Thanks. Those sites are what I was looking for.
And draft analysis is all about guessing anyway. You might get the next super star from the 7th round or the pool of UDFAs. The hottest talent taken early might hurt himself in an ATV accident or get tossed in jail or just not adjust to NFL play.
B+ is pretty good.
No doubt. I think these write ups were 90% completed during the day on Friday, they just had an editor update the full results before posting and added a last comment when someone projected in the top 50 slipped to the middle rounds. No ones working the weekends and no one actually “scouted” the bottom of the draft guys to say anything meaningful about.
I know everyone is praising the Ravens draft, but it wasn’t until reading these grades that I realized how amazing it looks.
Round 1: No. 14 – Kyle Hamilton, S, Notre Dame
Round 1: No. 25 (via BUF) – Tyler Linderbaum, C, Iowa
Round 2: No. 45 – David Ojabo , LB, Michigan
Round 3: No. 76 – Travis Jones , DT, UConn
Round 4: No. 110 (from NYG) – Daniel Faalele, OT, Minnesota
Round 4: No. 119 – Jalyn Armour-Davis, CB, Alabama
Round 4: No. 128 (from AZ) – Charlie Kolar , TE, Iowa State
Round 4: No. 130 (from BUF) – Jordan Stout, P, Penn State
Round 4: No. 139 – Isaiah Likely , TE, Coastal Carolina
Round 4: No. 141 – Damarion Williams, CB, Houston
Round 6: No. 196 (from MIA) – Tyler Badie, RB, Missouri
They had SIX 4th round picks. The 4th round is possibly the juiciest spot in the draft most years, the spot where talent and value sometimes get inverted most dramatically. I can’t believe they accrued that many. Every one of the picks reads like a possible steal, but when you factor in the number of at bats they got in the 4th it is exponentially better. You have to think at least 3-4 of these day 3 picks will break out at worst.
Maybe more. The Ravens have long had a good eye for talent in the draft.
Yeah they do. Nobody was paying attention to Lamar Jackson before they snatched him up at the very end of the first round. So many teams could have had him.
The only knock I’ve seen on the Ravens this year is that they got rid of Jackson’s favorite target, but even critics concede they just couldn’t keep since Brown wanted to go, and the Ravens were discreet about it. They basically did it the best way a team could.
Jackson knew about it too, this wasn’t a “don’t tell Rodgers” situation.
This article was interesting.
The Browns knew Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, is owed $18.858 million for 2022. They surely came to the conclusion in January or February that Mayfield was not the quarterback of the future. They should have been looking for a trade partner for Mayfield at the NFL Scouting Combine and been ready to move quickly at the start of the league year on March 16. They should have been lining up contingency plans for a starting quarterback —Watson, Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan, Jimmy Garoppolo.
But Berry seemingly stood firm on how much, if any, the Browns would pay of Mayfield’s salary and let other teams upgrade at quarterback. The Atlanta Falcons’ Ryan was traded to Indianapolis. The Seattle Seahawks’ Wilson was dealt to Denver. The Pittsburgh Steelers, Falcons, Tennessee Titans and Carolina Panthers either found their heir apparent or 2022 starters in the NFL Draft that concluded Saturday.
Imagine you have the monster contract you owe Watson, and in addition you pay Baker almost $19M to sit on the bench because you won’t cut a deal to trade him, and expect another team to pay him that much.
The Browns are Brownsing it up again.
His Tweets suggest otherwise.
It shouldn’t have been.
Though Jackson expressed his alarm via social media after the trade went down, it was something the quarterback knew was on the horizon.
“It was just something, my happiness,” Brown said. “I talked to Lamar about it after my second year. And you know, then after my third year, leading up to the end of the season, he wasn’t playing. I let him know again, ya bro, I can’t do it. It’s not really on Lamar. I love Lamar. It was just, you know, it’s just the system wasn’t for me personally. I love all my teammates. I love the guys, but it was just something I had to think about for myself. The Ravens, we both handled it the right way. I didn’t go out and make anything public, I just kept it in house, kept working. It all worked out.”
It sounds like Jackson was told it was gonna happen and just didn’t believe it. In which case, that’s on him.
