Elam Fairing well in Big D.

[TBBills Fan]

1 minute ago, BillsShredder83 said:

Man, this one is such a mystery to me.  Has all the traits, appeared to work hard and know how to prepare.  Hes now in a defense that suits him well.  But thats the draft in a nutshell

The curious case of Kair Elam indeed

[Royale with Cheese]

Just imagine this.  

Jerry Jones kept Elam over Parsons.  Not really but I just want to continue throwing more dirt on Jerry Jones.

[Logic]

Three Pro Bowl players drafted immediately after Kaiir Elam:

Tyler Smith, Tyler Linderbaum, and Jermain Johnson II, right in a row. Ouch.

George Karlaftis, Kyler Gordon, Breece Hall, George Pickens, Trey McBride not long after that. Double ouch.

Hindsight is 20/20, every team has misses, and the Benford pick helped. But man...imagine adding any of the above players to the current Bills? Yeesh. Ah well. Ya win some, ya lose some.

[Allen2Moulds]

1 minute ago, Logic said:

Three Pro Bowl players drafted immediately after Kaiir Elam:

Tyler Smith, Tyler Linderbaum, and Jermain Johnson II, right in a row. Ouch.

George Karlaftis, Kyler Gordon, Breece Hall, George Pickens, Trey McBride not long after that. Double ouch.

Hindsight is 20/20, every team has misses, and the Benford pick helped. But man...imagine adding any of the above players to the current Bills? Yeesh. Ah well. Ya win some, ya lose some.

I agree.  If Beane stops trying to force the pick, and just sticks to BPA, he hit more homeruns on day 1 or 2 of the draft.  

[Robert Paulson]

19 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

it just feels like of any position, a top-20 CB pick is almost the safest pick. The learning curve isn’t steep for that position either.
 

But maybe that was back in the old days? I suspect teams draft rawer guys now at that position for whatever reason? 

Guys get over drafted because it is a passing league now.

[RoyBatty is alive]

45 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

how can you miss so badly on a CB? It’s almost unheard of. 

You can miss badly on any position, why should CB  be any different.

Edited September 15 by RoyBatty is alive

[Roundybout]

49 minutes ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

how can you miss so badly on a CB? It’s almost unheard of. 

Disagree. Look at the 2016 draft! 
 

Eli Apple, Vernon Hargreaves, William Jackson were all busts from the first round. You can throw Karl Joseph in there too at safety. 

[Matt_In_NH]

1 hour ago, Allen2Moulds said:

I agree.  If Beane stops trying to force the pick, and just sticks to BPA, he hit more homeruns on day 1 or 2 of the draft.  

We don’t know if his BPA are any of those guys over Elam.  

[Pete]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

Three Pro Bowl players drafted immediately after Kaiir Elam:

Tyler Smith, Tyler Linderbaum, and Jermain Johnson II, right in a row. Ouch.

George Karlaftis, Kyler Gordon, Breece Hall, George Pickens, Trey McBride not long after that. Double ouch.

Hindsight is 20/20, every team has misses, and the Benford pick helped. But man...imagine adding any of the above players to the current Bills? Yeesh. Ah well. Ya win some, ya lose some.

taking WR Justin Shorter in the 5th round over Puka Nacua

[boyst]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

Three Pro Bowl players drafted immediately after Kaiir Elam:

Tyler Smith, Tyler Linderbaum, and Jermain Johnson II, right in a row. Ouch.

George Karlaftis, Kyler Gordon, Breece Hall, George Pickens, Trey McBride not long after that. Double ouch.

Hindsight is 20/20, every team has misses, and the Benford pick helped. But man...imagine adding any of the above players to the current Bills? Yeesh. Ah well. Ya win some, ya lose some.

This and I will add that it was interesting to me that we seem to go into the draft without a plan. We did it again this year. Drafting multiple picks to the same position. Did we not plan or have some idea where we may go the entire draft? Or are we just on that whole best available thing? Because the best available would have negated that Elam was the best available 

 

It was a ***** show 

[billsfan89]

Teams draft guys on "traits" all the time. It's the intangible "feel for the game" and mental side of things that are always the variables. If you get drafted fairly high you produced well in college and you have good measurables. This happens in the NBA all the dam time. The Pistons drafted Stanley Johnson 5 picks ahead of Devin Booker. Johnson was longer, slightly taller, jumped higher, and was faster than Booker. In college Johnson also scored at a higher clip than his teammate Booker (Averaging 3.8 more points and 4.5 more rebounds as well as .5 more assists) and had about the same efficiency.

