Rate the draft and post draft review

[Bernie's Curls]

On 4/27/2019 at 9:19 PM, Kiwibrown said:

Share your thoughts on the draft; rate this puppy. 

Did we maximize the use of our draft capital? 

What are your criticism of the draft or our approach to it.

1. If you include OBJ and have an expert-consensus Top 3 CB fall within your Draft haul, I find pretty hard to argue that we didn't knock it out of the park. Even if we didn't take every pick I believed in at their respective draft slots, I can't disagree with their positional targets, even Kicker.

2. Using that draft capital to land OBJ was a master stroke. And trading a 5th in our move up for Greedy not only ensured his acquisition, but also had the added benefit of showing Greedy that we believed in him and really wanted him to be part of our rising culture.

3. My only disagreements involve our 3rd Round target (Takitaki) and the perceived talent I had available in DT Khalen Saunders. I thought that was a missed opportunity to get both someone special and a needed rotational piece is a fairly thin interior DL group for us.

[MSURacerDT55]

7 hours ago, AkronsWitness said:

A few things that caught my eye:

I thought they went too hard after LB depth. I really wanted them to take somebody to be a rotational piece, but using a 3rd + 5th for LBs seems like we almost overloaded the position where we could have added depth elsewhere.

Greedy, Takitaki and Wilson all have had off field or personality issues. Couple that with Callaway, Brantley, Hunt, Richardson ect and Dorseys fixation on grabbing up every player with character concerns is weird to me even going far back to Hill/Peters. Not a fan even if they are good players. It's like the Browns are over here running a second chance University. Even a huge concern with Baker was his personality/underage cop video. Love Dorsey but man does it seem like he loves a problem child. Maybe he likes players with an edge to them but I don't want half this roster to be filled with a bunch of combustable Pacman Jones'

Taking a Kicker with a 5th was also questionable when we could have added legit DE/DT/OL depth. Sort of surprised they didn't spread the draft picks around a little more with each position group and just seemingly focused on spending the whole draft on upgrading the LBs and Secondary.

 

- Overloaded? man that's not an issue at all, the cream always rises to the top, what's wrong with taking a position of weakness and turning it into a position of strength?

- Christ......so you want to go back to the 1-31 days where we super nice guys who were ok with getting punked and punched in the face? This is football, Dorsey straddles the line, we all know that but he also know how to put together a damn good roster pretty quickly, I'm good with that. Make sure you keep that same energy when these same players are making plays for us.

- Were you aware that we lost games we shouldn't have lost over the last few years due to kicking issues? The average fan would understand the methodology in trying to correct this issue.

- Why don't we sit back and watch things play out before we complain about it when we don't know the full context of the selections

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

7 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

- Overloaded? man that's not an issue at all, the cream always rises to the top, what's wrong with taking a position of weakness and turning it into a position of strength?

Yeah, it was a 3rd and a 5th.  Not sure I’d call that overloading anything tbh.

7 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

- Christ......so you want to go back to the 1-31 days where we super nice guys who were ok with getting punked and punched in the face? This is football, Dorsey straddles the line, we all know that but he also know how to put together a damn good roster pretty quickly, I'm good with that. Make sure you keep that same energy when these same players are making plays for us.

Yeah at some point we need to accept these guys are just here to play a (violent) game, not babysit our children or date our mothers.

I love those “green dot” guys as much as the next guy, but I like good football players too.  There has to be a balance and I think Dorsey is doing a decent job of that.

7 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

- Were you aware that we lost games we shouldn't have lost over the last few years due to kicking issues? The average fan would understand the methodology in trying to correct this issue.

Yeah the 5th seemed a bit early, but it’s pretty clear why they did it and I can’t even argue it.

7 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

- Why don't we sit back and watch things play out before we complain about it when we don't know the full context of the selections

Hi, welcome to the forum.

[MWil23]

I think that a few things/takeaways that you can have is:

*We felt really good about our DL and depth, enough to not draft it. I also believe that with our drafting Takitaki and Mack, that foreshadows Avery as our 3rd DE/RUSH guy and he's not a future nickel LB going forward that I thought...that or Takitaki will have that role and Avery will bump.

