glazeduck

Not wanting to hold the draft hostage waiting for trade offers (about to leave for a business dinner), with the 12th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft the Minnesota Vikings select safety, Kyle Hamilton. Looking a bit like Tom Cruise jumping on the couch, WE'RE IN LOVE WITH KYLE HAMILTON, WE'RE IN LOVE WITH KYLE HAMILTON!!! It's never a bad thing when your largest need lines up with the best player in the draft, easy decision... The Texans @MrEpsYtown are on the clock with #13...

The Vikings are very open to moving around at pick 12, should anyone lower in the draft be interested...

Agree with you there, my point was more that when there's 5 or 6 wrs to be voted on (vs., say, 2 cbs) , everyone is going to have their favorites when it's not the actual Bills making the decisions... So if "WR" got 35 votes spread out over 4 or 5 guys in this exercise, vs. say Gordon and McDuffie splitting, say 25, in the real world, you would hope/think that the Bills would be taking WR (such that the right one is there/makes sense) over the CB. It's never as easy as "swap 'player X' in with 'player y', if X goes first" but the splitting of votes feels worth noting...

Though this is kind of a fun exercise, there's certainly some vote splitting going on here... Drake London may end up being a top 10 overall pick, and somehow he's on the outside looking in for what would ultimately be our "top 20"... I know ordering by position can also be messy and isn't as much fun as players, but if we're looking at WR in the first, I have to imagine a guy like London -- even if he's not the #1 or 2 WR on our board, probably would absolutely be the priority over a guy like McDuffie or Gordon.

@Virgil I'm in if there are still spots open. Put me wherever.

Agree to disagree. Beane flat out said we wanted a CB in the 2nd but the one we wanted went too early. There were only 3 CBs drafted between our 1st and 2nd picks (one of them was Campbell, who went immediately after we took Groot) so it's literally either him or Asante Samuel Jr. Of the two, Joseph is a way better fit for how we like to draft, so that's where I'm coming from...

This guy would've been our 2nd round pick if he'd gotten anywhere near us. Pretty crazy...

Pickens is a beast. The WRs in this draft are all very talented, so it's very much a "pick your favorite flavor" in terms of who you think is the best, or what kind of player fit you're looking for, but I've been saying for weeks on this board that he'd be right there with the other top names if it weren't for his injury... I'd be ecstatic if he were our pick at 25.

Some of that is earmarked for James Bradberry

"Boom" (but only in the John Madden voice and coming immediately after about 12 muttered, indistinguishable words strung together) "Whoooop" (only Chris Berman style) "Jacked up" (must be screamed by everyone present in the room, in chorus, as loudly as possible, immediately following a massive and obviously illegal hit)

Speaking of stoned to death... Taking a punter in the 2nd round should get our entire front office stoned to death. That's football malpractice for ANY team, let alone one who set a notable streak for, *checks notes* NOT PUNTING.

I'm very obviously biased, but the Thibideaux stuff absolutely floors me. The kid played hurt for a significant portion of his college career and was double and triple teamed on nearly every play, OF COURSE he took plays off. I'm not sure I've seen another player in person who was a more fiery and emotional leader, yet some how that all loses out in the 'narrative' part of the draft process to the guy having other interests and recognizing his business value early. It won't matter for us cuz there's no way we'll get him, but I think he's going to be the player we (the royal 'we', not me, specifically ) look back on and ask "what were we doing ranking him that low?"

1. CB 2. WR 3. LB 4. CB 5. TE 6. OL Black

100%, and to further complicate things, those variables VARY by position! I don't envy GMs these days

I like Cross a lot. And maybe under Daboll the Giants pivot to the route of airing it out like we've done with Josh, but I think it's a tough fit when your best skill player is your RB. To your point on Andrew Thomas, he's a "run the ball" draft pick, obviously a new regime so the philosophy could absolutely change, but I think I see Icky as being a better, more well-rounded fit to the Giants. But yes, as a prospect in general, I like Cross a lot too. On the Panthers, hard to see them just shutting it down for a year and also not getting whatever value they can out of trading McCaffrey. Rhule may be a dead man walking in the sense that he won't succeed and will eventually get fired, but hanging onto CmC and also not drafting a QB and also not firing their coach and wiping the slate clean... feels like purgatory to me...

