The Dallas Cowboys' draft board was leaked after the fact. While this is naturally of the most interest to Cowboys fans, it's always pretty cool to get a look at what teams really think of particular players. Of particular interest to me, of course, are the players the Rams ended up drafting, and the value that the Cowboys placed on them.
Now, keep in mind, this is not about the Cowboys specifically. I'd be just as interested in the draft board of any other team. And of course, different players fit into different schemes in different ways. The Cowboys prefer giant-sized offensive linemen, for example, so one would expect to see them putting a lower grade on the smaller, more mobile guys who might be prized in another system. Still, it's interesting.
1(1) - QB Sam Bradford, Oklahoma
First round grade, top overall. Obviously, the Cowboys really liked Mr. Bradford, and I have to say I'm encouraged by that.
2(33) - OT Rodger Saffold, Indiana
Third round grade, well down on the list. Well, Saffold isn't exactly the Cowboys' kind of lineman, so this isn't particularly surprising.
3(65) - CB Jerome Murphy, South Florida
Not listed. The earliest missing name that could be Murphy is in the 6th round. The Cowboys had 11 guys listed at CB in the first five rounds. It's safe to say they are not fans of Jerome Murphy.
4(99) - WR Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati
Third round grade, last in the group. Basically, the Cowboys feel Mardy Gilyard went about where he should, at a decent value.
5(132) - TE Mike Hoomanawanui, Illinois
Sixth round grade, third in group. Good news, they thought he was draftable. Bad news, he went kind of early.
5(149) - DE Hall Davis, Louisiana-Lafayette
Not listed. Again, they could have him listed in the sixth, in one of the spots that wasn't decipherable. Or they might not have him listed as draftable.
6(170) - TE Fendi Onobon, Houston
Not listed.
6(189) - LB/DE Eugene Sims, West Texas A&M
Fifth round grade, 12th in the group.
7(211) - CB Marquis Johnson, Alabama
Not listed.
7(226) - DE George Selvie, South Florida
Not listed.
7(254) - Josh Hull, Penn State
Not listed.
None of this is particularly surprising. For the Cowboys to differ on an offensive lineman is expected. For the late round guys not to be included on the Cowboys list, that's also not surprising, given that they only had nine names listed in the 6th round, and seven in the 7th. There's no point to ranking out everybody who could conceivably be drafted, since there are too many guys who will be draftable into other systems and situations that any one team might have no interest in at all.
The most interesting tidbits are that the Cowboys obviously really loved Sam Bradford, and that they obviously really didn't like Jerome Murphy. Not that putting Bradford first overall is a commitment to drafting him if he had somehow fallen, but putting him #1 on their board reflects a strong belief in his talent. I can get behind that. Murphy... well, obviously somebody else thinks he's not the best risk as the top pick in the third round. Oh well.
The other interesting part of this relates to my recent post on why teams are usually so happy after the draft is over. Look at the Cowboys this year. They wound up picking at the 1-24, 2-55, 4-126, 6-179 and 6-196 spots. At 1-24 they got their 12th rated player, and late in the 2nd round they got their 14th rated player. They got a 4th rounder in the 4th round, but they took the top guy they had rated there, and they got him near the bottom of the round. With the two sixth rounders, they took guys they had rated in the 5th round. And this is without listing a full complement of players in any round. The Cowboys had reason to crow about their draft, because they had players falling to them at every single spot.
This is not surprising in the least, as I said in the older post. I'm willing to bet that everybody got great value according to their own board. It's maybe a bit more instructive to look at who got value according to somebody else's board.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Rams Draft Review
1(1) - QB Sam Bradford, Oklahoma
I've already shared my reservations about Bradford. It's not that I dislike him, and I certainly want him to succeed now that he's a Ram. It's just that I can see the narrative that will be written in five years if his career is more Alex Smith than Peyton Manning, and the reasons that will be given as obvious then are being ignored right now.
2(33) - OT Rodger Saffold, Indiana
I said here I wanted them to go WR or OT here, and they did, just not with either of the guys that I wanted. I was absolutely shocked that Bruce Campbell fell as far as he did. Saffold was apparently a late riser, and his experience is absolutely a huge positive for him as a player. Getting a read on him is tricky... some people seem to think he's clearly a LT, and is weak as a run blocker, and others seem to think he may be too slow to be a LT, and will wind up as a RT or even moving inside. The Rams are talking about playing him at RT and inside, so make of that what you will.
