Thurman#1

Fine, you're not interested in facts. You see improvement and pretend it doesn't exist? Fine. Wanna play, "I ain't lookin' and if I don't look, it doesn't exist?" Fine. But you're actively ignoring real evidence. He did improve, step by step, his accuracy. Does that prove that he can do it in a game? No, but neither does absolutely anything else in the offseason. If you ignore that you should logically also ignore every single thing that happens between the last college game and the first real NFL game. None of it proves squat. And you're not going to do that any more than the rest of us are. The guy improved where plenty of people can't. It's been observable and commented on by everyone, including folks who still don't think he should be picked early.

If you move up to #5 now, you greatly improve your chances of a second trade up to #2 or #4, especially #2.

There are plenty of things you can say if you don't believe in a guy but don't want to say he sucks. You can say, "He gives 110% on every play, and you're going to get the best he's got to give." You can say, "He's a winner. He's just a winner. That's all you have to know about the guy is that he does what needs to be done to win." I got a million of them and I'm sure so do you. Palmer is extremely specific about what he likes about Allen. That's good, when guys are specific they're generally being truthful. He also talks about where he needs improvement. That's also good. None of which proves he'll be successful but Palmer doesn't have to be as supportive as he is. He was paid at the beginning in a lump sum by the agent. He won't see anymore money from Allen. He could slide into the meaningless clichés. Yet he isn't. Were Mayfield's tight window throws further downfield than Allen's, the same length, or shorter? That's a major factor. As is what Peter King said in his recent column about team sources saying Allen is hard to evaluate because he had so many free rushers headed at him, far more than the others in the top four. That'll affect your numbers plenty. "When NFL teams have scouted Allen, they’ve noticed how Allen seemed to be under pressure far more than any of the other five first-round candidates. And they’ve noticed how poorly he responded to that pressure. It’s not just the 56.3 career completion percentage that bothers teams; it’s how he has responded to pressure. And, as one official from a quarterback-needy team told me, how difficult it was to scout him because he had so many free rushers coming at him consistently. "So I asked analytics service Pro Football Focus, which also studies college players in preparation for the draft, to do a workup on whether Allen indeed was pressured significantly more than the other quarterbacks in the draft, and how he performed under pressure. The answers were rather startling." https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/18/josh-allen-draft-cleveland-browns-mmqb-peter-king There's plenty more there, good and bad. My guess is that the major improvements he's made in accuracy since the season ended are going to stick, particularly if his team is smart and benches him for a year. I'm more worried about decision-making and going through progressions in a situation that will be a lot more complex than what he's seen so far. That's where most QBs who have problems have them, and I expect it always will be. I would worry about that for anyone we draft.

Yeah, he's visibly improved. If you throw passes against air and you have improved at the Senior Bowl, and then you have further improved at the combine and then you have further improved at your pro day, that's improvement. Visible improvement. No, it's not proof that that will all stick. But yeah, it's a very good sign. Plenty of people never even make that improvement. And that's just not true that big athletic guys are mocked higher every year. Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. Mike Vick was 6'0" and he was mocked and drafted #1. Dan Orlovsky was 6'5" and he was ranked behind the 6'4" Alex Smith and the 6'2" Aaron Rodgers. Sean Mannion was 6'6". Remind me, was he mocked above Winston and Mariota? Manziel was mocked higher than Carr, wasn't he? Plenty of times the tall athletic guy IS mocked higher, and then proves to be better. It works both ways.

I agree with most of your post here, but not the main point. Yeah, you have to think the Giants can win in the short term to not pick a QB here, IMHO. Agreed. Simply, it looks to me like the Giants think just that. They seem to think that it was a few key injuries and a few areas of severe need that caused this, along with a serious locker room / coaching problem. IMO they may be right. I think it's a very reasonable argument. And Nate Solder and Jonathan Stewart (more as a leader than an RB) are decent steps in the right direction. Should depend how quickly they can get their new 3-4 defense to work and that should depend partly on how many good young fits they can draft. As I say, if I were their GM, I'd pick a QB. But I think there's a very reasonable argument both ways. Which is why nobody is sure what they'll do. It's just not as obvious as you're saying here. Agree with your finish. We'll see. Should be interesting, either way.

