist and to question the epistemological possibility of knowing if one player is better than another.  It's OK to acknowledge that he was a reach and still have confidence in the team builders and the kid himself. He was a reach to fill a need, it happens.  It doesn't have to be that damaging either: in 2019 the Seahawks made a massive reach of several rounds when they drafted LJ Collier in the first.  It ended up not being that damaging for them because they had a strong team with good leadership elsewhere and they made back all of that lost value with the massive value pick of DK Metcalf.  Jamin wasn't anywhere near that big of a reach, maybe like half a round or even a little less as he inflated his draft stock with his Pro Day workouts.  A handful of guys picked after him were better players and were higher ranked than him, and they would confirm that Jamin was a reach if they end up being better pros: Etienne, Harris, Bateman, Darrisaw, Owusu-Koromoah, Newsome, Jenkins, Moehrig, etc.  But Jamin certainly wasn't one of the worst reaches of the first round and I think we more than made back the value we lost by reaching with our next choice because I think Cosmi was a value pick of almost a full round.

Tagged for future reference. 

[Going Commando]

54 minutes ago, GothSkinsFan said:

Half a round is not a reach.  By that definition, to avoid a reach, teams would simply have to forgo a player they really want and have no shot at getting because someone else will get him 16 picks later and that is not a reach.  A reach is drafting a guy a round earlier than you could've gotten him.  Was any other team seriously going to draft Spencer Long in the 3rd round or before our 4th pick?  (That pick shocked me.)  If no, then WFT could've gotten him in the 4th and he was a reach in the 3rd.  

 

I think you guys are getting stuck on a mentality of being married to one particular player and then figuring out which point in the draft is your last chance for picking him.  Reaching is when you draft a guy even though better players who were higher ranked than him were available.  That includes situations where you have to draft X guy at 19 because you know you won't be able to get him at 51.  The reaching comes from passing over Y and Z players who were better than X because you were absolutely married to X.

[Dark Acre]

10 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I think you guys are getting stuck on a mentality of being married to one particular player and then figuring out which point in the draft is your last chance for picking him.  Reaching is when you draft a guy even though better players who were higher ranked than him were available.  That includes situations where you have to draft X guy at 19 because you know you won't be able to get him at 51.  The reaching comes from passing over Y and Z players who were better than X because you were absolutely married to X.

Ranked higher by whom, dude?  Your coke dealer?  (Never give lip to your man.)  Some fat dude with a sports blog whose claim to football fame is winning Intellivision football bowl in 1982?  The guy who promised the world he'd quit his TV show if Jimmy Clausen...?  Everyone who thought Sam Darnold was worth a 1st?  Think about the word "reach".  It implies distance.  I'm not saying your concept of what reach is is just 💩, but you need to call it something else because it's not reaching.

[Going Commando]

58 minutes ago, mistertim said:

I think "better" is a bit relative here, depending on what a team is looking for in their guy. WFT was looking for high character so Parsons was obviously not a fit due to his major character concerns. JOK had medical issues as well as questions about size, where he'd fit as more of a tweener and whether he could be a true 3 down backer. Collins is super talented but to me his size at 270lbs gave me pause as far as how well he'd be able to cover in the NFL, and clearly WFT was looking for a guy with good coverage ability. 

 

It's certainly a difficult and subjective endeavor to evaluate past and project future performance of players, and doing it well depends on the skill and discipline and accuracy of the evaluator.  But football is a zero sum game where the skill and accuracy of evaluators gets proven out in competition.  The teams with the best players generally win, especially over decent sample sizes, and the teams that accumulate the most good players are generally built by the best evaluators.  Having especially efficient drafts definitely isn't the only way to build a great team, but it's probably the best way.

 

Being honest and determining if you're reaching or getting value with your draft picks is a tool that consistent, disciplined, and smart teams can use to evaluate the efficiency of their drafting.

 

In regards to Jamin vs the other top LBers, I'd leave Parsons out of the equation because of his character flags and I definitely wouldn't have picked him over Davis either.  Jamin would have been LB3 for me behind Zaven and Owusu-Koromoah.  I honestly don't see how any experienced evaluator can have watched his film and compared it to Owusu-Koromoah's or Collins's and concluded that he was a better player right now.  TBH, his film wasn't even better than Pete Werner's or Jabril Cox's.  We didn't have a shot at Collins either, so there is no real need to defend Jamin as LB1 over him, but FWIW, Zaven is absolutely better in coverage than Jamin is.  Don't let the size fool you, Zaven was a stud in coverage and demonstrated an advanced feel for playing zone that Jamin didn't have.

