colin

i think the simplest take away is that in the playoffs, kc will play rough and rowdy and get the best of it in terms of whistles, and diggs folds like a cheap lawnchair, shakir does ok but is not huge, knox doesn't really catch well, and kinkaid does well. getting some next level athletic ability and pure size adds something we just haven't had in a while. coleman gives us that. i doubt strongly he will match diggs' productivity of last year, but i have every expectation that he will out perform what diggs has been in the playoffs for us.

i'd take worthy because i think he can take the top off w allen (which we simply could not do last season), but i agree with others that being such a shrimp is a big concern, and maybe other guys in the draft project better for us. Trading up or trading for a big time talent and then paying him (say JJ or aiyuk) is also a real option IMO. diggs fell off terribly, so losing him really doesn't matter as much in the playoffs, but have to win the division and get there in the first place and we need season long production. like the FO said, we need match up guys. no one in the draft beats nebors or harrison jr at that, so i'm all for paying the king's ransom to get one.

they look like children's pajamas

in 2021 we lost at kc in the 13 second game. tre was out and our d couldn't stop a thing, and it still took a comedy of errors for us to lose that freaking game. in 2022 we lost 3 games all season (by a total of 8 points!!) but the team was mentally shot and damar got hurt and the performances after that (even the wins over the pats to end the year and hosting miami) were cheeks. we were the odds on fav to win the superbowl through most of that season yet we lost our only pass rusher (von) tre came back and was worthless (an analyst said throw to whoever tre is covering, because that person is open) and we brought beez and brown out of flipping retirement (with shakir not getting burn, obv he shoulda) as meaningful contributors to the O. got spanked by cincy as a demoralized team could not run or stop the run for long enough to get into a 14 point hole, saffold barely even bothering to lick the stamp on his mailed in performance. diggs had his annual disappearing act in the second half and zero in the post season in 2023 we were cheeks at what, 6-5? milano down, daquan down, tre white (who didn't suck as much at first) down, knox was banged up, miller was out to start and a literal zero after that. we fired the clueless OC, 911 gate came out and then we went on a miracle win streak. in the second half of the season, diggs went to trash and was a total zero in the post season, but we won games w our new rookie oc and running and spreading the ball around. vs kc at home, we had two too hurt to play well corners, old slow and broken safeties, a barely jag lb in dodson and a literal zero off the couch aj klien. d got shredded. williams came in late as a rookie (see a pattern?) and we had our first and only stop of the entire night, but we missed a couple plays and a FG late to lose by 3. the pattern of this team is pretty clear. we have a bunch of guys either hurt, or just so old or slow they are a huge target for the other team on D, or just don't produce at all on O. our WR room looks worse today than it did last year for sure, but diggs and davis (altho davis was magic vs kc in 2021) were zeroes in the playoffs, davis was out last year and diggs was hot trash. to win a super bowl we need our d to be able to make like 4 or 5 stops in a playoff game, and our o not to just stink. given how bad the "star" guys have been on O and D the past 3 playoffs, we aren't losing much just replacing them w JAGs, and any WR who can show up and play above average in the playoffs is an upgrade to davis and diggs over the past two seasons. i think we are as close as we have been, we need luck and health, but blowing out underperforming losers isn't going to hurt the team.

10 is soft, 4 is a touch aggressive, but as mentioned luck and such will have a big impact. what we do to add talent in the draft and pre/post draft will matter a lot. ayiuk and guys like that being available can make a immediate and large impact on the team, a big trade up could also make a splash (way less certainty tho, of course). If some stops get pulled out and we add some real talent (starters above replacement level) then we could nudge up some. the reality is as banged up and goofy (HC calling DC plays, switching from a 2nd year oc to a rook oc in the middle of the season, aging roster and tons of injuries) as our season was last year, we were a play or two (16 and 14 dropping perfect deep dimes) away from beating kc who were the champs. we have every chance to win the chip this year that we had the past two years.

net net this will benefit the nfl. once the pipeline fills back up, you will have more players with more college experience, so that's free training. you will project a bit less on talent and more on actual productivity, and instead of the player developing on the nfl's dime, they develop on NIL contracts. in terms of shorter pro careers, most players fall off prior to the end of their last contract, and often enough that it matters during a very big contract. all older players get the boot and get replaced by younger players anyhow. i think the view on older vs young rookies now is a comparative one. you don't want to draft a 24 year old who was dominating vs 20 year olds, because it means they were just big fish in a small pond. if the average age fo the best players goes up like 1.5 years, then you have a more apples to apples data set, which makes analysis a bit easier. i'd put it as more joe burrows and dalton kinkaids, and less chris weinkies.

