2018 Draft Thread I

[John232]

1 minute ago, y2lamanaki said:

Yeah, who would have thought we'd pick up a pretty good safety in the 7th to go along with a former 2nd round pick really coming alive. 

Yeah, i hated Colbert and Tartt. Thought Colbert was a waste, even at 7. 

 

I could not have been more wrong about either of them. 

[y2lamanaki]

1 minute ago, John232 said:

Yeah, i hated Colbert and Tartt. Thought Colbert was a waste, even at 7. 

 

I could not have been more wrong about either of them. 

Tartt was a guy I had in my mock draft for the 4th round, and hated him in the 2nd. But I've always liked him as a player. Hope that continues. 

[big9erfan]

22 hours ago, John232 said:

Yeah, i hated Colbert and Tartt. Thought Colbert was a waste, even at 7. 

 

I could not have been more wrong about either of them. 

Me too. Kind of.  I actually think I criticized the pick of Colbert. I thought he was nothing but pure speed.  Was way wrong about that.  I really liked Tartt. I just hated where we took him.  I thought we could have traded down a bit and gotten him and something else, or we could have waited to try to pick him up later.  Trent was always afraid to lose "his guy" and I think "overpaid" for guys in the draft.  Acceptable if you regularly hit it out of the park.  His picks were the opposite of that.

[big9erfan]

On 12/3/2017 at 11:39 AM, y2lamanaki said:

Yeah, but Barkley's doing the same thing. This happens to every great RB - you give them the ball for a bunch of short gains that wear a team down, and you count on the great ones to bust it open for a few big runs. I mean, I'm more in line with your thoughts that I don't want him, and I'm even willing to say that he's more in line with a guy like Gurley than Elliott/Fournette in terms of prospects (still a compliment). I just don't think your reasoning is what causes me to say it. 

You and I sometimes disagree but we're not clear about what we're disagreeing about.  My criticism of Barkley is lack of consistent production, by which I mean he gets a big play every now and then, and then gets a whole lot of nothing on most of the rest of his carries.  I want to further clarify that this matters to me when I evaluate a RB.  If I have a choice between Runner A: who gets 4 or 5 yards on most carries with maybe a couple of 1's and 2's and 8's and 9's thrown in and he ends up with a 100 yards on 20 carries or Runner B: who has one run of 80 yards and then 19 other runs consisting of plus 1's and 2's and minus 1's and 2's, I'll take Runner A.  He's what I'm talking about when I talk about being consistently productive. Runner B is inconsistent in his production. I don't want a guy that gets chunk yardage on a rare occassion and then gets next to nothing 95% of the time.

I was comparing what I think I've seen from Barkley to what I think I saw from Zeke whom I think Zeke was consistently productive where I think Barkely is not..  I think you are saying I am wrong to make that distinction and that every back has a good run every now and then and then a whole lot of nothing. If that's what we're disagreeing about then here's what I found when  I did some digging.

I'm using a combination of the ESPN site where they list a runner's game total rushing yards and his longest run of the day.  I noticed several games where Barkely had a large percentage of his game running yards on a single play and then not much else outside of that big play.  I also saw two games where he just wasn't very productive.  I tried to add it up to see what it amounted to. Barring math errors what I found was that if you took away Barkley's longest runs from 5 games (leaving it in for the other two) that what your were left with was over 100 rushes for a total of about 200 yards (l think it was 101 for 201, or something like that).  What that means to me is that after acknowledging his one biggest run  in each of 5 games the remaining 95% of his carries over those 7 games yielded only 200 yards (for a 2 yard per carry average).  To me that is inconsistent productivity.

So how about Zeke? Well if I take away his longest run in every game here is what he gained on his reamining carries - 42 (on 10 carries), 199, 148, 87, 98, 88, 95, 87 ,134, 99, 165 and 26 (his bad game). In other words still very productive even affter taking away his longest run.   If I take away the longest run in the 5 games where it represented the biggest perccentagge of his total and throw in his one bad game I"m still left with 627 yards on 106 carries for 5.9 yards per carry even without his longest run of the day.

