MasterAwesome

1 hour ago, strato said:

So I am a lowly fan unsophisticated in the building of .500 teams on a good day.  Let’s see what happens with Rattler, with some of these guys that were projected third rounders and go to freefall. 

The idea, where in this discussion it went another way, is that this is an asset development game. QBs are top currency. Develop some. Trade them. Pats did it successfully more than once.

I think we're millennia away from the point where we are developing and trading late round quarterbacks for assets lol.  Unless I'm missing someone, then I think the Patriots did it one time with Matt Cassel?  And I think we'd agree that it was less that they "developed" him but that they made him look good in their system and then tricked another team into trading for him, only for him to never live up to what they gave up.  Otherwise I'm assuming you're thinking of Garoppolo?  He was drafted in the 2nd and later traded for a 2nd.  The only other QB I can think of was way back in the day with Drew Bledsoe, but he was drafted 1st overall, played ~10 years, then traded for a 1st.  So only Cassel would fit what you're saying about drafting a guy late, developing him, then trading him.

99.9% of the time (my unresearched guesstimate) it goes in the opposite direction where a team drafts a QB and then trades them for a huge loss.  Like Mac Jones and Justin Fields going for a 6th round pick each, after costing their drafting team a mid-1st.

Trust me I understand the idea conceptually.  I just think it's an idea that sounds better on paper than it is in practice.  If it was an untested theory, I'd be on board and say yeah sounds good let's try it.  But there is a mountain of evidence already to the contrary.  I'm not even by any means saying let's never draft QBs in the later rounds, I'm just in favor of following your draft board which is a culmination of months and months of scouting. 

tl/dr: If a QB you are intrigued by falls in the draft and is available in the 6th round when you're on the clock and his value lines up with your draft board, then hell yeah let's take him.  Otherwise just grabbing a developmental QB every year late in the draft hoping one of them pans out just reeks of desperation IMO.

15 minutes ago, ForJimmy said:

I'd be a little cautious though.  They were playing against guys that might not make our team and our depth sucks.  Zappe should have picked them apart given his experience.  Milton hit a nice open WR with about 4 seconds in the pocket, he almost threw a pick 6 too.  I wouldn't be championing for their QBs so soon.  I would imagine Zappe is the odd man out and I'm not sure if he brings much to us as QB3.  A higher upside QB would make more sense.  The Pats QBs are just the Huddle's crush of the week.

I think it's also kinda an "anyone but Bryce", "grass is always greener" thing.  If you are really opposed to the starting QB, you're going to grasp to any other alternative as a replacement and often hyper-inflate that QB's value in the process.  That's why we were seeing things like "what if Jack Plummer kills it" or w/e.  I thought Milton had a promising first preseason game, but if Bryce made that throw that Milton made for the long touchdown, people would be nitpicking the hell out of it - "pass was thrown to the outside...receiver had to slow down and turn around...ball should've been thrown in stride to the inside...etc.".

2 minutes ago, strato said:

How many 7th rounders have we had to really contribute? Munnerlyn, I think Norman was 5th? Maybe 6th. 

I just don’t see a 6th or 7th round miss as causing a significant drag on roster maintenance when the difference between there and UDFAs isn’t really that great. You can pick those guys up in cuts very often, too. 

So I guess I’ll take my team and do what I want and you take your and do what you want and we’ll see. Except we don’t have teams. But I am all over taking a shot because even though hitting on it it is rare, it could still happen. If I like the way the player sitting there looks I am not gonna ignore him. 

But then that goes back to my point about the draft board.  No team is going into the NFL draft room with a cheat sheet about NFL positional hit rates and all that kinda hindsight statistical noise.  The philosophy of "none of these guys are likely to amount to anything so let's take shots at developing a QB" is such a fan-oriented position that I think NFL organizations (good and bad) would strongly oppose.  Teams are looking at each prospect as individuals and drafting based on how much they like a guy and the potential they see in them.  You are advocating for teams to essentially ignore their draft board and their scouting to just take shots at QBs they objectively value less until they hit - because otherwise if a team did have whatever QB at the top of their draft boards relative to where they are drafting, then they would simply take that QB.  If a team likes a particular guy and doesn't want to risk them getting drafted or having to compete with other teams to sign him as an undrafted FA, then that's exactly what those late round picks are for.  Your argument of "oh you can just pick up a similar undrafted guy later" ignores that these drafted players are hand-picked by their teams for a specific reason.  I don't think teams are going "well hmm...I guess we're thin at OT.  Let's just take a random one in the 7th".

