DCOrange

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.

He was in the top 3 or 4 from like Week 5 on.

https://www.patreon.com/CaddysCutups Its $2 per month

Im definitely interested in Baker but there’s unfortunately no All 22 film of him in the database I’m using. Just haven’t gotten to the other 3 but just off of reading and watching some regular highlights, I don’t think I’ll be a fan of Wilson but we’ll see. I didn’t expect to like Coleman as much as I did or dislike Worthy and Tez.

I’d like to see the bowl game when he played without Nabers. Field Yates said you finally get a glimpse of what he can do beyond vertical routes. But I agree, seems limited to vertical routes right now. I still like him a lot because I think he’s legitimately elite at those routes and will demand safety help and you just kinda hope the rest of his game develops. Particularly for a team like ours where we’re trying to win now, it’s important to have at least one thing you can really hang your hat on. Thomas definitely has that. I think guys like Coleman, Franklin, Wilson, McConkey, and Pearsall have that too. Polk, not really, but he’s good enough at a bunch of things that I think he could be helpful. The rest that I’ve watched I think are more developmental pieces than immediate contributors.

Some others I finished up since this post (can you tell work has been extremely slow?): Ricky Pearsall (Early or Mid 2), below McConkey and could be convinced to bump him below Polk/Wilson due to his age but I think his film is better than those two Ja’Lynn Polk (Mid 2nd), probably above Roman Wilson Malachi Corley (Late 3rd or Early Day 3), would slot him after Legette. Don’t think he’s really what we need as he played almost exclusively in the slot and is raw as a route runner. Impressive athlete and solid hands though; a lot of areas for potential improvement Jalen McMillan (UDFA), he’d be last on my list so far. Just don’t think he really has anything to offer.

I think I’m right around the consensus on him as far as draft grades go but everyone seems to expect teams to reach on him. Derrik Klassen for example is one of the guys I really like for scouting and he landed on a 3rd round grade for him. I believe Dane Brugler is around mid to late 2nd for Mitchell too, so I don’t really think I’m seeing things that others aren’t. He’s a pretty good prospect but not as far along developmentally as I would like given the fact that we’re trying to win now. One of my main hang ups with him is he’s already a pretty good technical route runner but still struggles to create separation due to his average or below average burst. Some other prospects may not create great separation now, but you can convince yourself if they learn to sell their routes/sink their hips in their routes better, it’ll come. Mitchell already does that stuff and still doesn’t really separate, so it may be more difficult for him to improve in that regard. The other one, and this is where I think there’s more potential for him, is he doesn’t consistently use his height and length to win contested balls. He’s pretty weak physically and can be outmuscled right now/has a hard time fighting through the contact to high point the ball. The lack of strength shows up as a run blocker too where he’s simply bad right now. I think he’s fairly similar to Keon Coleman but Coleman is more ready to contribute on Day 1 despite being like 8 months younger and also offers more all around upside IMO. Mitchell’s still a pretty good prospect in his own right though; I just think there’s better players we can bet on.

I know a lot of people fancy him. He’s firmly a guy I would rather let another team deal with considering where he’s going to be drafted. Bad hands, bad effort, too finesse. He has speed/quickness and can track the ball in the air so teams will take him and try to turn him into a big play guy. You’re really taking him because he’s young and has tools and hoping to develop him but given how lazy he looks on the field, he’s not a guy I want to bet on developing.

Maybe my hottest take re: Bills uniforms is I think the white helmets look much better than the red personally. I wouldn’t mind throwing the red in as a throwback now and then but I love our current set of uniforms.