The 2023 Draft Thread - We're picking #7

[Humble_Beast]

23 minutes ago, ronjon1990 said:

Top 5 Needs as of today:

WR, S, CB, RB, TE

WR- barring changes or a massive breakout, we're gonna need at least 1. No clue as to who. I'm hardly familiar with this WR class. 

S- Unless Abram or Harmon ball, we need a SS.  Early favorite for me is Jordan Battle, Alabama. 

CB- always a need. Big Joey Porter Jr., Penn St. fan early. Later pick, maybe Al Blades, Miami, or Clark Phillips, Utah. Seems hard to go wrong with Ute DBs lately. 

RB- No way Jacobs and Drake both stay, and more than likely both are gone. Bolden could stick around or he could be gone as well, given age and such. White should get first dibs on the job, but Brown is a complete wild card. If we go early, obvious choice for me is Zach Charbonnet, UCLA.  A later pick I'd look at is Brandon Thomas, Memphis. 5'11, 200 lbs with 4.39 wheels. Otherwise, maybe a John Emery Jr., LSU? Deep sleeper is Jarek Broussard, Colorado. He's tiny, but seems to fit the profile of small backs the Patriots and McDaniels often kept around and worked with (JJ Taylor, anyone?). 

TE- Doubt Waller and Moreau are both retained. Like WR, I'm not familiar with this class at all though. 

Needs TBD:

DE, LB, OG/RT. 

• I agree about WR and S
• I think 2-3 guys emerge at  CB and get long term deals 
• If we let Jacobs walk, I could see another RB In the 3-4th round range like Z White. Would have a two headed monster 
• I think Moreau leaves and he can be replaced with a mid round pick. Honestly dont think he will demand a ton of money and could be back on a 2-3 year deal 
• I think they let Perryman walk because he is approaching 30. I think both UCLA guys will emerge as long term players, and I think Deablo has star potential 
• I would rank guard high, Good is over 30 and isn't all that 
• I hope Leatherwood develops into a rock on the RT

Edited May 15, 2022 by Humble_Beast

[NYRaider]

6 hours ago, Humble_Beast said:

Tae is over 30. Hunter isn t on a long term contract. all the the other teams competing for a super bowl are stacked at WR. give me a cost controlled WR for 5 years all day in the first 

Davante Adams is on a mega contract and Renfrow is going to get extended on a sizeable deal as well. Good franchises usually don't build around skill position players first, they build in the trenches. 1st round WR's are usually a bad investment as well, almost every elite WR in the league was picked outside the 1st.

Let's say you pay Renfrow $15M APY and then take a WR in the 1st round. That means over a two year span we've invested like $40M APY, 2 1sts, and a 2nd round pick into the WR room. While Carr is also set to receive a major spike in his salary as well.

Edited May 15, 2022 by NYRaider

[NYRaider]

6 hours ago, Humble_Beast said:

idk why everyone is so worried that all the corners are on one year deals. lol... ummm who ever emerges and balls out will get paid. simple as that 

The reason that Mullen and Ya-Shin are going into the last year of their rookie deals without extensions is because neither has proven that they're worth a deal yet. Our division is the most stacked in the NFL at QB, so I'd say having good CBs is pretty important.

[Humble_Beast]

7 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

The reason that Mullen and Ya-Shin are going into the last year of their rookie deals without extensions is because neither has proven that they're worth a deal yet. Our division is the most stacked in the NFL at QB, so I'd say having good CBs is pretty important.

this team always investing in DBs and it never works out. Rather draft in the trenches every year and fix other areas in free agency 

[NYRaider]

1 hour ago, Humble_Beast said:

this team always investing in DBs and it never works out. Rather draft in the trenches every year and fix other areas in free agency 

Same, I'd prefer to get a DL in the 1st over a WR.

[BobbyPhil1781]

22 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

Top 5 Needs as of today:

WR, S, CB, RB, TE

WR- barring changes or a massive breakout, we're gonna need at least 1. No clue as to who. I'm hardly familiar with this WR class. 