But I'm working hard here not to manipulate the facts as John suggested I was doing.  So I tried to think about what measure reflects what I perceive as the  weakness in Barkley.  It's that he gets a large percentage of his yards on one big gainer.  So then I decided to calculate what percentage of his total running yards for each game were represented by his longest run, then I did that for Zeke. Here are the two sets of nmbers:

Barkley: 47%, 25, 70, 21, 14, 71, 64, 82, 57, 31, 41, 22

Elliott: 66, 13, 12, 21, 27, 18, 12, 39, 13, 9, 21, 31

You can see that a single run constituted a lot bigger percentage of total rushing and more often for Barkley than for Zeke.It seems to me from these stats that it is not the case that if you take away Zeke's longest run you get next to nothing as happened in many of Barkey's games. 

There is one more thing that has bothered me from having watched Barkley as much as I have . It's the frequency with which  he loses yards. So I actually went and looked at game logs.  Barkley had 9 carries for a loss in the Ohio State game. That's a lot even against a good D. But  he also had 9 rushes for a loss against Northwestern. That's two games in which  he had 37 carries and 18 of them went for a loss.  He had four against Michigan, and multiple rushes for a loss against Rutgers, Indiana and even Georgia State. And those weren't all like -1 or -2. He had way more -3 to -7 runs than -1  or -2.  I found two different occasions where on 13 straight carries of his (interspersed with other plays) he had negative yardage for those 13 carries. A few occassions of 10 or more straight carries that were barely positive.  As for Zeke ... I stopped checking after 4 games.  He rarely lost yardage and then usually just a yard.  I didn't see two consecutive losses in any of those 4 games (Barkley had one game where he carried 7 straight runs for a loss).  In four games, no stretches of 10 or more runs with negative yards or even just a handful.

So what does this all mean?  Well, one thing is that it's not true that if you take away most backs'best runs you're left with a whle lot of nothing.  Kind of makes sense, especially for runners that don't have explosive runs.  If a guy gets 1000 yards when his longest run is only 20 yards he's probably getting some positive yards on most of his runs.  As for Barkley's succues? Probably nothing.  It merely explains my reservations about Barkley. John could be right, and he could turn out to be a star. He's certainly had some of the best runs I've seen over the past few years.  He's certainly fun to watch. But if I was a fan on his team I'd be frustrated. I just see way too many negatives,  zeroes and 1's and 2's thrown in with those highlight runs to think of him as the kind of back I can count on to build my offense around.

 

 

 

[y2lamanaki]

1 hour ago, big9erfan said:

 

 

 

I know very well what you were saying, and what you are saying is just simply not accurate. RBs don't get 4-5 yards every play. It doesn't work that way. They might get a series that goes 2, 1, 5, 11, 6, -2 and end up with a respectable average. 43.1% of Frank Gore's career runs have gone for 2 yards or less. 43.4% of Marshawn Lynch's runs went for 2 yards or less. 46.6% of LaDainian Tomlinson's runs went for 2 yards or less. 46.4% of Adrian Peterson's runs have gone for 2 yards or less. And in Ezekiel Elliott's outstanding career thus far, 40% of his runs have gone for 2 yards or less. It's super common. So is losing yards on carries, including many in one game. Barry Sanders made a full career out of just the thing you are talking about. 

So I'm not concerned, and again (perhaps you missed), I don't put Barkley on the same level as Elliott or Fournette. But the reasoning is not the same as yours, because I understand a bunch of small gains is exactly what playing RB is all about, and it's when you can turn one of those that should be small into a giant gain that you have done something incredibly useful. 

[rudyZ]

59 minutes ago, y2lamanaki said:

I know very well what you were saying, and what you are saying is just simply not accurate. RBs don't get 4-5 yards every play. It doesn't work that way. They might get a series that goes 2, 1, 5, 11, 6, -2 and end up with a respectable average. 43.1% of Frank Gore's career runs have gone for 2 yards or less. 43.4% of Marshawn Lynch's runs went for 2 yards or less. 46.6% of LaDainian Tomlinson's runs went for 2 yards or less. 46.4% of Adrian Peterson's runs have gone for 2 yards or less. And in Ezekiel Elliott's outstanding career thus far, 40% of his runs have gone for 2 yards or less. It's super common. So is losing yards on carries, including many in one game. Barry Sanders made a full career out of just the thing you are talking about. 