 

Yet Booker developed into an All-NBA player and Johnson after showing good defensive capabilities his first few years is in the Euro League the last few years. There's an intangible feel for the game and elasticity to drafting. Elam was drafted because he was athletic and put out some good tape in college. He flashed here but never made a consistent impact. Whereas Benford while not nearly as good an athlete and coming from a smaller school just was a better fit for the system and produced on field more. 

Edited September 15 by billsfan89

[OldNMBillsFan]

6 hours ago, SageAgainstTheMachine said:

Benford turned out to be such a parachute on the Elam pick.  If you were to do a redraft it would be a matter of when, not if, Benford goes in the 1st round.

SB Nation's 2022 first round re-draft has Benford going #23, Cook going #20, and Shakir going #18. I think getting 3 first rounders in the 2nd, 5th, and 6th rounds more than makes up for the Elam miss.

 

2022 NFL re-draft SB Nation

 

 

[Dan in Owego]

My word Stroud hasn't just regressed he has completely unwound, bottom tier qb play🙄

[Richard Noggin]

6 hours ago, Robert Paulson said:

Guys get over drafted because it is a passing league now.

 

And also because of teams falling into the trap of wedging positional need into the pick calculus rather than just picking the best players. (Of course there will be some circumstantial exceptions to a zealous BPA approach...where it would be unwise to double-up early on the same position or to do so in multiple years, etc.)

 

 

6 hours ago, Roundybout said:

Disagree. Look at the 2016 draft! 
 

Eli Apple, Vernon Hargreaves, William Jackson were all busts from the first round. You can throw Karl Joseph in there too at safety. 

 

Upon first reading your list of busts here, I'm curious if any of those picks were possibly the result of overvaluing positional need?

 

[GaryPinC]

15 hours ago, BillsShredder83 said:

Man, this one is such a mystery to me.  Has all the traits, appeared to work hard and know how to prepare.  Hes now in a defense that suits him well.  But thats the draft in a nutshell

He doesn't have a brain for the NFL game, just not quick enough anticipation and recognition.   Easily showed in McD's defense, Dallas D is supposedly less thinking but it doesn't seem to matter.

[Mister Defense]

17 hours ago, boyst said:

This and I will add that it was interesting to me that we seem to go into the draft without a plan. We did it again this year. Drafting multiple picks to the same position. Did we not plan or have some idea where we may go the entire draft? Or are we just on that whole best available thing? Because the best available would have negated that Elam was the best available 

 

It was a ***** show 

 

What are you talking about?

 

They clearly had a plan, to bolster the D tackle, D end, and cornerback positions, first and foremost, and then some more. Those were the glaring weaknesses last year that prevented the Bills from taking the next step.

 

I loved that focus, although I really wanted them to get another cornerback earlier than they did so, as there was no quality depth at the position, beyond the need for a starting CB.

 

To say they had no plan makes no sense, so can you elaborate?  You mean a plan you liked? Offensive weapons early, instead?

 

 

[boyst]

49 minutes ago, Mister Defense said:

 

What are you talking about?

 

They clearly had a plan, to bolster the D tackle, D end, and cornerback positions, first and foremost, and then some more. Those were the glaring weaknesses last year that prevented the Bills from taking the next step.

 

I loved that focus, although I really wanted them to get another cornerback earlier than they did so, as there was no quality depth at the position, beyond the need for a starting CB.

 

To say they had no plan makes no sense, so can you elaborate?  You mean a plan you liked? Offensive weapons early, instead?

 

 

The year we drafted elam... It was different. Bad draft. The plan sucked. 

[dcinmuncie]

3 minutes ago, boyst said:

The year we drafted elam... It was different. Bad draft. The plan sucked. 

i don't know if i agree it was a bad draft.

 

four players got second contracts. Elam was an obvious swing and miss, but 4 second contract guys makes up for this IMO

[boyst]

16 minutes ago, dcinmuncie said:

i don't know if i agree it was a bad draft.

 

four players got second contracts. Elam was an obvious swing and miss, but 4 second contract guys makes up for this IMO

We wasted a pick on Elam. We drafted Benford and got lucky, drafting 2 CB's was bizarre.. Shakir was a diamond that was expected to shine. Tenuta and Spector were ***** at the wall.

 

We needed OL. Linderbaum was an obvious choice.  We needed LB and others were there. We needed pass rush and karlaftis was there and others.  We even could have went Breece Hall.

 

Hindsight is 2020 but we didn't need Elam. And he didn't justify that pick. Many of us said this. 

[Allen2Moulds]

18 hours ago, Matt_In_NH said:

We don’t know if his BPA are any of those guys over Elam.  

I can't dispute that, but conveniently it seems that Beane's BPA is always the biggest hole on our roster.  He does great in the late rounds. If he can't stop skewing his grade by need, I believe it would go even better.