I was pushing for Campbell or Brown, both more pure LT prospects, in part because I have absolutely zero faith that Jason Smith is going to be of any use to the Rams, given the concussion problems. I also have zero faith that Alex Barron is worth a darn, so basically, I figure the Rams have to start all over at tackle. That may not be a realistic stance; you can't draft a guy #2 overall and then immediately give up on him, but darned if I wasn't still hoping the Rams would draft Campbell in the 4th when he was still available. Anyway, Saffold is a good pick, and probably a better fit than Campbell or Brown, given that he's not a pure LT prospect, and may be a better fit to displace Barron immediately, and seriously, getting rid of Barron as a starter would be cause for joy.
3(65) - CB Jerome Murphy, South Florida
Murphy is another player who it's hard to get a good read on. One knock on him is that he's not very instinctive, but go elsewhere, and his instincts are considered a plus. He's an aggressive defender, both against the ball in the air and against the run, so hopefully the instincts actually are a plus. A non-instinctive aggressive corner is going to be toasted more often than marshmallows over a campfire.
4(99) - WR Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati
I'm very optimistic about Gilyard. Apparently got knocked for "character issues" which consisted of losing his scholarship over academic performance, which ignores the fact that he worked his way back into school and onto the team, which says something far more positive about his character than the original academic struggles say anything negative.
Gilyard's exactly the kind of guy I love. Decent enough measureables (with one caveat), but tremendous performance on the field. He's not the biggest or the fastest, but he's certainly athletic enough, and he got the job done at Cincinnati. The one issue is that he ran slow at the combine, but rebounded with a better time at his pro day. That's suspicious, though it probably just means he had a bad day at the combine. Still, I really like this pick.
5(132) - TE Mike Hoomanawanui, Illinois
Not so excited here. Good size, good blocker, not much of a receiver. The red flag for me is that he wasn't even a full-time starter as a senior. Sure, there are players who aren't given enough playing time in college for one reason or another, but when a team doesn't want to start a player, how does that say anything good about his prospects for the next level?
5(149) - DE Hall Davis, Louisiana-Lafayette
It's not exactly a stretch to predict that a 5th rounder will be a washout. But I firmly believe that Davis will be a washout. There's nothing about his performance or his measureables that suggest that there's much to him.
6(170) - TE Fendi Onobon, Houston
Big, fast, strong, and caught two passes in college. Looked fabulous at Houston's pro day, but obviously hasn't performed on the field. Equally obviously, the Rams are hoping Onobon is another Antonio Gates. Anything is possible, but I'm drawn to the difference between Gates and Onobon as basketball players... Gates was a better baskeball player, so he'd shown something while actually playing a game, at least.
6(189) - LB/DE Eugene Sims, West Texas A&M
Has the height, but not the weight to play DE. Needs to bulk up, and grow into his frame. Not really on a lot of people's radar. It's a late pick, so it's far from a problem to take fliers like Onobon and Sims, but I do have to wonder... how many guys can you afford to carry who are projects?
7(211) - CB Marquis Johnson, Alabama
Slow for a corner, too small for safety. Probably the high end of expectation is that he'll stick around for a year or two as depth in the backfield.
7(226) - DE George Selvie, South Florida
His teammate on the other side, Jason Pierre-Paul, went in the 1st round. Selvie was awesome as a sophomore, and faded the last two years, though he remained productive, and at least one observer I read noted that Pierre-Paul was greatly assisted by the attention paid to Selvie on the other side. He's an intriguing option as a 7th rounder.
7(254) - Josh Hull, Penn State
All Big-10 as a senior, while playing in a linebacking group that included two other 2010 draftees. A pure two-down player, he's expected to be a good special teams player. I like this pick a lot for that reason, and because I like specialists. Give me a guy who can do one thing well, and let the coaches figure out how to leverage that, rather than the all-around mediocre guy.
Overall... well, who are we kidding? This Rams draft will be great if Bradford is great, and bad if he's bad.
I've already shared my reservations about Bradford. It's not that I dislike him, and I certainly want him to succeed now that he's a Ram. It's just that I can see the narrative that will be written in five years if his career is more Alex Smith than Peyton Manning, and the reasons that will be given as obvious then are being ignored right now.
