Grade the draft

[pwny]

• 1.1 - Trevor Lawrence
• 1.25 - Travis Etienne
• 2.1 - Tyson Campbell
• 2.13 - Walker Little
• 3.1 - Andre Cisco
• 4.1 - Jay Tufele
• 4.16 - Jordan Smith
• 5.1 - Luke Farrell
• 6.25 - Jalen Camp

[Charles]

Voted top 5.  Trevor Lawrence alone makes this a top 5 draft.  We also, imo, improved our secondary significantly.   Little also looks like great value.  I'm not a huge fan of the Etienne pick, but no doubt he is a playmaker who will add a homerun threat that we lacked, so it's hard to argue with the logic. 

- charles 

[.Buzz]

Definitely has to be in the top 10. There's was some really good drafts though so I could see the argument for anywhere in that range.

There's just so much upside in it. Arguments could be made had injury/opt outs not happened last year all of Walker Little, Andre Cisco, and Jay Tufele would have been squarely in that round 1 discussion. To go with our franchise QB for the next decade and an OW in Etienne that they clearly have a plan for (based on this alone I think the bitterness of a RB going round 1 should be tossed out the window), it just seems hard to imagine it not going down as a very successful class overall. 

[JiffyJag]

I voted 6-10. It’s a fantastic draft assuming injury recoveries go without a hitch, but I do think that the risk associated with drafting guys who may or may not come back 100% has to be taken into account. I also think not addressing TE, specifically pass catching TE, is not great, though that could be solved with a trade. 

All in all, I’m extremely satisfied. 

[pwny]

Little, Cisco and Tufele were all mocked as first rounders prior to opt outs and/or injuries. Obviously for Tufele and Little, that was a full year+ of draft changes and they could have easily played themselves out of a first round grade regardless, and that obviously played into them dropping how they did. There’s a lot of risk with guys coming off injuries; and you really just have to look at Baalke’s prior drafts to see how these guys could just wash out. 

But there’s just crazy good upside with this draft as well. Little has all the tools to become a franchise anchor at LT and had he played this past season up to the standards he did prior to his injury, he’s very likely a top 15 pick. Cisco has the potential to be the best playmaker in the secondary we’ve had in years if he’s the same player post-injury. Tufele could be similar to what Alualu was going to be before his injury robbed us of ever seeing that on the field. Add in Campbell who has a sky high ceiling if he can do some refining of his craft, particularly when the ball is in the air.

There’s so much potential star power in this draft class. If just two of those four guys hit, Trevor is the player we all think he is, and ETN brings the dynamic playmaking that we all think we see from him, this could be an all timer. And honestly, this season if we’re betting on something that isn’t an entire college career’s worth of A+ tape, I’d largely like to bet on guys who showed elite skill before this weird CFB season and not guys who only flashed when a ton of players decided they weren’t going to play. 

 

As it stands with all the risk, I’d probably vote 11-15 as a baseline. It’s possible only Trevor and ETN are viewed as viable players after a couple seasons here, and I think the back half of that appropriately fits that billing. But if we hit on any of the others I mentioned, this class likely starts flying up those rankings. 

[JiffyJag]

I would be curious to do a deep dive into some of the other injury flyers that Baalke took in SF to see what his hit rate was. Obviously the medical teams aren’t the same, but I do wonder how many of those guys were able to come back and how their perception compared to the guys that we just took at the time. 

[pwny]

2 hours ago, JiffyJag said:

I would be curious to do a deep dive into some of the other injury flyers that Baalke took in SF to see what his hit rate was. Obviously the medical teams aren’t the same, but I do wonder how many of those guys were able to come back and how their perception compared to the guys that we just took at the time. 

I had planned to start working on this sometime this week. 

[JiffyJag]

Just now, pwny said:

I had planned to start working on this sometime this week. 

Looking forward to it. Lattimore is the only notable failure that I can think of off the top of my head, but I haven't looked into it at all. 

