nfl 2019-2020

[Gromnir]

18 hours ago, Mannock said:

The QB class being as thin as it is this year, he will most likely be the first QB off the board this year. I'm not totally sold on Murray but enough hype has been created for him to be coveted in the draft this year.

am thinking this issue got attention earlier in the thread.  is little which would prevent murray, if he tanks over the next four years o' his rookie contract, to reconsider an mlb career.  opposite would be prohibitive... start baseball then try and do football as an older rookie if basebol is not good to him is an extreme long shot.

am not thinking is confidence so much as naked pragmatism.

has been a few last minute rumors o' the giants trying to work a trade for murray.  weirder things have happened, but am doubting the veracity o' such. 

on the positive, it appears as if most teams share Gromnir's assessment o' the top qbs.  we nevertheless expect multiple qbs to be drafted earlier than their talent would warrant, but am not seeing trubisky kinda overreach for the 2019 draft. is good news/bad news for qb starved teams.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Gromnir
capitalization fail

[Leferd]

I mean, it’s not too late for him to re-consider a baseball career now, right?

[Gromnir]

Hill heard on audio discussing son's abuse case

Tyreek Hill Allegedly Threatened Fiancee, 'You Need to Be Terrified Of Me Too, B!tch'

somebody needs to help hill's son.  somebody should make a hard choice and help hill rather than simply enabling him even if that help is hard.

this is a lifetime decision, for multiple people.  

[Mannock]

So what do you say about round 1 of the draft?

I'm surprised Jawaan Taylor wasn't picked. He was mocked high on a lot of mock drafts and was projected as the best tackle (though it was a close race I think). Very surprising.

I liked that the Falcons picked Chris Lindstrom so early. I was hoping he would slide to my Packers down at #30, but that wasn't even close to happening.

Two tight ends drafted before any WR. That's really something.

Thought some team would trade up into the first round to grab Drew Lock or Will Grier. Surprised me that it didn't happen.

 

As for the Packers, I feel content. I was crossing my fingers for Hockenson or Ed Oliver at #12 but it was a long shot. Rashan Gary has a big upside and we will see how it pans out. I like that they traded up to get the safety they wanted (and dearly needed). Feeling good so far.

[the_dog_days]

Jets spent another first round draft pick on d-line. 

[Gfted1]

I had the draft playing in the background but I wasn't paying much attention. Tonight we dance!

[Keyrock]

I can't believe Jawaan Taylor fell all the way to the 2nd round. I saw at least 3 OTs go in the 1st that were lesser prospects than him. Are the health concerns really that severe to warrant a top 10 guy to fall all the way to the 2nd round?

[Mannock]

12 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I can't believe Jawaan Taylor fell all the way to the 2nd round. I saw at least 3 OTs go in the 1st that were lesser prospects than him. Are the health concerns really that severe to warrant a top 10 guy to fall all the way to the 2nd round?

Apparently so. I was supersurprised too though.

And howabout DK Metcalf? Sheesh, what a drop!

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, Mannock said:

Apparently so. I was supersurprised too though.

And howabout DK Metcalf? Sheesh, what a drop!

am suspecting there were more to taylor's drop than only health concerns. 

am knowing we mentioned earlier how we thought dk metcalf were way over-hyped-- his film did not warrant the top 10 pick kinda attention he were getting.  am glad the league caught wise.

were a few baffling high picks and some precipitous drops, as is usual. may need to wait and see if a few o' the drops were having reuben foster issues. 

will give our thoughts on the draft overall soonish, but for now, am linking the increasing important ufa list

https://walterfootball.com/draft/UDFASigningsByTeam

were a few big name players who didn't get drafted and such players is increasing likely to stick as teams skew towards youth.

however, for mannock will address gb first round... whether he wants or not.

