DCOrange

Sounds like Roman Wilson is the big winner of Day 1 at the Senior Bowl amongst the WRs.

Pretty much everyone expects JJ to be a 1st round pick. I don't have him that high personally, but the same goes for most of this QB class to be honest. Maye and Caleb are the only two I'd really want to take in the first round.

I mean more for his pro prospects than his college play, but he was mostly a first-read, screen pass/RPO type of QB at Oregon. Definitely seemed like he did a little more playmaking this season but he's still doing more basic stuff than most of the class IMO. He does it very, very well though. I currently have him as my #4 QB in the class after studying the projected top 6 guys.

Yeah, I don't think the age is a concern from a contract perspective. It's more about how much room to grow Nix (and Penix for that matter) have after 6 years in college. I think Nix is relatively pro-ready, though probably in the mold of a game manager/Shanahan type of QB but I'm fairly skeptical he'll improve in the areas that he needs to in order to become an upper echelon player. Likewise with Penix, whose issues are a bit bigger IMO. I ultimately landed on a 3rd round grade for both of them, but if I had to take one, it would definitely be Nix.

I am officially through the projected top 6 QBs in the draft. Still planning to do a few others as well, but as it currently sits, my grades are as follows: 91 - Drake Maye - Top 5 pick caliber 86 - Caleb Williams - Top 10 pick caliber 79 - J.J. McCarthy - Early 2nd round 76 - Bo Nix - 3rd round 75 - Michael Penix Jr. - Late 3rd round 73 - Jayden Daniels - Late 4th round https://draftqbs.wordpress.com/2024-draft/overall-grades/

The 4th and 3 would have been a 48 yarder I believe. The other one was 45. Regardless, I do agree that 48 is different from 48+. But even just looking at his career stats without diving too deep, he's at 78% for his career in the 40-49 range and 38% from 50+. I reckon it's probably around a 50-60% chance of him making the 48 yarder in normal conditions, which is probably slightly worse than their chances of converting on 4th down (I'm not going to pretend the 75% number that everyone is citing is a large enough sample size to really be informative). Of course even after converting, they still had to continue moving the ball to score, which is probably why all those "Should they go for it?" calculators had it as a pretty negligible difference.

Apparently re: the kicker, their kicker is literally the worst in NFL history from that range and he hadn't made a kick outside of a dome all season lol. Seems they didn't really take the position seriously because they always intended to go for it a ton this year and therefore didn't have faith when the time came where they might want a good kicker.

He's on his 2nd or 3rd offensive scheme since entering the NFL and is about to win two MVPs under two different systems.

I don't think size is really necessary for this kind of thing. This is precisely the type of stuff Kincaid was consistently successful doing. If anything, you probably want to prioritize quickness over size for this kind of thing IMO so that the WR can start/stop and create good separation and then Allen can throw it low and away from the defender.

San Fran was near dead last defensively in similar situations this season. Detroit was near the best offensively. One, the play worked and the WR just dropped it. The other, Goff had multiple guys he could have delivered the pass to and just missed it. Sucks but it seems like it was a fine decision in the moment and a fine play choice too. Kicking the field goal would have been a fine decision too.

The theory is if you can't create separation against college athletes, it probably won't go very well for you against NFL athletes. Having said that, you can only learn so much from metrics. It's possible that Keon is creating separation but the passes allow DBs to recover and turn it into contested situations. And if you're simply awesome at winning those contested balls, the QB is probably more likely to give you more contested opportunities because he trusts you to go up and get it. Having said that, if you add up the numbers from the last two years, Keon's catch % on contested targets is pretty mediocre too, so at least based on the metrics, you're left with a guy that relies on contested opportunities to make an impact and also isn't particularly great at catching them.

I doubt Legette will be my preferred choice (or even one that I'd be happy with in general), but I wouldn't be surprised if he's one of the guys we consider. Having said that, Dane Brugler reported earlier this morning that most teams have a 3rd round grade on Legette, and that could potentially fall further after he measured 2-3 inches shorter than expected. He does admittedly have the physical traits to potentially really impress people, but I think there's a lot of physical traits types in this class and I'd probably rather opt for one of the younger ones if we go that route. A few thoughts on the QBs as that's really the only position I've really scouted thus far: I'm very early in my Penix review but I really liked what I've seen thus far. We'll see if that continues. Along the same wavelengths as the Brugler report on Legette, he also discussed Penix vs. Bo Nix and basically said Penix is currently viewed as a late 2nd or 3rd round prospect. He also added that he wouldn't be surprised if Michael Pratt ultimately jumps over Penix. Nix is viewed as a borderline 1st and could potentially go as high as top 10 if he has a strong Senior Bowl week. I ended up with a 4th round grade on Jayden Daniels (though I may watch some more film to try to understand what other people are seeing that I'm not), so needless to say, I'd be thrilled if the Patriots take him in the top 3. I have JJ as my #3 QB at the moment but only a 2nd round grade on him. I know most of the draft media thinks he'll be a 1st rounder, potentially to Seattle. Lastly, I think I'd lean towards Odunze over Nabers at the moment, but that's really just based off of some stuff I noticed while watching their QBs on All 22 as well as some of the metrics that I've posted in the WR thread.