[LinderFournette]

39 minutes ago, JiffyJag said:

Looking forward to it. Lattimore is the only notable failure that I can think of off the top of my head, but I haven't looked into it at all. 

Will redmond 

[LinderFournette]

3 hours ago, pwny said:

Little, Cisco and Tufele were all mocked as first rounders priory to opt outs and/or injuries. Obviously for Tufele and Little, that was a full year+ of draft changes and they could have easily played themselves out of a first round grade regardless, and that obviously played into them dropping how they did. There’s a lot of risk with guys coming off injuries; and you really just have to look at Baalke’s prior drafts to see how these guys could just wash out. 

But there’s just crazy good upside with this draft as well. Little has all the tools to become a franchise anchor at LT and had he played this past season up to the standards he did prior to his injury, he’s very likely a top 15 pick. Cisco has the potential to be the best playmaker in the secondary we’ve had in years if he’s the same player post-injury. Tufele could be similar to what Alualu was going to be before his injury robbed us of ever seeing that on the field. Add in Campbell who has a sky high ceiling if he can do some refining of his craft, particularly when the ball is in the air.

There’s so much potential star power in this draft class. If just two of those four guys hit, Trevor is the player we all think he is, and ETN brings the dynamic playmaking that we all think we see from him, this could be an all timer. And honestly, this season if we’re betting on something that isn’t an entire college career’s worth of A+ tape, I’d largely like to bet on guys who showed elite skill before this weird CFB season and not guys who only flashed when a ton of players decided they weren’t going to play. 

 

As it stands with all the risk, I’d probably vote 11-15 as a baseline. It’s possible only Trevor and ETN are viewed as viable players after a couple seasons here, and I think 12 appropriately fits that billing. But if we hit on any of the others I mentioned, this class likely starts flying up those rankings. 

Pretty much what I was going to say.  

I also dinged for the te reach imo. 

I also think it's kinda pointless to rank/judge classes after just the draft. 

[pwny]

I posted this in Gen, figured I’d move it over here too. Added a couple more bits to most players, and an overall analysis at the end. 

1.1 - Trevor Lawrence - A++ - There isn’t really anything to say that hasn’t already been said. This is a franchise defining player that not only makes the team better, but the community of Jacksonville better.  

1.25 - Travis Etienne - B/B+ - There’s a lot of questions about the value of taking a RB at 25 and they’re mostly founded. But ETN isn’t going to be *just* a running back. He’s effectively the piece that Urban Meyer needed to be able to install the entirety of his playbook around Trevor. Urban Meyer made a name for himself off of innovative play calling using fast and versatile players; making sure you get the best of the bunch in this draft class is vital towards him being able to be him.

This is maybe a little higher than I’d have wanted to draft him, but reports out are that he wouldn’t have made it to #33, and I think the team is better off having him than not. 

2.1 - Tyson Campbell - C - C is an average grade, and that’s really where I’d put this. Campbell has traits that you can build upon that could lead him to being an elite cover corner in this league. He also has some traits that very obviously need addressing before he can be sure to find success at the next level. He’s likely to start in the slot, which should give him some leeway in the time it takes him to develop, but he also might not ever be more than a slot guy. 

2.13 - Walker Little - C+ - The risks are obvious; ACL tear, almost two full years away from the sport, limited film to review. But the upside is incredible. If he had come back from the injury and played at the level he did prior to injury, he’s probably selected closer to 1.13 than 2.13. He showed all the tools to be an elite franchise LT in his short time, but the time away leaves this risky.

If Little is healthy, completely in shape, and the player that we saw on tape prior to his injury, he has a good shot to oust Cam Robinson by the start of preseason and could start at LT for a decade. It‘ll be interesting how the OL shakes up if that happens as well. 

