Awsi Dooger

Not complicated. I've mentioned it many times. The high school ranks are absolutely overloaded with elite wide receivers. It is the highest caliber of talent of any position at any point in time, and with no end in sight. There are far more kids with "make it" grades than the top college conferences can handle. High school recruiting analysts started emphasizing this about 5 years ago. It was only a matter of time before it funneled upward through the college ranks and impacted the big league and how it operates. There won't be a lull season, given the sheer numbers. Every draft will be overloaded with receivers. You can pick them off well beyond the first round. The sharper teams are aware of the situational landscape and what will be available to them. The dummy teams make shortsighted trades.

Miami is definitely last. Numbers alone dictate that. The odds of our group ending up superior to New England's are next to nothing. The 32 was a fan expressing frustration. That's understandable but overreaction needs to be reigned in, amidst a dose of mathematical clarity. Even if subjectively we don't like the picks the fact that there are so many of them means several will pan out.

Watch ESPN. They did a great job of going over almost every pick with Kiper and McShay trading analysis. Very few detours especially this year with Kiper not on scene. They didn't do the pumpkin pie ritual. McShay is relegated to Day 3 only on the big network so he makes the most of the opportunity. NFL Network is unwatchable, IMO. Too much happy talk. Rich Eisen has an admirable cause but he should never hold that role. Reece Davis was fantastic on Sunday, dozens of times more informed than Eisen has ever been.

It was wild to see where they held the draft. For many years I lived at Desert Club Apartments smack across Koval Lane. In fact, I could hit a 6 iron from that stage area and land it on top of my old rooftop. BTW, the area where they staged the draft was once the site of the Imperial Palace drive-through sportsbook. It was the only one of its kind and was there for roughly 15 years, circa early '90s to mid '00s.

The greatest thing in the world is the petulant jealousy Under the skin for 50 glorious years and counting Signed...1972 season ticket holder

I had to triple take at the compensation before believing that's all they got. The worst part is that nobody on the ESPN panel had the clarity or guts to say anything about it. In fact, Mike Greenberg actually said the Vikings got a nice haul. The Mississippi State tackle has very poor hand placement. Maybe it's fixable but historically the guys who keep their hands that low and awkward do not fully pan out. They allow the edge rusher too much immediate momentum toward their body, while on retreat. At that point one decent move and they're beaten. I didn't think any quarterbacks would go in round one, even though I saw some mocks with as many as four. Pickett was 23 years old before the season opener of his senior season. Historically that is a very ominous sign and indicates low upside. You never want to rely on late bloomers at quarterback while your competitors have prodigies at the position. Ryan Tannehill was the last one I remember with that 23+ resume. It is the reason I wanted no part of him as a Dolphins fan. Obviously the Tannehill career is technically very good return on investment but that was a 23+ outlier on the high end and even at Tannehill level you still need too much to go right everywhere else on the roster to be a serious contender. A first round quarterback should be the opposite, someone who allows margin for error throughout the roster. As a USC alum I was shocked that London went that high and was the first receiver taken. As I've emphasized, the wide receiver position is overloaded year after year in high school recruiting. It is far and away the most stacked position in terms of elite talent. This was the first year the draft finally caught up with the obvious trend. NFL rosters are going to become dominant at wide receiver. I don't see how Drake London taken that high is going to match the overall caliber of the league, nor trading a first round pick for Hollywood Brown. The smart teams will realize there are so many great receivers many of them will be available later. That's already been the norm.

In reading this thread I remain amazed at the lack of scrutiny toward Chase Young two years ago. The recent pages of this thread have properly contained analysis of the physical traits along with playing style. Somehow that didn't apply to Chase Young. Nobody bothered to look at his lack of explosiveness and dodging all the related test scores, even though this very site is the place those test scores took on the significance and spotlight they deserve. We have comments here and on RAS sites about some edge guys this year who either skipped one drill or put up a shaky score in one drill. Meanwhile Chase Young put nothing on the table. Subjectivity always should be relegated when superior methods are demonstrably available. Chase Young will be markedly better in 2022 than in 2021, despite coming off the injury. He was underachieving and will revert to the norm. But that norm is nowhere close to the buttery raves of his final college season and leading up to the draft. I look forward to the day when subjectivity is similarly demoted in other positions. We seem to be getting closer with some of the advanced stats in regard to college quarterbacks.

Agreed. Interior pass rushers have massive value. It doesn't have to be a pure defensive tackle. Swing guys who can move inside fit the bill also. Frankly I don't think the league has fully caught up with the significance of the inside rusher. Defensive ends are easily nullified. Once they are detoured upfield it's like having one less player on the field. But that interior guy who can push forward and has instincts in traffic is always causing problems, even if he never gets there. A defensive tackle who has instincts to wait until the last second to put his hands up is a huge asset. Whenever I watch tapes of batted passes the hands are almost never up early. The quarterback senses that. It is the guys who fool the quarterback by raising the hands very late who get the deflections. This may sound weird but IMO the league should prioritize interior guys who can rush and who are left handed. The quarterback assumes the right hand is the threat. That left hand suddenly in the passing lane can startle the quarterback. We had one lefty on my high school team who made a living doing that, including batting some to himself for interceptions. As a Dolphins fan I'm really annoyed at the presence of Raekwon Davis at defensive tackle. He offers no pass rush ability whatsoever and his instincts in general are pathetic. He belonged in a different era.

