I happen to agree with you about addressing the position earlier, I would of done the same with Sanu and Wylie..but until we see who chose the right players at need positions, I can't criticize.
So your basis for comparison is not body type, skill set, athleticism, or production in college. Instead, it's only round drafted?
Yep, in that sense this was a typical Ireland draft, Lineman early, skill position guys later. Disagree about Egnew though, two Te sets with premium athletic Te's are the way of the current NFL, if Egnew pans out he'd be worth more then a Wr in rd 3. To me, it looks like Ireland is a bit of a slave to Hartline and Bess having modest success at a low price, ditto Miles Austin.
I think they like Fuller and Mayo a ton, but do agree if you want big plays you need premium athletes and those generally cost high draft choices. Rafi likes Matthews, I happen to like Cunningham, but they are late rd pick Wr who usually do not pan out, Ireland's pov is Crayton cost a 6th rd pick, Austin was a UDFA, Hartline and Bess were a 4th rd pick and Bess a UDFA..so why pay for a Wr when you can have Martin who will play more snaps|?
I had the same discussion with rafi over Floyd a couple weeks ago, about separation. Its agree to disagree and rafi has fantastic insight but separation comes in many forms, not just deep and wide open in blown coverage. This goes along with YAC. The slower, bigger guys can have higher YaC the thought of because of their strength. And ability to plow over people.
There is a certain level of body control and timing that is just a skill, like Charles Barkley leading the NBA in rebounds at 6'9 (or whatever he was), the difference is the Wr does need at least adequate speed, but when they have the above, and what I'd call the "hip push", where they literally push off of the defender with their hips and then catch the ball is just uncoachable
Plenty of insults my way too. Although, I might have lashed out at one of the guys who was less antagonistic, Sorry Mr Clean..... Thanks, that's all I was trying to say, and I was pretty shocked so many others did not agree. Long story short, seam TE was need when we had Marshall, but should have been overtaken in priority once he was traded......
Ireland has made it pretty clear that he follows overall grades and value primarily, and tries to avoid deviating from that to fill specific needs. This happens to be an approach I agree with but I realise I might be in a minority when it comes to things like passing on certain wide receivers to draft tackles and tight ends. I think the point Padre raises about lineman etc first then skill positions later, may be happening indirectly. If they are somehow tougher in their grades regarding skill position players then naturally such players may find themselves sliding down the board relative to other positions. So there might be an issue in the internal grading system, rather than any specific, obvious bias. The result is of course the same, but hopefully the grading system is something they review on a regular basis. It might be the case that it just needs a few more washes to get rid of some remaining Parcells grime. That our scouting department spent the majority of last year grading players based on the old approach, and then in short order appears to have reevaluated based on the new requirements of a new coaching staff, is really encouraging. As Darwin said (and apologies to those who don't like him), it's not the strongest or most intelligent who survive, it's those most responsive to change. The attempted Parcells personnel blueprint may have been as good an example of that principle as any.
At many positions, that would be correct. It just seems to me, highly drafted WRs have a pretty high bust ratio compared to most other positions. Lots of starting WRs are found throughout the draft. Guys like Antonio Brown, Lance Moore, Miles Austin, Marques Colston, Wes Welker, Davone Bess, Nate Washington, Denarius Moore, Victor Cruz, Steve Johnson, Josh Cribbs, Kevin Walter, Donald Driver, Pierre Garcon, Patrick Crayton, Doug Baldwin, et al, were drafted late, 5th round on, or not at all. This year, it was widely accepted that the two deepest positions in the draft, in order, were WRs and CBs. That in of itself is going to push some talent down to a lower round than usual. Our very own Mark Clayton, probably the best WR in Dolphins history, was the 223rd player drafted in 1983. That was an 8th rounder then and would be a 7th these days. Look, BJ Cunningham and Rishard Matthews may not end up amounting to a hill of beans, but this position, along with RB, are found in big numbers at all levels of the draft. They are the last two positions, IMO, maybe include safety too, that you need to reach for.
Compared to the Megatrons, AJohnson, Green's of the NFL? I make no bones about the fact that guys who score Td's should always be at a premium over the blue collar player as there is a unique skillset required to be a dominanting offensive player, the Giants more or less have proven you do not need high resource OL's to win championships. but they have stockpiled high draft pick wr's and Te's and paid to keep Bradshaw. For example if Miles Austin was sufficient, why then draft Dez Bryant? This is one of my issues with Ireland, and I think Daben hit the nail on the head, ol' chucklehead Tuna may be gone out of Miami, but his foundational work is still here and effecting decisions.
Aannnnnnnnnnnnd yet we spent a first on the most important skill player. We spent a 2 on RB last year. Are these not TD scoring positions?
Rb who scored -0- Td's? A Qb can make players at the skill positions better however to ask a young Qb to do so is setting them up for failure imo.
Your premise was that Ireland doesn't spend high on guys who play a scoring position. That isn't true and it was just shown to you it wasn't.
IMO, the 3 best WRs in the NFL: Fitz, C. Johnson, A Johnson, all high first rounders,IIRC. If I was going to rank a top 10, I'll bet 7-8 were 1-3 rounders.
Geez Padre I'm not saying they are comparable. That's what you got out of it? I'm saying good WRs can be found at all points of the draft, not just early. There is only one megatron, only one Andre, only one Fitz.