3.1 - Andre Cisco - C- - Cisco was on my short list of Safeties that the Jags should target, so it does feel weird not completely praising this pick. He’s a ball hawking Safety who was a turnover machine, and he can lay the wood when a receiver comes over the middle. If he hadn’t gotten the ACL injury, I think he would have been in the pre-draft discussion about which S deserved to go off the board first. But the injuries are definitely the issue. A good number of heavy hitting Safeties have injury issues at the next level, and Cisco already having two different lower body injuries over the last two years that required him to miss time is a red flag; not to mention one of them was an ACL injury.

Cisco was the guy I would have taken with this pick. He was the last of the Safeties I saw as guys who could be impact starters, and they got him about where I expected the last of that bunch to go. I really like his upside a lot, but noting risk, I think it’s something worth putting just below average. 

4.1 - Jay Tufele - C+ - Tufele seems like a guy they penciled in to take immediately after Alualu decided to re-sign in Pittsburgh. So much about him is almost completely analogous to Alualu’s game. Tufele should be at least a decent run stuffer and should be able to play across the 3-4 DL alignments, but his lack of defined pass rush skills may limit the number of snaps he can get on a regular basis and the number of situations that the team feels comfortable using him. But he does have the physical skills to develop into good interior pass rusher, it’s just a matter of development and how far he can take that.

Tufele should be a solid rotational player even if he doesn’t develop his pass rush. But if the team can get him to figure that out, there’s definitely the potential for him to routinely be a 5+ sack guy every year from the interior and a guy who becomes a major cog in the front 7.

4.16 - Jordan Smith - D - This one is just a complete crap shoot that I don’t know how to grade it. The hope is that his testing numbers and what he did at the Senior Bowl were off for some reason. He claims to have added 35lbs for his pro day, which is typically unheard of, so maybe he dirty bulked and he wasn’t carrying enough muscle with all the weight to get him where he should be athletically. If that’s the case and a proper NFL weight, conditioning and diet program can get him to where he has the ability to generate burst and quickness at the next level, he might find success. But there’s just such an obvious path towards him washing out of the league in a year or two that I can’t in good faith give this a grade any higher.

Urban doesn’t seem to be the type to want to bring guys in that are as slow as Smith looked at his workouts or as outmatched as he looked at the Senior Bowl. My guess is that they identified something as the cause of the issues (like putting on weight too fast) that the felt they can work around. Time will tell. 

5.1 - Luke Farrell - C- - Farrell is a blocking tight end first, a blocking tight end second, and a receiver third. The Jaguars needed a pass catching Tight End in the worst way and completely whiffed to that end, but Farrell should be a decent player for them to use as the H-Back. It’s not the biggest need on the roster with Manhertz also being a blocking TE, but it doesn’t hurt to have depth.

Ryan Day rarely uses Tight Ends as pass catchers, and the limited times that they threw the ball towards Farrell, he showed soft hands. There’s some untapped potential, but I can’t imagine he’s ever able to be a consistent top 15 type pass catching TE. 

6.25 - Jalen Camp - B - A project receiver with high end measurables. He probably won’t ever develop into a great receiver or even a rotational guy. However, he’s shown very good blocking skills and seems likely to lead towards him becoming a higher end special teams player. In the 6th round, that’s about all you typically can ask; a shot in the dark, with good special teams as the baseline.

Outside of the potential for Special Teams and Urban’s love for using that to beat teams, this pick screams one of those picks where you give a position coach an incredible athlete and challenge them to develop all the missing traits. This pick will be a fun exercise to grade Sanjay Lal’s development skills come a couple years from now. 

 

EDITED grades to match the scale are being thrown around in Gen: 
Lawrence - A+++++++++++++
Etienne - A
Campbell - B+
Little - A
Cisco - A-
Tufele - B+
Smith - C
Farrell - B
Camp - A

 

 

 

Overall analysis: For the most part, this draft matched needs to value across the board. The miss on a pass catching Tight End hurts, but otherwise I think they did most of what they went in wanting to accomplish. They found scheme fits and didn’t just peg in guys with no real obvious fit on the team, which is a welcome change.