Also, back-up QBs (in an ideal world where your starter stays healthy) are among the lowest contributors to the team unless you want to get into arbitrary hard-to-measure metrics like "how much they pushed the starting QB in competition".  Even 4th string linebackers playing Special Teams contribute more on the field than back-up QBs.  So again, contributions are on a spectrum rather than saying so-and-so players didn't become starters so let's bucket them all in the same category.

13 minutes ago, strato said:

I 

I think that neglects to consider the relative perceived value of the QB position. Very high. So formulaic consideration above my pay grade must be factored in. 

Basically if there is a question about a QB prospect he is gonna fall. If there are a couple oopf questions he’ll fall farther down. There are still people that slip through, although granted, it's a small number. 

I still think we could have found everything we are gonna see in Bryce, at far better value and I’ve been watching other teams hit on devalued players, I want some of that. 

Ok well then that would take me back to my original question of how many late round QBs have amounted to anything beyond journeyman back-up QB?  If you want to argue that it's a worthwhile investment to keep spending late round picks on developmental QBs then I would expect you to at least give a few examples of franchise QBs taken in the 5th-7th rounds (again, other than Brady).  I mean we could maybe eventually say Brock Purdy if he continues to perform admirably, but people in here are adamant that he's a bum who is carried by his supporting cast anyways so I doubt that's the type of QB they are hoping for when they advocate for drafting late-round developmental QBs.  Sam Howell I guess is someone whose career is worth keeping an eye on, but it's not a great start so far considering his team shipped him away one year after drafting him for a negligible return.

I spent a little bit of time trying to look into it and it looks like we're having to go back to the late 90s/early 2000s for success stories like superstars Marc Bulger, Matt Hasselbeck, and Ryan Fitzgerald - basically fringe starters when they were at their peak.  Maybe Hasselbeck could've been considered a franchise QB in his day, but I don't think he'd cut it in the present era.  

10 minutes ago, strato said:

i was actually thinking of UDFA vs 6th or 7th round. I thought that was part of the idea we were discussing. Like you can wait until after the draft for these guys. I was saying that it holds true for about all players down there so what is really the difference? Now, I did not research success rate of 6th round picks by position, but I guess you did. .

You might be citing established success rates or you might be guesstimating, I don’t know. I’m not challenging that in the first place, we can use it. 

 I would say though, that if my eyes tell me there is potential, and the kid shows to have a good head on his shoulders I am going to do what feels right in that circumstance regardless of the percentages. It isn’t a high level of investment. That is where you can gamble a little. 

Moving along...

You could take the view that you can more successfully predict success of other positions better than QB when you are at the top of the player rankings, I might look at focusing my 1st round on doing that. 

That was just off the top of my head so I looked for a better source. I stole the below from Jeremy Fowler on Twitter, it is compiled of the years 2000-20019.

 The percentages by positions are below (look at WR lol). And there is a link to a 2025 trade value chart also. 

There is a lot to this of course, but I thought I’d look at the trade value chart along with these percentages. I am not great with the math heavy statistical analysis, so I won’t try to quantify all this. But I did consider that 2% chance thing and compared that to the 46% for 1st rounders from this chart (QBs ftr)

(That’s 23 times more likely? Or just divisible 23 times? I don’t the rules for probabilities like some folks here will.)

The value of a mid 6th rounder is 15.4, for the 15th pick of the 6th round.

23 x 15.4 is 354.2 

The value of the 15th overall selection, is listed as 1050. 

Looks like you get 23 shots x 2 percentage wise. You essentially get 3 times that many shots from a trade chart value. 

