2021 NFL Draft Thread

[Jerry]

1 hour ago, bucksavage1 said:

We drank our own koolaid by bringing in draft specialist Mike Mayock at GM. Caused us to reach and stay with every draft pick. This set the team back several years. 

 

It's a little early for that.  3 players have 2 years under their belts and 2 only have one year under their belt.  We really don't know what Ruggs and Arnette will become.  Abram needs some serious coaching up for sure.  But to say that we completely whiffed on everything and are now set back several years is overdoing it.  Especially when we just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense.  I really think we are still moving in the right direction, just need the right D. Coordinator to take us to the next level.  That and some more talent on the defense lol.

[Humble_Beast]

4 hours ago, big_palooka said:

The sad part of the Mack/Cooper trades is the team ended up with 5 first round picks over 2 years and they stayed in their spot and reached every time.

With those 5 picks, they could have gotten creative and did a lot of things in player trades and moved up or down the board. In hindsight, it was the most mismanaged talent acquisition I can remember. 

 

I finally agree with you

[bucksavage1]

1 hour ago, Jerry said:

It's a little early for that.  3 players have 2 years under their belts and 2 only have one year under their belt.  We really don't know what Ruggs and Arnette will become.  Abram needs some serious coaching up for sure.  But to say that we completely whiffed on everything and are now set back several years is overdoing it.  Especially when we just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense.  I really think we are still moving in the right direction, just need the right D. Coordinator to take us to the next level.  That and some more talent on the defense lol.

True all these players could develop more but I'm referring more the selections not using it more creative

We didn't trade for any top young vets who are already established in the league. We gave Up a young DPOY and a pro bowl level player to get those selections. We basically rolled the dice on rookies. 

[agarcia34]

Pretty cool how D. Smith will be at the senior bowl. I wouldn’t play the game if I were him but good decision to get that practice in and and smart decision because the Dolphins will be coaching and will be able to get hands on with him and be able to make a great impression on them.

[NYRaider]

I've seen a 3rd round grade on him from most places. If we cut Trent Brown he could be a potentially replacement. 

[NYRaider]

6 hours ago, big_palooka said:

The sad part of the Mack/Cooper trades is the team ended up with 5 first round picks over 2 years and they stayed in their spot and reached every time.

With those 5 picks, they could have gotten creative and did a lot of things in player trades and moved up or down the board. In hindsight, it was the most mismanaged talent acquisition I can remember. 

 

Jacobs was a good pick and I still have faith in Ruggs becoming a player for us. But yeah, the Ferrell, Arnette, and Abram picks are looking pretty suspect. All 3 had major question marks and were considered huge reaches at the time. And all 3 of them have looked like major reaches. Ferrell doesn't have the athleticism or bend to be a top tier pass rusher, Arnette doesn't have the size/speed/length to be a good starting outside CB, and Abram is a safety who's biggest weakness is coverage. 

[Geezy]

2 hours ago, agarcia34 said:

Pretty cool how D. Smith will be at the senior bowl. I wouldn’t play the game if I were him but good decision to get that practice in and and smart decision because the Dolphins will be coaching and will be able to get hands on with him and be able to make a great impression on them.

id usually be against a WR taken top 3, but Miami isnt the usual team picking #3. 

[Humble_Beast]

2 hours ago, NYRaider said:

I've seen a 3rd round grade on him from most places. If we cut Trent Brown he could be a potentially replacement. 

Mountain of a man 

[NYRaider]

3 minutes ago, Humble_Beast said:

Mountain of a man 

Would be an excellent replacement for Trent.

[ronjon1990]

6 hours ago, Jerry said:

It's a little early for that.  3 players have 2 years under their belts and 2 only have one year under their belt.  We really don't know what Ruggs and Arnette will become.  Abram needs some serious coaching up for sure.  But to say that we completely whiffed on everything and are now set back several years is overdoing it.  Especially when we just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense.  I really think we are still moving in the right direction, just need the right D. Coordinator to take us to the next level.  That and some more talent on the defense lol.

I wouldn't call it early. 

Ferrell was such a reach that even his biggest fans "hope he can become an 8 sack guy". We chose him over several guys who have become sack demons. 

Jacobs was a good pick, but I will forever maintain he would've been available later. Still worse, we're going to DeMarco Murray him into the ground. I'm genuinely concerned about diminishing returns from him over the next few years. A first rounder should be a long-term franchise cornerstone, and the nature of the NFL means RBs don't usually last that long. So even though he was a good pick, it was an early one that may never pay the dividends we could've gotten from someone else available. It's a bright spot as a tossup. 

Abram was just a bad pick. His whole schtick was hard hits. He wasn't a first round prospect. He hasn't progressed at all and is actually more of a liability than anything else. 