I think ideally we kill two birds with one stone and get a wide out that can win with speed with one pick, but if we simply get a good wide out and then double dip later to add more of a speed element, that probably works for me too. I think Thomas' ability to beat press coverage will make him a far more consistent threat than someone like Gabe. I suspect that with his press abilities and in general the way he's able to separate with speed, he'll at minimum be very tough to deal with on vertical routes and crossers. If he can expand beyond that, even better. But the press beaters are his trump card that make him my #1 target assuming we don't make a massive trade up. I've also heard that when Nabers sat out the bowl game, Thomas showed a much more diverse skill set than what he showed most of the season, but I admittedly have not watched yet.

You're right. I had written that down in my scouting notes but didn't do anything with the notes yet so he ended up remaining in my spreadsheet.

Dane Brugler (The Athletic's draft guru) posted a Senior Bowl preview including a section on the WRs. Some cliffnotes: Mentions how Tank Dell and Jayden Reed dominated the Senior Bowl last year and went on to have successful rookie campaigns. Also mentioned Michael Wilson and Puka Nacua consistently making plays and the latter in particular obviously had a great rookie season. Malachi Corley is considered the best senior WR in the draft and some Deebo Samuel-type skills. Keeping an eye on how he tracks deep passes at the Senior Bowl because he didn't do it much in college. Ladd McConkey and Roman Wilson are two that he expects to stand out in practices; currently viewed as Day 2 prospects, undersized but "big time speed and an understanding of how to leverage that speed to get open". Says most NFL teams currently have a 3rd round grade on Xavier Legette; teams will be watching to see if he can create separation at the top of routes at the Senior Bowl. Compares Jacob Cowing Tank Dell due to similar size and blazing speed. Luke McCaffrey is one of the best in the draft at playing through contact. Tez Walker is a likely Day 2 pick thanks to his speed and ball skills. Ricky Pearsall has great hands. "I could keep going (about the WRs) but the word count for the article would get out of hand". Seems like he really loves this class. Behind a pay wall, but if you're subscribed/have other means of getting access, here's the link: https://theathletic.com/5228871/2024/01/29/nfl-draft-2024-senior-bowl-quarterbacks/?access_token=595014

I put together a spreadsheet of many WR metrics, including stats on their contested ball abilities.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12pCgsJPa9X-jjNMOZ_exJTAEfxmZOeETzEm8SNkuXec/edit?usp=sharing Contested catch % tends to not be very stable, so hard to tell really. For example, these guys were all 50% or higher on contested catches this season (bolded guys that are considered to have at least a remote chance of going in the 1st round): Rome Odunze, Washington Malik Washington, Virginia Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, Georgia Luke McCaffrey, Rice Tez Walker, North Carolina Tory Horton, Colorado State Javon Baker, Central Florida Jermaine Burton, Alabama Ainias Smith, Texas A&M Bryson Nesbit, North Carolina Ja'Lynn Polk, Washington Brian Thomas Jr., LSU Ricky Pearsall, Florida Dominic Lovett, Georgia Zakhari Franklin, Ole Miss (barely played this season, but was good at it the prior year) But of those 14, only 3 of them even had 20+ contested targets; it's all small sample size stuff. Also of those 14, only 6 of them managed to catch 50% or higher the prior season: Luke McCaffrey Javon Baker Jermaine Burton Bryson Nesbit Ja'Lynn Polk Brian Thomas Jr. There's also always debate about whether or not that's really something to be prioritized in the draft; it's great if they can make contested catches, but if they're being forced to make those catches in college, it's probably a sign that they'll struggle to get open in the pros. Of the 14 listed above, I would say Rosemy-Jacksaint and Luke McCaffrey should potentially be red flagged for having a high % of their targets that are contested. Tez Walker and Ja'Lynn Polk are borderline red flags IMO. The consensus top 2 WRs in the class, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers, were both over 50% a year ago but were in the 40s this season. Keon Coleman was over 60% a year ago but down to 33% this year. Harrison and Coleman are potential red flags for relying too much on contested targets as well. Nobody relied on contested targets more this past season than Coleman, but he was okay in this regard the year before when he played for Michigan State. Harrison has been in the orange both of the last two years (red being bad, green good, yellow neutral).

This game’s about to be over

I mean, they played one of the strongest schedules in the league and when you solely look at how teams fared against good teams, Baltimore lapped the field.

Seriously that was incredible. From the disguise to Hamilton’s closing speed that was just perfection.

Lamar for sure. One of my favorite non-Bills in the league

Officially 6’0.7” and I will be extremely shocked if he runs 4.2s. Probably late 4.4s or early 4.5s if he has a bad day.

Yes they all received votes. Not necessarily 1st place votes though.

I’m obviously frustrated the Chiefs keep knocking us out but I don’t hate them. And if it couldn’t be us, Lamar is probably the player I most want to see win a Super Bowl so people can finally shut up about if you can ever win playoff games with him, so I am excited to watch this one.

I already did the deep dive. He was one of the best in the league this season in basically every category, and if you expand it to the last 3 years or something, he’s still well above average. And the only people that get targeted nearly as much as him downfield are basically all the big name WRs in the league so he’s in great company. He just unfortunately provides nothing else beyond those deep passes.