WhoKnows

I think it’s a little better, but not competing for playoffs better. On offense, OL looks better, especially if we pick up a starting center (better than moving Corbett). We did not improve much at the skilled positions yet. Diontae is a possible improvement but TE and RB are very much bottom of the NFL and we still don’t have a DJ Moore level talent at WR. I hope we get lucky in the draft at WR. On defense, seems like a wash that we don’t know for sure. We lost some and gained some. Either way, unless we have a great draft, we’re not different enough that we’d have an above .500 chance. I didn’t say anything about QB even though I don’t believe Young is the guy.

We haven’t had even an OK draft in a while. We’ve had poo drafts after 2017. We’ve drafted a few decent guys like Burns, and Brown but even then we missed Herbert by one spot or got Horn instead of some serious studs who haven’t missed 60% of 3 years. The rest of those 6 drafts has been putrid especially when you consider how many picks we traded away for nothing, including many day 1 and day 2 picks. We are unfortunately in must win mode with the next 2-3 drafts or we’ll be sub-.500 for an entire decade.

This is where we go awry every year with Fitterer and Hurney post round 1. In the 2020 draft, Lamb, Jefferson, Higgins and Pittman were the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th WRs. YGM and Chaisson were the 2nd and 3rd edges behind Chase Young. When you are staring at super deep classes, it’s not as simple as you mentioned. TE2 last year was La Porta. That’s fine because TEs were deep. This year you are likely passing on a couple WRs who will become a Higgins, Pittman or even Jefferson for a Howard or Njoku. Drafting the best guys at weak positions is not equivalent to the second tier guys at deep positions. You can get lucky but we’ve fuged up before like going with TMJ over Humphrey in a shallow WR class (handful of top talent) and a deep OL group with tons of starters after TMJ and after a long snapper too.

What? Need to be paid? Sorry man, Hubbard is one of the worst starting RBs in the league. You don’t pay him. You sign him to the vet minimum. He was 9th in the league in carries, but he was 20th in yards. Finding a 3.8 ypc RB is easy, it’s not something you need to pay. He looked good because he was actually giving us effort last year and the rest of the offense minus Theilin was awful.

Yep, been saying that for a while now. Clowney, Diontae and Hunt didn’t make a 2-15, barely won the two, team into a playoff contender considering what we lost as well. The draft is where we setup our future, good or bad.

He had a decent track record which is a worry. I think the Steelers likely see the strong WR draft class as an opportunity to swap Diontae for a CB and replace him with a rookie WR.

Well, we have one so lots of work to do. Our OL is probably up there for most expensive right now because we barely drafted OL since 2017 and the best OL we’ve drafted since 2017 is BC. We just need to get to a place where we can keep drafting OL every year.

You might be right. I think, just like all the recent seasons, that the optimists here think we have plugged a lot of holes and just need a couple guys and we’re competitive. I’m not there at all. I look at a team that right now has 1 guard and 1 DT that are above average (top 5-10). We have a couple average guys like Moton, Horn, if healthy, and Lewis but that’s it. That’s a team in need of a lot of hits. I think if we get 3 starters in 2024 and 2025, we could be OK but that’s asking a lot considering the picks we don’t have. Also, I’m not talking about a crappy starting TE who’s just better than Ian Thomas. I’m talking a legitimate average NFL starter.

Well, we waited until Wilkins signed a $27.5M a year FA deal just like with Burns we waited until Bosa to sign. We’re not smart with our extensions or trades or drafting and until we prove otherwise we’ll just have to assume the worst.

Or on day 3 you’re picking long snappers and vastly overweight players over college/production with good measurable and medical concerns that went away like Star’s.

Yep. It’s why I hate seeing all the trade down proposals in here. We saw where that got us a poo ton of pennies in 2021 and no real starters. We had 11 picks and the only real starter from that draft is a guy who’s played in only 40% of our games. I don’t count Hubbard as a starter because it’s only because our expensive FA starter was so butt. Chubba was bottom rung starter but our offense was so bad we felt like he was good. 11 picks and the best we did was a CB at pick 8 who plays 7 games a year. More picks won’t help. We need 33, 39 and 65 to all end up as average NFL starters or better. If we don’t we’re treading water in the 2-5 win range. Same thing for 2025’s draft. Our 1st and likely top of the 3rd have to be starters and the 1st has to be a legit stud.

That trade is awful. We are getting literally no value considering the Chiefs 2025 2nd is basically pick 64 again and it’s a year later. Their 2025 1st plus 64 this year, I’d do.

Just like all of our “ignore deficiencies” picks (Little, Gaulden, Young…). No one would bitch about them if they were day 3 picks versus trade up/day 1/2 picks. We seem to have a pattern.

Horrible at the top. Lassiter ran a 4.65 at his pro-day. Funchess ran a 4.5 at his pro-day after a 4.7 at the combine. Also, not sold on Coleman. I don’t like hearing that he doesn’t get separation. Feels like more of the same.

I posted this earlier, but during the last great WR draft class (prospects, not all delivered), from picks 17-38 there were these WRs selected: Lamb, JJefferson, Aiyuk, Higgins and Pittman These were the edge rushers: Chaisson and YGM The edge class isn’t deep or strong. The WR class is. I don’t trust our scouting at all but there will be some solid WRs available to us that will very likely be much better than the edges available. I’m with @*FreeFua* that I wouldn’t mind two Wars knowing that it’s likely BPA. 33, IMHO should be the most talented player that slipped. I’m hoping we get lucky.

I know people like to gamble and all but I laugh at those commercials. Make every game more interesting, bet on every play, yada yada. Just another tax on the stupid who don’t make money gambling. On ESPN, they have already faded. Only way they stay relevant is through content like showing exclusive NFL games, MLB, college conferences, etc. Problem is there are bigger streamers out there and the SEC could decide to just do their own channel when they have 36 teams and a 3 week SEC championship tourney before the BCS championship.

