Really hope the Penix stuff is just smoke and there’s nothing to it. I cant imagine a worse NFL fit for him given the current roster construction. Would be better to punt the QB decision to next year than to take him
What do you want Pats to do with #3?
- Thread starter BigSoxFan
- Start date
Don't get Lazar's rationale at all there. Penix would be the opposite of their Tatum in that scenario: a quarterback they aren't interested in taking at 3 who they wanted to know better in order to be prepared for the possibility of receiving a trade down offer they can't deny. Trading down to 6 and getting JJ McCarthy (a guy they've met with in every possible occasion) would be more akin to a Tatum move, for instance.
This is how I read it as well. And good on them for doing so. Plus, I think that after two decades of not being able to write about a Patriots draft is this way, local media especially is giddy with the chance to ferret out speculation.
Agreed. He'll get smoked in this offense. Poor line play (likely) and very limited weapons, especially at the throws he excels at making.
The article leading to this tweet says they are looking at #3 and #4. I don't see a timeline where Maye is available at #4.
View: https://twitter.com/jordanraanan/status/1782787239073751438?s=46&t=WQi6iqIXzyd2nQDr6B-03Q
View: https://twitter.com/jordanraanan/status/1782787239073751438?s=46&t=WQi6iqIXzyd2nQDr6B-03Q
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We actually don't know what any of these QB prospects will look like.
At this juncture I am trusting the Pats brain trust to make the best decision for the team because if they don't, they will likely be gone. If they trade down they are telling you that they are willing to bet that whomever was at three wasn't good value. At this point their evaluation is probably more credible than any pundit or poster.
This is a fascinating Patriots draft.
At this juncture I am trusting the Pats brain trust to make the best decision for the team because if they don't, they will likely be gone. If they trade down they are telling you that they are willing to bet that whomever was at three wasn't good value. At this point their evaluation is probably more credible than any pundit or poster.
This is a fascinating Patriots draft.
I guess we can agree to disagree.
The single most obvious way for the FO to mess up is to trade back, have the #3 pick end up being a stud QB, and getting a worse QB later in the draft. These things can sometimes declare themselves pretty quickly, often (though not always) in year 1. Getting extra picks is great, but trading out of a good QB for a mediocre or bad one will outweigh everything.
I'd like a FO with strength in their convictions as well, I just think it's a much riskier move to trade out and expect most in this situation to err on the side of caution/consensus. I guess time will tell.
Of course it's entirely possible their evals and the consensus are the same.
What people should do and what people actually do are often different based on the situation they are placed in.
Who knows with Wolf, maybe I'm wrong. But that's my hunch.
Why is that a more obvious way to mess up than taking the QB and he stinks? That’s just as obvious, isn’t it? (And more likely, as most QBs fail)
I wouldn't take Todd McShay as gospel by any means but he was pretty emphatic about this position.
View: https://twitter.com/DMRussini/status/1782795722431078708
View: https://twitter.com/JPFinlayNBCS/status/1782768911533936774
View: https://twitter.com/DMRussini/status/1782795722431078708
View: https://twitter.com/JPFinlayNBCS/status/1782768911533936774
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The Giants feel like a team that needs more than the Patriots. They also don't feel like a team that really has enough to offer. I don't think that package is truly enough. If you put any stock in Jimmy Johnson's weighted draft pick chart (caveat: it's over 30 years old), it isn't enough.
Edit: granted, we don't know where their Rd1 pick is next year.
Let's look at 2 negative scenarios.
Scenario 1:
They take whichever of Maye or Daniels falls to 3 and that player ends up not being good
Scenario 2:
They trade out of #3, the QB thats picked at #3 is a stud, and the QB they end up with stinks
To me, the optics look a lot worse for the FO in scenario 2 (though I understand at least they get the draft capital). They basically had the QB of the future sitting there, didn't have to trade anything, just follow conventional wisdom, and instead they willingly gave him away.
Seems like a worse look to me than just going with the expected pick and it doesn't work out, but perhaps people won't remember the draft details in the end.
I don't put much stock in the JJ chart but that trade would be more than enough. #3 is 2200 and #6 and #47 are 2030. Even discounting the future heavily a 2025 first will more than make up that difference.
