Picking Emery's brain

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Kiper is wrong more than he is right. Much more. It's just that he throws so much shit against the wall that some of it has to stick. This is a fair list of players at each position who could go in the first two rounds. DEs: Clowney, Ealy, Ford, Crichton, Murphy, Jeffcoat, Marcus Smith, Chris Smith DTs: Nix, Donald, Jernigan, Hageman, Tuitt, Easley, Sutton, Quarles FSs: Clinton-Dix, Pryor, Reynolds Seems pretty obvious to me.

 

Only ones I would touch:

 

DE: Clowney(not a chance in hell), Ealy, Ford (not sure he can play DE 4-3)

 

DT: Donald, Jernigan, Tuitt, maybe Hageman but I have flags on him too

 

Nix has knee issues, same as Easley.

 

The Dline is not a deep as you think either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scs787]

Kiper is wrong more than he is right. Much more. It's just that he throws so much shit against the wall that some of it has to stick. This is a fair list of players at each position who could go in the first two rounds.

 

DEs: Clowney, Ealy, Ford, Crichton, Murphy, Jeffcoat, Marcus Smith, Chris Smith

DTs: Nix, Donald, Jernigan, Hageman, Tuitt, Easley, Sutton, Quarles

FSs: Clinton-Dix, Pryor, Reynolds

 

Seems pretty obvious to me.

 

My whole stance on this was if they need to fill 2 starting DL spots though, as I've said before if they only need to fill one(or none) then I'm cool with drafting a safety in the first.

 

If they need 2 DLmen I would hope they go DL back to back(hoping the draft shakes out so they can do so) because after those guys are gone you don't have any starting quality guys left.

 

And again I think it's much easier to "hide" a 3rd or even 4th round safety than it is to hide a 3rd or 4th round DLmen. Esp if they plan on playing a lot of 2 deep safeties again where they're impact would be lesser felt than the safeties for a team like Seattle where their safeties played up more and obviously made a bigger impact.

 

There are plenty of guys that could be pretty good FSs who are not highly rated ATM. I really like Kenny Ladler, Dontae Johnson, and Marqueston Huff who all looked really good at the senior bowl. Tre Boston looks pretty good, he had some off the field issues but I've seen him drafted in the 3rd in some drafts even though right now CBS has him projected in the 7th. Another guy projected to be in the 7th round, which I think is way off, is Jonathon Dowling. The ratings right now are sure to fluctuate, hell I remember when Ty Zimmerman was ranked as the 2nd best FS, and now he's ranked 14th.

 

My main points are in the first 3 stanzas.

['TD']

Have they committed on a defense yet this year? I haven't been keeping up with the news lately.

 

It's really hard for me to comment on what to draft with out knowing what they are running or what will be available in FA. I understand Jason's point on getting the most value on the picks, I think the system will also play into the value of the pick.

 

In the current system, I think getting a better pass rush is more important than having an elite FS. The year before last, the same mediocre safeties were just fine in the system when it had a better pass rush.

 

A 90 DE and 60 FS may have more of an impact than a 90 FS and 75 DE. I'd prefer a young Peppers and Chris Harris over a young Idonoje and young Ed Reed in this system.

[scs787]

Have they committed on a defense yet this year? I haven't been keeping up with the news lately.

 

It's really hard for me to comment on what to draft with out knowing what they are running or what will be available in FA. I understand Jason's point on getting the most value on the picks, I think the system will also play into the value of the pick.

 

In the current system, I think getting a better pass rush is more important than having an elite FS. The year before last, the same mediocre safeties were just fine in the system when it had a better pass rush.

 

A 90 DE and 60 FS may have more of an impact than a 90 FS and 75 DE. I'd prefer a young Peppers and Chris Harris over a young Idonoje and young Ed Reed in this system.

 

Sadly there hasn't been any news about the D other than they wanna be "more aggressive". That and the speculation of a 3-4 hybrid with the signing of 3 guys who ran 3-4 type defenses in the past.

['TD']

Well in a 3-4 we may be better off with a free safety, lol. I guess I will just wait a while to speculate on the draft. Especially since I know next to nothing on the draft class at this point.

[Connorbear]

Let's be fair. Its not just kiper. All draft anslyst do the same exact thing. The entire draft is a crap shoot. All any of these guys do is tell us what there opinion. That's all it is. An opinion

This 100%.

 

Peace

[jason]

My whole stance on this was if they need to fill 2 starting DL spots though, as I've said before if they only need to fill one(or none) then I'm cool with drafting a safety in the first.

 

If they need 2 DLmen I would hope they go DL back to back(hoping the draft shakes out so they can do so) because after those guys are gone you don't have any starting quality guys left.

 

And again I think it's much easier to "hide" a 3rd or even 4th round safety than it is to hide a 3rd or 4th round DLmen. Esp if they plan on playing a lot of 2 deep safeties again where they're impact would be lesser felt than the safeties for a team like Seattle where their safeties played up more and obviously made a bigger impact.

