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Mike Mayock, NFL
NFL Network’s Mike Mayock covers why he prefers Carson Wentz over Jared Goff, when Ezekiel Elliott could go in the draft, other QB prospects and which OT will be selected first.
AgamemnonPersonally, I am much more on the Goff wagon than you are.
Not enough to get into a Warner/Bulger, Suh/Bradford war over it (not that you would but there are those who would).
It’s just where I stand at the moment.
Everybody is much more on the Goff wagon than I. 😉
Agamemnonfrom off the net, no source/link for the quotation given in the original
That is probably paid content that Max downloaded. imo
AgamemnonThe top 2 QBs in the draft dominated the Wonderlic
Wentz 40
Goff 36— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) March 28, 2016
http://nflcombineresults.com/playerpage.php?i=21337
Mannion had a 40 on the wondelic, too, best in his class.
Agamemnonhttp://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/carson-wentz-1.html
Jared Goff
Case Keenum
I had this saved up. I thought I might as well post it, if anyone is interested?
AgamemnonIt is my belief that nobody really knows what players will succeed best in the NFL, especially QBs. I think history backs that up. You can project them and sort them and talk about the different aspects and attributes, but at best it seems to be no more than a coin flip even among the best candidates. So, you might as well go with the one you like best. I like Wentz. I don’t like Goff. The Rams should pick the guy they like best, whoever that is. imo
AgamemnonAccording to sources.. #Rams really like Carson Wentz. Anything might happen but he's the leader in the clubhouse now.
— Fred Roggin (@FredNBCLA) April 21, 2016
Roggins seems to be the only guy left picking Wentz. But, then, everyone thought that SF was going to pick Rogers until the last minute when they switched to Alex Smith.
Agamemnonhttp://nypost.com/2016/04/23/why-are-desperate-eagles-rams-betting-big-on-these-qbs/
Why are ‘desperate’ Eagles, Rams betting big on these QBs?By Bart Hubbuch
April 23, 2016 | 9:49pm
The top of this year’s NFL draft has scouts and executives around the league scratching their heads more vigorously than they have in years.
Not one but two teams — the Rams and Eagles — have gone to the drastic extent of mortgaging their respective futures to move up for … Jared Goff and Carson Wentz?
That would be Jared Goff, owner of a 14-23 record at California, and Carson Wentz, who needed three seasons to become a starter at FCS (formerly I-AA) North Dakota State and threw just 612 passes in college.
And for that, Los Angeles and Philadelphia together surrendered two future No. 1 picks, three second-round choices, three third-round picks and a fourth rounder.
Huh?
“It just shows you how desperate teams are for a quarterback, because this isn’t an elite group by any stretch of the imagination,” an NFC general manager told The Post last week. “You’re giving away the store, but none of these guys is [Jameis] Winston or [Marcus] Mariota. It could work out for [the Rams and Eagles], but right now, it’s just a huge, huge gamble.”
Not only is this considered a very thin quarterback crop, but all of the prospects with first- or second-round grades — and there aren’t very many of those — have major question marks going into the three-day draft beginning Thursday in Chicago.
Memphis’ Paxton Lynch is a towering 6-foot-7 but just 245 pounds, Connor Cook of Michigan State is thought to be an attitude problem and Penn State’s Christian Hackenberg is coming off two seasons so awful that several teams consider him no better than a long-term project.
Issues down the list normally wouldn’t be surprising or potentially problematic — a lack of draftable quarterbacks is far from a new phenomenon — if this were a year like 2015, when a pair of former Heisman Trophy winners with championship experience in Winston and Mariota were sitting at the top and considered worthy of a Day 1 starting job.
But thanks to the blockbuster moves by the Rams and Eagles, quarterbacks will go 1-2 for the second year in a row and third time since 2012 (the Andrew Luck-Robert Griffin III draft) even though Goff and Wentz were relative unknowns until the hype stage of this year’s event.
Jets GM Mike Maccagnan described this year’s quarterback class as “average” last week, and that seemed to be generous.
Seemingly the only people publicly fawning over Goff and Wentz are draft analysts, with the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock seemingly going out on the biggest limb with his over-the-top praise of both.
Mayock even said Goff and Wentz are better pro prospects than Winston or Mariota, a statement that appears ludicrous on its face.
“I still believe Wentz and Goff are on par or better than last year’s Mariota and Winston, and obviously two teams believe it as well, if they were able to give up what it took to trade up to get those guys,” Mayock said in a conference call with national media last week.
Wentz certainly looks like a quarterback right out of central casting at 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, with a big arm and strong pocket presence. But it is tough for some to get over the fact he started just 23 games in college, missed much of last year with a broken wrist and rarely faced major-conference opposition.
Goff, meanwhile, has plenty of experience (37 starts) in a wide-open offense that would lend itself to a smooth transition to the NFL, but he packs just 215 pounds on his 6-foot-4 frame and finished almost 10 games below .500 as a starter.
