Nevermind. I skipped back to show my kid and saw they were each wearing a Dashiki. :smack:
Okay, I understand Reggie McKenzie comes from the Ron Wolf “take a QB every draft” school, but I’m not sold on spending two picks to take Connor “Bo Callahan” Cook, especially when I KNOW the Raiders still have plenty of holes to fill elsewhere…
Everything comes with tradeoffs, it’s like the cliche about democracy… it’s the worst form of government except all the others. Drafting a QB every draft is way too expensive when you have other needs, but it’s better than not drafting a bunch of QBs and ending up like the Browns.
Lots of Bears picks this round and I really like several of them.
4.15 Nick Kwiatkoski ILB WVA
Absolutely love this pick. Super productive LB with nice size and measurables. Leader, has the potential to be a fixture in the middle of the Bears D.
4.26 Deon Bush S Miami
We need help badly at Safety, but I’m not liking what I’m reading about this guy. Seems like he has terrible vision and instincts and can’t cover anyone. Special teamer is all he looks to be.
4.29 Deiondre’ Hall CB UNI
Everyone is raving about this kids arm length, and it sounds awesome. Physically this guy is about perfect for a CB in today’s NFL, except that 4.68 40 time and 7.07 3 cone is downright bad. We’ll see if his on-field game speed is better than his timed speed. I like the pick though, worth a roll of the dice and we need a CB badly.
5.11 Jordan Howard RB IU
Love, love, love this pick. This kid was a stud on a terrible Big Ten team, projected to go in the second day. His big question is speed, but I think it’s going to be good enough and his size is a really nice compliment to Langford. Carey better watch out. I would have been happy seeing him drafted in the 3rd. Fuck yeah.
Bears just added another guy I really like in the 6th round.
6.10 DeAndre Houston-Carson FS W&M
Small school kid with prototypical size and speed. He’s a little stiff but has tons of attitude. Clearly Pace and Fox are determined to fix this secondary and they are attacking it with lots of picks which I totally agree with. I think Houston-Carson has a better shot of developing into a starter than Bush. Getting fired up.
Lions just drafted a Long Snapper:confused:(I actually had to look up what the hell LS stood when it came across since you never see it in a draft)
Dak Prescott? Huh, we’ll, I think a 4th rounder is a decent area to make a shot at a Romo backup. Glad it wasn’t in the 2nd.
I’m curious how much college football everyone else watches? I watch every SEC game (record and watch thru the week), and then the 1-2 marquee games that are also on.
I end up watching more college ball than NFL games.
I watch pretty much all the nationally broadcast Big Ten games and all the Illini games. Also catch a lot of Notre Dame and most of the big ticket primetime games during the season. If I’m travelling or have Saturday afternoon plans I don’t really sweat recording it and watching later, SportsCenter is good enough.
The Bears just wrapped up their draft with a very popular pick. McShay and Kiper love it.
7.9 Daniel Braverman WR WMU
Saw a little of WMU this year and Braverman definitely stood out. Very shifty and seems like a guy that commands the ball in the clutch. The talking heads called him the best route runner in the draft and a Julian Edelman type, both things are comments that get me all hot and bothered. This was a position of need and I’m glad the Bears added a guy to compete with Mariani and Royal, I think the slot could be a very useful position with White and Jeffery on the outside and a vacancy at TE.
All in all, it looks like a really nice draft for Ryan Pace with the exception of the first pick, though the pundits all seem to love it. Pretty much everyone after Floyd that the Bears drafted is graded as a major value according to all the projections, positional ranks and grades. We’ll see if that amounts to anything, it’s all a crap shoot. Pace doesn’t seem like he has any clear preference for a conference and he even dipped frequently into the small school crop.
Well hell, the news keeps on coming. The Bears just signed Brian Hoyer to back up Cutler. Can’t find much to complain about on that transaction.
I think the Bengals did pretty well overall. The Billings pick in round 4 is probably the steal of the draft. Unsure about the Nick Vigil pick in the 3rd, don’t know jack about him.
All the NFL teams saw something few of the pundits and prognosticators saw. Wonder what that is, but usually the wisdom of the crowd is right. We’ll see, maybe the pundits were right for a change.