For a few picks, Urban relied on previous relationships he’s had with players to make some selections. Normally, I’d point out that nepotism is a problem in the NFL and be a little unsettled with it, but I’m okay with it given this was his first year and that there’s just so much you couldn’t do this year when trying to assess who these guys are and who they’re to become.

Urban has preached that it’s his responsibility to provide the best for these players; the best coaching staff, the best strength and conditioning team, the best medical staff, the best facilities, the best everything. If he is really correct about how much he thinks putting that much effort into those things can elevate players, the sky is the limit with this class. There’s 6-7 different guys that have the potential to be stars if this staff can help them round out their game and keep them healthy.

There’s also a lot of guys with paths towards being complete busts if you can’t work those things out. I’m really only confident that come 2024 that Trevor, ETN and maybe Tufele are still on the team. All draft classes rely on the team they’re on to ultimately decided how good they end up, but this class might be more so than the normal given how many players have boom/bust potential.

Let’s hope Urban is right.

[.Buzz]

2 hours ago, pwny said:

I posted this in Gen, figured I’d move it over here too. Added a couple more bits to most players, and an overall analysis at the end. 

1.1 - Trevor Lawrence - A++ - There isn’t really anything to say that hasn’t already been said. This is a franchise defining player that not only makes the team better, but the community of Jacksonville better.  

1.25 - Travis Etienne - B/B+ - There’s a lot of questions about the value of taking a RB at 25 and they’re mostly founded. But ETN isn’t going to be *just* a running back. He’s effectively the piece that Urban Meyer needed to be able to install the entirety of his playbook around Trevor. Urban Meyer made a name for himself off of innovative play calling using fast and versatile players; making sure you get the best of the bunch in this draft class is vital towards him being able to be him.

This is maybe a little higher than I’d have wanted to draft him, but reports out are that he wouldn’t have made it to #33, and I think the team is better off having him than not. 

2.1 - Tyson Campbell - C - C is an average grade, and that’s really where I’d put this. Campbell has traits that you can build upon that could lead him to being an elite cover corner in this league. He also has some traits that very obviously need addressing before he can be sure to find success at the next level. He’s likely to start in the slot, which should give him some leeway in the time it takes him to develop, but he also might not ever be more than a slot guy. 

2.13 - Walker Little - C+ - The risks are obvious; ACL tear, almost two full years away from the sport, limited film to review. But the upside is incredible. If he had come back from the injury and played at the level he did prior to injury, he’s probably selected closer to 1.13 than 2.13. He showed all the tools to be an elite franchise LT in his short time, but the time away leaves this risky.

If Little is healthy, completely in shape, and the player that we saw on tape prior to his injury, he has a good shot to oust Cam Robinson by the start of preseason and could start at LT for a decade. It‘ll be interesting how the OL shakes up if that happens as well. 

3.1 - Andre Cisco - C- - Cisco was on my short list of Safeties that the Jags should target, so it does feel weird not completely praising this pick. He’s a ball hawking Safety who was a turnover machine, and he can lay the wood when a receiver comes over the middle. If he hadn’t gotten the ACL injury, I think he would have been in the pre-draft discussion about which S deserved to go off the board first. But the injuries are definitely the issue. A good number of heavy hitting Safeties have injury issues at the next level, and Cisco already having two different lower body injuries over the last two years that required him to miss time is a red flag; not to mention one of them was an ACL injury.

Cisco was the guy I would have taken with this pick. He was the last of the Safeties I saw as guys who could be impact starters, and they got him about where I expected the last of that bunch to go. I really like his upside a lot, but noting risk, I think it’s something worth putting just below average. 

