Grade the draft

[Ragnarok]

5 minutes ago, Old Guy said:

I think Reed's agility is going to surprise you. I think you get in trouble when you start forcing picks. LVN was clearly the better overall prospect than JSN. Mauch doesn't start for us year 1, both the TE's are going to get a lot of snaps on offense. Reed is going to surprise you and JSN isn't going to light up the NFL. 

We definitely disagree on the bold.

I also think Mauch could have ended up starting at RT.

[Old Guy]

2 minutes ago, Ragnarok said:

We definitely disagree on the bold.

I also think Mauch could have ended up starting at RT.

I'd say so! I have questions about JSN. I've got friends who are pretty close to the OSU program. He was healthy enough to play in the college football playoffs and chose not to do so. That is a red flag for me. 

 

[vegas492]

Grade?  F.  We picked in the turd round.

All kidding aside.  Solid C+ maybe B-.

Did we get three starters?  I don't see one starter drafted for this year.  But if we only go by 22 starters on offense and defense.  I do see some snaps being eaten by LVN, Musgrave, Reed and maybe Wooden.  

But, we draft and develop and I think we got a lot of solid draftable guys, now we need to develop them for the future.

So yah, C+ to B-.  This much I know...outside of the QB, I was pretty happy with who we took and where.

Found it funny that we passed on Washington at least twice.  Tells me that he was either a "Rodgers guy" or we are gonna find a way to bring him back.  And since we drafted 2 TE's, I think the odds are better for us not bringing him back.  So maybe the blocking TE was less important to the MLF offense than we were led to believe.

[Ragnarok]

4 minutes ago, Old Guy said:

I'd say so! I have questions about JSN. I've got friends who are pretty close to the OSU program. He was healthy enough to play in the college football playoffs and chose not to do so. That is a red flag for me. 

 

I remember Todd McShay having a report that said the same.  I seem to remember Ryan Day and others hitting back pretty hard at the report.

I have no clue how close he was or wasn't.

[ThatJerkDave]

1 hour ago, tttmikeb said:

I'm still a bit surprised by the Reed pick...his size didn't match up with what I thought they'd be looking for.  I'm excited to see what he can do, though.  

I'm surprised they didn't take at least one OL.  Not our most pressing need, but they usually take at least one.

I'm somewhat surprised in the two TE's they took while passing on Darnell Washington.

I'm most surprised (and a bit disappointed) that they waited so long to grab a safety.  I thought they'd address that position early and maybe even take two.

And honestly, I'm surprised they used all those picks.

That said, I like the class overall.  I understand (for the most part) why they went the direction they did.  Wooden and Brooks were some of my favorite prospects for us.  

RE Reed:  I have done a little thought exercise in his draft thread.  Basically, we always have one small WR, and the rest are either tall, heavy, or both.  Reed fills that role that is now vacated by Randall Cobb.  I used to think that the small WR was just an outlier, but I am now thinking that TT just hit big on Jennings and Cobb, so that role was taken care of, meaning we didn't draft any small WRs to be the small guy.

 

RE Safety:  I don't know how much you looked into the class, but when I did my quick look, I really didn't like any of them.  After the combine, I did gravitate toward Quan Martin, but we are all slaves to RAS.  Darnell Savage would have been safety one in this draft quite easily.  We definitely have a weaker group than we would like.  But I don't know that the guys that we did add are any worse than any of the guys that were drafted ahead of them.  And I am not sure that any of them are so much better than Rudy Ford that it is worth not taking a swing at a different position.  

 

RE OL:  We have a pretty good starting 5.  We also have Tom and Newman, who are young and have NFL experience, and positional versatility.  And have added 3 players drafted last year in Rhyan, Walker, and Tenuta, and Caleb Jones, Jean Delance, and Jake Hanson are still kicking around too.  We could have taken one late and possibly marginally improved the room, but those are projects.  We didn't really need a starter, so we get probably less out of taking one instead of Van Ness or Musgrave.  