More news for the Bears, they just released OG Matt Slauson and S Antrel Rolle. Rolle wasn’t a shock since he was over paid and not productive when he wasn’t injured, but the move on Slauson is pretty surprising, rumor is there’s a unreported health issue. Obviously they hope Cody Whitehair will win that LG job soon. Slauson was always a really solid contributor and while he had some issues staying healthy, he was instrumental in bridging the gap between Garza and Grasu at Center and often made all the line calls for Grasu as a rookie.
Looks like this is officially Kyle Long’s group to lead. They added Manny Ramirez and Ted Larsen as rotational OGs in free agency and I’m not sure either is expected to start. I’m not convinced Grasu is the long term answer at Center, maybe not even this year’s starter.
I’m guessing the OL will be Leno, Whitehair, Grasu, Long, Massie. Big questions are 3 of those 5 spots, and that’s probably generous to call Massie a answer. Maybe Ramirez and Larsen slot in over Whitehair and Grasu if they opt for experience or they flat win the job.
There’s a couple OTs brought in as UDFAs, John Kling and Adrian Bellard, either of which could compete but certainly aren’t answers. Still an awful lot of work to do on the line if Slaw is gone.
Some other interesting UDFAs were brought in. Couple of TEs people are high on in Joe Sommers and Ben Braunecker. Sommers is a UW-Oshkosh kid so the locals are fired up, Bronk is out of Harvard so the ESPN clowns will love him. Bronk could actually make the team I think. Couple of big school DBs that have upside in Taveze Calhoun and Kevin Peterson were signed too, out of the 6 or 7 rookies we bring to camp I’m sure 3-4 will make the final roster in the secondary.
I’ll give the Browns credit for at least understanding their needs. I believe they drafted 5 WRs. Hopefully two of them hit. Overall, though, kind of a lackluster draft all around.
Patriots were busy trading and moving around as usual in this draft. My favorite thing is that, as part of that maneuvering, they gained a 2017 4th round draft pick. They didn’t have one of those due to league punishment for Deflategate, so I see it as a subtle “Fuck You” to Goodell. Makes me smile just a little.
Here’s another quick post on topics only interesting to me.
Read an article today on PFW from Hub Arkush about Ryan Pace. It’s based on a small sample size, but I think I agree with his deduction. Would be interesting to hear Pace comment on his strategy for building his team, but he’s pretty tight lipped.
Here’s my TL;DR version:
Ryan Pace’s draft strategy 2 drafts in is basically this: shoot for a super star in the first round, and then go for production and BPA afterwards. The small data set backs this up.
Last year he shot for the moon with Kevin White who has crazy measurables and basically an unlimited ceiling. This year has grabbed the “sexy” fast riser in Floyd who has a great frame and elite athleticism. Both guys are at premium positions, both guys can be All Pros if they pan out, and both guys have questions about their production and NFL-ready polish.
In the later rounds, he hits a whole bunch of singles and doubles grabbing solid, well rounded, NFL ready contributors. Last year it was Goldman, Grasu, Langford, Amos, all guys who started for most of the season. If this year matches that, it’ll be Whitehair, Bullard, Kwiatkowski, Howard and hopefully one of the DBs. I think it’s highly likely we get 3 starters out of that list of guys once again.
Of course, Kevin White and Leonard Floyd probably need to become Pro Bowlers if we’re going to go anywhere and justify this approach, but I’m starting to think Pace can actually make this work in the long run.
Seahawks had a different draft than I expected. With ten total picks, they picked eight guys on the offensive side on the ball (and two on defense - no kickers or long snappers here!) That’s three O-linemen (needed!), three running backs, a tight end, and a wide receiver. I would have liked to see them do a bit more to reload on the D-line, and the secondary seemed to be more of a need than a wide receiver. But mostly I was surprised to see three running backs taken. I know Lynch is gone now, but it sounds like the front office is either unsure of Rawls coming back from injury, or really uninterested in Michael - or both.
I’m definitely not qualified to give a grade by any stretch (I hardly watch any college football, so most of the names are unknown to me), but I’m definitely excited to start seeing some of these guys play. Only three months til preseason…