Fewell733

Gosselin and Nawrocki are the gold standard. Gosselin though releases his top 100 like the day before the draft and its widely believed that NFL scouts leak him a lot of draft board info. I'm not sure he really scouts them or just reports what he hears from the people actually in the know.

1. Bulaga 2. Jason Pierre-Paul (will not be there, probably won't make it out of the top-10 - Nawrocki has him going 3rd overall I think, which was a big surprise) 3. Jordan Shipley 4. Dan LeFevour

whoever you've been reading almost certainly has significantly less cred then Nawrocki. Draft stock changes dramatically each year.

Nawrocki is excellent, however he's obviously much better at ranking the prospects then he is at predicting the choices a certain team will make on draft day.

I'll call them freaks once they actually run those times with people other than their trainers and agents present.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;sportCat=nfl It's nice to remember that we're not alone out there. I found the article hilarious. factor #5 was the one I most relate to: 5. You need to be just pessimistic enough to keep your guard up for a sucker punch but just optimistic enough to keep lowering your guard at the worst possible time.

can't we find some unbelievably rich Saudi prince that wants to run a legendary American rust belt football franchise?

I just can't see how Bates makes much sense. His defensive philosophy, from what I can tell, is identical to Dick Jauron's. It just doesn't seem like that's the direction we've been talking about going in.

no way man. he's a guard! that's one of the few positions we don't have a major need in.

i think Maybin is definitely motivated. My concern is whether his body can hold another 15 lbs of muscle. Even if he's playing as a 3-4 OLB, he needs to get thicker in a hurry. Way too early to call him a bust. Not too early to say that it was an unnecessarily risky pick.

the questionable pick of Maybin doesn't mean that he won't pan out. But we chose to draft him knowing he was a project and would take at least a year before he might be able to really contribute. That fact alone just makes the pick WAY riskier, in a already very risky business.

I believe it. I'm sure the Scouts present the choices to the head coach to decide what direction he wants to go out of a few candidates.

the "who no one else has found" part really doesn't fit that well with Maybin. But the one year wonder sure does. I mean part of that though with Maybin is really only played the one year. one thing seems clear though, he wasn't really on board with the Maybin pick and judging by how close he is with Modrack, and how at the time of last year's draft Nix probably didn't have much say in the room, I'm gonna guess that Tom wasn't a full Maybin believer either.

it might be a little bit of reach but only a little bit. he seems like the consensus top NT of the draft with Cody having some serious red flags. I might rather take the LT at 9 and hope Cody slips to our 2nd. It's risky either way though since there are seemingly only 2 elite NT's in the whole draft.

I think a hybrid is as good as we can do next season without totally blowing up the defense. Get some guys that can play NT and maybe some OLB/DE types in the mix. our DE situation is looking really bad if Schobel retires - it'll be Maybin, Kelsay and Ellis.

I think realistically that next year we will have a hybrid defense. I think switching fully to a 3-4 will take a number of years. The top priority needs to be to get bigger and badder players in our front 7

we picked him up toward the end of the year. the guy is so much of an unknown that he doesn't even have a wikipedia page.

seconded. is it gonna be a zone or power scheme? anyone know?

there is a disappointing lack of choking jokes in this thread. come on people!

either would fill needs. Morgan might fill the bigger need right away at pass rushing OLB and might be the "rarer" athlete between he and McClain. I think Poz and Mitchel can play ILB alright in 3-4 but, like you I'd rather it be one of them and McClain though. the seeming move to a 3-4 and Giff on board does make Morgan a much more likely pick than he was a week ago, and most agree that he's top 10 talent (or at least until the combine, ha)

I am not an expert but there are different types of 3-4 defenses, some where the D-linemen mainly just hold up O-linemen and others that kind make it more like a 4-3 where the DE still might shoot gaps. Probably the latter is more suited to our personnel, especially Kyle Williams who is great at getting penetration for such a stout player. well let's take a look at our players under contract and where they could play in a 3-4 NT - Kyle Williams - could play it in a pinch but it would be a waste of his skills and he wouldn't be very good at it - Lonnie Harvey -(huge 6'3, 340) but who is he?) - Rashad Duncan - ( 6'2, 315 but who is he?) DE 3-technique - ideally between 285 and 305 lbs, height not that important, but need good athlete - Kyle Williams - Spencer Johnson - John McCargo DE 5- technique - good size is about 6'5, 305 - taking on tackles and tight ends, need to be taller - Marcus Stroud - Marcus Smith OLB - good size is 6'1 to 6'4 and around 260 lbs - Aaron Maybin (needs to get heavier) - Chris Ellis (actually has prototypical size for the position). - Aaron Schobel (never done it, might retire, I'm not worried about his low weight, he knows how to play football) - Chris Kelsay (right size, wrong kind of athlete) - Jermaine McGhee (right size, but who is he?) ILB - ideally over 6 foot and around 250 lbs - Poz - Mitchell - Palmer (a bit undersized) so lot of candidates for positions especially OLB, but who knows how they'll be in a 3-4. NT is the biggest question mark to me. I think there are only two in the draft that could step in right away - Dan Williams and Mount Cody but the defensive line class as a whole is supposed to be excellent. There are a lot of very good 3-4 OLB candidates in the draft this year as well.

maybe, but it wouldn't fit with all the 3-4 talk

ha. well I said "maybe" afterall

it stunk. it was 4.78 at combine. pro day he got it down to 4.64. the word was that he was getting used to his new body size at the combine, cause he had gained like 10 or 15 lbs of muscle in a month or two. http://www.nfldraftscout.com/ratings/dspro...&genpos=OLB

1) maybe he knows who it'll be already 2) he was also the defensive line coach at GT for 5 years, took on recruiting in addition to coaching the last few years