2012 NFL Pre-Draft Discussion

[Hamlet]

@Gangster_Octopus

No, of course not, but it seems that the odds that a league-wide evaluation of a QB prospect being a third rounder and that translating into a franchise Quarterback are quite low.

Generally I agree with you. But guys who get second/third round grades are now going in the top 10, which is kinda the problem I’m trying to point out. I didn’t have first round grades on Flacco, Freeman, Gabbert, Ponder, or Locker, and yet they’re going in the top 20 of drafts. It’s that artifical raising of your rankings because you’re desperate for a QB that I have a problem with.

@Gangster Octopus

I actually don’t know enough about Tannehill to say one way or the other, but I guess my point is that chances are if you are looking for your QB of the future you are going to have to snag them in the first round.

But, again, snagging them in the first round won’t make them better. If a team has an objective top 10 grade on Tannehill (I suppose it’s possible, but by and large I’m not seeing it), fine, draft him. You’re an idiot for giving him that grade, but hey, at least your sticking to your dumb evaluation. But what is happening with Tannehill, and what happened last year with Gabbert, Locker, and Ponder, and before that with Tebow, Sanchez, Freeman, is that teams seem to be pushing project QB’s up their draft boards simply because they’re desperate for a QB, not because the QB is any damn good.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Hamlet

Generally I agree with you. But guys who get second/third round grades are now going in the top 10, which is kinda the problem I’m trying to point out. I didn’t have first round grades on Flacco, Freeman, Gabbert, Ponder, or Locker, and yet they’re going in the top 20 of drafts. It’s that artifical raising of your rankings because you’re desperate for a QB that I have a problem with.

But, again, snagging them in the first round won’t make them better. If a team has an objective top 10 grade on Tannehill (I suppose it’s possible, but by and large I’m not seeing it), fine, draft him. You’re an idiot for giving him that grade, but hey, at least your sticking to your dumb evaluation. But what is happening with Tannehill, and what happened last year with Gabbert, Locker, and Ponder, and before that with Tebow, Sanchez, Freeman, is that teams seem to be pushing project QB’s up their draft boards simply because they’re desperate for a QB, not because the QB is any damn good.

That’s true, but to be fair, now with the new CBA there’s less financial risk at least for a team to try to strike gold with a QB in the latter half of the first round that would otherwise go much later in the draft. I guess it just illustrates how important the position is to a team’s success.

[Hamlet]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

That’s true, but to be fair, now with the new CBA there’s less financial risk at least for a team to try to strike gold with a QB in the latter half of the first round that would otherwise go much later in the draft.

Less financial risk, yes. They don’t need to commit as much money to any given draft picks. But the opportunity costs of wasting a first round pick count too. The Browns in this draft, for example, could take Tannehill at #4, and, while his contract will be much more reasonable than before the new CBA, the additional cost is not having another “elite” player, say Morris Claiborne, Justin Blackmon, or Richardson.

I think teams picking early in the draft have a great chance to take advantage of the desperation of other teams. The Rams did a great job of it with the Redskins (and RGIII is miles ahead of Tannehill at this point), and maybe the Browns could do it with Miami or whatever other team is stupid and desperate enough to want Tannehill. Then, next year, they could move up and grab Barkley, Jones, or whomever they wish.

@Foie Gras

I guess it just illustrates how important the position is to a team’s success.

It is the most important position in the NFL, bar none. That doesn’t mean teams must get one RIGHT NOW NO MATTER WHAT IT COST!!! I don’t think that kind of desperation will lead to much success.

[furt]

@Omniscient

The time of “waiting 2-3 years” to see if a QB develops is over.

Cite?

This works real well as emotion-driven ranting, but it doesn’t stand up to any sort of actual critical thinking. The idea of waiting five years doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think it ever did (and AFAICT, was never the norm anyway). But just looking over last year’s top-10 passers, I only see one who was an immediate success as a rookie (Ryan).

The rest all had various holdups: Rodgers, Romo and Schaub all sat for three years. Matthew Stafford sucked as a rookie, and after two years was getting labeled injury-prone; Eli Manning was awful as rookie, and was mediocre for several years afterwards; Alex Smith was awful for three and mediocre for two more.

By your logic, all of those teams should have given up on those guys and drafted the next shiny thing. Or they could do like San Diego, who did draft a new guy when Drew Brees had an iffy third season, and eventually went with him. Time will tell on that one.

So no, I don’t see any evidence that the position has somehow fundamentally changed where you can make a definitive decision on a guy after one year.

And that goes both ways, too: I knew ESPN wants to get everyone all excited about guys like Cam Newton and Andy Dalton posting league-average passing stats at rookies, but keep in mind that guys like Marc Bulger and Charlie Batch did too.

[furt]

nm

[Omniscient]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Perhaps, but “draft one every fucking year” certainly won’t work.

