Jump to content

2019 Draft Thoughts


Golfman

Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Leader said:

MMQB:

GRADE: B+

Green Bay Packers

1 (12). Rashan Gary, DE, Michigan
1 (21). Darnell Savage, Jr., S, Maryland
2 (44). Elgton Jenkins, C, Mississippi State
3 (75). Jace Sternberger, TE, Texas A&M
5 (150). Kingsley Keke, DE, Texas A&M
6 (185). Ka’dar Hollman, CB, Toledo
6 (194). Dexter Williams, RB, Notre Dame
7 (226). Ty Summers, LB, TCU

Part of why the Packers pay Aaron Rodgers huge money is they believe he makes everyone on offense better. Therefore this team can afford to invest primarily on defense, which it has now done with its first pick every year since 2011.

To be fair, I wouldn't exactly act like they haven't invested in offense. Just in other ways. They're currently #3 in the league in cap $ spent on offense and #29 in cap spending on defense. Even if you take the QB's out of the offense, GB is #7 on cap spent on non-QB offensive players. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am more anxious to see this draft class on the field than I have been for most others.  It could be anywhere from amazing to horrible, we just don't know.  I can see scenarios where all of these players play a lot of snaps, but there is also the possibility that only one or two even play.  

I am very interested in the preseason games this year to see where they project.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Want to see these guys too.  Must temper expectations for rooks.  Rarely do they come in an impact the game right away.  Usually a few years before they shine.  Packers MO is to sit the rooks and work them in slowly.  Expect the same kinds of thing with this class.  Gary will rotate in and get some snaps right away.  Savage is a wild card.  They may sit him and have him learn behind Tramon before they throw him to the wolves.  Jenkins could start right away as we have a big need at G.  He'll have to beat out Turner or Taylor which is a fairly tall order.  Jace might get a few snaps working the seam.  Williams could see some time right away being a RB.  Rest of them are developmental types Special teams to start.  Unless injuries force us to use these guys kinda how I see it going down.  As the season wears on I'd expect their roles to increase.  Have a new coach so maybe he won't be as timid with the rooks.  Guess we'll see.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Scoremore said:

Want to see these guys too.  Must temper expectations for rooks.  Rarely do they come in an impact the game right away.  Usually a few years before they shine.  Packers MO is to sit the rooks and work them in slowly.  Expect the same kinds of thing with this class.  Gary will rotate in and get some snaps right away.  Savage is a wild card.  They may sit him and have him learn behind Tramon before they throw him to the wolves.  Jenkins could start right away as we have a big need at G.  He'll have to beat out Turner or Taylor which is a fairly tall order.  Jace might get a few snaps working the seam.  Williams could see some time right away being a RB.  Rest of them are developmental types Special teams to start.  Unless injuries force us to use these guys kinda how I see it going down.  As the season wears on I'd expect their roles to increase.  Have a new coach so maybe he won't be as timid with the rooks.  Guess we'll see.  

HHCD : #1 draft pick 2014. Started 10 / played in 16 2014 games.
Now - I'd guess he's something of an outlier, but if the need is immediate and the player's training will allow it, the team will get that  player on the field.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, TransientTexan said:

They're currently #3 in the league in cap $ spent on offense and #29 in cap spending on defense. Even if you take the QB's out of the offense, GB is #7 on cap spent on non-QB offensive players. 

Good stuff and if anybody wants to play around with positional spending, you can sort it by position group or the entire offense/defense

https://overthecap.com/positional-spending/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, hitnhope said:

There isn't a prospect around where you can't find negative plays.  If they play, they have negative plays.    It seems you spent your time searching and finding the negative rather than looking at the total picture.  Assigning touchdowns on plays where there were incompletions shows your mindset.

Go to the game between Miss St and Alabama.   There are a number of plays where our pick took Q. Williams out completely.  There are also some plays where Williams wins and applies pressure.

If you can't find positives in his play you either haven't watched very much, or couldn't find any safety play that would impress you.  There is nothing anybody could say that will turn your view around.   Only you can go forward with a more balanced look at draft prospects.   If you think you are being objective with your summary it is useless to carry the conversation any further.  I am typically told that I am overly critical and too pessimistic regarding our prospects.   It is one thing to take a close and critical view.   Yours borders bears little resemblance to reality.   The fact that most of the other deep safeties went a full round later, or more, shows that my view is closer to what the professionals who do this for a living is.   Seems you took the word of amateurs with limited information and choose to believe their bloviations.

I spent my time watching that Michigan game.  I did not look specifically for negative plays but the negatives stood out far more prominent than the positives.  Like I stated previously, I'd be open to examples in that game that had you conveniently changing your opinion after he was a Packer.    I never said I couldn't find positive plays over the season as he looked really good against teams like Rutgers/ Temple and had not so great against teams like Michigan/ Ohio State.

Assigning TDs on plays where a guy completely blows his assignment is holding a guy accountable.  Just because he was bailed out by 2 terrible passes doesn't mean that his decision making was any less awful.  Perfect example of fans being completely incapable of holding their favorite players accountable for bad play.  

