Alphadawg7

Probably doesn't fit the mold exactly as you are looking for...but I would make the case for Mario Williams first overall. How is he a "reach" given he was a top 10 draft prospect...because when the Texans and 49ers faced off in week 17 to end the season, it was dubbed the "Reggie Bush" bowl with the loser getting the first overall pick which was "supposed" to be Bush by a landslide to go first overall. I mean that was the most talked about game between two terrible teams than I can ever remember leading up to it. More importantly, the Texans were 4 years into the awful David Carr era and badly needed a QB too with both Vince Young and Matt Leinart there as well. Then they shocked the world and made what many considered a laughing stock pick of Mario Williams over Bush...and over a QB such as Young or Leinart. But, Mario Williams was the only player out of all those guys to have long and excellent career. I get this isn't the traditional reach given Mario was gonna go in the top 10, but it was one of the most ridiculed picks I can remember in modern draft history. And its also the one where the player taken had a substantially better career than all of the other players they were allegedly "supposed" to take.

Good call and considering these were 2 of the most frustrating things to the fan base too, I would say its a safe bet Beane felt the same. My 3rd and 4th biggest frustrations last year were Frazier's weak playoff defense and Dorsey's rookie issues. Thankfully one is gone, and the other at least has potential to be better being its only his 2nd year as an OC. So all in all, pretty stoked about this offseason.

Fair counter, appreciate the detailed response. I don't personally agree with some of these, but that is ok, everyone sees things differently. I get your point on the RB, but its not the same run game from last year. They lost over 1000 yards and 17 TDs when Jamaal left, and lost another 500+ yards when they parted with Swift trading him to the Eagles for a bag of chips. He seemed to fall out of favor some last year when even healthy Jamaal was seeing more carries. Gibbs now has a clear path to a big role in Detroit, who use their RB's a lot in this current offense. Positional value is different from team to team. For example, what the Niners paid for CMC would not have made a lot of sense for other teams, but made perfect sense for the 49ers offense. And like I said...strip away the "when" they were drafted and look at the players and the roster, and these guys just landed 4 starters and project QB with potential in the first 3 rounds.

I said Hooker has potential as a backup, potential to push Goff, or potential trade value if he shows any promise if Goff locks the job down. Did not say he is gonna for sure be a franchise QB lmao And stop with the whole Stafford thing. Lions were going nowhere with Stafford, lets not pretend they gave up a Super Bowl by trading him. He went to a Super Bowl ready team, the Lions were nowhere near that lol.

I gave them an A given we got such good value and some potentially great picks for us while also boosting our draft pick arsenal next year. Kincaid and O'Cyrus were both guys I thought could be off the board (and most pre-draft mocks had the same) before our 27th pick, and we got them both. Kincaid should be an immediate impact weapon for us, and he better be for Dorsey's sake, and O'Cyrus just bolstered our OL potential significantly. We added players at positions we needed to and we added a lot of size and toughness to this team on the offense, something that was sorely lacking last year. I did not know a lot about Dorian prior to the draft, mainly because I thought we might go LB earlier in the first 2 rounds, but after digging around on him since we drafted him more, I am intrigued and look forward to see if can make an impact this year. I also liked the Shorter pick, adding size to the WR room like him is nice, especially since it sounds like he can play ST and earn a spot that way. Pretty excited about this draft to be honest. All I know, is I wanted to this team get tougher in the trenches, redzone, and in bad weather. And I think Beane did a good job overall this whole offseason on that.

I have seen this by posters here too, but quite honestly I think it goes without saying our coaches, scouts, and front office knows quite a bit more about who fits their scheme. So them taking him in the 2nd makes a pretty strong statement they aren't worry about him fitting into our scheme and kind of nullifies that pre-draft concern by anyone around here. And there were other players at a number of positions we could have taken at that spot that would have made sense if they felt he was a scheme fit issue.

I am just gonna say it...I don't care about what draft slot a player was taken, that is only something fans and media care about, not front offices or coaches. Once the draft is over, what you do on the field is all that matters. There is one team that has gotten low marks whose draft I think is being grossly undervalued, and that is the Detroit Lions. I said all this after day 2, and still feel the same way now. They are getting low marks mostly over something as trivial as "draft slot" mainly because of Gibbs going at 12 and some feel Campbell was a reach at 18 (I don't). But literally, draft slot grading is absolutely the worst and least accurate way to grade a draft. When you remove that and look at who they landed, how they fit into their team, and the impact it could have on this franchise, then I really like this draft. In the first 5 picks...the Lions added: Top LB, Top S, 2nd best RB, 2nd best receiving TE, and a QB with upside. 4 of them are sure fire contributors this year, including 3 starters. RB - Gibbs - 2nd best RB in the draft with immense upside being added to an already high scoring offense. Probably splits time early on, but could push to start as the season wears on, especially if they trade Swift as it sounds like that could happen. Even last year, Swift seemed to give way to Jamaal as the lead back at times. I think Swift has somewhat fallen out of favor there, maybe over durability, and probably gets moved. LB - Campbell - This is a Dan Campbell kind of guy and was the best LB in the draft. Day 1 starter on a team that really needed a LB. TE - LaPorta - Easily the 2nd best offensive weapon at TE in the draft and instant starter. Adding him and Gibbs into an already high octane offense should insure they are among the top offenses in the league again. S - Branch - arguably the best Safety in the draft and a major need for them who should again be a day 1 starter. QB - Hooker - Top of the 2nd tier QB class of this draft, who has starter level potential to develop as a quality backup, someone to push Goff down the road, or develop into a trade asset. Either way, great value where they got him compared to where most thought he might go (late first or 2nd). Time will tell if those players succeed or not in the NFL, but looking at the Lions roster, I have to say this feels like a strong draft for them today.

