WhoKnows

It’s not a crap shoot. Sorry, but I hate when people say that. We aren’t just unlucky. We have been terrible since the 2017 draft. There seem to be good teams that draft well overall and it’s not just luck. Taking TMJ in 2021 over the best C in the draft or taking injured Johnathan Brooks over a BPA C the year before a historic RB deep draft when we needed a C of the future both times is being stupid. The teams that grabbed the Cs right after we passed where KC and Pittsburgh who seem to know what they are doing. We (the draftniks on this board) have absolutely been better than the GMs/scouts from 2018-2024. I’m sorry again but if you’ve actually followed the draft discussions, it’s been 100% true. Also, just an FYI, the whole reason most people poo on our picks in 2021 was because our OL sucked and Fitterer’s response to that was to ignore the guys like Slater and Darrisaw in the 1st (PFF graded Slater 2nd and Darrisaw 11th among tackles in 2024), Humphrey in the 2nd (PFF 2nd rated C) and take a long snapper over Trey Smith (PFF 14th rated G). Add in Moton and another young G drafted day 3 in 2023 or 2024 and we could have easily had the best OL in the NFL. Slater, Smith, Humphrey, 2nd round G and Moton. That’s what pissed U.S. officials about the 2021 draft when we said nah, we good with Cam Erving and Pat Elflein and just taking an old BC and a terrible overweight Deonte Brown.

Well, it can be annoying when we don’t even draft well. If we drafted well, no one would care but we don’t. I remember one year Marty 2.0 decided to go XFL hunting and not one of them ever did anything. I’m sure there were UDFAs that actually did something that year. We have a lot of day 3 picks. Personally, I’d like every single second of offseason time to be spent on actually making a successful day 3 pick for once without having Mrs. Rhule show our scouts how to do it.

Gates didn’t play football in college but Saban recruited him to play at Michigan St. Saban didn’t want him to play basketball in college so he went to Kent St. It wasn’t like Gates had never played football. He just didn’t play in college. Graham did play a year of football at Miami.

I chose Walker and not trade back because trade back is probably not going to happen anyway.

1st round TEs scare me. I don’t know what it is but the top TEs don’t get taken in the 1st round. Even if you would say what about Olsen or Hockenson, I’d come back with they weren’t top TEs on the teams that drafted them. Not sure what it is but 1st round TEs, especially top 10 ones, do not have a good history, especially for the team that drafted them.

Yeah and I hate that about us. It’s been our MO since Hurney came back. We seemed to completely ignore people who drop. Maybe they drop for a reason but when it’s us, typically it means we have tunnel vision and/or way overvalued the guy we picked. All I know is we need to actually get a top 10 pick who plays like a stud right away without any buts. We better have every player in the top 10 graded as a just in case.

Same thing was said about Burns. There are only 7 picks before us. Walker could go but if he does, it would mean someone like a Graham would drop to us. The only way I’d be afraid is if no QBs go early. If Walker was bigger, then I’d be more concerned.

I think a big assumption was that Reich was a QB coaching guru. Rivers and Manning were already in their 30s when Reich worked with them. Luck was at the end of his career. Wentz was the only young/rookie QB he worked with and his familiarity with him is why he brought him in at Indy. Wentz was also a 24 year old rookie. I don’t know if Reich would have been successful with Stroud who was a 22 year old rookie and Canales was clearly better with Young.

Crappy QB play? Here’s Reich’s 4 QBs: 2018 10-6 Luck 4600 yards 39 TDs 2019 7-9 Brissett 2900 and 19 TDs but also had 2130 rushing yards and 17 rushing TDs due to a standout OL 2020 11-5 Rivera 4200 yards and 24 TDs and once again a solid OL and running game with 2000 yards and 20 rushing TDs 2021 9-8 Wentz 3600 yards and 27 TDs (only 7 INTs) and a ridiculous running game with Taylor of over 2500 yards and 22 TDs Outside of Cam’s MVP year, Reich had better passing offenses overall with solid vet QB play. Saying Reich overcame crappy QB play is completely false, especially when you look at how good their OL/running game was outside of Luck’s 39 TD season.

That’s a lot of words to really not say much. Everyone doesn’t have that issue. You are trying to act like our scouts and GMs are doing everything right and it’s just a flip of a coin. It’s funny because I know in the 2021 (our best recent draft lol) there were two OL that many of us in here wanted because A) we all thought our OL was the biggest issue (it was) and B) we had easy chances to get a top C and a talented day 2 guard who dropped due to a medical concern. We got TMJ and a long snapper who didn’t make the team instead of Humphrey and Smith. The team who got the two OL? Kansas City, who went on to win 2 SBs with them after losing the 2020 SB due to their bad OL. It’s not just noise and everyone isn’t the same. If you really think our GMs/scouts are on the same level as the Chiefs, Eagles and Ravens to name a few, and that they just have better luck then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Film can lie. Greg Little had great stats coming out. It was his combine drills and testing that showed that he didn’t really have the athleticism and balance to make it in the NFL. Trey Smith’s RAS score showed the difference between him and Deonte Brown because both were pre-draft day 2 guys. Our problem is our recent/current GMs/scouts haven’t shown the ability to use all of the data to confirm that a good tape guy can transition to the NFL or a good athlete can transition because he wasn’t used right or in the best scheme. We seem to take one of the pieces of data and run with that and ignore the other pieces. The good, consistent drafting teams seem to know what works well for them and how to find those good players.

