Right behind the Jets... http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000496901/article/ranking-nfl-backfields-from-no-1-to-32 -just a little blurb on Ajayi
Not behind the #32 run blocking O line he won't. He's used to Wisconsin cornfed...BIG difference. If he stinks it up, can we kick you?
I can help arbitrate between LB and 68 to create an appropriate Sig bet between the two said first round picks. Let's not fumble this opportunity gentlemen...
When was the last time a Wisconsin running back made a successful transition into the pro game? I was at the game in your sig pic, we got killed, but at least our 'Merica helmets were bada$$!
just because he came from a certain school does not mean he can not have a successful career in the NFL. I am fine with taking Parker over Gordon by the way but this whole "when is the last time a player from this university did well in the NFL" logic does not make sense at all lol When is the last time a quarterback from Cal translated well in the NFL before Rodgers? Purdue before Brees? miami of Ohio before Roethlisberger? Dartmouth before Flacco? university of Pittsburgh before and after Marino?
Purdue before Brees? There was a pretty good QB for the Dolphins named Bob Griese........ Purdue has thrown for more TD's and yards than any other college program in NFL history and produced 3 Super Bowl Champions (Dawson, Griese, Brees) which is also a record.
When was the last time evaluating a college prospect by his school instead of his talent was actually worth more than dried dog sh~t on a work boot?
You gonna pretend that Wisconsin doesn't always have amazing offensive lines that make their running backs look very good? Montee Ball and Ron Dayne were seen as highly talented and were drafted in the 1st and 2nd rounds and were busts or well on their way to becoming one. Melvin Gordon may be amazing but let's not pretend that the program or system they are coming from doesn't matter.
Wisconsin's line last year was far from amazing. While they've had very good lines in the past that simply wasn't the case this past season.
It's interesting you use the word "pretend" because yeah there is a lot of pretending going on here. You're pretending for example that the Wisconsin system with Melvin Gordon is the same system that was in place with the other backs. You're pretending that the same Wisconsin OLs are there. You're pretending that Ron Dayne, who played at Wisconsin quite literally 15 years prior, has any bearing on Melvin Gordon. You're pretending that this method of evaluation has any use whatsoever. Lots of pretending.
Stereotype has been applied to USC and QB/WR for a number of years. You also stated (going off memory here, so not entirely certain) that Missouri had a knack for making pass catching TEs look good in college but none have translated to the NFL well so you didn't expect Egnew to either, so there is that as well. Correlation can be found everywhere, so it isn't exactly worth the dried dog s$$t that you mention. It's worthy of consideration at the least. Basing the entirety of the draft value on the school alone is absurd, I think we can all agree on that though.
Maybe my mentioning of Ron Dayne is reaching too far back, but my point stands that Wisconsin usually has a run friendly offense. I agree that you shouldn't base his entire draft value on the school alone but it definitely is a factor IMO
Not really since Wisconsin's OL wasn't nearly as good last year as it had been in the past. The fact that Wisconsin has had good OLs in the past has no bearing on whether Gordon will succeed in the NFL.
You're not entirely certain because it's not true. While it is true that Gary Pinkel's offensive system (which has remained a steady constant at Missouri, unlike the other places you mention such as USC or Wisconsin) simplifies a tight end's responsibility to a degree that proves to be an extra hurdle for those players learning an NFL system, I did not cite this as a reason Michael Egnew would not succeed at the NFL level. In fact I had Egnew running (albeit a distant) third to Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen in that draft. If your interpretation of that is me saying Egnew would not succeed in the pros because he's a Missouri tight end, then I think that's a poor interpretation. Let's call this for what it is. It's lazy evaluation. It's trying to pass off dog sh-t as chocolate pudding. Tying Melvin Gordon together with Ron Dayne, when there are 15 years of separation between the two, completely different coaches, completely different systems, completely different supporting players, etc...is dog sh-t. That's what it is. Dry dog sh-t or wet dog sh-t, I'll leave that up to you. But it's dog sh-t.
Agreed regarding Gordon (plus he was my first choice leading up to the draft)...but is it going to be a thing that we talk about him in every single thread for the length of his career? I've seen a bunch already and teams haven't even had real practice yet.
From what I can tell, even among those of us who would have preferred Melvin Gordon to DeVante Parker, there's really only one poster that keeps bringing it up over and over again. And I think that poster marginalized himself a long time ago. So yeah you could hear Gordon being brought up every time he does something. But 90+ percent of the time, that will just be the one poster doing it over and over again.
Everybody on Wisconsin's roster who had over 30 carries averaged at least 5.7 yards a carry. Gordon had 7.5, McEvoy had 8.8, Clement had 6.5 and Ogunbowale had 5.7. Doesn't seem too shabby of run blocking to me. Again college program/system isn't everything but I think it should be factored.
I'm not going to hold back when I see evaluation of players based exclusively on their school. As you might have noticed, it is a serious pet peeve of mine because for some reason people still give it credence even though it defies logic. If there was ever a child molester in your town then I get to say you're probably a child molester too. Because, LOGIC! Weighing a player's system, experience and coaching is completely different. Talking about the experience that Gary Pinkel tight ends have, or the production that they tend to have, has nothing to do with schools or laundry. Even talking about Jeff Tedford quarterbacks has nothing to do with saying Oregon or California quarterbacks never work out. You're talking about the experience those players have relative to the experiences they're going to have, and whether there are any incremental hurdles that result from that translation. That doesn't mean players can't bound over those hurdles easily, as we saw when Aaron Rodgers made a complete EMBARRASSMENT of those claiming that Jeff Tedford quarterbacks can't play in the NFL. But the extra hurdles could be there nonetheless. Just as the system must always be considered when evaluating a player's pure production, with emphasis being placed on efficiency metrics. And none of any of that has any resemblance to saying that a Wisconsin running back is not going to succeed because of Ron Dayne. Or because of James White, Montee Ball or John Clay. All of those players had talent profiles unique to themselves and they all deserved individual evaluation. Hence Clay was not drafted, White was drafted in the 4th round, and Ball was drafted in the late 2nd round. Lest we start pretending they all got painted with the same awesome brush and drafted in the 1st round simply because they were Wisconsin backs. They weren't. I will not take pity on someone that falls into that trap because you SHOULD know better.
