Now Pettigrew's stock drops

[VJ91]

So now I know why the good teams stay good, and the bad teams go up and down annually. (While the Bills stay below average, year after year after year.)

 

The teams drafting 1 to 15 don't seem to do enough of their own scouting anymore. They just believe everything the draft gurus say, and are afraid to "reach." Now more then half of them do fine that way, don't get me wrong, the bad teams do scout, and the gurus are right most of the time. But that always allows some great to good players slip down to the lower half of the first round. And that leaves them where the better teams love them to "slip"... right into their laps.

 

Listen to this crap from the combine regarding Pettigrew:

 

"Oklahoma State tight end Brandon Pettigrew ran times of 4.85 and 4.87 seconds in the 40-yard dash Saturday. He was projected as a first-round pick by many before the combine. How much will that hurt his draft stock?...Analyst Mike Mayock of the NFL Network said, "I still think he’s plus or minus Jason Witten. He’s an in-line tight end who will block his tail off. He might not be as fast as some of those guys, but he can separate and catch a football.”...Nevertheless, it probably decreases his odds of being taken in the first half of the first round....Witten, a third-round pick in 2003, has made five Pro Bowls for Dallas. He was the 69th overall pick. But he ran a 4.65 in the 40 at the combine...."

 

So there you have it folks. A lot of draft gurus were mock-drafting Pettigrew at number 11 for the Bills, and that would be just fine with me. But will the perennial 7-9-0 Bills now take a pass because of his slow time in the 40, and allow him to drop down to New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, San Diego or even the newly good Cardinals perhaps??

[San Jose Bills Fan]

So now I know why the good teams stay good, and the bad teams go up and down annually. (While the Bills stay below average, year after year after year.)

 

The teams drafting 1 to 15 don't seem to do enough of their own scouting anymore. They just believe everything the draft gurus say, and are afraid to "reach." Now more then half of them do fine that way, don't get me wrong, the bad teams do scout, and the gurus are right most of the time. But that always allows some great to good players slip down to the lower half of the first round. And that leaves them where the better teams love them to "slip"... right into their laps.

 

Listen to this crap from the combine regarding Pettigrew:

 

"Oklahoma State tight end Brandon Pettigrew ran times of 4.85 and 4.87 seconds in the 40-yard dash Saturday. He was projected as a first-round pick by many before the combine. How much will that hurt his draft stock?...Analyst Mike Mayock of the NFL Network said, "I still think he’s plus or minus Jason Witten. He’s an in-line tight end who will block his tail off. He might not be as fast as some of those guys, but he can separate and catch a football.”...Nevertheless, it probably decreases his odds of being taken in the first half of the first round....Witten, a third-round pick in 2003, has made five Pro Bowls for Dallas. He was the 69th overall pick. But he ran a 4.65 in the 40 at the combine...."

 

So there you have it folks. A lot of draft gurus were mock-drafting Pettigrew at number 11 for the Bills, and that would be just fine with me. But will the perennial 7-9-0 Bills now take a pass because of his slow time in the 40, and allow him to drop down to New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, San Diego or even the newly good Cardinals perhaps??

I'm not sure what you're saying VJ but it sounds like what you're saying is that we should take Pettigrew at #11 because Dallas took a guy 2 tenths of a second faster at #69 six years ago. A guy all 32 teams could have taken in the 2nd round. If that's your argument it needs a bit of tweeking. I think I know what you're trying to say...

[cantstopbeastmode]

So now I know why the good teams stay good, and the bad teams go up and down annually. (While the Bills stay below average, year after year after year.)

 

The teams drafting 1 to 15 don't seem to do enough of their own scouting anymore. They just believe everything the draft gurus say, and are afraid to "reach." Now more then half of them do fine that way, don't get me wrong, the bad teams do scout, and the gurus are right most of the time. But that always allows some great to good players slip down to the lower half of the first round. And that leaves them where the better teams love them to "slip"... right into their laps.