2(33) - OT Rodger Saffold, Indiana
I said here I wanted them to go WR or OT here, and they did, just not with either of the guys that I wanted. I was absolutely shocked that Bruce Campbell fell as far as he did. Saffold was apparently a late riser, and his experience is absolutely a huge positive for him as a player. Getting a read on him is tricky... some people seem to think he's clearly a LT, and is weak as a run blocker, and others seem to think he may be too slow to be a LT, and will wind up as a RT or even moving inside. The Rams are talking about playing him at RT and inside, so make of that what you will.
I was pushing for Campbell or Brown, both more pure LT prospects, in part because I have absolutely zero faith that Jason Smith is going to be of any use to the Rams, given the concussion problems. I also have zero faith that Alex Barron is worth a darn, so basically, I figure the Rams have to start all over at tackle. That may not be a realistic stance; you can't draft a guy #2 overall and then immediately give up on him, but darned if I wasn't still hoping the Rams would draft Campbell in the 4th when he was still available. Anyway, Saffold is a good pick, and probably a better fit than Campbell or Brown, given that he's not a pure LT prospect, and may be a better fit to displace Barron immediately, and seriously, getting rid of Barron as a starter would be cause for joy.
3(65) - CB Jerome Murphy, South Florida
Murphy is another player who it's hard to get a good read on. One knock on him is that he's not very instinctive, but go elsewhere, and his instincts are considered a plus. He's an aggressive defender, both against the ball in the air and against the run, so hopefully the instincts actually are a plus. A non-instinctive aggressive corner is going to be toasted more often than marshmallows over a campfire.
4(99) - WR Mardy Gilyard, Cincinnati
I'm very optimistic about Gilyard. Apparently got knocked for "character issues" which consisted of losing his scholarship over academic performance, which ignores the fact that he worked his way back into school and onto the team, which says something far more positive about his character than the original academic struggles say anything negative.
Gilyard's exactly the kind of guy I love. Decent enough measureables (with one caveat), but tremendous performance on the field. He's not the biggest or the fastest, but he's certainly athletic enough, and he got the job done at Cincinnati. The one issue is that he ran slow at the combine, but rebounded with a better time at his pro day. That's suspicious, though it probably just means he had a bad day at the combine. Still, I really like this pick.
5(132) - TE Mike Hoomanawanui, Illinois
Not so excited here. Good size, good blocker, not much of a receiver. The red flag for me is that he wasn't even a full-time starter as a senior. Sure, there are players who aren't given enough playing time in college for one reason or another, but when a team doesn't want to start a player, how does that say anything good about his prospects for the next level?
5(149) - DE Hall Davis, Louisiana-Lafayette
It's not exactly a stretch to predict that a 5th rounder will be a washout. But I firmly believe that Davis will be a washout. There's nothing about his performance or his measureables that suggest that there's much to him.
6(170) - TE Fendi Onobon, Houston
Big, fast, strong, and caught two passes in college. Looked fabulous at Houston's pro day, but obviously hasn't performed on the field. Equally obviously, the Rams are hoping Onobon is another Antonio Gates. Anything is possible, but I'm drawn to the difference between Gates and Onobon as basketball players... Gates was a better baskeball player, so he'd shown something while actually playing a game, at least.
6(189) - LB/DE Eugene Sims, West Texas A&M
Has the height, but not the weight to play DE. Needs to bulk up, and grow into his frame. Not really on a lot of people's radar. It's a late pick, so it's far from a problem to take fliers like Onobon and Sims, but I do have to wonder... how many guys can you afford to carry who are projects?
7(211) - CB Marquis Johnson, Alabama
Slow for a corner, too small for safety. Probably the high end of expectation is that he'll stick around for a year or two as depth in the backfield.
7(226) - DE George Selvie, South Florida
His teammate on the other side, Jason Pierre-Paul, went in the 1st round. Selvie was awesome as a sophomore, and faded the last two years, though he remained productive, and at least one observer I read noted that Pierre-Paul was greatly assisted by the attention paid to Selvie on the other side. He's an intriguing option as a 7th rounder.
7(254) - Josh Hull, Penn State
All Big-10 as a senior, while playing in a linebacking group that included two other 2010 draftees. A pure two-down player, he's expected to be a good special teams player. I like this pick a lot for that reason, and because I like specialists. Give me a guy who can do one thing well, and let the coaches figure out how to leverage that, rather than the all-around mediocre guy.
Overall... well, who are we kidding? This Rams draft will be great if Bradford is great, and bad if he's bad.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Happy-Making NFL Draft
Joe Posnanski had an interesting post about the reaction to the NFL draft. He comments on the GMs and draft runners "doing their annual 'I can’t believe he was still there' dance." Yeah, everybody's happy after the draft. Everybody's talking about the steals they got.