 

Jamin is an upside pick, and the bet that the evluators who ranked him LB1 made is that he'll eventually be better than those other guys based on his character and his athleticism, etc.  But he's not better than them right now, and those other guys are also really athletic and are going to get better too, so we can't take it for granted that Jamin will end up better than them.  I think the fact that the poster I responded to took it for granted that Jamin was LB1 is revealing of how fans here have an unrealistic picture of how good Jamin is.  And I also think many are glossing over the weaknesses in his game that could be big limitations on his upside.  The instinct problems that Davis has have kept other super athlete LBers from reaching their potential in the NFL in the past.

[Anselmheifer]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

EDIT: Wanted to add that I like the way you characterize the pick, double and not a homer.  I don't think he's Kuechly or Davis either, but I'm hoping he's better than Shaq Thompson, and I think he can be.  I think he can be a consistent 8-10 AV player but has an outside chance of being 13+ because of his athleticism.

Keuchly is a HOF caliber player, so that’s not much of a dig. Jamin’s a better prospect than Thomas Davis was. No? Converted safety that ran a 4.6? No LB tape?

 

I also see this as a double. I wouldn’t like the pick 3 years ago, but filling in one of the few missing pieces, when you have coaches with a history of identifying and developing players at the position, a strong defensive culture, and tons of talent around him? It makes me feel better. 
 

And I don’t think Collins will be better. And JOK may just be too small. To some degree we did pick for need all the way down the draft board. But we also took elite athletes and filled out our roster to the point that we can pick BPA next year. I think the salary cap era dictates picking for need to some degree. All teams do it. 

[skinny21]

I’d say it’s important to note two things when discussing whether a pick was a reach.  One, it’s all subjective.  Teams (and fans/pundits) weigh things differently - experience, fit, need, athleticism, character, etc.  Two, we fans (and most pundits) only have so much info at our disposal.  Medical evals, interviews with the prospects and their coaches, roster plans, schemes, what other teams prospect rankings are... there’s oftentimes a lot we don’t know.  Heck, even teams that have all of this info don’t know how a player will fit the coaching, can tell if a player will be oft-injured, if another player will step up and relegate their draftee to the bench, etc.

 

So, with those two things in mind, everything becomes a matter of opinion.  Perfectly fine to discuss, argue and disagree, but probably impossible to say who is/was right, even in hindsight.  JMO of course.

[CurseReversed]

Any pick that seems to differ from perceived or consensus value is either insightful or a reach. Its impossible to know for sure until it plays out.   It does not matter how much verbal judo one might use to pre-judge value its all subjective initially.  Even in hindsight it is still somewhat subjective.  All those things that you say happen to prove out the skill of evaluators and players still has a ridiculous amount of luck and timing involved.  I don't think you can make a science no matter how hard you try.  I do really enjoy the insight that looking at these metrics brings and appreciate the conversation about their implication but I am not willing to concede a team has made a mistake before the mistake has actually been made, and that any measure of success in the past will be destined to repeat.    

 

[Going Commando]

2 minutes ago, Anselmheifer said:

Keuchly is a HOF caliber player, so that’s not much of a dig. Jamin’s a better prospect than Thomas Davis was. No? Converted safety that ran a 4.6? No LB tape?

 

I also see this as a double. I wouldn’t like the pick 3 years ago, but filling in one of the few missing pieces, when you have coaches with a history of identifying and developing players at the position, a strong defensive culture, and tons of talent around him? It makes me feel better. 
 

And I don’t think Collins will be better. And JOK may just be too small. To some degree we did pick for need all the way down the draft board. But we also took elite athletes and filled out our roster to the point that we can pick BPA next year. I think the salary cap era dictates picking for need to some degree. All teams do it. 

