Day 1 Draft Thread (No Spoilers)

[RaidersAreOne]

 

 

[Xenos]

17 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

Telesco effed it up again.  Quinton Johnson is legitimately Mike Williams 2.0... and that's not a good thing.  Outside of the CFB Playoff, dude was a weak sauce route-runner prone to drops.

What are you talking about? He’s nothing like Mike Williams. He can maybe go deep as a long strider but he’s not getting the 50/50 balls that Mike is going to get. The reason he got drafted is because he’s the best YAC WR in the draft, which outside of Ekeler, is something they don’t have with any of receivers on the team.

 

[Xenos]

17 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

As prospects, they're eerily similar and they're going to ultimately get a lot of the same development.  6 years and a fat extension later and Williams still has the same drop issues he came into the league with.  That gives me exceedingly low confidence in Johnson getting rid of his if he gets the same treatment/excuses given to him by the Chargers.

Williams’ problem isn’t drops since he entered the league. It’s staying healthy.

What’s weird is that the entire WR room, including Keenan Allen, has had dropsies the last two years. Not sure if it’s because Herbert throws it with less touch than Rivers or not.

[RaidersAreOne]

 

[Dr LBC]

9 minutes ago, Xenos said:

Williams’ problem isn’t drops since he entered the league. It’s staying healthy.

What’s weird is that the entire WR room, including Keenan Allen, has had dropsies the last two years. Not sure if it’s because Herbert throws it with less touch than Rivers or not.

Williams problem is staying healthy, and yet outside of last season and his rookie year, he's missed, at most, 1 game per season.  He does get nicked up and miss some snaps, I'll give you that, but he's not what I'd call a "health issue."  Keenan actually missed more time than Williams did last season and still outproduced him on the season, IIRC.

As to QJ, statistically being the top YAC guy in college football last year is only one part of the formula, contextually he really wasn't - and as a YAC guy he leaves A LOT on the table that he shouldn't for what appear to be unnecessary decisions on his own part.  I brought this up in the WR thread, but his 2022 tape is littered with instances where if he'd have just burned his route (e.g. continued it, punched the accelerator after the catch, and stayed on-vector) he'd have had easy TD's, but instead he visibly chose to decelerate, square up to the last defender, and try to beat him with some unnecessary-if-flashy ankle-break move and end up getting himself tackled instead.

I'm less concerned with QJ's under-developed route-tree (it is, don't kid yourself, and his stems need A LOT of work), because he's not going to be asked to be a high-volume target until at minimum Y2); till then he can likely find a fair amount of use as a Martavis Bryant/Chase Claypool type of X-receiver, with some occasional inside-out looks.  But, this feels like one of those instance where Telesco fixated on "his type" of WR (tall and big-bodied) over readiness to contribute aside from maybe 4-5 targets/game.

[Xenos]

2 minutes ago, Dr LBC said:

Williams problem is staying healthy, and yet outside of last season and his rookie year, he's missed, at most, 1 game per season.  He does get nicked up and miss some snaps, I'll give you that, but he's not what I'd call a "health issue."  Keenan actually missed more time than Williams did last season and still outproduced him on the season, IIRC.

As to QJ, statistically being the top YAC guy in college football last year is only one part of the formula, contextually he really wasn't - and as a YAC guy he leaves A LOT on the table that he shouldn't for what appear to be unnecessary decisions on his own part.  I brought this up in the WR thread, but his 2022 tape is littered with instances where if he'd have just burned his route (e.g. continued it, punched the accelerator after the catch, and stayed on-vector) he'd have had easy TD's, but instead he visibly chose to decelerate, square up to the last defender, and try to beat him with some unnecessary-if-flashy ankle-break move and end up getting himself tackled instead.

I'm less concerned with QJ's under-developed route-tree (it is, don't kid yourself, and his stems need A LOT of work), because he's not going to be asked to be a high-volume target until at minimum Y2); till then he can likely find a fair amount of use as a Martavis Bryant/Chase Claypool type of X-receiver, with some occasional inside-out looks.  But, this feels like one of those instance where Telesco fixated on "his type" of WR (tall and big-bodied) over readiness to contribute aside from maybe 4-5 targets/game.

It’s more than miss a few snaps with Williams. The stat sheet will show that he only missed a game, but when you actually watch him, he’ll start a game and then have something that causes him to miss at least the remaining three quarters of it. The second KC game from last year comes to mind. Keenan missed more games but actually finished most of the ones he started.

With regards to body type for WR, it also seems to match up with what Kellen Moore worked with in the past. So it may have just been a perfect fit for him and TT. Also outside of maybe TE, I think we’re good on starters but need depth at positions like WR, Edge, CB, OC because of what happened last year. So QJ doesn’t need to contribute immediately in that way.

Your comments about him decelerating and doing stupid things instead of taking the easy TDs is good to know. Hopefully KA teaches him to knock it off.

[Dr LBC]

6 hours ago, Xenos said:

It’s more than miss a few snaps with Williams. The stat sheet will show that he only missed a game, but when you actually watch him, he’ll start a game and then have something that causes him to miss at least the remaining three quarters of it. The second KC game from last year comes to mind. Keenan missed more games but actually finished most of the ones he started.

With regards to body type for WR, it also seems to match up with what Kellen Moore worked with in the past. So it may have just been a perfect fit for him and TT. Also outside of maybe TE, I think we’re good on starters but need depth at positions like WR, Edge, CB, OC because of what happened last year. So QJ doesn’t need to contribute immediately in that way.

Your comments about him decelerating and doing stupid things instead of taking the easy TDs is good to know. Hopefully KA teaches him to knock it off.

He doesn't need to contribute right away and that's a good thing for QJ.  But that's kind of why I didn't necessarily feel like it was the best use of a Top 20 pick - because I wouldn't have considered him BPA by a stretch - for a team (and coach/GM combo) trying to compete and needing to compete this season.

Presently, I've got him comp'd to Torrey Smith coming out of Maryland; Emory Hunt who I trust a lot because he digests a TON more tape than I do, has the same comp.  If he cleans up some stuff that I think may be mental (and some of it could honestly be a product of Max Duggan's sub-par deep ball placement and power), and hits an average level of benchmarks in his development, I think in two years he'll compare favorably to Tee Higgins.

[Xenos]

11 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

He doesn't need to contribute right away and that's a good thing for QJ.  But that's kind of why I didn't necessarily feel like it was the best use of a Top 20 pick - because I wouldn't have considered him BPA by a stretch - for a team (and coach/GM combo) trying to compete and needing to compete this season.

Presently, I've got him comp'd to Torrey Smith coming out of Maryland; Emory Hunt who I trust a lot because he digests a TON more tape than I do, has the same comp.  If he cleans up some stuff that I think may be mental (and some of it could honestly be a product of Max Duggan's sub-par deep ball placement and power), and hits an average level of benchmarks in his development, I think in two years he'll compare favorably to Tee Higgins.

But like I said in my other post, who could we have drafted that would have contributed right away?