Packers Forum 2018 NFL Draft Discussion (NO SPOILERS!)

[CWood21]

1 minute ago, cannondale said:

I'm gonna disagree on that one. I'm talking about an elite edge we trade up for. Kind of like running back - either you can or you can't. See TJ Watt. Of course improvement happens, but we can get by with that scenario - not like we have a choice

Except those elite EDGE go top 5, top 10 at the absolute latest.  Realistically, that NO pick is going to be somewhere in that 16-24 range and barring injury that Packers pick is in the 20-32 range.  That's probably not going to be enough to get that stud EDGE.

[cannondale]

But how would we have looked without King last year, and how many CB's would we have had to choose this year ?

I also wonder if they knew Randall was trouble

[cannondale]

Just now, CWood21 said:

Except those elite EDGE go top 5, top 10 at the absolute latest.  Realistically, that NO pick is going to be somewhere in that 16-24 range and barring injury that Packers pick is in the 20-32 range.  That's probably not going to be enough to get that stud EDGE.

Well Watt went at 30 .....LIS - we dont have a choice

[CWood21]

2 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

I like King, but how different would our front look with Watt and Lawson going into year 2? I was pounding the table for Lawson when we took Adams and then I pounded even harder when we took Biegel. 

First off, I think we're looking at Lawson in the optimistic scenario.  There were multiple teams that had him off the board because of medicals.  What happens if he was injured this year?  We'd have been pissed we used a pick on a injury-plagued player.  No different than having Biegel this year.  We like him, just no reason to believe he's going to be the solution.  That being said, I think passing over Watt is going to be something we're going to be regretting for a while.  I hope I'm wrong.

[CWood21]

1 minute ago, cannondale said:

Well Watt went at 30 .....LIS - we dont have a choice

Watt wasn't an elite prospect by any means, and majority of this forum didn't want him because he wasn't going to be as good as his brother.

[cannondale]

Just now, CWood21 said:

Watt wasn't an elite prospect by any means, and majority of this forum didn't want him because he wasn't going to be as good as his brother.

So Pittsburgh was lucky or good. We'll have to be the same next year

[CWood21]

Just now, cannondale said:

So Pittsburgh was lucky or good. We'll have to be the same next year

Combination of both.  Watt flashed his potential when he was at Wisconsin, but I'm not sure many people thought he'd be as good as he was.

 

[packfanfb]

1 minute ago, CWood21 said:

First off, I think we're looking at Lawson in the optimistic scenario.  There were multiple teams that had him off the board because of medicals.  What happens if he was injured this year?  We'd have been pissed we used a pick on a injury-plagued player.  No different than having Biegel this year.  We like him, just no reason to believe he's going to be the solution.  That being said, I think passing over Watt is going to be something we're going to be regretting for a while.  I hope I'm wrong.

The problem I had was Biegel had injury issues as well. We don't know whether we chose Biegel over Lawson purely based on medicals or because we thought Biegel was the better player. If it's the latter, it was a poor evaluation. 

Yes, I agree on Watt. I think that guy is on his way to becoming the face of the Pitt defense for a long time. 

[cannondale]

3 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

Combination of both.  Watt flashed his potential when he was at Wisconsin, but I'm not sure many people thought he'd be as good as he was.

 

Watt may have snuck up on some people too. Let's see how he does in year 2 when people know about him. He had a lot of zeros next to his name last year too

[TransientTexan]

14 minutes ago, CWood21 said:

I was pretty vocal last year that I thought the Packers should have taken TJ Watt over Kevin King.  And I hope I'm wrong and that Kevin King becomes a shutdown corner.  But you're not going to get very many chances to draft quality pass rushers.  They go early and often.

Yea in a vacuum without other information, but if they judge on a case-by-case basis that this edge or that edge won’t be good enough to make it in the league, I don’t think they should force a pick. Just goes to the player evaluation. And as far as King goes, shouldn’t the final analysis be King + Biegel vs. Watt?

[Greg C.]

5 hours ago, CWood21 said:

This was a MISERABLE EDGE class.  But given how strong last year's was, it's not really surprising that this year's EDGE class was bad.  You had three guys who were a tier above the rest, and one of them had injury concerns (Landry) and the other had LoC cocnerns (Davenport).  Beyond those two and Chubb, they all had major question marks.  Sweat had MAJOR medical concerns, Key had the rehab/motivation questions, etc.  You could group the rest of the EDGE into two tiers.  The try-hards (i.e. Jeff Holland, Duke Ejiofor, etc.) and the ones who had the tools, but never put production consistently (Lorenzo Carter, Arden Key, etc.).  There were no real EDGE of value that'd make a difference.