greenbay got kinda screwed over by circumstances with their first round picks.  needed a te, an edge guy and a safety. once bosa and allen and clellin ferrell (didn't expect that)were off the board, there were only a few other true edge guys deserving a first round selection, and montez sweat had his possible heart condition.  hockerson went a bit earlier than gb hoped(?) and clear they weren't enamored enough with fant to take him early round 1... and by the time gb made their second pick, fant were gone. is arguable that none o' the safeties deserved round 1 consideration, but were no way the good ones were gonna be available when gb picked in the second round. 

rashan gary were top 10 talent, but he were never even the best edge guy at michigan. way underproduced for his kinda ability. even so, for a true edge guy, were gonna need choose gary, burns or sweat... or trade down.

jonathan abram and darnell savage were the only two safeties getting even a sniff at the first round-both were round 1-2ish kinda prospects. rapp, adderley, thornhill and gardner-johnson all looked like 2-3 round guys. gb had to either choose a safety a bit early, or risk missing on any quality safeties... though gardner-johnson had one o' those inexplicable drops which suggest there were some public unknown problem.

am thinking gb did fine, but circumstances put them in a tough position. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Keyrock]

9 hours ago, Mannock said:

And howabout DK Metcalf? Sheesh, what a drop!

If Al Davis was still alive, the Raiders would have taken him at #4. 

 

What was the biggest WTF move of the draft? Was it the G-Men taking Daniel Jones at #6? I agree with them taking a QB to eventually replace the desiccated , moth-eaten corpse of Elisha Nelson Manning the Fourth, but Daniel Jones? When Haskins was still on the board? 

 

IMHO Murray and Haskins are clear "yeah, these guys are starters", and Lock, Jones, Finley and Stidham are "probably backups, but could maybe be starters".

Edited April 28, 2019 by Keyrock

[Mannock]

Thanks for the analysis, gromnir. I kind of agree with your take.

People might wonder why Packers didn't trade down (from #12 pick), cause they pondered that but didn't get any good offers. The reason for that I thnk is that the QB market was really weak and it worked against the Packers this time. Around the internet, I see a lot of people bashing the Rashan Gary pick but Mike Pettine is a good schemer so I hope he can get a lot of good out of Gary. I prefer to see it play out before beginning to whine about it. As for the draft in general, they had four big needs and they addressed all four of them with their first four picks. So at the end of the day, I'm very happy about how it all played out.

 

As for the biggest surprise. Well, certainly Daniel Jones, but Giants seem to make an effort to make silly picks in the first round so in one sense it wasn't a surprise. DK Metcalf is still a big surprise for me though. I know his tape wasn't that good but he was getting massive amount of hype, even being a top 10 pick, and to fall to the last pick of the second round, that is a huge surprise. And rounding off my top three surprises is Jawaan Taylor. For sure there were reasons but I heard nothing about it prior to the draft so it still made a good surprise for me (nice of Jags to snag him in round 2 though, as he was projected by many to the Jaguars in round 1).

[Gfted1]

RIP Bart Starr.

[Gromnir]

Zeke: Need to work harder after (another) 'poor decision'

this clear weren't the worst thing zeke has ever done, but 'bout the only positive thing we might say on behalf o' the dallas rb in connection with yet another incident is his apologies to the nfl and commissioner is getting better even if his judgement and behaviour is 'bout what we would expect from an unruly teenager. 

have zeke voluntarily put in contract that he will have a cowboys/nfl appointed guardian accompanying him whenever out after dark and in a location where alcohol could be consumed. agree in advance to incremental increase in fines and lost playing time for each additional violation o' team rules, nfl policy and/or new guardian scheme. do such and am betting future zeke issues drop to near zero.

this guy is not learning and is making no effort to change. am suspecting most dallas fans (an likely vol) is ok with the status quo, but if only to help zeke for when he leaves football and needs make adult decisions w/o the cowboys acting as his perpetual safety net, somebody should step forward and try to educate this not-so-young-anymore man. for an nfl rb who gets a good number o' carries, after football is likely not a distant future concern. 

said similar stuff 'bout hill earlier in the thread. these guys who is making same and similar mistakes repeated could use the kinda help which nobody wants, but far too many need. 