So I'm not concerned, and again (perhaps you missed), I don't put Barkley on the same level as Elliott or Fournette. But the reasoning is not the same as yours, because I understand a bunch of small gains is exactly what playing RB is all about, and it's when you can turn one of those that should be small into a giant gain that you have done something incredibly useful. 

You've won this argument. 

[big9erfan]

On 12/3/2017 at 9:52 AM, John232 said:

Can you expand on what you think a skilled runner is because clearly we don't have the same definition and I'm genuinely curious. Maybe @Forge so I can understand what you're seeing. Because this is the only substantive point you've provided that I want to dig into. Otherwise you're just manipulating statistics for your argument. 

 

I watched the whole game. That's why I didn't want to pick that one. He was getting hit in the backfield almost every single play and their interior line couldn't get any push. It was a putrid performance by the offense as a whole and Barkley being able to break a couple big plays was the reason they were even in that game. And again, you seem to hold this against him. You seem to think that if a guy is truly a phenomenal prospect, he should be able to do this against all odds

 

So do you just worry about the speed in general? Because it's already been reported he has 4.4- speed and it shows on film. Or do you just even have issues with how he gets huge runs. I would also argue that most of his big runs are coming from his ability to cut and see lanes in the open field. Not just pure speed. But the break away speed is for real.  

I've already addressed this in one game. This is such a weak way to analyze a game as a whole.  I wasn't trying to disprove a single game performance. I was trying to explain why I think your methodology for your criticism is flawed. How you're approaching analyzing these games statistically; You're looking at the long run, removing it, then taking the rest of the averages and saying "see bad". or maybe your taking it the next step and looking at the result of each touch. but unless you're willing to actually watch every single play and see why play x led y negative result, then your just postulating. I just went through that Pitt game and was able to look at every single negative play, none of the ones I watched were his fault. If he doesn't have those negative plays, all of which were exclusively as a result of guys firing through unblocked, you're looking at at least 170+ total yards of offense. And this a guy who doesn't get nearly as many touches as he should.

 

You've also again failed to address his receiving ability in your analysis. 

 

I had no idea you expected me to extrapolate rankings from that post. I picked the Pitt game because it was a great game statistically, but you used your form of analysis on that to then under cut with a "meh" and then I went through play, by play and told you why you were wrong to do that.

 

So again, in my mind, in a year where Barkley's QB play has been sub-standard. His interior line has been awful, receivers below average, he's still producing great numbers despite everyone keying on him. This might be a agree to disagree, but I really don't think you've convinced me of anything using the "Take away his best play, what's he got, nothing". analysis. 

 

and again, this disagreement came over you saying he wasn't int he same conversation as Elliot. I think he's a better prospect than Elliot, but I do think Elliot runs in between the tackles better and doesn't have/never had, the habit of trying to bounce plays outside. The reason why Barkley does that is his interior line play has been awful for most of his career. I also think that's something that can be easily coached out of him. 

John, let me try one more appraoch to this issue.  I think Barkley is a really good RB. I liked him the first time I saw him play and I've liked him ever since. I've seen a number of runs from him there amazing and I can see lots of reasons to think he might be a great back in the NFL.   I would take him in the first round, and there simply aren't many RBs over the past 5 or 6 years that I could say that about.  I would love to have him on our team (at the right "price"). I can fully understand why you would think he will be a great NFL back. All I'm  saying is that I also have concerns about him and I"m not convinced that he's a lock to be a great NFL RB. I wouldn't mind being wrong about that. He''s fun to watch and I'd rather watch him play than a lot of the other RBs in the league.

 

[Forge]

On 12/3/2017 at 9:52 AM, John232 said:

Can you expand on what you think a skilled runner is because clearly we don't have the same definition and I'm genuinely curious. Maybe @Forge sI justo I can understand what you're seeing. Because this is the only substantive point you've provided that I want to dig into. Otherwise you're just manipulating statistics for your argument. 

