2020 NFL Draft Discussion

[CWood21]

22 hours ago, packfanfb said:

I think it's all about how he shows up mentally tbh. This COVID situation won't help him that's for sure. Guy has all the physical tools, but you have to be very sharp with LaFleur and 12.

Mentally?  He was lost last year.

[CWood21]

4 hours ago, PossibleCabbage said:

I mean, one of the core appeals of hiring LaFleur was that his coaching pedigree has a history of manufacturing effective running games with minimal investment in the position (something the Packers have historically done.)  It seems completely backasswards to hire him then turn around and take an RB in the first.

The original discussion was if the value was too hard to pass up.  I mentioned that if one of the top RBs (i.e. Swift, Taylor, Dobbins, etc.) was available in R3, it'd be hard to pass over.

[MrBobGray]

28 minutes ago, MrBobGray said:

So, the thing with this is, that's in no small part because highly drafted RBs actually get carries.  If you look at the list of RBs who played in 2019, 30 RBs got at least 100 carries.  19 of those were drafted in the first three rounds.  Among players with 200+ carries?  20 RBs, 16 drafted in the top 3 rounds.  Now granted, it could simply be that the more talented RBs demand more carries, even in today's pass happy NFL, but then you look at what the actual production you get from the position:

In 2019, there were 15 RBs that rushed for over 1000 yards.  Their YPC ranged from 5.08 at the high end (Derrick Henry) to 4.1 at the low end (Joe Mixon).  So even from the very best 1000 yard rusher to the very worst on a per carry basis, there was a grand total of 1 YPC difference over the course of the season.  Granted, it's over several hundred carries, but even with that for Joe Mixon to hit Derrick Henry's numbers, he would have needed about another 75 carries on top of what Henry got, which averages out to....about 5 extra carries a game.  Running the ball with Derrick Henry 20 times a game is roughly equivalent to running it with Mixon 25 times, on a yardage basis.  On top of that, Derrick Henry rushed for 20+ yards 9 times over his 303 carries, or 3% of his total carries.  Mixon managed 6 in 279 carries, or 2.2% of his carries.  Jamaal Williams had 1 in 107 carries.  Aaron Jones managed 5 in 236.  Ezekiel Elliot had a down year, only having 4 in 303 carries. Over hundreds of carries in 16 games, there's a difference of about 4-5 20+ yard plays or 1-2% of their carries no matter which RB you're looking at.

Meanwhile, Allen Lazard managed 7 20+ yard plays in 2019.  Davante Adams had 12.  Michael Thomas had 17.  

The NFL has changed.  The constant rule changes to facilitate passing have resulted in a league where there's just simply very little value in running the ball.  I understand people will point to teams like the 49ers, but there's a reason they didn't spend a damn thing on any of their RB stable despite being a primarily run-based team.  If you have a good passing game, teams will give you the run game until you give them a reason not to.  You don't need an elite RB to hurt a team with a light box, and the right way to punish a heavy box is passing the ball, not spending a 1st on a RB, and this is where we need to talk about Derrick Henry one more time.  I've used him above as the comparison guy for good reason; he had the best all around season by a RB in 2019 by any metric, and in fact was an outlier as compared to the rest of the league.  He had ~10 YPG more than the guy in 2nd place this year; 102.7 YPG vs 93.4 for Nick Chubb.  He scored 16 rushing TDs, averaged 5.1 YPC, and led his team to a 10-6 record and the AFC Championship game.  Right?

You know where I'm going with this, but let's do it anyway!  In his first 9 games this season, Derrick Henry rushed for >100 yards 1 time.  Once, in 9 tries.  He also averaged over 5 YPC once in his first 9 games.  He rushed for <3.0 YPC twice.  9 games in, he had 164 carries for 644 yards (3.92 YPC) and 6 TDs.  He was on pace for a 292/1142/11 season.  As the passing game improved under Tannehill, so did his production.  An elite RB isn't going to produce like an elite RB when you run him into the teeth of the defense every snap.  Neither is an average one, and that's the point: even the best RB in the league made little difference to his team's overall W-L record.  They were 2-4 with Derrick Henry and Mariota as the starter, and 8-2 with Henry and Tannehill.  With Tannehill as the starter Henry never had < 4.0 YPC; with Mariota 66% of his games were fell below 4.0 YPC. 

Then there's Kansas City.  Kareem Hunt was one of the most productive RBs in football; many people viewed him as a crucial piece of that offense.  Then they lost him and replaced him with D. Williams and won the Superbowl.  The Steelers lost LeVeon Bell and they actually scored more points the next season, and Roethlisberger's passer rating actually went up.  

I didn't really mean to get into this to this degree, but whatever I did.  The point is, RB production is often more a factor of everything else around the RB first and foremost, and even elite RBs don't really have a ton of impact on their teams W/L record.  There's just not a reason to spend real capital on a position where it can only truly affect the game if everything else is working as intended.  Then there's the discussion about receiving yards for RBs, and these sort of swiss army knife players who can hurt you from anywhere.  Well McCaffrey is the poster child for these guys, and someone a lot of people wanted in MVP talks. His team won 5 games this year.  They won 7 in 2018.  Bell and Hunt both fit this group, and both weren't anywhere close to productive on their new teams in 2019 and both their teams had awful years.  If you want someone to catch the ball, get a receiver.  

For me it comes down to this: if you have poor production running the ball, fix your OL and your QB first.  They have more impact on the run game than the actual RB does.

 

I didn't write all this to get paged by @CWood21

[MrBobGray]

1 hour ago, CWood21 said:

Mentally?  He was lost last year.

