Trade Up to 50, pick WR Tyquan Thornton

[Dalan162]

46 minutes ago, Tyronnosaurus said:

Love it. Very excited for Tyquan. Absolute burner, good hands, very solid blocker.

 

Route running needs a lot of work though. Very high ceiling if it all works out.

I follow football but never played the game. How hard is it to improve your route running skills ? When you say it, it seems easy ahahahah run 5 yards and cut! I guess there musts be lots of nuances I don’t get

[m haynes]

26 minutes ago, Dalan162 said:

I follow football but never played the game. How hard is it to improve your route running skills ? When you say it, it seems easy ahahahah run 5 yards and cut! I guess there musts be lots of nuances I don’t get

Best way to describe it is a carpenter. You bang in nails easy. Not so fast there are measurements angles that you need to learn. Now the real money comes when your a finish carpenter.  That's the guys that create and make their work look beautiful, they are highly skilled. 

Hope this helps. 

[Crimmage]

It's a lot of work to improve route running.. it's possible but it could take years. Look at Edelman, he's great and it took him a couple years to see the field. 

 

What I will say about Thornton.. is he doesn't need to be a Chris Olave level route runner. If they are trying to go more Alabama style offense for Mac, he's going to have 3-5 primary routes that are going to be his bread and butter. Especially as a rookie, he's going to be a big play threat. 

 

Maybe we should be looking at Jameson Williams tape from Alabama to see how he would be used? 

 

[Hunter2_1]

Sounds like he had a touch of the Harry in not having a brain to what defenses are giving him

 

but I’m taking the speed ALL day long. He will work, I’m sure of it 

[The Third Rider]

I don't have much faith in our ability to develop wide receivers but there is potential there. Mac might not have the strongest arm but he is very accurate when he flings it downfield.

Edited May 1, 2022 by The Third Rider

[Crimmage]

6 hours ago, The Third Rider said:

I don't have much faith in our ability to develop wide receivers but there is potential there. Mac might not have the strongest arm but he is very accurate when the flings it downfield.

Mac loves throwing bombs.. watch his Alabama tape and you'll see a lot of it, especially out of the slot. 

 

Makes me really think that they are going to try and blend the Mcdaniels offense with the Saban offense. Training Camp / Pre-season are going to be very important for him.. if he does well, Agholor is probably traded.. otherwise he doesn't have much of a role this year outside of special teams

 

This pick also really makes me think that Christian Watson was their #1 WR in the draft. I think A LOT of people would be happy with this draft if they took Watson at 29 then Strange at 54. 

Edited May 1, 2022 by Crimmage

[DoleINGout]

I think people are underestimating his ability to get open and ... run routes.

[Hunter2_1]

6 hours ago, DoleINGout said:

I think people are underestimating his ability to get open and ... run routes.

Well If so, what’s the catch? How come he didn’t go first round?

[Crimmage]

If Christian Watson wasn't going to go in the 1st round, no chance for Tyquan Thornton to go in the 1st round. I feel like the teams which had Watson high on their board are the teams who had Thornton high on their board. So when the Packers traded up to get Watson it made sense that teams would want to get Thornton. Man, if they got Watson, he's just as boom or bust as Thornton but his ceiling is even a bit higher (20lbs bigger, couple inches taller, slightly better agility numbers and only slightly slower). 

 

Thornton Specific: 

-------------------

- His agility numbers werent great .. he's borderline average but below average from what i saw ( A lot of guys had awful agility numbers this year though.. so it's possible that the excuse of being late at night after a long day of workouts wore on guys slightly more than usual .. but let's say best case scenario he's average agility numbers)

- Teams are likely worried about him against press coverage because he is rail thin.. I think he could maybe put on 5-10 pounds but he's never going going to be 200+

- Baylor has been a mess for a few years now I believe.. i think he went through 2-3 offensive systems in his time there

- He had a bad QB, similar to Bo Melton.. horrible QB play made it hard to evaluate them .. even though Groh mentioned how his catch radius was great because of that

 

I don't believe for a second that Thornton was their number 1 WR in the draft.. i'm sure that Watson was higher and when they felt like a WR run was going to start they felt the need to trade up so they didn't miss out on both of them. 

 

The failure to me is that they could have gotten Watson if they really wanted him.. you could have taken him right at 29 then traded up to get Strange.. or even taken strange and traded away those extra Chiefs picks to get back up in the 3rd and take him before the Packers. I really hope that Thornton does well here, but it's going to be tough to not look at Christian Watson in a similar way to how we look at AJ Brown / Deebo ( I didn't like Moore/Pickens so idc about them). 

 

[DoleINGout]

52 minutes ago, Crimmage said:

If Christian Watson wasn't going to go in the 1st round, no chance for Tyquan Thornton to go in the 1st round. I feel like the teams which had Watson high on their board are the teams who had Thornton high on their board. So when the Packers traded up to get Watson it made sense that teams would want to get Thornton. Man, if they got Watson, he's just as boom or bust as Thornton but his ceiling is even a bit higher (20lbs bigger, couple inches taller, slightly better agility numbers and only slightly slower). 

