2019 Draft Thoughts

[cannondale]

Best is such a random nothingness. Best according to who ? Since picking Jenkins I've heard that some NFL guys had him as the 3rd or 4th best overall OL prospect. Yet he received marginal if any pub by the masses pre-draft. Best for what scheme ? We all know that fit is just as important as anything else. I'm glad to know that Gute got his guy. The prospect the organization thought was best for them. We had to get a Safety. We didn't need a WR and couldn't time travel to take Derwin James

 

Edited May 2, 2019 by cannondale

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, to put this in perspective Nick Collins was the 10th DB and 3rd safety selected in 2005.  From 2008-2010 he was at worst the 3rd or 4th best safety in the entire NFL.

[SSG]

4 minutes ago, PossibleCabbage said:

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. 

Not an apples to apples comparision with Fant IMO.  He's not a small fry that just ran a fast 40.  He's got prototyical size/ length and was an elite athlete in every single measureable.  On top of that, he's got more TDs than any TE in college football over the last 2 years.  His catch total IMO was usage related, he wasn't even Iowa's starting TE this year.  Fant was the #2TE prospect in one of the deepest TE pools ever.  If Savage is in last year's draft, does his career college tape show the same caliber of player or prospect as Minkah Fitzpatrick or Derwin James?  Even looking at him play after the fact, I don't see him being the elite prospect he's no being made out to be because he's a Packer.  

I think differance makers don't have to play on great defenses to stand out as great players.  Also, Savage wasn't just a free safety.  Last year he lined up in the slot on twice as many occasions as he lined up as FS.  His Maryland defense wasn't very good and I struggle to see where he was a differance maker.  

Time will tell.  Hopefully he proves me wrong and he's the all world, defense changing player some are making him out to be now that he's a Packer.  I guess I'm a lil extra soured on him because I'm a Michigan fan and it was the first tape I watched specifically focusing on him and I struggled to find anything positive about his performance in that game.

[SSG]

1 hour ago, PossibleCabbage said:

I mean, to put this in perspective Nick Collins was the 10th DB and 3rd safety selected in 2005.  From 2008-2010 he was at worst the 3rd or 4th best safety in the entire NFL.

For every player you pick to be the next Nick Collins, you strike out 8 or 9 times. Much of the fan base had exactly this same sort of excitement about Josh Jones and we've seen how that's worked out 2 seasons later. 

[PossibleCabbage]

51% of the guys in the entire draft are not going to see a 2nd NFL contract, and the majority who do will do so with team other than the one who drafted him.  So you can't draft scared, and if you really think a guy has Nick Collins/Earl Thomas upside (I mean literally, the one scout on McGinn's site said something like "you don't want to compare guys to Earl Thomas, but yeah, I can see it with him") who also fills a need and fits the system, you gotta go for it.

After all, pretty much all the people who thought Earl Thomas was gonna be Earl Thomas worked in the actual NFL and not the media (some of whom preferred Mays or Burnett to the longhorn safety.)

Edited May 2, 2019 by PossibleCabbage

[fistfullofbeer]

1 hour ago, PossibleCabbage said:

51% of the guys in the entire draft are not going to see a 2nd NFL contract, and the majority who do will do so with team other than the one who drafted him.  So you can't draft scared, and if you really think a guy has Nick Collins/Earl Thomas upside (I mean literally, the one scout on McGinn's site said something like "you don't want to compare guys to Earl Thomas, but yeah, I can see it with him") who also fills a need and fits the system, you gotta go for it.

After all, pretty much all the people who thought Earl Thomas was gonna be Earl Thomas worked in the actual NFL and not the media (some of whom preferred Mays or Burnett to the longhorn safety.)

Yep. This is what I said earlier. You draft for top-end potential. If your scouts and management see that, you go for that every freaking time.

[Stevein2012]

5 hours ago, cannondale said:

Best is such a random nothingness. Best according to who ? Since picking Jenkins I've heard that some NFL guys had him as the 3rd or 4th best overall OL prospect. Yet he received marginal if any pub by the masses pre-draft. Best for what scheme ? We all know that fit is just as important as anything else. I'm glad to know that Gute got his guy. The prospect the organization thought was best for them. We had to get a Safety. We didn't need a WR and couldn't time travel to take Derwin James

 

That all may work out anyways. If we took James we'd need a CB this year and I don't think there was anyone near as good as Alexander in this class.

[PossibleCabbage]

36 minutes ago, Stevein2012 said:

That all may work out anyways. If we took James we'd need a CB this year and I don't think there was anyone near as good as Alexander in this class.

I figure James is a much better piece if you have good coverage options for all the rest of the DB spots, so if he was drafted by Green Bay last year we'd think much less of him than we do since he went to the Chargers.

[Leader]

So now we know why Mr. UDFA Brown hadnt signed with anyone yet. He was working the offers:

Zach brown signed with Philly for 3 million.