The thing is, if you think about it, it's pretty obvious why that is.
Nobody sees the players in the draft in exactly the same way. Go around the league and talk to the GMs of every team, and you'll get different evaluations of every single player. Now, there will be limits to this, of course. You'll be hard pressed to find an NFL talent evaluator who doesn't think Gerald McCoy is a terrific talent, for instance. However, you'll find lots of variation in how much that evaluator wants to get McCoy on his particular team, based on team need for defensive tackles, based on defensive scheme, based on their read of his character, and based on straight-up evaluation of football talent. Among other things. The end result is that nobody's evaluation on any one player is quite the same, and nobody's draft board is going to look quite like anybody else's. There will be a lot of variation.
So, here's a simplified experiment. Let's assume, just for the sake of discussion, that the value of every player in the draft can be quantified as a single whole number. To mimic the variation we just talked about, every player's value has to be seen by each team as filtered through the eyes of their scouts. No team's scouts will miss on a player's value by more than 20%. A player worth 50 might be seen as worth 60 by one team, and 40 by another, but no more or less than that. Teams will always take the player on their board with the highest numerical value, because in this simplified world, they don't have to worry about positional scarcity. Is this entirely realistic? No, but it's actually pretty similar to the way teams are forced to think when they set up their draft boards.
Let's say the top player in this year's draft was worth 100 points, the second best player was worth 99 points, and so on, down through the end of the first round where the 32nd player was worth 69 points. How might this theoretical draft play out?
Well, I used a random number generator to come up with a bunch of numbers between -20 and +20, which we'll use as our scouting filter to determine each team's evaluation of each player, with a negative number subtracting that percentage from each player's score, and a positive number adding that much. (So, a -10 for the player worth 80 would make his evaluation by that team a 72, a +10 would make it an 88.)
Our first team, we'll call them the Rams, rolled a -14 and -18 for the actual top two players in the draft, so their evaluations dipped dramatically. However, they rolled a +18 for player #7, making his evaluation in their eyes a 110.92.
#1 - Rams - Player7 - Actual worth, 94 - Perceived worth, 110.92 - Rank on team board - 1
The team picking second, the Lions, rolls a +14 on player2, giving him the highest value of anyone in the draft.
#2 - Lions - Player2 - Actual worth, 99 - Perceived worth, 112.86 - Rank on team board - 1
Picking third, the Bucs rolled a 19 on the top player, making him their no-brainer pick.
#3 - Bucs - Player1 - Actual worth, 100 - Perceived worth, 119.0 - Rank on team board - 1
Here's the top 16 picks done in this fashion, with team name, player, Actual worth, perceived worth, and rank on team board.
So why are so many teams so happy after the draft? Maybe in part because they're putting on an act, sure. But almost certainly it's due in large part to the subjective nature of the draft, and the way very few teams ever get stuck with the player that they "should" get looking at their draft board ahead of time.
The thing is, if you think about it, it's pretty obvious why that is.
Nobody sees the players in the draft in exactly the same way. Go around the league and talk to the GMs of every team, and you'll get different evaluations of every single player. Now, there will be limits to this, of course. You'll be hard pressed to find an NFL talent evaluator who doesn't think Gerald McCoy is a terrific talent, for instance. However, you'll find lots of variation in how much that evaluator wants to get McCoy on his particular team, based on team need for defensive tackles, based on defensive scheme, based on their read of his character, and based on straight-up evaluation of football talent. Among other things. The end result is that nobody's evaluation on any one player is quite the same, and nobody's draft board is going to look quite like anybody else's. There will be a lot of variation.
So, here's a simplified experiment. Let's assume, just for the sake of discussion, that the value of every player in the draft can be quantified as a single whole number. To mimic the variation we just talked about, every player's value has to be seen by each team as filtered through the eyes of their scouts. No team's scouts will miss on a player's value by more than 20%. A player worth 50 might be seen as worth 60 by one team, and 40 by another, but no more or less than that. Teams will always take the player on their board with the highest numerical value, because in this simplified world, they don't have to worry about positional scarcity. Is this entirely realistic? No, but it's actually pretty similar to the way teams are forced to think when they set up their draft boards.
