Is he? Smith - who was a stouter player - was far more of a pocket passer; he didn’t run anywhere nearly as effectively as Daniels. He clocked like a 4.7 in the 40 at the combine, too, you gotta think Daniels would be 4.5 or under if he ran.
2024 NFL General Season News and Notes
- Thread starter Ed Hillel
- Start date
Build. 6’3 or so and little over 200. Not playing styles. I cannot remember Akili at all.
More of a funny misread of ‘a smaller Smith high draft qb’ vs the WR
Akili’s 40 was 4.66 after several years of baseball
High picks at OT bust all the time, it's just that you can be a slightly below average tackle and the average fan won't have a clue how to evaluate your performance, while a QB that is drafted highly and performs at the level of, say, the 24th best player in the league at his position (as Justin Fields has the past two years, for example) is quickly identified as a failure. For WR I'd argue the hit rate for players at that position in the 2nd-4th rounds is monumentally higher than the success rate for QBs picked at those spots, so you really should focus on QB with a high first round pick.
Also, take it a grain of salt, but it doesn't even seem as if QBs bust at a meaningfully higher rate than those positions.
This is exactly how I feel.
To continue the tangent, look at the WRs picked in the Top 10 in the past ~decade: Drake London, Garrett Wilson, Chase, Waddle, Devonta Smith, Corey Davis, Mike Williams, John Ross, Amari Cooper, Kevin White, Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans.
This isn't necessarily the best way to evaluate draft picks, but on that entire list I believe Evans is the only one who has won a Super Bowl (at least as a starter, not sure if someone like Watkins won a ring as a backup), and even then that was only after he got Tom Brady as his QB. Chase and Smith both got to one (so far) and their team lost.
And many of these guys are outstanding WRs -- of the 12, only 3 were genuine busts right? (Davis, Ross, White) It's just another illustration of how hard it is to build a consistent winner.
An interesting test too, to explain why QB is both so important and the "bust" rate is so high.....
If each of those teams could only start 1 WR... how does that effect those guys.... only 4, maybe 5 of those guys hit under that situation right? For example you take Hill over Waddle, Brown over Smith, Allen over Williams, etc. etc.
I think that's right.
And I know it's a bit of a chicken & egg problem when you break things down further, but for example I note that clearly great WR picks in Waddle and Chase also have good QBs both also taken in the Top 5 in Tua and Burrow who can throw them the ball. Meanwhile Garrett Wilson and Drake London spend most of their Sundays run blocking and watching passes wobble toward the Gatorade cooler behind them. (To be fair, I haven't watched enough of either to say how good they are)
lol i dont mind the trade he is just a stopgap at best his only hope for a pro carrer after 2024 is denver does not draft bo nix then wins the job in camp than can he get denver near 500 or he might be cut in augest
denver is playing for 2025 at this point if patson wins 7-8 games with this team he should win coach of the year
unless denver rookie qb is good
denver coach does not like qb's that run around i wouild be happy to eat crow but at this point me and the saints front office wish he wanted the arizona job saints wouild had a better pick 3 instead of 29 and denver couild had hired gannon instead as hc who had arizona playing well in dec jan last year
Zach Wilson has no upside. It's insane to say Zach has more upside than Stidham.
Ah yes, insane to think a terrible but once highly regarded prospect soon to be 25 year old has more upside than a terrible never well regarded soon to be 28 year old
They’re both bad NFL QB’s and as bad as Wilson has been, he has better physical tools and has had less time (and worse offensive coaches) than Stidham to harness them.
Stidham is more likely to be a passable backup over the next few years but Wilson at least has a long (very long) shot at being a starter if it ever clicks for him. Hence more “upside”. Higher ceiling, lower floor.
They’ll likely both be out of the league in 3 years regardless
I don't care how highly regarded he was. That was three years ago. Three years ago, Trey Lance was also highly regarded.
He's played a lot in the NFL and none of it has even been average. He's legitimately bad. Bad completion percentage. Bad INT percentage. Insane sack yards lost. Truly low TD totals. Bad attitude. And he's started 33 games. The sample is quite large.
There is no upside. This isn't a comment about Jarrett. He's a serviceable but not good backup who has started only 4 games in his career. Against most, Stidham would lose when compared. But not against Zach.
Small nitpick... his first year was under Urban Meyer, which turned out to be exactly that.
If your point is that they moved on from it so quickly that it's like it never happened, then, yes, it's hard to argue with that.
I think the odds of Harrison being a great NFL player is extraordinarily high, while the odds of Maye being a great player might be no better than like 50/50. Of course, QB is a far more important position but I think the success odds of a guy like MHJ has to be as high as any draft pick in recent memory.
Thought experiment: How would you rate the Zack, Trey, Justin, and Mac in terms of their value today?
For me it's the big and multi picture that ends up mattering most. Not to rehash or dig in on my general opinion of the Pats being a Jets level train wreck of dysfunction these days on a Pats board, but yeah. Trevor ended up in the pretty good spot (I'm a big Doug P fan) when all was said and done imo. He didn't get handed out the same early career death sentence those other young QB basically got on draft day (although Mac's was just delayed a year).
The principle values behind what Deion was saying a few weeks back may be F'd up at face value...but he ain't and won't be doing wrong by his kid when it happens imo. Where you go matters in relationship to where your surface level "is this a franchise guy?" status ends up. A lot. But at the end of the day those are still 24-25 year old kids who aren't any less talented or somehow incapable of turning things around 2-3 lost seasons latter with a much more capable hand guiding them.