I’m a loooooonnnggg suffering Browns fan. They screwed up. Mayfield has the talent (and heart, played through having a shoulder barely attached) but not the ‘IT’ factor for leadership. Will Watson be available for the season? 8 game suspension from the league? He’s a crappy human for the way he treats women. Mayfield my be the starting option.
I think this is completely backwards. Mayfield has supposedly had “The It Factor” for a long time. It’s what got him drafted 1st overall and it’s what had the previous regime enamored with him. What he has lacked since the first day he suited up is the talent (and body) to win consistently in the NFL. His issues are not with intangibles, his issues are with health, accuracy and decision making. This team has had plenty of offensive talent for the last couple seasons, Mayfield was the limiting factor, the current regime is finally seeing past that “it factor”.
They held onto Baker as long as they did because the Watson deal was touch and go up until the final day. Hell, with his legal issues it’s still more touch than go. He’s probably not going to be available on day one, and he may or may not be available consistently should future issues come up. Certainly the Browns would have rather limped along with Jacoby Brissett for however many games Watson misses instead of paying Baker that much money, but they couldn’t risk shipping Mayfield somewhere only to find out Watson was going to be banned from the league or traded elsewhere. It would have destroyed what little negotiating power they had with the Texans too.
It’s a bad situation but it was probably unavoidable. The only alternative would have been finding a suitor before Watson’s verdict came in and risking going into the Draft with no opening day starter.
Mayfield has had 4 head coaches in 4 years and he probably had just as many offensive coordinators. I doubt that there are many QB’s that have done well in similar circumstances.
What circumstances? Being a Browns QB this century? 
Any why do you suppose those coaches failed?
Uh, because they were Hue Jackson and Freddie Kitchens? Gregg Williams actually did pretty well as interim HC (5-3).
Baker truthers, didn’t expect to find so many in these parts.
In other news, Mitch Trubisky is a Great QB who was held back by Matt Nagy and instability in the organization.
I’m not some truther, but come on, you can’t argue that Baker Mayfield is the reason Hue Jackson was fired.
I can! If Baker was playing for the Browns instead of wasting his time in college, maybe they wouldn’t have gone 1-31 and Jackson might have kept his job.
The Ravens had an outstanding draft, but that’s been done to death. I just want to point out that I think the Chiefs had the second best draft. They absolutely rocked it. They traded up when they needed to to get McDuffie, traded down and still got amazing value with Skyy Moore, and stayed put and picked for good value when they could (Karlaftis and Chenal are outstanding values). And they accumulated draft picks later to address needs (Kinnard) and take a few fliers (Jaylen Watson could be a good to great starter in a couple years).
Round 1, Pick 21: Trent McDuffie, CB, Washington
Round 1, Pick 30: George Karlaftis, DE, Purdue
Round 2, Pick 54: Skyy Moore, WR, Western Michigan
Round 2, Pick 62: Bryan Cook, S, Cincinnati
Round 3, Pick 103: Leo Chenal, LB, Wisconsin
Round 4, Pick 135: Joshua Williams, DB, Fayetteville State
Round 5, Pick 145: Darian Kinnard, OT, Kentucky
Round 7, Pick 243: Jaylen Watson, CB, Washington State
Round 7, Pick 251: Isiah Pacheco, RB, Rutgers
Round 7, Pick 259: Nazeeh Johnson, S, Marshall
They nailed it.
The Pats, of course, deserve all the reviews of their draft calling it shitty. But I also thought the Cardinals royally fucked up this draft. Hollywood Brown is in no way worth a 1st round pick (nor the huge contract they may give him), so they fucked up early. But then they over-drafted a TE, a position they really didn’t need to address. Then, to address their true needs, they overdrafted two DEs, neither of which impress me much. I won’t pretend to know the guys drafted later, but I thought the Cardinals screwed up when it counted.
Finally, I really liked the Lions draft. Now that I’ve stopped rooting for the Browns (once again, fuck Deshaun Watson and fuck the Browns for signing him), I’ll upgrade the Lions. Except for twice a year.
Oh man, you know the rest of your division sucks when your ‘I feel bad for them’ team to root for is in your division.
I would say mine is Cincinnati, but let’s be honest, at this point the Charlie Browns I root for are the Giants and Jets.