[tttmikeb]

1 hour ago, ThatJerkDave said:

RE Reed:  I have done a little thought exercise in his draft thread.  Basically, we always have one small WR, and the rest are either tall, heavy, or both.  Reed fills that role that is now vacated by Randall Cobb.  I used to think that the small WR was just an outlier, but I am now thinking that TT just hit big on Jennings and Cobb, so that role was taken care of, meaning we didn't draft any small WRs to be the small guy.

 

RE Safety:  I don't know how much you looked into the class, but when I did my quick look, I really didn't like any of them.  After the combine, I did gravitate toward Quan Martin, but we are all slaves to RAS.  Darnell Savage would have been safety one in this draft quite easily.  We definitely have a weaker group than we would like.  But I don't know that the guys that we did add are any worse than any of the guys that were drafted ahead of them.  And I am not sure that any of them are so much better than Rudy Ford that it is worth not taking a swing at a different position.  

 

RE OL:  We have a pretty good starting 5.  We also have Tom and Newman, who are young and have NFL experience, and positional versatility.  And have added 3 players drafted last year in Rhyan, Walker, and Tenuta, and Caleb Jones, Jean Delance, and Jake Hanson are still kicking around too.  We could have taken one late and possibly marginally improved the room, but those are projects.  We didn't really need a starter, so we get probably less out of taking one instead of Van Ness or Musgrave.  

Good points.

Reed - Excellent perspective.  I hadn't considered that, but it makes sense.  I'm excited to see what Reed can do.

Safety - Yeah, that makes sense.  I didn't love a ton of the prospects this year either, but I know we need some help there.  They obviously felt differently.  That's fine...they know more than I do. 🙂

OL - Oh yeah, I totally get that perspective.  I wasn't expecting a major upgrade or investment.  It wouldn't have shocked me if they tried to nab Bakhtiari's eventual replacement in the first, but wasn't necessarily expecting it.  More than anything, I've just gotten used to them drafting at least one (if not two or three!) OL, so I was kinda surprised when they didn't take any.

[Arthur Penske]

Here’s a graph that makes the Packers draft look really good

 

[Packerraymond]

2 minutes ago, Arthur Penske said:

Here’s a graph that makes the Packers draft look really good

 

And the Bears picks look...not so good.

[VegasDan]

On 4/30/2023 at 9:21 AM, R T said:

I give this draft a Y. As in why the **** does the football world think they need to grade players before anything has even happened. No one has even been to a rookie minicamp yet and people want to judge them as good or bad already.  

You realize you are posting this on a website focused on evaluating college football talent and how it relates to success in the NFL?

70% of the posts here are speculative in nature while most of the rest are ridiculing others for their speculations. 

You could post your sentiments 20x in every thread. "We dont know if xxxx can block speed rushers. Lets wait three years into his NFL career and discuss it then".  Hell, you can use the same logic to dispell mock drafts because we won't know who is picked until after the draft.

[ThatJerkDave]

19 minutes ago, tttmikeb said:

Good points.

Reed - Excellent perspective.  I hadn't considered that, but it makes sense.  I'm excited to see what Reed can do.

Safety - Yeah, that makes sense.  I didn't love a ton of the prospects this year either, but I know we need some help there.  They obviously felt differently.  That's fine...they know more than I do. 🙂

OL - Oh yeah, I totally get that perspective.  I wasn't expecting a major upgrade or investment.  It wouldn't have shocked me if they tried to nab Bakhtiari's eventual replacement in the first, but wasn't necessarily expecting it.  More than anything, I've just gotten used to them drafting at least one (if not two or three!) OL, so I was kinda surprised when they didn't take any.

I don't think you are wrong about safety at all.  I just don't think that there was the kind of player that we really wanted to invest in at that position.  I'm not an expert by any means, but I am not seeing some clear cut improvement over what was already on the roster and the 7th rounder and UDFA that we brought in vs any other safeties that were available in the draft.  For example, is JL Skinner any better than Rudy Ford? I don't think so, especially in 2023.  And if we drafted him, we would have given up Karl Brooks.  

 

I don't think you are really wrong about OL either.  I think that at a certain point though, there just wasn't a whole lot of improvement over what we had in house.  And honestly, I think it would take a heck of a rookie to unseat Nijman or Runyan, who are the consensus weak links on the line.  And that is before you even get to Tom and Walker, with a full NFL season behind them, and a lot of promise shown in the little time they did play.