The expectations did differ. What was not expected then nor anytime since was that Favre's completion percentage jumped 10 points between college and his first NFL year. He made a huge improvement. The good point that you make about stats being worse back then is very true, but irrelevant. Favre's completion ratings weren't very good even when compared to his contemporaries in college and then suddenly improved a great deal when compared to his contemporaries in the NFL. For example, in Favre's last year in college, he completed 54% of his passes, his second-best year in college. That same year, the top ten looked like this: 1) Jason Palumbis Stanford 68.6% 2) Ty Detmer BYU 64.2% 3) Jason Verduzco Illinois 63.7% 4) Dan Enos Michigan State 62.3% 5) Casey Weldon Florida State 61.5% 6) Todd Marinovich USC 60.9% 7) Mike Romo SMU 60.7% 8) Shane Matthews Florida 60.6% 9) Matt Baker Temple 60.4% 10) Matt Rodgers Iowa 60.3% Favre was 46th. He was 64th in yards, 82nd in YPA, 65thin QB rating, 68th in TDs ... Two things to pick out of this. He got drafted in the 2nd. Clearly teams weren't convinced he was awful by his bad college stats. They were able to see that sometimes bad performances can have other explanations than bad QB talent. And sometimes guys can improve between college and the pros. Needless to say, sometimes bad stats simply mean the guy is bad, and sometimes guys don't improve between college and the pros. But the fact that he's widely considered a top ten pick should tell you that the teams think that he has a good chance of success. In other posts I've come up with more contemporary examples. They are out there. Stafford, as a quick example. You'd better be right is indeed problematic. It's also simply factual on pretty much every single pick of a quarterback in the first round. Be right or be prepared to lose your job three to five years down the road, Mr. GM.

So Peter King is quoted as saying that Allen did poorly when under pressure? But that's a very strategic way to cut and paste what's a complex and interesting point and isolate the most negative part. Here's a way to do the opposite. Same source material. "When NFL teams have scouted Allen, they’ve noticed how Allen seemed to be under pressure far more than any of the other five first-round candidates ... And, as one official from a quarterback-needy team told me, how difficult it was to scout him because he had so many free rushers coming at him consistently." https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/18/josh-allen-draft-cleveland-browns-mmqb-peter-king See what I did there? Picked out the most positive part and threw away the rest, the exact opposite of what happened in the OP. Here's the whole thing, unexpurgated. There's positive and negative, both. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It’s been reported far and wide that Josh Allen of Wyoming could be the first overall pick, to Cleveland. The Browns like him. With ex-Bill Tyrod Taylor in the house, they seem set on whoever they draft having 2018 as an NFL redshirt year, which is probably the smart way to go for a franchise that has rushed too many passers, from Tim Couch to DeShone Kizer, into action. Allen, it would seem, would desperately need that redshirt year. "When NFL teams have scouted Allen, they’ve noticed how Allen seemed to be under pressure far more than any of the other five first-round candidates. And they’ve noticed how poorly he responded to that pressure. It’s not just the 56.3 career completion percentage that bothers teams; it’s how he has responded to pressure. And, as one official from a quarterback-needy team told me, how difficult it was to scout him because he had so many free rushers coming at him consistently. "So I asked analytics service Pro Football Focus, which also studies college players in preparation for the draft, to do a workup on whether Allen indeed was pressured significantly more than the other quarterbacks in the draft, and how he performed under pressure. The answers were rather startling. "Allen under pressure: Of the 47 draft-eligible quarterbacks with 175 or more dropbacks in 2017, PFF found that Allen was the fifth-most-pressured quarterback, at 41 percent of his pass drops. Of the other top prospects, Lamar Jackson was pressured 36 percent of the time, Sam Darnold 31 percent, Josh Rosen 29 percent, Baker Mayfield 28 percent and Rudolph 23 percent. Clearly, Allen’s performance should have been affected by pressure more than the other quarterbacks. "Allen’s performance under pressure: not good. According to Pro Football Focus numbers, you can see Allen struggles against pressure. Look at Allen versus the field in NCAA passer rating (more liberal than the NFL rating, but for comparison sake, I’m using the NCAA standard) to see the comparison: "Allen is a dedicated guy scouts and coaches and GMs have grown to love in the pre-draft process. A California farm kid who grew up working the land before he ever had a thought of being a big-time quarterback, he knows the value of hard work. There are some scouts and coaches who look at Allen and see Ben Roethlisberger, a tree trunk of a guy with a big arm and athletic skills. All that is good. "But there’s the reality of Allen’s rawness too. These numbers show it. He has difficulty taking the snap, knowing his alternatives depending on the rush he faces, and executing successfully. That’s not going to get fixed in one training camp. Whoever picks Allen, he’s going to need a strong, unwavering, patient plan to get him ready for opening day 2019. He might progress faster than that, but let’s say Cleveland picks him. The Browns aren’t winning the Super Bowl this year. Isn’t it in their best interests to tutor Allen with smart football people, to give him consistent chances in practices through the season? Training. Coaching. Learning. A few quarterbacks in our lifetime—David Carr most notably—have left football before their time because they played too much too soon. Let Allen’s college numbers at Wyoming, and football history, be a lesson to the team that chooses him to be its quarterback of the future." https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/18/josh-allen-draft-cleveland-browns-mmqb-peter-king ---------------------------------------------------------------------- And also King said this in his weekly MMQB column this week. "• The final word on the quarterbacks. I asked one longtime and well-connected scout about what he’s hearing regarding the order of top quarterbacks in this draft. In other words, if teams with a quarterback need could show their boards, what order would they go in? “Allen one, very slightly ahead of Darnold. Then Mayfield. But the people who like Mayfield love Mayfield.” Watch for Arizona trading up on Mayfield if he gets past the Jets and Broncos."