4.1 - Jay Tufele - C+ - Tufele seems like a guy they penciled in to take immediately after Alualu decided to re-sign in Pittsburgh. So much about him is almost completely analogous to Alualu’s game. Tufele should be at least a decent run stuffer and should be able to play across the 3-4 DL alignments, but his lack of defined pass rush skills may limit the number of snaps he can get on a regular basis and the number of situations that the team feels comfortable using him. But he does have the physical skills to develop into good interior pass rusher, it’s just a matter of development and how far he can take that.

Tufele should be a solid rotational player even if he doesn’t develop his pass rush. But if the team can get him to figure that out, there’s definitely the potential for him to routinely be a 5+ sack guy every year from the interior and a guy who becomes a major cog in the front 7.

4.16 - Jordan Smith - D - This one is just a complete crap shoot that I don’t know how to grade it. The hope is that his testing numbers and what he did at the Senior Bowl were off for some reason. He claims to have added 35lbs for his pro day, which is typically unheard of, so maybe he dirty bulked and he wasn’t carrying enough muscle with all the weight to get him where he should be athletically. If that’s the case and a proper NFL weight, conditioning and diet program can get him to where he has the ability to generate burst and quickness at the next level, he might find success. But there’s just such an obvious path towards him washing out of the league in a year or two that I can’t in good faith give this a grade any higher.

Urban doesn’t seem to be the type to want to bring guys in that are as slow as Smith looked at his workouts or as outmatched as he looked at the Senior Bowl. My guess is that they identified something as the cause of the issues (like putting on weight too fast) that the felt they can work around. Time will tell. 

5.1 - Luke Farrell - C- - Farrell is a blocking tight end first, a blocking tight end second, and a receiver third. The Jaguars needed a pass catching Tight End in the worst way and completely whiffed to that end, but Farrell should be a decent player for them to use as the H-Back. It’s not the biggest need on the roster with Manhertz also being a blocking TE, but it doesn’t hurt to have depth.

Ryan Day rarely uses Tight Ends as pass catchers, and the limited times that they threw the ball towards Farrell, he showed soft hands. There’s some untapped potential, but I can’t imagine he’s ever able to be a consistent top 15 type pass catching TE. 

6.25 - Jalen Camp - B - A project receiver with high end measurables. He probably won’t ever develop into a great receiver or even a rotational guy. However, he’s shown very good blocking skills and seems likely to lead towards him becoming a higher end special teams player. In the 6th round, that’s about all you typically can ask; a shot in the dark, with good special teams as the baseline.

Outside of the potential for Special Teams and Urban’s love for using that to beat teams, this pick screams one of those picks where you give a position coach an incredible athlete and challenge them to develop all the missing traits. This pick will be a fun exercise to grade Sanjay Lal’s development skills come a couple years from now. 

 

EDITED grades to match the scale are being thrown around in Gen: 
Lawrence - A+++++++++++++
Etienne - A
Campbell - B+
Little - A
Cisco - A-
Tufele - B+
Smith - C
Farrell - B
Camp - A

 

 

 

Overall analysis: For the most part, this draft matched needs to value across the board. The miss on a pass catching Tight End hurts, but otherwise I think they did most of what they went in wanting to accomplish. They found scheme fits and didn’t just peg in guys with no real obvious fit on the team, which is a welcome change.

For a few picks, Urban relied on previous relationships he’s had with players to make some selections. Normally, I’d point out that nepotism is a problem in the NFL and be a little unsettled with it, but I’m okay with it given this was his first year and that there’s just so much you couldn’t do this year when trying to assess who these guys are and who they’re to become.

Urban has preached that it’s his responsibility to provide the best for these players; the best coaching staff, the best strength and conditioning team, the best medical staff, the best facilities, the best everything. If he is really correct about how much he thinks putting that much effort into those things can elevate players, the sky is the limit with this class. There’s 6-7 different guys that have the potential to be stars if this staff can help them round out their game and keep them healthy.