Yet Rams coach Jeff Fisher and Eagles GM Howie Roseman apparently like both of them enough to go all-in.
Go figure.
“It’s a weird group of quarterbacks,” a scout told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “None of them are just ready-made and none of them show consistency. They’re good, solid starters. None of them are Pro Bowl-caliber type quarterbacks. I would take Winston and Mariota over these guys. No question.”
Agamemnonhttp://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000473097/article/mike-mayock-spread-qbs-a-huge-gamble-for-nfl-teams
Mike Mayock: Spread QBs a huge gamble for NFL teamsBy Dan Hanzus
Around the NFL Writer
Published: Feb. 21, 2015 at 05:31 p.m.
Updated: Feb. 22, 2015 at 08:13 a.m.INDIANAPOLIS — Cardinals coach Bruce Arians disparaged the play of passers in college spread offenses this week at the NFL Scouting Combine, telling a room of reporters “that ain’t playing quarterback.”
Mike Mayock seems to agree. The NFL Network draft analyst believes teams are rolling the dice when they invest in quarterbacks who have no experience with some of the most important aspects of the position.
“You can’t kill a kid that hasn’t had to make a play call,” Mayock said from the podium at Lucas Oil Stadium. “He’s doing what his coaches ask him to do. However, it’s a huge transition. I try to give the analogy, you’re talking about taking a kid that’s in kindergarten and moving him to a college-level class almost overnight.”
Mayock proceeded to give a visual illustration of spread quarterback mechanics in an effort to explain the relative simplicity of the system.
“These guys who just catch, rock and throw have never had any footwork and you see it,” he said. “It’s no wonder that guys come out of these systems it sometimes takes a while.”
Baylor’s Bryce Petty is a perfect test case. He led an offensive juggernaut in Waco, Texas, but he remains a complete mystery when it comes to pocket awareness. Mayock praised Petty’s natural ability, saying he’d be the pick if he were playing a game in his backyard. But he added that Petty is a “project and not a one-year project.”
“In the old days, we were saying first-round quarterbacks kind of 50/50,” he said. “I think it’s even tougher now because of the spread.”
We hear again and again that the true way to analyze a draft class is by studying the game tape. In the case of spread quarterbacks, the tape falls short. There might be no bigger draft day gamble.
Agamemnonhttp://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/4/21/11473382/jared-goff-nfl-draft-2016-cal-air-raid
Air raid QBs have bombed in the NFL. Can Jared Goff be the 1st to truly succeed?
By Jason Kirk
@JasonKirkSBN on Apr 21, 2016, 8:45a 53
One of college football’s most entertaining offenses has represented itself poorly in the NFL. Is the “Bear Raid” QB the man to
“The air raid” most frequently describes the efficient, up-tempo, pass-heavy spread offense made famous by Mike Leach and further developed in various ways by Leach proteges-turned-head coaches like Cal’s Sonny Dykes, Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin, Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury and West Virginia’s Dana Holgorsen, who’s evolved all the way into using a run-first spread.
Air raid teams pretty much always put up tons of points and passing yards, but have few banners to show for them, whether due to exposed defenses, poor running games, weaknesses in the trenches, or happenstance. However, parts of the offense have bled into all sorts of offenses, and vice versa, so even saying “the air raid” in 2016 opens up a host of arguments. Let’s stick to the Leach tree, more or less.
This is relevant to the 2016 NFL Draft because the apparent favorite to go No. 1 to the Rams, Jared Goff, played all three of his years at Cal for Dykes and OC Tony Franklin, both former Leach assistants.
(Here’s the big ole deep-dive, multi-part explainer on how it works, and here are quick notes on how Dykes’ teams do it.)
Three years ago, when WVU’s Geno Smith was a first-round prospect, I looked at the history of air raid QBs in the NFL.It was bad. We can now add the young careers of Smith and Johnny Manziel to the list, which makes things no brighter.
What’s gone wrong?
I dunno.
Maybe air raid QBs have been overrated due to their big stats? It’s typically an underdog offense, for teams that can’t just overpower or out-speed opponents, which means its quarterbacks are rarely considered top prospects in high school or until late in their college careers.
Some would argue its progression-based system makes things a little too easy for college QBs and prevents them from developing pro skills.
Cal definitely fits the stereotypical profile of an air raid team.The Golden Bears ranked in the top eight in pass attempts in all three of Goff’s starting seasons, and the only teams to rank ahead of Cal in all three years were Leach’s Washington State and Texas Tech (where the air raid has become a cultural identity). Goff put up a gaudy 4,719 passing yards in 2015 while slightly disappointing many Cal fans.
They’ve ranked no higher than No. 97 in rushing attempts, despite the Bear Raid being meant to have more of a run/pass balance than Leach’s offenses.
In 2015, Cal’s offense ranked No. 13 in S&P+, while its defense ranked No. 84. Cal went 14-23 in the Goff/Dykes era, improving annually but showing few signs of significantly exceeding 2015’s 8-5 record any time soon.