HA! Good Fun! 

ps is ez to hate on the cowboys, but to show we got love too

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by Gromnir

[Gfted1]

No discipline for Elliott.

w00t w00t

[Mannock]

Training camp is upon us! How is your team doing? Are you excited?

 

My team, the Packers, are doing fairly good. I'm a bit concerned that Mike Daniels was cut and I also worry about first rounder, Darnell Savage S, sitting on the sideline so far (wisdom teeth pulled out). But other than that, I'm looking forward to the Texans coming to town for som joint practices.

[Bartimaeus]

No major injuries yet. Not sure what to expect this season from the Packers this season, given a new coaching staff and so many young players. I think we'll be a better team than last year, but it might not necessarily be reflected in the wins (where we honestly should've been more like 4-12 but were very lucky to escape with a number of last-second wins that felt borderline unndeserved if not for the heroics of a few players). If we somehow make it to the playoffs in any form, I'd be pretty darned impressed, but I'm setting my expectations at around the 6-10-to 9-7 area, with the caveat that we hopefully don't look incompetent for half of the season before the team realizes they'll really need to pull some magic out of their butts now, which has seemingly happened every season since 2014 to varying degrees of success.

[Mannock]

The defense is looking so good this year, so on some days I'm super optimistic. But then again, a first time HC and a new system, it should be a bunch of problems during this season. I'm dead certain we will lose the opener against the Bears.

But one can dream, no?

[Gfted1]

I looks like the Elliott thing is going to go sideways. He has no leverage and will lose a year if he doesn't show up but I can appreciate that an RB's life is short and he has to cash in while he can. Theres also the (good?) problem of having a lot of other skill position players to pay. I don't think Prescott is worth the numbers Im reading ($30M)! but the going rate for even a mediocre QB is climbing so hes going to get overpaid. I think they can afford Cooper without busting the cap. 

[Bartimaeus]

18 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

I looks like the Elliott thing is going to go sideways. He has no leverage and will lose a year if he doesn't show up but I can appreciate that an RB's life is short and he has to cash in while he can. Theres also the (good?) problem of having a lot of other skill position players to pay. I don't think Prescott is worth the numbers Im reading ($30M)! but the going rate for even a mediocre QB is climbing so hes going to get overpaid. I think they can afford Cooper without busting the cap. 

I wouldn't say "no leverage". So much of that offense runs through him (and IIRC, Dak had the worst stretch of his career when he was out, right?), and he's on the last year of his 4 year rookie contract which pays him relatively little to what he'll make on the 5th year option next year ($9 million) or the franchise tag the next (somewhere in the ballpark of $13 million). This is also the last year the Cowboys don't have to pay Dak Prescott, which means the Cowboys are going to start having money problems after this season and may hemorrhage talent just like every other team that has to pay out the big bucks to their quarterbacks (and though Dak Prescott is not worth $30 million a year, the reality of the modern game is you need a franchise QB, and he qualifies...even if not by leaps and bounds, as one). So if there's a year that he can force the Cowboys' hand, it's the last year where they're "all-in" on winning (Rams last year style) and when their roster is arguably going to be at its best for the next however so many years. Only have to look at the Packers and how much talent we've lost over the years as a result of difficult monetary decisions on who to keep and who to cut to see how difficult it can be to get back on top once you've started paying a core group of stars. Of course, it also doesn't help when you let a few of the wrong guys go - Casey Hayward and Micah Hyde... - while also paying a couple of the wrong guys...Nick Perry and sort of Randall Cobb.

He can't be out the entire year, unlike Le'Veon Bell, but he might be out long enough and be in bad enough shape that there's not much of a difference. It's probably the Le'Veon Bell situation that he's attempting to pre-empt, actually - a reliable workhorse RB tends to have a very short lifespan in the NFL, and outlasting your 4 year + 1st round 5th year option rookie contract just to get franchise tagged twice in a row (especially as a RB, which has by far the absolute worst usage/performance-to-price franchise tag money) and then discarded is a pretty crappy way to get treated as a star player. If the team has a multi-year investment in a player, they have ample reason not to horribly overuse and abuse him, which in turn makes it more likely he lasts in the league long enough for a second contract, all of which gets him lasting money and security.