S- Unless Abram or Harmon ball, we need a SS.  Early favorite for me is Jordan Battle, Alabama. 

CB- always a need. Big Joey Porter Jr., Penn St. fan early. Later pick, maybe Al Blades, Miami, or Clark Phillips, Utah. Seems hard to go wrong with Ute DBs lately. 

RB- No way Jacobs and Drake both stay, and more than likely both are gone. Bolden could stick around or he could be gone as well, given age and such. White should get first dibs on the job, but Brown is a complete wild card. If we go early, obvious choice for me is Zach Charbonnet, UCLA.  A later pick I'd look at is Brandon Thomas, Memphis. 5'11, 200 lbs with 4.39 wheels. Otherwise, maybe a John Emery Jr., LSU? Deep sleeper is Jarek Broussard, Colorado. He's tiny, but seems to fit the profile of small backs the Patriots and McDaniels often kept around and worked with (JJ Taylor, anyone?). 

TE- Doubt Waller and Moreau are both retained. Like WR, I'm not familiar with this class at all though. 

Needs TBD:

DE, LB, OG/RT. 

Joey Porter Jr certainly looks every bit of the part for sure. I admittedly don't watch a ton of Utah football but I did see some games last year. After the Rose Bowl, I cannot feel confident in drafting any of their secondary. Not a single one. JSN is an absolute monster at the WR position and I wish we would be in position to draft him next year but we will not. Harrison Jr and Ebuka also look like they're going to be studs but they came from 4/5 on the depth chart, very little PT, and absolutely just mauled that Utah secondary. Maybe that goes to show what OSU will put on display this coming season but we can't be certain. We can be certain that they did not belong on the same field as those WRs who barely played though (again, even thought their potential is off the charts).

Absolute agreement about the SS position. 

Can't speak on RBs b/c we have like 10 right now so who knows WTF we're going to do there lol. I'm curious to see how we play our RBs this year. We know how the Patriots never really did a whole "feature back" type thing and always seemed to do a committee type ordeal. If we are going to do the same here, I can't see us prioritizing the position in terms of using an early draft pick on a guy. Very interested to see how we handle this stable we have. I can certainly tell you I am going to avoid all our RBs like the plague in terms of fantasy lol

I would say the biggest need for us is to shore up that line. We just gave Carr his extension and got all this firepower on offense but that won't mean anything if Carr is constantly pressured. Hopefully we're in the position of drafting late in the first and that is an optimal time to get that line help, regardless of where it's needed.

[ronjon1990]

8 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

I can't speak on RBs b/c we have like 10 right now so who knows WTF we're going to do there lol. I'm curious to see how we play our RBs this year. We know how the Patriots never really did a whole "feature back" type thing and always seemed to do a committee type ordeal. If we are going to do the same here, I can't see us prioritizing the position in terms of using an early draft pick on a guy. Very interested to see how we handle this stable we have. I can certainly tell you I am going to avoid all our RBs like the plague in terms of fantasy lol

 

Truth. 

I could see 3 backs topping 550 before I see any 1 topping 1K lol. 

[BobbyPhil1781]

1 hour ago, ronjon1990 said:

Truth. 

I could see 3 backs topping 550 before I see any 1 topping 1K lol. 

Yep! That's what I'm seeing also and probably why we didn't pick up Jacobs' fifth year. I really don't think they want the feature back but who knows. We do seem to be taking a lot of principles and ideas from the Patriot's way of doing things so I have to lean that way. Not really sure how I feel about it either. Everyone should want the Taylor, Kamara, etc feature backs but they did win, a lot, w/ the stable.... definitely conflicted here lol

[ronjon1990]

50 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Yep! That's what I'm seeing also and probably why we didn't pick up Jacobs' fifth year. I really don't think they want the feature back but who knows. We do seem to be taking a lot of principles and ideas from the Patriot's way of doing things so I have to lean that way. Not really sure how I feel about it either. Everyone should want the Taylor, Kamara, etc feature backs but they did win, a lot, w/ the stable.... definitely conflicted here lol

FWIW, aside from Cincinnati, pretty much all of the final 8 teams last year ran a stable of sorts (or usually do). 