What can we do with those numbers?

https://www.drafttek.com/nfl-trade-value-chart.asp

 

 

 

https://x.com/JFowlerESPN/status/1783133659249193449

 

Sorry, you misunderstand my 2% vs. 10% thing but I can see how I worded that confusingly.  I wasn't referencing some researched statistical analysis of hit rate.  I was basically just trying to quantify how much a team might like or value a certain prospect, but I probably should've just left out the random percentages and just stuck with the draft board.  If the Panthers are on the clock in the 6th round and there's a developmental QB who's 250 on their draft board vs. a linebacker who's 180 (i.e. a fairly sizeable difference), then I wouldn't want them to ignore their more coveted prospect just because maybe they'll get extremely lucky and strike gold on that QB when that has almost never happened historically.  If it was more like 250 vs. 245 then yeah sure let's just cross our fingers and take the QB because the opportunity cost is relatively minimal.  I'm just speaking theoretically here cause I obviously don't have access to the Panthers' draft board, but I think it's a safe assumption to say that they liked their late round selections significantly more than whatever bottom barrel QBs were available.

8 minutes ago, strato said:

You could kinda say the same thing about almost any player down there at the bottom. 

Who are you missing out on really, using these late rounds to secure a developmental QB? 

 

Is that to me?  I can't tell cause I guess you forgot to quote again lol.  I think when it comes to the later rounds, you're drafting for things like potential, depth, and niche positions like Special Teams.  You're essentially consulting your draft board as your blueprint.  If you're drafting a guy in the 6th who you think has a 10% chance of becoming a meaningful contributor within 3 years vs. a developmental QB who you think has a 2% chance just because "why the hell not" and maybe you'll get extremely lucky, then I think every team is taking the former aside from maybe incredibly stacked rosters who can afford the luxury of likely throwing away late round picks on the miniscule chance that they strike gold on a franchise QB.  Certainly not our team with holes everywhere.  Now if it's 50/50 and you have two equally rated players on your draft board and one is a QB and your QB room is awful, then yeah I'd agree that it's worth taking a shot on a developmental QB.

26 minutes ago, Jackie Lee said:

Yeah worst case scenario they have too many qb's in New England. Imagine if they didn't want to hurt Drake Mayes feelings so they skipped on that opportunity. Not a single fan up there will give a fug if May is a bust and Milton is the real deal

Do we really put a meaningful difference between a mid-6th round draft pick vs. undrafted FA?  Tom Brady aside, how many 6th round QBs have panned out in the NFL?  Maybe some decent back-ups in there, but I doubt Maye feels threatened because the Patriots spent a 6th round pick on a QB lol.  That's basically what we did when we drafted Jimmy Clausen as our "guy" with our first pick and then Tony Pike (remember him?) in the 6th round in the same draft...I don't think anyone considered that as a bold praise-worthy move to push Clausen and maybe strike gold. 

Chances are that some of these late-round QBs are available after roster cuts, in which case we'll ultimately be in a position to grab one without investing a draft pick of our own.

The more I think about it, the more I can kinda rationalize the approach of sitting virtually all the starters in Game 1.  The objective of the preseason is about two things IMO: preparing your team for the regular season with real in-game reps, and also properly evaluating your depth.  People wanted the former and are getting a heavy dose of the latter.  And I think it makes sense to heavily prioritize evaluating your depth in the first game so that you can adjust reps accordingly in the next two games, especially considering there are only three Preaseason games now.  Maybe you see someone who flashed in Game 1 and you want to give them more reps or even time with the starters in Game 2 and 3.  Maybe you saw someone who was flat out trash and you decide to reallocate their snaps to other bottom-of-the-roster guys to give them a chance instead.  All of that is better to sort out in Game 1 then to find yourself in Game 3 still feeling undecided about certain players and wishing you had distributed reps more effectively throughout the preseason.

Now that being said, if he truly ends up sitting Bryce (and/or a large number of starters) for the entirety of the preseason, then yeah I'll probably feel differently about it and it won't sit right with me.