Mike Dee should face a lengthy prison sentence for the atrocities committed against the Dolphins logo and uniforms. It was a case of change for the sake of change and came at absolutely the worst time because the entire organization was on tilt. The details didn't matter. Nothing good was going happen at that point in time. I was emphasizing it on Dolphin forums. Now it's case of corporate stubbornness. They refuse to go back to the originals full time because it would be a concession of mistake. There is nothing more laughably pathetic than corporate frailty. Somebody here made a great point that the 2010s were the worst decade for uniforms. Virtually every shift was for the worst except the organizations that had some clarity and returned to classic designs. I always thought the Panthers and Jaguars really blew it. They came into the league together as the first new franchises in decades. Those logos and uniforms really had a chance to be special and memorable. Then somehow they got caught in '90s crap design and mangled everything. A logo should be something that stands out and i easily sketched in 10 or 20 seconds, not some complicated nothingness that blends into the helmet. The Panthers have never had competent uniforms. That's the only team that should start from scratch. Jacksonville had the great teal above white. Instead of leaving that alone they somehow brainstormed that additional decisions were required. Most of the old time designs are very good, like Chiefs, Vikings, Cowboys, Colts, Bears, Packers, etc. I'm speaking more of logos than uniforms. But it makes sense that original is best. At that point the slate is blank. Clear mind. They don't think they have to conform to anything or deviate from something. Contrast to the Mike Dee situation in which he was stupidly determined to take the dolphin and twist it all around against the natural curvature of the helmet, just to have his stamp on it. It was like a dog peeing on a tree.

Bill Belichick fully intended to visit Washington and be honored a few days after January 6. That more than trumps anything Shula ever did.

Mac Jones stepped into a really great situation because the Patriots were in situational uptick mode after plummeting from 12 wins in 2019 to 7 wins in 2020. But now it's just the opposite. Fan and media expectation will be to take a step forward, but the team itself figures to regress after that rise from 7 wins to 10. Trey Lance is in a similar situation, the team in downer mode after climbing from 6 wins to 10. But individually there's not a ton expected of him so he'll be fine. Zach Wilson needs to show some semblance of normalcy. That's the hurdle for him. Forget about so many wow plays and forced passes. Just get out there and execute an offense to the point you're not a topic every week. Lawrence has the long javelin thrower release. Unless he develops a changeup game I think it will be improvement simply because there's no other direction to go, but nothing resembling the expectations. Fields needs to clean up the mechanics. His career depends on that aspect alone. Chicken wings don't work in this league.

I could see tons of heat on Todd Bowles. He's got no benefit of a doubt based on his past gig. Everybody expects Brady to win big. But age could hit at any point and when it does it won't be gentle. Also the Buccaneers are in a poor situational spot one year removed from the title. It hasn't been as bad lately, largely due to Brady/Belichick, but historically the dethroned champion is in sleepwalking mode. I've mentioned many times that only 3 coaches in NFL history have ever regained the title in that scenario. So essentially Todd Bowles inherits low odds on winning the title but reality is considerably worse than the subjective impression. Tom Brady has always overcome poor situational spots by the sheer fact that he finds ways to score 27+, no matter the opponent or what is going on for the bulk of the game. That aspect may save Bowles also. Also the 49ers are taking a huge risk by benching a quarterback with a career 8.4 YPA. No matter how shaky Garoppolo can look on occasion, the 8.4 bottom line dictates field position and wins games. Shanahan was very close to missing the playoffs last season but fans will forget about that and remember simply NFC Championship Game appearance and expect something similar. If Trey Lance performs normally for a first year starter with something like 7.2 YPA or lower the 49ers won't be close to current fan and media perception.

It happened on 595 just past 6:30 this morning. I was still awake and saw the first reports on local news here in Miami. They said a pedestrian was hit and traffic was being diverted to 95. Now I wake up and find out the pedestrian was Dwayne Haskins. Gad. Very sad news. Apparently he had some type of minor car trouble, either a flat tire or running out of gas. Obviously it's never a good idea to cross lanes on foot. We may not have hills here but there are subtle elevation changes and blind spots on these freeways. He may have been lulled into complacency by the early hour and comparative lack of traffic on 595 in relation to 95, which is a madhouse in South Florida and one of the most dangerous stretches in the country. My practice is not only to pull off the freeway but beyond the shoulder. I'll go down the embankment onto the grass, if possible. I've done that many times. Otherwise if you remain on the shoulder it's almost like you become a target. Drivers become mesmerized and angle straight toward you.

It's going to continue to be oversaturated. Every year during the recruiting process the most stacked position is wide receiver. The analysts continue to rave about it. Consequently the college ranks become flooded with more guys with "make it" grades than any other position, or that the league can possibly handle. The only aspect that thins it out somewhat is the vast difference between requirements in college and pro. The speed guys often thrive in college while in the NFL competitiveness becomes so much more vital, due to the mano a mano aspect of receiver vs defensive back. Scouting has suffered due to the tendency of overvaluing speed and not being able to adequately gauge which guys can thrive during all the hand fighting, etc. So the new dynamic is going to persist. You'll still have huge wide receiver numbers high in the draft because those guys will carry massive grades that general managers won't be able to resist. But after a few years once it becomes clear who the alpha dogs are, they'll be rewarded with the huge contracts. The league is all about getting to 30 points. The math and margin for error totally changes if you can reach that threshold or nearby every week. It was only a matter of time before the league figured that out and started prioritizing the cheat code toward 30.

You could have kept going category after category. 8.4 career YPA and he's listed as average. Subjective types are absolutely priceless. After all, tape has such a phenomenal track record.