Niners traded up for Brandon Aiyuk at 25 WR

[Ftn49]

30 minutes ago, y2lamanaki said:

I'm sort of in the middle - as I judge trade-ups on the necessity and do agree some people get overly hung up on trade-ups - but to this specific point, some front offices would only be so lucky as to get three drafts from which to judge their results. There isn't really the luxury of giving a regime a large enough sample size to judge whether or not they are truly wise in making said trades, especially when the classes themselves really can't be judged for 3 years. So - you have to judge by the information you have, and so far the team has traded up for five players: 

1) Reuben Foster
2) CJ Beathard
3) Joe Williams
4) Dante Pettis
5) Brandon Aiyuk

We can't judge Aiyuk yet, and it would be generous to give Dante Pettis an incomplete. Of the other three, two are off the roster already and the other was inactive for all 19 games and lost his backup job to an undrafted free agent. So it's pretty fair to question whether or not this regime is legitimately good at making board decisions, or just general decision-making. With Foster, he was already known to have made numerous mistakes and got sent home from the combine. The talent falling to #31 and having the ability to snag that 5th-year option made this one super defendable, though. Especially, since the talent level of Foster made him someone that was legitimately in conversation at #2 overall. But Beathard was viewed as a 7th round pick, and there was no need to jump up and get him, other than Shanny's ability to sleep knowing they got the QB they reached for. Joe Williams had incredible red flags and wasn't even on our board when he was selected, which makes it incredibly strange to trade up for him. And Dante Pettis was one among a group of wide receivers of relatively the same value, and instead of staying put and taking the pick of the other guys who would have been available at the original spot (the next three wide receivers were James Washington, DJ Chark, and Michael Gallup, all with almost at least double Dante Pettis's career production. 

Trading up for a player should be done with value in mind. To the coaches - they saw Aiyuk as a guy who was worth taking at #13 overall, evidently over Lamb and Jeudy. That's a real unique take - and if it turns out that this is true, it won't matter so much. But it clearly wasn't true to the other WR-needy teams in that range took Lamb, Jeudy, and even Jefferson and Reagor before him. So it appears to be another instance of this regime needing to have a guy, and so far when they've needed that guy, they've flopped pretty badly.

I see the Aiyuk situation very similarly to how I see the Deebo Samuel situation last year. There were a group of similar receivers including Deebo, AJ Brown, DK Metcalf and others. It made sense to wait and pick from the best. We loved Deebo. We could have traded up for him and gave him a 5th-year option in the . But imagine losing Dre Greenlaw -  a luxury pick whom not one person thought we needed on draft day 2019, whether or not you liked the pick - to go up and secure Deebo. With Aiyuk, we made the opposite choice. We could have stayed put, and selected from Aiyuk (if he lasted), or any of the next three - Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman, Laviska Shenault. Instead, we gave up picks to get him. We may or may not have chosen someone who could have contributed to the team. We won't know. Maybe it could have been another defensive back or linebacker to groom and add to the depth - someone who could have competed for the roles guys like Marcel Harris, Dontae Johnson, and Al-Shaair had last year. Maybe it could have been an edge rusher behind Bosa, Ford, post-injury Ronald Blair, and.....that one guy we picked up.

So - I think it's fair to be really wary of this particular move, both in the context of this draft and the regime's historical choices. 

What you said is completely fair, however you don't know how the scouts/FO graded all the receivers you mentioned. Kyle mentioned that Lamb and Aiyuk specifically were the two that he wanted, so those were his first round receivers. We don't know how the scouts/FO graded the rest of them. Theoretically, Lavishka Shenault could have been his next highest receiver being worth 4th round pick. Your making assumptions that all the receivers were graded close together.

[y2lamanaki]

8 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

Foster, Beathard and Williams were all in 2017, everybody's first draft. The Foster pick didn't work out (except for when it did), but the pick is entirely defensible from a process standpoint. Reuben Foster is extremely talented. Also, one season of pro-bowl level play is actually (sadly), about a middling return on a late 1st round pick. Many bust outright, and produce nothing. Reuben Foster delivered lot more than A.J. Jenkins.

Justin Blackmon delivered a lot more than A.J. Jenkins, too, but he was still a colossal bust for the Jaguars and helped set the team back more than a player who could have given them more than a year and a few games like say - anybody else. But I'll give you the fair point of it being their first draft. A few years of experience could really help build their draft reading skills. 

14 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

Beathard...meh, they peddled a 7th rounder to get him, and guess what? C.J. Beathard has already delivered 4th round value. He's started ten games. Now, granted, he isn't good, but we needed a warm body at the QB position for a while there, and C.J. stepped up. Among other things, C.J. was the reason we didn't have to hurry Jimmy into the lineup after the trade. Filling the massive QB gap in our roster for 10 games with 4th +7th round picks is hardly bad business.