Justin has value and could actually be an NFL starter. So he's #1. I think Pittsburgh got lucky being able to pick him up. I wish the Pats got him but with the #3 pick, it doesn't matter if they can get Maye.
Mac could be a bad backup you could throw in there if the starter got hurt. So he's #2, limited value. Trey can't hit the broadside of a barn and can't stay healthy, (which is a problem for a QB that would have to be a run first guy) so he's #3, very limited value. Zach is #4 and has no value. Zach is actually #5, #4 is a sack of potatoes that barely edged out Zach. The potatoes don't turn the potato over.
Fields shouldn't be listed with the other 3, in my opinion. He has a chance to play in the NFL for another 10 years. It's not likely but it's possible. Trey, Zack, and Mac are a bag of suck and their careers won't involved winning in the NFL. A trio of failure you don't often see. Even the worst QBs have some flashes. (e.g. guys like Wentz, Mariota, Darnold, Heiny, Dobbs, Mullens, etc) Those guys aren't good but they streets ahead of the trio of failure.
Just a fun fact, Trey Lance is younger than both Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix and is only a day younger than Penix. I’m not sure you can say his career is over when it hasn’t even started. He’s the only one that is still truly an unknown. Mac and Zach should start First Round Ford in Tuscaloosa. They don’t belong on an NFL field. Fields has some of the worst pocket presence/awareness I’ve ever seen. As far as value? Lance 1, big big gap, Fields 2. That’s it. The other two have negative value.
I wanted Mac in SF just to see if Shanahan could do anything with him. Maybe that will still happen in 2025. Jax seems like a gap year for him, which is not the worst thing. He needs to go away for a while. I still think he's done as a starter, and he'll be on my shit list forever, but he's definitely got a better chance than Wilson.
I personally like Fields' 2023 tape a lot (especially post injury), and agree with Johnmd20 that he's in his own separate and above the others category. To such an extent I feel better about and would take my chances there over any QB in this year's draft other then Caleb (but I also don't put some ungodly amount of value on the "unknown" factor Fields no longer possesses having been driven off the dream big lot). As a local area Florida guy who has spent a ton of time watching Trevor Lawrence play these last few years I'll even go as far as to say I don't believe he would have established any better of career at this point then Fields has had Trevor drew the the NY, NE, or Chicago destination card.
I would take Mac #2, and believe he gets the same large amount of overkill and fairly undeserved "it has to be you and not me" fan bias hate here that Zach is going to get if you posted the same question on a Jets board (and which likely bleeds into my own take as a jets fan). I'd be willing to bet the last 2 years would of looked and played out differently had Josh never left. Of the 4 listed he ultimately got the worst hand dealt to him in the 3 year summary imo.
Trey #3, and which is largely due to my infatuation and stupidly high opinion of Shanahan. The fact he wanted him in the first place, and just 2 years ago was 100% committed to go into a superbowl chasing season with him as "the guy", leaves me wanting to see more then we got to. I also don't buy much into the narrative that suggests he was traded out of SF for any other reason then the "having a high draft pick guy sitting behind Purdy if you want Purdy to be your guy isn't ideal" politics. I'd of loved the Jets to have taken that sit behind Rodgers flyer last offseason.
Zach would come in last. But again, bias likely coming in to play. I've had questions about his maturity/commitment since day 1, and because of that always felt that making him an immediate starter was an all time deserving moment in the Jets Hall of Endless Shame. The kid really had no chance here before it even got started.
I’d give him that contract in a heartbeat if I were the Pats. You’re getting the prime years of a guy who just went 120/1500/10 or so.
The price for CeeDee keeps going up. And this video is so nonsensical that I almost want to believe it's AI generated:
This is what these guys cost now. You can get away with not paying the going rate for top WR talent if you have Mahomes at QB and a guy like Kelce under a ridiculously under market deal, but the rest of the league isn’t so lucky. I guess you could go year to year on the tag and hope you mail a cost controlled draft pick or two, but that carries other risks (player holds out, can’t manipulate the cap dollars, and you could whiff on the draft pick(s)).
Incidentally, is Jerry turning losing negotiations with cornerstone players into a masterclass here? First Dak, now CeeDee, and presumably Parsons after that.
Incidentally, is Jerry turning losing negotiations with cornerstone players into a masterclass here? First Dak, now CeeDee, and presumably Parsons after that.
The Lions are obviously not fucking around. I live in suburban Detroit and they are hosting tomorrow night's NFL Draft and it is a BFD for the city. Good times in Motown right now.
I bet he wants more than he's worth. Don't get me wrong, he's a very good player, he's just not "elite".
I’m sure the Amon-Ra news didn’t help here. Problem with Higgins is the acquisition cost. I’d be fine overpaying a little bit in a FA bidding war but giving up a 2nd or whatever and paying full freight is tough.
I will also add, initial contract reports are always PR BS.
Here's a 49ers reporter breaking out the actual contract here (it makes sense that he is as Aiyuk is looking to get paid):
View: https://twitter.com/nwagoner/status/1783252280495804656
His last season was absolute elite, no real injury history, young, consistent production, operates in an area of the field Goff loves throwing the ball to. Slam dunk deal for them.
Yup. He is exactly the kind of guy you give a market deal to. You have a team built to win now. Worry about the cap later and retain your studs.
AJ Brown extended to 32M/AAV deal, at sticker price at least.
View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1783643523729780745
View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1783643523729780745