This would be so sweet. A company like TDN -- or hell, the NFL Network -- should go to every NFL team, sign NDAs and a contract to anonymize the boards. Would make for so much great post-draft content fodder. Won't ever happen, but would be amazing.

@H2o my unsolicited feedback: Thibideaux's issues are not work ethic. They're "this guy has the gall to talk about something other than football *gasp*" that's literally it. It's silly, and I feel like it's a smokescreen to try to get him to fall, whether it's true or not, we'll find out soon. VERY hard to see him going after Johnson. Can't see the Pathers taking Willis. He's the best prospect but they need to win now. I think they're a prime candidate to trade back -- they only have 1 pick in the top 3 rounds and Pickett, the most NFL ready QB is not a threat to be taken by anyone until you reach the mid-teens. I know you weren't projecting trades, but Willis feels like a square peg here. Cross as the first OT off the board is 🤯 he's talented but hard to see that happening. Fun twist though! I have Karlaftis an entire round later than you do, limited ceiling player Minor quibbles with your order of WRs, but nothing I'll fight you over Other than that, really nice job and definitely like Booth falling to us!

It's just a different challenge requiring a different skillset -- something many NFL front offices are just beginning to realize. It's filtering through the noise to find the signals. Before technology played a vital role in evaluations, decisions were made on gut instinct and the scant tangible information available. The tools GMs have at their exposure today can help them make better, sounder decisions, but there's now far more meaningless information that they have to sift through or could be distracted by.

Best guess -- football is becoming "less simple". Not necessarily "more complicated", per se, but you've got all of these things colliding at once: analytics, player tracking data, more exotic schemes, personnel strategies, changing player profile dynamics all both from the college and pro ranks, increased focus from the media, larger contracts (both for players and execs), social media, you name it -- all of those are making a GM's job more difficult. And sometimes, like with Booth, football doesn't have to be hard.

We thought a CB would fall to us in the 2nd, and when one did not, reached on another DE, which was the 3rd we'd drafted in the first or 2nd round in the past 2 drafts. Basham may turn out alright, but it was a luxury pick at best, a panic reach, at worst.

I think we're just waiting on James Bradberry. But if that doesn't come to fruition, I'm not necessarily saying we have to trade up, just that we need to prioritize CB as a need if we don't add a reliable veteran.

As Mike Tyson famously said, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face" -- you're not wrong that our staff has shown the ability to find and/or develop talent from non-elite picks, but last year's draft is a great example of what can happen when you wait... you get left in the dust. At some point, need supersedes the ability to wait and have plans on plans on plans. If there's a position on this roster where that's the case, it's at CB...

I think they're just waiting the Giants out on Bradberry.

When they traded up for Edmunds and Josh, they were very clearly wanting to set the foundation of both sides of the roster. To your points, they saw the right guys with the right skills AND the right mindsets at the right price and pulled the trigger. We're a lot farther down the road now, so I think it's fair to expect some evolution of that thinking. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to have to get creative with contracts, a 17-game schedule means we need more depth, a more pass-happy league places even more emphasis on DBs, our past few drafts and FA periods cannot be discounted (how much more can we afford to invest in pass rush?!?), nor can our overall talent level (as I've said before, I think we're good enough to risk a few losses in the right deal). All that together, suggest 3 possible trade up outcomes... 1. Go get sauce. He checks every box above and if McVey thinks he can turn this kid into a superstar alongside Tre, I'd entertain the idea (but probably cost-prohibitive). 2. (As mentioned previously) if you can flip Dawkins and 25 for one of the top tackles, I think that's worth considering as well. 3. If Jameson Williams (or whoever they think is a difference maker at WR) falls to where a minor trade up gets *their guy*, I'd think that's worth it too.