Let's say the top player in this year's draft was worth 100 points, the second best player was worth 99 points, and so on, down through the end of the first round where the 32nd player was worth 69 points. How might this theoretical draft play out?
Well, I used a random number generator to come up with a bunch of numbers between -20 and +20, which we'll use as our scouting filter to determine each team's evaluation of each player, with a negative number subtracting that percentage from each player's score, and a positive number adding that much. (So, a -10 for the player worth 80 would make his evaluation by that team a 72, a +10 would make it an 88.)
Our first team, we'll call them the Rams, rolled a -14 and -18 for the actual top two players in the draft, so their evaluations dipped dramatically. However, they rolled a +18 for player #7, making his evaluation in their eyes a 110.92.
#1 - Rams - Player7 - Actual worth, 94 - Perceived worth, 110.92 - Rank on team board - 1
The team picking second, the Lions, rolls a +14 on player2, giving him the highest value of anyone in the draft.
#2 - Lions - Player2 - Actual worth, 99 - Perceived worth, 112.86 - Rank on team board - 1
Picking third, the Bucs rolled a 19 on the top player, making him their no-brainer pick.
#3 - Bucs - Player1 - Actual worth, 100 - Perceived worth, 119.0 - Rank on team board - 1
Here's the top 16 picks done in this fashion, with team name, player, Actual worth, perceived worth, and rank on team board.
- Rams - Player7 - 94 - 110.92 - 1
- Lions - Player2 - 99 - 112.86 - 1
- Bucs - Player1 - 100 - 119.0 - 1
- Redskins - Player5 - 96 - 111.36 - 2
- Chiefs - Player6 - 95 - 101.65 - 2
- Seahawks - Player8 - 93 - 110.67 - 1
- Browns - Player3 - 98 - 106.82 - 3
- Raiders - Player4 - 97 - 116.4 - 1
- Bills - Player12 - 89 - 103.24 - 3
- Jaguars - Player10 - 91 - 102.83 - 7
- 49ers - Player 9 - 92 - 104.88 - 7
- Chargers - Player14 - 87 - 102.66 - 4
- Eagles - Player18 - 83 - 98.77 - 6
- Seahawks - Player16 - 85 - 101.15 - 5
- Giants - Player11 - 90 - 108.0 - 1
- Titans - Player19 - 82 - 90.2 - 10
So why are so many teams so happy after the draft? Maybe in part because they're putting on an act, sure. But almost certainly it's due in large part to the subjective nature of the draft, and the way very few teams ever get stuck with the player that they "should" get looking at their draft board ahead of time.
Friday, April 23, 2010
First round winners and losers.
Just to put down on the record what I think, so I can look back on it in ten years and laugh at how stupid I was:
First round Winners:
Seahawks - Russell Okung, LT, Oklahoma State, 6th. The Seahawks got another Walter Jones. Okung is going to have the best career of any of the tackles in this draft, and the Seahawks got him without having to do anything but wait.
Packers - Brian Bulaga, T, Iowa, 23rd. A tackle projected by many to go in the top 10, and he fell right into the Packers' laps in the bottom third of the round.
Cowboys - Dez Bryant, WR, Oklahoma State, 24th. Clearly the best receiver in this draft. I'm not saying he's a sure thing, but at #24, great value.
Cardinals - Dan Williams, DT, Tennessee, 26th. The kind of space-eater that teams long for in the middle.
First round Losers:
Redskins - Trent Williams, T, Oklahoma, 4th. Not that he's a bad player, but this is a pick based on upside and measurables rather than production. Williams wasn't a great college LT last year, and if he's not a LT, he's not worth picking at #4.
Bills - CJ Spiller, RB, Clemson, 9th. Reggie Bush. He'll be a useful player in the NFL, but he's not going to be a true feature back.
Jaguars - Tyson Alualu, DE, Cal, 10th. Who? What? Here? How? Why?
Giants - Jason Pierre-Paul, South Florida, 15th. A one year wonder whose year wasn't all that wonderful. Falling in love with potential is dangerous.
As for the storm around Tim Tebow going 25th, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think it's a good pick. In January, I thought Tebow was a 3rd rounder at best. However, his dedication in revamping his throwing motion impressed me, as did the result; a motion that will lead to better ball-security and gets the pass out of his hands much more quickly. Tebow will still have a lot of adjusting to do, but he came a long way in a hurry. For all the overblown talk about his character, his working as hard as he did in the weeks following the end of the college season says a lot about his character in a much more tangible form than the usual turgid panegyrics from the media.