Wait...you think they might cut or trade O'Cyrus who we just took in the 2nd round? He was one of your bolded players you mentioned.

I could see how that could have easily been the case, good observation. When we took Kiko they said he kept popping to them when they were scouting Dion. I bet this happens a lot when guys are scouting players to be honest.

Im actually optimistic about the D this year, excited to see McD call the plays

His pros and cons kind of read like a poor mans DK Metcalf when he was coming out...which is fine by me for a 5th round pick.

No chance he is active over those guys, but he could be active as a 6th WR if he proves special teams value and he has experience on ST. That will be the ticket to his making the 53 and even more so to be active on Sundays. If he isn't a starter on ST, he can still make the 53 given his size, but he will have a hard time being active without injuries.

Based on his size, he could have value too on getting some reps on running plays for his potential as a WR blocker and still be able to go out on a play action play as well. Something that could be valuable again on key down and shorts and red zone plays. One thing we lacked last year was size and physicality. And when you factor in the kind of bad weather games we can see at home later in the season, getting a guy on the field who can both be physical as a receiver or a blocker could get him some snaps this year if he makes the team. If he has ST value, he should make this roster and might even get some snaps in those big packages.

I had my eye on WR Boutte from LSU personally for his upside and don't know much about Shorter. But like the idea of grabbing a big target

Its certainly possible, there was a lot of pre-draft chatter that WR's weren't as high on some boards as people think and that some teams only had 1 with a first round grade. Im sure that varied heavily between teams too.

My concern is more about Dorsey, in fact, all about Dorsey. I love Kincaid the prospect as a weapon, but Dorsey last year IMHO struggled bad with getting the talent on the roster properly involved in the offense. With the slot being a struggle all year, we didn't feature Knox more or try and get Shakir more established. Cook and Hines were brought in to be pass catching RB's then we didn't use Cook much that way and Hines got 11 total touches only. But...there is more optimism here I think than most the cases above. In all those cases, they were drafted to be the teams primary TE. We already have a primary TE, and Kincaid was drafted to be a weapon primarily and more of a big slot. Beane jokingly called it 11.5 personnel. So I think there is more opportunity to get Kincaid involved in the offense given that will be his primary role. The one good thing though is we have a 1st & 4th round pick invested in Kincaid. Pressure is on for Dorsey to get him involved. The reality is this team has a lot of mouths to feed and there is only 1 football. So I think 40-50 receptions, 450-600 yards and 4-6 TD's feels like a reasonable expectation year 1. We still have Diggs, Davis, Knox, Sherfield, Shakir, Harty, and our RB's that will all be involved in the pass game. He has the potential to put up that 1000 yard season of course, just might be hard with all these other guys here too.

Why you are hung up on this notion to "prove" Dallas 100% for sure would take Kincaid is a bit puzzling. No team knows 100% for sure what another team will do, teams trade up under the assumption there is a strong enough chance the player might not reach you, so you pay the price to make sure you get him. Bills CLEARLY felt Kincaid could go to Dallas OR another team who would trade up with either Jags or Dallas ahead of us. They felt the risk was high enough to make the move. Proving any of the risks real is completely irrelevant in terms of the decision Beane had to make when Kincaid was there at pick 25.

Yeah, I was just saying I don't know if they did or didn't. But I am with you and think JSN probably had a first round grade too and then one of (or both) Flowers and Johnston did not given Beane said he didn't have a first round grade on all of them.

Yeah I think you are right on that Honestly, I thought both Mayer and Kincaid would go before our pick, so was surprised to see Mayer fall to the 2nd too. I even thought Mayer might go ahead of Kincaid just because he is more of a complete TE where Kincaid was more of a weapon. So figured a TE needy team might go Mayer first.

I don't know what he thinks the point of the poll was, he is just salty cuz I rolled my eyes at one of his posts yesterday. But for the record, in this poll I voted do the same and take Kincaid and only give up a 4th

I don't know if it was the only one, but I do know it was the one he had already agreed to and was in place contingent the fate of Kincaid at that point (since Addison was gone). I agree, I am much happier taking Kincaid and getting Allen the help than moving that far back. Beane did a great job, love that he was aggressive to get his 1B guy and it only cost us a 4th and think it worked out pretty good for us.

Yeah like I said, not all of this was inside info and said some of this is already out publicly. I was more filling in the gaps was some further details. Mainly because I love the full story here. I love knowing Beane was all in on getting Allen a big time weapon, and he was aggressive and pivoting on the fly like we know he likes to do. He had all his bases covered...tried to get his guy...missed...worked out a contingency trade down to get us more ammo...another guy fell...and pounced and moved up. I just find the full details interesting and love how Beane operates.

Agreed...at least we know the front office was dead focused on getting Allen help and they went after the best 2 guys to probably do that in the draft in terms of being a target for Allen. Then adding O'Cyrus next to get him some more protection help was the icing on the cake.

It doesn't have to be fact though, when you are sitting there and you believe they will take him at 26, then moving up to insure you get him is a good move. Bills clearly thought they could take him and again, was told someone else called the Jags for the pick with a similar offer. I am guessing Cincy, and I would think Kincaid could have also been the reason. Correct, no one will ever no for sure, but that is why you make the move to prevent it from happening because you don't know if it will or not.

JSN is a good question, he was gone already at this point, so not sure if he had a first round grade too or not given Beane said he didn't have one all of the guys who went in the first. And if he did, I wonder who was higher, him or Kincaid. My guess is that it probably went Addison - Kincaid - JSN as everything points to them loving Kincaid almost as much as they loved Addison.