The bit of proday tape they showed yesterday didnt impress me. Both his arm strength and accuracy were so-so. He was also surrounded by 1st round picks at WR, OL and RB at Alabama.
i forgot to mention that the Raiders most likely consulted closely with Jacobs about both Jeudy and Riggs. I am very comfortable with this pick.
Swift would have been a great RB for the Chiefs, but I think they probably looked at the final 3 games of LSU’s season and saw how Edwards Helaire can be used in a wide-open offensive attack that mixes up running and passing, and one that features RBs as both running backs and receivers. Edwards Helaire fits into that scheme very well. That’s not to say Swift wouldn’t, but sometimes it comes down to what they see on tape and they had to be impressed with what they saw against quality defenses (Georgia and Clemson, not so much OU).
As an LSU fan, the most impressive thing about Edwards Helaire is that he is small and fast, which makes him elusive when he has room to run. But he is also exceptionally strong. He has strong legs. Not the easiest guy to take down. He has an Emmitt Smith type build.
Just gonna leave this here.
There’s zero chance that happened. Everyone needs to be fired, again, if that’s how they do business.
If you’re asking your starting RB who to draft, you’ve made some serious mistakes.
Good grief, not a banner draft so far for the NFC North. I’ll be honest with you, though, I’ll be seriously annoyed (in an envious way) if Jordan Love ends up being another Hall of Famer. I mean, Daniel Jones looked like a garbage fire of a pick at the time and he so far looks like maybe not terrible. (Or maybe he’s on the Baker Mayfield trajectory and about to fall off a cliff in year 2. But year 1 was at least promising.) You never know.
The NFC East seems to be doing okay, nice and conservative drafting. I don’t mind at all. In fact, I’m looking forward to watching the Chase Young vs Andrew Thomas matchup for years to come.
If it’s any consolation, the Packers drafted a guy who shouldn’t see the field for 4 years IN THE FIRST FUCKING ROUND and a (quite good) running back when they already have Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams. Meanwhile, they don’t have a legit #2 WR, they have no depth on the O line, and they’ve completely ignored their mess at LB for years. They passed on starting level CBs, a solid OT in Josh Jones, and let the WR position all but dry up (C’mon Tyler Johnson!!!). But if their QB and two top RBs all get injured, they’ll be in a great spot.
I hate Roger Goodell as much as the next guy but I have to give him some credit for really leaning into the booing he was getting.
I spent the night rocking back and forth repeating “Jaire Alexander looks legit. Darnell Savage was a good pick. Elgton Jenkins is a starter. There are 4 more rounds to find someone…” Of course in reality, I figure the Pack will now draft a Long Snapper in the 5th round, then a kicker, then maybe another physically limited H back to round out the draft. Boy I am not happy so far with this Packer draft. But Tyler Johnson and Isiah Hodgins are still available, so there is hope.
Other thoughts:
I love what the Cowboys are doing, and that pisses me off. Thanks to other teams, they’ve been able to sit and wait and get fantastic value at positions of need. Same with the Cards, who got the steal of the draft with Josh Jones and now have DeAndre Hopkins for their second round pick. Talk about value. Plus Kingsbury’s house looks pretty fucking cool.
I’ve seen a lot of love for the Panthers draft, but I’m not seeing it at all. It’s great that they went with the obvious needs on defense, but I think Brown, Gross Matos, and Chinn are all overrated underwear warriors and not great football players. We will see.
The Raiders continue to make me smile. Bowden at 80 is a huge reach for a gadget player. Edwards at 81 was another reach. And Muse, while versatile, is average at everything except coverage where he is not great which is kinda a problem when that is what he should be doing.
I hate that I like what the Vikings and Lions are doing, and absolutely hate what the Packers are doing. At least the Bears drafted another athlete/tight end in the 2nd round. But I do like Jaylon Johnson there, so even they are beating the Packers. Time to turn it around on day 3.
So, Joe Staley told the 49ers he was retiring, privately before the draft, so they could find a replacement. Instead of selecting Tristan Wirfs at #13, they fleeced Miami, picked a top DT, used the pickup to trade up for a WR they really wanted, and used a 5th and a future 3rd for Trent Williams.
I feel the opposite. This is giving me even more cabin fever watching everyone through a webcam. Might as well be at work.