But how does Goff measure up against his air raid predecessors?It’s hard to account for opponent quality with raw stats, but his 2015 passer rating of 161.2 would’ve ranked No. 5 on this list of 66 seasons by air raid QBs, behind the best years of Keenum, Beck, Smith, and Kolb. You could easily argue he faced better competition in the Pac-12 than others did, but there are other Pac-12 and SEC quarterbacks on that list who aren’t far behind.
NFL folks often say completion percentage and games started are the most telling college QB stats. Goff ranked No. 22, No. 36 and No. 62 in completion percentage in his three years. Smith’s best season ranked No. 2, Manziel’s No. 3, and various other air raid QBs cracked a season’s top 10. Goff has started many games, though.
But the NFL isn’t supposed to draft based on college stats, and scouts are apparently much higher on Goff than they were on any of those previous guys. Here’s Dan Kadar, who’s certainly smarter at this than I am:
Goff was an elite high school recruit [2013’s No. 15 pro-style QB] who has followed up on his promise.
Anyone who has watched Cal and its porous offensive lines has witnessed a tough player in the pocket who knows how to handle pressure. There is no better signal caller in this year’s draft at reading and manipulating a defense and working progressions. Some of the stick throws Goff made, especially in his junior season, were pure NFL throws that connected in tight windows and zipped through coverage.
If you can overlook a slender frame and those nine-inch hands, you have a complete quarterback. The arm strength and athleticism may not be off the charts, but they’re more than good enough.
Joe Montana comparisons are pretty ridiculous — and mostly lazy due to geographical and size similarities — but projecting him as a Matt Ryan-type quarterback is appropriate.
History shows it’s really hard to translate crazy productivity in this offense into NFL success.
If Goff is the exception, well, that’s pretty cool. Maybe there will be more.
Agamemnonlink: http://thebiglead.com/2016/03/02/carson-wentz-wonderlic/
Carson Wentz Scored a 29 on the Wonderlic, Higher than Peyton Manning and Cam Newton
on Wentz, the darling of the 2016 NFL quarterback class – for now, anyway – recently had a strong showing at the NFL Combine, and that includes his Wonderlic score. According to Bob McGinn of the Journal Sentinel, Wentz scored a 29 on the Wonderlic, ahead of the likes of Peyton Manning (28), Ben Roethlisberger (25) and Cam Newton (21). You can see a more comprehensive list below.
What does this mean? Nobody knows. Johnny Manziel scored a 32 a couple years ago, but he’s repeatedly failed in his decision-making off the field. So the 32 shows that Wentz definitely has a functioning brain.
[Aside: DeForest Buckner scored a 9, according to McGinn. He’s a defensive end. Reggie Ragland scored a 10. He’s an inside linebacker. If you’re looking for perspective: Ray Lewis, an all-time great inside linebacker, scored a 13.]
Scores for Jared Goff and Christian Hackenberg and Connor Cook and Cardale Jones and Paxton Lynch haven’t come in yet.
Perhaps only interesting to me: Wentz’s 29 lines up with another red-headed QB: Andy Dalton.
Greg McElroy, NY Jets, 48
Blaine Gabbert, Jacksonville, 42
Alex Smith, San Francisco, 40
Eli Manning, NY Giants, 39
Andrew Luck, Indianapolis, 37
Tony Romo, Dallas, 37*
Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco, 37
Sam Bradford, St. Louis, 36
Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay, 35
Christian Ponder, Minnesota 35
Marcus Mariota, Tennessee, 33
Tom Brady, New England 33
Johnny Manziel, Cleveland, 32
Matt Ryan, Atlanta, 32
Andy Dalton, Cincinnati 29
Mark Sanchez, NY Jets, 28
Peyton Manning, Indianapolis, 28
Blake Bortles, Jacksonville, 28
Jameis Winston, Tampa Bay, 27
Brandon Weeden, Cleveland, 27
Ryan Mallett, New England, 26
Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh 25
Robert Griffin III, Washington, 24
Cam Newton, Carolina, 21
Jake Locker, Tennessee 20
Teddy Bridgewater, Minnesota, 20
Derek Carr, Raiders, 20The top 2 QBs in the draft dominated the Wonderlic
Wentz 40
Goff 36— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) March 28, 2016
Carson Wentz, Jared Goff's Reported Scores on Wonderlic Test Revealed
Carson Wentz, Jared Goff’s Reported Scores on Wonderlic Test Revealed
By Tyler Conway , Featured Columnist Mar 28, 2016Carson Wentz has eclipsed Jared Goff on many talent evaluators’ draft boards, thanks in large part to his prototypical size and arm strength. Now, the North Dakota State product has another check in the win column: Wonderlic scores.
John Middlekauff of 95.7 The Game reported Monday that Wentz scored a 40 out of 50 on the combine’s intelligence test, while Goff scored a 36. Both numbers are considered excellent overall, but this should only further Wentz’s rapid rise up draft boards.