Still a decent number of players worth watching tonight.  Accounting for all the players sitting out, the notable ones I'm keying in on: Mingo, JT Sanders, Jalen Coker, Trevin Wallace, DJ Johnson, Brady Christensen, Dane Jackson, Jordan Matthews, Mevis/Pineiro, Smith-Marsette, Smith-Wade, Deven Thompkins (would like to see him returning kicks), and I guess Zavala to see if he's improved enough to earn a roster spot.

1 minute ago, CRA said:

the board is fickle.  Depends when you log on.  Going into last season, this was the best roster around a QB since the 2003 season.   All star coaching staff.   Great talent around the QB.  Then as we sucked, coaching staff were bums.  Talent was the worst ever. 

I really don't understand this argument.  Unless you believe all of that, then since when do we give merit to what people *say* and *feel* during the offseason?  The same posters you're talking about, are the ones who said Bryce Young would take the league by storm and "super processor" this and "Mini Mahomes" that, and that Miles Sanders was a great signing and dominant feature back, that Icky was a stalwart franchise LT, that Brian Burns would have a dominant career year in the 3-4 with Evero, that we were primed to win the division, etc.  We're talking about the super optimistic subset of posters who every year predict big things for this team.  Why favor those preseason opinions over the actual product we saw on the field?

5 minutes ago, ForJimmy said:

But if you compare him to Mahomes he falls short (pun wasn't intended but I'm rolling with it)....

People really taking that "Mini Mahomes" draft moniker too literally if we're already putting their stat sheets side-by-side as some kind of slam dunk indictment.

36 minutes ago, Icege said:

 

By the very definition, your attempt to exclusively focus on protection is a strawman.

As stated already, the combination of bad protection, lack of separation, poor play design, and poor play calling made life even more difficult for a rookie QB. Nobody could have performed well under those conditions. You're picking strictly one part of that and pointing out that a x3 SB champ and 8yr vet were pressured a similar amount of times played better. You're doing this because think that you can easily defeat that when the actual argument is ALL of those factors made success impossible for any QB. Not just one factor.

tldr; nobody has said Bryce played bad just because of the bad protection so your attempt to focus solely on that when comparing a rookie to a x3 SB champ + 8yr vet is a strawman fallacy.

Not just any 8-year vet...but the 8-year vet with probably a Top 2-3 supporting cast (I only struggle to put them ahead of the 49ers).  Gibbs/Amon-Ra/LaPorta at RB/WR/TE is as good as any in the league.  They have the #1 rated o-line according to PFF.  And Ben Johnson is the most sought-after young offensive playcaller in the league.  These things matter immensely, whether people acknowledge it or not.

8 minutes ago, Newtcase said:

What you see as cause I see as effect.  Soon it will be undeniable to all.

I just am shocked we're going down this road where we're walking back everything we saw with our own two eyes last year and trying to delude ourselves into thinking maybe our receivers, o-line, playcalling, coaching staff, etc. were not so bad and it was all Bryce's fault.  Just to clarify, is it really your position that we actually had a talented roster and coaching staff (particularly on the offensive side) that were all held back by Bryce?  Or am I misunderstanding?  Cause to me, that's a much harder position to defend than what the "Bryce cope" squad is saying, which is that Bryce was surely part of the problem but our team was an absolute shitshow that made it hard to properly apportion how much blame falls on his shoulders.  I truly don't understand why that is such an unreasonable position.

15 hours ago, CRA said:

every offense he has been involved with has relied on chunk pass plays downfield.   Not just relied on them but more often than not tops of the league as well.

That’s not a good pairing for Bryce 

now you could argue he suddenly do something different but to date he has never been around a successful O that didn’t rely on it.   

and his first major investment was a downfield jump ball WR so that leads me to believe that’s still his ideal brand of football.   

Hope I’m wrong and he is some grand wizard and invents something Bryce would thrive in….but I’m a need to see it guy at this point to believe it

It seems like a stretch to assign so-and-so personal preferences to Canales from his years as QB Coach for guys like Russell Wilson and Geno Smith.  I think lumping Canales' entire employment history together muddies the water, when the specific role he played is pretty damn important.  His role as QB Coach and his role as Offensive Coordinator shouldn't be indiscriminately bucketed together broadly as "offenses he has been involved in".  Like I don't think McCown deserves to have Bryce Young linked to him as a personal preference in QB type, simply because he was tasked with coaching him. 

