NFL 2013 NFL - Off-Season & Pre-Draft Discussion

[Shade]

Joe Flacco has agreed to terms with a new deal for the Ravens which will make him the highest paid QB in NFL history.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Ravens go salary cap bust, losing a lot of talent, back to rebuilding around Flacco.

 

[juice t]

To quote a joke from ESPN:


I had the 11th best QB rating when I won a SB with the Ravens and I got CUT

This moron had the 12th best QB rating, won a SB and gets over 100 million?

This SUCKS!!!

----- Trent Dilfer

 

[Toadvine]

 

[ausbacker]

LOL.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Falcons just cut Turner (Good riddins), Abraham (Hmmm, I'd probably have liked to have seen a replacement ready) and Robinson (Undecided)

Here's hoping we get a 2nd rb to help out Jacquizz, maybe Harper in the 4th
Here's hoping we grab a DE with our first pick.
Here's hoping we can re-sign Grimes.

 

[Shade]

Osi or Dwight Freeney to atlanta book it

 

[Exe Gesis]

To quote a joke from ESPN:


I had the 11th best QB rating when I won a SB with the Ravens and I got CUT

This moron had the 12th best QB rating, won a SB and gets over 100 million?

This SUCKS!!!

----- Trent Dilfer

Lol, Dilfer should actually tweet that.

 

[Shade]

Henry Melton back to chi town with a tag

 

[Dagless]

I'ld love it if Atlanta went into the year with Rodgers @ RB 1.

Bradshaw/Bush maybe?

 

[Dagless]

Ohhhh Ravens.

Considering they went on a Giants-esque 'lucky' streak, I would hardly be confident in putting all of the eggs in one basket.

 

[bangbang]

Can't see yous not having a crack at signing grimes dirtybird, and not grabbing another handy rb. As for flacco and his contract sometimes I don't understand it. Coming from a amateur football team that has won 3 flags in a row, wee kept our core group altogether by not demanding a ton of money nor playing for it really and I don't understand how when we are talking about millions and millions of $$ how there who's continue to get in the way. It's simple, flacco settles for 15-16mill a year, he's still happy and he does that on the basis of retaining his WR corps, adding another weapon or two or whatever it takes to keep his team together. Selfish

 

[Dirty Bird]

Can't see yous not having a crack at signing grimes dirtybird, and not grabbing another handy rb.

Grimes was almost a lock to go last year untill we put the franchise tag on him.
Then he went and got injured and out for the whole year. I think it's helping now, no one wants to risk him. So his option is stay or go no where.

Jacquizz has great core strength and is small enough to be elusive. Could be underrated, but I'd still like someone else, and of course. My Boise bias will hope it's Harper. But Dagless brought up Bush. I'd be happy with him, the speed back to compliment the power back in Jacquizz

DE is actually my biggest worry. We had no depth before we cut Abraham. We'll need to get 1-2 other solid DE's this year. If we get a DE via free agency like Osi, I'd be happy (Freeney can **** off).

Wouldn't want to reach for another position, trade down and accumulate picks next year!!!!

 

[Dagless]

Freeney is better than Osi atm.

 

[TheGreatBarryB]

Falcons just cut Turner (Good riddins), Abraham (Hmmm, I'd probably have liked to have seen a replacement ready) and Robinson (Undecided)

Here's hoping we get a 2nd rb to help out Jacquizz, maybe Harper in the 4th
Here's hoping we grab a DE with our first pick.
Here's hoping we can re-sign Grimes.

Was due a $3m bonus, for a guy that average it's a no brainer.

 

[ausbacker]

Can't see yous not having a crack at signing grimes dirtybird, and not grabbing another handy rb. As for flacco and his contract sometimes I don't understand it. Coming from a amateur football team that has won 3 flags in a row, wee kept our core group altogether by not demanding a ton of money nor playing for it really and I don't understand how when we are talking about millions and millions of $$ how there who's continue to get in the way. It's simple, flacco settles for 15-16mill a year, he's still happy and he does that on the basis of retaining his WR corps, adding another weapon or two or whatever it takes to keep his team together. Selfish

Flacco and his agent believe that an inflated contract makes him an elite Quarterback. The casual football observer realises Joe Flacco isn't an elite Quarterback. Ego is a powerful and often problematic issue.

