kungfoodude

Anyone with any fuging sense would know to just generally give some bland answer to that question. "We are excited to see Brady develop and look forward to him helping us in the future. Rashawn is obviously a very talented guy that had a great season for the Chargers." See how easy that was? It took me fuging 0.5 seconds to think of that. I said nothing and didn't sound like I was justifying anything.

QB us extremely thin. We go from Mayfield to not NFL players. RB is solid depth. CMC and Foreman are a good duo, much better than last year. TE is basically the same as last year. Not much quality there so the drop off isn't going to be noticeable. WR is much deeper than we have been historically. DJ Moore, RA, Higgins, Shenault and Shi Smith could be a very potent WR corps. OL is extremely thin. We have 2-3 questionable/TBD starters and then the backups are almost entirely terrible. This is the weakest/thinnest unit on the entire team. DB is talented and deep. Injuries would hurt here but we have a lot more game tested players to step up if guys go down. Losing guys at S would have a marked drop off but I think the second line depth isn't bad enough that you would be able to target individual guys to pick on. LB's are relatively thin. I would say more unproven than anything else. Outside Shaq, Littleton and Wilson we have two guys who either have no starting experience or very little. On paper this is a talented group but it will rely heavily on how Luvu and Smith are able to adjust. DL is generally lacking in quality almost across the board behind Burns, Brown and Ioannidis. YGM is a guy that can go either way. He may prove to be nothing more than an average player or he may ascend to that Rucker-like compliment to Burns. The backup group will almost all be a step down from the starters. In Burns case, it would be a large drop off. Same with Brown. Anderson is a nice addition that could probably adequately replace Ioannidis. The rest of that group is suspect at best. Maybe they develop but right now I wouldn't want to see any of those guys getting starter snaps. Like I said, not even close to our deepest team in a decade. Not even in the upper half of the rosters in the last decade. Better than 2021? Should be. Still a work in progress, however. We are at least 2 offseasons from being able to field a contending roster.

A statistical comparison may not be as effective in this case because those were very different eras of college football and offenses evolved tremendously. Either way, Baker is/was the more talented prospect.

I think the Saints may benefit from being in the same division as the Falcons and Panthers, in fairness. That's 4 possible wins by just playing cellar dwelling teams. TBD but even with their situation not being good, they are still in better shape than the Falcons and us(very unfortunately). I just don't think I see two playoff berths coming from the South, even with that additional playoff spot.

Well it helps that the front runners have been front running. That makes predictions a lot more easy.

Yeah, it just is what it is. If a guy like McCall or Hoskins pans out, it won't matter anyway.

Agreed. If we blew money on a guy like that, it makes very little sense. That would lean too much "win now, fug the future." Which I understand that from a coach/GM that is about to get fired. Hence why I never like the coach being a GM. We need to see improvements from Brown, YGM, Roy, McCall, Hoskins etc. If we don't see that, we are gonna be fuged regardless.

Or that regardless of his ability, he wasn't putting in the work necessary to be a success at the NFL level. Not all these guys live, eat and breathe football. Not all of them have the passion to strive to succeed.

There is really very little difference between a 5th and 7th rounder. It's small enough to be largely irrelevant.

That makes a lot of sense, in that case.

Panthers DB's versus a game managing QB that can get a little gunslinger-ish when he gets pressed.

I have similar worries that this signing is not very likely to be as effective as we want. Still, we are perilously thin on the DL and he is immediately the most experienced player we have in that unit. I don't hate the move. Something had to be done.

@Basbear great use of PFR's CarAV. One of the better metrics around for arguments like this.

I think we will have a good idea of what that class is around 2024 offseason. If we haven't gotten at least 2 quality starters from the 11 picks, it was a very, very bad draft. That's my baseline for success.

You are aware he came in here professing himself a New England Pats fan, correct?

The reasoning behind wanting to hit on more early picks is basically you want to crush the easy picks and not flub then. Plus the hit percentages in those three rounds are generally higher. Nothing wrong with hitting on later round picks. It's awesome. But the percentages of those hitting are quite low so you can't count on that with any regularity. Even the best drafting teams don't have exceptional hit rates on 4th-7th rounders. That's why I am generally more focused on that 1st-3rd round.

You want to hit on your top picks, those are what make the core of a team. 4th rounder and lower are just nice surprises. If Smith actually pans out, that would elevate the draft immediately. I think we SHOULD feel very good about Horn. Smith seems promising and hopefully he becomes a top 4 WR for us. If BC can be an average or better NFL starter, he was a hit. If Tremble can stay a starter for the remainder of his rookie deal, he was a hit. If Taylor stays on as a depth guy until his rookie deal is up, he was a hit. That's already a pretty good draft even with TMJ likely being a bust and most of the rest unlikely to make any impact. Then again, if BC is not a good starter and Smith never can break out, it's looking pretty rough.

Could also be that he was trying in vain to shop him. Who knows? It definitely isn't the first time we have seen the team talk glowingly about a player and then cut them. It's a Rhule era thing.

Morgan wasn't as strong against the rush as he was expected to be.

It isn't a good sign to see so many jettisoned already but if we hit on at least 2 of the top 3 picks, it was a good draft.

This is a very weird and slightly snotty take. Nixon being cut is a surprise because he was cut over some guys that could easily be construed as worse. Now, is that a sinking versus floating turds argument? Most likely. Curious to see if Nixon clears waivers and signs on the PS.

Mac Jones.....get ready....

True. He never was able to capitalize on that potential.