[R T]

11 minutes ago, VegasDan said:

You realize you are posting this on a website focused on evaluating college football talent and how it relates to success in the NFL?

70% of the posts here are speculative in nature while most of the rest are ridiculing others for their speculations. 

You could post your sentiments 20x in every thread. "We dont know if xxxx can block speed rushers. Lets wait three years into his NFL career and discuss it then".  Hell, you can use the same logic to dispell mock drafts because we won't know who is picked until after the draft.

You realize you are posting this on a website focused on people giving their opinions on things related to NFL football? 

My opinion is that grading drafts the day after is a ridiculous thing to do, that is my opinion, and this forum allows me to state my opinion. At the same time my opinion is not stopping anyone who wishes to do such a thing to go ahead and do it. It's simply my opinion. 

Just like it is my opinion that you are using pre-draft evaluations and mock drafts as examples of parallels to grading drafts is also ridiculous thing. Again, my opinion. 

See how that works, this is a forum, and I can have an opinion and you can have an opinion and they don't need to be the same opinion. Crazy isn't it. 

[tttmikeb]

12 minutes ago, ThatJerkDave said:

I don't think you are wrong about safety at all.  I just don't think that there was the kind of player that we really wanted to invest in at that position.  I'm not an expert by any means, but I am not seeing some clear cut improvement over what was already on the roster and the 7th rounder and UDFA that we brought in vs any other safeties that were available in the draft.  For example, is JL Skinner any better than Rudy Ford? I don't think so, especially in 2023.  And if we drafted him, we would have given up Karl Brooks.  

 

I don't think you are really wrong about OL either.  I think that at a certain point though, there just wasn't a whole lot of improvement over what we had in house.  And honestly, I think it would take a heck of a rookie to unseat Nijman or Runyan, who are the consensus weak links on the line.  And that is before you even get to Tom and Walker, with a full NFL season behind them, and a lot of promise shown in the little time they did play.

Yeah, agreed on all counts.  None of that was really a criticism...just observations relative to what I thought they would do.  But that's a big part of what makes all this so fun every year.  I try to figure out what I think they're gonna do and who I think might be good and/or a good fit, and then when the draft is over I can compare my expectations with reality.  I'm smart enough to know that I know basically nothing about these prospects, and the FO has generally been pretty good.  They get paid to do this stuff and I don't.  I don't ever think I know more than they do...it's just fun for me to compare reality to what my expectations were.

[VegasDan]

8 minutes ago, R T said:

You realize you are posting this on a website focused on people giving their opinions on things related to NFL football? 

My opinion is that grading drafts the day after is a ridiculous thing to do, that is my opinion, and this forum allows me to state my opinion. At the same time my opinion is not stopping anyone who wishes to do such a thing to go ahead and do it. It's simply my opinion. 

Just like it is my opinion that you are using pre-draft evaluations and mock drafts as examples of parallels to grading drafts is also ridiculous thing. Again, my opinion. 

See how that works, this is a forum, and I can have an opinion and you can have an opinion and they don't need to be the same opinion. Crazy isn't it. 

Sounds like you are attacking me for my opinion. . . .. 

 

Okay, we could be at this all day. 🙂

 

All is good. Have a great day.

[R T]

4 minutes ago, VegasDan said:

Sounds like you are attacking me for my opinion. . . .. 

 

Okay, we could be at this all day. 🙂

 

All is good. Have a great day.

Lol, there is probably a story about a pot and kettle somewhere in there. 

[incognito_man]

3 hours ago, Old Guy said:

I'd say so! I have questions about JSN. I've got friends who are pretty close to the OSU program. He was healthy enough to play in the college football playoffs and chose not to do so. That is a red flag for me. 

 

I didn't really want JSN at 13. That being said, I couldn't care less about college football players choosing to skip postseason games UNLESS they're in the CFP (which OSU was). So I agree there's an concern there. 

But man, Seattle CRUSHED their first 3 picks. They did really really well IMO. 

If Geno is actually decent, Seattle will challenge for the 2nd best NFC team.