Correct answer ... ... because the OP is convinced it will happen that way.

Allen. There's a reason he's generally mocked higher. He's already visibly improved a great deal in his accuracy since the season ended. In any case, I don't see Allen making it to #12. Jackson, maybe.

Who is Mel? He's one of the better guys working in a field whose goal - matching guess to pick for 32 straight picks or even getting say 12 out of 32 correct is virtually impossible without having team sources actually telling you their pick. You love him or you hate him but he's interesting and well-informed and maybe obsessive and that's why he's still around.

A member of the media guesses that the coach may not know the pick ... and that's the fuss?

Whew. I'd been holding my breath. Now I can finally relax.

Every team can offer 3 firsts. Once the draft opens, every team can trade their 2020 picks. So every team could trade their 2018, 2019 and 2020 firsts. No other team could offer four 1sts, though, outside of the Browns and the Pats.

IMO, that's not the point at all. They didn't give up too much for Griffin III. They picked the wrong guy. You've got to be right, but if they had been, what they paid would have been long forgotten. Although I totally agree with you that they horribly bollixed up the Cousins situation. Every team has far more needs than just a starting QB. Including the 2017 Eagles who traded for Wentz anyway. And day one means ****. Was Drew Brees a bad QB because he didn't play the first year? Brett Favre because he didn't play the first year? Tom Brady because he didn't play the first year? Aaron Rodgers because he didn't play the first year? I could go on. Ideally, yeah, your guy would be ready. But that isn't even close to the most important thing. The most important thing is simply this ... is he going to be a franchise QB, a top ten or twelve QB?

We'll see. It may well be the wrong choice. I don't think so. It's a reasonable choice, IMO But Eli has been up and down his whole career. It's not just the last couple of years he's had problems. It's when he's in a bad situation, which he certainly was last year. The Giants were 26th in running and averaged 3.9 YPC. Teams could focus on stopping Eli and it got a lot easier with Beckham out. Their OL had some serious weaknesses. And Eli won't turn 38 till January. He's still a bit younger than aging generally hits most QBs. This is a reasonable choice. Either way. When you have a QB like Eli, you're in a great position. It's fairly unusual. Making taking advantage of it your priority is a very reasonable way to go about things. Plenty of non-QB rookies, particularly first and second rounders, play very well very early. Comparing Eli and Tyrod ... you left me a bit speechless there for a second. There's no comparison. Eli has two Lombardis. That's why it's reasonable to think he might play better in the next couple of years. Gettleman is on record as saying he thinks they can get two more good years out of Eli. Maybe he's wrong about that, but with full access to the coaching staff he has a lot more info on the situation than we do. And if he's right, he might well be doing the right thing to take the chance of working towards a title in the next few years (and maybe bringing in someone like a Lauletta and developing him). I wouldn't do it myself. I'd go QB early. But either way is reasonable.

Yeah, the Falcons should never have drafted Favre and the Packers should never have traded for him in hopes they could fix his accuracy. His college career at Southern Miss: 1987 79/194, 40.7% for 1264 yards 6.5 YPA, 15 TDs and 13 INTs 1988 178/319, 55.8% for 2271 yards, 7.1 YPA, 16 TDs and 5 INTs 1989 206/381, 54.1% for 2588 yards, 6.8 YPA, 14 TDs and 10 INTs 1990 150/275 54.5% for 1572 yards, 5.7 YPA, 7 TDs and 6 INTs 1992 Green Bay 302/471, 64.1% for 3227 yards, 18 TDs and 13 INTs ... ... as a 2nd year NFL player The point should be something along the lines of make sure you respect both the pluses and minuses and without emotion put in the work to figure out if your guy can improve in accuracy and the other important measures of being a good QB. And you'd better be right.

