Recent Hurney qoute that stands out to me

[AU-panther]

People get too literal with all of the BPA talk

You try to fill your needs without reaching.

Think in terms of tiers and the further along you get in the draft the larger the tiers become.

I doubt one player is going to have a grade of 84.2 and another is going to have 84.3.  At most points of the draft there are going to be enough players close together for you to pick "need" without reaching.  If anything the first round is where you would probably be faced with a more of a bpa vs need decision.  For example of a top-10 type of players falls to us at 24, Edmunds from VT, you would have to seriously consider it.

IMO there are two facts to successful drafting. 

1: Being able to successfully scout and identify players that can be successful in your system.

2: Being able to predict the draft and understanding when and where in the draft to pick those players.  That way you get the most value out of your picks.

Biggest mistake that I think most GMs make is they fall in "love" with certain players and doing something like trading away future picks.  I don't care how sure you are about somebody history tells us that there is a chance that any of them can bust.  

If you move up for a player and he bust you also missed on the players you could have had with the picks you traded.  

Also you aren't going to find a starter in every round.  There is nothing wrong with drafting a back up later in the draft.  There is nothing wrong with a David Mayo kind of pick.  Seems to be a decent backup on a really cheap contract for four years.  That frees up money for other free agents.

 

 

 

[heel31ok]

If the premise of a starter has to come from 1st rd then that narrows the options..where do we absolutely need a starter from the draft? Safety...RB...Corner...LT...WR...in that order...the feelings about a   1st rd RB are well documented...so that pretty much leaves something in the secondary for rd 1...but surprise fallers in rd one could change that...

[steven8989]

5 hours ago, heel31ok said:

If the premise of a starter has to come from 1st rd then that narrows the options..where do we absolutely need a starter from the draft? Safety...RB...Corner...LT...WR...in that order...the feelings about a   1st rd RB are well documented...so that pretty much leaves something in the secondary for rd 1...but surprise fallers in rd one could change that...

We have to have a te no matter what. Greg Olsen could be gone after this year and he could get hurt, so who do you have after that. Manhertz, yeah right!!!!

[heel31ok]

11 minutes ago, steven8989 said:

We have to have a te no matter what. Greg Olsen could be gone after this year and he could get hurt, so who do you have after that. Manhertz, yeah right!!!!

The question is whether it should be 1st rd...

[Cyberjag]

A few points/thoughts...

• Hurney uses the same scouts that Gettleman did, and Gettleman kept them on when he took over for Hurney.  These are the guys responsible for the player grades.  The GM is responsible for making the selection, but does so with input from the scouts and often the coaching staff.
• The worst draft the Panthers have had since the Hurney era began has to be 2009, where the legit best pick wasn't until the 7th round (Munnerlyn) and aside from him all we got out of that entire draft was a few years of mediocre DB play from Sherrod Martin.
• The worst draft day(s) picks I have ever seen belong to Gettleman by a country mile, when he doubled down on a position of strength with Butler and then spent the rest of the draft throwing darts at CB prospects.
• My BPA grade won't match yours.  If my team is loaded at WR and lacking in the secondary, then my BPA grade on a typical WR will be a little lower than yours, while my grade for a CB will be a little higher.  It's Best Player Available FOR YOUR TEAM AND SCHEME.  There are probably 3-4 D teams out there who are privately grading Landry ahead of Chubb.
• Most draft picks have a 50% shot at best at starting for an NFL team and staying in the league past their rookie contracts.  Hurney's choices are no different--in his first go-around maybe half his picks worked out.  However, he has a much higher success rate than average when he's drafting in the first round, which is where the best talent is.  A 4th rounder who doesn't work out sucks, but not as much as a 1st rounder who busts.
• Anything that Hurney or Rivera says right now should be viewed through a lens of skepticism--there's no way he's going to give anyone any idea of who or how he will make his selections this close to the draft.  

[Untouchable]

17 hours ago, MtnProwler said:

No one can convince me that GMs draft true BPA, despite what they say. I mean really what are they supposed to say, 'we left some players on the board that were better but we wanted to reach for this guy'? That wouldn't go over well.

Instead I think teams adopt a 'conscious BPA'. This explains why you typically don't see teams with a healthy franchise QB draft a QB in the first round every year. They identify their needs, usually 3-5 positions, and grab the BPA that's there. The only other time I don't see this happening is when once in a lifetime player shows up, but those players are usually shored up through draft trade ups and teams already have a plan for that well before draft day.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure BPA is weighted for team need too.  Or at the very least, at any selection there is always a group of players that all hold the same or similar grades, so then need takes precedence.