Canales has only had one season with any kind of play-calling authority to try and deduce what offense he likes to run, and it's a matter of cause-and-effect as to whether he utilized the deep pass because that's his general preference, or if he did it because he had a roster that was built to take advantage of it (Baker + Mike Evans). Whether intentionally or not, I think treating this pairing as a mismatch prematurely paints Canales as some kind of stubborn one-trick pony who is unable to adapt his scheme to his roster's strengths/weaknesses.  I don't know whether he is or not (because his sample size is way too small), but at the end of the day I think that's the bare minimum we would expect of a head coach/offensive coordinator - designing an offensive system that complements your roster.  I don't think that requires him to be a "grand wizard".  If he's the type of coach who is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, then he's not the right guy with or without Bryce Young at QB.

Meh, it's hard enough to sustain excitement for the preseason and this will make it that much harder lol.  But my bar for this season was always just hoping to see significant growth from Bryce and the team from the start to the finish, rather than expecting to come out the gate swinging from Week 1 (new coach, new offensive system, new o-line, huge roster turnover, etc.).  So this doesn't necessarily change anything if Bryce ultimately does end up sitting out the entire preseason and we come out looking sluggish and out of sync Week 1.

24 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Wilks is old school, aint no way he is signing up for young

Yeah, old school as in stout D + heavy run. We had the most conservative dink-and-dunk gameplan under Wilks. That first half against the Rams was the wildest thing I’ve ever seen. What part of that is incompatible with Young at QB? I would think that’s a match made in heaven in your eyes.

8 minutes ago, Newtcase said:

Well no poo, I don’t bother stating the obvious because it’s obvious.  The point is 2.7 seconds is plenty enough to get off a deep pass.  There’s always someone like you lurking around trying to nitpick around the point though.  Touch grass.

You think my original post you quoted was even remotely suggesting it's not possible to get a deep pass off in 2.7 seconds?  Maybe you should re-read it...it seems your irritation stems from your own confusion.  Don't quote me to make a redundant "point" that I agree with and then get sassy for how I respond to it.  Even though your point is obvious and bland, the entire crux of your argument revolved around irrelevant calculations involving average velocity; so I don't think it's nitpicky to have questioned that.

18 minutes ago, Newtcase said:

The average pass velocity in the NFL is 54mph.  This translates to roughly 1.5 seconds of air time to travel 40 yards.  When you add 1.5 seconds of air time to 2.7 of pocket time that average pass will reach a 40 yard depth at 4.2 seconds more or less depending on arm strength and trajectory. 

I follow your logic but that's an overly simplistic and reductive approach.  It doesn't really make sense to just apply a blanket average velocity to every type of NFL throw.  Certain passes are going to require a bullet pass into a tight window.  Certain passes are going to require touch.  Launching a 50 yard pass downfield to an Adam Thielen in 2.7 seconds of pocket time is going to require a lofty rainbow pass with a lot less velocity.  Even simply swapping Thielen for a receiver like Ja'Marr Chase is going to drastically change the velocity requirement on that throw.  A metric like "average velocity" when accounting for every single type of NFL throw is pretty meaningless.

14 minutes ago, *FreeFua* said:

2.7 seconds is enough time to take a deep shot period. Have you not ever seen a QB drop back and let it rip? I’m pointing out the fact that the average time to throw is 2.4/2.5 and you’re pretending like 2.7 prevents us from doing anything other than short passes. It doesn’t. 

 

That's true but I also hear so many of the usual suspects complaining on those deep passes that the ball "floats in the air" too long.  That's the only way to throw <2.7 second deep shots.  There's no such thing as a <2.7 second deep bullet pass considering the receiver needs time to actually run down the field.

10 minutes ago, ForJimmy said:

I think his main focus is on the 2.7 or less. Once we get comfortable with that, the playbook can open up. I feel like just 2 practices ago they were throwing up deep passes though? He even hit DJ on the 55 yards pass plus several tweets about deep passes. It was one of the ones @Icege was sharing with us. 

