Really can’t understate how bad Bears punting was last year. 30th in touchbacks, 30th in punts inside the 20, dead last in net yards.
More rando m thoughts:
I loved, loved, loved the drafts of the Giants and the Eagles. Although they might have been better served by acquiring more picks, I love Nabers, Nubin, and Phillips as potential immediate starters and possible really good players. I also love me the versatility/skills of Tyrone Tracy (he could be a fascinating one to watch), and the value of Muasau was incredible. I’m including getting Brian Burns from the Panthers (is there a team more set on helping other teams get good than the Panthers?), which was a great move. While I loved the players/value/need filling, they did, I’m not sure all the praise goes to the Giants, because, apparently, they tried very hard to fuck everything up by trading up with the Pats, but the Pats refused. The Giants being saved from themselves by the Patriots amuses me to no end. They also should have drafted a QB, because Jones isn’t, and has never been, the answer at QB.
And the Eagles just keep getting better, the bastards. They got one of, if not the, best CBs in the draft all the way at #22 (they need to send thank you letters to the Broncos, Vikings, and Falcons for reaching for QBs), which was the steal of the draft. But then they continued to acquire guys I love at fantastic value at positions that will help. While I’m not a huge fan of Hunt/Shipley/Smith (they certainly have some upside though), I absolutely love the value/potential starterness of Trotter, Keegan, and Wilson. And, in addition to having a great draft, the Eagles came away with a 3rd rounder, a fourth rounder, and a fifth rounder in next years draft. Remember when the Eagles took control away from Howie Roseman and gave it to idiot extraordinare Chip Kelly? Idiots. They don’t deserve Roseman.
And no draft talk would be complete with the haters, so, to no one’s surprise, I absolutely hated the Falcons draft. They absolutely screwed the pooch. When giving away a mid-third round pick to move up just 8 spots, only to draft the 87th ranked player at 35 WHILE THERE IS A BETTER PLAYER AT THE SAME POSITION JUST SITTING THERE AFTER FALLING OUT OF THE FIRST ROUND is the SECOND dumbest thing you do in a draft, you done fucked up. Enough time has been spent pointing the stupidity of drafting Penix at 8, but suffice it to say I agree with the majority of experts that it was dumber than Ditka. On the plus side, I do think Trice and Dorlus were OK picks. Good Luck, Falcons fans.
So, if I haven’t bored you to death enough, let me know what you thought of your teams’ draft. Or ask me what I thought of it. Everyone needs to hear more opinions from a rambling old man who knows next to nothing, other than THOSE CLOUDS BETTER GET OFFA MY LAWN!!!
Agreed. It’s hard to be excited for the draft when he’s the only answer they have at QB.
I wouldn’t even mind him so much if he stayed on the field. But you can pretty much count on him to miss five or six games a season, and there’s not much the team can do to overcome that.
I do actually like several of the guys the Giants drafted, but of course in my mind you build the team from the inside out, so seeing all the top picks going to skill positions didn’t instill me with confidence. I guess they feel like they fixed the OL with free agency, but I’ve heard that before.
I don’t have much confidence in Jones. He will never be a Peyton but with the right people around him he might be an Eli. Last year they had the worst O line I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how they were ranked 30th and not 32nd. One game I concentrated on watching just to see what Ezeudu did and he was literally beat every single play. Jones might be OK but he’s not good enough to overcome being murdered every play. They did try to fix it with draft picks and they didn’t work out. I think the free agents will work out better.
Jones already is better than Eli.
From From NY Giants through 50 starts:
Daniel Jones - 1,638 att, 1,040 cmp, 63.5 comp% 10,915 yards; 57 td 33 int 86.0 rating
Eli Manning - 1,638 att, 904 cmp, 55.2 comp% 10,359 yards; 70 td 59 int 73.7 rating
Eli has 23 more td’s (and 26 more ints), but Jones beats him in every other statistical analysis, especially including value added as a runner.
Like the president, the QB gets too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose. Jones has a .375 winning percentage and no Superbowls. The stats that count.
…except the best ability is availability. Eli was a goddamn cyborg, never missing a start due to injury. At this point in Jones career, Eli had already played through a separated shoulder in his throwing arm.
I guess if you count years in the league Eli may have also played through plantar fasciitis at this point. Because of course Eli’s first 50 games were consecutive, whereas Jones is averaging 12 games per season over his career.
EDIT: Plus, of course, Eli had already won his first Super bowl in his fourth season, while Jones is gearing up to play his sixth season this fall.
Nick Foles, Brad Johnson,
Trent Dilfer, Jeff Hostetler, Mark Rypien, and Jim McMahon are better QBs than Dan Marino, Fran Tarkington, Jim Kelly, Phillip Rivers, Warren Moon, and Donovan McNabb. And Jim Plunkett and Eli are better than Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Steve Young, Drew Brees, and Johnny Unitas.
By the by, Eli’s career winning percentage during the regular season is .500, right there with luminaries like Andy Dalton and worse than Taysom Hill, Jimmy Garappolo, Steve Bono, Danny White, Jay Schroeder, Jake Delhomme, Jake Plummer, and a bunch of other QBs.
