SoFFacet

Let's just review how we got here. This board has apparently been permeated with poor draft "analysis" from moronic pundits, the result being that people such as yourself believe in laughable things such as that Allen is any good. You also believe yourself to be a member of some majority or consensus. All hilariously wrong. The vast majority of rational analysts looking at the draft class through an objective lens and using empirical data think that Mayfield is top-3 if not #1, and Allen will bust. Obviously mentally slow = on-field processing speed. You can't explain that away with whatever word salad you just tried to use. I can't believe you even uttered the word wonderlic, a test everyone knows is non-predictive of NFL success and people only ever bring up when their guy does well on it. No offense but you come across as a very pompous individual who is ignorant of his own ignorance.

Of course he will probably be a top-10 pick. He doesn't deserve that but some idiot team will pick him there. Inaccurate is not a mischaracterization at all. He is inaccurate, period. He is also mentally slow. This is a documented fact. I seriously doubt that anyone on this board could debunk anything. Everything you've said is laughably wrong. Dunning Kruger.

As I said, Ledyard is low on Mayfield, who is the QB1 according to most informed analysts.

Allen is the laughingstock of the Draft Analyst community. Sorry if that hasn't permeated this forum as much as the know-nothing ESPN pundits etc.

13 is low for QB1.

Very few people think he'll be any good. He's inaccurate and slow. Almost nobody with his stats & pedigree has ever been successful in the NFL.

13th is pretty low for Mayfield. And he's only low on Allen compared to moron pundits like Kiper. Most people think Allen sucks. Guice over Barkley is pretty bold. Jones in the 1st round is just unconscionable, though.

Oh, you're one of those people who thinks that Lamar is comparable to Tyrod. I see. But anyway, that sequence of events is far from forced. Any of those teams could deviate, and Cleveland could trade #4 as well. As a matter of fact, Cleveland taking Allen would do nothing but help the odds that a good QB is left for us.

Why would we care if Cleveland takes a UDFA-level guy 1st overall?

False.

No.

Mayfield is by far the best QB in the class.

Based on what?

You can't !@#$ around with QB. If you are willing to take him at 22 you have to take him at 12. That's just how the league and the draft work now.

I'd say we got relatively unlucky with the Darby trade so far. As far as the range of possible outcomes go, the Eagles pick being #96 and Matthews being immediately & constantly injured were fairly unlikely. On paper this is a bit of an L, but not a big one. This is Darby's 4th year, so he's on the verge of leaving and and/or being paid significant money. Shipping out players from the old regime that they didn't intend to pay has been their chief operating principle.

Because he's not on the Bills' board and they hate him. OR because he's #1 on the Bills' board and they don't want to give that impression. OR because he knows other teams are parsing his every word because they think he might speak 100% truthfully to the media for some reason even when he has no incentive to do so, and he knows that if he doesn't mention Jackson, another team will interpret that to mean he loves Jackson, and may therefore try to trade ahead of Buffalo to get him, but little do they know that this is all a ploy to get someone to waste a pick on Jackson, because they have no intention to draft him anyway! So yeah, back to reality. Read nothing into his comments.

Dead wrong. You can always cherry pick a few stats that Watkins led his team in. He was not a significant player on their team this year. I'm not saying he played bad, but he was not some critical cog that unlocked everything else in the offense, as you seem to believe. That doesn't change just because you think it does. I didn't go into the season believing that Woods and Kupp would be more important. But rational people take into account new information. The past season speaks for itself. You are having a great deal of difficulty isolating the trade from irrelevant tangential issues. The trade was 1 guaranteed year of Watkins for 1 guaranteed year of Gaines + a 2nd round pick. Both players are about to become free agents, so their value to their teams is close to zero atm. The most valuable piece of the deal on either side, today, is the 2nd round pick, by far. It's that simple. Anyway, signing Gaines just to try to win the trade more (in some fans minds) is a sunk cost fallacy. Finding a better option than re-signing our own player does not decrease the grade of the trade in any way. And even if Watkins signs with the Rams as a FA, that doesn't affect the trade either. It's outside the scope of the trade, and it's not even necessarily a great thing for the Rams depending on what the contract is and on what they actually get out of Watkins going forward. Even if somehow Watkins signs with the Bills, that doesn't affect the grade of the trade either, for the exact same reasons. Outside the scope. Not necessarily great for the team. Totally unrelated to the events that came before it. As a matter of fact, there's basically nothing that can happen henceforth that affects the grade of the trade. The Watkins and Gaines free agencies are up to the contracts that the entire league can offer, and are ultimately their own decision. The 2nd round pick is a matter of proper scouting and coaching development. So the trade is a wrap and we're holding the only asset that has any value. Easy evaluation.

I don't suppose you realize that real free agency hasn't even started yet, or that neither of these signings preclude them from signing or drafting other players, or that the draft is really the only way to add significant youth to the team...

I explained this all before. You can pick and choose a few stats that paint Watkins in a positive light, but the bottom line is that he was a disappointment for LA this year. He was their 3rd most important WR and 4th most important RB/WR. But whether or not Gaines was better for us than Watkins was for them is really a moot point today. We both made the playoffs, both players are now free agents, and we pocketed a 2nd round pick. Easy win for us.

For a player like Watkins you're always going to be able to pick out a few stats in which he led his team. But the reality on the field was that on most Sundays, he was the 3rd most important Rams WR. 4th if you count Gurley. I was under the impression that it was common knowledge that Watkins was largely viewed as a disappointment this year. He did an alright job as a glorified Marquise Goodwin for the Rams, but compared to expectations that's just not what he's supposed to be. He's supposed to be on the level with Brown and Beckham. Gaines was an excellent CB for us last year. Missed games aside, there's no doubt he contributed massively to our making the playoffs. Now both Gaines and Watkins are free agents, and everything that happens going forward is really outside the scope of the trade. If the 2nd round pick booms or busts, that's a matter of proper usage of draft resources, not relevant to the grade of the trade. New contracts for Gaines and Watkins are a matter of proper usage of cap resources. In the end, both we and the Rams made the playoffs, both of the players involved are free agents, and we pocketed a very valuable draft pick. It's possible that the trade was mutually beneficial, but at the very least it's clear that it was beneficial to us.

No rational GM these days would significantly move up in the 1st round for a non-QB.

Agree. He's not great but he would be dirt cheap and wouldn't count against comp picks. Signing him would in no way preclude us from addressing other positions or from addressing RB again later. Don't really see any downside tbh.

I dislike that trading down has become synonomous with "moneyball."

Not a chance he makes it to 21. He's in the mix for #1.

I've seen comparisons that I don't think quite fit such as Vick and Cunningham. But your comparisons are just laughable and insulting.