Potential 2018 Draft Needs/Strategy

[drd23]

4 hours ago, berlin calling said:

getting our oline healthy will go a loooong way in fielding a good unit in 2018, don't you think? also as probably everybody i'll expect coaching changes this offseason as MM is just not cutting it.

Don't know if you've heard the Oscar Wilde maxim that begins "When you assume..." but this seems like on of those situations.

What about Harbaugh's hiring practices makes you think he'd hire a competent offensive coordinator?  And there's no guarantee that the offensive line will be good and healthy next year either

[diamondbull424]

I haven’t paid much attention to the draft prospects the past couple years but I think even with guys coming back next season I wouldn’t mind investing the in the offensive line. You can never have too good an offensive line. It’s not like we have many stalwarts. Billy Price, McGlinchey both look intriguing.

That being said one guy that I think would be a great fit for our team would be Bryce Love. Explosive playmaker that has a different game than what we currently have on the roster. He reminds me of Jamaal Charles. Because of size and durability concerns he might fall to our second round pick and that would be perfect. Upgrade the offensive line and then add a playmaking running back. Perhaps go tight end in the 3rd if there are any quality pass catchers, if not cornerback/free safety wouldn’t be a bad idea.

[diamondbull424]

So figured I’d actually look at a few prospects so as to know what I’m talking about with the draft. From what I’ve seen:

Christian Kirk- Not a fan. Slow off the line, needs to be constantly put in motion to create separation. Slot wr option. No game breaking skill set. I see a poor mans Tj Houshmanzadeh type of player. Perhaps a poor mans Jarvis Landry might be a more relevant comparison. He doesn’t have the strength or catching ability of Landry.

 

Equimonious St. Brown- Not a fan. Long and has decent speed. But his feet are slow, which means he’ll struggle to create separation at the next level. Which wouldn’t bother me if he had playing strength like a Kenny Britt or Alshon Jeffery, but he doesn’t. He plays a fine receiving game similar to an AJ Green, only without the foot quickness or crazy hands, or elite athleticism. Nothing to see here.

 

Still need to watch Sutton, but as of right now. Not a fan of the media’s “top” receivers in this class outside of:

Calvin Ridley- The guy is explosive and runs great routes and has great deep speed to separate. He can separate at every level. He’s The type of wide receiver that we need. Someone that can create clear separation for Flacco to make passes a no brainer... only he will likely be going top 15 so he’s a moot point.

 

Bryce Love- this is my new draft crush. Obviously Saquan Barkley is a beast, but I think Love will be just as productive. I see a Maurice Jones-Drew vs Jamaal Charles type of situation. Love being Charles. He has great patience and great Rb vision. Barkley is the more dominant player from a physical standpoint, but I think Love has the better running back instincts. Which means I see Love being more productive when playing hurt than Barkley, because he’s not overly reliant on his physical skill set. After watching more of Love, screw 2nd round pick, I’d be willing to invest a late 1st round pick on him quite easily. Depending on draft value, I’d easily use our compensatory pick to trade up for him in the 2nd round.

[sp6488]

On 12/7/2017 at 1:35 PM, diamondbull424 said:

So figured I’d actually look at a few prospects so as to know what I’m talking about with the draft. From what I’ve seen:

Christian Kirk- Not a fan. Slow off the line, needs to be constantly put in motion to create separation. Slot wr option. No game breaking skill set. I see a poor mans Tj Houshmanzadeh type of player. Perhaps a poor mans Jarvis Landry might be a more relevant comparison. He doesn’t have the strength or catching ability of Landry.

 

Equimonious St. Brown- Not a fan. Long and has decent speed. But his feet are slow, which means he’ll struggle to create separation at the next level. Which wouldn’t bother me if he had playing strength like a Kenny Britt or Alshon Jeffery, but he doesn’t. He plays a fine receiving game similar to an AJ Green, only without the foot quickness or crazy hands, or elite athleticism. Nothing to see here.

 

Still need to watch Sutton, but as of right now. Not a fan of the media’s “top” receivers in this class outside of:

Calvin Ridley- The guy is explosive and runs great routes and has great deep speed to separate. He can separate at every level. He’s The type of wide receiver that we need. Someone that can create clear separation for Flacco to make passes a no brainer... only he will likely be going top 15 so he’s a moot point.

 

Bryce Love- this is my new draft crush. Obviously Saquan Barkley is a beast, but I think Love will be just as productive. I see a Maurice Jones-Drew vs Jamaal Charles type of situation. Love being Charles. He has great patience and great Rb vision. Barkley is the more dominant player from a physical standpoint, but I think Love has the better running back instincts. Which means I see Love being more productive when playing hurt than Barkley, because he’s not overly reliant on his physical skill set. After watching more of Love, screw 2nd round pick, I’d be willing to invest a late 1st round pick on him quite easily. Depending on draft value, I’d easily use our compensatory pick to trade up for him in the 2nd round.