Tennessee may be the other outlier due to Henry's injury. But with how Foreman played, I wouldn't be surprised if Tennessee at least tried to lighten Henry's load this year.  

Buffalo ran Singleton a lot, but not to a huge degree. Allen ran a good bit, as did Moss.  And they just drafted James Cook. 

KC ran CEH and Darrell Williams pretty evenly overall. 

LA ran  Michel and Henderson.

SF relied on Mitchell, but anyone who has watched Shanahan knows that was out of necessity due to injury more than by design. They keep a stable. 

Green Bay used Jones and Dillon almost equally in the run game. 

 Tampa certainly made use of Ronald Jones, even if Fournette led the backfield. 

 

Basically, the trend I notice is that the teams that made it the furthest by and large took at least a 2 headed approach to the run game. Like I said, Tennessee did but mostly due to injury and likely will again; San Francisco didn't due to inury but otherwise almost certainly would have.  

I think running two guys between 700-900 yards is probably optimal at this point given the wear and tear.  Teams with feature backs that wind up successful seem to be trending more towards that back being a "feature" back by stats but not necessarily usage above a second guy. More of an organic "feature" status than a manufactured one, if you will. 

Depending on health, I could very easily see:

Jacobs- 700 yards

Drake- 500

Bolden/White combining for another 5-600. 

1800ish rushing yards split between a couple guys is plenty healthy for my liking. I've got Carr flirting with around 4600 yards, so 6400 yards of total offense would put us around top 5-6 based on last year, which is actually probably a high estimate based on McDaniels' history. 

 

[NYRaider]

4 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

Truth. 

I could see 3 backs topping 550 before I see any 1 topping 1K lol. 

Meh, Damien Harris was the Patriots feature back last season, got hurt and then Stevenson started getting more carries, Bolden was used as a 3rd down back.

Their rotation ended up being: Harris (202 carries/909 yards/15 TD) | Stevenson (133 carries/606 yards/5 TD) | Bolden (44 carries but also had 41 receptions)

They were also extremely run heavy to protect Mac Jones, they were 25th in passing attempts and 8th in rushing attempts. But still their top two backs got like 3/4 their carries. Which is why I really wouldn't be surprised if we trade Kenyan Drake during preseason if someone's RB 1/2 gets hurt and use a similar 3 man rotation with Jacobs/White/Bolden. 

5 hours ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Can't speak on RBs b/c we have like 10 right now so who knows WTF we're going to do there lol. I'm curious to see how we play our RBs this year. We know how the Patriots never really did a whole "feature back" type thing and always seemed to do a committee type ordeal. If we are going to do the same here, I can't see us prioritizing the position in terms of using an early draft pick on a guy. Very interested to see how we handle this stable we have. I can certainly tell you I am going to avoid all our RBs like the plague in terms of fantasy lol

I still think Jacobs is going to have a pretty big year as far as fantasy is concerned, Drake (if here) or White could be worth a late round flier as a handcuff type of pick. The White pick reminds me of when they picked Damien Harris to phase out Sony Michel and then they drafted Stevenson to pair with Harris later on in the draft a couple of years later.

[NYRaider]

5 hours ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

I would say the biggest need for us is to shore up that line. We just gave Carr his extension and got all this firepower on offense but that won't mean anything if Carr is constantly pressured. Hopefully we're in the position of drafting late in the first and that is an optimal time to get that line help, regardless of where it's needed.

Even though we didn't have a 1st/2nd this year I think Ziegler still showed that he understands the importance of building through the trenches. Ideally Parham/Leatherwood can develop into good starters for us.