Unheralded to most casual observers for nearly the entire 2015 season, Wentz is now a surefire top-10 pick. Equipped with size (6’5″, 237 lbs) and above-average athleticism (4.77-second 40-yard dash at the combine), he is everything scouts look for on paper. Playing at an FCS school kept him from the public’s view, but NFL teams have fallen for him to the point that his largely lost 2015 campaign has been thrown out the window.
ESPN.com’s Todd McShay currently has him going No. 2 to the Cleveland Browns, as does Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller. The Browns recently signed Robert Griffin III, but that should do little to change things if Cleveland believes Wentz is a franchise quarterback.
“I think he’s the most NFL-ready quarterback that we’ve had in the last couple of years,” former NFL coach Jon Gruden said in an ESPN feature on Wentz, per Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com.
Goff, who spent nearly all of 2015 as the consensus top-ranked quarterback, has become a bit of a victim of the draft process. Scouts who spent years raving about the Cal product have spent the past few months finding flaws. Whether it’s his hand size (9″), arm strength or offensive scheme, the hand-wringing has seemingly made him the clear second option.
As it stands, Goff is going No. 7 to the 49ers in both McShay’s and Miller’s mock drafts. That seems like the top of his draft trajectory at this point. If the Browns pass on Wentz, it’s theoretically possible Goff falls out of the top 10—assuming no team trades up.
Their solid Wonderlic results should help reinforce Goff and Wentz as the draft’s top two quarterbacks. Wentz’s score of 40 ranks among the best in recent NFL history, while Goff’s is one point better than that of former Cal product Aaron Rodgers.
The idea that Wonderlics somehow translate to NFL superiority has long since been debunked, but getting a high score has never hurt anyone.
There is a bit of conflict about the exact score/s, 29 or 40.
AgamemnonI think in this draft, picking at 110 and 113, the Rams have a better than usual chance of getting a player. ? let’s double it. After that(? ~200-udfas), I think we have to go to the pile method, bring as many bodies as you can and hope you find something. That is also a tipping point where it becomes possible to trade up and get some value that way. Say, there is someone your really like at 90-100, etc.
In the 6th round we might want to draft, WR MITCH MATHEWS BRIGHAM YOUNG and the German Unicorn.
Maybe we can’t find a tier 1 guy, but we only have one WR under contract for 2017, Marquez.
AgamemnonFree personality test
Well, the results were, I got a big winking smiley face on the screen with the caption “well no wonder you’re a Rams fan.”
Not sure what it means.
.
I think to be a true personality test, it has to ask you 4 or 5 different ways if you are cat person or a dog person.
Agamemnon“It’s just a bad group,” an NFC personnel director said. “There’s not one sure thing.”
—————————-Well i think that is the key statement right there.
The pundits/experts tend to say its a ‘bad group’
when what they really should say is ‘there’s no sure thing’.
The two statements are different.There will be QBs and WR’s found in the later rounds
that do well but there wont be many. The trick is picking them.Maybe the rams can sign Cordarelle ?
w
vThe Vikings would have to cut him. He is till under his 4 year rookie contract.
AgamemnonTrading up for a first-round quarterback is rarely worth the cost
By Jared Dubin | Staff Writer
February 11, 2015 12:53 pm ETThe Cleveland Browns are reportedly interested in former Oregon quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota. If the Browns were to draft Mariota, it would mark the third time in four years they’ve selected a quarterback in the first round. They drafted Brandon Weeden at No. 22 in 2012 (using one of the picks they acquired from Atlanta in the Julio Jones deal) and Johnny Manziel (also No. 22) in 2014. Of course, Weeden is now Tony Romo’s backup in Dallas, while Manziel entered rehab this off-season, so the Browns could soon be on the hunt for a quarterback of the future yet again.
Mariota is widely considered one of the top two quarterback prospects in this year’s draft, along with Florida State’s Jameis Winston. Most mock drafts have Mariota being selected somewhere between first and sixth (our Rob Rang, Dane Brugler and Pat Kirwan have him going sixth, sixth and first, respectively), though the majority of prognosticators have recently been moving him further down in the draft after he spent much of the season as a front-runner for the No. 1 overall selection.
Cleveland currently owns picks 12 and 19 — the latter was part of the haul they received from the Buffalo Bills in last year’s Sammy Watkins trade — so it’s likely the Browns would have to trade up in the draft in order to secure Mariota’s services. A word of advice to the Browns: don’t do it.
Moving up in the draft for a quarterback rarely works out, even if the player you acquire becomes a very good one. The cost to move up in the draft is prohibitive, and because quarterback is one of the least predictable positions in terms of college success translating to the NFL, the risk is also higher than when moving up for, say, an offensive lineman.
Since 2000, 14 teams have moved up in the draft to select a quarterback in the first round. Their targets ranged in quality from Eli Manning to Brady Quinn, and the majority of the deals wound up looking bad for the team that just had to go get their quarterback of the future. Take a look at this:
Toward the right side of the chart, you’ll see some numbers that probably look a bit unfamiliar. “AV” is Pro-Football-Reference’s Approximate Value, which attempts to capture in a single number the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year since 1950. It is of course inexact, but for the purposes of this exercise, it works well enough to provide us a glimpse at the “value” sent out and brought in on draft day trades for first-round quarterbacks.