*We felt good about our OT situation and backup interior guys...and potentially even if we didn't, those on the board we DID NOT feel good about

*We felt great about the offensive side and skill position guys on that side in general

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

With some of these spots we’ve discussed (TE, OT, DT, DE), I can’t really think of a situation where one of those positions was clearly BPA and we passed.  

Certainly not on day 2 that I can recall.

[AkronsWitness]

29 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

- Overloaded? man that's not an issue at all, the cream always rises to the top, what's wrong with taking a position of weakness and turning it into a position of strength?

- Christ......so you want to go back to the 1-31 days where we super nice guys who were ok with getting punked and punched in the face? This is football, Dorsey straddles the line, we all know that but he also know how to put together a damn good roster pretty quickly, I'm good with that. Make sure you keep that same energy when these same players are making plays for us.

- Were you aware that we lost games we shouldn't have lost over the last few years due to kicking issues? The average fan would understand the methodology in trying to correct this issue.

- Why don't we sit back and watch things play out before we complain about it when we don't know the full context of the selections

There's not a problem with it, I'm just saying that we sacrificed fortifying other positions with more depth for the sake of over saturating the LB group. Just would have liked to see the DL and OL get a little more attention. It was completely possible to add depth at every position group but but they went with a more condensed approach which isn't right or wrong-- just my personal preference.

For the personality thing, I think it is 100% possible to field a really good football team without having to sacrifice character. I get having 2-3 guys on your team that are talented but are loose cannons, however the Browns seemingly are trying to build a team where 1/2 the roster are guys who slid in the draft because nobody else wanted them because of personality or track records. Dorsey more than straddles the line, he's fully across it. Hell, the first thing that popped up on the screen when they drafted Taki was his rap sheet. At some point having this many types of personalities on a team could get very combustible very fast the moment something goes wrong. On or off the field.

The last 2 highly drafted kickers with crazy college records (Aguayo, Gonzalez) are either no longer in the NFL or have already been released once. Neither lasted more than 1 season on the team that drafted them. There is such a fine line with Kickers that taking one with anything higher than a 7th is too rich. Siebert looks like a good Kicker, but there is zero track record that helps determine if college success translates to the NFL with Kickers. It's a complete crap shoot. I'm not against drafting a Kicker, but spending a 5th rounder on one I can't get on board with.

***I'm fully aware we can sit back and wait how things play out but the original question was basically what are things we liked and didn't like lol

[Tomahawk]

7 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

I'm not against drafting a Kicker, but spending a 5th rounder on one I can't get on board with.

Could be worse.  TB spent a 2nd on the one you mentioned lol.  

[ReggieCamp]

Boring draft, but functional.  Makes sense, based on what we did in FA.

We essentially ignored LB and CB during FA, and attacked it during the draft.  Assuming we picked a few good players, it served its purpose.

It's nice to see that there is a clear plan, and we're not panicking during the execution of it.

[MSURacerDT55]

Not going to lie, part of me is kinda disappointed we didn't get at least one of the stud DL in this draft, but understand the direction we took

[DawgX]

With OBJ, it's an A. Without him, I say it's a B/B-.

Greedy is a great pick at #46. You can stick him and Ward on an island and QBs will have a hard time. Hopefully Wilks allows them to do so and doesn't force them to play too much zone. There was no position heading into the draft that easily stood out as the biggest weakness, but you could argue that it was CB. Adding a player at a position of need who many felt was a first-round talent makes for a great pick in the middle of the second round.

Takitaki seems to be the most underwhelming pick, but I don't hate it either. I've never watched him, so I'll put my faith in the front office with this one. I think he'll start off as a rotational LB, and he could eventually replace Kirksey in 2020.

Redwine was a very good pick in round four. At the very least he should be a good third safety, and it sounds like he has starting potential.

Wilson was well worth taking in the fifth round. He's another guy who has starting potential. I didn't think we needed starters at LB for this season, but depth was certainly needed and both Takitaki and Wilson could possibly develop into starters depending on what happens with Kirksey and Schobert. Both LBs - assuming that they'll be good - will help provide depth immediately and could potentially make an even bigger impact a couple of years from now.

I like that we drafted a kicker because I have no faith in Joseph. But Seibert seems uninspiring looking at his college statistics. Again, I'll put my faith in the front office and coaching staff, but I'm skeptical as to if he'll work out. And when you draft a kicker in the fifth round, you kind of expect him to be the guy moving forward.