In that class, we had 3 first round picks. Chatter aside, no first round pick is untradeable. I would bet my career that someone offered something decent and was turned down. Mayock clearly doesn't understand draft pick value and I could totally see him holding onto the Abram pick even if someone offered him a 2nd and 2 3rds. Either way, we picked who we picked, and that says a lot. 

Reach, reach, reach on all 3. 3 first round picks and we used a top 5 pick on a late 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd rounder all things told. So many people were available who have made much larger impacts. Sticking to our guns definitely set us back in that regard. 

Then we have Ruggs and Arnette this past year. 

Ruggs....nobody had him as WR1. Nobody. I have as high of hopes for him as any rookie. But he's an undersized WR with a ton of speed and..........well that's sort of it. He was surrounded by 1st round talent at Alabama, and wasn't even the best WR on his team in the draft. We needed a true #1 alpha receiver and that isn't Ruggs' profile no matter how hard we try to pretend it is. We aren't running an Air Raid system. So it was a questionable pick for where it was at best. Again, a trade was likely possible, but we stuck to it. 

Arnette sucks. I can't say much else. He can't tackle, he doesn't have a high ceiling, he was an old rookie. Yet again, we stuck to the guns. 

Of 5 first round picks, we took 5 players and wound up with 1 difference maker who could be here for a decade, and it's at one of the most replaceable positions in football and one carrying little draft value. 

We still have a ton of holes, many at the same positions supposedly addressed.

We blew that. If that was our 5 year record (instead of 5 1st rounders over a 2 year period) people would be calling Mayock a draft failure. He seems to be getting a pass based on it being year 3 upcoming, but the failures of his drafting are apparent and have set us back. None of our picks have been met with glee on draft day, rather they've raised eyebrows and pre-excuses. He walked into a GM's dream and we're arguably worse for it now. Our secondary is still putrid outside of Mullen, we still have replacement level LBs (Kwit and Littleton might be fixtures going forward, but neither were draft picks nor considered anything special, and they're aren't. They're pretty good, but that's it.), and our "pass rush" is nonexistent. EDGE, DT, DE, CB, and S are among our biggest needs despite 3/5 of our first round picks going to reaches at those positions over his tenure.

On offense, we have Jacobs, who at this rate has maybe 4 good years left (maybe a few more if we fix how we use him) and Ruggs who, at present and until further moves are made, is like our 5th best WR behind Agholor, Edwards, Renfrow, and Williams*. He'll be 4th once Williams is let go, but that's by mere default, not him beating anyone out. Based on this season, there's a chance he doesn't even beat out Edwards for touches. Even Ruggs fans are clamoring for another WR (Allen, Smith-Schuster, Golladay, etc) as our prime FA pickup (to replace Agholor, who kept Ruggs' touches down), or they want Agholor gone solely to force feed Ruggs (which makes zero sense outside of merely being fanboys). 

I'd say we've clearly taken a step back if we're arguing whether or not to sign better players than our 1st round picks or to let guys go so we can force feed those 1st rounders who haven't proven anything just for the sake of doing so. We just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense, yes. Carr, Waller, Agholor, and our at times patchwork O-line played a bigger role in that than any recent draft picks. We're at 8-8 and looking at MAJOR holes on O-line, potential contract hell with Waller, Jacobs, Carr, Miller, and probably Mullen before long. We're discussing letting talented players go as if we just won the Superbowl, but we're a very lucky 8-8. 

Our needs are still numerous at the same old positions and we're finding new needs. 5 first round picks and numerous 2nd-3rd rounders should've built a core that would be around a while. Instead, we're like little Dutch boys putting fingers in leaks and watching others spring open. And that ties directly back to objectively piss poor drafting. Even if we reached the playoffs or, God willing, the Superbowl, we're far more 2017 Jacksonville than we are a KC/Seattle/Green Bay/New Orleans perennial contender.

[Humble_Beast]

^ I agree with a lot of this, we had the assets to build a dynasty. I’m not calling out all the busts yet, but it can go either way at this point. There’s already guys we passed on looking like all pros, Devin White & Antoine Winfield& AJ Brown to name a few... whope it all works out, but I seriously questioning 🤨 blowing all those draft assets for this talent. I’m not asking for perfect, but we should be more Stacked and less holes....

Edited January 19, 2021 by Humble_Beast

[Jerry]

3 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

I wouldn't call it early. 

Ferrell was such a reach that even his biggest fans "hope he can become an 8 sack guy". We chose him over several guys who have become sack demons. 

Jacobs was a good pick, but I will forever maintain he would've been available later. Still worse, we're going to DeMarco Murray him into the ground. I'm genuinely concerned about diminishing returns from him over the next few years. A first rounder should be a long-term franchise cornerstone, and the nature of the NFL means RBs don't usually last that long. So even though he was a good pick, it was an early one that may never pay the dividends we could've gotten from someone else available. It's a bright spot as a tossup. 