 

Listen to this crap from the combine regarding Pettigrew:

 

"Oklahoma State tight end Brandon Pettigrew ran times of 4.85 and 4.87 seconds in the 40-yard dash Saturday. He was projected as a first-round pick by many before the combine. How much will that hurt his draft stock?...Analyst Mike Mayock of the NFL Network said, "I still think he’s plus or minus Jason Witten. He’s an in-line tight end who will block his tail off. He might not be as fast as some of those guys, but he can separate and catch a football.”...Nevertheless, it probably decreases his odds of being taken in the first half of the first round....Witten, a third-round pick in 2003, has made five Pro Bowls for Dallas. He was the 69th overall pick. But he ran a 4.65 in the 40 at the combine...."

 

So there you have it folks. A lot of draft gurus were mock-drafting Pettigrew at number 11 for the Bills, and that would be just fine with me. But will the perennial 7-9-0 Bills now take a pass because of his slow time in the 40, and allow him to drop down to New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, San Diego or even the newly good Cardinals perhaps??

Umm, we "reached" for Whitner to a huge degree, and even Evans/Lynch were supposed to go behind where we took them. The only guy who was a "value pick" in the top 15 the past few years is McKelvin, and if you think he's the reason we suck then something's the matter with you.

[Dawgg]

So now I know why the good teams stay good, and the bad teams go up and down annually. (While the Bills stay below average, year after year after year.)

 

The teams drafting 1 to 15 don't seem to do enough of their own scouting anymore. They just believe everything the draft gurus say, and are afraid to "reach."

 

Let's not kid ourselves. The Bills have shown absolutely no fear when it comes to reaching in the draft!

[Haven Moses]

"Oklahoma State tight end Brandon Pettigrew ran times of 4.85 and 4.87 seconds in the 40-yard dash Saturday. He was projected as a first-round pick by many before the combine. How much will that hurt his draft stock?...Analyst Mike Mayock of the NFL Network said, "I still think he’s plus or minus Jason Witten. He’s an in-line tight end who will block his tail off. He might not be as fast as some of those guys, but he can separate and catch a football.”

 

The only guy he can separate from is Ko Simpson.

[Thoner7]

The reason the good teams are good is because of how positional players are valued, I think thats what the author of the post is try to say. Look at the O-line. The O line is arguably the second most important part of a team behind QB. Yet even with its high impoprtance, the only O lineman with value in the top 20 slots of the draft is a potential "franchise LT" That s only ONE PLAYER on a teams roster. So all of the future pro bowl centers, gaurds, and RTs fall to the dominant teams drafting at the end of the first round. Not to mention that for every Joe Thomas that comes out, there is a Mike Williams. A team that has already found its LT, can sit in the back of the first round and build a dominant O line year after year after year. Then you get an O like the Pats of 07 where all the credit goes to Brady and Moss, but no one mentions the fact that the pats have been drafting all lineman in the first for 8 years.

[Magox]

So now I know why the good teams stay good, and the bad teams go up and down annually. (While the Bills stay below average, year after year after year.)

 

The teams drafting 1 to 15 don't seem to do enough of their own scouting anymore. They just believe everything the draft gurus say, and are afraid to "reach." Now more then half of them do fine that way, don't get me wrong, the bad teams do scout, and the gurus are right most of the time. But that always allows some great to good players slip down to the lower half of the first round. And that leaves them where the better teams love them to "slip"... right into their laps.

 

Listen to this crap from the combine regarding Pettigrew:

 

"Oklahoma State tight end Brandon Pettigrew ran times of 4.85 and 4.87 seconds in the 40-yard dash Saturday. He was projected as a first-round pick by many before the combine. How much will that hurt his draft stock?...Analyst Mike Mayock of the NFL Network said, "I still think he’s plus or minus Jason Witten. He’s an in-line tight end who will block his tail off. He might not be as fast as some of those guys, but he can separate and catch a football.”...Nevertheless, it probably decreases his odds of being taken in the first half of the first round....Witten, a third-round pick in 2003, has made five Pro Bowls for Dallas. He was the 69th overall pick. But he ran a 4.65 in the 40 at the combine...."