“AV Out” represents the AV compiled by The Target — the quarterback who the team that moved up in the draft acquired — while he was with the acquiring team. So, for example, even though Jay Cutler has produced an AV of 90 in his career, he only got 30 of that with the Broncos, so that’s the AV we credit them with for the trade in which they acquired Cutler.
“AV In” represents the AV compiled by The Haul — the players the team that moved down in the draft eventually acquired. If any picks included in the initial deal were subsequently traded for other picks or players, I followed those deals to the end of the line. As with “AV Out,” only AV accrued while with the acquiring team was counted. So while LaDainian Tomlinson had a career AV of 158, we’re only counting the 145 he produced while with San Diego as part of the 2001 Michael Vick trade.
“AV Diff” is fairly self-explanatory: it’s the difference between “AV Out” and “AV In,” representing the Approximate Value gained or lost by moving up in the first round to select a quarterback. As you can see, of these 14 trades, in only two of them did the team that moved up to get their quarterback come away with a “win” according to AV.
The best of those would be Denver’s 2006 trade for Jay Cutler, in which the Broncos surrendered the 15th and 68th picks in exchange for No. 11, a deal that resulted in 20 points of excess AV. The 68th pick was acquired as part of a trade the previous year, where Washington gave Denver multiple picks to move into the first round to select Jason Campbell, which didn’t exactly work out that wonderfully. One of those picks turned into Brandon Marshall, another was used to trade for Javon Walker, and a third was used as part of the Cutler deal. By moving down one year and using part of that haul to move up in another, the Broncos accumulated 70 extra points of Approximate Value.
The other trade in which the team moving up in the draft for a quarterback came away with more AV than the team who moved down is Cleveland’s trade in last year’s draft for Johnny Manziel. The three players eventually selected by the Philadelphia Eagles produced 0 AV for them last season, while Manziel, in his disastrous rookie year, managed to produce 1 AV. Who knows what will happen to that calculation in the future, but given Manziel’s performance and current personal circumstances, as well as reports the Browns are considering moving up for Mariota, it does not look great for people expecting the Manziel deal to be a win.
Similarly, though it looked quite good after the 2012 season, Washington’s trade for Robert Griffin III now looks like a boondoggle. The Rams have already acquired 49 points in excess AV from the trade, and if Washington doesn’t retain Griffin after his rookie contract ends, that number will only continue to grow. As the eventual fruit of the deal, the Rams wound up with three defensive starters (Michael Brockers, Janoris Jenkins, Alec Ogletree), two rotation running backs (Zac Stacy, Isaiah Pead), a solid wide receiver (Stedman Bailey) and their left tackle of the future (Greg Robinson). They still don’t have their quarterback, but they have a deeper team and a far better defense than Washington, which may need to look for a quarterback once again given the friction between Griffin and head coach Jay Gruden.
Even the best player (by total AV) acquired in this fashion, Eli Manning, wound up on the losing end of the deal. The New York Giants would likely make that trade again and again if given the opportunity, considering that Manning has been a picture of health and a consistently above-average quarterback throughout his career. Even leaving aside the two Super Bowl victories, Manning has produced a lot of value for New York. Still, the haul the San Diego Chargers got in exchange for his services — Philip Rivers, Nate Kaeding, Shawne Merriman and Roman Oben (acquired in a trade for one of the picks from the Manning deal) — wound up producing a ton of excess value.
The best of these deals by AV was Denver’s trade for Cutler, and it only resulted in a positive-20 differential. Of the other 13 trades, 10 of them resulted in a negative differential of more than 20 for the team that traded up. Even New York’s deal for Manning wound up producing nearly as much excess AV for San Diego (100) as Manning has produced for the Giants in his career (120), and Manning is the best player acquired in one of these trade-ups. Quite simply, it is very, very hard to win one of these deals if you’re the team that moves up for a quarterback.
Even ignoring the AV calculations, it’s difficult to say that many of the teams that moved up in the draft for their quarterback “won” the deal by acquiring the best player. Taking each deal separately, it’s likely that only the 2004 Giants (Manning), 2006 Broncos (Cutler) and 2008 Ravens (Joe Flacco) could confidently say they came away with the best player in the trade. And even two of those are debatable, as it’s arguable that Philip Rivers has been a superior player to Manning and that Duane Brown has been better at his position (left tackle) than Flacco. The Giants and Ravens won Super Bowls with Manning and Flacco, though, so they resulted in wins for the organization, whether they got the true “best” player or not.
