Chuck Wagon

I think it's Cleveland and I don't think it's close. Detroit has a QB and is coming off a playoff appearance. With Cleveland guys know they are signing up for a team that is actively trying to lose and they need to badly overpay to land guys. I'm not sure we really overpaid that badly on any of our FAs, we lost on Wagner and for all we know Detroit offered more money, we lost on Juice but we know SF had to of offered more money, otherwise the guys we pursued on the fringe signed with more successful teams and I can't really blame them. I think Cincy is in pretty bad shape too. They are notoriously cheap and seem to be headed down hill fast. I do think our talent nucleus is more respected around the league than we tend to give credit to.

Too much defensive talent at the top of the board and too many WRs throughout the draft to take Davis or Williams at 10. I'd be fine with Howard (I think he's clearly separated from the other TEs) and could be ok with Bolles, especially after a move down, but I just don't see where Williams and Davis have separated themselves enough from the WR pack to take at #10, especially in our offense.

I don't think Schwartz was the right guy for head coach, I think he's an excellent defensive coordinator, but he seemed in over his head as HC in Tennesee. I think the right move would have been to bring in Hue Jackson as HC, allow him to develop his offense and retain Schwartz as DC with full control over that side of the ball at all costs. Rex was a complete disaster. Any coach who inherits a top 5 defense and sets about making it better by completely overhauling the scheme does not belong at HC in this league. Our window to make a run was the last couple of years and Rex made sure to personally slam that shut (as well as slamming shut his career window). I have a hard time judging Whaley. Our talent level has certainly risen under him, he's performed well in the early part of the draft and with under the radar FA pickups, but we are without a franchise QB, have several holes on the roster without resources to fully address them and have been in bad salary cap shape, those fall at his feet. I think there's certainly better GMs, but by the same token I think he's better than anyone we had running the franchise before him. The more concerning factor is Russ Brandon's continued presence and continued influence on the team. The guy is a cockroach who won't go away. I do think Taylor can win, but we need to follow the Chiefs model, but our defense isn't near their level. We've lost Mario, Kiko, Gilmore, Bradham, Williams, Graham, McKelvin off the Schwartz defense, with some young replacements for a few spots (and no replacements for others) and none of replacements have shown they can hit the level we got out of those guys that year. That's where the real talent drain has hit hard, partially due to age but mainly due to Rex throwing away quality players for not being scheme fits.

It's a ton of hype, a name people know, he played both sides of the ball at Michigan which gets attention, but I don't think he was ever the best player on either side of the ball for them.

They certainly do not, but Allen Robinson is younger than Sammy (barely) and put up numbers that would make us all drool 2 years ago (80-1,400-14). More importantly, all of those teams (except Cincy and Baltimore) have quality #2 WRs and most have #3 WRs who would be well ahead of our "#2".

Honestly watching Gilmore walk has be more down on this franchise than I have been in a long long time. Our cap situation is such that we could have retained him and the books get much more clear next year, I understand disputing his value, but it's clear he's a very good player in the midst of his prime. Every argument I've seen made for letting him walk is bunk IMO and you are exactly right, using high draft resources to replace him at the cost of positions that have gone unaddressed for a long time leaves us no better off. Either we are a franchise that values corners with high draft picks and we retain the ones who can play, or we don't value them and need to stop using picks on them, but QB, WR, RT have been problems on this team for the better part of 2 decades.

I think New England, Pittsburgh, Oakland, Kansas City, Denver, Miami, Houston are all clearly more talented than us. I think Tennessee, Baltimore & Jacksonville are also very likely more talented than us, Baltimore and Jacksonville's defenses are light years ahead of ours, Tennessee is likely on par with us unless Mariota makes a dramatic step forward, which is possible. We likely have more overall talent than Indy and the Chargers but their QBs are light years ahead of ours. The only teams I think we are clearly better than is Cleveland, the Jets and Cincinnati. I struggle to see 7 wins on our schedule, I'm not sure there's more than 3 games Vegas would favor us in. It's entirely possible McD is a great coach and everything clicks, but we've had a pretty substantial talent drain from where we were a couple of years ago.

10: R1P10 OT GARETT BOLLES UTAH 44: R2P12 S BUDDA BAKER WASHINGTON 75: R3P11 WR ZAY JONES EAST CAROLINA 156: R5P12 S TEDRIC THOMPSON COLORADO 171: R5P27 WR ROBERT DAVIS GEORGIA STATE 195: R6P11 CB JALEN MYRICK MINNESOTA Using the ITP board. Bolles at #10 might be rich for people, but I don't like the line depth in this draft and I like the idea of locking up RT similar to how the Titans took Conklin last year, all the defensive guys I really like were gone. Davis and Myrick are workout warriors, which is what I think 5-7th round picks should be used on. Budda in the 2nd and Zay in the 3rd is probably unrealistic, but clearly BPA skewing towards a need.

There's a very real possibility we just aren't going to have what most people would consider a real "#2 WR" on the roster this year. Given our offensive scheme, building up a strong defense is going to help us much more than a legitimate #2 (or 1B) WR would.