 

So there you have it folks. A lot of draft gurus were mock-drafting Pettigrew at number 11 for the Bills, and that would be just fine with me. But will the perennial 7-9-0 Bills now take a pass because of his slow time in the 40, and allow him to drop down to New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, San Diego or even the newly good Cardinals perhaps??

I think you bring up a very good point. What I have seen, the good football organizations draft good players, even if the player is considered a reach. Too many teams draft their players based on need, therefore pigeon holing themselves into a corner and not getting the player they had envisioned, or they draft based on a players measurables like speed, size etc.

 

Good teams draft football players. Pettigrew is a football player. I've been talking about him a lot, probably more than what many of you want to hear, but hey, it's our first round pick, it's an important decision, and I'm really starting to lean this direction. I think the only guys that I would want before Pettigrew would be Raji, Curry, Brown and Orapko, and to tell you the truth Brown and Orapko make me nervous.

 

To me there are in my view 4 sure fire good players in this draft. In my view of course, not to say the others won't be good, but what I see as "sure" good players. Raji, Curry, Mack and Pettigrew.

[headcase]

hen you get an O like the Pats of 07 where all the credit goes to Brady and Moss, but no one mentions the fact that the pats have been drafting all lineman in the first for 8 years.

 

Ummm are you talking about the D-line? Because the O-line looks like this...

 

LT -- 2nd

LG -- 1st

C -- 5th

RG -- Undrafted

RT -- Later than 3rd depending on which scrub is playing that position

 

SSDD

[2003Contenders]

I think I understand what you are saying. Look at the Patriots, for example. I rarely look at their drafts and feel like they have just won the lottery. However, they seem to manage to find guys and plug them in without losing a beat, even if some of these guys were viewed as "reaches" by the "experts". Meanwhile, I look back at Millen's Lions, and I have to admit that they really did not seem to reach for many of the players they drafted. Yet their ineptitude continues. The moral of the story is that the Patriots have very good scouts of their own that know how to identify the right guys for their system -- and they could care less about what the draftniks have to say about it. Millen probably based his picks on what Kiper and his ilk had to say, rather than trusting his own scouts.

 

As for Pettigrew, I would imagine that most of the REAL scouts out there probably were not surprised very much by his 40 times. Speed was NEVER a big positive of his. He is an excellent blocker with great hands -- and can read coverage pretty well, which makes him an inviting big target in the short passing game. On the other hand, he is not (and never was) the sort of TE that was going to get deep and be a game breaker. Any team that has moved him down on their draftboard after his combine showing is one whose scouts I would seriously question.

[kota]

You guys are funny.

[lets_go_bills]

Drafting is far from an exact science. Sometimes you're right, but usually you're wrong.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Well in fairness (as long as we're all being fair), I believe the main point is that it's a bit easier to draft late where you can cherry pick players who've dropped.

 

I don't agree so much that good teams aren't afraid to reach for players.

 

To support my theory about cherry picking who drops to you late in the 1st round, in the last ten years the Bills have had 5 late first round picks.

 

In 3 instances they took who dropped to them.

 

Antoine Winfield was taken 23rd in 1999.

 

Nate Clements was taken 21st in 2001.

 

Willis McGahee was taken 23rd in 2003.

 

In 2 instances they traded back into round 1 (therefore reached):

 

J.P. Losman was taken 22nd in 2004.

 

John McCargo was taken 26th in 2006.

 

Both of the last two were not rated as highly as the Bills took them so their "conviction that this is the guy" was wrong. Their attempt to reach for a guy they identified as good value was wrong.

 

Based on this, it works better if you take what you're given rather than trying to force the issue. This I think is the advantage to good teams which draft late in the first round. Better risk/reward ratio.