Yeah I agree, I didn't mean to make it sound like I shared their concern.  Just that I have confidence that Canales would step in if Bryce isn't doing what he's supposed to be doing.  I do feel like things are going by design; Canales seems to be very hands-on with his offensive vision which makes sense because that's his background.  He for sure has repeatedly emphasized the 2.7 seconds thing so I think you're spot on with that.

Yep I've seen a few of those deep passes you've mentioned but I can't remember if those were all 1-on-1s?  Or were any of them during 11-on-11s?  Cause I would draw a distinction between the two, but I can't remember off the top of my head and it's also still super early in camp.  I think people act like this is a pattern this offseason because they're carrying over grievances from last season when I think we need to not necessarily give Bryce a 100% clean slate, but the Bryce/Canales combo.

8 minutes ago, Martin said:

This is a struggle. You don’t have to do it often, but you have to at a minimum make the defense account for it to make them cover the whole field. 

You've gotta think Canales would step in and "demand" (for lack of a better word) some deep ball attempts during practice if it's a glaring pattern with Bryce.  There's no way fans notice it and Canales doesn't, and Canales doesn't seem like the type of coach to coddle Bryce.  He's already been about as critical as a coach can be towards his starting QB: called him "streaky" one practice, and "good, not great" last night.  Which makes me wonder if it's by design for some reason...or if in cases like last night, the o-line was just getting manhandled all night (with Zavala and Traore starting) which in turn created a lack of opportunity.

If it's genuinely just Bryce being extremely conservative, then I almost put at least equal blame on Canales for not intervening since practice is THE time to be incorporating downfield shots for a QB who lacked that weapon in his arsenal last season.  Especially if we're to assume, as some people are, that Canales' offense leans on a healthy dose of downfield passing as with Baker and Geno in previous years.

So can someone clarify if the starting o-line was out there? I’m seeing something about Clowney destroying some RT named Badara Traore. Did Moton have the night off? Cause that would explain some of the o-line struggles tonight. I also saw some mention of Zavala getting a lot of snaps (which would DEFINITELY explain the o-line struggles), but not sure if that was 1st team or 2nd team.

1 hour ago, *FreeFua* said:

Compared him to Andy Dalton. Said It would’ve been fine to draft Bryce late 1st/early 2nd and then take advantage of his rookie contract 

Like a few of us have mentioned they then go on to say the problem with these types is when it comes time to paying them

Once that Tua cap hit starts coming into play I think Miami will be toast. The problem is you build these super teams around some of these guys and they look good enough that teams are afraid to move on from them. How do you sell a fan base on moving on from a QB while you’re going to the playoffs. 

If Bryce’s ceiling is somewhere between Purdy/Tua is it possible to win a SB with him? I personally don’t see it

15 minutes ago, KSpan said:

Your last paragraph sums it up. It can happen, sure, but the odds are very slim and it will require a load of talent and perfect injury conditions to even be above zero chance.

I still don't see why Bryce's ceiling can't be a Drew Brees.  We're talking about ceiling...i.e. the absolute best case scenario (not what he is likely to become).  So he's miles away from that comparison, but I think they have similar strengths (brain, poise, anticipation) and similar weaknesses (physical limitations in size and arm strength).  I think the biggest obstacles to Bryce being in remotely the same league as Brees are his accuracy (particularly with his deep ball) and his sloppy footwork.  But Canales is making it a point of emphasis to coach up his footwork, and footwork is inextricably tied to a QB's accuracy.

7 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

It's also closer to, IDK....the actual fanbase?

I have worked in Clemson a bunch over the years. Never seen or met a Panthers fan in almost 20 years of going there.

It's hard to say cause the NFL obviously takes a huge backseat to college football down here (I live in Greenville SC).  I haven't met many Panthers fans either, but I don't know how much of that is because Clemson/USC overpowers all football conversations.

It's too soon to say.  Apparently Deven Thompkins who we signed 6 days ago is already standing out in training camp too.