[packfanfb]

5 minutes ago, Leader said:

So now we know why Mr. UDFA Brown hadnt signed with anyone yet. He was working the offers:

Zach brown signed with Philly for 3 million.

Great pickup for Eagles. Continue to be one of the best teams in the league at acquiring vets at good value. 

[Packerraymond]

18 hours ago, SSG said:

Not an apples to apples comparision with Fant IMO.  He's not a small fry that just ran a fast 40.  He's got prototyical size/ length and was an elite athlete in every single measureable.  On top of that, he's got more TDs than any TE in college football over the last 2 years.  His catch total IMO was usage related, he wasn't even Iowa's starting TE this year.  Fant was the #2TE prospect in one of the deepest TE pools ever.  If Savage is in last year's draft, does his career college tape show the same caliber of player or prospect as Minkah Fitzpatrick or Derwin James?  Even looking at him play after the fact, I don't see him being the elite prospect he's no being made out to be because he's a Packer.  

I think differance makers don't have to play on great defenses to stand out as great players.  Also, Savage wasn't just a free safety.  Last year he lined up in the slot on twice as many occasions as he lined up as FS.  His Maryland defense wasn't very good and I struggle to see where he was a differance maker.  

Time will tell.  Hopefully he proves me wrong and he's the all world, defense changing player some are making him out to be now that he's a Packer.  I guess I'm a lil extra soured on him because I'm a Michigan fan and it was the first tape I watched specifically focusing on him and I struggled to find anything positive about his performance in that game.

If you think Savage is just a "small fry who ran a fast 40." Then scouting DBs probably isn't for you. There's legit Earl Thomas/Nick Collins vibes in that tape. Even actual scouts that McGinn spoke to in the league told him the same thing.

[SSG]

9 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

If you think Savage is just a "small fry who ran a fast 40." Then scouting DBs probably isn't for you. There's legit Earl Thomas/Nick Collins vibes in that tape. Even actual scouts that McGinn spoke to in the league told him the same thing.

I agree, I've not a scout. To be fair though, anyone who was saying that Savage was an Earl Thomas caliber of safety also has no business scouting NFL DBs.  That's not an opinion I seen writen, posted or spoke by 1 single person after the Maryland season was done.  Savage seems to have turned intpo this elite, can't miss prospect overnight.

The point of that comment was to point out that NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE was comparing Darnell Savage to Earl Thomas at the end of the 2018 football season or at any point in his 4 year career.  

People are making it out that I hate the player because I wasn't willing to annoint him as one of the best players in college football last year AFTER he was taken by the GBP.  Not the case.  While he's a good player, he was never the differance maker in the Maryland defense in my eyes.  Their defense and secondary was terrible regardless of Savage.  

[Packerraymond]

Just now, SSG said:

I agree, I've not a scout. To be fair though, anyone who was saying that Savage was an Earl Thomas caliber of safety also has no business scouting NFL DBs.  That's not an opinion I seen writen, posted or spoke by 1 single person after the Maryland season was done.  Savage seems to have turned intpo this elite, can't miss prospect overnight.

The point of that comment was to point out that NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE was comparing Darnell Savage to Earl Thomas at the end of the 2018 football season or at any point in his 4 year career.  

People are making it out that I hate the player because I wasn't willing to annoint him as one of the best players in college football last year AFTER he was taken by the GBP.  Not the case.  While he's a good player, he was never the differance maker in the Maryland defense in my eyes.  Their defense and secondary was terrible regardless of Savage.  

You clearly haven't done any post draft reading if you haven't seen the Earl Thomas comps. They're actually hard to miss. Scouts don't compare prospects to HOF NFL players, they compare prospects to prospects, thus Savage coming out of Maryland reminds them of Thomas coming out of Texas.

[VegasDan]

30 minutes ago, SSG said:

I agree, I've not a scout. To be fair though, anyone who was saying that Savage was an Earl Thomas caliber of safety also has no business scouting NFL DBs.  That's not an opinion I seen writen, posted or spoke by 1 single person after the Maryland season was done.  Savage seems to have turned intpo this elite, can't miss prospect overnight.

The point of that comment was to point out that NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE was comparing Darnell Savage to Earl Thomas at the end of the 2018 football season or at any point in his 4 year career.  

People are making it out that I hate the player because I wasn't willing to annoint him as one of the best players in college football last year AFTER he was taken by the GBP.  Not the case.  While he's a good player, he was never the differance maker in the Maryland defense in my eyes.  Their defense and secondary was terrible regardless of Savage.  

The media types often miss talented players on bad teams. Especially for positions that are easy to game plan away from. More so OL talent, but holds true for safety as well. Case in point is Nick Collins who was the 70th (ish) rated DB by mel Kiper. He had him down as 7th round to FA.

Edited May 3, 2019 by VegasDan

[OneTwoSixFive]

@VegasDan   Ragging on Kiper seems a bit like trashing a dyslexic guy, 'cause he didn't win the school Spelling Bee.