Problem is that it’s not a good edge class but it is a great WR class. I’ll repeat this again. We were the worst talented roster in the NFL last year. We have not improved enough over last year considering our losses to have a priority. I couldn’t care less if we can’t rush the passer. We have almost no chance at a playoff spot, let alone a Super Bowl victory, so if we see a Justin Jefferson or Higgins/Pittman at 33, take them. Here’s an example. 2020 draft, a really deep at WR class: Lamb - 17 Chaisson - 20 Jefferson - 22 Aiyuk - 25 Higgins - 33 Pittman - 34 YGM - 38 Heck, Chase Young went 2nd. We’d do ourselves a disservice to reach for edge when we know it’s a deep WR class. There will still be WR busts but edge is like QB/OT, they tend to be over-drafted. If we want to dig out of this talent hole we are in, we have to go BPA not priority and we have to get value, which means grab a WR at 33 that might be a mid to mid-late 1st in other years. Don’t grab a guy like Chaisson/YGM who might be 2nd to later 2nd picks in a deep edge class.

I honestly have a bad feeling that we will reach to solve problems like we have been doing. It’s not a good edge draft. People can convince themselves of any prospect because they are prospects but we can’t go need based. I seen people say we don’t want the 5th to 10th WR over the 2nd or 3rd whatever, but that’s how it works in deep drafts. 2020 was a very deep WR draft. Lamb went 3rd, Jefferson was 5th, Aiyuk was 6th, Higgins was 7th and Pittman was 8th. Reagor also went before JJ and Jeudy/Ruggs went before Lamb and JJ, so we also need to not fug it up.

Just be patient. It’s the only way out of this. We haven’t been patient for a while and have 6 years of 2-7 wins and last year was our least talented roster ever. If we keep worrying about wins and using all our cap every year for 1-2 year mediocre vets we’ll never dig out. Heck, based on losing Butns, Donte, Luvu, YGM and others, our roster may be worse than last year if we flub the draft again. I’d personally rather grab every “could be” another Luvu/Addison/Norwell we can than sign Clowney to a one year deal and mess up our chance at getting whatever super stud DE/WR/Burrow (if Young doesn’t miraculously improve) in the 2025 draft. We have to play the long game. The 2023 Panthers were the worst team in the league and two guards and Diontae did not overcome our losses to make us anywhere close to a playoff team.

No it doesn’t. We traded 2 firsts for a 5th by waiting. The trade will never feel good.

Personally, I would trade a 4th + 39 to get the 5th WR. I don’t have much faith in our pick but objectively, if I knew the best of the 2nd tier, it would be worth it. We’d still have 33 and 65. To make 39 a home run, I’ll give up the 4th. The most important picks we have right now are 33, 39, 65, top 10 in 2025 and top of 3rd in 2025. I think we truly have to hit on 4 of those 5 at a minimum to get out of the cellar. I’m fairly certain there’s going to be a solid starter at 33 and next year’s top 10 so making 39 the 5th best WR in this class gets us to 3 of 5 picks having the opportunity to be solid starters and then we just need to hit on 1 of the two top of the 3rds and anything more is gravy. That said, do I have faith in the same exact scouting department that got us 3 horrible drafts in a row? Not at all, but I’ll objectively answer the question.

I know Luvu did and we got a couple years out of him. My point was that you don’t trade for bad team’s garbage bin, you sign them cheap and hope they work out. We basically said the same thing. Also, not sure I agree with you on dumpster diving bad teams. I think teams like Pittsburgh and KC are good places to dive as well because with more good players at certain positions, the backup they can’t re-sign might be a quality starter when given the chance. That might be more common than finding a poorly coached and developed diamond. It’s a bit of luck and it doesn’t happen that often. Addison was our last high level gem. Luvu is actually a decent example of who to go for because the Jets had quality defensive players. It was their offense/QBs that sucked hence not trading for Darnold would have been smart.

Hah, we’ve been sifting through the Jets, Browns and Jax trash bins. At least we learned something after firing Fitterer. Don’t trade 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th round picks for their garbage, do what every other team does and sign them to cheap deals and cut them if they don’t do well.

I’ve said the same. This draft and next draft are huge. I’d even add our 3rd at 65 to 33/39 and next year’s 1st. It should be a solid player and hopefully a starter as well. Normally, you can’t expect 4 above average to stud starters in 4 picks but we’re at that point where we have to draft well or our team is going to be poo for an entire decade. We’ve just dumped CMC, Moore, Burns, Luvu and several 1sts and 2nds the past couple seasons and we’ve been bad for 6 seasons. If we keep drafting Iky’s and TMJ/Mingos with our top picks, we will be a decade long team with a ceiling of 7 wins. This is a deep draft and god willing, teams will draft the 2nd tier of QBs in the 1st to drop down more guys to 33/39. I hate to think back but pick 19 from the Rams would have been a sweet ass pick to have right now, especially with the TE we could have picked up at the top of the 2nd last year and two 1sts in 2025. Still can’t believe we gave the keys to the car to the worst GM ever. I’ll be done thinking about that once the draft is over, but it will vexes me looking at mocks.

I think Bryce will have 3 years minimum because the 2025 draft is shaping up as more similar to 2022 than 2023/2024 (prospect wise). If we aren’t set on a 2025 QB then we should grab whatever studios available with our 2025 1st and keep building the rest of the team out and not wasting cap so we can roll a big chunk over to when we are decent. If Bryce isn’t the guy, we’ll continue to get high picks and hopefully get that guy.