2024 Draft

[WhyAmIHere]

42 minutes ago, AustrianNiner said:

Kneeland. Pretty much mocked everywhere at the end of round 2, but Dane Brugler mentioned him as one of the surprise 1st round guys, which scares me.

Kneeland is one of those guys I keep going back and watching, hoping to find out what all the hype is about.  I keep seeing him rising and hearing people mention him..then I excited and find some more film and I'm like........meh.  I see a solid player, sure, but nothing more than that.  

[Forge]

58 minutes ago, AustrianNiner said:

Kneeland. Pretty much mocked everywhere at the end of round 2, but Dane Brugler mentioned him as one of the surprise 1st round guys, which scares me.

Speaking of brugler, The Beast was released today. He does have Kneeland at 32 in his top 100. He has @JIllg's boy Cooper Beebe as a top 40 guy. Roger Rosengarten at 69 (nice) 

The Beast really is the best thing for draft coverage... love reading it every year. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

1 hour ago, Forge said:

Speaking of brugler, The Beast was released today. He does have Kneeland at 32 in his top 100. He has @JIllg's boy Cooper Beebe as a top 40 guy. Roger Rosengarten at 69 (nice) 

The Beast really is the best thing for draft coverage... love reading it every year. 

Cooper is my boy as well! 

[WhyAmIHere]

Can Cooper Beebe play Center?  I'm honestly warming up to IOL at #31, as long as it's a guy who can play good right away (Beebe definitely can). 

[JIllg]

58 minutes ago, WhyAmIHere said:

Can Cooper Beebe play Center?  I'm honestly warming up to IOL at #31, as long as it's a guy who can play good right away (Beebe definitely can). 

I think he's purely a guard. Physically, he seems a lot like JPJ. Tested like a crazy short area athlete, which I can't say I saw on tape, but they didn't ask him to pick off moving targets often. 

[JIllg]

4 minutes ago, JIllg said:

I think he's purely a guard. Physically, he seems a lot like JPJ. Tested like a crazy short area athlete, which I can't say I saw on tape, but they didn't ask him to pick off moving targets often. 

Btw, I just don't trust that either JPJ or Beebe have the long speed to pick off some of the splashier targets on Zorro toss or similar to be a center for us specifically. But they should be excellent at guard.

Edited April 11 by JIllg

[JIllg]

Okay, somehow just got around to watching Ainias Smith tape. For a long time, things just hadn't quite lined up so that he was on my viewing list. Really enjoyed it, but again, I've been a major Malik Washington guy. I dig the short, stocky receivers that have running back skills. Unlike Washington, on tape Smith has no long speed juice at all. He can turn 3 and 5 yard gains into 20 yard gains but turning the 20 into a 50 or 70 is beyond him. And the combine testing is exactly what I expected at ~4.55. But he did force 20 missed tackles on 53 receptions, which is utterly bonkers. Elite three cone time and that shows up on tape. Really tiny arms (nearly an inch and a half shorter than Malik's!) and doesn't have nearly the vertical jump that Malik has (note: remember that 42" vert for Malik, folks!) to go up and compete for passes. That lack of pure explosion kind of makes him feel very capped. Really worried about the Amari Rodgers effect.

Side note: he was an awesome punt returner for a team looking to replace RayRay. And Shanahan will love that he is a fierce little dude as a blocker. He even took on edges in the running game at times and fought like hell. I definitely prefer Malik Washington by a ton - he's a better route runner and vertical threat and is also a fierce little dude and a leader - but I would still be into taking Ainias as a fourth round flyer.

Smith versus Corley is a little less apples to apples - Corley is a bigger guy with longer arms and not nearly so many outlier concerns. And he has better long speed. There's a reason why he's going to go earlier. I do think that Corley does come with some real Deebo baggage, though. He really doesn't go super hard when it isn't his rep or directly his block. And he did do his damage at a lower level of competition while Smith moved up the ranks to challenge himself. I think that part of the equation for smaller school guys is underrated a little? The competition is thinning below the top every year as the best of their players transfer up the ladder and it makes evaluating them really difficult. 

 

 

[JIllg]

18 minutes ago, JIllg said:

Okay, somehow just got around to watching Ainias Smith tape. For a long time, things just hadn't quite lined up so that he was on my viewing list. Really enjoyed it, but again, I've been a major Malik Washington guy. I dig the short, stocky receivers that have running back skills. Unlike Washington, on tape Smith has no long speed juice at all. He can turn 3 and 5 yard gains into 20 yard gains but turning the 20 into a 50 or 70 is beyond him. And the combine testing is exactly what I expected at ~4.55. But he did force 20 missed tackles on 53 receptions, which is utterly bonkers. Elite three cone time and that shows up on tape. Really tiny arms (nearly an inch and a half shorter than Malik's!) and doesn't have nearly the vertical jump that Malik has (note: remember that 42" vert for Malik, folks!) to go up and compete for passes. That lack of pure explosion kind of makes him feel very capped. Really worried about the Amari Rodgers effect.

Side note: he was an awesome punt returner for a team looking to replace RayRay. And Shanahan will love that he is a fierce little dude as a blocker. He even took on edges in the running game at times and fought like hell. I definitely prefer Malik Washington by a ton - he's a better route runner and vertical threat and is also a fierce little dude and a leader - but I would still be into taking Ainias as a fourth round flyer.