Be interested to hear your thoughts here.

[sp6488]

A quick-hit mock:

Rd 1 - Cortland Sutton, WR, SMU

Rd 2 - Damien Prince, RT/OG, UMD

Rd 3 - Troy Fumagalli, TE, Wisc

Rd 4 - Damon Webb, FS, OSU

Rd 5 - Mason Rudolph, QB, OkSt

Rd 6 - Jermaine Carter Jr., ILB, UMD

[Danand]

How about we get this guy?

 

 

[diamondbull424]

On 12/8/2017 at 5:18 PM, sp6488 said:

Be interested to hear your thoughts here.

Courtland Sutton- Big, straighline speed, good foot quickness, physical player. But I wouldn’t take him. I think his route running leaves a lot to be desired, he doesn’t consistently create separation on his routes. Also while he’s physical, to me it looks like he’s a man amongst boys vs poor competition, but throw on the Baylor tape and you’ll see that when he plays against someone that is physical he tends to try and get into a battle of physicality as if to prove a point vs beating them with body placement and route running. What’s more Sutton’s definition of physicality is to noticeably push off with his hands. Smart receivers push off to create separation with their arms so as to not get caught.

 

Sutton also, for a 6’4” big bodied wideout doesn’t do two things other big options do, he doesn’t high point the ball and attack it. He’s one of those “let the ball come to you” types. Which at the next level will allow for more defenders to intercept him underneath. The second thing he doesn’t do that other big guys do is dominate 1on1 situations. Look at him in the red zone. He consistently seems to have poor sideline awareness and/or consistently allows smaller defenders into his frame to affect pass plays... and this against competition that isn’t always top notch.

 

Granted his physical tools could allow him to dominate in the NFL with the right coaching, I don’t think he’s the type of player that will succeed of his own volition. Too many weaknesses. So combine that with the Ravens inability to develop wide receiving talent, I don’t trust Sutton succeeding with us.

 

If Sutton/Ridley are the best wide receivers this draft has to offer I’d definiely prefer to go the route of RT in the first round and continue to build the trenches. If we take a flyer on the wide receiver position, I would wait until the 3rd/4th round. That way we’re not in a Breshad Perriman type of situation. Speaking of which, Sutton reminds me some of Perriman coming out. Similar weaknesses and similar stenegths. Though, I admittedly have only watched a little of both guys compared to guys like Alshon Jeffery and Kenny Britt back in the day.

[Danand]

James Washington in the second round? Or does he take the Devin Smith leap into the 1. round?

[diamondbull424]

9 hours ago, Danand said:

James Washington in the second round? Or does he take the Devin Smith leap into the 1. round?

Yeah so after this loss and our serious need for skill positions I figured I’d look at some more receivers. I really like what I see from James Washington. He’s described as simply being a deep threat. However, he gets open deep on occasion, but that didn’t even seem to be the best part of his game. He didn’t consistently get himself open, but he did consistently attack the football in the air. He consistently won when put in 1on1 situation. He has plus speed (looked like low 4.5 high 4.4s) and a big frame. His route running was definitely pretty solid. Solid hands. His play reminded me of Derrick Mason. He averages a crap ton of yards per catch against collegiate corners and gets deep because he dominates in the intermediate range and against lesser athletes that results in touchdowns whereas in the nfl they probably won’t be quite as prominent.

 

All in all I would sprint to the podium to select him in the 2nd round. In the first round, it would have to be late 1st.

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

It's weird to think about what our draft strategy should be going into next year:

RB - Solidified with Collins/Woodhead/Dixon

OL - Solidified with guys coming back from injury

TE - Definite need there

WR - Definite need there but obviously we can't draft a WR to save our lives

Defense - we just loaded up there, so unless there's a dynamic SS that drops, I don't see much value there.

This could be a draft where we drop out of the 1st round and then do damage in the later days by stockpiling picks from teams moving up. I would love to see us get a Safety to take over for Jefferson, and some WR's, but I will never trust Ozzie's ability to draft WR's after the Perriman debacle. Heck, after how this team managed Elam and Brooks I'm even skeptical about drafting a safety high!

[drd23]

RT is definitely a need. 

Austin Howard is not good enough to justify his contract (which we can easily get out of iirc) and the coaching staff obviously didn't rate the prospects of Alex Lewis to move to RT before he got injured as he was practicing at LG in Training Camp, with Hurst at RT.

Safety and ILB would be the only potential needs I'd see on defense

[M.10.E]

1 hour ago, drd23 said:

RT is definitely a need. 