Giants are one of those teams where the GM and coach might be in trouble with another bad year... a QB resets their own jobs, which always makes GMs more willing to deal. What's a future 3rd or a pick 2 years out if you might be gone in 9 months
The off chance that the Pats take JJM at 3, right? Or I guess the Pats moving down twice? But they're both unlikely.
I feel 100% confident McShay is full of shit. No way you call DOZENs of teams and get a consensus on just about anything.
Yeah, I don't believe that either as a strictly interpreted statement. On the other hand, I'm not sure even a guy like McShay would just make that up out of whole cloth....it probably reflects at least a majority opinion (maybe a sizable one) of those he has spoken with.
That doesn't mean its what will happen of course. The people he talks with may not be a representative sample of decision makers around the league. And in the end its one set of decision makers in Washington that really matter.
Yeah, that was my point. I'm sure it's McShay saying "the League likes Daniels more than Maye" which may well be true, but the idea that he went out and NOBODY had Maye higher... no chance that is actually the case, just none. Every year teams are all over the place as a FO nevermind individuals within those rooms.
My guess is the Pats haven't gotten the right offer yet is because teams either want Maye or Daniels, but until Washington (or someone) picks their guy at #2, there is no way to know which of them might be there at 3. I would imagine as soon as Washington picks, the Pats phone lights up like a Snoop Dogg blunt.
I had to read your post to realize there were multiple colors. Rainbows and foliage be damned ... and especially color-coded excel spreadsheets. (Oh, and trying to pick up dog shit in grass)
I don't think people remember these draft details. In both those scenarios, they wind up with shitty QBs, the team probably stinks, and the GM probably gets fired.
His odds have moved in the opposite direction. He's +1100 to be taken second. Meanwhile, the line has moved pretty significantly toward Daniels. He's now -400. He was -190 to -200 just a couple of days ago.
I don't know, if the scenario plays out like @radsoxfan said I am pretty sure most would remember. I mean, how often is it brought up that the Bears could have had Mahomes and took Trubitsky instead? Feels like multiple times every year
He may have called that many but I would bet it was all scouts..and I would guess that more than a few weren't very high ranking. Which essentially means nothing
Big move in a few days. Betting on this isn't available in my state, so now I know why I couldn't find the odds when I logged in.
The gambling markets are full of shit. They are not predictive here. Sumer had a pod about this - one of the lines makers admitted he was just going by what people were betting and they themselves had no idea...
It's all noise. Will Levis 2nd QB off the board, amirite?
It's all noise. Will Levis 2nd QB off the board, amirite?
I am sorry if this was posted somewhere here, but interesting interview of Maye with ESPN and I have to admit, it's hard to not love the kid.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEz-PtfNZwQ&t=5s
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEz-PtfNZwQ&t=5s
This is a good example of how only the results matter, which is what I'm arguing. The consensus big board had Trubisky 23rd (just behind Watson 22nd) and Mahomes 30th. But no one cares that it was defensible by consensus at the time; it failed so they're dumb.
I feel like Mahomes would be much more highly thought of if he came out in this year's draft, while Trubisky's stock would be lower, just as a guy like Drake Maye would be a lesser prospect back in 2017. A lot of established wisdom about the traits a college QB needs to have in order to be successful at the pro level has been reevaluated in light of the recent success of guys who had mechanical/accuracy/consistency issues which were fixed as pros while their athletic traits put them over the top.
All I can ask for is that if the player they end up choosing fails, he does so due to reasons that were known pre draft. Yeah, maybe Maye never develops a sense of timing with his feet and keeps throwing line drives at receivers' back pockets while being good for 3 sprays a game on gimmes and that's just an unworkable player. That's part of the gamble. I just don't want another Mac Jones, i.e., a guy who fails mostly because his perceived strengths were actually not strengths at all.
All I can ask for is that if the player they end up choosing fails, he does so due to reasons that were known pre draft. Yeah, maybe Maye never develops a sense of timing with his feet and keeps throwing line drives at receivers' back pockets while being good for 3 sprays a game on gimmes and that's just an unworkable player. That's part of the gamble. I just don't want another Mac Jones, i.e., a guy who fails mostly because his perceived strengths were actually not strengths at all.
