dave mcbride

Postseason, dude. The fans of good teams care about that stuff, and rightly so. I am not justifying the pick; just reminding people that the highest level games against the highest level competition actually matter. The fact that people don’t work those stats into their evals is laughable. Not directed at you, btw.

My point is that in any measure of a player, if we're not including postseason performance, we're doing it wrong. He wasn't just good in the 2018 postseason; he was a legit difference maker who was a key player in all three wins. 71 carries for 336 yards and 6 TDs in three games vs. top competition is pretty great. I forgive a lot of year 3 decline if a player can offer me that in the games that matter most. See above. You should probably add in James White (4th round pick), who had the best SB of all these guys.

Good post, but ... he had a whale of postseason on 2018. That always counts in my book.

True, but Moss looks like a pretty good player who measurably improved over the course of the season. Closing the final 6 games at 4.85 ypc is first-round production. And Singletary is hardly terrible. My questions about him have nothing to do with the running game, but rather the passing game.

I think Moss is pretty good and I expect he'll have a surprisingly productive season. He came on late in the season and played wel , averaging 4.85 ypc over the final 6 games (257 yards on 53 carries). A first-round RB isn't likely to average 4.8 ypc. Plus Breida has averaged 4.9 ypc on 440 carries over his career. I think the Bills RB stable is actually pretty solid.

Why would you ever take a RB knowing that it's foolish to pick up a fifth year option when you can grab a good CB/OT/DE whose fifth year option you'll be thrilled to get? Avoid RBs in the first round at all costs and focus on positions where -- if the player is good -- the fifth year option is something you'll want to pick up. The 30th pick has a fifth year option. No one drafted after the first round gives you that option.

I was actually pretty impressed by Moss later in the season. I think he's going to be a good NFL back for 3-4 years.

The full guarantee in year five is what makes me very leery of picking up that option. He's a decent player with physical upside, but he's replaceable.

Great piece. Calling @BADOLBILZ ...

There won’t be a future if Garappolo suffers his fifth serious injury in six seasons this year (he had two last year that cost him at separate points) and the backup qb play sucks again. Four out of five losing seasons is not a recipe for job retention.

Our quarterback was ryan fitzpatrick. The top need was ALWAYS qb for close to two decades.

I know, but Alabama is the pros. You worry about only 16 games started at the 1 AA level.

We'll know soon enough. I will confess to avoiding even considering Lance as an option because of his limited play and missing all of the past season. He may be the best out of all of them -- I have no idea -- but I personally would steer very clear of taking him that early given what the Niners need from that player THIS year. I don't think it's a possibility.

So much of this comes down to who teams think has the best ability to guide a complex offense (relative to college offenses) against far more complex defenses than their college counterparts. Recall that RG III was an elite talent who in a Shanahan offense put up a great rookie season before immediately crashing and burning. I'm not saying Fields is that guy at all, but Jones is far more in the vein of the guys Shanahan has coached afterward: Cousins, Ryan, JG. None of them have cannon arms and none of them are mobile, but they have good-enough arms and are all good at running NFL offenses. Shanahan should have won a SB in Atlanta (his coaching cost them an easy win, not Ryan, who had a great game), and he had the Niners in position to beat KC but they lost it late on that overthrow by JG. Neither of those games showed that you can't win with those players given their coin-flip outcomes. I guess my bottom line is that I don't think Shanahan is totally safe (and nor should he be), and people in danger seek security. Jones may represent the most secure option to him given the nature of his game. I don't give a rat's ass if he's not deemed worthy of going #3. If you believe that a particular QB is the guy you need, then damn the torpedoes and go get him. And if you turn out to be correct about him, all the draftniks can go pound sand.

Hard to say. My wife went to MSU, and I saw a lot of Cousins in college. Jones is a lot better than Cousins was as a college player (not that Cousins was bad at MSU). Also, not to belabor the point, but Shanahan's won/loss record is what will determine whether he's retained or fired in the next 1-2 years, and terrible backup QB play is why he's 29-35 so far. The rest of the team has been at least pretty good the last four seasons. I don't think people factor that in enough. Job preservation mode is an actual thing, and the one area that I think Jones excels in vis-a-vis the other prospects is his ability to come in right away and be competent. You simply cannot count on JG to stay healthy.