Just because it was only a 7th doesn't negate the general principle we're arguing - that the team doesn't read the board correctly and show an understanding of how other teams will draft. The fact that it was "just a 7th" doesn't negate that they needlessly gave up draft assets rather than wait five spots for a player likely to be there anyway. Beathard is not worth a 4th and a 7th round pick, and I know this, because nobody is going to trade a 4th and a 7th round pick for CJ Beathard. Beathard wasn't the reason we didn't have to hurry Jimmy into the lineup after the trade. Beathard was the reason we didn't have to hang onto Brian Hoyer after the trade. If there was no CJ Beathard, Hoyer merely would have been held onto through the end of 2017, and would have been the guy to allow Jimmy to learn the playbook. Or they could have just hung onto their undrafted kid from that year, Nick Mullens. All of that showcases the needlessness of trading up. 

One last thing - the team was pretty talent-baren in 2017. Not only does earning playing time that year not really impress (Adrian Colbert earned playing time that year and couldn't even beat out Antone Exum as the emergency call-up this year), but it also is why a team really should avoid giving up assets just to go get players. Like I mentioned, the team has been good overall at building a talented roster. I can only imagine if they might have uncovered another gem if they added another 4th, 5th, and 7th round pick to that class and just stayed put. They literally would have had two of the three picks in front of Eddie Jackson - would they have uncovered him rather than waiting until the 7th to take a safety (Colbert)? Instead of Joe Williams, the Colts got Marlon Mack and Anthony Walker, Jr. I'd be intrigued to see who else they might have looked at. We don't know. They could have just selected the other misses. They could have very well still have selected CJ Beathard and Joe Williams and then some guy out of the league. Hard to tell. We just know the end results.

 

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

I worry that Aiyuk will end up another Pettis...an undeniably talented guy, who just doesn't want it enough. But maybe Kyle has learned from the past? In the case of Aiyuk, Lynch seems to have leveraged his relationship with Herm Edwards in order to get better intel on what sort of a guy Aiyuk is. That eases my mind because I don't think Herm Edwards has the same blinders Kyle may have, and I don't think he'd pull one over on John Lynch. So, I'm more confident that Aiyuk has the jam to succeed in the NFL, but we shall see. I don't care about the trading of picks...that's just business, and a lot of people have irrational opinions about that sorta stuff. I just want Kyle to stop falling in love with talented chowderheads.

Interesting flop here, haha - I'm actually not too worried about Aiyuk and actually like him quite a bit. If we had waited and picked him at #31 I'd have been fine here. And I think the point you made about Herm Edwards is an excellent one, and part of the reason that I'm not as concerned about that. I think the one benefit of trading up for Foster and Pettis and giving Goodwin the big contract sort of taught the lesson to pay attention to guys committed to football. I think you really saw it in the picks last year especially. 

[y2lamanaki]

22 minutes ago, Ftn49 said:

What you said is completely fair, however you don't know how the scouts/FO graded all the receivers you mentioned. Kyle mentioned that Lamb and Aiyuk specifically were the two that he wanted, so those were his first round receivers. We don't know how the scouts/FO graded the rest of them. Theoretically, Lavishka Shenault could have been his next highest receiver being worth 4th round pick. Your making assumptions that all the receivers were graded close together.

It's fair to say I'm making assumptions. But those assumptions are based on the fact that since each of the last 20 drafts featured a wide receiver drafted in each of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and in 18 of the 20 years, at least one Pro Bowl wide receiver was available in those rounds (and to be clear, I would very much assume the trend continues well beyond 20 years, that's just as long I felt the research needed to go), it would be foolish to not have players rated in those rounds. I don't know who those players might have been, but I know they were there. 

[Ronnie's Pinky]

Interesting interview here...Lynch confirms that Herm Edwards told him Aiyuk is a "high 4.3s guy all day", and that they were probably helped by his running a slow time at the combine.

 

[Ronnie's Pinky]

Just now, y2lamanaki said:

It's fair to say I'm making assumptions. But those assumptions are based on the fact that since each of the last 20 drafts featured a wide receiver drafted in each of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, and in 18 of the 20 years, at least one Pro Bowl wide receiver was available in those rounds (and to be clear, I would very much assume the trend continues well beyond 20 years, that's just as long I felt the research needed to go), it would be foolish to not have players rated in those rounds. I don't know who those players might have been, but I know they were there. 

You seem to be ignoring the fact that not every player will succeed in every system. There well may be pro bowl receivers drafted in the 2nd round this year who wouldn't have had the same success in San Francisco. Aiyuk is a very different player from rest of the guys in his tier who might have been available; Kyle could never use guys like Pittman or Higgs in the same way he can use Aiyuk.