Forbes is a good pick late in the draft. Should provide quality depth at the very least. Maybe our new OL coach can work some magic with him and we'll see what happens.

Lewis is fine for where he was picked. I doubt he'll make the final roster, but we'll see.

Overall, adding OBJ makes the draft great. Not factoring him in, it's a solid but not spectacular draft. I like that we added depth at a lot of positions, which is what we needed to do. On paper, we have one of the most talented rosters in the league, but we were lacking depth in some areas. And hopefully some of these guys will replace current starters down the road once we have to start handing out bigger contracts to our top players.

[DawgX]

11 minutes ago, MSURacerDT55 said:

Not going to lie, part of me is kinda disappointed we didn't get at least one of the stud DL in this draft, but understand the direction we took

I mean, were we in a position to do so? Most of the top defensive linemen went in the first round. Don't get me wrong, I would have liked to have added some depth along the DL, but we're in a position where we can go BPA. I'm sure we'll look to go DL next year depending on what happens with Vernon and Richardson, who's not on a long-term contract.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

14 minutes ago, DawgX said:

I mean, were we in a position to do so? Most of the top defensive linemen went in the first round. Don't get me wrong, I would have liked to have added some depth along the DL, but we're in a position where we can go BPA. I'm sure we'll look to go DL next year depending on what happens with Vernon and Richardson, who's not on a long-term contract.

Khalen Saunders in the 3rd is the only DL I thought could fit the BPA description.

At least off the top of my head.

[AkronsWitness]

1 hour ago, Tomahawk said:

Could be worse.  TB spent a 2nd on the one you mentioned lol.  

Exactly, and the thing with Kickers (I'm borrowing this reference from Joe Thomas) is that if you miss on one, its over--they can't contribute in anyway on another level like position players can. If you miss on a OT in the 2nd he could still be a serviceable reserve player or a CB could still be a great ST player.

Kickers are either it or they are unrosterable. Which is another reason why coupled with their 50/50 boom or bust rate that spending a pick where you could potentially get a future starter to groom or a good rotational piece to solidify a position group that I'm not a huge fan of.

Aguayo, the best college kicker will all of the records when he played is currently bagging groceries 2 years after being drafted and the guy who broke some of his records is 1 camp competition away from being his superintendent at Kroger

Edited April 29, 2019 by AkronsWitness

[MSURacerDT55]

1 hour ago, AkronsWitness said:

I get having 2-3 guys on your team that are talented but are loose cannons, however the Browns seemingly are trying to build a team where 1/2 the roster are guys who slid in the draft because nobody else wanted them because of personality or track records. Dorsey more than straddles the line, he's fully across it. Hell, the first thing that popped up on the screen when they drafted Taki was his rap sheet

- How do we know if they slid specifically because of personality or track record? How do you know why a team passed on a guy? It simply could have been that they had the guy they drafted higher on their board, none of us know why teams passed on a guy unless they actually verbalize it, everything else is purely speculation.

- And as far as Taki Taki, that's is more the doing of ESPN (which IMO has turned into TMZ), if you paid attention they didn't resist airing every player's dirty laundry on the best day of their lives which is embarrassing.

- As far as the combustible personalities A) We've had similar personalities back in the 80's and we faired pretty well B) The team that Dorsey built with all of these combustible personalities were in the AFC Championship, and are the favorites to win the AFC currently

 

As far Taki Taki, I might receive flack but there are shades of Junior Seau to his game

Edited April 29, 2019 by MSURacerDT55

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

2 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

Exactly, and the thing with Kickers (I'm borrowing this reference from Joe Thomas) is that if you miss on one, its over--they can't contribute in anyway on another level like position players can. If you miss on a OT in the 2nd he could still be a serviceable reserve player or a CB could still be a great ST player.

Kickers are either it or they are unrosterable. Which is another reason why coupled with their 50/50 boom or bust rate that spending a pick where you could potentially get a future starter to groom or a good rotational piece to solidify a position group that I'm not a huge fan of.

I agree it’s not a position you’d ideally like to draft, but I think we all know why they did.  Joseph was... exciting... last season.  Even his makes were ugly and Gonzalez potentially cost us a couple of wins.

Of course I’d rather not be drafting kickers, but I’d also rather not have special teams like we’ve seen the last few years.  If that means over investing to fix a significant deficiency, so be it.