I don't hate Fields or anything like that; it's just that in the games I've watched, he doesn't seem to handle pressure well and the ball doesn't come out quickly because of his uneconomical throwing motion. More broadly, I question his accuracy when under any pressure. He may turn out to be a great player in time, but I feel like SF needs someone who can play well NOW, and I think Fields in 2021 is going to struggle mightily with NFL defenses. Mac Jones seems like that player who can come in and get you to 5-3 if the starter goes down, and he does in fact have some boom potential. To be sure, Jones could be the next Matt Barkley (a great college QB on a loaded squad who was highly touted as a top five pick the year before he came out), but I doubt it. He appears to have a measurably better arm than Barkley. I guess I'd say the floor for him is Barkley and the ceiling Payton Manning (not in terms of projected career productivity; rather in terms of the productivity that results from his style of play if he's as accurate and as quick a processor as advertised). With Fields, I'd say the ceiling is Josh Allen (plus maybe Cam?) and the floor RG III. It is worth noting that Shanahan coached RG III in his great rookie season ... As I said elsewhere, I think NE is the best fit for Fields, but they'll have to trade up to get him assuming the Niners don't take him.

I truly appreciate the work you've put in, but how can a 77.4 percent completion-rate passer be only 69 percent accurate? Are you saying that 8.4 percent of the receptions were basically circus catches? Btw, this is a pretty interesting piece, especially the QBR data later in the piece w/regard to pressure: https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49ers/how-justin-fields-mac-jones-pro-days-compared-49ers-qb-choice-looms. The piece has good things to say about Fields too.

Who is? The numbers suggest it's Jones. His ypa and adjusted ypa are off the charts too. Granted, I know he played for Alabama, but it's not as if Fields' didn't play for a similarly stacked program. https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/mac-jones-1.html https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/justin-fields-2.html Don't get me wrong -- I have no love for Mac Jones and don't really care who the Niners take. That said, I suspect it'll be Jones a) because most of the clued-in people think they will and b) because I think NFL people have a very different opinion of his readiness to do well in the NFL than people who focus on his 40 time. I may well be wrong; perhaps Shanahan doesn't buy the talk that Fields' floor is low. But I always come back to the fact that Shanahan has to win this season. If he goes 6-10 (let's assume JG has some injuries and Fields has to play), his job will be highly endangered -- he'll have had 4 losing seasons in 5 years and an overall record of 35-45. Just about every NFL coach gets fired at that point. Anyway, we'll find out in less than two weeks.

From Albert Breer’s MMQB column today: ‘Here are 20 other things you need to know … 1) When I had Dilfer on my podcast, he said that Jones has a “twitchy mind,” a reference to how fast he processes and plays. This, so you know, checks out with NFL people. One team told me that it asked him in April to recall the first thing they’d installed with him over predraft meetings, and Jones immediately spit out everything about the play. And remember, at this point of the process, these kids have a lot floating around in their heads, given the number of teams (and other people) they’re talking to. “He’s as smart as advertised,” said one exec. “I’d say borderline genius when it comes to football.” 2) Obviously, the possibility that Jones would be in play has led to a lot of intrigue with the Niners at No. 3. The team’s brass is still swearing to other teams that they haven’t made a final decision on what they plan to do. Seem impossible? Sure it does, until you really think about it. Of course, Kyle Shanahan had a leaning when the trade was made. He’d done two months of work on those guys. It’d be hard not to have one at that point. But what if, for argument’s sake, Shanahan came to a comfort level with one of the three quarterbacks (beyond Lawrence and Wilson) that the Niners saw as first-rounders? And what if he said, I can see Mac Jones being my quarterback for the next 15 years? And what if he was also intrigued by Lance and Fields, but used Jones as the baseline, the I know I’m going to like what I get at No. 3 regardless guy? And what if that was just the starting point for a month of work to get to know all three and make the best call? That, it seems to me, would be a smart approach for a smart organization. And honestly, I think it is their approach.‘ https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/04/19/mmqb-nfl-draft-primer-20-things-to-know-offseason-workout-squabble From Peter King’s column: ”3. SAN FRANCISCO. Today’s the last day of substance in fact-finding for the Niners, with GM John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan expected in Fargo at North Dakota State quarterback Trey Lance’s second workout. The leader in the clubhouse is still Alabama’s Mac Jones, but that’s all Jones is. Credit to Lynch and Shanahan for keeping a tight lid on their preference. I keep coming back to Jones’ accuracy (his 77.4-percent season in 2020 is the most accurate in major-college history) and his touch downfield, with the best accuracy of the top five quarterbacks on passes thrown 20 yards or more downfield. I think Shanahan will value accuracy and presence over athleticism and prefer Jones, but that’s not inside info—just my gut feeling.” https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/04/18/nfl-draft-rumors-fmia-peter-king/

