Noteworthy: - The Vikings killed this draft, with the best haul of all. - 49ers and Rams excelled: the 49ers on defense, and the Rams on offense and defense. - Two teams drafted uncharacteristically well, perhaps hinting at a turn of fortunes for the organizations futures: the Jets and Raiders Arizona Cardinals C+ Reached for Cooper. Minter is good pick. Mathieu is horrendous value. Atlanta Falcons B Two decent players at decent value, but now you need more than CBs. Baltimore Ravens A- Elam for Pollard. Brown makes sense. Williams better than people realize. Buffaloed Bills C Manuel huge reach. Woods decent. Kiki decent but could have waited. Marquise, so-so. Carolina Panthers B- Star is a star. Kawann is good value, but doubling up at DT? Chicago Bears D WTF. Cincinnati Bengals B Eifert at perfect spot. Bernard great back. Hunt overrated but potential. Williams, decent, not great. Cleveland Browns D Bustavious Mingo. Leon's a decent pick. No second rounder hamstrings them. Dallas Cowboys D- Huge reach on Frederick. Escobar a round (or two) early. Terrance Williams very nice. JJ Wilcox I don;t know enough about. Denver Broncos B+ Sylvester Williams is all that. Montee Ball is a great back. Kayvon Webster not as good as February whispers had him. Detroit Lions B Ansah+Suh+Fairley=Most disruptive line in NFL. Slay a solid pick. Warford a good value and player. Green Bay Packers A- Datone Jones has the goods. Eddie Lacy a great value at 61. Houston Texans B+ Hopkins is well cast here, but not dominant. Swearinger is a good talent, but better value in 3rd. Williams and Montgomery the same. Indianapolis Colts A- Werner at 24 is a steal. Thorton in the 3rd is a good pick. Jacksonville Jaguars B Luke Joeckel's a slam dunk. Cyprien is a quality starting FS. Dwayne Gratz is the only blemish. Kansas City Chiefs A- Eric Fisher is a ten year starter for them. Kelce is a great pickup. Knile Davis, if healthy, has huge upside though maybe taken a round early. Miami Dolphins C Dion has amazing upside but is he a system fit? Jamar Taylor can ball, but some other value left on the board. Not totally on board with Dallas Thomas being the best player at 77. More like the best last option at OT (though even Reig Fragel may offer similar performance a round later). Will Davis is a waste at 93. Minnesota Vikings A+ Sharrif Floyd is a top ten talent. Xavier Rhodes is a top fifteen talent. Coardarelle Patterson, while immature, has the tools to be a Pro Bowl receiver. New England Patriots C+ Color me unimpressed by Collins. Dobson is competent and coachable. Logan Ryan I know nada about. Ditto Duron Harmon. Many think Belichick does no wrong, but drafts have been uneven. It's the coaching and the fit not the talent, that makes New England go. New Orleans Saints A Vaccaro makes sense here, and Armstead is a great pick-up in the third with his potential. John Jenkins respectable in the late 3rd. New York Giants B Not a fan of Pugh this high, though he will develop well in that organization. Hankins is worthy of the slot, and Moore is a steal in round three. New York Jets B+ Milliner fits a need with the right level of talent at the right spot. Sheldon Richardson will be a handful for O-lines. Geno Smith is an odd fit, but a good value at a need position. Winters is a good guard at the right draft spot. Oakland Raiders A- Love Hayden at 12. Watson is a coup in the second, and may develop to a Pro Bowl level. Sio Moore is a decent pick on a riser. Philadelphia Eagles B+ Lane Johnson in the fold gives the Eagles great bookends. Ertz will help the offense. Benie Logan is okay, but maybe a little overdrafted. Pittsburgh Steelers B+ Jarvis Jones is the best defensive player in the draft. Bell is good, but stats show he's not the best back of the options out there. Markus Wheaton is solid. San Diego Chargers B Fluker is not good enough to warrant the 11th, unless you are desperate, and San Diego is. Manti T'eo is either a great value or a tabloid headline waiting to happen. Keenan Allen is a ridiculously great value pick in the 3rd round. He should never have made it past 45, let alone to 76. 49ers A Reach for Reid. Tank Carradine is a shrewd move and the best DE in the draft. Vance McDonald will pair perfectly with Davis. Corey Lemonier may have the best first step of any defensive rusher in the entire draft. The 49ers GM putting on a clinic on drafting well. Seattle Seahawks C+ No first hurts. Christine Michael has tons of talent, but questions on injury and attitude that make this a round too soon. Jordan Hill is underrated, and a decent pick here. St. Louis Rams A+ Tavon Austin is 10x what Amendola was, plus runs and returns. Ogletree is the class of the LBs. TJ McDonald doesn't impress me, but Stedman Bailey certainly does as he has the potential to be massively productive at all WR spots over a long career. Rams got much better and that's the point. Tampa Bay Buccaneers B [Edit: forgot Revis trade] Revis added via trade of pick (thanks Springveldt) Banks selected at right level and has a talent for turnovers. Mike Glennon may be the best late-round developmental QB in this draft... except the Bucs took him two rounds too early. Tennessee Titans B- Warmack is a monster. Hunter has too many question marks for me. Blidi is a good corner and could even start, which is great for a 3rd rounder. Zavier Gooden is unknown to me. Washington Redskins B Lacking a first, it's hard to impress. Amerson is a decent pickup. Jordan Reed is a deadly run after the catch player, but cannot block.
