EmotionallyUnstable

Truer words have never been spoken.

Cap dump

“I’m going to break the record” lol 4.39

Surprised beane didn’t meet with Harmon yet

Surprised by both Shemar Stewart and Landon Jackson. Both guys both dropped significant weight and showed up well in the testing. I am still hesitant on Jackson as he seems so stiff to me. I still think he fits best in a 3-4 role. Although his 40 was good, his 10 yard split was not great. So he is a powerful athlete, but not twitchy or bendy in a way that I think will help him win in other ways than with power. IIRC @gonzo1105 had him at 30 in his mock. I am still weary of his ability to hold up as a run defender. Hes also had years of college experience and seems overall well developed as a rusher. Given his stature limitations and the fact he’s played 4 years of college ball, is he a high floor lower ceiling pick?

Meteoric fall to 30? LFG

This surprises and concerns me. Feels like an unnatural scheme fit here. There is no chance they take a guy like this at 30…right? …but if he falls to the 50s then his well rounded ability and versatility might be too good to pass up

Toppings

My thinking on this was Mike Evans, a much more decorated receiver of similar age and statue, just got 20 mil/year last offseason. Rising cap, rookie QB deal for DEN, you never know

Even though he will be 30 early next season? Surprises me to think someone would pay that much on the wrong side of 30 for a bigger bodied guy who isn’t exactly a burner: they have a history of not holding up well vs Father Time

I’m super curious to see the intricacies of this deal. I want to see how the money is structured. Hoping guys like @BarleyNY will be able to add a little more insight into how the specifics of this deal might play into what we could expect in terms of how aggressive the front office will be with slinging around cash this free agency. Huge signing bonus spread out over the next 5 years? Right. FA in 2030

Can you blame her?

On field workouts are: Thursday (DL and LBs) Friday (DBs and TEs) Saturday (QBs, WRs and RBs)

I’d prefer separate threads for each positional group/days, so info and commentary isn’t completely buried and is accessible if you jump in late. (totally for selfish reasons)

Any chance Tennessee is in on this?

FWIW, NFL draft buzz has him graded out as slightly above Rome Odunze, but below Nabers…so he would have been WR3 on their board.

Wonder if a guy like Azeez Ojulari could be had to help amp up the pass rush, or if they like Solomon enough in that “rush specialist” role we saw Von in this last year. Giants connection. Minimal deal. Injury risks but high upside and ability to get to the passer in 2nd/3rd and longs

8 years come October for me. Guess we have some ground to make up. The older you get, the shorter the life sentence becomes. Life in prison has a whole new ring to it when you only have so many left anyways!

The Y is usually reserved to reference a TE. If you’re looking at a move piece for a WR, you’re looking at the Z (Cooper/Hollins) out of 21 or the H (Shakir/Samuel). The labels aren’t as important as the skill set the the players possess. For example you could see Samuel as the H, Z or A….because he can be versatile in formation and usage. But all of these positions have one thing in common: they are move positions. You can get a free release out of these looks. The X needs to be able to win at the LOS. And Coleman had a lot of trouble doing this. So I think your evaluation of the roster is a bit upside down (unless Coleman improves): we have a few guys who can play the off-the-ball move receiver, but no one who can really dominate on the outside without needing motion or formation to help.

No I didn’t say that. I said I think he took who he perceived to be the best remaining pass catcher, because the whole world knew we needed help at WR. Now you’re stuck with a TE who despite being praised as being a great pass catcher, isn’t a boundary WR player. He tried to fit a square peg into a round hole. What he should have done, is not allow the need for pass catcher to overshadow the fact that there could have been better talent available at other positions, instead of feeling pressured to address it.

If you want to dismiss DeJean as an example that’s your own business but the larger point is that need is driving those choices. Again look at 2023 when the Bills took Kincaid as it clear we needed WR help. Immediately before our pick a WR run of JSN, Q Johnston, Flowers, Addison led Beane to picking the next best thing which was Kincaid as a pass catcher who as you’ve heard Beane try to do, pass him off as a semi-WR with his 11.5 personnel suggestion. I won’t even sit and say “he should have instead taken…” as that’s an unfair revisionist perspective. What you can state however is that he forced the issue likely overdrafting a player who he tried to peg into a need that didn’t fit. We see this again with Coleman in 2024 IMO as well.

Respectfully disagree. Revisionist history indeed, yet this is the problem: You cannot allow your current roster status to steer you into making or not making selections of players who are thought to be elite, especially at premier positions. Looking at a roster, you might think “what do I need this player for” is keeping you from bringing in high quality talent at cost controlled prices. You think it’s silly to imagine why would they have done this, but why wouldn’t they have done this? Look how it all shook out: Injury concerns at safety, Benford knocked out of AFCCG, Douglas in a contract year, Elam a known bust, and it would have been an excellent chess piece to harness. We’d be sitting here today with one less question mark at a position. Yes instead we have people thinking we need WR, DB and DL help…which is ironically the exact same top three picks that were made positionally last year. DeJean in the fold would have at least given us one answer. My major concession here is as you stated , he went #40!!! Beane is not the only GM victim to error and woulda coulda shouldas

Beane’s biggest error in building this roster in terms of drafting in the early rounds, is that he allows positional need to steer him too often toward less talented players, rather than taking the most elite player regardless of position. It’s what lead to the trade up for Elam after losing out of McDuffie, the trade up for Kincaid after watching 4 WRs fly off the board immediately before, and the settling for Coleman (WR8) after having all day to mull it over. In each of these circumstances, positional need lead to selecting players that aren’t the most talented player. Drafting blue chip players at 25-30th overall is challenging. This is revisionists history. It is easy to sit here and say “should have taken DeJean at 33.” Beane doesn’t have the luxury. Fans do. I like a lot about what Beane has done, although my concerns about this team since 2020 has been the same: Is our top end talent elite enough to get it done when it matters? The answer has been no, at many positions for many years…which is why I am hoping they go get Garrett and leave no doubt.

I think at #30 in this edge class you’re more likely to get a lunch pail thumper who wins with power…there are a few of them often mocked end of round 1 or RD2 that I am not too keen on

Thanks Gonzo. As someone who is continually looking to get into more predraft player assessment, could you touch up the following? What criteria do you use to assess players? Does is change per position? What kind of film analysis do you do? Do you have a rating scale (0-100) or just assign a round grade/projection? Do you ever get into play comparisons? just curious as I continue to look at my own process just for fun.