Cwood is a nerd and so are all the Packer Favorite Prospects: 2023 Draft Discussion Thread

[Sandy]

26 minutes ago, R T said:

Because they made an exception to a rule doesn't mean the exception is now the rule. 

But why should we believe it was ever a rule?

[Smidgeon]

1 hour ago, incognito_man said:

Young's score tracks. He sees things atba different speed than everyone else on the field.

So does Stroud...

[Leader]

 

[Uffdaswede]

40 minutes ago, ThatJerkDave said:

Any TE in the first round, or maybe even the second, really needs to come with a knowledge of what exactly is on the board at the time.  I again go back to Bubba Franks, or Marcedes Lewis.  Both were pretty good players in the league.  Were they bad first round picks?  The Packers got 8 years and 3 pro bowls out of Franks, and the Jaguars got 12 years and 1 pro bowl out of Lewis.  Both were very, very stalwart blockers.  I would say neither were bad, but that doesn't make it good either.  Not even going to hindsight either draft, but these weren't franchise altering additions, which is probably what you are looking for in a first round pick.  

The reason AJ Hawk isn't more universally loved is precisely ^ that--he reached his projected floor, but not the ceiling as an early first round pick, never reaching the dominate status that was dreamed about for him. (Injuries and change of scheme may have contributed to that lack of elevation.) 

I can agree with what you are saying, about not bad vs good if you can agree that a GM can be boxed out of a "good" pick by what he has in front of him for needs and the remaining talent pool.

[R T]

38 minutes ago, Sandy said:

But why should we believe it was ever a rule?

If you are looking for a hard copy of rules stating not drafting players over 24 years old in the first round is a rule you are probably never going to get that. But there is the fact that in 84 years of drafting players in the first round it was a first for the Packers. 

Doubt that many things are hard rules when it comes to the draft, but if you are always chasing the exceptions, you will be wasting most of your time. 

Edited April 21, 2023 by R T

[Mazrimiv]

37 minutes ago, ThatJerkDave said:

Any TE in the first round, or maybe even the second, really needs to come with a knowledge of what exactly is on the board at the time.  I again go back to Bubba Franks, or Marcedes Lewis.  Both were pretty good players in the league.  Were they bad first round picks?  The Packers got 8 years and 3 pro bowls out of Franks, and the Jaguars got 12 years and 1 pro bowl out of Lewis.  Both were very, very stalwart blockers.  I would say neither were bad, but that doesn't make it good either.  Not even going to hindsight either draft, but these weren't franchise altering additions, which is probably what you are looking for in a first round pick.  

Yeah, I am just not getting the "this guy would be a real difference maker" talk regarding the TE group.  It's a good group of prospects, but I wouldn't be looking at any of them until RD2.

[Uffdaswede]

10 minutes ago, Mazrimiv said:

Yeah, I am just not getting the "this guy would be a real difference maker" talk regarding the TE group.  It's a good group of prospects, but I wouldn't be looking at any of them until RD2.

True. Persuasive to me was the information I heard here regarding the best TEs we can think of and their respective draft slots. Not a lot of first rounders.

[PossibleCabbage]

Like the thing about tight ends is "if you hit on a tight end, the benefit to your team is significant."  Perhaps even more significant than hitting on a WR or a RB.

The issue is that the NFL has shown itself to be bad at both "identifying which TEs are the best" and "developing TE prospects from college into good NFL players."  So you get situations where "Hayden Hurst was a first round pick, but Mark Andrews is much better" and also situations like "Eric Ebron did nothing for the Lions, but was an okay player for the Colts."

If you draft a TE and you're right, that's great.  History shows you're probably not right though.

Edited April 21, 2023 by PossibleCabbage

[Sandy]

9 minutes ago, R T said:

If you are looking for a hard copy of rules stating not drafting players over 24 years old in the first round is a rule you are probably never going to get that. But there is the fact that in 84 years of drafting players in the first round it was a first for the Packers. 

Doubt that many things are hard rules when it comes to the draft, but if you are always chasing the exceptions, you will be wasting most of your time. 

I think you're confused. No one was advocating for Schoonmaker, or any TE for that matter, in the first round. 

I would, however, take Schoonmaker over Mayers in the third round, and wouldn't consider their ages to be a huge detriment to each other.

[ThatJerkDave]

16 minutes ago, Uffdaswede said:

The reason AJ Hawk isn't more universally loved is precisely ^ that--he reached his projected floor, but not the ceiling as an early first round pick, never reaching the dominate status that was dreamed about for him. (Injuries and change of scheme may have contributed to that lack of elevation.) 

I can agree with what you are saying, about not bad vs good if you can agree that a GM can be boxed out of a "good" pick by what he has in front of him for needs and the remaining talent pool.

100%.  I don't really hold (many) "not bad" picks against GMs. The players that I would describe as "not bad" are usually good players, just perhaps a bit overdrafted.  And this really only becomes a problem if that is the only hits that a GM has.  

  If we look back to the Hawk example, he is still like the 15th or so best player in that class.  And if we did a re-draft, we are not going to come away with a first three picks of:  Hawk, Colledge, Jennings, as they are all going to go in the first round.  Hawk and Jennings were 12th and 13th in DrAV, Colledge was 29th.  So, by that measurement, we got three first round values in that draft.  Even if Hawk is a "disappointment."