Smith versus Corley is a little less apples to apples - Corley is a bigger guy with longer arms and not nearly so many outlier concerns. And he has better long speed. There's a reason why he's going to go earlier. I do think that Corley does come with some real Deebo baggage, though. He really doesn't go super hard when it isn't his rep or directly his block. And he did do his damage at a lower level of competition while Smith moved up the ranks to challenge himself. I think that part of the equation for smaller school guys is underrated a little? The competition is thinning below the top every year as the best of their players transfer up the ladder and it makes evaluating them really difficult. 

 

 

Also, I might not have been clear, but I think Malik Washington is one of the very best wide receivers in the class. I think that he's better than Ladd McConkey and Xavier Worthy and Ricky Pearsall and Roman Wilson among the smaller guys, for one. Each of those guys is not strong and can get whacked off routes. I worry about all of them getting the Andy Isabella treatment where they move in an elite way on air but just can't handle NFL physicality. Malik is waaaay, waaaay denser than those guys. Also, all of those guys have a way smaller catch radius than Malik does because of arm length and jumping capability. It shows up in the targets to caught passes metric. Washington was a hoover for passes. Also, Washington is better at contested catches than any of those via the 42" vertical and he is by far the best RAC guy out of any of them. So you are betting super heavily on running routes without being touched (or speed in the case of Worthy) being more important than everything else. I think that is incorrect. I straight up think that folks should be trying to draft Washington at the back end of the first round. I think he's going to be that good. You can probably pencil him in as my second round pick in the GM draft. I'm willing to die on that hill. 

[Forge]

5 minutes ago, JIllg said:

Also, I might not have been clear, but I think Malik Washington is one of the very best wide receivers in the class. I think that he's better than Ladd McConkey and Xavier Worthy and Ricky Pearsall and Roman Wilson among the smaller guys, for one. Each of those guys is not strong and can get whacked off routes. I worry about all of them getting the Andy Isabella treatment where they move in an elite way on air but just can't handle NFL physicality. Malik is waaaay, waaaay denser than those guys. Also, all of those guys have a way smaller catch radius than Malik does because of arm length and jumping capability. It shows up in the targets to caught passes metric. Washington was a hoover for passes. Also, Washington is better at contested catches than any of those via the 42" vertical and he is by far the best RAC guy out of any of them. So you are betting super heavily on running routes without being touched (or speed in the case of Worthy) being more important than everything else. I think that is incorrect. I straight up think that folks should be trying to draft Washington at the back end of the first round. I think he's going to be that good. You can probably pencil him in as my second round pick in the GM draft. I'm willing to die on that hill. 

I took him in this mock, but I really don't believe the niners will look at him for some reason

[JIllg]

14 minutes ago, Forge said:

I took him in this mock, but I really don't believe the niners will look at him for some reason

They don't tend to be coy about interest after the first round. But a man can hope. 

[WhyAmIHere]

Malik Washington is going to go a lot earlier than most people think, his film is too good and he's too damn strong and explosive.  

 

After Kiper's draft, I decided to watch more of Rosengarten.  He has balance issues for sure, seems to fall over a lot or lack the recovery athleticism after he's going one way.  However, he was dominant vs USC in the game I watched.  I will say Morgan's tape is much better, he's just more fluid overall. 

Edited April 11 by WhyAmIHere

[J-ALL-DAY]

29 minutes ago, WhyAmIHere said:

Malik Washington is going to go a lot earlier than most people think, his film is too good and he's too damn strong and explosive.  

 

After Kiper's draft, I decided to watch more of Rosengarten.  He has balance issues for sure, seems to fall over a lot or lack the recovery athleticism after he's going one way.  However, he was dominant vs USC in the game I watched. 

Another guy I've been on for months. He can have a Tank Dell type of your one impact. 

 

[Geek]

Cooper is a solid pick, but I'd prefer a center if we're going IOL. Banks and Feliciano are solid enough (although I believe Feliciano is retiring next offseason). I'm fine with Barton or JPJ at 31, especially over someone like Suamatia or worse Jordan Morgan.

 

Who I would prefer between Barton and JPJ is interesting though. JPJ is such a huge mauler he'd be a lot of fun to have an give us that physical edge. Barton is no slouch either but has positional veristility and could play anywhere inside. If a guard went down it might be better to slide Barton and let Brendal take center dutes again than let Burford take any snaps.

[Forge]

22 minutes ago, Geek said:

Cooper is a solid pick, but I'd prefer a center if we're going IOL. Banks and Feliciano are solid enough (although I believe Feliciano is retiring next offseason). I'm fine with Barton or JPJ at 31, especially over someone like Suamatia or worse Jordan Morgan.

 

Who I would prefer between Barton and JPJ is interesting though. JPJ is such a huge mauler he'd be a lot of fun to have an give us that physical edge. Barton is no slouch either but has positional veristility and could play anywhere inside. If a guard went down it might be better to slide Barton and let Brendal take center dutes again than let Burford take any snaps.

My gut says Barton is gone by like 22. I'm thinking Pitt at 20. 

If jpj 's medicals are a legit flag, he may be off the board all together, especially since he may not be a shanny preferred blocker. 

The fact that kiper and zuerlein are hinting he's going to go in the second round all of a sudden is very interesting

Also, Feliciano is retiring and banks is a free agent. He hasn't been good enough for me to give him 10+ million a year, so I'm assuming he's gone 

[Forge]

I would like to see more of Justin strong.