DCOrange

I don't think Gabe's play itself is inconsistent. I think he gives the same effort basically every play/game. It's more just that almost all of his value in the passing game comes from vertical routes, which are the lowest percentage play in general and also not Allen's strength so there's just going to be a bunch of games where it simply doesn't work and Gabe doesn't really have anything else to fall back on in the passing game.

I'm not really dialed in on the Raiders but my guess would be they'd rather grab a QB in the draft than going from one bridge QB to another in Jimmy to Baker.

Seems like a fairly smart gamble. I’m guessing they want to reserve the tag for Winfield if needed.

I think this has been misattributed from an article that was talking about Georgia WRs. Georgia’s Rivals.com site reported that a different Georgia WR ran a 4.38 but it pops up for Mitchell on Google so sites like Stadium Rant see it and run with it. Mitchell doesn’t look anything like a 4.38 guy IMO and I know most Texas fans are predicting him to run around a 4.50-4.55, which at his height is still totally fine.

To be fair, Franklin is still mostly being mocked in the 2nd round. There's just a lot of us that think he'll move up as the process moves along.

I don't really agree with the Coleman/Gabe comparison personally. I never felt that boxing out and high pointing the ball were strengths of Davis'. He just did a good job attacking the seams in the defense and Allen would lead him away from the coverage. I also don't think pure speed is really necessary to be a field stretcher which is why guys like Coleman and Mitchell are two of the better vertical threats in the draft. Coleman is good at stacking his man and once he's done that, he'll be at a distinct advantage down the field unless you give him safety help. And crucially in comparison to Gabe, he should be much more of a threat in the short/intermediate game as well due to his frame and body control. And while Coleman is not the best route runner, Gabe basically couldn't run routes outside of the vertical stuff; watching him try to run a simple curl route was depressing. At any rate, separation would be preferred but I think we simply need guys that we're confident can win on the outside, particularly while dealing with press coverage, which is why I've landed on Thomas, Franklin, and Coleman as the three that I would target (assuming no massive trade up). Thomas is a master against press coverage and has enough speed to pull away from DBs. I'm confident he'll demand safety help on the outside. Franklin isn't as dominant against press coverage or as dynamic a deep threat, but he has some real shake to his releases/routes that should allow him to get separation on slants, curls, etc. while still being a threat vertically. Coleman doesn't really create separation super well, but there's flashes of it when he's able to lean into the DB with his strength and then make his cut and his ability to box out and high point the ball allows him to separate at the catching point rather than in the route itself. For me, I'd prefer Thomas or Franklin, but Coleman has separated himself as the #3 realistic target at 28. I think if we're purely focused on quick separators against man coverage, you may have to be more open to the idea of getting someone that can win in the slot quicker than Shakir does. That hasn't been Shakir's game to this point in his career and the slot is probably the easiest place to get quick separation against man coverage.

Perhaps Beane will be higher on Legette than everyone else, but I don't think any of the reputable mock draft people have had him in the first round in awhile now. Seems like he's settled in as a mid-2nd/3rd rounder for everyone. Based on the consensus, it feels like Thomas will be off the board, but guys like Coleman, Franklin, Mitchell, etc. are likely to be available. Obviously all subject to change though; once we get to the Combine and draft interviews and stuff, people will start rising and falling a lot I'm sure.

I’m guessing the “reportedly runs a 4.38” comes from this article which pops up on Google if you look up Mitchell’s 40 time. If you click the link though, it’s talking about a different player. https://uga.rivals.com/news/the-daily-recap-adonai-mitchell-is-going-to-be-a-tremendous-player-here- At any rate, we’ll see what he actually runs but I’d bet he’s closer to the 4.5’s than the 4.3’s. Him blowing up at the combine and rising out of our draft range would be fine with me; maybe means a better WR prospect falls to us.

I just don’t view Mitchell as a first rounder. To me he’s a consideration if he makes it to our 2nd round pick or maybe a slight trade up from there.

My guess is McConkey is closer to 4.40 than 4.60. I think he’ll be a good NFL player but not someone for us to take in the first round IMO. To me, I’m trading down or taking a different position if one of Thomas, Franklin, and Coleman are not there. I do tend to think one or two of them will make it to 28 though.

Just focusing on WRs, Bourne is probably the guy I like the most that I'm highly confident will be cheap. Having said that, there are so many free agent WRs and so many high quality WR prospects in the draft, somebody will unexpectedly have a pretty dry market and I'd love to be the team that takes advantage of that. Hollywood is a good potential example of that; if he's cheap, that's an obvious move to make IMO. Likewise if god forbid someone like Ridley ends up needing to settle for a 1 year prove it type deal.

Seems like people expect JJ to go early in the first round at this point. Feels unlikely he would have improved his stock from there by staying longer, especially with his coach making the jump to the NFL. On the flipside, next year's QB class looks weak at the moment so there's a chance he could have been QB1 next year. I know there's been at least one report he's as high as QB2 on some team's big boards this year though.