[rjshae]

NFL kick-off is underway. Let the drain bamage commence.

[Gfted1]

@Bartimaeus: Technically, Dak's worst stretch was when Elliot and Smith (LT) were out. His second worst stretch was when Elliott was out. Imo, a multi-year deal wont lessen his load. No team is going to pay huge money and then give him 10 touches a game. I wish we could trade him but at this point hes become an albatross of unreliability (off the field) and overestimation of worth (on the field). Ill take Alfred Morris 4.76ypc (2017) over Elliott and save 10-11M per year.  

[Bartimaeus]

I probably would, too. Don't like the player, he's really only been a "good", not great RB in terms of skill (but he's been crazy reliable when on the field, which is an understated "skill" for a RB), keeps doing stupid stuff that gets him looked at by the league office, and RBs just tend to not be worth the cash in general.

[Mannock]

On 8/2/2019 at 8:59 PM, Bartimaeus said:

I probably would, too. Don't like the player, he's really only been a "good", not great RB in terms of skill (but he's been crazy reliable when on the field, which is an understated "skill" for a RB), keeps doing stupid stuff that gets him looked at by the league office, and RBs just tend to not be worth the cash in general.

It's correct that it's generally not worth paying too much for a RB but in the case of the Cowboys and Zeke, I'd say they are a much lesser team without him. I don't think Dak and Amari will be able to create magic by themselves (i.e. a deep post season run). So they are in a tough spot and if Cowboys let him go, I'm sure some team will cough up serious money for him regardless.

[Gfted1]

Things are quickly escalating and I think Prescott is pricing himself out of reality. If I were the Jones's I would: a) Sit Elliott and never put him on the field again. Maybe he can be traded if he isn't injured b) pay Cooper and c) Play Dak, or maybe better to play a backup QB, but seriously consider "tanking for Tua". Dak isn't worth gutting the roster in a year or two because they cant afford anyone. IMO, that's what caused the precipitous drop-off of Seattle's defense. With the counter example of Brady being reasonable and the Patriot's being competitive every single year.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, don't think other players should be expected to follow Brady's example (and almost literally nobody has - it's a business, after all). Actually, Brady was somewhat unreasonable - in the opposite way, so much so that IIRC the NFL player's union has been unhappy with him for "devaluing" players by taking such small amounts of money. A top 3 quarterback of all time that is also the ultimate team player combined with the greatest of all time head coach and a hands-off owner has been a frightening combination. Those types of "team players" create terrible unbalance in whatever sports they appear in.

But yeah, at 35 million a year, that's more than Aaron Rodgers with his new contract that he signed just a year ago, haha. There's really not much of a choice, though - I know you mentioned "tanking", but tanking doesn't really exist in the NFL for the simple reason that it's, again, a business and players (and coaches!) aren't going to intentionally perform badly and lose contract earnings and fame and prestige because of it. Teams would rather overpay their starting QBs and be relatively guaranteed a decent season (even if not quite a playoff-level one) rather than risk a bunch of miserable seasons in a row looking for a new QB. Game and TV numbers go down, FAs don't want to come to the team, more of your core players want to *leave* the team or get overpaid to stay themselves, and there's no guarantee that you'll get out of QB purgatory anytime soon - it's just a terrible proposition and these QBs know it and use it for maximum leverage. The good news is, outside of Tom Brady and the Patriots, this is applicable to every team except those which have their QBs on rookie contracts (e.g. Mahomes)...which will remedy themselves soon enough (and teams should be rewarded for drafting exceptionally well anyways), so it's kind of fair. You guys had a great shot at winning a SB in 2016 when a bunch of star players were cheap and already performing at their highest - what a shame and a pity it all came to crashing halt against some awful garbage heap of a team coasting on old has-beens that barely even made it into the playoffs, .

Edited August 14, 2019 by Bartimaeus