Wins remain an iffy measure of QB play.
And not a statistical boost, but the fact that both SB wins were against the GOAT…
Eli has two rings.
?
As I said: “And Jim Plunkett and Eli are better than Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Steve Young, Drew Brees, and Johnny Unitas.”
That was my point. Using the Super Bowl rings metric means Eli is a better QB than Favre, Rodgers and the rest.
Great QB Nick Foles would agree wholeheartedly.
Ha! I genuinely did not even see that second half of the paragraph.
Why Yes, I am taking my own damn time working my way through the draft.
Here are words I never thought I would ever be typing:
“I really liked the Raiders draft”.
I’ll be honest, it kinda hurt saying that. But I didn’t just like it because of the players taken (both JPJ and Eichenberg were “my guys”. I actually liked their strategy.
Going into the draft, the Raiders were seen as a team that really needed to get their QB of the future. They have previous “my guy” Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell (a fourth round QB in last years draft) on their roster, but neither guy is seen as the future at QB. But the Raiders didn’t do the Broncos/Falcons/Vikings thing of trading up to get, at best, the 4th or so QB. They stayed at their draft position, and just took the best players available. Which allowed them to get a top 10 talent Brock Bowers at 13, an amazing value pick of the best IOL in the draft of JPJ at 44. And while I’m not a fan of their middle rounds, I think Eichenberg, Laube, Taylor, and Devenshire all have starter ability, which would be amazing for such late picks.
The Raiders did miss the boat in not drafting a later round QB (thanks for letting the Pack get Michael Pratt!), so it was by no means the best draft, but I love the fact they were willing to go against the “get a QB no matter what it cost” thinking and to set themselves up by creating a very good situation for any future QBs they take.
Well Done, Raiders. Ugh, that still hurts…
Someone shared this spread sheet that lists all the consensus rankings versus draft spot for every pick in the draft. Pretty handy. Though the number isn’t really weighted so it doesn’t mean a ton taken in isolation, but just for kicks let’s take a look.
At a glance, here’s some of the teams +/- of consensus value.
Chicago Bears: -40
Pretty good, but the Tory Taylor pick drags down what would be a very strong positive score. Not surprising since many consensus boards really ignore special teamers.
Green Bay Packers: -139
The early picks are close to a net-zero ranking but the middle rounds look like major reaches. The late picks bring the final number closer to respectability. I thought the Jordan Morgan pick would be quite a bit worse than -8.
Minnesota Vikings: -427
The model doesn’t like the JJ pick, but the next 3 were strongly positive. The crowd doesn’t expect much from those late picks which crushes what would be an otherwise solid score.
Detroit Lions: -23
These picks would be an absolute home run if not for that atrocious Manu pick. Say what you want about a 4th rounder, but the crowd feels pretty strongly that he’d have been on the board come the 6th round.
Pittsburgh Steelers: -5
This is generally considered a solid draft and that’s largely because every early pick was a net positive, and the later picks were all within spitting distance of net-zero value. Ultimately this looks like a series of singles and doubles, but no home runs.
Atlanta Falcons: -382
Everyone’s favorite whipping boy definitely looks awful when you examine the value. If the first 2 picks were properly weighted this might be a 5-digit negative number. They didn’t really gain any ground in the later rounds either. The Falcons look like a team that thinks they are way smarter than they are.
Philadelphia Eagles: +22
Much like the Steelers, this is a safe and steady draft. No big positive or negative swings. If the picks were weighted, they’d be very strongly positive. I think this draft is getting way too much hype based on name recognition, but the consensus likes it.
Dallas Cowboys: -12
Considering how negative the general chatter has been about this draft, the value chart looks pretty similar to the darling Steelers and Eagles.
Washington Commanders: -146
In the middle rounds it looks like every single pick was over drafted by exactly one round. That’s not a great recipe, but at least there are no triple digit misses. Unsurprisingly that Newton pick is the only net positive.
New England Patriots: -149
This draft is probably quite a bit worse than the final number reflects since those 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks are so strongly negative. Will be interesting to see if either of those OLs they picked end up as reliable starters. Milton in the 6th is a positive pick but I think they may regret not spending another lottery ball on protection for Maye.
Kansas City Chiefs: +100
Super strong showing for the champs. I think that Worthy pick will be another miss at WR for them and he’s flagged as a mild reach, but all their mid round picks are apparent steals. They’ll need it if they want to stay on top.
San Fransisco 49ers: -204
The numbers don’t favor the 49ers, did they do enough to close the gap with the Chiefs and stay on top of the NFC? Who knows. Surprised that TOs kid was only ranked 2388…
Some notable UDFAs.
Consensus #117 Gabriel Murphy, Edge, UCLA to the Vikings.
Consensus #128 Leonard Taylor II, DT, Miami FL to the Jets.
Consensus #165 Curtis Jacobs, LB, Penn State and #201 Fabien Lovett, DT, FSU to the Chiefs.
Consensus #203 Keith Randolph Jr, DT, Illinois to the Bears.
And the lowest rated player to get signed, consensus #2423 Zuri Henry, OL, UTEP to the Patriots. Terique Owens was the 5th lowest.