This is kind of what lines are. It's more complicated than that, but the days of some guy with a visor who knows the teams and sets the initial lines are kind of gone. Not for the big events, but for the most part, the line is set by bettors, with the books using their data analytics models after the initial exploratory lines are set.
But for the most part if you view any gambling line as the combined wisdom of the thousands who are making the bets and who have accumulated and digested all the information, with weighting toward betters that have proven to be sharps, then you're really not that far off.
My guess is that these kinds of markets are ones where those who set the initial lines are not really concerned because the limits on these bets are probably significant and so it's really just a loss leader or marketing. So I agree with your fundamental point, but the idea that the lines do not genuinely reflect more information than any one person has would be a mistake. Do I think Daniels is 4x more likely to go second than Maye? I think probably not. But I'm not confident enough to bet it, and I do not believe Draft Kings is going to let a completely fucked line that does not reflect actual value get put out there. I don't think the books have inside information. But they do have the combined wisdom of the sum total of all the information that is available to the public, as reflected in the line. I'm sure @Brand Name could set me straight, but I don't think these are entirely irrelevant.
Awesome list. Thanks for this.
Glad you have Franklin so high. I definitely see him as an X, since his speed and lack of bulk would work better there. A bit surprised that you have Roman so low, but I hope that means that we can get him at 103.
I think the more interesting question would be where these guys would have ended up had the Bears taken Mahomes and immediately threw him into the fire with John Fox as his coach and throwing to Kendall Wright and Josh Bellamy, and Andy Reid took Trubisky and let him sit a year and learn from Alex Smith, and then join a loaded team.
Folks forget that after going 5-11 and firing Fox, Trubisky and the Bears went 12-4 in Nagy's first year the following season, with Mitch throwing for 300 yards, 1td in their playoff game. He then went 8-7 the next year, and then the Bears brought in Nick Foles and made them compete for the job in 2020 (the COVID year), after a 2-0 start, Mitch got benched during the week 3 game, Foles brought them from behind, but Mitch was 6-3 as a starter that year when Foles went down with an injury and again, they made the WC.
Obviously, Mitch Trubisky is nowhere near as good as Mahomes, but where these guys end up makes a huge difference.
I think this applies well to most things you can bet on but not the NFL draft. I want to come back to this though as it is a fascinating topic and I am curious if you have more to say on it. I am all ears!
I can’t find the exact tweet but I think these draft lines are a much more inexact science than actual lines.
Bud Elliott, a college football writer and someone who does a gambling column every week, said that they were essentially worthless (this was during the Will Levis fiasco last year)
Bud Elliott, a college football writer and someone who does a gambling column every week, said that they were essentially worthless (this was during the Will Levis fiasco last year)
Well, again, I'm a little reluctant to spout off on something I don't understand that well when we have someone (or several someones) here, like @Brand Name, who can run circles around my understanding of these issues. (It would be like if I tried to spout off on how to evaluate players in the draft as though you weren't here :0).)
But my general understanding of line setting is that it has little to do with trying to get money on both sides of the bet or whatever. The idea is that you want to set a line where the expected value is as close to the "true odds" as you can. Then you let the vig do its job. If you're doing your job well, all you need now is volume. If you're just taking bets on the Super Bowl, you have to be more concerned about getting even money on either side. But when you are taking bets on literally everything from Russian table tennis to how many red cards will be shown in an Aussie Rules match, all you need is to figure out how to interpret lines, add some juice (more where you're uncertain) and start booking bets.
So, how do you figure out the true chance of a particular bet? Well, you could hire a very smart person who knows as much as there is to know about a sport, to devour everything and to try to get as much information as possible. But, these days, there an easier way. What if you had access to every single piece of information that was out there about a particular bet? Well, in an indirect way, you do. Because that is what the line is. Not only do the books know what people are betting, they know who is making the bet. (At least the online books do.) They have pretty sophisticated data analytics that help them know who are sharp bettors and who are not. A $100 bet in one direction may be much more valuable than a $10,000 bet the other direction, depending on who is making it. So, they set their lines and put them out there in an exploratory way -- maybe even limiting the amount you can bet in the first hour or two of the line being public -- and then they start gathering massive amounts of information about who is betting and what they are betting. And in this manner, they develop what they believe are the true odds, so that they can settle on a line where the expected value of the bet is the midpoint between the yes and no line (taking into account the vig).