There’s also a lot of guys with paths towards being complete busts if you can’t work those things out. I’m really only confident that come 2024 that Trevor, ETN and maybe Tufele are still on the team. All draft classes rely on the team they’re on to ultimately decided how good they end up, but this class might be more so than the normal given how many players have boom/bust potential.

Let’s hope Urban is right.

Looks about right to me on grades. Even though I like Cisco and Little, it's obvious they carry a bit more risk and are truly wildcards. Campbell I'd say may be a tad low just because I feel like that's right around where he should have went. Most had him pegged going round 1, and there were even reports of CAR having him as CB3/Dallas calling us to move up for him. But he's also a guy that needs a decent bit of development.

[pwny]

3 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

Campbell I'd say may be a tad low just because I feel like that's right around where he should have went. Most had him pegged going round 1, and there were even reports of CAR having him as CB3/Dallas calling us to move up for him. But he's also a guy that needs a decent bit of development.

Yeah, it seems like that’s about where he belonged going, and I don’t necessarily think he was overdrafted or anything. At the top of the second round, he seemed kinda like the average type of player that you take there; a guy with some upside but with a big hole to his game you think he can fix. 
 

I got really wordy below going through all my thoughts on him. But the crux of what I wrote below is I just kinda view it like it’s an average pick. Not overdrafted or underdrafted either way by very much, not an abnormal ceiling or floor for the pick. Not great positional value, but it filled a need at one of the “almost starter” positions. There’s not much about the pick one way or the other that’s going to make me overly excited or overly pessimistic. Just one of those “yeah, that seems about right” picks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think he has an argument for being the best Corner in this class at doing the things before the ball is in the air. He’s physical at the line, he flips his hips when running incredibly well, he has the speed and agility to stay with shifty receivers and the strength to not be outmatched by physical WRs and probably physical TEs too. He’s maybe gonna need some extra strength to be a bump and run outside corner, but that isn’t something I see as much of a concern. He can stay with his assignment well in man, and seems to do well reading the offense and adjusting his positioning while in zone. 

But when the ball is coming his way, that’s when the problems arise. He doesn’t get his head around quick enough which leads to completions that shouldn’t happen. He often plays the receiver instead of the ball, has a bit of a tendency to face guard, which will lead to some big penalties if he does it at the next level. He hasn’t really shown the ability to break up passes or to get interceptions.

Unless he gets all that stuff settled really quickly, he probably starts out in the slot. I think his deficiencies there will be less pronounced and could lead him to be viewed positively, similarly to how Aaron Colvin was viewed before heading to Houston. 

I also didn’t mention it in the write up, but I also kept it in that average range because I’m not sure the position value was a great use of the pick. Slot Corner was a need, but I’m not sure that if he stays in the slot long term that the value at 2.1 was particularly high. I’m not sure there’s a clear path towards him becoming an outside CB on this roster, and if he ends up staying in the slot, I don’t know if he creates much more value than someone like Elijah Molden or Aaron Robinson. But if I’m wrong and he does have a path towards playing outside, you might be able to bump it up a + or whatever. But then again, I think the Ravens play in Nickel more than just about any other team, so maybe it was a bigger deal. 

The other prospects taken at 2.1 since it became the “coveted” selection at the top of day 2 have been (reverse order) Tee Higgins, Byron Murphy, Austin Corbett, Kevin King, Emmanuel Ogbah, Landon Collins, Xavier Su'a-Filo, Brian Quick, Ras-I Dowling, and Rodger Saffold. Many didn’t work out, but I think probably the average of them as prospects is kinda similar to what we’re seeing with Campbell where you know some teams had the player slotted 10+ spots higher on their draft board, the player has certain skills that look fantastic and others that need a lot of work, or maybe a guy who doesn’t fill an important need. He may be a little higher than those others, but not by a ton, I don’t think.

[.Buzz]

 

[sammymvpknight]

If Lawrence turns out to be as good I think he’ll be...A+

Edited May 15, 2021 by sammymvpknight