WhoKnows

And YGM and Chaisson were two edges available around Justin Jefferson, Higgins and Pittman. I don’t think 33 will be WR9 and if it is, I’d think the couple guys we were hoping for got snagged. End of the day, all that matters is we pick the correct guy or one of the correct guys.

Lazy labels? Have you actually watched him play, especially pre-season since he’s done very little in the regular season? As @Jon Snow eloquently said above, if TMJ can’t stand out in the Panthers WR room as a 2nd round pick in 3 years, he’s not good and sorry, he can’t play. It’s still amazing to me how much we overrate our players in here, especially when they haven’t lived up to their draft slot.

Some guys don’t have it. It happens to many day 1 and day 2 picks every year. I honestly don’t think he has serious tools. We harsh on KB and Funchess and they blew away TMJ 3 year stats. Those two had 33 TDs in their first three years compared to TMJ’s 1 TD in three years and KB missed an entire year to injury.

That was crazy. Running from a hit and run would appear to be a felony, especially with all the camera footage and I’m sure injuries occurred. Running with “bags of guns” from the report I saw is crazy.

The post I replied to was 1-2 C, ILB and TE. I agree with you that top Cs go later, which is why I wanted one of the many good C/Gs over Little but that was also a deep IOL class. In this class, I’d still defer to WR versus the C/ILB/TE available in this draft. My example was edge because edge was mentioned often in here and the 2nd and 3rd edge rushers were a guy we drafted and a guy we just picked up against the backdrop of the last WR draft that I’d compare to this one. Trying to give an apples to apples comparison where you can’t just assume 1-3 at one position will be better than 4-7 at another.

I don’t think it’s mental. He can’t separate at all when the CBs press him. It’s one thing when it’s college DBs and you have other weapons taking primary focus.

Didn’t you peg him as a 1000 yard WR last year? His go route stats were an illusion. He couldn't separate but was left almost alone several times in 2022 while we turned into a run first team. He’d have a big catch every week for a short stretch and that’s it. When they gave him the chance to be WR2 next to Moore, he lost the camp battle to Shi Smith and for those of us who watched preseason including one Baker TD pass to Smith where Baker’s primary target was TMJ who fell down when the CB had him in press. Baker saw him fall and threw a nice TD to Smith. TMJ is not that guy. I have more faith in Young turning it around than TMJ. If we draft well, TMJ should have 0 shot at seeing the field.

Why do want someone to go up and get the ball over the middle? Wouldn’t you rather have WR that can get quick separation and catch the ball in stride over the middle and make longer gains? Going up and getting the ball over the middle smells like little separation jump ball where there’s no YAC.

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.