Ah… Sorry, I misunderstood. You may be on to something, though.
The Steelers used to take a guy who could start and contribute. That was their approach forever. Didn’t always work out, but almost every high-round pick hung around with the Steelers for 3 years or more (rounds 1-3)
Under Colbert, and especially the past few years, they have been taking more fliers on workout/combine gods, and it hasn’t worked out. And each year, Colbert rolls the dice again the same way, just like a gambler who keeps doubling his bet on “black” at the roulette wheel, because “red” has hit 8 times in a row… Hell, red won’t hit AGAIN! (And it does)
My fear with Dupree is exactly that. He is an athlete, no question. He looks good in a T-shirt. He has all the “measurables”. But can he play, and play well, at the next level?
Jarvis Jones had the same buzz when the Steelers drafted him. And he has been bad. Shazier and Dri Archer last year, same thing. Dupree went from a concensus top 10 pick (I saw him going to the Jets at 6 on a few draft boards, and rarely did he slip past the Falcons at 8?) all the way to 22. There is a reason for that. And you pointed that reason out. Not everyone is convinced he’s the real deal.
I am not sure when this trend started, but you have me curious. I don’t recall Cowher drafting the best workout athlete… Maybe the combo of Colbert/Tomlin is what we are seeing… I will have to go back and check the drafts and see when this disturbing trend began.
I honestly don’t know how the Steelers draft actually works. I have always believed Colbert makes the picks, with input from Tomlin, who gets input from his coaches. I don’t think the Rooney’s get involved much at all, other than setting the overall tone of the organization (don’t draft problem children). But ultimately, Colbert has the responsibility. But depending on what fanboy blog you read, you get a different answer. The best thing that is now being spewed is that Dick LeBeau pushed for Jarvis Jones, and that’s one of the reasons he’s gone… Yeah, throw a HOF coach under the bus, because the Steelers laid an egg, and have for years, on drafting defense. Had to be LeBeau’s fault. Couldn’t be Colbert or Tomlin, right? After all, they’re still there, and the Steelers ALWAYS hire the right coach and GM.
I hope Dupree is great, and I hope Golson can see over the dashboard of his new car.
I was really worried about the Eagles draft, considering Chip Kelly now has final say on all picks and personnel matters. But damn, this is a solid draft. Unspectacular, but solid. There’s no need to have to talk myself into it, it made sense as it happened. Every player taken was at worst a fair value, at a position of need, with clear fits in both scheme and culture. There wasn’t one desperate reach. Even when they traded up for a player, it was fair value and fit the board, and he was drafted about where he should have been. They even managed to swindle the Lions into trading a 4th for a 3rd next year, my favorite type of trade.
I’ll go on record saying that JaCorey Shepherd will be the steal of the round (6th), if not the entire draft. He fell in the draft due to a bad 40 time, which he ran after injuring his hamstring. But he was as good as anyone in the country on deep passes, and had 28 pass breakups in his final two seasons. He allowed a stellar completion percentage against. While I truly believe he plays significant snaps within a couple seasons, he doesn’t have a clear path to doing so.
The one concern is that the Eagles will likely have the oldest OL in the league come week 1, and they didn’t draft a single OL. That’s two years in a row. It isn’t like the line stayed healthy last season, either. Teams get into big trouble when they don’t plan a season or two ahead for the line.
Nelson Algohor isn’t a first round talent, nor a size/speed guy who could develop into one. He’s very good and productive at the college level and I like his quickness, but I didn’t see anything great about him, and his size and weakness would greatly concern me. I think he’ll be fine, but I would think the Eagles would not want someone who is just “fine” at #20. I only watched one game of Rowe’s, and he did nothing to grab my attention, but he should be an improvement over what the Eagles had. I won’t pretend to know much about the other players (although that Hicks guy has some red flags), so I won’t say much about them. But I think relying on Algohor as the only WR drafted was a mistake, as well as the lack of building the O line. Of course, we will know in a few years, but I was not impressed with their draft at all. Although I think you may be right about Shepard.
After the no-show of Marcus Smith and Jordan Huff, and his offseason moves, I’m not sold on Chip Kelly as a GM. But, as always, we will see.