But nobody in their right mind would tell you that Michael Vick was better the LaDainian Tomlinson, or Kyle Boller was better than Vince Wilfork, or Blaine Gabbert was better than Ryan Kerrigan. The draft is a crap shoot, above anything else, and surrendering extra picks and/or players just gives you one less roll of the dice. Even if you think the quarterback you’re moving up to acquire is a sure thing, it’s more likely than not that you’re wrong. Sure things don’t come around very often, and tricking yourself into believing you have spotted the one guy who can change everything is more likely to come back to haunt you than to result in wild success.
This stuff is historical data. It is not a law. At some point value will meet risk. But that point is probably below what the other team is willing to do a trade for or another team is willing to bid. imo
AgamemnonNFL Draft: Do Teams Trading Up In The Draft Get Better Players?
By: Jason Lisk | April 26, 2012 4:45 pm ET
Everyone wants their team to trade down. Teams usually trade up, though, with a specific target in mind, in the heat of the moment of draft day. Sometimes it’s a guy they think represents the last of a tier at a position of need. Other times, it might be a guy that they did not anticipate being available at a spot, who they had rated much higher, and acquiring him becomes a more realistic possibility.
I was curious, though, as to whether teams trading up for a target end up getting a player than those around the pick. I looked back at the 2004 to 2007 drafts, at all draft day trades (via prosportstransactions.com), and found the “trade up” target–the earliest selection that was part of the trade. I excluded all draft day trades that involved a veteran player moving, as those more likely just involved getting a pick that was offered, rather than targeting a specific player while on the clock.
To measure the players, I used the “approximate value” figures at pro-football-reference.com. I compared the trade up target to the career value of the 10 players selected around them (5 in front and immediately after the traded pick).
The results? Yes, overall, players drafted as a result of a trade-up were better than those drafted around them. Of the 81 trades, the player turned out to be better than the average of those around them 44 times, and on average were +2 in career AV.
The best trade up values during this four year stretch saw the New York Jets hitting on 3 of the top 6 values. New York traded up to get Darrelle Revis, David Harris, and Kerry Rhodes. Haloti Ngata was the biggest hit (Baltimore traded up 1 spot to insure they got Ngata), and Steven Jackson of the Rams and Chris Cooley were the other biggest values compared to those drafted around them.
At the other end of the spectrum, first and second round busts that also cost teams multiple picks were the worst values. These include names like John McCargo, Ricardo Colclough, Jarvis Moss, Brady Quinn, Kellen Clemens, and Chad Jackson.
While the overall average showed a slightly positive outlook for trade up targets, there was one segment where they stood out. There were no trade up targets where the best pick was worse than pick #197. However, the 24 trades involving a player below pick #100 proved to be quite valuable. Teams trading up in the mid-rounds got a player who was +5 career AV better on average.
I know that number probably means nothing to you, so I’ll put it in perspective. That means that on average, the targeted trade player produced like a pick about a round a half better than where they were actually selected. You probably had a fair amount of teams that saw a guy slip, had him rated much higher, and made a move to get one of the few remaining guys projected higher on their board.
In an area where the draft is very much more miss than hit, teams got starters like Kerry Rhodes, Todd Herremans, Corey Williams, Isaac Sopoaga, Chris Canty, Uche Nwaneri, Rex Hadnot, and Brian Robison.
Compared to the very positive return on the late round trade targets, the first round trade targets were slightly better than average, while the second rounders were actually worse than those around them.
I’ll also say that this analysis is just looking at whether the trade up target turned out to be any better than other players selected in the same area. That’s not the same as endorsing the cost of the trade. For example, I maintain that it is a very bad idea to trade future picks that are a round earlier (for example, a next year’s first to get a second rounder), and the slightly better performance doesn’t offset.
Considering the higher costs associated with most trade ups near the top of the draft as well (often requiring another second rounder or third rounder, or perhaps future picks) I suspect they were losing propositions way more often than not.
The mid to later round trade-ups, though, were a different story. Giving up two 6ths to get into the 5th isn’t missing out on that many opportunities, and teams that were aggressive here did net a good return.
AgamemnonSuccessful drafting? It’s all about volume
Bill Belichick and Ozzie Newsome both focus on gathering as much draft capital as possible. USA TODAY Sports
Apr 14, 2016OF ALL THE gambles NFL teams will take on players during this year’s draft, perhaps the riskiest move will be betting on their own flawed judgment. Organizations invest millions of dollars in scouting and player analysis, applying everything from extensive physical testing to pseudo-scientific written examinations in an attempt to weed out true talents from the chaff. You can understand why: Given that rookie salaries are capped by the CBA, the potential return on investment is enormous. The difference between what Russell Wilson made during his first three seasons in the NFL and what it would have cost to acquire a similarly talented quarterback in free agency runs over $50 million.
There’s one big problem: All the empirical evidence we can find suggests that nobody in the league is actually any good at picking players. The best plan? In the scratch-off lottery that is the draft, the smartest strategy is simply to have more tickets.
Several studies, notably recent analyses by Chase Stuart of FootballPerspective.com and Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight, suggest that no NFL team exhibits any sort of year-to-year consistency in acing the draft. By all accounts, despite all the energy and money teams pour into picking players, the draft is mostly a crapshoot.
