News Freo head pack of eight clubs after Jack Watts

[Geoff]

I started writing the times he was in vision on tele so I could go back and follow-up. I got through the first two qtrs and said "What the **** am I doing?" The guy is soooooooofffffffffffffttttttttttt as and I just can't see even a coach like RTB getting anything out of him. Where would he fit in? We are developing a team of hard nuts and we want to bring in souffle. Sorry once again "Thanks but No Thanks"

 

[2013]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-06-04/buyer-beware

This has made me go cold on getting Jack Watts a third round or less is all we should offer

 

[Seppo]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-06-04/buyer-beware

This has made me go cold on getting Jack Watts a third round or less is all we should offer

It took you that article to realise? Didn't you know about Jackie What already?

I liked this part of the article:

All that subtraction leaves us with just three players (excluding this year's crew) who have taken their game to another level after being discarded by their original club: Kepler Bradley (Essendon 49, Fremantle 68), Jay Schulz (Richmond 71, Port Adelaide 57) and Stephen Gilham (Port Adelaide 1, Hawthorn 98, GWS 8)

 

[2013]

It took you that article to realise? Didn't you know about Jackie What already?

I liked this part of the article:

I was always a fan of you don't lose potential and in the right environment all players can blossom, but it turns out a better policy is once terrible always terrible. But i would still risk it for a 4th rounder, key forwards don't grow on trees and hey he might be the exception like Keplar

 

[holy diver]

The sooner Jack is left to go and start the hairdressing salon he's always wanted to run the better for him.

 

[Silent Alarm]

I was always a fan of you don't lose potential and in the right environment all players can blossom, but it turns out a better policy is once terrible always terrible. But i would still risk it for a 4th rounder, key forwards don't grow on trees and hey he might be the exception like Keplar

You can lose potential when you're at Melbourne for five years. He was always a big kid who could bully his way around the ground without having to be physical. Coupled with the low confidence he has, I just don't think you can get him to be a hard player and to use his body after five years in the system.

I'd take a fourth rounder. Paul Seedsman was one of the last blokes picked in 2010. I doubt he was anything more than 65 kilos. He's been a regular for the Pies this season, and played half their games in 2012. Aside from Fasolo, everyone else from his draft dropped off. A fourth rounder > Jack Watts. Any day.

 

[Enya]

I watched Jack Watts vs Freo and vs Hawthorn. The physical attributes are all there, height, pace, stamina.

He has beautiful kicking skills too. Seriously, with that combo, it screams top 10 draft pick.

However, as many have mentioned, mentally he is just not there. He is not a footy player in the head.

So it got me thinking, given what is going on with Essendon at the moment - what are the rules about performance enhancing drugs that are not physiologically enhancing, but psychologically enhancing? What if you gave Jack Watts drugs that changed him mentally?

Steve Jobs once remarked about Bill Gates that had he taken acid, the products he designed would have been far better. That a new perspective, afforded to him by psychedelic drugs, would have given him taste and the ability to discern between great products and utter crap.

So what happens if we trade for Jack Watts, then take him on a massive bender? Fear and Loathing in Fremantle, starring Jack Watts. He could become the player his physical attributes demands.

 

[Geoff]

Someone will offer him something and he will take it. I would chuck out a 4th rounder for him even if it is to give Peel a leg up. With the rumor mill bubbling that we have got him on a verbal, and HT is locked away at WC I'll be pissed off he we get him for may over his value.

 

[Geoff]

I watched Jack Watts vs Freo and vs Hawthorn. The physical attributes are all there, height, pace, stamina.

He has beautiful kicking skills too. Seriously, with that combo, it screams top 10 draft pick.

However, as many have mentioned, mentally he is just not there. He is not a footy player in the head.

So it got me thinking, given what is going on with Essendon at the moment - what are the rules about performance enhancing drugs that are not physiologically enhancing, but psychologically enhancing? What if you gave Jack Watts drugs that changed him mentally?

Steve Jobs once remarked about Bill Gates that had he taken acid, the products he designed would have been far better. That a new perspective, afforded to him by psychedelic drugs, would have given him taste and the ability to discern between great products and utter crap.

So what happens if we trade for Jack Watts, then take him on a massive bender? Fear and Loathing in Fremantle, starring Jack Watts. He could become the player his physical attributes demands.

Nah, not even a chemical introduction would deliver him from sissyness.

 

[E Shed]

Outstanding Enya! Thinking outside the box. My drug taking days are in the past but I'm sure we could find some enthusiastic volunteers to take Jack for a ride on the Magic Bus.

 

[teamex]

guys, seriously.. he's just not worth it unless we do the pick 88 job.. and even then we have to pay him salary. Ross has worked wonders with fancy clancee, with sonson walters, with superhuman suban. but he couldn't do anything with Anthony - who much like Watts has all the attribute of a good player. Heck Anthony had even played a decent couple of seasons. I dont hold high hopes of any miracles occuring with Watts either.

 

[Enya]

Nah, not even a chemical introduction would deliver him from sissyness.

Doctors have shown that LSD can cure alcoholism. Who knows what else.

It is worth a try. I reckon a one month crash course of crystal meth should turn him from soft sissy into a raging aggressive lunatic.

 

[Wigarus]

Someone will offer him something and he will take it. I would chuck out a 4th rounder for him even if it is give Peel a leg up. With the rumor mill is bubbling with he have go him on a verbal, and HT is locked away at WC I'll be pissed off he we get him for may over his value.

I completely agree.