You very well may be right. You've obviously studied this a lot more than I have. But it's hard to believe that after the top three edge rushers there were none worth taking until the 7th round. I know that's not what you're saying, but that is essentially what the Packers said by drafting the way they did. I expected them to use their draft capital to maneuver into a position to take at least one edge rusher in the first few rounds and probably another in the later rounds, but they only took one, and they took him VERY late. When they took the punter, for example, wasn't there an edge rusher available who was worth taking a chance on? Hard to believe that there wasn't. How much improvement are they going to get at punter when they already have a pretty good one? But with edge rusher, you need three or four good ones, and you can use a roster spot to let a young one gain some experience. So I thought it was pretty strange that they waited so long to address that position, especially considering that the free agent market for that position is so poor. 

[packfanfb]

5 minutes ago, TransientTexan said:

Yea in a vacuum without other information, but if they judge on a case-by-case basis that this edge or that edge won’t be good enough to make it in the league, I don’t think they should force a pick. Just goes to the player evaluation. And as far as King goes, shouldn’t the final analysis be King + Biegel vs. Watt?

Not for me. For example, if Watt is an All-Pro player, value at 10, and King and Biegel both become solid, non Pro-Bowl type players, valued at 6 a piece, give me the 1 All-Pro every day of the week. 

[CWood21]

13 minutes ago, TransientTexan said:

Yea in a vacuum without other information, but if they judge on a case-by-case basis that this edge or that edge won’t be good enough to make it in the league, I don’t think they should force a pick. Just goes to the player evaluation. And as far as King goes, shouldn’t the final analysis be King + Biegel vs. Watt?

Yes.  It's probably a better argument is whose been better King/Biegel or Watt?  At this point, it's clearly Watt and I don't think it's even close.  The problem with EDGE is that you're usually dropping a tier in order to get one.  Same concept with legitimate tackle prospects.  We saw Kolton Miller go 15th overall, and I'm not sure anybody thought he was a top 15 prospect.  But your next time you draft a tackle, you're probably in that fourth or fifth tier of tackles.

[TransientTexan]

3 minutes ago, packfanfb said:

Not for me. For example, if Watt is an All-Pro player, value at 10, and King and Biegel both become solid, non Pro-Bowl type players, valued at 6 a piece, give me the 1 All-Pro every day of the week. 

But my statement is not really relevant to your “if’s”. I agree that you’d want 1 All-Pro vs 2 solids. My point is just that whatever these players end up being, you have to factor all 3 when comparing.

what if Watt ends up as generally the 15th-best edge guy in the NFL and King ends up being the 20th-best CB and Biegel ends up being the 20th-best edge guy?

[CWood21]

10 minutes ago, Greg C. said:

You very well may be right. You've obviously studied this a lot more than I have. But it's hard to believe that after the top three edge rushers there were none worth taking until the 7th round. I know that's not what you're saying, but that is essentially what the Packers said by drafting the way they did. I expected them to use their draft capital to maneuver into a position to take at least one edge rusher in the first few rounds and probably another in the later rounds, but they only took one, and they took him VERY late. When they took the punter, for example, wasn't there an edge rusher available who was worth taking a chance on? Hard to believe that there wasn't. How much improvement are they going to get at punter when they already have a pretty good one? But with edge rusher, you need three or four good ones, and you can use a roster spot to let a young one gain some experience. So I thought it was pretty strange that they waited so long to address that position, especially considering that the free agent market for that position is so poor. 

It's an issue of where the value meets the need.  I mean, there's a few that I liked and probably would have gambled but you're more often than not going to have to break below your tier to draft one.  At 18, the only EDGE I'd have considered there was Harold Landry and there was enough medical concerns that pushed him to 41.  At 45, you've got Uchenna Nowsu, Kemoko Turay, and Tyquan Lewis as the only other EDGE in the 2nd round.  Personally, I've got Joshua Jackson as a clear BPA and quite frankly it isn't even close.  Between Oren Burks and J'Mon Moore, the only EDGE drafted were Dorance Armstrong and Josh Sweat.  Armstrong sucks, and Sweat was probably medically removed form our board.  There wasn't an opportunity to draft an EDGE where the value was there.