Shanahan cannot afford to have a losing season. If JG stays healthy, they’re probably a playoff team. If he goes down and Mac Jones comes in, I can see them still winning ten games. If Fields is the replacement, I doubt they win eight. I have a lot of doubts about Fields as a QB.

In Moulds’ prime, the Bills were still good. I think the point is that his best season — which is one of the best seasons for an offensive player in all of Bills history — came in 1998, a season in which he punctuated it by having the game of his life in the playoffs against the top passing defense in the NFL that year. He was just about as good in 1999, but missed a couple-few games because of a hamstring. The Bills were good in both of those seasons.

Enh ... Wentz was an above average qb in 2018 and 2019. Him regressing to the mean is hardly a sign of miracle working.

Judge a first round RB on their first four years. Smart teams should never pick up the fifth-year option anyway. He didn’t play much from scrimmage in year one, but averaged 14.6 yards for punt returns (elite) and had a huge kickoff return for a TD vs. NE in a game that ended up being a heartbreaking shootout loss, as you’ll recall. He returned a ton of kicks that year. In year 2, he shared duties but averaged over 5 ypc and had 39 catches. He was a game breaker who wasn’t used enough. In year 3, he was straight-up elite, averaging 6 ypc and nearly 11 yards per reception (both genuinely elite for a running back). I watched those games, and the stat sheet production mirrored reality — he was a game breaker. Then, in season 4, Marrone gets rid of the Gailey offense, which he excelled in, and puts in a neanderthal-like power offense which required him to power it up through the middle. He still had nearly 1000 yards and 4.6 ypc. Bear in mind that he shared duties with Fred J that year, and Jackson had 900 yards rushing too. The offense sucked, but they did lead the league in rushing attempts and were second in rushing yardage—and Spiller was the lead rusher for them. Then, he gets in Marrone’s dog house the next season, and the injuries hit too. After that he didn’t do much except for putting up decent receiving numbers in 2015 in NO. The point is, he had a couple of explosive seasons, one of which was fantastic, one pretty decent season in a terrible offense with a terrible qb, and then a slow fizzle. He wasn’t Aaron Maybin or John McCargo. For the four years you expect out of a RB these days, he was a pretty good player. I am NOT saying that spending a top ten pick on a RB is a good idea. It isn’t. But getting picked that high isn’t the back’s fault. Judge him for what he did relative to what one should expect out of the position rather than where he was picked.

My crazy theory is that BB doesn’t have any interest in winning the Brady way anymore: been there, done that, and he’s the greatest coach in league history. He has earned the right to experiment. For that reason I see him targeting Justin Fields, who can play behind a dead-armed Newton for a little while before taking over the helm mid-way through the season. My point is, BB hasn’t won this way before, and he is the sort of curious, intellectually-minded HC who wants to experiment at this point of his career. His legacy—which goes back to his Giants days, where he was the best DC in the league—is untouchable, and from his perspective, why the hell not? What does he have to lose? Winning via a different way will also show that he really can do it all. I could be way off, but I don’t think SF takes Fields. They need to win now (loyalty to coaches fades fast after two losing seasons regardless of circumstances), and he is just too much of a boom or bust player. Mac Jones has flaws, but he can play competently a LOT sooner than Fields, in my opinion. SF’s problem these last few years has been absolutely terrible backup qb play, and that has to end. If Fields starts for them this year, they won’t win more than 8 games given that offensive system. And I don’t care what Fields’ completion pct was at OSU; he is really just not that accurate. He’ll be exposed on that front in the pros, and therefore represents a real risk for a team like SF. But he IS basically Newton Mach II — big, fast, huge arm, and an “in the general vicinity” thrower. The Pats offense is currently built to help a guy like that succeed. I see the Pats targeting him, and moving up if they have to.