given we ate the cap (making the cap constraint for houston much less painful) and got a next year 2nd, and we had to give away a few picks as well, on the diggs trade, makes me think if sf is not eating as much cap on aiyuk then the draft capital cost for him should be meaningfully lower. also, a lot of other wrs and such have been traded (chargers for example) for like 4th round picks and such. im figuring if we can trade for aiyuk and have to extend him out the gate, it should cost a 3rd or less. i'd do that if i thought we could also trade up (if needed) and nab a top flight wr in the draft. Although we might not trade up, and maybe even trade down, i don't see us not spending at least high picks on a WR this draft, even if we trade in for aiyuk

has potential, but gets hurt too much and has bad hands. been the same player since his rookie year. i'd love him to break out, but he hasn't done so yet

he was great for 2 years, and then great to start, meh to finish, and a zero in the playoffs for two years. not worth 23 a year, so he had to go. his attitude and all of that would be acceptable if he continued to be a top wr, but he just isn't anymore. history will show us that josh made diggs wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than the other way around.

ya, in some management training stuff i did recently they made a distinction between urgent and important, (some would look at it as big upside vs unacceptable downside). urgent stuff always gets eyes on it, because the kind of people who run organizations in the modern world have a huge bent towards avoiding downside and love to be proactive (i'd say an elon musk type is the exception, where he's always "looking down field" so to speak). Beane is obviously a prototype Type A guy, so he's concerned about the urgent stuff, but that's lead him to over pay to keep poyer, you might say the same about morse, over draft RBs (as we've always had a bit of a hole there) and at times way over pay for rotational D lineman. I suspect he's learning that slight differences between toohils and addisons of the world are not worth the big contract differences when you are throwing them in for a limited number of snaps, but the slight differences between kinkaid and knox are sufficient in terms of their game impact to go out and draft kinkaid when you already have knox, and so forth. i still think we need to have a new real play maker on O emerge (maybe diggs goes back to 2020 form, maybe rookie, maybe cook continues to imrprove, whatever) and we need to add play makers on D vs last year (milano being healthy, von returning to form, aj growing, i think there a few paths there) to get us over, and no amount of medium to good signings (like we used to love) is gonna get us there.

so we now have basically full roster depth at all positions, so we won't NEED to draft a guy due to lack of bodies in a slot. kinda makes sense. the difference this year vs prior years imo is that we used to way over pay depth type positions and marginal starters, at S, OL (staffold!), and always at DL. looks like we are packing in more bottom of the pile contracts.

didn't we trade up for kinkaid? we traded down for tre, but up (i think) for elam. we traded up for josh, and i THINK for edmunds. we've done some 2nd round and perhaps 3rd round (that im forgetting) trade ups too. we traded our first for diggs as well. it's clear to me beane looks at the draft as a place to get talent, and does not see much value in just having draft picks (remember when new england was obsessed with 2nd round picks and traded like every year for them? lol). with 11 picks, i think we are keeping at most 7 players we draft this year, and maybe less (as in, on opening day). the WR, S, DT and DE free agency signings shows me they filled out as much need and depth that they could prior to the draft, so it is a pretty sure bet that beane will target his guys as they are potentially available, and wheel and deal all over the place to get them. most likely, i think there is less of a run on wrs than expected, so he'll trade up to get someone he sees as a like top 4 or 5 wr and a like 12th best player at pick 15-20. i think 2nd and 3rd round trades are likely too, where he grabs someone they think is a stud S or 3 tech as well. OL and big RB are the other things we walk away with earlier rather than later in the draft.

i agree, except i might trade up for thomas, but not at the cost of a 1st or whatever. if we add an actual star WR, someone who in 2 or 3 years is objectively better than diggs, then this team is a problem of the highest caliber. in my barely informed opinion, nabers is that guy this year, and getting him might mean we traded away the 32nd pick

allen is gonna get hip dropped blatantly 10 feet in front of the ref and get called for intentional grounding. that loss (and seemingly every other one in the past 2 regular seasons) didn't really matter tho, we still lost home playoff games, so mer.

compared to the opener of last season (which we lost, at the jets, with allen having one of his worst games as a pro since his initial 2 or 3 seasons at the ver least). we are equal to better at LB (williams exp is better depth, tiny bernard leveled up) better at corner (douglas is better than tre) worse to way worse at safety worse at DE (if von is magically back to who he was before the injury, then we are better, but that's a tall order). on O we are same/better at rb (cook w some burn, but not a big change) qb same obv OL kinda a toss up. if we get injured it's way worse, but our RG has a year under his belt, and they let morse walk who is earing like 4mm a year now, so clearly they think they just got better because we coulda paid him that). if we get decent LG play, it's better TE we are better, kinkaid will be better this season than last WR at this point, i'd say we are flat to down a little. davis could do some things, even tho he got over paid going away. maybe shakir has grown or something, but we can only say better if we get a real WR in the draft who gets burn day one and contributes. coaching wise i think we have a much better stich. brady is at least as good as dorsey, and i think potentially much better. we've gone younger and more aggressive/creative on D, and mcd being just the HC i think works better than him being HC/DC. we improve vs the nfl if we stay healthy, get a couple rooks to play well, and get some kind of production from knox, milano, von, and a bit more even out of diggs. that was heavily missing last year (first 3 in particular). if we are reasonably healthy, i still say we can beat any team on any day.