 

There are plenty of guys that could be pretty good FSs who are not highly rated ATM. I really like Kenny Ladler, Dontae Johnson, and Marqueston Huff who all looked really good at the senior bowl. Tre Boston looks pretty good, he had some off the field issues but I've seen him drafted in the 3rd in some drafts even though right now CBS has him projected in the 7th. Another guy projected to be in the 7th round, which I think is way off, is Jonathon Dowling. The ratings right now are sure to fluctuate, hell I remember when Ty Zimmerman was ranked as the 2nd best FS, and now he's ranked 14th.

 

My main points are in the first 3 stanzas.

 

Fundamentally I disagree with the bolded part. I believe it to be a two-way street. If you have a complete lockdown CB or an incredible FS, then it allows the LBs to cheat up and help lesser defenders. You can hide a mediocre DT if there is always a LB filling the hole behind/beside him.

[scs787]

Fundamentally I disagree with the bolded part. I believe it to be a two-way street. If you have a complete lockdown CB or an incredible FS, then it allows the LBs to cheat up and help lesser defenders. You can hide a mediocre DT if there is always a LB filling the hole behind/beside him.

 

Meh, that may be true, I just keep coming back to the 2012 team where the Bears were able to hide Conte/Wright enough that pretty much the whole board here, sans Terra, who just hates everyone, was on board with them returning as starters.

 

Perhaps I'm just over analyzing based on past results. I saw how shitty the team looked with a garbage DL in 2013, and saw how a good DL in 2012 made the rest of the team look better.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Fundamentally I disagree with the bolded part. I believe it to be a two-way street. If you have a complete lockdown CB or an incredible FS, then it allows the LBs to cheat up and help lesser defenders. You can hide a mediocre DT if there is always a LB filling the hole behind/beside him.

 

I have to disagree, and it comes down to the same reasoning/thinking along a good oline.

 

What the line can do is effect time, a good offensive line buys time, a good defensive line steals a QB's time. A good offensive line opens holes for a RB, a good defensive line can collapse a pocket.

 

Note:I want to read this , not sure what it will say but ran out of time, posted here to find later

 

http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~cew/papers/nfldraft13.pdf

 

 

[ASHKUM BEAR]

I have to disagree, and it comes down to the same reasoning/thinking along a good oline.

 

What the line can do is effect time, a good offensive line buys time, a good defensive line steals a QB's time. A good offensive line opens holes for a RB, a good defensive line can collapse a pocket.

 

Note:I want to read this , not sure what it will say but ran out of time, posted here to find later

 

http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~cew/papers/nfldraft13.pdf

For Jason, the link above is a study about success of drafted players. Low and behold, safety has the highest success rate, followed by guards, then centers. GB is the most successful team draft wise since 2000. Rds 2 and 3 produce better than rd1. Kind of an interesting article that I skimmed through.

[jason]

For Jason, the link above is a study about success of drafted players. Low and behold, safety has the highest success rate, followed by guards, then centers. GB is the most successful team draft wise since 2000. Rds 2 and 3 produce better than rd1. Kind of an interesting article that I skimmed through.

 

We've looked at something like this in the past.

 

And what I'm seeing is something that reinforces my belief that we should draft Safety earlier. If you look at page 19 of the study it compares the Round Points to the Appearance Score. For a quick breakdown, higher Round Points mean a higher draft pick. Similarly, higher Appearance Score means the player has had relatively more success in the NFL. Now, the AS is debatable for a variety of reasons. First, a player gets credit for games played and started. This may not be an indication of their ability; but, instead, an indication of how poor the competition is on that team at that position (i.e. Jamarcus Webb). Second, AS is heavily weighted on Pro Bowls and All Pro voting, which are both, to a large degree, popularity contests.

 

Nonetheless, this is the most comprehensive draft analysis probably done, and ignoring the minor quibbles and flaws, what the chart on page 19 says is, Safeties are on average drafted fairly highly, behind only QB, T, DE, WR, and RB. What it also says is, Safeties as a group typically have great value. But there are two problems with the study in this regard. First, these are averages for the entirety of the position, and the sample size for safeties is much less because fewer are drafted. Just a look at the last four years shows us that an average of 16 are drafted per year (for example QBs - 12 per year, WRs 30 per year, RBs 20 per year). Partially related is the second issue, which is the fact that a smaller sample size has a greater risk of being skewed by the anomaly. Those two anomalies are named John Lynch (3rd rounder) and Rodney Harrison (5th rounder). Take whatever the total safety AS is, subtract those two guys, and then get the average. I'm sure it's statistically significant because their relative AS score has to be ridiculous in comparison to most.

 

Ignoring all that, do something I just did. Skim each of the last 13 drafts and look just at the first round. Pick any position you want and count the great players, good players, and the busts. When it comes down to it, when a Safety is good enough to get a first round grade, he's almost a lock to be a stud. Only Reggie Nelson falls outside that grouping. Looking at other positions, however, a TON more busts. What that tells me is, draft a Safety in the first round.