So if Aiyuk was the only guy left with the right skill set for the role Kyle has in mind (which may well be the case), and he was drafted appropriately based on his talent (i.e. not an obvious reach), then what is the "procedural" problem here? A lot of people act like players are more interchangeable and scheme-independent than they actually are.

[y2lamanaki]

4 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

You seem to be ignoring the fact that not every player will succeed in every system.

Well sure, but then you seem to be ignoring the opposite fact. That because not every player will succeed in every system, some players who failed may have been Pro Bowlers if developed in another system. How many players did guys like Brady or Manning make better than they ever were? Chances are, there are guys who flopped in the league due to being developed in a Cleveland or Jacksonville as opposed to Indianapolis or New England? Fact is, there are always a plethora of wide receivers available in those rounds. Would you like me to go further and list the number of years had guys who were successful in more than one system? It's going to be just as long, except I'm going to have to go back five years to begin finding guys changing teams.  

 

12 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

Aiyuk is a very different player from rest of the guys in his tier who might have been available; Kyle could never use guys like Pittman or Higgs in the same way he can use Aiyuk.

And maybe he couldn't use DJ Chark the way he could use Dante Pettis, but the way he uses Dante Pettis doesn't impress me, and I've gotta go on gut instinct that says regardless of where he would fit, DJ Chark on this team in 2019 would have been able to at least put up Dante's 11 receptions, 109 yards, and 2 touchdowns. Right? Like, even though Chark was a Pro Bowler (in Jacksonville....with Gardner Minshew) in a different system and might not fit here, we could reasonably guess he couldn't do worse than 11 receptions, 109 yards, and 2 touchdowns right? So, I'm really unconcerned with what special skillsets Aiyuk had that Shanahan and Lynch saw in him if Pittman and Higgs are Pro Bowl-caliber receivers and Aiyuk fits super nicely into Shanahan's system with an 11 reception, 109 yards, 2 TDs statline like Dante Pettis. That's really the crux of this that I don't know if you've understood. It would be one thing if the guys they traded up for were Kittle, Bosa, Warner, and DJ Jones. Then you can look at this trade up and say - "you know what, you've earned it." But that's not the case. Those are all the type of players they pick when they just wait or trade back. Those are reasons to say - "why not see if Aiyuk is there at #31 and if not go with your next best guy?" Instead, they trade up for guys like Dante Pettis, and if that happens again, that's another big mistake with a lot more wasted resources. 

22 minutes ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

So if Aiyuk was the only guy left with the right skill set for the role Kyle has in mind (which may well be the case), and he was drafted appropriately based on his talent (i.e. not an obvious reach), then what is the "procedural" problem here?

The procedural problem would be giving up a fourth and a fifth for a guy who might not pan out - which we won't know for another 3 years. We can only go on what we know about similar situations historically, and those have been poor, so it's pretty straightforward as to what the issue is. If Aiyuk has the right skill set AND he pans out (and to be clear, I'm feeling very positive about this) - then the procedural problem would only be what we might have given up vs. Aiyuk's annual production. For a regime that has found guys like Kittle, Trent Taylor, DJ Jones, Dre Greenlaw, etc. deep in the draft, personally I just would have felt more comfortable had they waited, lost out on another team selecting Aiyuk between 25 and 31 - which to be fair, might not have happened, and then selected someone else (WR or otherwise) at #31, and then two other players in the 4th and 5th and see what they uncovered. I think based on their history and general draft strategy (clouded with my own view of the other available WRs or otherwise), that would have been the preferred route.

[Ronnie's Pinky]

19 minutes ago, y2lamanaki said:

That's really the crux of this that I don't know if you've understood. It would be one thing if the guys they traded up for were Kittle, Bosa, Warner, and DJ Jones. Then you can look at this trade up and say - "you know what, you've earned it." But that's not the case. Those are all the type of players they pick when they just wait or trade back. Those are reasons to say - "why not see if Aiyuk is there at #31 and if not go with your next best guy?" Instead, they trade up for guys like Dante Pettis, and if that happens again, that's another big mistake with a lot more wasted resources.

Oh, I understood. As Forge would say, you are "playing the results", and you're doing so based on insufficient information. This is superstitious thinking...an attempt to discern a pattern before one has emerged. It's hugely common to underestimate the effect of chance on any given system, especially one as dynamic as the NFL.

There is also a serious causation-correlation problem here, as you seem to be assuming that the aforementioned picks turned out badly at least in part because the team traded up for them, and vice-versa for the other picks. There is no particular reason to believe that this is true.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Ronnie's Pinky

[y2lamanaki]

1 minute ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

Oh, I understood. As Forge would say, you are "playing the results", and you're doing so based on insufficient information. This is superstitious thinking.