[rhyslloyd]

Marty should use that same mentality in every round.  As guys are taken off the board, check them off and move on down the list.  

[Mr. Scot]

19 hours ago, tondi said:

Marty has never had an eye for talent beyond the blue chip guys and we still have no idea if this is still the case. Even using the excuse of drafting for need, he still picked horrible players that shouldn't have been picked anywhere nesr where he picked them, position of need or not. A bum is a bum and this sounds like revisionist history and excuse making from Marty about why he sucks at evaluating players.  Maybe hes gotten better. I certainly hope so. 

This, to me, is pretty important.

Hurney's problem was never a philosophical one. The problem was much more practical. He has no real experience as a talent evaluator and the vast preponderance of the evidence points to him not being very good at that aspect of the job.

This is why I don't take it seriously when people talk about him "learning from his mistakes". You can't "learn" to have twenty years experience as a talent evaluator, and you don't become better at that by working in radio.

He could at least learn to listen more to scouts and stay away from his past instincts, but the problem there is that scouts often disagree. That's why it's ideal to have a GM who has talent evaluation skills himself so he can make the best choice among the options his scouts offer him.

As I've said many times, I'm hoping for the best, but my expectations aren't exactly sky high.

[RetiredCollegeCoach]

21 hours ago, panther4life said:

http://www.panthers.com/news/article-2/Marty-Hurney-hunting-a-deep-draft-class/27196334-2d46-44ea-bbe7-d3fb7d111023#start

The bold part is what really speaks to me. It has definitely worked out well for him in the 1st round. Picking Luke when we had Beason for example or Stewart when we had Williams. 

He's been burned by straying away from his first round philosophy so many times its not even funny. Panicking and trading away a first to get Everette Brown to replace Peppers is probably the best example of him regretting reaching and overspending assets for a need. 

Hurney has conducted 11 drafts for us. Heres where he's gone in the first each time. 

LB -3 times, Davis, Beason, and Luke

RB- 2 times  Williams and Stewart

Tackle 2 times Gross and Otah 

DE- Once, Peppers

CB - Once, Gamble

QB, Once, Cam

Cam, Peppers, Gross, Davis and Luke were all the first ones of their position to come off the board. 

** Yes I know Ware and Merriman went before Davis. However they were pass rushing LB's in a 3-4 not sideline to sideline 4-3 LB's.

He was able to get the first QB,DE AND TACKLE off the board in Cam,Peppers, Gross , and Luke. So drafting the top prospect at its position seemed to be safest  moves he's made and arguably the best. 

Williams, Stewart and Gamble were not first at their positions taken off the board. However after the dust settled their careers smoked the guys who went before them. Same could have been said for Beason, except Willis went before him.

Thats not enough data to exactly figure out if he considers some positions safer than others. However I do think it leads credence to selecting the best prospect available at their position vs going for need after the first. 

For example, lets take a look at his worst 2nd round picks. 

1. Everette Brown (This actually cost us a future 1st rounder). 5th DE taken. Total reach/panic move for a Peppers replacement
2. Jimmy Clausen 3rd QB taken but it was a horrible class. The Golden Calf of Bristol went in the first this year! Panic/reach to replace Delhomme
3. Eric Shelton 5th RB taken. Again another horrible class. Ronnie Brown, Cedric Benson and Cadillac Williams all went top 5. Panic/reach for Stephen Davis future replacement
4. Dwayne Jarrett. 8th WR taken. Thought he was good enough to dump Keyshawn Johnson. He had 815 yards and 4 TD's as our # 2 WR the prior year. They just wanted a reason to get him off team,as there were apparently some behind the scenes stuff that was not good for the locker room. 
5. Terrell Mcclain. Just go back and look at our DT core the prior couple years to this and its easy to see why he panicked there.

So far I feel like Hurney has used free agency to hedge his bets in a sense in the draft. He didn't fill every hole, but the ones he left open tend to leave much more to choose from in terms of top players at those positions making it to 24. 

Arguably our 5 biggest needs are at Guard, Safety,WR , 2ND RB, AND 2ND TE. However those are not nearly the hot commodities that positions he worked to fill in free agency are such as WR, CB and DT.  This should give us more of a shot at BPA and need aligning well for when we pick at 24, as you rarely see a big run on our top positions of need going early outside of WR. 