And the good news is that you don't even need to be running a sportsbook like draft kings to have access to this massive amount of filtered information. All you need is to have a phone! Because anyone can see the lines. And some books are regarded as "sharper" than others, in that they have set the trends in recognizing who the sharp players are and honing in on the true odds. There is one book in particular -- Pinnacle -- that has a reputation because of its vig and its limits for attracting the sharpest bettors and for being the sharpest book. So, if you have access to Pinnacle's lines, you have to access to some really serious number crunching.
Many object to this way of thinking. How can the line itself convey true odds? It seems backwards. The line is just a number. How can it know who is injured. How Kevin Durant struggles to make free throws in night games on the road. How Nick Nurse doesn't call time outs in situation X. It's just an arbitrary number. Well, the answer is that it does know all that. It knows it because the people who set it (the bettors) know it. In fact they know everything there is to know.
Anyway, that's the theory. There is no inherent reason why I think that this couldn't necessarily work with draft odds too. But I believe you know what you're talking about. For fun I just went into fan duel to see what my limit would be on some draft pick bets. (Fan Duel shows you your limit without even trying to make the bet.) It capped me at $811 on Maye to go 2d. Which is pretty low. So it could very well be that the books are pricing these for fun, adding a ton of juice, and not really worrying too much.
I have heard that they are capping at low amounts and that makes sense. I just find this interesting because I think a lot of it is semi-informed speculation but sometimes big things can move markets that are fake AF. Like say a reddit post about the Panthers and Will Levis. That actually moved the line last year. If one were so inclined... that is a good scam, no?\
Quick edit: the Sumer pod said that this not an event casinos want heavy exposure to FWIW.
Quick edit: the Sumer pod said that this not an event casinos want heavy exposure to FWIW.
I believe what Lazar means is not that Penix IS the most talented player in the draft, a la Tatum, but that he can see this as a scenario in which the Patriots believe he is, and think they can get people to trade up - as the Celtics did - and still land their "Tatum" themselves. As a close follower of Lazar's, I can assure you that he does NOT agree with this evaluation - he is all in on Drake Maye - and I think would be pretty unhappy with the result of Thursday being ANYTHING other than Patriots stick-and-pick Maye at #3.
EDIT: I think he is a bit shell-shocked right now, stressing - as I am - about all the smoke from the last week or so, and worried that the Patriots are going to find a way to screw up what is, arguably, a really simple proposition.
EDIT: I think he is a bit shell-shocked right now, stressing - as I am - about all the smoke from the last week or so, and worried that the Patriots are going to find a way to screw up what is, arguably, a really simple proposition.
Its only a simple proposition if you think whomever is there at three will pan out. Its gotta suck if they really don't like Maye (assuming Daniels goes two) and their choices are keep the pick or trade for a package that, regardless of composition, will likely be declared a bad deal on day one.
In short, there are multiple career hurting moves here that feel obvious and almost no safe gambits either. That's why the MayoWolf gets paid.
In short, there are multiple career hurting moves here that feel obvious and almost no safe gambits either. That's why the MayoWolf gets paid.
They have to, right? Because there are actual human beings who know what the picks are going to be at the top of the draft, you have to cap their economic incentive. It's not an exercise in uncertainty like a game or election or something.
That's what he meant, it just makes little sense. The Patriots had very little presence at his Pro-Day, they met with the other QB prospects more throughout the whole process. It all points to Penix being a contingency plan, and not the guy they wanted all along.
Yeah, I think what's baked into this theory is the very unlikely reality that all of this has been something of a smokescreen. My hope is what I'm guessing Lazar's is, and what I think those of us - you included, I believe - who really want them to take Maye: that this is all kind of silly season bullshit, seeing if the fog of war will lead to that "bag" they keep hoping for. That said, it concerns me, and not just a little, that the brain-trust is actively hoping for a bag. Because that suggests they don't like Drake Maye, or at least that they don't like him enough.