If Rahim Moore hadn't gone full ****** in the Divisional Round, none of this happens.

 

[Dagless]

The only way this is really justifiable is if there was an expected salary cap rise in the coming years with a high volume of high end QBs coming out of contract in those years (Ala Eli being signed for 'more per year than Peyton/Brady! rabble rabble rabble' - Still laugh that that deal got so much shit, ignoring the league wide circumstance changes)

 

[Exe Gesis]

Very true words by ausbacker and dagless

 

[tb_fanboy]

The only way this is really justifiable is if there was an expected salary cap rise in the coming years with a high volume of high end QBs coming out of contract in those years (Ala Eli being signed for 'more per year than Peyton/Brady! rabble rabble rabble' - Still laugh that that deal got so much shit, ignoring the league wide circumstance changes)

The only way it is justifiable is if he out performs Brady, Rodgers, Manningx2, Brees, and Roethlisberger in the regular and post season, and another super bowl win would also help

not worth the money he's being paid, I'd of either used a FT or let him walk and waited a year for the next QB class which is decent. Let some other team blow Bill Gates' income on him

 

[Woodson]

Ravens go salary cap bust, losing a lot of talent, back to rebuilding around Flacco.

Recipe for D I S A S T E R. In the meantime, Steelers shaving $3mil off Big Ben's salary so his teammates can be re-signed.

 

[Exe Gesis]

This has got a raider bent to it, but it's a good article...

The Difficult Draft of 2013





Bad Draft. Bad Draft. It's a down year for the draft. There are no standouts in this year's draft. It's a terrible year to have a top-5 pick. The 25th pick is the same as the 5th pick.

The perception that this is a poor draft stems from the fact there are no Sure Fire, Top Flight prospects and that the Quarterback class is littered with question marks. Traditionally, the top 3-to-5 draft picks were universally acknowledged because they have the rare combination of productivity, on field excellence, and measurables. They should be elite and they need to be clean. No substantial question marks. They are elite talents and they are Pro Ready Now. That's what a top 5 pick is and, to a lesser extent, the top 10 draft picks should be similar. That is why (for instance) Al Davis' selection of Darrius Heyward-Bey at #7 in the 2009 draft was such a shocker; he had all the measurables and character, but he had notable question marks. He was not a "clean" pick. Similarly, when the 49ers selected Aldon Smith wiht the #7 pick in the 2011 draft, there were mutterings that they reached. Why? Because he wasn't a "clean" pick.

This is not a poor draft. This is not a down year for the draft. This is not a BAD DRAFT. The 2013 Draft is a DIFFICULT Draft.

There is no pool of 3-7 clear-cut, elite level, "clean" prospects and so we can't easily discern who the "Best" player of the draft is. We can't easily stratify the top draft prospects into tiers like Top-5, Top-10, Mid-First, Late-First. As a result, the entire first round starts to feel like a bit of a mess. Since it's so hard to make sense of it all, we might just throw our hands up in the air and say, "It's a bad draft."

But just because something is DIFFICULT does not mean that it is BAD. In fact, some might argue that DIFFICULTY separates the good from the bad. I went to a presitigous engineering university in Pittsburgh. My freshman year, as a few of us were bemoaning the difficulty of some of the classes, one of my friends said, "I like it when the exams are really difficult. It really weeds out the stupid ones." That sentiment has stayed with me and it's notable because it is true and it is important for people who expect to be successful. I've also heard, "If it's easy, it's not worth it" or the most popular aphorism : "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it."

Are you talented? Are you good at what you do? Are you confident in your abilities? If you are, then you have no fear of difficult tasks; in fact, you may prefer for difficult tasks to be given out so that you can show off your abilities.