I don’t want to get into a back and forth about subjective stuff like this, but your opinion here is a little ridiculous. He was mocked in the first dozens of times, and he was a top 25 rated player by Scouts Inc. It isn’t as if he’s small, he’s 6’. He ran a 4.42 and was middle of the pack in the bench press. He’s very slightly above average in overall athleticism for his position (going by SPARQ), but he’s maybe the best route runner of the top 5-10 WRs in the class. And he’s a solid returner.
He’s also exactly Jeremy Maclin, who is without a doubt a first round talent.
Final season in college:
Maclin: 14g, 102rec, 1260yd, 12.4avg, 13TD
Agholor: 13g, 104rec, 1313yd, 12.6avg, 12TD
There really aren’t a whole lot of impact players available at 20. I’ll take an above-average starter at a position of need in the back half of the first every year.
He’s got to be an improvement over Bradley Fletcher already. Rowe is an athletic marvel and one of the surest tackling DBs in the draft, at another position of need.
I won’t say either is going to be a star, but I’d bet both are starters throughout their contracts, assuming good health. It was a weird offseason for Philly. Are they still a 10-6 team? Because a 10-6 team doesn’t need to make splashes, it needs to fill holes and find starting-quality depth.
Steelers are a victim of parity and their development system. I mean yea, Browns still suck at drafting, but everyone else – even the Raiders – seem to make sensible choices these days, so at 22 there’s not a lot of immediate starters available. Further, they can’t develop players The Steeler’s Way anymore – bury kids on the depth chart for years, then give them a chance when someone above them retires. Now adays, after 2-3 years, those players are looking for new contracts, and are wanting to go elsewhere to get a shot at playing. Wallace, Sanders, Hood, Crotchery, etc.
So, in the last 2-3 years, they’ve started mixing things up. That’s half the reason Lebeau left – his defense was too complicated for rookies to learn.
Half of their plan now is looking for splash players at the draft, but ones that have some issue preventing them from being a top half of the draft pick. High ceiling, low floor kind of guys. Physical freaks, mostly, and as a plan it’s not terrible: If they get 2-3 starters from each of the last few drafts, they’ll be one of the fastest, most athletic teams in the league.
Like Coates in this draft – I wasn’t happy with the pick, but they almost never miss on mid-round receivers, and if he is even close to Bryant this past season, I don’t know a single team in the league that can keep up with that offense when healthy. Two 6’+ 200 pound receivers on the outside, Brown and Wheaten carving up the middle (also, all 4 run a 4.40 40), Bell keeping the defense honest, Heath Miller blocking – damn.
And, Dupree is the exact opposite of Jarvis. The big knock on Jones was that he had the college production, but didn’t have the measurables. Of note, his biggest detractors thought he lacked the burst to play at the next level, and so far they’ve been right – he’s always a step behind the play. Dupree, on the other hand, is a freak of nature – he doesn’t just have measurables, he has measurables that are as good or better than Clowney. But when you watch his tape, it looks like he’s never been coached – he has no moves, doesn’t know how to use his hands, etc. So he’s a project, a big one. But technique can be taught, easier than teaching Jones how to speed up. In 2 years he could be a Pro Bowler, or he could be out of the NFL – comes down to coaching.
And, as for production, he has the most sacks of any active linebacker in the SEC. So… not bad there, either.
As for the CB’s, they probably are fine with Cortez against big receivers on the outside (he always does OK with AJ Green), so instead the plan was to get ballhawk zone corners for the middle of the field, where they really struggle. If they get turnovers, they give the ball right back to the ridiculous offense. Fast pass rushers on the outside and a freaskishly strong and athletic defensive line means you’re forced to throw, but if one of three of the ballhawking corners works out, then you suddenly don’t want to throw into the middle of the field, so you’re forced outside. (Oh yea, Dupree is ridiculously good in space and against the run).
Golson isn’t huge, but dude can catch like a wide receiver. And who knows if Holliman will ever see the field, but in his first year out, he got 14 interceptions – more than the Steelers last year in total. Not a bad ceiling for a 7th round pick.
So, with Mariota in Tennessee and Hroniss Grasu coming to Chicago to line up next to Kyle Long (which I am predictably thrilled about btw), it looks like Chip Kelly now has, at most, the third-best collection of ex-Duck talent in the league!
In the Nebraska - Wisconsin game, when MG3 ran for 408 yards, Gregory played fairly well in the first quarter and then just disappeared. I was not impressed by him that day. IIRC, he was hurt on Gordon’s final run of the day at the end of the third quarter. But for a supposed first round draft talent against only a so-so Wisconsin offensive line he performed poorly.