Abram was just a bad pick. His whole schtick was hard hits. He wasn't a first round prospect. He hasn't progressed at all and is actually more of a liability than anything else. 

In that class, we had 3 first round picks. Chatter aside, no first round pick is untradeable. I would bet my career that someone offered something decent and was turned down. Mayock clearly doesn't understand draft pick value and I could totally see him holding onto the Abram pick even if someone offered him a 2nd and 2 3rds. Either way, we picked who we picked, and that says a lot. 

Reach, reach, reach on all 3. 3 first round picks and we used a top 5 pick on a late 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd rounder all things told. So many people were available who have made much larger impacts. Sticking to our guns definitely set us back in that regard. 

Then we have Ruggs and Arnette this past year. 

Ruggs....nobody had him as WR1. Nobody. I have as high of hopes for him as any rookie. But he's an undersized WR with a ton of speed and..........well that's sort of it. He was surrounded by 1st round talent at Alabama, and wasn't even the best WR on his team in the draft. We needed a true #1 alpha receiver and that isn't Ruggs' profile no matter how hard we try to pretend it is. We aren't running an Air Raid system. So it was a questionable pick for where it was at best. Again, a trade was likely possible, but we stuck to it. 

Arnette sucks. I can't say much else. He can't tackle, he doesn't have a high ceiling, he was an old rookie. Yet again, we stuck to the guns. 

Of 5 first round picks, we took 5 players and wound up with 1 difference maker who could be here for a decade, and it's at one of the most replaceable positions in football and one carrying little draft value. 

We still have a ton of holes, many at the same positions supposedly addressed.

We blew that. If that was our 5 year record (instead of 5 1st rounders over a 2 year period) people would be calling Mayock a draft failure. He seems to be getting a pass based on it being year 3 upcoming, but the failures of his drafting are apparent and have set us back. None of our picks have been met with glee on draft day, rather they've raised eyebrows and pre-excuses. He walked into a GM's dream and we're arguably worse for it now. Our secondary is still putrid outside of Mullen, we still have replacement level LBs (Kwit and Littleton might be fixtures going forward, but neither were draft picks nor considered anything special, and they're aren't. They're pretty good, but that's it.), and our "pass rush" is nonexistent. EDGE, DT, DE, CB, and S are among our biggest needs despite 3/5 of our first round picks going to reaches at those positions over his tenure.

On offense, we have Jacobs, who at this rate has maybe 4 good years left (maybe a few more if we fix how we use him) and Ruggs who, at present and until further moves are made, is like our 5th best WR behind Agholor, Edwards, Renfrow, and Williams*. He'll be 4th once Williams is let go, but that's by mere default, not him beating anyone out. Based on this season, there's a chance he doesn't even beat out Edwards for touches. Even Ruggs fans are clamoring for another WR (Allen, Smith-Schuster, Golladay, etc) as our prime FA pickup (to replace Agholor, who kept Ruggs' touches down), or they want Agholor gone solely to force feed Ruggs (which makes zero sense outside of merely being fanboys). 

I'd say we've clearly taken a step back if we're arguing whether or not to sign better players than our 1st round picks or to let guys go so we can force feed those 1st rounders who haven't proven anything just for the sake of doing so. We just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense, yes. Carr, Waller, Agholor, and our at times patchwork O-line played a bigger role in that than any recent draft picks. We're at 8-8 and looking at MAJOR holes on O-line, potential contract hell with Waller, Jacobs, Carr, Miller, and probably Mullen before long. We're discussing letting talented players go as if we just won the Superbowl, but we're a very lucky 8-8. 

Our needs are still numerous at the same old positions and we're finding new needs. 5 first round picks and numerous 2nd-3rd rounders should've built a core that would be around a while. Instead, we're like little Dutch boys putting fingers in leaks and watching others spring open. And that ties directly back to objectively piss poor drafting. Even if we reached the playoffs or, God willing, the Superbowl, we're far more 2017 Jacksonville than we are a KC/Seattle/Green Bay/New Orleans perennial contender.

1st bold)  Well at least we hit on Miller, Mullen is decent, Crosby is good for a 5th, Renfrow is good in the slot and punt return, John Simpson should become a serviceable OG, Ferrell isn't the worst we've ever done in the first, Josh Jacobs can at least get 1k rushing, Foster Moreau seems to be a pretty dang good TE2.  I mean we haven't been lights out in the first, but Mayock has found us some pretty good players throughout the draft.  Missing in the first round is a big deal, but it isn't like he completely whiffed on every single pick.