No idea, but I know the answer for Jayden Daniels' old teammates at Arizona State was a hell no lol

I think there’s a lot of similarity between Nix and Ryan Tannehill when he was at A&M. But Nix is both very old for a rookie QB and also kinda unproven given his struggles at Auburn and the incredibly favorable scheme he played in at Oregon. Not someone I’d wanted to spend an early pick on as a result but I do think there’s plenty to like.

It’s hard to say if it was hesitance to let him throw due to talent vs. having the advantage of being able to run in situations where others don’t because their run game was so dominant. I will say JJ’s stats in big moments, 3rd and long, etc. were maybe the best in the entire class and he has a lot of good tape in the games he was forced to throw a lot. Also the youngest QB in the class which and an incredible record as a starter, both of which tend to be valued a lot. My real big hang up with him is he showed almost literally zero ability to throw with touch. Every pass attempt was thrown like he was trying to prove how strong he is.

My QB rankings shook out this way (for now, still have a bunch of projected Day 2/3 guys to scout): Drake Maye Caleb Williams JJ McCarthy Bo Nix Michael Penix Jayden Daniels Maye and Williams are the only two that got a 1st round grade from me, but JJ is high enough that I think he can be justified in the first round. The other three are 3rd rounders or later IMO (I know they'll go earlier than that in reality though). I think coaches like Payton and the Shanahan coaching tree will likely be pretty fond of JJ and Nix and JJ in particular wouldn't surprise me if he goes in the top 15 or so picks. My first year formally grading the QBs was the 2018 class, and I skipped the 2022 and 2023 class so I have 5 classes scouted now since 2018 (49 QBs in total). In that span, Drake Maye ended up with my 6th highest grade while Caleb is 12th. JJ is 22nd and the rest of this class is in the bottom half historically.

FWIW, Dane Brugler of The Athletic put out his top 100 (big board, not mock) for this year's draft. The WR class ranks as follows (position rank in parentheses): https://theathletic.com/5270481/2024/02/13/nfl-draft-2024-prospect-rankings-top-100/ 2. Marvin Harrison Jr. (1) 3. Malik Nabers (2) 7. Rome Odunze (3) 14. Brian Thomas Jr. (4) 28. Keon Coleman (5) 34. Ladd McConkey (6) 35. Adonai Mitchell (7) 40. Troy Franklin (8) 45. Roman Wilson (9) 46. Xavier Worthy (10) 49. Malachi Corley (11) 54. Ja'Lynn Polk (12) 64. Tez Walker (13) 65. Jalen McMillan (14) 78. Ricky Pearsall (15) 80. Xavier Legette (16) 97. Brenden Rice (17)

The Music City Miracle was a good 12-18 inches backwards.

Obviously RBs did not, but focusing on just QBs, Peyton Manning did it twice. Steve McNair. Rich Gannon. Steve Young. Joe Montana twice. John Elway. I'm guessing a lot of the older MVPs had fewer than 30. I also don't really get why this Tyrod meme has been getting posted everywhere; Buffalo was nowhere near as successful as Baltimore in the regular season and Tyrod's stats were nowhere near Lamar's. There's no comparison to be made there.

I don’t really care. The one guy that voted for Allen this year said there was basically a 0% chance he’d succeed in the NFL too. Mina heavily factors in metrics much like Schatz and co. do so it’s not surprising she was one of many people to laugh at the selection. Everyone in the analytics community did at the time and now they basically all argue in favor of Josh when people bring up his turnovers and stuff, Mina included. I don’t think any rational person could watch Baltimore’s offense this year (or really any year recently) and think an average QB could have any success. Everything their offense does is predicated on the pressure he puts on the defense every play. The same definitely applies to Allen and Mahomes too.

I’m not sure going from scoring 25 points a game to 12 is really a sound argument against Lamar’s value. The drop off from Lamar to Huntley has been huge over the years.

She’s incredibly smart and one of the few on that panel that actually takes it seriously.

He had a very good season despite no longer having the run game to carry the offense. I don’t think anyone believes he’s a top 5 QB in general but he’s probably in the back end of the top 10 and a lot of QBs had down years while he had maybe his best season to date. I think if you’re limiting yourself to just QBs, he was a top 3 MVP candidate at worst. Having said that, I’m with Gunner here; I probably would have gone for Tyreek or CMC this season.

She’s probably one of the most deserving on the list lol. I’m not sure I understand Dianna Russini having a vote. Isn’t she just a rumor reporter ala Schefter? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her provide analysis but maybe I just haven’t noticed.

It wasn’t a troll vote. It was from Aaron Schatz, the creator of DVOA, and famously the guy who said anyone drafting Josh Allen basically has to pray he can defy the entire industry of mathematics. He published a lengthy article explaining his reasoning for the MVP ballot which was basically purely in the numbers.