You realize that McEvoy is a QB right? Including a QB in your RB list is as bad as including Ron Dayne or claiming Gordon will fail b/c past RBs from the school, many under different systems, didn't succeed in the NFL. Are you trying to come up with a complete list of lazy evaluation techniques?
The thing about these lazy evaluation techniques is...nobody is claiming you can't have an opinion. But if you're going to have one and you're going to assert it toward someone else in an arguing way intended to convince other people that your opinion is right, don't form that opinion lazily. It's like writing an editorial for the newspaper and then misquoting people, making assumptions that aren't true, stating facts that aren't really facts, misspelling words and writing sentence fragments. Nobody's forcing you to step up to the microphone. But if you are going to come up to the mic, come correct.
It's the disagreeing with my opinion is violating my free speech rights shtick. The same people are probably in the PoFo making the same comments when someone tells them their link to the Drudge Report is bull****.
Miller gets his fair share of attaboys, no? IMO it's the run blocking/play design from last year that goes unappreciated.
Maybe he does. But he was damn good in ways I'm not sure even the attaboys appreciate. And you could definitely be right about the blocking and scheme. I mean, it's not like he was pulling a Lynch and carrying blockers from the LOS for 5 yards every carry.
I don't think they're underrating Lamar Miller, I think they don't like who's behind Lamar Miller. A lot of the teams ranked above us have very good tandems, if a guy like Bernard is taking a play or two off, they have Hill to go in. A lot of teams ranked above us have two capable starters. The one that stands out to me is the Broncos at 13... they can produce but because of Peyton's passing threat.. defenses are looking to defend the passing game first... I don't think CJ Anderson or Montee Ball are more talented than Miller but they are a tandem so I guess for that reason you put them above us but I don't think there's much difference between the 13th ranked team up to 21 except for the Rams. I'd definitely rank the Rams running backs over the Broncos..
I guess Im going off my opinion of Miller, which is very high, and not the general consensus, which is probably what you were referring to. My mistake. If you don't mind, talk about some of the things youre referring to. Maybe that'll open more eyes to how well he's played.
I have a very high opinion of C.J. Anderson. He's been a revelation. As for Lamar Miller my honest opinion was that in the final month of 2014 he really started to come around and do more by himself than he had been doing in the first three quarters of 2014. I remember during the BALTIMORE game thinking this is one of the first times that I've seen Lamar Miller perform legit well for a tailback and not just produce what the combination of blocking and his speed gives him. He's a physically gifted guy, which always gave him a nice floor as an NFL player. This is why he was a good draft pick. But had we seen him step up and actually be good? In my opinion rarely, but then in that Baltimore game he did just that and kept doing it through the end of the season. I looked it up and the metrics bear that out. Final four games last year his Elusiveness Rating (post-contact yards per attempt multiplied by broken tackles per attempt) was 52.5, good for 8th out of 35 qualifying backs (qualification set at 10+ attempts per game = 40+ attempts over the four game stretch). The first 12 games his Elusiveness Rating was 23.5, which was 33rd out of 38 qualifying backs (qualification set at 10+ attempts per game = 120+ attempts over the 12 game stretch). Anyway point being right around that Baltimore game I truly felt like the proverbial light bulb went on for Lamar Miller and I hope he continues that into 2015. EDIT: Should be noted though, we've seen stretches like that before for Lamar Miller. During a four-week stretch in Weeks 7 through 10 of 2013, he had a nice 60.0 ER on 60 attempts. The other 12 games he had a pitiful 13.0 ER on 143 attempts, making his full year ER a pedestrian 23.3. So we need to actually see him continue looking like the light bulb has come on.
1) I already admitted including Dayne in my other post was my bad 2) Please tell me where I said McEvoy was a RB, I said players on Wisconsin's roster with at least 30 carries. I was trying to illustrate that Wisconsin players outside of Gordon seemed to able to effectively behind the line you were calling not very good. 3) Lazy evaluation would be simply calling Wisconsin's offensive line not very good (particularly run blocking for this argument) and then not backing it up at all.
You take things way too seriously and are too involved with yourself. God forbid someone, who admittedly said they could be wrong when going back on memory, misinterpreted something you said a long time ago. Instead of addressing it and moving on (like you did in your first post, which was fine), you go back and revisit the topic in separate posts. I guess you got all worked up about that and couldn't let it remain unaddressed without criticizing and trying to belittle me. Congrats. Well done.
In all the Gordon vs. Gurley posts pre-draft it was talked about constantly. Even the Wisconsin fans admitted that it was a down year for the OL. But that's really irrelevant. What is relevant is the ridiculous idea that anybody can say that a RB will be bad b/c other RBs there in the past were bad. Completely ignoring the fact that Wisconsin fired their OL coach in 2012 or that there are obviously new players there. Its actually worse than lazy evaluation. It's just a ridiculous thing to say.
Except the post you just quoted was not addressed toward you. In the slightest. You referenced a first post I had on it that was fine. I'm glad you approve of that one post on the issue because that one post on the issue was all I wrote about it. I'm sure I won't get an apology for the unnecessary insults based on your misreading of my posts though.