Now, consider Reggie McKenzie. We all know he's confident in his ability to assess talent and he's shown some indications in last year's Half-Draft(tm) with Miles Burris, Rod Streater, and to a lesser extent, Christo Bilukidi; also, we'll find out more as Nix, Bergstrom, and possibly Jack Crawford seek to contribute in 2013. To a superior talent evaluator, a DIFFICULT draft is a blessing. This is when he's going to show his worth and take a player at #3 (or somehow manage to trade out) that IS worth that spot, despite what Draft Evaluators say.

Without standout talents at the top of the draft, the #3 position may start to appear very undesirable. The typical attitude among fans has been that the talent pool is about the same level for about 20 players, meaning that there's not much difference between (say) the #3 player and the #23 player on the board. That will likely be proven to NOT be true. It is highly likely that a handful in this group will develop into a Game Changer type and that at a later time, should we revisit the draft, those players will be the "Shoulda Been" guys for the top-5.

For instance, do you recall the #11 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft? JJ Watt. The #13 pick in the 2009 NFL Draft was Brian Orakpo. The #26 pick in the 2009 NFL Draft was Clay Matthews. The #10 pick in the 2003 NFL Draft was Terrell Suggs. The #16 pick in 2003 was Troy Polamalu. And the list goes on and on.

The difference in the #3 pick and the #23 pick is CHOICE. The value of the #3 pick is that you have (nearly) the entire talent pool to choose from. You have first pick. At #23, your choices are limited. Even if you have evaluated EXACTLY perfectly, you are dependent upon other teams to pass on your guy and then you are left with "Best of the Rest." Imagine that you have a chance to draft the next JJ Watt; let's say it's Sharrif Floyd. At #3 you can (likely) take him. At #23, you will sweat it out and possibly not be able to get him. Instead, maybe you have to go well down your list and you enter a riskier zone (as befits low 1st rounders). If it is a difficult draft, then the selections become far more unpredictable and it may be more desirable to be able to select YOUR guy rather than to risk your first choice being taken by someone else.

The difference between a top 5-type pick and a late 1st (or later) pick is typically NOT physical attributes. It may not even be long term projections. A deciding factor is often Pro Readiness. Teams picking in the top 5 are typically (by virtue of having a top pick) NOT good teams. They are bad teams that are in dire need of a starter in the next year. A team picking #2 overall does not have the luxury (typically) of taking a developmental player regardless of how they may project him in 2 years.

Aaron Curry was taken #4 overall in 2009 in part because he was so Pro Ready. Also because he had supreme physical attributes. Similarly Rolando McClain #8 in 2010.

Now here's a question for us, as fans, to ask ourselves : Would we want McKenzie to draft the top prospect at #3 with little regard to 1st year contribution? As an example, assume that your evaluations tell you that Oregon OLB/DE Dion Jordan will be an elite player for the Raiders in 2014 but will be a rotational role player in 2013, but that FSU DE Bjoern Werner will be a solid-to-above-average player long term and an immediate starter in 2013. Who do you want? What if you assess that Tennessee WR Cordarrelle Patterson will be an Elite #1 WR in 2014, but likely a Streater-like contributor in 2013?

What do we consider the "Right Way" to do things? Obviously the Raiders are looking to build a long term successful organization and you can't do that with just quick fixes. The Raiders are also still struggling with Salary Cap Issues and will not be freed of many of the anchor-like contracts until at least 2014. Do we want to get Mr. Right or Mr. Right-Now? How you answer will likely demonstrate your patience and your confidence in McKenzie/Allen.

In the Computer Programming area, there is a concept called "Agile Development" (a subset of this is called "Extreme Programming" or "XP"). One major tenet of Agile is that you do not develop with a future scope element in mind; the reason being that quite often, in the real world, requirements shift and expected scope will often never come into being. Then you've put extra thought and effort into something that never materializes. (In truth, the ideal is a balance so that developed components are easy to work with and can be extended as needed).

This is a very pragmatic approach and points out that we never know what the future holds. Injuries, for instance, cannot be predicted and so team positional needs can change drastically within days and possibly even minutes (eg., McFadden and Goodson both going down in the same game). So do you take a long-term, patient view, sacrifice a little bit on the Now, and then find that the situations have changed in the future and you are back where you started, always chasing Tomorrow.