No matter what we do in the first, we will have "needs" in the 2nd and beyond. Can Hurney possibly show restraint and go true BPA over a need in the 2nd or 3rd? I think that will be interesting to see as we get to the 2nd day of the draft. I'm on board with it, as it certainly beats the alternative of going to panic mode as I call it and reaching for a need that has never worked out for him yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great stuff.

I call him Draft God, but that's a bit of a joke on the way certain people make drafting out to be some sort of mysterious art, best practiced from high atop Mount Olympus by a know-it-all Gettleman type.

In reality, following simple rules faithfully and keeping a cool head can lead to drafting success. At this point, Marty Hurney is one of the five or so best drafters in the history of the National Football League - I'm open to argument on that, but I have a feeling he will solidify that reputation with the upcoming draft and make argument unnecessary - and it has nothing to do with voodoo or tasseomancy or chicken bones. It's a simple matter of applying caution, humility, and common sense.

[heel31ok]

it's a new day ,so I will hope for the best because there isn't anything you or I can do about it... right now we are in a good position with multiple options to improve this team...so for now I see us having a good draft and a good season...Norv Turner 

[shaqattaq]

22 hours ago, panther4life said:

Hurney has conducted 11 drafts for us. Heres where he's gone in the first each time. 

LB -3 times, Davis, Beason, and Luke

RB- 2 times  Williams and Stewart

Tackle 2 times Gross and Otah 

DE- Once, Peppers

CB - Once, Gamble

QB, Once, Cam

Cam, Peppers, Gross, Davis and Luke were all the first ones of their position to come off the board. 

That's a hellova list! Otah is the glaring exception, BUT, he was an immediate starter until he blew out his knee. I think that he falls squarely into Hurney panicking and reaching to grab his guy (there was a wild run on OT in the 2008 draft starting with Jake Long at #1). IF he follows the pattern of grabbing the #1 guy at his position in the first, I could see TE being the pick. Most of the mocks I've seen have all the other top guys will be gone by 24. I'm not necessarily saying that we shoul'd go TE (although I'd be fine with it if that's the way everything pans out), just looking at the pattern.

Nice post BTW.

[heel31ok]

22 minutes ago, shaqattaq said:

That's a hellova list! Otah is the glaring exception, BUT, he was an immediate starter until he blew out his knee. I think that he falls squarely into Hurney panicking and reaching to grab his guy (there was a wild run on OT in the 2008 draft starting with Jake Long at #1). IF he follows the pattern of grabbing the #1 guy at his position in the first, I could see TE being the pick. Most of the mocks I've seen have all the other top guys will be gone by 24. I'm not necessarily saying that we shoul'd go TE (although I'd be fine with it if that's the way everything pans out), just looking at the pattern.

Nice post BTW.

LOL...Otah was the right pick...no panic needed...

[TN05]

22 minutes ago, heel31ok said:

LOL...Otah was the right pick...no panic needed...

Otah looked good for the first two seasons before he got hurt and never recovered. That's not on Hurney, just bad luck.

[panther4life]

3 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

This, to me, is pretty important.

Hurney's problem was never a philosophical one. The problem was much more practical. He has no real experience as a talent evaluator and the vast preponderance of the evidence points to him not being very good at that aspect of the job.

This is why I don't take it seriously when people talk about him "learning from his mistakes". You can't "learn" to have twenty years experience as a talent evaluator, and you don't become better at that by working in radio.

He could at least learn to listen more to scouts and stay away from his past instincts, but the problem there is that scouts often disagree. That's why it's ideal to have a GM who has talent evaluation skills himself so he can make the best choice among the options his scouts offer him.

As I've said many times, I'm hoping for the best, but my expectations aren't exactly sky high.

Thats a very good point. He will never be able to gain that direct experience as being a direct scout. However he's been around scouts long enough to know the drill by now. It's not like he's never scouted any player before, he just hasn't done it to the degree as someone who worked their way up the ranks as a career scout.

That also does not preclude him from learning from actual mistakes he made. History shows he really blew the 2nd round almost yearly. It also shows he was clearly looking to fill an immediate need on our roster and straying away from his approach he had to round 1. 

Almost every time he reached to fill an immediate need it backfired or didn't work. Other times later in the draft when he seemed to settle down and stick to BPA vs looking to fill an immediate hole he faired much better.

I am very cautiously optimistic he can do a good job in this draft. If nothing else he hasn't backed himself into a corner and is not forcing himself to  reach for a player to fill a massive hole on the roster like he did so often in the past.