Good scouting trumps all. Game tape sometimes has to be taken with the grain of salt that the combine does. Greg Little was in fact a top 15 pick just based on his college play. Remember how few pressures/1 sack given up in his career? There are a lot of players that prospects play against who aren’t good enough to play in the pros. Unfortunately, our scouting and GM have been terrible from 2018 to 2024 and we happen to have a lot of examples where RAS scores don’t guarantee success and game tape doesn’t guarantee success. Look at Deonte Brown. His RAS score was horrible but he had Nick Saban’s seal of approval and was listed at a day 2 pick just on his college play. The RAS score and playing on a loaded line should have been our red flag. We ignored Trey Smith who also was listed as a day 2 pick just on his college play. Both players dropped but Smith performed because KC handled his medical concerns as NFL Teams should with their resources. Our problem was we ignored Brown’s horrific RAS score and ignored the fact that Smith’s great RAS score backed up the game tape. Anyway, our issue isn’t that we go game tape over RAS scores or vice versa. Our issue is that we seemingly can’t put everything together and find good NFL talent.

Until we scout well and actually draft the real BPAs instead of drafting for needs, our drafts will continue to suck. Our best draft since 2017 appears to be 2021 according to the huddle. Not one other fanbase would be satisfied with a top 8 pick that played half of his games in his rookie contract and an OK RB as a “good draft” and no, I’m not mentioning backup level guys. This is Morgan’s last draft unless we can get more than one impact starter.

I agree. I still can’t believe that people actually want to say he never got a chance. This thread basically says 2021 was Fitterer’s only “good” draft and Rhule was in charge (his wife liked Hubbard). Fitterer had control in 2022 and 2023 and look at those. Again, the big posters said Rhule was on the hot seat to start 2022 and that Fitterer owned the draft and personnel. People want to blame it all on Tepper but to anyone that read the draft articles saw how Fitterer described how he and Reich were in agreement before and after the draft process on Young. He also mentioned that he had Young as his top QB the year before when they were looking at the 2022 QBs like Corral. Fitterer was 100% on Young for 2 years and he’s the guy (Morgan agreed with this as well) who turned down the Burns trade. Fitterer was truly awful and his utterly awful decisions can’t be blamed on everyone else. The only thing that makes sense for how bad he was is that Seattle saw an opportunity to cripple our franchise and Fitterer intentionally made all those bad moves.

I wanted Fitterer gone (whole GM/scouting) with Rhule. I was told I was wrong by so many and it set us back another 3-4 years.

Not me, just another reach and waste of a 3rd and 4th (Fitterer special). Then again I wasn’t in charge of a record breaking defense last season so I really shouldn’t comment.

No kidding. God forbid Young regresses or DCs get more tape on him and work on how to stop him. We still need a real influx of talent on this team. We haven’t improved this team in a draft in 7 years and if we reach again at 8, our OL just gets older while we waste yet another draft.

Lol. Make some noise? Dude has 0.5 sacks in his career and he’ll be turning 27 in October. At his pace, he’ll be 40 when he has his 4th NFL sack.

Huh? In what way did I compare them other than using Funchess as an example of pro day numbers improving over combine numbers. Unlike Tet, Funchess did run at the combine so we can see the impact of HFA pro day times. For Funchess it was 4.7 to 4.5 and Tet was unknown to 4.48. 4.5 flat and 4.48 aren’t much different so I’d suspect Tet would have run a 4.6+ at the combine.

Almost like picking the first RB coming off a severe injury in a weak class and realizing we won’t even know what we have until we have 2 cheap years left.

I don’t want to be a downer but when we were like 1 loss away from jumping to the top pick, the draft was looking fun and maybe getting us some picks in a trade down. If we take a safety at 8, ugh, what a punch to the gut that’ll be.

What? I’m living in reality. It’s been shown so many times that pro day numbers magically bring down bad combine results. I didn’t call him Funchess, just using him as an example where he magically got faster at his pro day. It happens all the time in the real world. Sorry man, McMillan isn’t a 4.48 combine guy. If we take him at 8, his speed is in question. One of his weaknesses is top end speed and getting separation deep. That doesn’t equate to 4.48 combine speed so his pro day speed should be viewed with skepticism.

As I posted in another thread, that 4.48 pro day is a 4.6+ combine result. Funchess ran 4.7 at the combine and 4.5 at Michigan’s pro day. Sorry, but when other first round prospects are running and you don’t, it means you know you ain’t running 4.48 at the combine. McMillan isn’t as good a prospect IMHO as last year’s big 3, so he should have run at the combine if he was legitimately that fast. He may do well in the NFL but he’s not 4.48 like the guys who ran that at the combine.

Funchess ran a 4.5 at his pro day after running a 4.7 at the combine. A 4.48 is probably a 4.6x at the combine. If he could actually run a combine 4.48, there is no way he would have skipped it.

You’d think we’d learn a bit when we tell a prospect we’ll draft him at the end of the 1st/early 2nd, the prospect tells everybody that we are picking him and no other team makes an attempt to “steal” that prospect. Normal teams would realize, hmm, maybe we got him because everyone else didn’t think he was worth it.