You don’t need some expansive study either. Anecdotally, this is more accurate than we care to admit. Sure, that 2012 draft saw the Seahawks come away with Wilson and Bobby Wagner, but their subsequent two drafts yielded just one regular starter, struggling offensive lineman Justin Britt. The 1974 Steelers draft, which delivered four Hall of Famers, is regarded as the best single class in league history, but Pittsburgh’s 1975 draft failed to produce a single Steelers starter. The same personnel executives who fawn over Wilson and Tom Brady for having the “it” factor were the ones who also said Mark Sanchez and Brady Quinn had “it” while passing on Wilson and Brady multiple times.
“In the scratch-off lottery that is the draft, the smartest strategy is simply to have more tickets.”
Even if you want to make the argument that those teams were overstuffed with talent and couldn’t support more picks, consider how the truly great personnel executives have made mistakes. Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome sent first- and second-round picks to the Patriots to trade up for Kyle Boller. Bill Belichick has traded up to grab the likes of Bethel Johnson and Ron Brace. Teams run by people who have forgotten more about football than you or I will ever know traded up to grab Blaine Gabbert and Trent Richardson. Their boards were remarkably, catastrophically wrong.
At the same time, how can we blame organizations for intense draft preparation given the stakes? If you were an NFL executive who had started his career fetching coffee for subminimum wage and worked your way to the top of a multibillion-dollar organization, wouldn’t you believe you knew something the street didn’t? If you were an owner, would you trust that guy or the one who said, “Based on all we know, this is a crapshoot”?
So should teams stop showing up to the combine, fire all their scouts and just throw darts to pick players?
Of course not. There’s value in scouting and research, but it needs to be tempered and approached from a different perspective. Teams should start from the premise that they know nothing about the draft pool and act accordingly. In practice, that means taking the lottery ticket analogy quite seriously and acquiring as many picks as possible.
And wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what personnel executives like Belichick and Newsome do. Belichick trades down as much as anybody in football, while Newsome focuses on acquiring compensatory picks to add valuable draft capital.
Truthfully, the NFL should be better at this stuff. College football is a fully funded minor league system with thousands of players auditioning for multiple years, and coaches still complain that the systems aren’t similar enough to prepare quarterbacks and offensive linemen for the NFL, even though many college schemes now look exactly like ones you routinely see on Sunday. What’s the solution? A simple reminder to be stapled atop every draft board: All the evidence suggests that regardless of the era or its schemes, the best way to make one good draft pick is to start with two draft picks.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/draft2016/story/_/id/15159462/successful-drafting-all-volume-nfl
AgamemnonDan Patrick Show
2016 NFL draft: David Carr thinks L.A. Rams should take Carson Wentz No. 1David Carr explains why a franchise quarterback is required for an NFL team to make a playoff run and how Carson Wentz has the experience needed to be the first pick in the draft.
AgamemnonThe only way to beat the draft is to have more draft choices than the other guy. That is a simplest way to describe a complex situation. imo
I think the best drafting strategy is similar to optimal Yahtzee strategy.
AgamemnonHow much is the rookie pool now, I wonder?
…It was 5.5M -(6×0.5) = 2.5M
Now it is 7.2M -(5×0.5)= 4.7M AgamemnonGreg Cosell’s draft preview: Jared Goff’s strengths and flaws
By Greg Cosell
March 30, 2016 2:10 PM
Shutdown CornerI see a lot of good traits in Cal quarterback Jared Goff. His size, throwing ability and pocket attributes are all first-round pick worthy.
I think Goff is a more natural and better overall thrower than Marcus Mariota. Overall I think he’s a better prospect than Mariota or Jameis Winston, who went with the first two picks of last year’s draft. But a few questions remain, and they need to be looked at hard by NFL teams.
The two biggest issues I have with Goff are questions about his ability to deal with the adversity of the game and dealing with pass rush pressure.
When I look at the Utah game, it’s not a good piece of tape for Goff. He threw five interceptions, but it’s more than just the number of interceptions. It was more worrisome how his tendency to play fast and hurried showed in that game and led to the turnovers. He didn’t react well in this game.
This hurried throw in the face of the pass rush when he had nobody open is a good example of how his poise and composure must be evaluated carefully:
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Goff’s feet at times can be a little jumpy and frenetic. That’s not a good thing, and you wonder how that will play out against the better and faster pass rushers in the NFL.
Despite that, Goff clearly has traits you look for in an NFL quarterback: light feet, good balance, pocket awareness and movement, compact delivery, natural accuracy. A third-and-5 throw against Washington is a good example of what Goff does well, moving well in the pocket, then delivering a strong, accurate throw for a 20-yard gain (it’s at 7:42 of this video).
