top dawg

Exactly how I feel! I have always been upset with the picks later in the draft though. That's if I get upset.

Yeah, you're right. I can't keep up. We essentially got three mil and moved up 35 spots. I'll take it!

Dumping most of his salary for the next couple of seasons is the cream of the deal, but moving up, as you say, is the cherry on top.

Fields will not slip past the Bears! He may not make it past the Pats. This is not going to happen.

If we're that hard up for a backup, then we can take Mills, Mond, Trask or Newman in a later round. There's really no need to use a 1st or 2nd round pick on a QB when you already have Darnold...unless you know--deep down in your heart--definitively that the QB that falls to you is your franchise QB. I would bet that Rhule and company don't have that kind of conviction about the QBs that could fall to eight. They not only traded for Sam, but they're shopping the 8th pick in case different scenarios happen Thursday night.

That's why I have an open mind about Darnold. So many Huddlers are taking it for granted that the QBs in the 2021 draft will be better, but I think that may be wishful thinking based on pre-draft hype.

It will be very much cost prohibitive for them to move on from Ryan for at least the next couple of seasons. 2023 is the first realistic season that he'll be gone. They could still take a QB, but if that happens I'd bet that he sits for at least a season and a half.

I'm just a tad surprised that so many people think that Fields would be a lock to win the job over Darnold. I don't think that's true, especially considering that Darnold has a few years as a pro. Moreover, I've heard more than a few evaluators say that if Darnold was included in this year's draft, he'd be the number 2 rated QB for sure (and we've all seen how some have even ranked him above Lawrence). Darnold has his issues for sure, but he's had terrible, disjointed and misguided coaching. Look for Brady and Rhule to fix that.

Pitts. LT can be addressed in the second.

I see that you've fully embraced the dark side (like one of the Huddle's most active mods, not mentioning any names...).

They're going to exercise it even if Fields drops to eight. Exercising it pre-draft would be showing their hand.

The reality is that Fields may not be any better than Darnold, and could be worse. We don't know. I'm not going to get lost in all the perennial draft hype for the next big thing at QB because it really hardly ever pans out according to the narrative based upon the general opinions anyway. To answer the OP's question, I simply don't believe you give up a second for a one-year rental.

At this point, I can't be mad or upset about the Darnold trade. I'm just waiting to see what transpires and hope for the best. Unless I just want to be overly negative, or blissfully blind, I have to at least acknowledge that Darnold at least has a shot at being just as good as an prospect in the 2021 draft. The difference is that with him at least we kinda already know what his floor is as a pro due to him being with a perennial bottom feedeer in the Jets, but we can still be fairly certain that he hasn't yet reached his ceiling because the Jets had a revolving door on the coaching level and ineffective talent during a young and inexperienced Sam's tenure there. We're just going to have to wait and see what happens. I think there's a reason to be hopeful and as intrigued with Sam, as with both TLs, Wilson or Fields though, because amid all the hype are still the regular question marks.

I can only go by what you say, so saying that I was attempting to nickel and dime you is disingenuous. The clarification is great, but what I said regarding evaluation still stands.

There is a talent difference in general between Division 1 and 2, but there are also talented, NFL-worthy athletes in Division 2, and that's why smart evaluator isolate traits and project whether or not they will work at the NFL level. This is done regardless of whether an athlete comes from Division 1 or Division 2. But your most ignorant insinuation is that NDSU is a D-2 program, which it is NOT. So don't come in here trying to flex when you don't even have your facts straight! There are some knowledgeable huddlers, and not every player outside of a Power 5 conference is "garbage". Lastly, another reason why smart evaluators isolate traits is because of differences in talent level across the board. If Lance played against "garbage competition", he also played with inferior weapons. So that argument can both ways. This is why isolating traits is so important!

I don't know if it will make a difference. We've pushed the chips in on Sam Darnold. And whose to say that Darnold isn't perceived as the better prospect by our FO. He sure is by some evaluators. I've even heard multitple times that he'd be second behind Lawrence in this draft. I don't know who or what to believe, but I wouldn't bet the house on drafting any QB while we're on the clock on day one.

I forgot who I was listening to on Greeny last week or so, but whoever it was says that but for his injury, Mills would have been a high first round pick. That's apparently the type of talent he has.

How can anyone take this guy seriously? It's like he's into adversarial parody, or simply loves trolling.

If we trade back, I think that there is an important lesson to be learned as a football fan; you can't always take what the talking heads are saying and run with it. There is a tremendous amount of hype surrounding the entire draft process, and all the mocks pro days, Combine, rumors and lies tend to lend themselves to causing stirs and outright manias that are more noise than anything else to serious evaluators. When you start looking at that tape, you try and isolate the traits of particular prospects, see how they would fit culturally and schematically with your team, look at the cost-value analysis, and see how certain players/moves will fit within your overall plan for building the team. For example, adding one Sewell or one Pitts may not be as good as adding a Teven Jenkins, Dillon Radunz and a Pat Freiermuth. Because evaluating is largely an imperfect science, and many players will develop as well as any other star at the top of a draft over a certain period of time, I don't mind getting several value picks for the price of one supposed top tier guy.

I don't mind trading back at all. There are some quality players, including OTs and TEs and WRs who will be available on day two. I thought Sewell or Pitts might make them think twice, but, at the end of the day, there are multiple ways to get to where we want to be, and I think that they look promising.

We'll, we're not going to have to worry about him going vegan. That's for sure.

If we trade down, I'd expect to get Radunz and Freiermuth!

I've been waiting for the Hooker domino to fall, but he might be too broken down.

Excellent! I meantioned him in a post weeks ago! That's the type of responsible cost to value ratio that I can get behind!

For the record, I supported Cam, but always said that he needed to get better with his mechanics and decision making. I support Moore, but he needs to work on his route running--point blank! He needs to turn the corner to go from good to great, especially if he wants a top five or ten contract. That's my take, and I'm sticking to it. This applies with or without a fifth year option because it's all about value. Some of you apparently want to give him free reign to/of the safe, and I think he should get a contract commensurate with his body of work, or--if you want to be philosophical--future expectations of him based upon his body of work. I don't think that's hating, I think that it's fair, and I think that it's responsible. That's just the way that I see it.