If the talent evaluation and player developments staffs can’t select a QB who’s worth a shit in the first round the issue is with the them, not with drafting a QB early. You need a QB, you draft one until you get it right. Certainly you don’t draft a player purely for the sake of it, but you sure as shit don’t pass on a guy who has the talent to be a star simply because you’ve already drafted a 1st round QB. Being afraid to draft a QB because of what it would say about your previous selections is infinitely worse than wasting a pick. Evaluation is a crapshoot, when you miss you accept it and you move on. You don’t stand there afraid to pull the trigger again because of the initial failure. Drafting in the NFL is like being a baseball closer, you need to have a short memory and trust your methods. If your methods and grades are shit, well that’s a separate issue.

@SenorBeef

I don’t know where you think I’m somehow nonchalant about quarterbacks. I said I’d give up 4, 22, and next year’s first for RG3. But spending a lot on a qb doesn’t make him good. The window has closed on getting an elite prospect. Drafting Tannehill at 4 doesn’t make him one.

You said if the Browns love Tannehill, and that’s my point. He’s not the sort of prospect people should love. Next year there will be a few - better to make a move then.

You talking to me? I didn’t imply you were nonchalant about them, and if you and the Browns dislike Tannehill that’s perfectly fair. Draft someone else. But, if you like Tannehill you take him at 4. The “I like Tannehill, but only at #16 not a #4” is a silly excuse to not take him. If your talent scouts say a guy will be a winning QB with elite upside, there’s no price too high. If your scouts dislike him, so be it, but don’t rationalize it away based on anything besides the player evaluation. When it comes to QBs “value” is a overrated concept.

@furt

Cite?

This works real well as emotion-driven ranting, but it doesn’t stand up to any sort of actual critical thinking. The idea of waiting five years doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think it ever did (and AFAICT, was never the norm anyway). But just looking over last year’s top-10 passers, I only see one who was an immediate success as a rookie (Ryan).

The rest all had various holdups: Rodgers, Romo and Schaub all sat for three years. Matthew Stafford sucked as a rookie, and after two years was getting labeled injury-prone; Eli Manning was awful as rookie, and was mediocre for several years afterwards; Alex Smith was awful for three and mediocre for two more.

By your logic, all of those teams should have given up on those guys and drafted the next shiny thing. Or they could do like San Diego, who did draft a new guy when Drew Brees had an iffy third season, and eventually went with him. Time will tell on that one.

So no, I don’t see any evidence that the position has somehow fundamentally changed where you can make a definitive decision on a guy after one year.

And that goes both ways, too: I knew ESPN wants to get everyone all excited about guys like Cam Newton and Andy Dalton posting league-average passing stats at rookies, but keep in mind that guys like Marc Bulger and Charlie Batch did too.

Name me a QB who played significantly in his first season and sucked, but then after 3 years of “patience” developed into a top QB? Big Ben and Manning are really the only guys that come to mind, but in that first season it was apparent that both guys were going to be good someday. For the most part QBs are who they are in year one. They’ll throw too many picks and they might get banged up some, but you can see if they can play in the league. When a guy is lost out there, indecisive and happy footed he’s usually cooked. If Gabbert’s game tape is as bad as most people say it is, I would stake anything that he’ll never even be an average QB. McCoy will never be even a average QB. You simply don’t pass on a QB because you’ve invested in those guys. Like I said, you still need to have your scouts do their jobs, but the guys on the roster simply shouldn’t impact who you draft unless they are already very good.

[Hamlet]

[Quote=Omni]
For the most part QBs are who they are in year one.
[/quote]
So you can tell, after one year starting, which QB will be elite, which ones will be average and which ones will be awful? That is impressive. You knew in 2009 that Flacco would ne average. You knew in 2010 that Josh Freeman would regress. You lnow right now that Cam Newton will be elite or average that Andy Dalton will be great/good/average/bad, and that Gabbert will fail miserably.

You are wasting your time with us here. Get thee to a NFL pro personnel department.

[SenorBeef]

@Omniscient

You talking to me? I didn’t imply you were nonchalant about them, and if you and the Browns dislike Tannehill that’s perfectly fair. Draft someone else.

I was referring to this:

@Omniscient

My team always had shitty QBs because they shared the logic that Beef and furt have. They made so little effort to find one that it’s a shock they even had one to suit up. I’ve seen that it doesn’t work. And I’ve seen that “wait til next year” usually never comes.

My attitude is closer to yours than Furt’s. QB is, by far, the most important need a team has to fill. Until you’ve found your QB, nothing else is terribly important - you’re not going anywhere. Where I disagree is that you basically seem to be saying the Browns have to pick their QB this year. Well, if they still had a shot at RG3, I’d be right there with you. But who else is there? Tannehill? Weeden? Osweiler? Yeah, no one is that great a prospect. None of them are even likely to be much better than McCoy in 2012. So at that point, having failed to secure one of the great prospects, you might as well just buckle down and wait until next year, when you’ve again got the chance to land an elite prospect.