I just saw that you @ me on this. I will say from jump that I'm actually on your side. I think Barkley is an amazing talent, and absolutely one of the top 3 guys in this draft. I wouldn't select him just because of my own draft philosophy, but I would have no issues selecting him with our pick. I was referencing someone else in the draft forum who thought Barkley was overrated. I referenced the skill v talent in regards to that poster. 

I will say, just for clarity, that to me, there is differences between talent and skill. To me, someone like Frank Gore is amazingly skilled. He's a guy that relies on vision, great center of gravity and balance, running low to the ground and doing the small things that make him harder to bring down and keep him picking up yards he may otherwise not.  He wasn't great because of an amazing talent base - he's a guy who ran in the 4.6's I believe, doesn't have amazing lateral agility or anything like that. He just knows how to be a running back, if that makes sense. Then there are the talented guys who run sub 4.4's, have amazing agility or explosion and the like, but don't really have all the other stuff. They aren't guys I consider "skilled" running backs of knowing how to get the most out of every carry, etc etc. I never though Chris Johnson was amazingly skilled for example...just supremely talented. 

[big9erfan]

On 12/4/2017 at 3:24 PM, y2lamanaki said:

I know very well what you were saying, and what you are saying is just simply not accurate.

I actually don't think you do. So I must not be making myself clear.  To begin I never said anything about a RB gaining 4 or 5 yards on every carry. That has nothing to do with the point I'm making. Nor am I'm not talking about Frank Gore. And I'm not talking about any RB's percentage of carries for 2 or fewer yards.  I haven't mentioned any of those things. The specific comment I made that you responded to was this "I didn't do this reaerach on Zeke or Fournette but I'd be amazed to find that either of them had only one good run in a game and then next to nothing on all the rest of their carries. " Your responded by saying "I have no idea why you'd be amazed, given that the bolded is true of just about every running back "  Haven't I already shown that what I said is accurate - and that I would be right to be amazed?

I showed you 7 specific games in which after taking away Barkley's longest run in 5 of those 7 games (leaving it in in the other two) he gained only about 200 yards on about 100 carries for a 2 yard per carry average. We're not talkng about a small sample size here. I'm talking about over 100 carries over the course of 7 full games.I'm thinking that you agee that constitutes  "next to nothing on the rest of his carries"? I showed that there were games in which Barkley got 80%, 71, 70, 64 and 57% or his total rushing yards on one carrry.  So isn't it mathematically self evident that if one run representss 60-80% of a guy's total yards that taking that away will not leave much?  So if you're OK with agreeing that Barkley didn't get much on the rest of his carries then wer'e just down to seeing whether the same is true for Zeke or not - an issure you haven't addressed in your posts.  But didn't I already demonstrate this is not true for Zeke? To begin with a single run rarely represented a very large percentage of what he gained that day.  Compare the 80, 71,70, 64, 57% to Zeke's highest games of 66% (only game over 40), 39,31, 27, 21%.  Isn't it again methematically self evident that it wouldn't be true for Zeke since one long run never representted nearly as big a percentage of his runs as one long one did for Barkley.  I even looked at the seven gamess where his percentagee of total yards gained in a single run was greatest and looked at what he did without that one large contributor.  Taking away his longest gain from all seven of those games he still totalled close to 700 yards on 125 carries for an average of 5.5 yards per carry. That's not remotely like 200 yards for about 2 yards per carry. Whether measured by total yards, or by yards per carry I don't see how one could conclude that he got "next to nothing on all the rest of his carries". In other words I was correct in what I said, and right to bea mazed had it turned out otherwise.