Sooo unrealistic, but it would make me very very happy: Your score is: 13669 (GRADE: A+) Your Picks: Round 1 Pick 21 (DET): Garett Bolles, OT, Utah (B+) Round 1 Pick 26 (SEA): Deshaun Watson, QB, Clemson (A) Round 2 Pick 16 (MINN): Evan Engram, TE/WR, Ole Miss (B+) Round 2 Pick 21 (DET): Christian McCaffrey, RB, Stanford (A) Round 2 Pick 22 (MIA): Adoree' Jackson, CB, Southern California (A-) Round 3 Pick 19 (TENN): Chris Godwin, WR, Penn State (A) Round 3 Pick 30 (PITT): Josh Jones, SS, NC State (A) Round 3 Pick 33 (MIA): Dalvin Tomlinson, DT, Alabama (A-) Round 3 Pick 41 (PITT): Ahkello Witherspoon, CB, Colorado (B) Round 4 Pick 7 (WASH): JuJu Smith-Schuster, WR, Southern California (B+) Round 4 Pick 8 (CAR): Jake Butt, TE, Michigan © Round 5 Pick 10 (WASH): Davis Webb, QB, California © Your Future Picks: 2018 Round 1 Pick 2019 Round 1 Pick http://first-pick.com/NFL/Share.aspx?id=e423545c-bcaf-41ba-b08c-3cb947cd2ec0

Absolutely. The problem is the dwindling number of guys to give it to who'll make a big impact. Losing Gilmore really hurts and it's magnified by not giving the money to 2-3 other guys who clearly upgrade positions. That being said, if they managed to bring back Zach Brown and sign Sheard, I do think it's been a decent FA period.

So basically we could have tagged Gilmore and restructured Clay while filling out the roster with UDFA / vet min / camp cuts (aka the quality of guys we are looking at anyways).

Just when I finally get comfortable with the idea of Howard at 10, McShay releases a mock putting him at 4.

Technically not for 118, the Pats lose their highest 4th due to spygate, getting the Saints pick means they lose that pick and get their original pick (#131) back. There was some speculation about trading the Saints pick for a later 4th and change, basically a team gives up a 7th to move up 20 spots in the 4th.

Corners dropping like flies.

I partially agree with this, but most of what they have done is just good business. They've been trying to sign Butler for over a year (similar to our position with Gilmore), they finally had enough and went out and signed Gilmore instead. They still control the rights to Butler and will likely get compensation for him. Cooks is a perfect fit for their offense and is better than any WR who'll be available at their pick (especially considering their recent history taking WRs). Picking up Kony Ealy for dropping a few picks in the draft is found money. A couple of years ago they were paying their line A LOT of money, they've replaced them with young cheaper guys. They've paid corners before (Revis and Browner). Guys Gilmore's age and skill level aren't usually allowed to walk into FA, they saw the opportunity and paid him. If anything, they've gotten younger in several positions.

You forgot Kony Ealy. They did lose Bennett, Chris Long and Vollmar.

Tony Romo Only available (semi-available) guy who would dramatically change our chances at success.

Michael Thomas / Tajae Sharpe / Malcolm Mitchell / Tyreek Hill / Sterling Shepard....all taken after the 1st round last year and all made impacts in year 1. It's a risk / reward proposition, but immediate contributors can be found throughout the draft. Between Brown / Butler / Listenbee / Lewis / Powell / rookies, we may find someone who can play or we may not and need to keep fishing, but regardless of who we bring in the passing game is still likely to primarily run through Sammy / Clay / Shady and the focus of our offense is going to be on the ground.

Put 20 more lbs on him and move him to center. Seattle loves attempting to find olinemen through creative avenues.

Peterman in the 2nd is way too rich, there's 5 QBs comfortably ahead of him, I can't see 5 QBs going in the first 43 picks.

It's pretty frustrating in a salary capped sport that guys are willing to take 75% to play on a select few teams. The comparison of chess vs checkers gets tossed around a lot, but the haves and have nots in this league aren't even playing with the same pieces.

None of the guys we are losing and none of the guys available are the difference between making the playoffs or not.

That draft has dictated the last 15 years of Bills, Packers and Steelers football. Posters on here have said Donahue had a deal in place with Houston or Jacksonville (don't remember which) to move up to get Big Ben but it fell apart because they wanted Dunta Robinson or Reggie Williams (the 2 guys who got picked by those teams). We then traded a pick that could have landed Rodgers the next year to get Losman. Missed out on Big Ben and Rodgers but took Losman instead.

1) You would have a massive general erosion of talent on the roster, making it hard for any QB to thrive 2) The constant churn would cause you to cut guys loose before they ever really got a shot. Absent no doubt talents like Luck & Cam, teams that have developed "Franchise QBs" have put them in situations where not much was needed from them to succeed. They were able to learn and grow in the position while having the team win games despite them until it eventually flipped and they won because of them. Brady, Wilson, Big Ben all followed this model. Rodgers sat for a couple of years before being inserted into a playoff team. Carr, Mariota and Dak are looking like the next wave, all on teams with dominant OLines and outstanding skill players/running games and were not asked to do too much to start. Our line is as good as it's been in 2 decades and we still have a hole at RT, our skill positions with Shady and Sammy as as good as they've been in 2 decades and we have a massive need at WR. We haven't had a QB succeed here or been able to develop a franchise guy because we've never had the foundation for it to happen. It's like trying to build a skyscraper on the beach, it isn't going to work.