There's a stark difference between a Draft Guru's mock draft and a GM's draft board. The biggest one being that a team's GM will organize his players by his assessment on how they fit on HIS team, how the player's skills translate into their schemes and what they want to do. This not just a "Team X needs a pass rushing DE" or "Team Y needs a LB." It's far more than that. Jason Tarver and Dennis Allen are rolling out their defense; the reports were that they could not fully implement everything they wanted and so we are likely to have more Defensive Installation in the OTAs and minicamps this year. That means that they need players to do particularly things for their scheme. Scheme Fit. So maybe Utah DT Star Lotulelei projects as the more talented DT (presuming his medical clears), but Sharrif Floyd's skillset is a perfect match for the T&A (Tarver & Allen) Defense; obviously the Guru ranks Lotulelei higher and McKenzie places Floyd higher.

The question marks can do alot to separate the picks. They can separate a player from a top pick to a low 1st or a 1st rounder to a 2nd or 3rd rounder. What separated Robert Griffin III from Russell Wilson was one question mark. The question mark resolved to be 3 inches. Prior to the draft, Wilson was universally praised for his entire skillset, his makeup, his drive, and his character. But he was 5'11" (while Griffin was 6'2"). If Wilson were 6'2", while he likely would not have been taken #2 overall, he would definitely have been a 1st rounder and possibly a top-10 pick.
In 2010, Rob Gronkowski was selected in the 2nd round #42 overall. His question mark was a back injury. In the same draft, Jimmy Graham was taken in the 3rd round #95 overall; his question mark was a lack of football experience. Rob Gronkowski made an immediate impact while Jimmy Graham took one year of development and has emerged as an Elite Tight end.

Draft Prep Time is a fun time and the NFL has been continually developing it into a more fan friendly process, providing more and more resources, and broadcasting more and more of the events. With technology advancing, there are more and more outlets for fans to interact and disburse information as well as more informed professionals to do so. So we, as fans, are more in touch with the surface of the process, but like many things, we will never be privy to the true inner workings.

But in this process, as we look at this draft, if it is difficult to figure things out, if the players don't seem to distiguish themselves much, and if it seems like the talent pool is not deep, then we should be thankful. We will be able to get a real gauge on McKenzie's ability to select quality players; a talent that's often discussed when looking at later round draft picks, but in this case, the first round is going to be a real gauge of "eye for talent."

 

[Woodson]

There's a stark difference between a Draft Guru's mock draft and a GM's draft board. The biggest one being that a team's GM will organize his players by his assessment on how they fit on HIS team, how the player's skills translate into their schemes and what they want to do. This not just a "Team X needs a pass rushing DE" or "Team Y needs a LB." It's far more than that.

The WAR ROOM @ any given club is such an intrepid playground where the quick thinkers will need to take chances on their hunch picks or look like schmucks in the long run esp if they trade down and let their original pick land a rookie superstar .. the pressure build up would be immense esp for teams like the Raiders, Browns & Lions who need to find answers at every turn.

Something worth reading... (for the Raiders/ Browns & Lions)

 

[drd23]

Of course Flacco isn't worth that sort of salary - based on his regular season production he's not worth $15m/yr but the Ravens couldn't realistically have a 2nd reigning SB winning QB leave the team during the off-season after the win.

It'll be interesting to see if the next couple of extensions for "franchise"* QBs (Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers iirc) will top this reported Flacco deal

* franchise in the sense that they are good enough to win with, to the extent that a team couldn't realistically just move on without already having a back-up plan set

 

[Exe Gesis]

Greg Cosell‏@gregcosell
Talking w/Pagano reinforced what I was told by many at Combine: Defensive coaches don’t feel read option will be big issue once studied.

 

[Dirty Bird]

Greg Cosell‏@gregcosell
Talking w/Pagano reinforced what I was told by many at Combine: Defensive coaches don’t feel read option will be big issue once studied.

This!