Cash

+1

I remember that. Not sure why Brady was dressed as David Hasselhoff for that coin flip, but I'm sure he had his reasons. Anyway, some good stuff in this thread. I'll chime in to say that breaking QBs down by 1st rounders vs. not 1st rounders isn't very productive. Why? Because only a couple QBs a year are drafted in the first round. Even so, they represent about half of all recent Super Bowl QBs. But what about that other half? 50/50, I like those odds, let's go for a non-1st rounder. Okay, so grab a guy in the 2nd? 4th? Undrafted free agent? Go defense in the 1st, then draft QBs with all remaining picks? Saying a guy not drafted in the 1st had success is meaningless. If you break it down by draft round (I did once), your odds are best with 1st rounders and basically drop a fair amount in every round thereafter, with one exception: The 5th round is especially bad, and the 6th round is especially good (because of Brady, Bulger, and Hasselbeck). I've never broken down undrafted free agents because I don't have near enough time to find a list of all the UDFA QBs in a given time span, but I expect it's extremely low. For every Kurt Warner or Tony Romo, there are probably at least 20-25 guys who were just camp fodder. None of this has a lot to do with Fitz; he is who he is, and in the short term, it's clear that he's the guy, so it's all about making his job easier. But when it comes to finding the next guy, I think it's very useful to know what the odds are. Doesn't mean that taking a stiff in the 1st round suddenly makes him into a great prospect, but if a guy is a consensus 1st-round pick, there's a better chance he'll succeed than if he's a consensus 2nd-round pick.

The quick kick is tactically sound in a close, defensive-oriented/field position game, when your team is near midfield and facing a 3rd and (long enough to be all but unmakeable). I seem to recall Big Ben executing a quick kick a few years ago -- maybe against the Ravens? It was a great move in that situation. One of the advantages of the quick kick is the element of surprise -- with no returner back, you can get 20 yards of extra field position from the ball rolling. Pulling out the quick kick in a blowout is not something one does as part of normal football tactics. Especially since you've now blown your element of surprise if you want to use it in an appropriate situation. (Actually, with the Patriots' current offense and defense, there's never an appropriate time to use a quick kick.) "But now opponents have to prepare for it! It's strategy, not dickishness!" Oh please. You think the Ravens are worried about Brady punting on 3rd and 10? They'll gladly let the ball roll and roll following a Brady punt, as long as it means Brady didn't pass for a first down. Yeah, I'm sure the Ravens are devoting all kinds of practice time to quick kick returns. Probably just going to start lining up the punt return unit on every 3rd and long. Get real. If there was any way to confirm it, I'd bet money that the Ravens spend exactly 0 additional reps in practice preparing for a quick kick.

Carrington played DE in a 4-3 in college. Keep in mind that it's common for 4-3 teams to have bigger DEs like Carrington or Dwan Edwards who either move inside to DT or come off the field entirely on passing downs. (Good example: Justin Tuck) It's also common for all teams to have OLBs who are good pass rushers play DE in a 4-man line on passing downs. As for Okoye, I dunno. He's still plenty young, but I feel like if he was going to break out anywhere, it would be in the Tampa-2 Under that Lovie Smith runs with the Bears. He seems like a natural fit for that Warren Sapp/Tommie Harris role.

Love the question. Here's my five: 1. Rodgers - best QB in the league, plenty of prime years ahead of him. The only QBs currently in his league are all much older, so this one's a no-brainer. 2. Megatron - best WR in the league, very young, physically in a class by himself. There are other elite WRs in the same tier of productivity as Calvin, but he really stands out as the prototypical dominant WR. 3. Revis - given Nnamdi's age, Revis is by far the best CB in the league going forward. CB is a position where there are few true difference makers, but Revis is a big-time difference maker. 4. Jared Allen - maybe not the greatest choice for a pass rusher, given his age, but he was the first guy who popped into my head. I'm actually not even sure how old he is without looking it up, but he's definitely been around a while. I do think he's the most consistently dominant edge defender I've seen over the last few years, but if he's too far past 30, I'd probably have to change this to someone like Aldon Smith, Mario Williams, Bryan Orakpo, etc. I like guys who can play either 3-4 or 4-3 effectively. Clay Mathews would be a major consideration if I knew I was going to run a 3-4. 5. Gronkowski - Could have gone a lot of ways here. Thought about Mangold or an LT, but Rodgers has shown he doesn't need an elite line to succeed, so I'd rather get an elite/game-changing player at a very scarce position. Thought about going with Ngata or Raji, because I love mammoth NTs who are also athletic, and I firmly believe in building a D from the inside out, but given that I've already got Rodgers and Megatron, I figured that if I also bring in an elite TE, it doesn't matter if my D stops the run or not, because we'll always be playing with the lead. Main argument against this pick is that while Gronk had the best year (ever!) this year, it's hard to argue from a skill standpoint that he's appreciably better than Gates, Graham, Vernon Davis, or even Aaron Hernandez, who is significantly faster than Gronk, if not as good a blocker. Still, that's a very short list of game-changers at the TE position, and obviously I'm going to take the one who is coming off the best TE season in NFL history, and in only his 2nd year to boot. For the record, I did seriously consider Marcell Dareus in the fifth spot.