Austin Howard is not good enough to justify his contract (which we can easily get out of iirc) and the coaching staff obviously didn't rate the prospects of Alex Lewis to move to RT before he got injured as he was practicing at LG in Training Camp, with Hurst at RT.

Safety and ILB would be the only potential needs I'd see on defense

Pass rusher, pass rusher, pass rusher.

 

No one on this team can consistently rush the passer.

[diamondbull424]

I figured I’d rank our draft needs. I’d rank it something like this.

1.) WR- He may not have been elite, but we did draft Torrey Smith. And that inspires some hope for me. I certainly wouldn’t take the risk of targeting a “potential” prospect anymore. I think we should focus our attention on collegiate receivers that attack the ball in the air and don’t need to be schemed open with motions and such. We don’t have a creative offense and Flacco has proven that he’ll give his receivers a chance to make a play by throwing it in their direction. This is why he did well with players like Mason, Boldin and Smith because they attack the ball; however players who rely on perfect ball placement and let the ball come to them or to lead them in stride (Jeremy Maclin and Mike Wallace) not so much. Boldin could be trusted to win in 1on1 situations with the ball in the air, whereas do that to Maclin and they allow the defender to box them out and we see more interceptions underneath.

2.) OL- RT needs to be upgraded. The offensive line consistently allows pressure from the right side. Bringing back Yanda will fix part of that. But foot injuries are some of the toughest injuries for OL to deal with. So we still have to start building the right side of that line for when he does inevitably decide to call it quits. Building it will also free up our tight ends to spend less time assisting in pass protection and more time making plays.

3.) TE- Hopefully there are some decent options. From what I’ve been reading, there doesn’t appear to be a plethora of depth. But this is a position where a solid veteran can generally be found in free agency.

4.) ILB- Inside linebacker also could use an injection of athleticism. Someone that can go sideline to sideline. 

5) CB- I think targeting another corner in the draft might not be a bad idea. Smith will likely be out for a FULL year and when he comes back he might not ever be the same player. Brandon Carr is a solid player but is getting old and was just torched for 200+ yards because he was having trouble athletically. Webb is pretty much done. We have Maurice Canady, but he’s still not a proven commodity. Same with Humphrey. Plus injuries happen. Tavon Young will be exciting to bring back, but we’ll have to see how he recovers. We could use another high end corner.

6.) Rb- I like what Collins brings to the table, but Dixon just suffered yet another injury to the knees and hasn’t shown anything to this point. Woodhead is 32 and hasn’t played in 16 game in two years because of durability issues. Buck Allen does appear to be our most consistent RB from year to year. So all in all with durability being a concern for both Dixon and Woodhead, I wouldn’t be against taking a highly productive 4th/5th round running back with an underrated skill set similar to Collins, you never know when injuries will occur.

7.) Safety- I think this is the one position where I don’t mind having veteran players brought into to help manage. If there’s a game breaking safety I’m down, but otherwise I’d rather have that ILB that can play safety type of player. And then have a safety that has absurd athleticism to cover the field.

8.) QB- I’ve made my feelings known that other than a late round backup I’m going to continue to support Flacco. I’d say give another year and if he doesn’t make the playoffs then we can start talking about replacing him.

 

[AFlaccoSeagulls]

5 hours ago, M.10.E said:

Pass rusher, pass rusher, pass rusher.

 

No one on this team can consistently rush the passer.

Tyus Bowser can. The only problem is that this coaching staff doesn't play him.

Against Cleveland in week 2 Bowser received 32 defensive snaps and was Defensive Rookie of the Week. For the 5 games that followed, he averaged 7.4 snaps per game and did largely nothing. Last night he received 22 snaps on defense and had AT LEAST 2 pressures resulting in 1 sack and 1 QB hit late in the game to force an incomplete pass. I don't have access to anything else, so if someone else can tally up his pressures/hit rate from last night, that'd be great.

Suggs played 67 snaps and had 1 sack and 5 hurries (per Refo on PFF)

Judon played 76 snaps and was held completely sackless. Not sure about his pressure/hurry stats.

Tim Williams played 20 snaps and was also held sackless.

It's not hard to look at these snap counts and the production and conclude that Bowser, when given the opportunity, is arguably our most effective pass rusher.

EDIT: Additionally, speaking of draft needs:

We need an ILB who can actually drop into coverage. CJ Mosley is not that guy. Great run stuffing ILB, but has limited range and cover skills. Getting a S/ILB hybrid like Kam Chancellor, Deion Jones, Deone Bucannon, etc. perhaps even in the 1st round would benefit us greatly, but we definitely need athletic linebackers who can cover.

[M.10.E]

Also ILB. As "loved" as CJ Mosely is, he's a complete liability in coverage.