Mathematically there's one other thing that affects average yards per carry besides a guy's longest run blowing up that number.  The opposite is true. A guy's negative yards lowers that average.  Another reason Barkley's average without his long run included is low is the number of negative plays he gets.  I'm not talking about a gain of only a yard or two which you addressed in your post. I'm talking about negative yards. Nine carries for a loss in one game is astounding to me, and Barkley did that more than once this year. He had multiple carries for loss in almost every game this year.  And the vast majority (may surprise youi) were losees for 3 or more rather than 1 or 2. He lost 7 yards on a carry twice in the same game.  He had multiple losses in the 4 to 7 yard range.  He once carried that ball 7 straight times for a loss, and twice had stretches of 13 carries in a row resulting in negative yards for those 13 plays.  Here's what might be shocker and part of what I see as the "boom or bust" nature of his runs - Barkley carried the ball for negative yardage on 18% of his carries and averaged 4.2 yards on each of those losses. That's the kind of thing that contributres to my opinion about his chances of becoming a great NFL back.  Again, this is not in the same ballpark as Zeke.  He carrried the ball for a loss only 6% of the time with the average loss being 2.6 yards. One third the the ratio of losses as Barkley for a 60% smaller average loss. So when I talk consistent yards gained vs inconsistent I'm not at all taling about 4 or 5 yards every time. No rational person thinks a RB does that.  But I am definitely differentiating between a rare loss of a yard or two vs many runs for a loss of several yards, and also between one long run that skews the game average up considerably above the average of the other runs.

I would have thought all this would put this issue to bed. It simply is not true in any way I can think of that Zeke got a lot of his yardage on one single play in a game and then got "next to nothing" on the rest of his runs.  I hardly know what else to do.  One thing I thought of was to remove each player's best run from every single game they played and then calculate their per carry average for the rest. If you're right and every back gets "just about nothing" after you take out his best run of the day they should both be pretty low. The first line below is Barkley's, the second is Zeke's.

7.1, 5.1, 1.6, 6.2, 2.5, 1.5, 2.8, 0.4, 2.1, 1.8, 5.8, 4.0

4.2., 3.4. 4.3, 6.5. 9.0 4.4, 5.2, 4.8, 4.0, 6.3, 2.4, 5.1

Again they're not in the same ballpark.  As you can see without his long run of the day Barkley had 7 games under 3 yards per carry, four of them at 2.1 or lower. Zeke had only one single game under 3 yards per carry and that one was still higher than 4 of Barkley's games. FWIW, his long run that day was 7 yards. So even in that game one long run taken away does not account for his poor output that day.  He just had a bad game. There were a lot of games this year where Barkley didn't run very effectively outside of his long run of the day, and Zeke still produced effectively even without his long run of the day being considered. If this doesn't convince you then you'll need to tell me what else I need to demonstrate - not about gore, or guys in gerneral, or anyone else in particular because I was only ever talking about Barkley and comparing him to Zeke.FWIW I think you are probably right in general - because most backs do not get very long runs, and only rarely get long runs at all. And also because most backs do not run for losses 18% of the time. But with respect to the comparison I was making between Barkley and Zeke  I think the very first thing I said was accurate and correct They are very different kinds of backs. I stand by that.

[y2lamanaki]

@big9erfan It is easiest for me to not read this. I know what you are trying to say, and what you say remains untrue. Plain and simple. 

[mw2noobbuster]

Well, this argument is going nowhere. Might as well just move on to what the Niners are going to do if they pick third instead. 

[rudyZ]

My question is: what will help getting the team back into contention: the best RB ever (not saying Saquon is, this is just for the sake of the argument) or just about any other position of need? Any OL, a #1 WR, an explosive pass rusher or a lockdown corner. All those players are more likely to bring us closer to the playoffs than a great RB, in my opinion. RB is probably the position where it's easiest to get production from later on in the draft. Finding a great pass rusher is comparatively harder. Finding an OL who is plug-and-play is harder. So in my mind, I don't see Barkley being the pick.

[TecmoSuperJoe]

We could go back to back offensive line picks. Nelson and then Price. Probably while still trading back. Yay or nay?

[rudyZ]

1 hour ago, PapaShogun said:

We could go back to back offensive line picks. Nelson and then Price. Probably while still trading back. Yay or nay?

That would probably set us up nicely for the next 10 years. So yay for me.

[Chrissooner49er]

2 hours ago, PapaShogun said:

We could go back to back offensive line picks. Nelson and then Price. Probably while still trading back. Yay or nay?

Yes, for me. It is true that the battle must be won in the trenches in this gridiron game we enjoy so much.