dave mcbride

If he's really that good, I don't have a problem taking a DE who is a beast at getting to the qb. No problem at all.

I'm a huge believer in FO, so you're not gonna convince me. But that's OK--it's fine to disagree. Re points, you have to factor in turnovers that generate points for the opponent, opponents' starting yardline positions, etc. Raw points isn't good enough. The Eagles D was good on a lot of metrics: 2nd in time per opponents' drive, 4th in plays per drive, 12th in yards per drive, 10th in points per drive, and 9th in turnovers forced. And they played the hardest offensive schedule in the league.

It would definitely be short sighted. I'm just guessing that this might be shaping their thinking. People do tend to get gun-shy when they've had bad experiences with similar choices in the immediate past. I could of course be wrong!

Philly's defense was the fourth best in the league, up from 17th the year before. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef Bear in mind that they played the hardest offensive schedule in the league. They were excellent.

This isn't true. In their 2014 and 2015 drafts, they obtained six genuine contributors: Shaq Mason, James White, Trey Flowers (7 sacks last year), Brian Stork, Malcolm Brown, and Jimmy Garrapalo. Garrapalo doesn't start, but he's good. In 2012 and 2013, they drafted Logan Ryan, Chandler Jones, Jamie Collins, and Alonzo Hightower. I'm already up to ten contributors coming to a team that's always pretty stacked.

After last season's injury fest with our high draft picks, I cannot see them taking Hooker. He had a torn labrum in his hip and a hernia that he needed surgery on, and while he might be healthy by camp, it is no sure thing. This team doesn't strike me as one that wants a guy who has a real injury record given Lawson's experience last year. And yeah, I know that Lawson had surgery after the draft.

More on that Deadspin piece: 'The thesis, so far as I can tell, is I, Michael Lombardi, can tell you how to identify successful quarterbacks. This is rather a bold claim coming from someone whose résumé—after something like two decades spent hiring football players for a living—contains no notable examples of having identified a theretofore unidentified successful quarterback.' In actual fact, Mike Lombardi brought Rich Gannon to the Raiders in 1999. Rich Gannon was a phenomenal player for them.

The Deadspin piece about Lombardi linked to in the other thread is garbage too.

A major problem with this piece: he calls Lombardi a failure. Lombardi worked for three years with the SF dynasty, presided over the building of a good Cleveland team in the late 80s/early 90s, and presided over a mini-Raiders renaissance in the late 1990s/early 2000s. What has this guy ever done? Plus Burneko's take on RG III is entirely unconvincing.

Peter King has us picking Derek Barnett -- http://mmqb.si.com/mmqb/2017/04/24/nfl-mock-draft-peter-king-qb-first-round-trades

Yet Belichick has thought enough of him to hire him multiple times. He may be a tool, but I'll take BB's opinion any day over anyone else's in the NFL. For the Lombardi haters: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lombardi_(American_football) . Belichick, Al Davis, and Bill Walsh all hired him and worked for relatively long stints with him. The guy has street cred.

?? -- Really?? How do you figure? Please explain. Know that i come from the school which regards Gillislee as objectively good. I also come from the school that prefers known good players to unknowns or guys who look bad to date (Jonathan Williams).

I get what you're saying in theory, but at the end of the day McDermott is replacing a basically .500 coach in Ryan and if they put in a couple of 5-11 / 6-10 seasons (not saying they will!), he is gone. The press from an already angry fan base will be too difficult resist, especially if the coach is a step down record-wise from Ryan and Marrone. If we have a couple of Chan-level seasons, he will be gone after season 2. Bank on it.

To be fair, the Bills are are really getting an early 6th round pick (applying some basic math here) at #163.

Remember when Ralph himself put in the call for Dwayne Wright? For some reason, he was bewitched by him. How he managed to watch Fresno State games is beyond me.

I'd be fine with Howard, personally. Having a great TE is an awesome thing to have. That said, is there a worse team in NFL history at drafting TEs than the Bills? The only one who they drafted early who turned out to be any good was Paul Seymour, and he was an OT in college! And he was basically a glorified blocker in the OJ years. Reuben "Hands of Stone" Gant and Tony "Who???" Hunter are the only other first rounders. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/buf/draft.htm

Huh? I'm referring to the final AP rankings after the national championship game. They played Ohio State (#6), Penn State (#7), Florida State (#8), Wisconsin (#9), and Colorado (#17).

At #163, it's basically early 6th round (5 x 32 = 160).

Um ... four teams that finished in the top 10 and 5 in the top 17. Sheesh.

I agree! I'm not advocating drafting him; I'm only saying that he was an objectively good defensive player last season for Michigan. He was extremely disruptive, blowing up a ton of plays in the backfield.

This thread will be revived big-time if Gillislee plays well for the Pats next year. That's a guarantee.

Like I said, I don't have a dog in this fight; just saying that he was a productive player in college. Saying he wasn't simply isn't true. TFLs are huge plays - the equivalents of sacks, basically. That's all.

Regardless, by college football standards, 13 TFLs is *a lot*. Reuben Foster had 13 TFLs, for instance, and played in more games.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's worth repeating that the "no production" argument is pretty skewed.

No production? He had 13 tackles for a loss last season and 3 sacks. That's not fumbles or INTs, but it's definitely fairly solid production. Hooker had 5.5 tackles for loss plus 0.5 sacks last season and Jamal Adams had 7.5 TFLs and 1 sack.