The combination of Jordan and Taylor are two excellent picks, at 54 to get Taylor who is the fourth best corner imo is good value. "Taylor has the brains in addition to the brawn. He is a cerebral and patient corner that rarely gambles, and who uses his keen instincts to identify the play and get to the ball quickly. He is a student of the game and has been praised for his hard work, intelligence and leadership. Taylor was a team captain and the leader of a Boise State defense that ranked in the top 12 nationally in overall defense, passing defense, scoring defense, opponents QB rating and passing TDs allowed (1st overall)" The kid has the right makeup, toughness, speed, and cover skills to fill our need very nicely thank you, as in I'll take Jamar in a heartbeat over Sean smith..and Jamar for Vontae is no loss..
really you call a player that you have never seen play a waste ? what a waste reading this bull****...
That grading. You didn't have one positive comment about any of our picks. Why dont you don't just give us a D-? Get some positives going! Jeez!
Our 3rd round was pretty putrid for value, as we got sniped for Armstead at the last second, but man. Giving the Patriots a better grade than us? I don't see it. I saw reach after reach. Im laughing at the Giants draft, too.
The Jets and Bills tied nooses around their necks and jumped off of a bridge, that alone makes it a good draft for the Dolphins. Add in the FA signings and we look pretty damn good. On paper of course.
Nice work Barry, the Rams since adding Fisher have made some outstanding football moves. As far as Miami goes, you and some others are really underestimating what Wil Davis can do....granted I liked him as a 4th or 5th, I still saw a good football player at Utah St.
I think a C is fair at this point. Dion is going to be special. However, trading up for him I think set up the dominoes incorrectly for us. Missing out on Bailey (how I firmly believe they wanted) was a major mistake in my opinion.
Les Snead has done an outstanding job for the rams. No GM has made consistently better decisions over the last two years. That division is going to be ridiculous for the next half decade. Hard to believe it was just a few years ago they didn't have one team finish over .500 and now it's the best division in football.
A C is perfectly fine with me right now. I don't, however, think that we've had the 3rd worst draft so far. Not by a long shot. I also happen to believe that ten years from now, people will look back at the St. Louis Rams and the RG3 trade and say, geez, how did they manage to acquire so many picks and come away with so little to show for it. Jeff Fisher is building a Madden team. I'm still happy he ditched us for a team that would let him play "win yesterday". My thoughts on Miami's selections: Dion Jordan: The "trade" was highway robbery but value doesn't win football games. Jordan has a very high ceiling but, in our case, he also has a very low floor given that he's not a schematic fit and will have to impact in a versatile role right away. I would label this a boom or bust pick, and while I usually loathe boom or bust picks in the first round, I can get on board with this one. We desperately need a pass rusher and if there ever was a draft class that screamed "take a risk or you'll get stuck with a fringe starter", it's this one. Jamar Taylor: I like the selection, but I don't love it. 2012's Jamar Taylor is a first round talent. 2011's Jamar Taylor is a backup. He's got the talent but you have to wonder why the lights didn't come on until his senior season. Dallas Thomas: Perfectly good player and value but I don't fancy a left side of Martin and a rookie LG. Will Davis: Awful tackler and prone to be way too aggressive, but I love his ball skills. And I kinda love his aggressivness, too. Got to find him a role where he doesn't get burned because he jumps routes too early. The uptrade was awfully expensive but then again, the fact that we did uptrade for Davis to begin with suggests that there's not too many players left on the board that we actually like.