[smetana34]

34 minutes ago, Leader said:

 

Ground breaking analysis by Andy

[Packerraymond]

My Final WR and TE Rankings (Broken Into Tiers): 

WR:
(1) Zay Flowers, Boston College
(2) Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State 

(3) Jonathan Mingo, Ole Miss
(4) Quentin Johnston, TCU
(5) Jalin Hyatt, Tennessee

(6) Rashee Rice, SMU
(7) Jordan Addison, USC
(8) AT Perry, Wake Forest
(9) Cedric Tillman, Tennessee

(9) Josh Downs, North Carolina
(10) Tank Dell, Houston
(11) Tyler Scott, Cincinatti
(12) Marvin Mims, Oklahoma

(13) Dontayvion Wicks, Virginia
(14) Grant Dubose, Charlotte
(15) Michael Wilson, Stanford
(16) Andre Iosivas, Princeton
(17) Jayden Reed, Michigan State
(18) Matt Landers, Arkansas
(19) Bryce Ford-Wheaton, WVU
(20) Elijah Higgins, Stanfford

 

TE: 

(1) Darnell Washington, Georgia

(2) Dalton Kincaid, Utah
(3) Luke Musgrave, Oregon State
(4) Sam Laporta, Iowa
(5) Michael Mayer, Notre Dame
(6) Tucker Kraft, South Dakota

(7) Zack Kuntz, Ole Dominion

(8) Josh Whyle, Cincinatti

(9) Will Mallory, Miami
(10) Luke Schoonmaker, Michigan
(11) Brenton Strange, Penn State

(12) Payne Durham, Purdue
(13) Blake Whiteheart, Wake Forest
(14) Brayden Willis, Oklahoma
(15) Cameron Latu, Alabama

[ThatJerkDave]

36 minutes ago, Mazrimiv said:

Yeah, I am just not getting the "this guy would be a real difference maker" talk regarding the TE group.  It's a good group of prospects, but I wouldn't be looking at any of them until RD2.

The only one I feel that way about is Darnell Washington.  But that is projecting him to be a Marcedes Lewis/Bubba Franks type of blocker.  And not necessarily a receiving threat that defenses have to game plan for.  And he is a player that I would absolutely love the Packers to get.  But if you told me that he is going to be picked at number 34, so we have to either use our first pick or even a trade down into later first round to get him, I probably just let it happen.  

[ThatJerkDave]

14 minutes ago, Packerraymond said:

My Final WR and TE Rankings (Broken Into Tiers): 

WR:

(2) Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State 

(3) Jonathan Mingo, Ole Miss
(4) Quentin Johnston, TCU
(5) Jalin Hyatt, Tennessee

(6) Rashee Rice, SMU
(7) Jordan Addison, USC
(8) AT Perry, Wake Forest
(9) Cedric Tillman, Tennessee

 

(13) Dontayvion Wicks, Virginia
(14) Grant Dubose, Charlotte
(15) Michael Wilson, Stanford
(16) Andre Iosivas, Princeton

(18) Matt Landers, Arkansas
(19) Bryce Ford-Wheaton, WVU
(20) Elijah Higgins, Stanfford

Fixed, removed the lollipop guild 

[MrBobGray]

59 minutes ago, Uffdaswede said:

The reason AJ Hawk isn't more universally loved is precisely ^ that--he reached his projected floor, but not the ceiling as an early first round pick, never reaching the dominate status that was dreamed about for him. (Injuries and change of scheme may have contributed to that lack of elevation.) 

I can agree with what you are saying, about not bad vs good if you can agree that a GM can be boxed out of a "good" pick by what he has in front of him for needs and the remaining talent pool.

Hawk to me is a great example of the dangers in picking a guy specifically for your scheme who otherwise you'd have lower on your board.  Bob Sanders, the Packers DC in '06, was a disciple of Jim Bates, long time coach who was the DC for the 2005 season.  In Bates's system, the goal is to have big DTs clog the middle, and have the DEs and OLBs run basically super contain.  The OLBs in particular are responsible for ensuring they don't get beat to the sideline, to force the RBs back to the pursuit.  Because the system plays a lot of man coverage, the CBs can't be relied on to be the force player, so it's the job of the OLB to always be in position to be the force player regardless of the run type.  This means that you need OLBs that are fast enough to beat NFL RBs in a footrace to the outside and play man coverage on TEs, but also strong enough to fulfill in the box duties and be reliably able to make strange angle tackles in the open field once they've held contain and forced the runner back inside.  That requires a rare combination of speed, tackling ability, and most importantly good game sense, because the weakside backer is playing in a lot of space and still needs to be able to play with good leverage on the runner despite coming from strange angles.

So you draft a guy #5 who's got a super high football IQ, great straight line speed and change of direction ability (Hawk had a damn 3.96 short shuttle and 6.82 cone at 248 lbs), and is a great tackler even in space.  It's a tough set of parameters to fill and Hawk met all of them at a position of impact for that defense.  And he was good at that role!  In his rookie year he had 2 INTs, 7 PD, 1 FF, 2 FR, 3.5 sacks, 121 total tackles and 7 QB hits.

The problem is that while Hawk was maybe worth a top 5 pick in that particular scheme, he was of significantly less value in others.  Like Dom Capers's 3-4 scheme that has the ILB in the box and often uncovered with a specific gap.  All that ability to play fast in space and hold contain that was so important, the specific skill set that made Hawk a viable top 5 pick, is irrelevant to the position now.  It's like buying a sports car and then finding out you're moving to a small mountain town with unreliable roads.  Sure there are still times and places you can open it up, but you'd be better off finding something with actual clearance.

Edited April 21, 2023 by MrBobGray