First round Winners:
Seahawks - Russell Okung, LT, Oklahoma State, 6th. The Seahawks got another Walter Jones. Okung is going to have the best career of any of the tackles in this draft, and the Seahawks got him without having to do anything but wait.
Packers - Brian Bulaga, T, Iowa, 23rd. A tackle projected by many to go in the top 10, and he fell right into the Packers' laps in the bottom third of the round.
Cowboys - Dez Bryant, WR, Oklahoma State, 24th. Clearly the best receiver in this draft. I'm not saying he's a sure thing, but at #24, great value.
Cardinals - Dan Williams, DT, Tennessee, 26th. The kind of space-eater that teams long for in the middle.
First round Losers:
Redskins - Trent Williams, T, Oklahoma, 4th. Not that he's a bad player, but this is a pick based on upside and measurables rather than production. Williams wasn't a great college LT last year, and if he's not a LT, he's not worth picking at #4.
Bills - CJ Spiller, RB, Clemson, 9th. Reggie Bush. He'll be a useful player in the NFL, but he's not going to be a true feature back.
Jaguars - Tyson Alualu, DE, Cal, 10th. Who? What? Here? How? Why?
Giants - Jason Pierre-Paul, South Florida, 15th. A one year wonder whose year wasn't all that wonderful. Falling in love with potential is dangerous.
As for the storm around Tim Tebow going 25th, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think it's a good pick. In January, I thought Tebow was a 3rd rounder at best. However, his dedication in revamping his throwing motion impressed me, as did the result; a motion that will lead to better ball-security and gets the pass out of his hands much more quickly. Tebow will still have a lot of adjusting to do, but he came a long way in a hurry. For all the overblown talk about his character, his working as hard as he did in the weeks following the end of the college season says a lot about his character in a much more tangible form than the usual turgid panegyrics from the media.
Surprise, it's Bradford!
The Rams have their quarterback, and I wish I could feel excited about it. However, even though I'm not a Jimmy Clausen fan, I find myself thinking that the Rams could have gotten him with the 33rd pick, if they'd taken somebody else number one. Is Clausen a better bet than Bradford to succeed in the NFL? I don't think so, but I don't think the difference is so great that it makes any sense to pay Bradford so much more than what Clausen will get early in the second round.
On the bright side, the Rams have a chance to grab a player to complement Bradford with that 33rd pick, since the draft is very deep. A lot of smart people seemed to think Golden Tate was the second best receiver in the draft after Dez Bryant, and he's available, but he's hardly the prototypical West Coast receiver. Arrelious Benn is closer to the ideal for the Rams offense, with more size, better hands, and more consistent routes. Not that Benn's hands haven't been criticized, but he's still well ahead of Tate in that department.
Or the Rams could go for the offensive line... Bruce Campbell is on the board, and you have to love his athleticism, even as I cringe about his injury issues. He should be worth the risk as a second rounder, though. Charles Brown is on the board, but he might not be the best fit for the Rams' system, though I like his chances of gaining strength through his mid-twenties, which would shore up his biggest weakness. Brown will be able to pass block effectively in the NFL, which means his future is clearly at left tackle, sink or swim.
So what will the Rams do? I'd like to see Brown, Campbell or Benn, but I just don't have a lot of faith that they'll do anything sensible.
On the bright side, the Rams have a chance to grab a player to complement Bradford with that 33rd pick, since the draft is very deep. A lot of smart people seemed to think Golden Tate was the second best receiver in the draft after Dez Bryant, and he's available, but he's hardly the prototypical West Coast receiver. Arrelious Benn is closer to the ideal for the Rams offense, with more size, better hands, and more consistent routes. Not that Benn's hands haven't been criticized, but he's still well ahead of Tate in that department.
Or the Rams could go for the offensive line... Bruce Campbell is on the board, and you have to love his athleticism, even as I cringe about his injury issues. He should be worth the risk as a second rounder, though. Charles Brown is on the board, but he might not be the best fit for the Rams' system, though I like his chances of gaining strength through his mid-twenties, which would shore up his biggest weakness. Brown will be able to pass block effectively in the NFL, which means his future is clearly at left tackle, sink or swim.
So what will the Rams do? I'd like to see Brown, Campbell or Benn, but I just don't have a lot of faith that they'll do anything sensible.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sam Bradford scares me.
Billy Devaney says that the release of Marc Bulger doesn't mean the Rams are locked into selecting Sam Bradford with the top pick in the draft.