 

6 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Well If so, what’s the catch? How come he didn’t go first round?

Refer to the post above

[Crimmage]

The Patriots are known for having an insanely small draft board.. I think they probably had 5 WR on their board.. none of which were a slot, because Bo Melton would have been the guy. 

 

Jameson Williams -> Not worth the trade up 

Christian Watson -> I wish they took him at 29 and strange at 54, but is what it is 

Tyquan Thornton 

 

if they absolutely had to have this type of player, they had to make sure they didn't lose out on Thornton. After this pick I'm reading more and more about how they want to make their offense more like Alabama. So if you want to see how Thornton is going to be used, just watch Waddle/Williams highlights. 

 

Jameson Williams = 6'1, 4.3 guy, I don't think his agility numbers are elite either, 179lbs, 9 1/4" hands

Jaylen Waddle = 5'9, 4.3 guy, agility best of the 3, 180 lbs, 9.1" hands

Tyquan Thornton = 6'2, 4.3 guy, average agility, 181 lbs, 8 1/4" hands 

 

If you are worried about Thornton's weight.. you shouldn't have wanted Williams or Waddle either. The only thing that hurts him is his smaller hands. Oh no, that means he we can't trust him on contested catches and he is going to have a lot of drops.. 

"He showed a blend of contested-catch ability and drop minimization in 2021, catching 10 of 18 contested targets (55.6%) and dropping three passes against 62 receptions (4.6%)."

 

 

 

They are going to try and duplicate more of the Alabama offense i'm guessing .. this is how he's going to be used.. i dont worry about him being 180 .. lock him in a room with Mac for 3-6 months and you're going to see production

[SBLIII]

At some point they have to hit on a WR.

 

Don't know enough about Thornton but speed and size looks potentially very promising. 

[Hunter2_1]

“Small wrists”

 

honestly, how are these ‘experts’ not laughed out the room?

[jofos]

I don't think his route running is that bad. He ran the routes he was asked to run. I was a Watson guy for a long time and would have loved for the Patriots to draft him but when I started thinking that it was possible, he was projected as a mid-round pick. Had Thornton not missed most of his JR season he would have likely been hire rated, he was kind of forgotten. Thornton may actually have better hands than Watson so that's a plus.

The biggest issue with Patriot receivers and route running hasn't necessarily been their ability to run the routes (making cuts and such) it's been their ability to run the right route. The learning curve was steep because when to break and direction was based on reads and being on the same page with the QB was the problem.  Brady may have read that the WR was supposed to break at 8 yards and go to this spot and by the time the WR made the read he was at 9 yards, so the play didn't work. Some that changed last year with a rookie QB and there will likely be more changes since McDaniels is gone. 

Thornton's numbers for his career are actually better than Watson's, except avg per catch, against better competition. I would have loved to have Watson, so I see no reason to complain about Thorton.

[Crimmage]

39 minutes ago, jofos said:

I don't think his route running is that bad. He ran the routes he was asked to run. I was a Watson guy for a long time and would have loved for the Patriots to draft him but when I started thinking that it was possible, he was projected as a mid-round pick. Had Thornton not missed most of his JR season he would have likely been hire rated, he was kind of forgotten. Thornton may actually have better hands than Watson so that's a plus.

Yup! Remember a few months ago when Watson was seen as a RD5-7 guy? It was the Senior Bowl and Combine that pumped him up. 

Thornton wasn't at the Senior Bowl so he didn't get a chance to really impress to that level, but his performance at the combine was able to push him up from that RD5-7 range into the expected 3rd-4th round range. It wasn't till very close to the draft that people were talking about Watson as an early day 2 pick. 

They are very similar prospects, both basically lost a season because of covid which hurt them.. having Lance on his team helped Watson also get more recognition. Thornton has never been lucky enough to have a QB as good as Lance to make him look good. 

39 minutes ago, jofos said:

The biggest issue with Patriot receivers and route running hasn't necessarily been their ability to run the routes (making cuts and such) it's been their ability to run the right route. The learning curve was steep because when to break and direction was based on reads and being on the same page with the QB was the problem.  Brady may have read that the WR was supposed to break at 8 yards and go to this spot and by the time the WR made the read he was at 9 yards, so the play didn't work. Some that changed last year with a rookie QB and there will likely be more changes since McDaniels is gone. 

Thornton's numbers for his career are actually better than Watson's, except avg per catch, against better competition. I would have loved to have Watson, so I see no reason to complain about Thorton.

I don't worry about the route running either because they aren't going to ask him to run more than 3-5 routes.. and they are all going to be one cut routes. He has the kind of speed you don't want to slow down, he's going to run past people.. he doesn't need to do double moves to get open. You let Bourne/Meyers/future slot guy do those kinds of routes. That's why I think he may be able to contribute sooner than we think, the learning curve shouldn't be as high as during the Brady years. 

 

I'll have to look it up but I don't think Cooks had a huge number of routes he ran while he was here either and he was a 1,000 yard guy.. Thornton could be used in a similar way.