Good point.

Overhyped? Not even close. The Super Bowl or the World Cup get a ton more hype. Overrated? Hmm. Maybe the brackets pick in the World Cup is close. But maybe yeah. What it really is is over-extended. Should never have been moved to early April. Moving it back allows more hype but allows teams less time with their rookies having the playbook. It hurts the teams and it's fricking boring. Move it back to early April.

You're using "&" as "other than"? Is that what you're doing here? Not sure at all. Is that what you mean? And do you mean the Bills also do it? Do you mean the other team trades above the Bills? Sorry, I'm not clear on this at all. I think your headline threw me off.

I disagree with you pretty strongly about the Giants not wanting just one of a group. Of course if you're at #2 you"re not thinking that you want one of a group of five or so guys. But particularly if the Giants are sticking with Eli for the next couple of years or so in hopes of winning a championship they are very likely to end up trading back and thinking exactly that way. Yeah, the Browns aren't likely to pick Barkley and hope one guy falls to them. That's not because the method is flawed. It's because they have one priority, quarterback, which far outweighs any other need. So yeah, for three reasons, they're not likely to go RB first, since QB is their need that far overshadows any other need, and also because they're pretty likely to get Barkley at #4 anyway, and because they already have a ton of extra picks. The Giants do NOT have a ton of extra picks, and if they want to win a title in the short run on a tight salary cap, they absolutely need to fill holes in the draft with guys likely to play soon and well. That means they need extra picks in the early rounds this year and next. As for who they would pick at #5 or #6 or #7 if they trade down, yeah, they likely have them ranked in order, but they also likely have a group of three guys that they would be happy to get. There are in fact three or four real difference makers who will likely go around there, Chubb, Quenton Nelson and Barkley. All three are at positions of need and all three are thought of as terrific prospects, guys who will be dominant, and all three at positions the Giants have built their teams around historically, front seven pass rushers, tough OLs (pundits are comparing Quenton Nelson to Hutchinson!!!) and runners to take the pressure off the QB. Any of these guys are likely to make whoever gets them very happy indeed, and the Giants would then also be able to get some excellent extra picks. When you want to win now, in a short window, and you're looking at how the Giants played last year, you're not looking for one guy to change your team from a 3-win team to a Super Bowl champion quickly. You need to fill holes. And with good players. I"m not 100% convinced they won't go QB at #2. My guess is that if Darnold (I assume that's who they want) is there, that's what they do unless absolutely overwhelmed by an offer, but if their desired QB is not there, they might easily trade back depending on getting a good enough offer. There are three or four dominant non-QBs likely to go there and the Giants could easily have a group of guys they would be happy to get any of. I think the question is very likely to indeed be exactly that ... will the Bills pay the price the Giants want?

No particular reason the Giants would want only #4. Probably #5 or #6, perhaps even #7 might be fine for them, enough to get one of Chubb, Barkley, Quenton Nelson or Minkah Fitzpatrick, or Ward or whoever. IMO the reason they didn't accept the three 1sts (assuming the rumor is true) could just as easily be that they think they can get a bit more as that they don't want to trade below 4th. Bucky Brooks has an article out now about why the Giants won't go QB. It's convincing. Not slam-dunk of course, but it makes a ton of sense. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000927745/article/aaron-rodgers-deserves-better-giants-wont-take-a-qb-at-no-2 My guess is that a tradeup to #2 is most likely, #5 next, and #4 third most likely. I'd put #6 higher but I feel the top three QBs and maybe even the top four are gone by #5.

And that's a bad thing for team building in the long run? Also, it's pretty decent odds that this year's team will be Bad O line + Rookie QB on the bench + McCarron on the field.

Washington gave up 3 firsts to get RGIII. And a bit more. Would've been a terrific trade if Griffin had been a good QB. It's not only Andrew Lucks for whom you give up that kind of a bounty.

They might simply think that they can get a better offer, either from the Bills on draft day or someone else. And they might be right.

More a reflection of how well Flutie played the PR game. Many fans really saw it as one or the other you can't like both. And the easy stereotype of Johnson was the surfer boy. Didn't matter that that really didn't fit who he was. Pretty sad to be so desperate to make your point you're willing to pretend that's what happened. You're looking more and more like a troll rather than a poster here.