You are probably correct.  There is nothing anyone can say that is going to have me believing that Savage was the best DB in college football last year.  I've went back and watched him enough to question whether he's a true difference maker.  While a decent player nowhere near the same area of prospect as Derwin James who was taken only a couple picks earlier.  His play on the field is going to have to change my mind.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, SSG said:

There is nothing anyone can say that is going to have me believing that Savage was the best DB in college football last year

He probably wasn't. But college players are drafted based on how they project into the NFL, not how they played in college.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

You've got to remember what having an overmatched Front-7 does to a Safety. It makes the play action game hell on him. 

All the negatives you're bringing up are legit, but you also need to give him the credit when he covered the drag route man to man all the way across the field and tipped it up for a pick. 

Not denying that but there was very little positives I could take out of that game for Savage

He shadowed Perry on that drag route (don't see much credit to be given for that coverage IMHO) but he didn't tip the pass.  He happened to be standing in the right spot after the tip and got the INT.  You might be getting it confused with the Ohio State game where he had a GREAT break on the ball for a tip that caused an INT.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, SSG said:

Not denying that but there was very little positives I could take out of that game for Savage

He shadowed Perry on that drag route (don't see much credit to be given for that coverage IMHO) but he didn't tip the pass.  He happened to be standing in the right spot after the tip and got the INT.  You might be getting it confused with the Ohio State game where he had a GREAT break on the ball for a tip that caused an INT.  

Good thing Savage played in 40 games at Maryland and had some excellent games mixed in there and our scouting department had access to coaches film for every one of them. He will have 1 bad game here too that someone could isolate and call him bad. If you watched film of the Arizona game last year Jaire Alexander had a terrible rookie season.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

He probably wasn't. But college players are drafted based on how they project into the NFL, not how they played in college.

Best college DB.... best DB prospect, I kind of see them one in the same.  The fact remains that I don't think he was viewed by anyone as the best DB prospect prior to his combine.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe he was the elite player/ prospect that no one talked about.  Maybe 32 NFL team seen him as a Derwin James caliber prospect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, SSG said:

Best college DB.... best DB prospect, I kind of see them one in the same. 

Certainly there are a number of actual teams that think this way but I really think it's an overly simplistic way of looking at thing.  Like the biggest difference between CFB and the NFL is the severe talent disparities between the haves and the have nots in the amateur ranks.  So you end up with things like "a good player is stuck on a bad team" and doesn't show out to his potential.  Like  Noah Fant was the 20th pick, and people don't think that was absurd, and he had fewer receceptions last year than Sternberger, Josh Oliver, and Mr. Irrelevant Caleb Wilson.  

Name of the game in the NFL scouting biz is projecting a guy from what he did in college from what he can do for you, and the long and short of it is that Maryland has had a bad defense for a while.  But usually the one guy who can turn out great coming out of a bad defense is the free safety, (c.f. Morgan Burnett).  Watching safeties who play deep regularly is a higher level of commitment than one can usually expect from your "draft experts" who profess knowledge of every player.  So your media analysts consistently overrate safeties who are hitters near the line of scrimmage in their draft rankings (c.f. Calvin Pryor, Taylor Mays, Jonathan Abram) since "kinetic violence" is the main aesthetic appeal of football and it's easy to point to what those guys do well.  Lest we forget it was a serious debate in 2010 who would be the better safety Taylor Mays or Earl Thomas.

But it really doesn't matter if 32 teams thought Savage was the best safety, it matters if Seattle, Baltimore, LAC, Indianapolis, etc. thought he was the best safety and would have taken him before 30.  I really think media grades for Savage suffered from inertia since at the start of the process he was considered like a 3rd round prospect by your Mel Kipers of the world, and despite showing out he senior bowl (he won the DB award!) and the combine those folks were slow to adjust their rankings. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, SSG said:

Best college DB.... best DB prospect, I kind of see them one in the same.  The fact remains that I don't think he was viewed by anyone as the best DB prospect prior to his combine.  Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe he was the elite player/ prospect that no one talked about.  Maybe 32 NFL team seen him as a Derwin James caliber prospect.

I mean there's a couple things here. 

1. There were no elite DB prospects in this draft. The fact that the first DB taken was a safety /slot hybrid tells you everything you need to know about the top of this year's CB group. 

2. Savage is more flawed than most elite DB prospects, but what he does well is at a premium in today's NFL and he does it really well. There's not another DB in this class that can click and close like he does. In a game where physical man coverage is becoming increasingly more difficult and misdirection being the name of the game for offenses, the ability to read the play and hit it fast is absolutely worth its weight in gold. You don't have to love everything Savage does to see he has A+ closing speed and he's not afraid to use it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

Good thing Savage played in 40 games at Maryland and had some excellent games mixed in there and our scouting department had access to coaches film for every one of them. He will have 1 bad game here too that someone could isolate and call him bad. If you watched film of the Arizona game last year Jaire Alexander had a terrible rookie season.

Who called him bad?  Because i haven't annointed him the best DB in college football because he's now a Packer doesn't mean I ever said he was bad.  I think he's an ok player, I just don't see the differance maker.  Think thats the caliber of player we're trying to draft when we spend half of our top 6 picks on a guy.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...