Regarding the value thing - the risk/reward ratio is priced into the pick. I mean - you understand why teams draft the big armed retard from podunk state in the 6th round, of course - he’s unlikely to pan out, but if you can mold him, he could actually turn out to be pretty good. But that’s unlikely. So you don’t invest much into the chance. Same deal with drafting Tannehill/Weeden/etc. later. They may be worth giving a try, but the cost of what you spend on them has to be proportional to the risk/reward they represent. I wouldn’t hate Weeden in the second for that reason, but I’d hate him #4 overall.

But there’s just no one left that makes you think MAN I WANT THAT GUY. And if you’re spending a #4 pick, you want one of those guys. I’d rather the Browns make a real move in 2013 and pick up an elite prospect than to try to see if we can manage to do something with Ryan Tannehill. After all, Tannehill isn’t likely to result in more wins for 2012 anyway, so what have you gained by drafting him really?

[Omniscient]

I’m not saying the Browns have to draft someone this year. I’m saying that if their scouts like one of the guys in the draft at all, they should ensure that they get them regardless of where in the draft this is. If they don’t like anyone, then that’s fine, just don’t use “it’s too early” as a rationale for missing out on a guy you like.

They can pick Weeden at 22 and if he’s not shaping up they still can move up for a guy next year like the Redskins did. Being passive never works with QBs.

[furt]

@Omniscient

Name me a QB who played significantly in his first season and sucked, but then after 3 years of “patience” developed into a top QB? Big Ben and Manning are really the only guys that come to mind,

Bad rookie QBs in the last 25 years who went on to have success include: Troy Aikman, Donovan McNabb, Drew Bledsoe, Eli Manning, Jake Plummer, Alex Smith, Vinny Testaverde. Of course, we’ve no idea what the guys who didn’t get off the bench would have done. The days of waiting five years are not only gone, they never existed; but yes, it’s still true that a significant percentage of young QBs benefit from a year or two of development.

The point isn’t that McCoy, specifically, is brimming with superstar promise; he strikes me as a white Rodney Peete. I think everyone agrees that if the Browns really like Tannehill (or whoever else), they should take him. But I was responding to:

you simply cannot come out of this draft without another QB who you think has at least a chance to start this year.

and

The Browns have no QB right now. They should draft the best one they can this year.

which sounds an awful lot like “draft a QB high and let him play, even if you don’t actually like him, even if he’s a project like Tannehill who has minimal college experience.” That’s not an approach, it’s panic.

The bare fact of it is you only have so much time at minicamp; you only have so many reps to give out in practice, and you only have so many games on the schedule. If you have two young, highly-drafted, QBs on the roster, which one gets most of coaching staff’s time? Which one gets the game experience? If you pick one vs the other, you’re basically giving up on the second guy; if you choose to split them evenly, then you’re not giving either their best chance to succeed.

It can be done: I liked Jimmy Johnson’s approach of basically taking two QBs in the first round in the same year. But there are good, practical reasons why the (generally very smart) people who do it for a living don’t do it, and one of them is that even with top-tier talent, sometimes it takes time and effort to develop that talent (Troy Aikman, #1 overall pick: 20-36 TD/INT ratio after two seasons).

Of course, one of the ironies of the “get a QB at all costs” line of approach is that overspending for one now impedes your ability to get one later; even if the Redskins are wrong on RG3, they *won’*t be drafting his replacement in the first round next year, or the year after.

[garygnu]

Of the three first-round QBs we know of so far, Tannehill would most greatly benefit from sitting for a few years. He just doesn’t have the starts to be able to function at the NFL level right away.

[Baal_Houtham]

Question: Have you seen any prospect who looks damn good on a game tape?

YouTube has a lot of scouting tapes up for this draft. I don’t have a scout’s eye, and while occasionally someone looks impressive in a highlight reel, they don’t look so good when I watch a game tape.

For instance, Morris Claiborne is viewed --almost universally-- as the top CB, and as a top 6 draft pick. On the highlight tapes he seems to have a great sense of balance, and looks impressive. But in this video of Morris Claiborne vs Georgia he looks very human. He slips and falls. He blatantly grabs a receiver. He gets juked. He gets run over. And he drops a couple of balls that hit his hands, before actually making an interception. I guess it’s good that he was in position for the balls to hit his hands.

I’ve watched YouTube game tapes on Fletcher Cox, Brockers, Trent Richardson, and several wide receivers. There was never a feeling of watching a man among boys. Blackmon looked okay, but the other top receivers looked like nothing special.

Have you seen any game tapes that left you impressed?