[BobbyPhil1781]

2 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

FWIW, aside from Cincinnati, pretty much all of the final 8 teams last year ran a stable of sorts (or usually do). 

Tennessee may be the other outlier due to Henry's injury. But with how Foreman played, I wouldn't be surprised if Tennessee at least tried to lighten Henry's load this year.  

Buffalo ran Singleton a lot, but not to a huge degree. Allen ran a good bit, as did Moss.  And they just drafted James Cook. 

KC ran CEH and Darrell Williams pretty evenly overall. 

LA ran  Michel and Henderson.

SF relied on Mitchell, but anyone who has watched Shanahan knows that was out of necessity due to injury more than by design. They keep a stable. 

Green Bay used Jones and Dillon almost equally in the run game. 

 Tampa certainly made use of Ronald Jones, even if Fournette led the backfield. 

 

Basically, the trend I notice is that the teams that made it the furthest by and large took at least a 2 headed approach to the run game. Like I said, Tennessee did but mostly due to injury and likely will again; San Francisco didn't due to inury but otherwise almost certainly would have.  

I think running two guys between 700-900 yards is probably optimal at this point given the wear and tear.  Teams with feature backs that wind up successful seem to be trending more towards that back being a "feature" back by stats but not necessarily usage above a second guy. More of an organic "feature" status than a manufactured one, if you will. 

Depending on health, I could very easily see:

Jacobs- 700 yards

Drake- 500

Bolden/White combining for another 5-600. 

1800ish rushing yards split between a couple guys is plenty healthy for my liking. I've got Carr flirting with around 4600 yards, so 6400 yards of total offense would put us around top 5-6 based on last year, which is actually probably a high estimate based on McDaniels' history. 

 

Yeah, everyone has their change of pace, 3rd down guys so no disagreement there and I'm not saying we need someone like Najee who's out there for almost 85% but I would certainly like to have someone who everyone knows is THE guy. I think my word choice was pretty poor there. No one knows who the Pat's focal RB recently. Of the teams you listed above, you know Fournette is TB's guy, you know Aaron Jones is GB's guy, you know Singletary was Buffalo's. Some teams definitely had to go more equal carries due to injuries (LA, KC) so it's definitely more muddy w/ them. Jacobs is certainly looking to be like our focal back but he's a poor man's version IMO.

My bad for the poor choice of words. I think we're pretty close to being on the same page though

[BobbyPhil1781]

1 minute ago, NYRaider said:

Even though we didn't have a 1st/2nd this year I think Ziegler still showed that he understands the importance of building through the trenches. Ideally Parham/Leatherwood can develop into good starters for us.

This is why doing these "needs" so early is tough. We don't know what Leatherwood will turn into and people seem high on Parham so the jury is still out. They could become Pro Bowlers and then the position of need drops dramatically. 

[ronjon1990]

1 minute ago, NYRaider said:

Even though we didn't have a 1st/2nd this year I think Ziegler still showed that he understands the importance of building through the trenches. Ideally Parham/Leatherwood can develop into good starters for us.

Yeah like we talked about before- of Parham, Mr. Leatherwood, and maybe even James all progress up to snuff, we could be in surprisingly good shape going forward. Even 2 of them would be a bonus compared to last year. 

[ronjon1990]

2 minutes ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

Yeah, everyone has their change of pace, 3rd down guys so no disagreement there and I'm not saying we need someone like Najee who's out there for almost 85% but I would certainly like to have someone who everyone knows is THE guy. I think my word choice was pretty poor there. No one knows who the Pat's focal RB recently. Of the teams you listed above, you know Fournette is TB's guy, you know Aaron Jones is GB's guy, you know Singletary was Buffalo's. Some teams definitely had to go more equal carries due to injuries (LA, KC) so it's definitely more muddy w/ them. Jacobs is certainly looking to be like our focal back but he's a poor man's version IMO.

My bad for the poor choice of words. I think we're pretty close to being on the same page though

No sweat, definitely on the same page. Just mindless banter during the worst time of the year lol