Hahahaha, I had to hop into this thread just to see the immediate reaction to Whitner's boner. Love it.

Just curious, how big do you want your MLB to be? Sheppard is 6'2", 250 lbs. -- seems plenty big to me. I don't have time to look around the league rosters, but I'd guess that's above the median for a starting 4-3 MLB.

Either the Iron Sheik is wearing a Ron Jeremy wig, or Ron Jeremy is wearing an Iron Sheik mustache. This will lead to either the worst porno or best wrestling match of all time.

By Nix's own standards, he should be judged only on wins and losses. "Show me the baby... and the baby is winning." So far, he's done poorly, to the tune of 10 wins and 22 losses. His critics will shut up when the team produces wins, which, according to Mr. Nix, is the only time they should shut up. That's that.

Well played, sirs.

It's cool, I was speaking more in the abstract -- not trying to call you out or anything. Again, I haven't even seen the dude play, so I have no prediction on when he'll be drafted or how he'll do in the NFL. You make a good point about the one positive of his advanced age -- a GM or coach looking for immediate impact is more likely to convince himself and/or his owner that a 28-year-old rookie will be more effective than a 23-year-old one. Personally, I don't know if that's actually true, because while the 28-year-old's physical skills give him an advantage over the youngster, I think experience/repetitions are a bigger factor in development, and if the old guy hasn't played much football, he might be at a disadvantage there. Again, speaking in the abstract, not specifically about Weeden. I don't know much about the guy, but now I'm pretty intrigued to see where he winds up going.

Pretty easily - that drafting strategy has produced records of 4-12 and 6-10. Strategies that lead to terrible records tend to be criticized.

That's kind of a mouthful. Wait, forget I said that.

No prediction as to what will happen, but teams definitely should be concerned about his age. A 27/28 year old man in his physical prime playing against 19-22 year olds who are still developing is not a fair fight. He may still be a legit prospect (I've never seen him play, so I can't comment on that), but his production was definitely inflated by the fact that he was almost literally a man among boys. How inflated is probably pretty tough to tell, but combine that with the limited upside presented by his age, and he's a pretty risky pick in the first round. It's probably a tough sell to convince an owner to draft a QB in the first round who'll be 32 by the time his rookie deal expires. He may well turn out to be a good NFL player, but the risk is too high and the ceiling too low for me. I wouldn't touch him in a high round. Age is usually not much of a factor in the NFL draft, because most draftees are around the same age, and a year or two doesn't make a huge difference in terms of football ability. But it comes into play in the NBA draft all the time, because a year or two makes a significant difference there, and you have draftees ranging from 18 (Euros only, 19 for American draftees) to 22 or 23 (seniors). And the older players need to have MUCH better numbers than the younger players in order to justify the same draft position. Late bloomers are a lot more common in the NFL, but the same principle applies when you're talking about a guy in his late 20s vs. guys in their early 20s.

Good point! I do wonder, though, what Modkins' duties actually are? Chan was very clear in his introductory press conference that while someone else may hold the title of offensive coordinator, Chan himself would be performing the function of the offensive coordinator. So what is Modkins actually responsible for? Obviously something, or he never would've been hired.

Spiller looked a lot better this year than last, to the point where he actually looked like a viable NFL running back this year. Having said that, I still feel that it was a terrible pick, and it would pretty much take an MVP season or thereabouts (a la CJ2K's 2010 season) to change my mind. If Freddie hadn't gotten hurt this year, Spiller would've been nearly useless. And he was totally useless last year. Not to mention the fact that picking Spiller necessitated the trade of Marshawn Lynch, who had a pretty good year last I checked. Drafting a RB in the top 10 is generally a bad idea, especially when you're at the start of a long rebuild and have needs all over the place. It's an even worse idea when you already have two proven NFL backs on your roster. My hatred of that pick at the time had nothing to do with expecting Spiller to be a bust, so the fact that he's not a total bust does nothing to make that pick look better in hindsight.