 

[sij1981]

I was always a fan of you don't lose potential and in the right environment all players can blossom, but it turns out a better policy is once terrible always terrible. But i would still risk it for a 4th rounder, key forwards don't grow on trees and hey he might be the exception like Keplar

With lyon anything is possible. He can get motivated to play in a role.

 

[Seppo]

Doctors have shown that LSD can cure alcoholism. Who knows what else.

It is worth a try. I reckon a one month crash course of crystal meth should turn him from soft sissy into a raging aggressive lunatic.

Essendon were doing it wrong all along!!!

 

[Enya]

Right now Jack Watts's career is staring into the abyss. And the abyss is staring right back, making a V with its fingers and sticking its tongue between them.

 

[2013]

You can lose potential when you're at Melbourne for five years. He was always a big kid who could bully his way around the ground without having to be physical. Coupled with the low confidence he has, I just don't think you can get him to be a hard player and to use his body after five years in the system.

I'd take a fourth rounder. Paul Seedsman was one of the last blokes picked in 2010. I doubt he was anything more than 65 kilos. He's been a regular for the Pies this season, and played half their games in 2012. Aside from Fasolo, everyone else from his draft dropped off. A fourth rounder > Jack Watts. Any day.

With Trent Stubbs being the next pick after Seedsman, you can't single out one case and say this is the value of a 4th rounder. Because under that logic Watts > Stubbs slightly

 

[Geoff]

Is there any way we could get him for diddly via PSD?

 

[yakka man]

Is there any way we could get him for diddly via PSD?

It's possible but very unlikely.

 

[Kickett Punches Read]

I'm all for drafting watts. Simply put, Ross Lyon makes players better. Perfect example is ibbotson, Ross turned a flaky flanker with questionable courage and intent into a form defender in the league who now runs back into packs.

My biggest concerns are

1. The price, monetarily, I'm not against giving him a little bit of dough to come over I.e two year deal at 275-300k per year, but it's the pick(s) we would potentially have to give up that concerns me.

2. Our minority muppet supporter base, by that I mean the Dawson bashers, the same w***ers who jeered at croad whenever he got near it. I'm not sure watts would get given a fair go by our supporter base, and I can just imagine that smug prick zempilas just about blowing his load over asking the "and where to now Ross for jack watts??" Question

Watts I believe is a confidence player, I reckon he needs nurturing given the lack of development, the constant thrashings and the derision he has recieved. Ross would be the perfect coach to get the best out of him, but I'm not sure the fishbowl that is wa would suit him. Really he probably needs to go to Sydney

 

[PapaJ]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-06-04/buyer-beware

This has made me go cold on getting Jack Watts a third round or less is all we should offer

Not a bad article. I'm still not sure about Watts. Using the articles analysis, would he be another JON - skilled but soft and totally unfit mentally for AFL type player, or a Keplar Bradley - not the top 10 draft pick worthy that he was originally picked as, but serviceable regular 22.

I'm not as convinced as some that he wouldn't turn out like a Bradley in the right environment. He's not going to be the star CHF that Melbourne hoped to build their team around, but he's managed a good number of AFL games (well sort of, I'm not sure what you call what Melbourne do on a weekend, but it goes down as an AFL game in the books) and some of them have been quality games by most peoples measure. He's got AFL talent without any doubt in my mind.

Remember Keps was by and large hated at the Dons by the time he was finished, but he was used terribly mostly as a FB/HB, but a bit all over the place so never settled down. He was so inconsistent, played out of position and basically had enough by the time the Dons were willing to let him go for peanuts. Like Keps though, there is no way in hell we should spend anything on Watts in terms of trades or whatever. He'd have to want to come here with the aim of working his but off to become an AFL player. I know I'm in the minority, but I think there may be hope there.

All said and done, I doubt he'll come here, but if he did I'd not be too upset.

 

[greatgatsby]

In all honesty, if you didn't know where JW was drafted and you were watching him running around today, how could you be thinking; "we need to get this guy, he will make us better"?

 

[Kepfan]

Jack watts isn't worth a strand of Kepler's thinning hair.
Watts is the anti Kep.
Kepler put his knee out trying to bend time and space and kick through another player (men who stare at goats style.)
Watts will never achieve what Kep has.

Ross Lyon hasn't brought the best out in Kepler. Kepler has brought the best in Ross.

 

[Kickett Punches Read]

In all honesty, if you didn't know where JW was drafted and you were watching him running around today, how could you be thinking; "we need to get this guy, he will make us better"?

What would you have thought of Darren ray whilst he was at the bulldogs, Ross turned him into a good role player, Lyon has done this countless times. Jason gram was another, zac dawson another...I'm not saying watts is a saviour, just that with our very thin kpp stocks and with Ross' ability to get the best out of players, watts would probably become a handy addition.

I think we are more likely to get productivity from jack watts, then we are say a howson or a taberner (note the more likely, I'm not saying either of those boys won't make it)

 

[greatgatsby]

What would you have thought of Darren ray whilst he was at the bulldogs, Ross turned him into a good role player, Lyon has done this countless times. Jason gram was another, zac dawson another...I'm not saying watts is a saviour, just that with our very thin kpp stocks and with Ross' ability to get the best out of players, watts would probably become a handy addition.

I think we are more likely to get productivity from jack watts, then we are say a howson or a taberner (note the more likely, I'm not saying either of those boys won't make it)

But we don't need any more role players, especially not at the cost of a former #1 draft pick. As you say, we develop Smith, Taberner and Howson (Fyfe and Morabito) and otherwise get a top-class free agent KPP (which Jack W isn't) if one is available.

I found the quote from the article that Watts would need a full 2 years [in a good system] fairly persuasive.