 

Davis was before I started watching film on prospects, so I don't know how good of a prospect he was.  But we do have hindsight with him and he became such a good player that he had a 16 AV season and 100 career AV.  That's fringe HoF territory, kind of like a Takeo Spikes or Karlos Dansby level career.  That feels unrealistic for Jamin in either longevity or peak dominance, but it's not completely out of reach for him.  As you say, this staff and surrounding talent are absolutely ideal for his development and he has a great chance to reach his potential.  I'm not up in arms about the pick either, just noticed that the kool-aid effect in here was so extreme that dudes were questioning if the very notion of reaching could exist 🤣.

 

I thought Collins's film was markedly better than Jamin's.  It was so good this year, and he won the hardware to back it up.  Kind of felt like the forum inexplicably turned on him over time this year and started underestimating him, but it happened after the season and wasn't based on his play.  I think we got steered into that conclusion by the team's beat reporters.  I honestly wouldn't take a bet that Jamin will end up better than him.  Zaven is one of those scary players who wouldn't shock me if he ends up being an All Pro.  But it's not just the LB rankings that matter for determining efficiency, it's all of the positions.  Was Jamin better than Darrisaw/Bateman/Etienne/Harris/Newsome/Moehrig too?  I'm not confident that he is.  But I'm also not viewing it as a major problem that we reached to fill needs--yet.  I think we're still getting hits and that a volume of good > a few of great.

 

Agreed that all teams do reach for need.  Some with stronger rosters can afford to do it more than others because their leadership and competitiveness are so much better.  It's not great when it happens and can become a problem when you're clustering low value drafts together.  But drafting BPA is not a luxury afforded to good teams.  It's a systemic philosophy for how to best utilize the tool of the draft.  I'm a true believer in the overall superiority of drafting BPA and the teams that are the most disciplined about it end up drafting the best and put the strongest rosters on the field over time.

[KDawg]

I think you’re missing the point. Reaching exists. You, me or anyone else though... has no idea if we reached or not. Not yet. 

[Dark Acre]

Would Tom Brady have been a reach in the 3rd if nobody else would've taken him before the 6th?  If you define reach by the player's future performance, no.  If you define it as whether he could have safely been picked later, yes.  Let's say your last pick in that draft is round 3, you're convinced Brady has the potential to be great, but no one will trade you a later-round pick for anything remotely resembling fair value because they hate your guts.  Like, it'll take a future 2nd to get that 6th.  So, you pass on Brady in the 3rd because a bunch of yacking heads would call it a massive reach and urge your firing (contradistinguished from Mel the Bravelivered not putting his nonathlete's foot where his mouth is).  Let's assume you wrote a memo to the owner urging him to spend your 3rd on Brady but he refuses because, dude, have you seen him in shorts?  He belongs on a box of Special K, not Wheaties.  (Note:  Special K* has more protein than Wheaties.)  So your team concludes its draft with a 2000 Giovanni Carmazzi (goes great with meatball fettuccine).  But Brady would've been a reach even though you had no other way to get him besides using your 3rd.  F the yackers, who have so little skin in the game, they don't honor their own guarantees, put together a scouting dept that knows what it's doing, figure out the kind of team you want to put together, then ignore everyone and everything except the picks already taken (you can't have those so you have to account for them), draft your guys, train your team, kick the 💩 out of your opponents, and never, ever ease up in a blowout.

 

*To be clear, I don't mean ketamine.

[Burgundy Yoda]

PFF and mock drafts that really have no inside connections to teams are the only ones who I've seen consider Jamin Davis a reach. All the guys who have inside info and connections to teams have had Jamin Davis within their top 25 prospects. 

[Burgold]

Based on the vast majority of draft grades Washington got, it seems unfair to call the pick a reach.

 

I'm happy to concede that Davis is the type of prospect that worries me. I am wary of the workout warrior whose stock jumps primarily because of the combine and I do think his draft pick popped because of his numbers in shorts. On the other hand, the guy did rack up 100 plus tackles and showed some good pass coverage skills on the football field... so, I think it's fairer to say that he's a player who intrigued the coaches because of his upside, his measurables, and because of his performance curve.

 

Davis is a pick that relies on projection though. My guess is Rivera and Del Rio saw him and thought... "This is clay I can work with" or "if this kid stays in college one more year, he's a top ten pick."

 

If either the former or latter is true, then grabbing him at 19 is not a reach at all.