I never understand why GM's dont always trade up. We could have had so much talent this year trading up with our late round picks. Why not trade those late round picks with a higher miss % and get 3 players you know have a good shot at helping your team?
This year s definitely a boom or bust draft for us. In three years, we'll either be talking about this as the draft that gave us a championship defense or we'll be lamenting all the damage that Ireland did and wondering if our new GM and new coach can fix it.
Love the 49ers draft; they got the best safety, a great tight end in McDonald and two very good pass rushers at very good value. Our draft this year is pretty much going to depend on Jordan, anytime you move up like that you're putting a lot of the emphasis on whoever you pick. I love the fact he's on our team but when we look back at this draft in 3 years to grade it an awful all going to depend on whether he's developed as we all hope he will. I like Taylor at a position of need, Thomas should at least play some but the Davis pick is a complete mystery to me especially with the talent left on the board.
Philbin has already stated that they are going to put him on the left side. Since I don't think they'll start him at LT right away, Incognito probably moves to RG.
Jordon does everything misi and vernon do, only faster, and he's a much better pass rusher. How is he not a fit for the scheme? Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2
He said he'll compete on the left side. Every year there are those that speculate that Cogs will be moved to RG. In till it happens, color me very skeptical.
Because the ill informed sees him strictly as a 3-4 lb. They don't have a clue on how he will be used here.
Many people seem to think the Dolphins have had a great free agency period and a good draft so far. Personally I think the Rams have had a very productive free agency period and I love their draft. Some individuals on here were happy to see Ireland remain the Dolphins GM and Philbin hired as the teams HC. I said at the time that I thought Fisher would turn the Rams into a playoff team before the Dolphins become one. In looking at the two rosters at this time, I think Fisher has done a better job upgrading his roster than Ireland had done upgrading the Dolphins roster.
Heh. How did I already know the draft grade before I even opened the thread. Some folks are way too predictable.
I can't argue with that assessment. I do think Fisher had a 1-2 yr headstart though. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
I like the Mathieu pick, if he works out, great, if not, eh, it's a #3. Keep in mind he was the best defender on a loaded defense in the SEC
I'm really lost on why the Jordan pick doesn't get more love. Dude was definitely top 5 in this draft and we got him for a 2nd rounder. The move for Jordan alone puts us at B- IMO. It was a shocker and we got tremendous value
I grade the Fins draft a little differently I guess. Jordan - A consensus Top 5 player picked in the Top 5 in a trade that netted us a +510 points in value. For me the incredible value of the trade enhances the grade instead of lowering it. Grade: A Taylor - Depending on whose grade you choose to accept, he was rated anywhere from late 1st to mid 2nd round value. Good value at #54. Grade B+ Thomas - Has a wide range of opinions on his value. I've seen everything from late 2nd to early 4th round. So middle of round 3 equals solid value for me. Grade B Davis - An even wider range of opinions on Will from 3rd to 5th round. So end of round 3 is perhaps a very mild over value. Grade C+ Overall Grade: Solid B
Suppose we would have traded up from #9 to #3 in the 2007 draft for the price of a 2nd round selection and picked JaMarcus Russel. By your rationale, that would have been an A grade, too
What an incredibly thought out and well orchestrated counter to the original post. Did you work through the night fine tuning this?
and it would have been. Grading drafts does not mean grading they're actual production 2-3 years later. Russell was billed as a top 5 pick no doubt in that draft. If miami had taken him, it'd have been an incredible move. Would have blown up in our faces in glorious fashion, but it'd have been quite the move on draft day.
No. It would have been one of the lousiest trades in recent memory. I do realize that many people evaluate draft classes based on arbitrary concepts of value. I just happen to think that it's a poor way of evaluating draft classes, as the Russell example demonstrates quite clearly.
I think those are fair assessments to date. We really won't have any idea for a year or two. Jordan is going to be polarizing obviously, but something to think about: We went into a draft that was very mediocre at the top end with 6 picks in the top 80. So far we have Jordan and some players we hope can help. We had 3 glaring needs, Jordan fills 1, not sure we have touched on the other 2 yet. We also traded,away Bess, have to see how Gibson turns out before grading that. We are also still in dire needs of a runningback to help Miller carry the load. We have missed out on the vast majority of those guys....have,to see what happens today, but those that think that Miller is going to carry 20 times a game are seriously mistaken.
And I'm not saying he will, and I personally don't think he will, but what uf Jordan fails as bad as Ghoulston. Then would you consider it a good move? That isn't any more outlandish than what you have proposed.