Niners get Trent Williams from Washington for a 5th rounder this year and a 3rd rounder next year (and a likely restructured contract so he gets paid). Williams is a damn good player who is 31 years old, so it seems like the Niners got the better end of the deal (especially with Joe Staley retiring). Fuck Dan Snyder. Which is the way every fan should finish talking about Washington.
I am a big detractor of the inaccurate, overrated play of one Josh Allen. So the Bills get some kudos for drafting Jake Fromm in the 5th round. Fromm doesn’t have much of an arm, but he’s smart, a good leader, and continued to beat out bigger, stronger, and more athletic QB’s while at Georgia. A solid backup, who, if he develops (and the Bills realize Josh Allen can only throw accurate within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage) he could be a solid starting QB in the NFL. Good value and good pick.
The Bucs snag Tyler Johnson for Brady to throw to. With Mike Evans and Chris Godwin both studs at the WR position, Tyler might carve out a niche as a good #3 WR. He just seems to get open. The Dolphins picked up Curtis Weaver in the 5th too. That’s the first pick of theirs I like (outside of Tua at #5). For all the draft picks they had going in, I have not been impressed.
On the bright side, the Packers haven’t made a pick that infuriated me yet today. In other news, the Packers haven’t made any picks yet today.
Chris Simms had the best line critisizing the pick. (I’m paraphrasing) “The Packers still haven’t stopped the 49ers, Those guys are still running.”
The Cowboys got an absolute steal in Tyler Biadasz in the fourth at center. He’s from my hometown, so the Cowboys fans in my family (my older brother and my nephew) are absolutely jacked up.
But the Packers. What. The. Fork. Were. They. Thinking.
I’d feel better about dancing on the Packers grave if the Bears weren’t such a garbage fire themselves and if I wasn’t practically certain that Love will become a guy that destroys the Bears for the next decade. Sure, he was a train wreak most of last year, but if you read what I wrote in my first post, I’m less down on him than you are.
And our luck being what it is and your luck being what it is, it’ll probably work out for you. It may also handcuff the team for the next couple years and prevent the Packers from winning a Super Bowl which is nice, but I’m really holding out for that decade long malaise that your team is due for after the loss of a superstar QB.
In other news, the Bears did a few more things that pissed me off on Saturday. First they traded up in the 5th twice, in one case giving away a 2021 4th to the rival Vikings. Seriously. fuck that. None of these guys in the 5th round are such “values” that you can’t afford to gamble that they fall to you. So fucking short sighted. I really am mad about that 4th rounder too, those are some of my favorite spots to grab future starters. Seems like a lot of unsexy highly productive guys with minor red flags go in the 4th.
The other thing is they waited until the 7th to address either line, never a great sign, and they did one of my newer pet peeves with drafting: they picked a pair of undersized OTs with a plan to convert them to OGs. I hate, hate, hate this strategy. Good tackles do not usually make good guards, sometimes, but it’s by no means a trivial transition. You can argue a 7th round pick is basically no different than a priority free agent and these guys are straight up developmental projects so who cares. But I’d much rather take a 7th round OG and try to develop him into a NFL quality player at his natural position than take a guy who you’re immediately asking to learn a new position.
I don’t think it comes down to luck. Obviously the Packers and I disagree about Love’s long term developmental possibilities, and, since they know a ton more than I do, I can roll with it.
However, the trading up and the lack of finding weapons for the current team has made it absolutely necessary that Love be great. If Love is just average, the Packers would have mortgaged a potential Super Bowl run to do what so many bad teams do: overdraft a physically talented, but not great QB. Adding a running back in the 2nd and a special teamer/H back in the third just compounded the problems.
The best thing I can say is that the Packers didn’t hurt themselves too horribly. They just didn’t help themselves when they were in a position to really challenge for a Super Bowl again. This team is only a couple players away, and those players could have been drafted this past weekend. But they weren’t. The first few rounds of the draft are where you can find guys like that. And instead of doing that, they drafted a guy who looks good in shorts throwing to other guys in shorts with no defenders in sight. Great.
But, as I said, the Packers are good enough to compete for the Championship already, so they didn’t necessarily hurt themselves. Just a huge missed opportunity.
The more I think about Love, the more I wonder if Rodgers might have told the Packers that he is seriously considering hanging it up in a year or two. Absolutely nothing substantial except a feeling that started growing in my gut. But he has always been a kind of weird, focused and secretive dude. If anyone was to decide to cash it out as their prime years ended, to not risk brain damage, and just move on to other stuff, Rodgers kinda feels like the dude that might, and certainly might consider it strongly at the least.