Over the years the Packers have tried this experiment several times. Drafting a QB relatively late and bringing him along slowly behind Favre or Rogers. It works occasionally and the Pack generates some value. The cost is small and the reward can be good. They tried it twice in 2008, picking up Brian Brohm in the second and Matt Flynn in the seventh. Flynn worked out nicely. Matt Hasselbeck in the 6th round of 1998 is another example. Probably works about a third of the time.
With the value so many teams put on “QB’s who don’t suck”, I think it’s well worth a flyer on a guy like Hundley, who has the physical tools, but lacks the mental aspects of the game. It should be interesting to see if he develops, unlike BJ Coleman, the Packers’ last experiment at QB development. I’m also interested in seeing if Scott Tolzien has developed in the last year and can be a solid backup QB with upside.
In what way did it work out with Matt Flynn? He played 2 meaningful games for the Packers and lost them both. Then he left as a free agent. The Packers wasted that pick and would have been just as well off with Brohm riding the pine for those 3 years instead of waiving him and wasting a 2nd round pick.
Hasselbeck netted the Packers 7 draft spots in the first round plus upgraded a 7th to a 3rd round pick after spending a 6th on him. That’s’ not nothing but it doesn’t justify the 3 year opportunity cost that it took to recover that.
The only time it worked was with Rodgers and at the time most logical people expected Favre to be gone in 2 years, which made drafting a developmental guy totally reasonable. If the Packers ever get anything out of Hundley that means their team took a devastating loss to Rodgers. Even if they flip Hundley for a 3rd rounder in 2 years, it’s not really worth burning a 5th to get a 3rd 3 drafts from now.
I’ll give you Landry Jones and a box of kazoos for Hundley.
He has 3+ years of NFL experience!
Note: the Steelers wasted a 5th round pick on this stiff. And he is still on the roster! I am hoping he qualifies for his NFL pension… He may be the worst player ever to do so.
What a ridiculous comment. Bad OL inherited from Neuheisel but improving rapidly. Bad coaching? Dumb comment of the thread. UCLA has greatly improved each year and has beaten USC 3 consecutive seasons. They averages 33.5 points a game last year. Hundley excelled under a massive rebuilding project. Lets also remember that the scouts thought Ryan Leaf was good enough to be the first pick in the draft and thought that Tom Brady was no better than a late rounder.
Are you actually a fan or did you watch them all season? Because I did.
Their offensive line is not good (at least as far as pass blocking go). Yeah, Hundley sometimes held the ball too long, but there were also plenty of times where his O-line failed to block at all. If Hundley was a statue-esque passer instead of the runner he is, they probably would’ve doubled. You don’t lead your conference in sacks taken unless your O-line isn’t that good. If you don’t believe me, just go watch the Virginia or Utah game.
As far as the coaching, I’m solely talking about the offensive staff. Noel Mazzone runs a weird scheme that is very reliant on short, quick passes to wide receivers in the flat, and hoping they can break a tackle and gain yardage. It’s the sort of thing that works great against inferior opposition but doesn’t work when the other team actually has decent DBs (which is why no one in the NFL uses it). His quarterbacks coach is the offensive coordinator’s son (who doesn’t have any experience, this isn’t a Kiffin-style thing). And if you actually watched the games, you could see that Mazzone is terrible at making in-game adjustments and would often become very reptitive in their play-calling.
First round or not, when he was taken the Packers’ intent was clearly to sit him for a year or three behind Favre. Maybe “developmental pick” isn’t the best descriptor, but Rodgers was in a very different situation from a typical first round QB who’s expected to start right out of college.
The offensive system does fit an offense with a mobile QB and a young inexperienced OL though. The offense will be more diverse and succesful under Rosen and a more experienced OL.
I think Hundley will develop into an excellent NFL QB. He has better tools than Russel Wilson. He will get the time to develop.
Flynn played well in the two games he was forced to start. I don’t know what compensatory pick(s) the Packers got for him, but considering he was in the seventh round anyway, it didn’t matter.
IIRC, the Packers were overjoyed Rogers fell to #24 in the first round. In my recollection he was always the Packer QB of the future during the time before #4 retired. The fact that the Pack rejected Farve when he unretired is evidence of that. What did they get from the Jets? I seem to recall a third rounder, but I could be incorrect on that.