I didn't have anybody in this draft rated that highly. I really like Blackmon, I think he has great body control and a knack for separation despite his lack of top end speed that makes him special, but probably not at the level of those top three. After him I would have taken 3rd and 4th round WRs (Sanu and Wylie were my favs) rather than go for any of the other higher drafted WRs considering the cost and talent. After those two and a few others like Marvin Jones, I have BJ and Matthews as relatively highly rated. This was a very deep WR draft. I could easily see BJ and Matthews being 3rd or 4th round prospects most years. As a general philosophy, I would draft the potential top 5 WR early in the first and then draft the bulk of the WR corp in the 2nd - 4th round range, but I also agree that you can find gems at WR, in particular, in the 7th round or as UDFAs.
well since its about the decision of picking players who score TD´s the result that came out of it on the field is irrelevant imo, ireland took some shots with high picks in the last couple of drafts, the outcome remains to be seen though but can´t argue he is not trying
If just one of these WR's, Cunningham, Matthews, Fuller, or Moye becomes a quality receiver, then that's a big success for Ireland.
It's funny you bring that up because most people don't really know what reason Rishard Matthews dropped. I doubt it was because of the Combine 40 where he ran with a hurt knee against his agent's advice. He ran a 4.44-4.48 at Nevada when he was healthy and the scouts were aware that time is a better reflection of his speed. So why did he drop? Only answer I can come up with is Mike Mayock hinted on the radio that there are some off field issues with him. That would make a lot more sense. I think most evaluators probably had Matthews rated higher than Cunningham on a pure talent basis.
I think realistically, this WR position is in sore need of help. I don't know that I see a future for Davone Bess in this offense. I don't see him as a mismatch player. I think Brian Hartline is underrated and will stay in this offense a while. Clyde Gates I had really high hopes for coming out but let's face it he sucked last year so we'll see. Regardless, I wouldn't have picked him out for this particular offense even though I was high on him coming out. We have four rookies in Cunningham, Matthews, Moye and Fuller, and the guy I might be least interested in is Cunningham to be honest. If he starts showing ability in camp and preseason to get off the press from NFL caliber corners, then he'll have my attention. I watched him try and do that in college and it wasn't pretty. Derek Moye has my attention because of things I saw him do versus the press against players like Dre Kirkpatrick, Dee Milliner and DaQuan Menzie.
I didn't hear what Mayock said, but as somebody who lives out here, I never heard about any off-field issues with Matthews. Ault tends to be considered a disciplinarian and is quick to suspend players or sit them for a quarter or a half for lesser transgressions. Now Matthews did miss the bowl game this year, but that was due to the injury he suffered a few weeks before. As far as I recall, he didn't miss any other games this year. I don't recall any issues in previous years, but unless it was something huge, I doubt it would have affected his draft position much. My guess is that he dropped primarily b/c nobody got to see him perform at the bowl game or at the Senior Bowl due to the injury and then he ran slower than expected at the combine after he re-aggravated the injury before the combine. I just don't see the off-field issue as likely just b/c I haven't heard about it anywhere other than your statement that Mayock hinted at it and locally Matthews was by far our biggest offensive weapon (along with QB Fajardo) so if Matthews had done some thing it almost certainly would have made for big local news. And Ault isn't the kind to not mention that he had to discipline a player.
Just putting out there what Mayock said. I think there are all kinds of things that happen off the field that scare teams but don't necessarily make the news.
I agree with that part. In fact, that was my point last year with Mallett. He was somebody I had followed the local news on since he came out of H.S. so I knew that there had been issues even though you and Boomer couldn't find them before the draft. But as somebody who had a great deal more exposure to the local news surrounding UNR than Mayock, I'm saying I doubt that there was anything related to Matthews. Ault simply isn't the type to not discipline a player for even minor transgressions and he also isn't the type to not mention it when he does. So while it's possible that Matthews was the exception or that he did something that wasn't a rule transgression but made a coach whisper something negative to Mayock (or to some scout who then whispered it to Mayock), I just don't see it as likely. I like Mayock as an evaluator, but I see it as more likely that he just got his info crossed or was just reaching for an explanation for why Matthews dropped. BTW, I appreciate you passing it along. I don't question it in regards to your credibility, but due to my proximity and knowledge of the program, I do question Mayock's knowledge on this one.
Our main point on Mallett was not that nothing was there. It was that all you can find in his history are stories and innuendo, rather than anything concrete, and it's really hard to rely on stories and innuendo because it's almost impossible to draw the line as far as where the facts end and where the embellishment/imagination begins. I've heard it directly, face to face, from people that Mallett partied with in college and they told me what there is to find in his history. I'm sure that's far more than 99% of the people out there that supposedly know what's up with Mallett can say. But I know enough to know how far I can trust that and what conclusions I can and can't draw from it. Sure enough, a year in with the Patriots and all the guy's done is keep his mouth shut, work hard, say all the right things, participate in tons of charities, be a family oriented guy, etc. I even follow him on Twitter and he never says anything there that would make you even begin to question his attitude. I'm not saying that makes him a saint but our point was that for all this talk about what a bad person he is, if that's true, he's shown a deft enough hand at covering it up to where it doesn't even matter what he "really" is like. All the while, the focus should have been on his skills as a quarterback, because he was no slam dunk talent. There were times in my history watching him when I was turned off by what he did on the field, and times I was in love with what he did on the field, and it merited valid discussion. Instead what we got was a constant stream of "As far as talent goes, he's a 1st rounder and nobody can deny that, but his character..." etc. Even if I'm among those that agree he's a 1st round talent, that's what I wanted to debate and discuss, that's what should have been debated and discussed, but it never was. Anywhere.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there was local news on Mallett and his issues that was no longer available by the time the national media cared. Local message boards and small school papers don't have large servers that archive everything long term. Often everything is purged within a year. The only way you know about these issues is if you happen to be following the local news during the small window when people are talking about it. With Mallett there were maturity issues that were more than just innuendo. That doesn't mean that he will never mature or that he won't be a good leader as a pro. It just means that there were real issues that occurred that brought his leadership into question while he was in college. As for Matthews, I'm saying that as somebody who followed the local news, there wasn't even innuendo.
