glazeduck

Something's up with him, so certainly interviews may nix him entirely, but he's got talent, fix the other stuff and you've got a low investment chance at something solid.

@FFadpecr your day has arrived! Still feeling this confident in Strong???

I will straight up boo the pick if we end up with Cade Otten. That guy is NOT a quality NFL starting TE...

Okay, go get speed, fine, but if the talent isn't there there's no sense in forcing it. To me it's a class of one in terms of difference-makers who are actually burners. My whole point is that I see no sense in using a valuable pick on a guy who doesn't move the needle just because he's fast. Either pivot your strategy and take a better player (ie. Pickens) or sign a fast free agent and use the draft pick elsewhere.

2 different statements. Pringle & Hardman were KC's 3/4/5 options. Diggs is somewhat comparable to Hill/Kelce, Davis is not.

A lot of mostly good thoughts here, but I think by aligning player type to player type, you're overcomplicating things. First of all Pringle and Hardman are their 3 and 4 -- sometimes their 4 and 5 with Kelce and pass-catching RBs in the formations, so there's that. While Diggs is comparable in talent to those guys, Davis is not (so we're already losing in your apples:apples) AND it's underestimating the stress that Hill's freakish speed puts on the defense. Diggs might be the more polished/talented player, but he doesn't force the defense's hand like Hill does. So in many ways, to what you're saying, we're already -2. If you want to identify speed, then fine. Yes, McBeane has said many times they'd like to get faster, and I believe them. But there's only so many talents like Hill out there. YES, you can find guys who run fast 40s, but that's not a particularly valuable skill if they don't have the route running ability, the ability to setup dbs, the hands, etc. If all we're looking for to make safeties respect Josh Allen nukes is a guy to run windsprints, then trade a 6th rd pick for Jalen Raeger or sign Will Fuller. What we should be (and I think McBeane ARE) looking for, is guys who can create mismatches and strain defenses. As I mentioned, speed is one way, but there are others (again, already mentioned those). To draft a guy early with a fast 40 because we have a slim chance at getting the guy we want feels VERY silly to me when there are more talented options who have better chances as panning out and providing advantages in other ways.

Adding a vertical element to the offense is certainly one approach, and yes, Jameson Williams fits that absolutely perfectly. There's also more of the alpha/bully/big-bodied WR, and I think Pickens fits that mold (to say nothing of his 4.47 being both not slow and ESPECIALLY not slow coming off a major injury). There's the YAC/get-the-ball-in-his-hands and let him make plays mold, that I think Wilson and Burks fit... There's a lot of routes you can go. I don't say this to be dismissive of your points at all, but there's SOOO much more to it than the 40 time and there are reasons why Danny Gray and Bo Melton are being projected as 3rd and 4th round picks and why other guys are looking at going in the top half of the first. You act like wanting a "big name" is a bad thing -- I want those guys because they're fantastic football players. You're right that people slept on Davis, but he's also worked his butt off to become what looks like a mid-level WR2, and yes, with Diggs in tow, the rookie will probably be, at best WR2b, but that doesn't mean you can discount how they fit in or how you would want to use them. The 2nd and 3rd round options you like are fine, I guess, I just don't think any of them are special and we're in a window where we should be looking for special. I think in that range, guys like Justyn Ross and Tolbert at least have a chance to be special (or dynamic in a way we don't already have).

Having met Marvin Lewis in person... that may not be a good thing In all seriousness, I think people are overestimating the quality of play in the Pac12 over the past few years. It's one of the reasons I'm so down on the UW corners, and White didn't exactly tear up the conference to begin with...

Love: Trade up for Sauce or Jameson Williams in the first George Pickens in the 2nd or Jalen Tolbert/Justyn Ross in the 3rd Expect: Andrew Booth Jr. @25 Tariq Woolen in the 2nd (maybe slight trade up/separate from Booth pick) Settle: Zion Johnson @25 Trey McBride in the 2nd

If Hall is the guy, another trade that feels pretty reasonable/likely is trading down with the Giants for their 2 and Bradberry.

It's one thing to list "really good players" (debatable), it's another thing to identify a player that would fit what we're needing at WR... We already have 3 intermediate/separation types, so Phillips and Bell don't seem to make a ton of sense, at some point you can only have so many players running routes in the short/intermediate area. Gray is interesting, but to me, there's a sizeable gap in talent between him and the guys in the first 2 rounds. I honestly think he, Doubs, Melton have had their stock inflated because there's so many good WRs at the top -- that gap in talent is pulling their stocks up. The guys I'd want if we're taking at WR in the 3rd would be Tolbert and Ross.

Guy doesn't run routes. Seems like a strange fit for a team that clearly values separation...

