flaming_thumbtack

If you remove Dowell, they get right near the 22.5 range. I don't think the age of the 6th and 7th rounders we draft really informs what I would expect them to do picking in the first few rounds. As we make more picks, I would expect it to level out.

Wow. That's one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard lol Like on principle it's beyond stupid. Practically, it's somehow even stupider as this draft is quite top heavy, and the Saints and Seahawks are positioned solidly to cash in on that. Remember last year when the Cardinals were gonna have two top 5 picks because the Texans were gonna suck? Plus whatever team you trade with has no reason to not play to win all season. I understand some people in the NFL are allergic to understanding the idea of tanking a game or two, but you'll see some teams here and there shut guys down if they are near a top pick.

Oh we've fielded worse, those are just my favorites. Honorable mention to Kalan Reed.

Jackrabbit Jenkins, Leshaun Sims, Blidi Wreh-Wilson, Caleb Farley

What's the excuse for his college film?

You could also easily argue that this was an advantageous spot for Callahan because he gets a free year if Levis flames out. If Levis is bad, Callahan has little to no blame and gets to pick his guy going into year two. As for Ridley, he came here because of money. If he wanted to actually take a discount to go play with a good QB, he could have, but he had no interest in that. I don't know what the Pat's offer was, but even if it was identical to the Titans' and QB was Ridley's tiebreaker, I'm not sure I'm ready to let Calvin Ridley's view on Levis vs. Brissett/Daniels/McCarthy guide the way I'm building my team for the future.

When I watch him, it does not appear that he is progressing as quickly as the top of the line QBs do. I don't know what the playcalls are, so maybe he is doing exactly what he is supposed to. He could be the best read progresser in the league, and my point would still stand. When you have the level of accuracy issues, inability to manage a pocket, and decision-making problems that Levis has, you are going to struggle over the long term. If he had one of those problems, I'd be worried that it would define him; poor decision making/turnover prone decision making has derailed many QB careers; poor accuracy is nearly impossible to fix unless there is a readily apparent technical issue; pocket management is an underrated killer as it begins to affect everything else as the hits accrue. Levis firmly has all three of these issues. I sincerely hope he is able to fix them. I hope he makes me look like an absolute idiot. I just think that the history of QB development across the league does not give me a very promising outlook for Levis' future.

I don't think Levis is a long term starter for a variety of reasons. Broadly, he was an extremely flawed prospect that has done little to disprove hit pre-draft critiques; he lacks accuracy, struggles reading defenses, does not progress through reads well, can not manage a pocket well, and has occasionally Winstonian/Wentzian level decision making. That said, I don't think our plan for this offseason would or should be very different regardless of the team's thoughts on Levis. Coming into the offseason, we had a deeply flawed roster, particularly on offense where we had maybe 4 starters you could feel even somewhat okay about (Tyjae, Chig, Sko, DHop). We were also set to pick 7th in a draft that has 3-4 QBs and a top 3 of teams that need QBs. The only reasonable options were to 1) build an offense for Levis/any other future QB we acquire or 2) trade up for most likely the 4th best QB in the draft and plug them into a deeply flawed offense. I think far and away the best option is to build the offense unless you have a phenomenal grade on McCarthy or Daniels, so I am glad that is the route we took As for McCarthy and Daniels, I like some of what McCarthy does, but I don't love trading the farm for him especially with an incomplete roster; I think he has a higher ceiling than people give him credit for, but his floor is also quite low given we have no idea how well he would be able to operate in an imperfect system. As for Daniels, it is mind-boggling to me that people consider him a first-round pick; I have watched him a fair amount, and it just doesn't make sense.

I was banging this exact drum last offseason when we went out and replaced garbage with garbage; Dillard had never proven anything, Brewer has always been a travesty, Brunskil showed no ability to be a long term solution, and NPF was one of the worst OTs in the league in '22. I think this situation is different. Skoronski and Cushenberry give us two proven NFL caliber OLinemen over the 0 we had going into last year, so we have a baseline level of competence at least along the interior. Further, spending first round picks on tackles is different than rolling out Dillard and NPF who were proven failures at OT. The fact that whoever we pick hasn't already proven that they suck at playing OT at the NFL level already puts us a leg up of where we were going into last year at the position. Bill Callahan helps too. Outside of somehow finding a Tunsil or Trent Williams type situation, the only way to find elite OTs is through the draft, and the best way to do that is with early capital.

With WR and CB patched up, I don't think going OT with our first two picks is unreasonable. I think that that sort of thing would normally discouraged as you're relying on a lot of inexperience, but Duncan and NPF are the alternatives and grade out as two of the worst OTs in the league; it's not like it can get worse. Plus, this draft is quite deep at tackle. It's a pipe dream, but trading down with the Vikings and securing a long-term LT and RT at 11 and 23 would be as good a draft as any team could ever possibly have. Fashanu/Fautanu/Fuaga at 11 + Mims/Latham/Guyton/Morgan at 23 would likely be possible.

The NFL has had a lot of great QBs age quite gracefully recently which I think has made people expect that to be the norm. Playing well at 35 y/o and on is still far more the exception than the rule.

We could have 0 ILBs on the roster, and I still wouldn't want to draft one in the first 3 rounds. It's a low value position that is easily addressed later in the draft/UDFA/FA plus it's a particularly weak ILB class this year. Well constructed teams aren't often spending an overwhelming amount of capital on positions like OG, RB, and ILB; that doesn't mean it's an absolute contraindication to building a successful roster, but we should hope that Ran won't make a habit of spending early picks on those positions because there are a fair few positions (QB, OT, WR, DT, EDGE) that are often really only possible to address with high draft capital.

It's not now nor has it ever been a skill argument. It's a positional value argument. The 16th-best LT in the league is likely a more valuable asset than the 3rd-4th best LG. It's worth noting that the guard market is kind of exploding, so taking Skoronski may not end up looking as stupid in 3-4 years, but given the traditional valuation of guards, picking one at 11 is essentially equivalent to giving up at finding a high value asset.

Have to think Cunningham was hesitant about the GM job because he didn't want to work under Brinker

I do find it funny that draft twitter/the scouting community will be like, "I'm unsure about McCarthy; his adjusted net yards per attempt when throwing deep to the left while pressured isn't ideal and may be exploited at the next level," and then Antonio Pierce comes out and says, "McCarthy. National champ. Winner, Top three." It's even funnier that neither the old-school dudes nor the advanced analytics dudes are ever consistently right either when it comes to QBs.