hondo in seattle

I'm with the OP. I pay scant attention to mock drafts. They're more wrong than right. I prefer real facts over wild speculation and wait until the actual draft to get excited. I care nothing about do-over mocks. With all this mental m*st*rb*tion going on, this is my least favorite time of the football year.

Another nice article on match coverage... https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2018/11/08/the-match-game-part-2-how-nick-saban-re-imagined-defensive-coverage/

I once heard an old GM (Ron Wolf, I think) say that it doesn't matter if your first round pick is a bust. If you get two Pro Bowlers out of the draft, it's a very good draft. If you get three, it's a great draft. You've got to get at least one but the goal is to land two. If we got 2 or 3 Pro Bowlers in this draft, I wouldn't care what positions they played. 2 or 3 impact players would vastly upgrade this roster. Having said that, my hope is that at least one of those future Pro Bowlers is an offensive linemen. I'm tired of seeing our RBs futilely running into an uninterrupted mass of gargantuan men and our QBs looking like frightened gazelles running from a pack of hungry lions.

This is both true and Beane's probable opinion. But I think it would be hubris to ignore the statistical data. It ought to factor in the decision making process somewhere.

We have decent starters in every position group. What we need is impact players ... BPA

Agreed. Far too easy to be interesting

We don't need a defensive or offensive player per se. We have lots of guys who can suit up, take the field, and not embarrass themselves. What we need is an impact player. Someone with the potential to change the result of a game. Someone that opponents must account for. Beane will ask himself, "Which player left on the board will make the biggest difference." And that's the guy.

I agree that Dunne is a pretty legit reporter. I think in this case, however, his sources may have been mostly bitter malcontents.

I think free agency has gotten us to a point we don't have any glaring needs. We certainly don't have Pro Bowlers at every position but we have reasonable NFL starters almost across the board. Beane's in a position where he doesn't have to reach or trade up for a position of need. We don't need starters per se in the draft - we need impact players. And we could use an impact player in almost any position group. Beane will probably entertain trades when there's value in it. If he sees a potential Pro Bowler sliding a bit, he may trade up to nab him. Or he may trade down with a partner that offers a deal too good to refuse. Free agent impact players are typically expensive. Beane needs to find them in this draft.

There are 64 starting Guards in the NFL. PFF graded Spain at 35th best. That makes him an average starting Guard.

If I were a GM or HC, I’d want 3 solid starters and 2 Pro Bowlers on my OL. We have a bunch of decent starters and quality depth guys. We lack elite talent anywhere on the OL and I think Beane will look to the draft to fix that.

Yikes. This is hard... so many unknowns. * How much will Allen progress from Year 1 to Year 2? * How will all the new starters on offense gel? * How much will Daboll improve in his second year? * Who are we going to draft? * What other FAs will we sign? 9-7.

I give credit to Chan for making lemonade when given lemons

Seriously, Gug... if someone was willing to pay you to act on a tv show, would you say no? Sounds like a fun experience for him. None of us are consistently noble, charming and big-hearted. You might have met Andre on the worst day of his life. Or his best. You don’t know. One interaction- one moment in time - doesn’t define a man.

This is why I hate this time of year. News gets replaced by endless speculation.