2nd bold)  I want to keep Agholor.  Hopefully Ruggs improves.  I read other posters say he needs to learn to cut more sharply and of course Gruden said he needs Ruggs to play faster which I completely see that.  I wanted Ruggs, but in hindsight (of course) wish we lucked out with Claypool or Jefferson.  Sucks that things happened the way they did.

I'm going to try to remain positive.  Hopefully we free up cap space with injury prone players (T. Williams, T. Brown), move players to their right positions (Littleton and Joyner), and add some major FAs to bolster our defense (L. Williams, FS).  We aren't in complete rebuild mode.  We just need to trim some fat here and there and replace it with some good ol' muscle.

 

[jimkelly02]

14 hours ago, big_palooka said:

The sad part of the Mack/Cooper trades is the team ended up with 5 first round picks over 2 years and they stayed in their spot and reached every time.

With those 5 picks, they could have gotten creative and did a lot of things in player trades and moved up or down the board. In hindsight, it was the most mismanaged talent acquisition I can remember. 

100% and I’ve been saying this for a long time myself.

I’ve coined the term “compounding interest” In regards to Mayocks mistakes in the draft.  It’s not just that he passed on Devin White/Josh Allen for Ferrell and reached for Arnette.... It’s that there were trades on the table that would have allowed us to take the same player he wanted and he didn’t pull the trigger.  I once wrote a mini-article where I calculated the sum of what we should have gotten in trade downs.  It’s not just those “lost” picks either, it’s that since we didn’t have those picks to fill needs with promising young  talent on 4 year rookie deals We thus went out info FA and overpaid average backups like Nassib/Collins of kept guys like Joyner, T.Williams, etc on the roster at a high price tag.   This all lead to us not being able to sign a top FA Like Byron Jones ... And thus reached for Nassib/Collins/etc.  all of these mistakes are interwoven and compound on each Other.

[jimkelly02]

3 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

Jacobs was a good pick, but I will forever maintain he would've been available later. Still worse, we're going to DeMarco Murray him into the ground. I'm genuinely concerned about diminishing returns from him over the next few years. A first rounder should be a long-term franchise cornerstone, and the nature of the NFL means RBs don't usually last that long. So even though he was a good pick, it was an early one that may never pay the dividends we could've gotten from someone else available. It's a bright spot as a tossup. 

I ranted and raved all Off-season and TC we need to sign or trade for a RB (my guy was Jamaal Williams of GB) in order to preserve Jacobs.  Idk if the damage is already done.... (although the saving grace may be his ridiculously low college usage) he’s certainly on pace to be used up to the point where he isn’t worth a 2nd contract.  Now that’s fine when you find a starting RB in rounds 3-7 but when you spend a 1st on a RB he should be worth extending after his rookie deal.... as you said.  If we hope to preserve Jacobs so that he’s worth resigning after his rookie deal we need to bring in a solid RB2 to handle part of the load.  I wrote about this in detail in the past but RBs are far, far more likely to get hurt as their touch count passes a threshold: for example in the first 15 touches the chance of getting injured on each particular touch is relatively low (call it .05% just to help make the point).... then as you approach 20 touches your at .15%.... at 25 carries .3%..... at 30 carries its .6%. 
 

It’s not just the end of the year touches totals.... it’s the particular games were we run him 25+ Times. Jacobs should stay under 240 carries  (273-15 games in ‘20 and 242-13 games in ‘19) throughout a 16 game season.  
 

We just need a RB2 that can replace Jacobs for a few touches every game... and substitute into the game effortlessly, without an interruption to the play calling

[BayRaider]

15 hours ago, Jerry said:

It's a little early for that.  3 players have 2 years under their belts and 2 only have one year under their belt.  We really don't know what Ruggs and Arnette will become.  Abram needs some serious coaching up for sure.  But to say that we completely whiffed on everything and are now set back several years is overdoing it.  Especially when we just went 8-8 with a historically bad defense.  I really think we are still moving in the right direction, just need the right D. Coordinator to take us to the next level.  That and some more talent on the defense lol.

These are all make or break years for Abram, Ferrell, Arnette, and Ruggs. WR's don't need three years to develop, Ruggs needs to ball in 2021. It's a make or break year for Arnette as an Outside Corner, or he goes to the Nickel in 2022. For Ferrell and Abram, it's legit either have a solid season in 2021 or you're a bust, as much as I hate to say it.

If 3 of 4 of those players fail, Mayock needs the boot.

I agree, however, it is too early to judge. But we cannot give Mayock free passes like we did for McKenzie for a couple years. This team let McKenzie live off the 2014 draft class wayyyy too long. It took three terrible drafts in a row just for people on this board not to bash anyone who criticizes Reggie.

Edited January 19, 2021 by BayRaider