Trent Richardson, duh.

Um... isn't that the OP's point? That these rich white owners only want to hire white GMs and coaches?

Well, unsportsmanlike conduct is possible at any time (what if, God forbid, a player had something WRITTEN ON HIS SHIRT?! SHOCKING!), but as you say, it's pretty unlikely that one would be called between the coin toss and kickoff. Maybe if some nutjob captain decided to trash talk the opposing captains at the coin toss and either started a fight or got flagged for taunting. Again, hard to realistically imagine that ever happening. However, there could be a scenario where the first team to get the ball kicks a FG, but is assessed a 15-yard penalty after the play. Either a personal foul for a late hit or the like, or the rare FG celebration penalty -- maybe one of the Grammaticas comes out of retirement or something. Then a successful onsides kick outright wins the game, whereas a kick deep still leaves you likely to tie or lose. I still couldn't imagine any actual NFL coach taking that kind of bold risk and exposing himself to insane levels of criticism, but if you had a terrible D going against a juggernaut O, it might not be that bad of a tactical move.

Buddy specifically said they want to add TWO corners via the draft or free agency. Also praised Aaron Williams. Sounds to me like McLovin is gonzo.

Nothing about adding runners, and not much about injury status at TE. However, I found it interesting that at different times, Buddy: 1.) Talked about team needs for next year, and did not mention TE or allude to TE (i.e., nothing about "pass catchers" or "receiving options") -- Buddy was very specific on offensive needs, which was a Megatron-style WR and an OT or two. 2.) Was asked about Chandler, and while he did say that the Bills want Chandler back, he didn't sound nearly as assertive about it as he did with Stevie. A lot of talk about bringing him back at the right price, hoping that Chandler wanted to be back at the right price, etc. Brought up how Chandler had 1 career reception heading into the season, and said that guys like that are maybe more valuable to us than anyone else, and hopefully they see it that way, too. Definitely didn't sound confident that a deal would get done.

Because most of your pass-rushing (regardless of down) happens in the nickel or dime, when you use a 4-man line. Von Miller is a LB in the Broncos' base D, but plays DE against pass sets. I do think the Bills will be closer to a true 4-3 next year, but the real problem wasn't what label was put on the scheme, but the poor quality of the scheme.

At least 10, maybe closer to 20.

Mario Williams, but I didn't get the same vibe from his comments as you. I heard it as a purely hypothetical "we'll spend if a guy's there," without any implication that a guy actually is there. Sort of. To paraphrase Buddy, don't worry about it. Said 47% of snaps this year were with a 4-man line anyway, pointed out how often Wade Philips "the granddaddy of the 3-4" (actual quote) uses a 4-man line, mentioned that a 4-3 base will still sometimes use 3-man rush, etc. Was a little peeved (in a friendly way) when reporters brought up Buddy's pre-draft quotes from last year about scouting for a 3-4. Buddy's looking for a little more than just size -- his quote was something along the lines of "he's open even when he's not open." Specifically mentioned a Calvin Johnson type. David Nelson is 6'5", but he's not the kind of guy you can just throw it up to and he'll go get it. I think Buddy saw one too many highlights of Andy Dalton throwing a wounded duck floater into double coverage and AJ Green catching it anyway. But whatever the reason, count me in.

Why is everyone giving Gailey a pass on enacting such a dumb rule in the first place? What's next, anyone who gets a false start has to sit out a quarter? Ultimatums are stupid, because if someone violates it and you don't follow through, you completely undermine yourself, but if you do follow through, all you do is compound a problem with another problem. And especially when the condition for the benching (celebration penalty) is one of the most arbitrary and capriciously officiated rules in sports. If you're going to demand punishment for such a thing, at least keep the threat vague enough so that you can adjust the punishment to the situation. Benching Stevie for a series or two would've sent a plenty strong enough message. To sum up: I like that Gailey followed his own rule that he arbitrarily made. I don't like that he arbitrarily made a terrible rule that was likely to hurt the team, and wasn't smart enough to realize this in advance.