[Omniscient]

@Baal_Houtham

Question: Have you seen any prospect who looks damn good on a game tape?

YouTube has a lot of scouting tapes up for this draft. I don’t have a scout’s eye, and while occasionally someone looks impressive in a highlight reel, they don’t look so good when I watch a game tape.

For instance, Morris Claiborne is viewed --almost universally-- as the top CB, and as a top 6 draft pick. On the highlight tapes he seems to have a great sense of balance, and looks impressive. But in this video of Morris Claiborne vs Georgia he looks very human. He slips and falls. He blatantly grabs a receiver. He gets juked. He gets run over. And he drops a couple of balls that hit his hands, before actually making an interception. I guess it’s good that he was in position for the balls to hit his hands.

I’ve watched YouTube game tapes on Fletcher Cox, Brockers, Trent Richardson, and several wide receivers. There was never a feeling of watching a man among boys. Blackmon looked okay, but the other top receivers looked like nothing special.

Have you seen any game tapes that left you impressed?

Agreed on Claiborne. I’m already on record saying he’s going to be a colossal bust. Ditto Dre Kirkpatrick.

Andrew Luck leaps off the screen for me. He looks like a 3 year NFL veteran playing on Saturdays. RG3 leaps off the screen in a completely different way, he doesn’t look like a NFL player yet but he certainly looks like he’s at a different level than his peers.

Richardson looks pretty pedestrian to me, but I seem to be in the minority on that one. Defensively there haven’t really been too many guys that really pooped off the screen for me. All in all it was a pretty uninspiring NCAA season this past year and the Title game perfectly reflected that, which is a little weird when you hear all the scouts talking about how amazing this draft class is.

Blackmon looked like a world beater last year, but he seemed to be a little bit less impressive this year and with his combine numbers being so-so you start to wonder a little about why he was so damned productive. It might just be that the Big-12 really sucked.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@furt

And that goes both ways, too: I knew ESPN wants to get everyone all excited about guys like Cam Newton and Andy Dalton posting league-average passing stats at rookies, but keep in mind that guys like Marc Bulger and Charlie Batch did too.

Wait, what? Bulger was a top-5 quarterback for 4 seasons.

@Omniscient

Name me a QB who played significantly in his first season and sucked, but then after 3 years of “patience” developed into a top QB? Big Ben and Manning are really the only guys that come to mind, but in that first season it was apparent that both guys were going to be good someday.

Drew Brees became a starter in his second season and was solid, and was horrible in his third. Matt Stafford was awful as a rookie. Matt Hasselbeck didn’t play as a rookie, and was pretty bad for two years once he got to start. Drew Bledsoe was bad as a rookie, and then threw for 4500 yards and 27 touchdowns in year 2. Josh Freeman was crappy his rookie season, and lights-out his second year (though he regressed last year).

[SenorBeef]

RG3 and Luck were the only players in the top of this draft that excited me at all. Whoever the Browns get at #4 - probably Richardson - meh.

[Jules_Andre]

I saw a game video for Fletcher Cox (since it looks as if, after the DeMeco Ryans trade, the Eagles are off the Kuechly bandwagon). I think against South Carolina. On every single snap Cox looked awful, and this other DT next to him looked dominant. I mean, potential All Pro dominant. So much penetration it might not be safe for work. I was seriously puzzled. How is Fletcher Cox getting ANY pub when this other no name on his own team is seriously wrecking this game. Outshining the first rounder?

Turns out I had the numbers backwards. The dominant one was Fletcher Cox. Needless to say, kinda hoping the Eagles draft him.

*I just rewatched the South Carolina video. Not sure how I mixed the two DTs up when it appears the video now highlights Cox on every play. Heh, oops.

[Jules_Andre]

Missed the edit window. There’s another Fletcher Cox video against Alabama where he’s much less special on tape. A couple wow plays early, but seemed to do nothing for the rest of the video. So, both sides of the coin there.

[Baal_Houtham]

@Jules_Andre

Missed the edit window. There’s another Fletcher Cox video against Alabama where he’s much less special on tape. A couple wow plays early, but seemed to do nothing for the rest of the video. So, both sides of the coin there.

This is the video of Fletcher Cox vs South Carolina that you mention and, and yup, Cox looks like a handful. After a few big plays he starts getting double teamed. Lots of penetration, some tackles for a loss, pushes people around. Looked good.

[MOIDALIZE]

Nike is unveiling their new NFL unis. Paul Lukas of Uniwatch fame is tweeting pics.

https://twitter.com/#!/uniwatch

Most of the display mannequins are modeling the white pants for some reason. I wanna see what the colored pants look like.

[DCnDC]

New uniforms for all 32 teams unveiled today. A few of them appear to be noticeably different, but it looks like the majority received only minor aesthetic changes. Check it out here.