Not a rumor, but I have to say... I usually have a pretty good feel for our direction by this time in the draft, I'm fairly flummoxed this year, which means Beane & co. have done a great job not tipping their hand (could also speak to the way the draft board breaks out...) We need a CB, but rarely draft directly for need, and everyone likely to be available at 25 has flaws. I find it somewhat interesting that Woolen isn't being connected to us at all (DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying I'd want him at 25). The Booth injury rumors are interesting as well, he's the 3rd best prospect in terms of makeup and tape, he feels like he should be our guy... is it possible we've successfully tanked his value with those rumors enough for him to fall to 25? The rumors certainly seem to suggest that... We're being HEAVILY connected to Breece Hall, and could certainly use a RB upgrade. Is that smoke to throw other teams off our real intentions? Or is that confidence from us that there's really no competition in the top 24 picks for him? WR is a weird position for us this year... It's not a massive need in the moment but could be quickly... Jameson Williams is the perfect fit for what we need but really unlikely to be reasonable for us to get to. London and Burks don't feel like great fits, unlikely Olave falls -- the one name that's not really been connected to us, despite having him in for a visit is Garrett Wilson, who seems like he'd probably be the second best fit behing JW... The Pickens rumors make me feel like they're being overblown by a team in the 2nd hoping he falls to them. Is that us? Beyond him, it doesn't feel likely that there will be a reasonable fit in the 2nd without moving up (there's a big gap after Watson and Skyy Moore and the next tier). With where we're drafting, assuming no movement around in the order, it kinda feels like we need to get our WR in the 1st or miss out on the top talent. Beane's comments about the board being done make me feel strongly that they're either VERY confident in getting the guy they want (makes me think Hall or Booth) OR prepared to go purely off value, which means all bets are off except for QB and Edge, potentially... All that considered... I think I think the Hall stuff is smoke, ditto for the Elam stuff -- they're both just TOO strong, for what we usually have out there. I'll shoot my shot and say -- again, barring big moves up or down -- we're either selecting Booth or Wilson, but who the heck knows!

Elam or McDuffie

Stevenson might end up being good, but if we feel like WR may be a need, a Super Bowl contending team CANNOT depend on a 6th round pick turning out. If he develops, depth is a great problem to have, but no, we can't just ignore a position because we might be underrating Marquez Stevenson.

Oh yeah... with a SB window you'd have to just HATE the way the board fell out and not have any reasonable offers to do something like that. The fun part, though, is he's such a high ceiling guy that if we really could develop him with Josh keeping us in the hunt, that could yield a massive return. But again, you'd have to be crazy to do that lol

Agree with all of this. There's also a lot of "sub-questions" that play into this... who else is on that board that's still available? what is their positional value? what's the gap in value between those players (including Hall) and the next on our board at those positions? who's calling to move up and what are they offering? ...

Given the way the board breaks out for RB, WR and CB, I think a trade down to bump our 2 up earlier makes a ton of sense to get 2 viable players at those spots... I'm sure the professionals see that as well.

Wouldn't be shocked to see us trade our '23 1st in a move up to get Williams if he fell far enough. Another interesting consideration... The Eagles are all but guaranteed to use another early pick on a WR and it sounds like that may make Jalen Raeger available. Now I am by no means suggesting that Raeger has star potential, I think that's proven itself out, BUT, he's still an intriguing WR based on analytics and if we're looking for somebody to take the top off of the defense, I could see him being a usable piece to run wind sprints for a late rd. pick or signing him post cut...

That's interesting. Not gonna lie, given our success in developing Josh, I wouldn't hate taking Willis at 25 purely as a developmental asset (not actually advocating for it, for the record...)

These are the components that make the draft such impossible calculus to truly crack. It's not enough to rank players incorporating myriad athletic testing benchmarks (each with varying degrees of correlation/causation to success by position); body size/shape/growth potential/health/etc.; personality/psychology/motivation/background/entourage/cultural fit/etc.; scheme fit; value; immediate production vs. long-term potential; quality of competition; quality of tape, etc. The entire context from where the player is coming from needs to also be used as a lens from which all of the rest of this is viewed... In this case, without question, true freshman (!!!) Stingley is one of -- if not THE -- best prospects in this draft, but that only leads to a bunch of new questions as to why he wasn't the following 2 years. Part of me wants to use my Christian Watson logic of "if he were really that good, you'd think that talent would shine through" and offset all of the deficiencies of these last 2 years, but another part of me looks at the general success crater from a blue blood school like LSU and can embrace the fact that there was probably a lot of suck around that program...

I could see this being true in an "on paper" sense, but I just don't see any way, given the extra contract year, some team doesn't jump up to take Willis in the late 1st as his absolute floor. He's too toolsy to not and he's the kind of guy you'd reeeeally want that 5th year flexibility with...

I've seen Kyler play in person multiple times and I think the best descriptor I can give him is "solid"? He's certainly not bad, but I don't think he's exceptional at anything, and while he did test pretty well, that athleticism doesn't jump out in his play. Basically what I mean is, I don't see him becoming special, and relative to a lot of the guys listed below him, I see him as being fairly even with them in terms of what they could be long term, especially when you overlay our scheme and ability to develop and what we'd be wanting out of him. Maybe he's in the top of that tier, but if you can get a comparable guy with equal or greater upside with a later pick, why wouldn't you?

Yep, there's absolutely reasons for these things being leaked...