DB424 Mock Draft (Posted 1/12/19)

[Danand]

Regarding the draft strategy, I think I saw somewhere Eric DeCosta mentioned that we needed to get more explosive. I hope that translates to us looking at players with more speed, especially the skill players on offense. IF we are not going that route on running back, I like what I see from Elijah Holyfield. There is just something about Georgia backs that translates to the NFL.

[diamondbull424]

5 minutes ago, Danand said:

Regarding the draft strategy, I think I saw somewhere Eric DeCosta mentioned that we needed to get more explosive. I hope that translates to us looking at players with more speed, especially the skill players on offense. IF we are not going that route on running back, I like what I see from Elijah Holyfield. There is just something about Georgia backs that translates to the NFL.

I haven’t paid attention to all the declarations yet, but did Holyfield declare? I guess I always just assumed he would go back to school because it never seemed like his family should need the money... with his dad being a famous boxer and all (though maybe they’re struggling to maintain their lifestyle like plenty of former athletes) and I thought he was a redshirt sophomore.

But yeah, I’m keeping tabs on their other back Swift. As a true freshman he really impressed me last year. I haven’t paid as much attention to college football this year from a “watching” standpoint (moreso just with tape) so I haven’t watched much tape of the Georgia backs this year. I’ll have to give them a look.

[Danand]

15 minutes ago, diamondbull424 said:

I haven’t paid attention to all the declarations yet, but did Holyfield declare? I guess I always just assumed he would go back to school because it never seemed like his family should need the money... with his dad being a famous boxer and all (though maybe they’re struggling to maintain their lifestyle like plenty of former athletes) and I thought he was a redshirt sophomore.

But yeah, I’m keeping tabs on their other back Swift. As a true freshman he really impressed me last year. I haven’t paid as much attention to college football this year from a “watching” standpoint (moreso just with tape) so I haven’t watched much tape of the Georgia backs this year. I’ll have to give them a look.

Holyfield declared. And I can't follow college football unless I buy some ESPN service (I think it is), so I am just beginning to watch the different prospects.

I still think the draft is so deep at interior defensive linemen, that we could get a 2. round talent in the 3-4 round, and we should get the best possible oline early, then get the dline and then add complimentary pieces to the offense and defense.

[diamondbull424]

7 minutes ago, Danand said:

Holyfield declared. And I can't follow college football unless I buy some ESPN service (I think it is), so I am just beginning to watch the different prospects.

I still think the draft is so deep at interior defensive linemen, that we could get a 2. round talent in the 3-4 round, and we should get the best possible oline early, then get the dline and then add complimentary pieces to the offense and defense.

I’m not against this philosophy. My only problem is that the difference in talent that we’ve been able to acquire in the first round with guys like Ben Grubbs and Ronnie Stanley have generally not exceeded the quality of OL players we’ve taken in the mid rounds like Yanda and Brown Jr.

Now I acknowledge that much of this can be situational, but the Grubbs/Yanda additions both came within the same draft. One ended up being a good to great LG that was a perennial fringe pro bowl talent while the other went on to become an eventual HOF perennial All Pro talent. And we’re still seeing a host of mid round OL players go on to become All Pros.

Our front office has proven to be good at discovering high quality OL talent on day two of the draft.

So if we go OL in round one, I’m not like most fans where I don’t appreciate the value of an excellent OL, but I think it’ll be a waste. By double dipping at OL combined with our talent evaluators I like our chances of at least one reaching fringe pro bowl level play.

But on the other hand our luck with finding high level interior pass rushers and WRs hasn’t been nearly as fruitful. We would do better to leverage our strengths with the OL while attacking our weaknesses at either WR or IDL earlier. With the DL and WR those are also positions where generally you don’t have a shot at a high caliber talent as late in the draft as we’re selecting, but this draft class is so deep at those positions that we’ve got a shot to get a cream of the crop talent while others pluck from the stems of mediocrity later.

A second round DL talent isn’t going to really move our DL situation to the next level because that guy as a rookie likely isn’t going to have the talent to overcome the experience/talent combo that third year guys like Chris Wormley and Willie Henry bring to the table (or is Wormley going into his 4th year?). But if you throw in an elite pass rushing talent along the DL such as a Jeffery Simmons or Jerry Tillery, they have the ability to be a prime part of the rotation early and potentially even win starting roles from the get go through overwhelming pro bowl level ability.

Same with the WR field, I personally only would go with JJ in the first round because he has the speed, hands, physicality, and smarts to make me think he could be the kind of player to be in Harbaugh’s good graces and make an impact early.

So I’m down with any strategy. I agree that OL is a need that definitely needs to be upgraded though. It’s just all about the law of diminishing returns with me.