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One thing that consistently stood out about Goff was his natural ability to make the right kind of throw when needed. He threw with touch when needed and velocity when needed. Goff is an easy, natural thrower – his arm strength would be comparable to Matt Ryan. He is an aggressive thrower, willing to turn it loose at the intermediate levels and with the ability to throw with pace and touch when the situation calls for it. He has the look of a natural pocket quarterback at times.
Here’s a throw where Goff showed excellent trajectory, touch and ball placement on a fade route that went for a 35-yard touchdown (it’s the first play on the Utah video above).
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That’s a really good throw.
There’s a lot that goes into playing quarterback in the NFL, but I saw some things that lead me to believe Goff can handle the subtle nuances of the position.
One thing he does is move his feet with his eyes always looking downfield, which is a refined attribute. Even though Cal’s offense is a shotgun spread offense in the mold of Hal Mumme and Mike Leach, it uses NFL route concepts with vertical and intermediate throws. Goff didn’t play in a dink-and-dunk offense. He has good functional movement in the pocket and is willing to turn it loose, which I like to see.
There are a lot of things to like about Goff. There are a few concerns, which really showed up in the Utah game, that NFL teams will have to look hard at. I think Carson Wentz is a better NFL prospect than Goff, and Wentz is my top quarterback in this draft, but Goff has a lot to offer as well.
AgamemnonGreg Cosell’s draft preview: Carson Wentz’s valid Andrew Luck comp
By Greg Cosell
March 28, 2016 11:26 AM
Shutdown CornerLeading up to the NFL draft on April 28-30, NFL Films’ Greg Cosell will be sharing his views on many of the top prospects based on his extensive film study of those players.
Andrew Luck was considered a rare prospect, and as such, people are hesitant to compare other high-level prospects to Luck.
I believe Carson Wentz is a high-level prospect, my top quarterback in this draft class, and I think the comparison to Luck is valid.
What happens down the road in any prospect’s career is pure speculation, and how Wentz does in the NFL is a product of many variables. So I don’t know how Wentz’s NFL career will compare to what Luck has done or will continue to do. But I see many similarities between the two quarterbacks.
Like Luck, Wentz is smart. He was a 4.0 student at North Dakota State. Physically, the two are similar, and we’ll get to that in a bit. One thing that stood out to me about Wentz is his poise in critical moments. That reminds me of Luck as well.
Wentz, with his team trailing 28-24 against Northern Iowa last season, led a late drive and threw a game-winning touchdown in the final minute. He converted a couple key fourth downs and showed outstanding poise and composure. It was an excellent combination of patience and aggressiveness. (Move ahead to 11:24 of the video below to watch him lead the game-winning drive.)
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Physically there’s a lot to like about Wentz too, and there are more reminders of Luck. Wentz is a very good athlete for a 6-foot-5, 237-pound quarterback (Wentz is actually a smoother-looking athlete than Luck because his body type is different: he is longer and leaner than Luck despite weighing 237 pounds). He has an awareness of how to play the position, like Luck. He has the ability to drive the ball when the throw demands it, as Luck does.
Wentz has very good arm strength. He is a tight, compact, easy thrower for a big quarterback. The ball comes out with velocity. Wentz can clearly drive the ball, which is a result of a strong core and lower body.
Wentz isn’t just a fastball thrower. He has showed the refinement to throw with touch and pace when demanded. He can make firm, touch seam throws that are part of NFL passing games. He showed an excellent feel for the different kinds of throws that are necessary for the situation.
There were other things I liked about Wentz when I watched the film: He had an excellent command of the offense, controlling the game at the line of scrimmage when needed with a lot of audibles and checks. He excelled in a structured passing game that asked him to make progression reads and difficult NFL-type throws. All of that will help in his transition to the pro game.
He also is a good runner. There were times when the NDSU offense looked like the Carolina Panthers offense with its multiple backfield actions and run game dimensions. Here’s a quarterback run behind the fullback that went for a touchdown:
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If a team decides to use Wentz as a regular part of their running game, as the Panthers do with Cam Newton, he has the ability to excel in that role.
Wentz has many skills you like to see, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be an NFL success. Going back to the Luck example, even though the assumption was that Luck’s decision making wouldn’t be a problem in the NFL because of his high-level intelligence, he hasn’t been a consistently good decision maker in the pros — that’s a part of Luck’s game he must continue to work on. So it’s always tough to project any prospect, no matter the position. There’s a lot of variables involved in becoming a high-level NFL player, especially at quarterback.
I can only tell you what I’ve seen on tape from the prospects going into the draft. And what I’ve seen from Wentz is pretty good. He’s my No. 1 quarterback in this draft.
Agamemnon
This link is a podcast. It is an extended view of Wentz and Goff.
It goes with zn’s post below.
Agamemnon
North Dakota State HC Chris Klieman joined Alex Marvez and Gil Brandt on Late Hits and talked about what he believes separates Carson Wentz in the competition to be the number one overall pick.
Cal HC Sonny Dykes joined Alex Marvez and Gil Brandt on Late Hits and talked about why he believes his former QB Jared Goff is worthy of the number overall pick. Agamemnon