No matter what you, @Forge, I, or anyone says, we're always doing so based on insufficient information -  certainly at the fan-level. Even in the NFL at the owner-level, all of the owners are judging GMs based on insufficient information. I've already mentioned you will never have a statistically sufficient amount of information on a GM because no GM will simply make enough picks in the same scenario enough times to accurately judge them. In order to have "sufficient information" on Shanahan and John Lynch's trade-up ability, I would need thousands of examples, and that simply is never going to happen. As such, you can only go on what information you have and make those judgments. Three years from now, we'll truly know whether or not this was a good move, but this would be a pretty poor discussion forum if we waited 3 years to talk about whether or not this trade was a success. I mean, we could post a thread asking what everyone thinks about the Solomon Thomas pick now that it's 3 years old, but we've long since moved past the need of doing that. It's no longer news. Trading for Aiyuk is. So we're going to talk about it and make our predictions, and part of that is taking into account the fact that we gave up multiple picks in order to select him.

[Ronnie's Pinky]

Just now, y2lamanaki said:

In order to have "sufficient information" on Shanahan and John Lynch's trade-up ability, I would need thousands of examples, and that simply is never going to happen. As such, you can only go on what information you have and make those judgments.

Not necessarily thousands, but you'd need more data than you're ever going to get. Alas, a bad conclusion is worse than no conclusion, at all.

It is not necessary to pass judgment on things we do not understand. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

[49erurtaza]

 

[y2lamanaki]

1 minute ago, Ronnie's Pinky said:

It is not necessary to pass judgment on things we do not understand. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

I sort of prefer the knowledge-seeking scientific method of studying a lot and taking in a lot of information to try and understand something, and then providing educated viewpoints to friends and other people who might be interested in reading them and considering it part of their full information intake system as they try to make sense of the topic at hand.

[burlow]

Should we throw in a pot odds in poker situation?  If they view Aiyuk as a 50k pot and the next receiver at say a 30k pot is it worth the buy in of the extra pick to take the prize?  My internet is so trash where I am at that I cannot watch highlights, before the draft I thought that Pettis had the potential to scare Shanny from Juedy - I also don't like to many Alabama prospects.

 

I am sure that the rest of us hope that this kid pans out to be the best receiver in the draft, and I honestly get more information from users on this forum than I do from my own research... I look at people suggested by posters I respect.  

Would I have liked to not trade up and get Aiyuk at 31, of course that is preferred.  But if the trade up price is less than the prospect discrepancy and need area of need then take the bargain and trade up.  If you guys are going to the club is there only one girl that you will bring home because she is the best one or are you weighing options?  Do you expect your bud that you went with to try for the same girl as you or does he always for some reason go for the fat chick?  Shanny has his type, let him go for what he wants.  

As earlier stated by other posters, this roster has improved tremendously in the last 3 years, there are fewer holes to fill.  If it becomes more expensive to fill the position with the greater talent spend the extra draft pick and become the best team we can this year without sacrificing the future.

[y2lamanaki]

36 minutes ago, burlow said:

Should we throw in a pot odds in poker situation?  If they view Aiyuk as a 50k pot and the next receiver at say a 30k pot is it worth the buy in of the extra pick to take the prize? 

In 3 years, we can answer this. As it, Aiyuk is a ??k pot, Higgins is a ??k pot, and Pittman is a ??k pot, and no poker player in the history of poker, not even the greatest Poker player, has been able to identify with even 30% accuracy the value of any one pot. What we know is rather than buying into three separate pots worth ??k each, he put all his money into one ??k pot that he presumes has the highest payout. And if he's right, great! But the last four times he's played Poker, he won very low pot amounts due to poor guessing of which pots to buy into.

[Uncle_Rico]

I find the trade up discussion fascinating. 

For those of you AGAINST the trade up, I’m curious your stance on this scenario. 

- You’re the Niners at 31. You’ve drafted Kinlaw at 14 and gained an extra 4th in the process.
- The #2 WR on your personal board (CeeDee/Jeudy/ Ruggs/Jefferson/Reagor/whoever) is falling in the draft.

- You have trusted intel he will not last til pick 31

- In order to move up you have to trade you’re recently acquired 4th and your 5th rounders

As GM would you guys (757/Y2/Forge/whoever else) make the trade up for Jeudy/Lamb/Ruggs/whoever you have #2)?

For me I had CeeDee #1 and Jeudy #2.
In this scenario I personally would have traded up in a heartbeat to get Jeudy. 

[Forge]

54 minutes ago, burlow said:

Should we throw in a pot odds in poker situation?  If they view Aiyuk as a 50k pot and the next receiver at say a 30k pot is it worth the buy in of the extra pick to take the prize?  My internet is so trash where I am at that I cannot watch highlights, before the draft I thought that Pettis had the potential to scare Shanny from Juedy - I also don't like to many Alabama prospects.

 

FWIW, this is very often the exact situation I use, but in a different methodology. I prefer to use poker as the example as why the results are immaterial when judging a trade up.