Yeah but that's not exactly unusual for rookies, especially at running back where I'd guess the sheer volume of what he needed to know and work on in the passing game was totally foreign to him.  

This isn't to say that he should be viewed as anything more than a lottery ticket going into 2020, just that being lost is far from a disqualifying factor for a rookie.

Edited April 7, 2020 by MrBobGray

[incognito_man]

3 hours ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

But if you compare player against player.

Williams is in the game on 3rd and long because he's a superior blocker.

3rd and long is a high leverage down, consequently rated heavily by DVOA.

3rd and long has a very low success rate, (all 3rd downs not converted are rated a failure by DVOA).

So Williams takes the hard DVOA hit as punishment for being a better blocker. 

It's not a player to player comp. It's an "GBs offense is the 3rd best relative to other teams when Jones is in the game and 29th best when he is not"

[AlexGreen#20]

1 minute ago, incognito_man said:

It's not a player to player comp. It's an "GBs offense is the 3rd best relative to other teams when Jones is in the game and 29th best when he is not"

Which is the point. Jones comes out of the game on the plays where you have the worst outcomes. 

[moretti19]

Been thinking a bit, remmeber when we had Picket a defensive end in the 3-4 and then Raji up the middle. Sure would be nice just to find a huge person to play that Pickett role with Kenny Clark in the Raji role. Some of the guys that i think could fit are:

 Raekwon Davis, DT, Alabama
Height: 6-7. Weight: 311. Arm: 33.88. Hand: 11.
40 Time: 5.12.
Projected Round (2020): 2-3.
3/21/20: Davis had 47 tackles with .5 sacks in 2019 and missed some time with a sprained ankle. He was a tremendous run defender for Alabama. Team sources say they have given Davis second-day grades because he looks limited to being a two-down run stuffer in the NFL.

 

 Josiah Coatney, DT, Ole Miss
Height: 6-3. Weight: 309. Arm: 33.13. Hand: 9.5.
40 Time: 5.21.
Projected Round (2020): 4-6.
3/21/20: Coatney is a big run-stuffing nose tackle who was a good run defender for the Rebels. In his sophomore - 65 tackles - and junior seasons - 63 tackles -, Coatney was productive in defending the ground game. He had 3.5 sacks as a sophomore and one as a junior. As a senior, Coatney totaled 46 tackles with two sacks. Coatney was okay at the Senior Bowl.

 Leki Fotu, DT, Utah
Height: 6-4. Weight: 330. Arm: 33.88. Hand: 10.25.
40 Time: 5.15.
Projected Round (2020): 3-5.

Team source say Fotu is a quality nose tackle and run defender, but he doesn't have the pass rush to be a three-down player in the NFL. They view him as a two-down stuffer. That projection was given further confirmation at the Senior Bowl.

Edited April 7, 2020 by moretti19

[cannondale]

7 minutes ago, moretti19 said:

Been thinking a bit, remmeber when we had Picket a defensive end in the 3-4 and then Raji up the middle. Sure would be nice just to find a huge person to play that Pickett role with Kenny Clark in the Raji role.

Hence a DL in Round 1. Hence a DL in Round 1 last year for that matter. The biggest domino effect in making the defense better IMO. Is that guy gonna be there at 30 ? I haven't a clue. 

Edited April 7, 2020 by cannondale

[moretti19]

2 minutes ago, cannondale said:

Hence a DL in Round 1. Hence a DL in Round 1 last year for that matter. The biggest domino effect in making the defense better IMO.

I would categorize Gary more as an edge. I am not talking about a round 1 guy because they are usually pass rushers. I want a big hog that eats up the running lane. Snacks Harrison would be fantastic but drafting a similar body to that is what I mean.

[cannondale]

2 minutes ago, moretti19 said:

I would categorize Gary more as an edge. I am not talking about a round 1 guy because they are usually pass rushers. I want a big hog that eats up the running lane. Snacks Harrison would be fantastic but drafting a similar body to that is what I mean.

Yes Gary is an edge. I wanted a DL. Blacklock is a name that could be there. 6'-3" and 290. Not ideal on paper and some say he's lazy. I'm nowhere near smart enough to grade those guys

Edited April 7, 2020 by cannondale

[moretti19]

1 minute ago, cannondale said:

Yes Gary is an edge. I wanted a DL.

Got you, thought you meant we took one last year. I honesty thought we were taking Simmons last year.

[incognito_man]

42 minutes ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Which is the point. Jones comes out of the game on the plays where you have the worst outcomes. 

so does every other team...lol

I don't get your argument here?

Jones is in, AVG team scores 2.7 pts, GB scores 3 pts - GB is better than avg by 0.3 pts

Williams is in, AVG teams scores 0.5 pts, GB scores 0.2 pts - GB is worse than avg by 0.3 pts

It's all normalized.

[cannondale]

3 minutes ago, moretti19 said:

Got you, thought you meant we took one last year. I honesty thought we were taking Simmons last year.

There were at least 4 or 5 legit guys (at the time) that could have been taken.  I'm not sure how any of them turned out, but my best guess is no way we get close to the caliber of any of them this year at #30. That fricken Gary pick will haunt me forever

[AlexGreen#20]

12 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

so does every other team...lol

I don't get your argument here?

Jones is in, AVG team scores 2.7 pts, GB scores 3 pts - GB is better than avg by 0.3 pts

Williams is in, AVG teams scores 0.5 pts, GB scores 0.2 pts - GB is worse than avg by 0.3 pts

It's all normalized.

Would it be normalized in that comparison? I'm not sure how it would be?

[Jaegybomb]

It's more like comparing Za'Darius to Clark by pff scores.