Billy Devaney apparently thinks that we're all idiots.
Lying is all part of the business in the NFL, as Ross Tucker pointed out a few days ago. You don't listen to what teams say, you pay attention to what they do. It's been obvious from what Devaney's been saying for a couple of months at least that Bradford was going to be the guy if his shoulder checked out. It apparently has, and what the Rams have done with the release of Bulger, is pretty obviously clearing the decks for Bradford's arrival, no matter what Devaney says with a microphone in front of him.
So why am I particularly scared? Well, let me say, I'm certainly not convinced that Bradford is going to be a bust. I see nothing in his record or his makeup that suggests that he's going to crash and burn. Ordinarily, any time I see "accuracy" at the top of a QB's list of positives in a draft report, I'm a happy man. Mechanics can and have been improved at the professional level. Systems can be learned, and everything that goes on between a QB's ears is going to have to improve anyway. But I've yet to see a QB who was a scattershot in college become a sharpshooter in the NFL. It just doesn't happen. So on that score, Bradford checks out.
The issue that nags at me is this, as expressed in another scouting report, is that "the Oklahoma system involves the team looking to the sideline to get the play. The reading of the D is done by the coaching staff in the booth, relayed to the sideline and given to the QB." Ugh.
Any QB who has worked in a spread system in college is going to have a sharp learning curve in the NFL, sharper than someone who played in a pro-style system. This is not insurmountable, of course, but anything that makes the learning process more difficult isn't something you can shake off, and the record of spread QBs entering the NFL suggests that it's a meaningful issue. In Bradford's case, while the Oklahoma system isn't exclusively a spread, he's coming from a college system that didn't ask him to make pre-snap reads on his own. He's been running an offense with training wheels, with a coach holding his hand along the way.
Again, this isn't insurmountable. There's nothing that says that Bradford can't adjust while he's earning a paycheck. However, it makes the learning curve that much steeper. Bradford will be entering a situation with no proven playmakers at receiver or tight end, with an offensive line that is at best suspect with regard to pass protection and has a cornerstone young tackle with concussion issues. And he'll do it with an epic learning curve for the mental side of the game.
By all accounts, Bradford is smart. He'd better be brilliant.
Billy Devaney apparently thinks that we're all idiots.
Lying is all part of the business in the NFL, as Ross Tucker pointed out a few days ago. You don't listen to what teams say, you pay attention to what they do. It's been obvious from what Devaney's been saying for a couple of months at least that Bradford was going to be the guy if his shoulder checked out. It apparently has, and what the Rams have done with the release of Bulger, is pretty obviously clearing the decks for Bradford's arrival, no matter what Devaney says with a microphone in front of him.
So why am I particularly scared? Well, let me say, I'm certainly not convinced that Bradford is going to be a bust. I see nothing in his record or his makeup that suggests that he's going to crash and burn. Ordinarily, any time I see "accuracy" at the top of a QB's list of positives in a draft report, I'm a happy man. Mechanics can and have been improved at the professional level. Systems can be learned, and everything that goes on between a QB's ears is going to have to improve anyway. But I've yet to see a QB who was a scattershot in college become a sharpshooter in the NFL. It just doesn't happen. So on that score, Bradford checks out.
The issue that nags at me is this, as expressed in another scouting report, is that "the Oklahoma system involves the team looking to the sideline to get the play. The reading of the D is done by the coaching staff in the booth, relayed to the sideline and given to the QB." Ugh.
Any QB who has worked in a spread system in college is going to have a sharp learning curve in the NFL, sharper than someone who played in a pro-style system. This is not insurmountable, of course, but anything that makes the learning process more difficult isn't something you can shake off, and the record of spread QBs entering the NFL suggests that it's a meaningful issue. In Bradford's case, while the Oklahoma system isn't exclusively a spread, he's coming from a college system that didn't ask him to make pre-snap reads on his own. He's been running an offense with training wheels, with a coach holding his hand along the way.
Again, this isn't insurmountable. There's nothing that says that Bradford can't adjust while he's earning a paycheck. However, it makes the learning curve that much steeper. Bradford will be entering a situation with no proven playmakers at receiver or tight end, with an offensive line that is at best suspect with regard to pass protection and has a cornerstone young tackle with concussion issues. And he'll do it with an epic learning curve for the mental side of the game.
By all accounts, Bradford is smart. He'd better be brilliant.
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