Peon Awesome

Apparently some people think a JAG is anyone not in the Hall of Fame conversation

From all the moves we've made, it's clear we decided we're going to give Darnold a real shot. We gave up a 2022 2nd, passed over Fields and Mac Jones at 8 and picked up Darnold's 5th year option. If they decided after all that to go all in on Watson and his pending legal issues, then I really don't know what this team is doing. Honestly, given the choice to pick Fields with a single 1st round pick and pay him $20ish million over 4 years (or around $45 million over 5 years), or give up 3 1st round picks and pay nearly $150 million over the next 5 years for Watson, give me Fields all day.

Not quite. What's the going rate for a veteran cb1? Easily $15 million per season these days. Jalen Ramsey is making $20 million per year now. So you can't give credit for Fields being cheaper than Darnold and ignore the potential value of Horn over a veteran replacement. You obviously get more value with qb, but it's more like half what you're quoting. At the end of the day, the team didn't feel Fields was likely to be the answer or at the very least, Darnold was more likely to pan out than him. Time will tell if they were right.

Teddy rightfully gets crap for coming up small time and time again. But why does everyone give Brady the benefit of the doubt? There's no question he needs to get better at situational playcalling. Is it really unfathomable that a coach, who's biggest prior experience was spending a single year as the passing game coordinator for a college team that was literally unchallenged the entire year, might not have fully developed his situational playcalling? And then he had to make the huge leap into the pros in the middle of a pandemic without anything close to a normal offseason to prepare? I think he'll do a lot better this year with more experience and hopefully a qb better equipped to execute plus a healthy CMC, but he left a lot to be desired in 2020.

I don't see how drafting another G with our compensatory 6th would've made that much of a difference. We can only start 2 Gs. Between Miller, who was solid on the line last year, Daley, Elflein, Brown and Moore, not to mention Erving who has played a lot of snaps at G and Christensen, who some project to start at G before eventually kicking out to LT, where would Smith get an opportunity to bolster this line? I really think the disappointment about passing Smith is overblown. We already took one G who dropped for one reason or another in the 6th. We decided Brown was a better prospect than Smith. At a certain point throwing all your eggs in one basket has diminishing returns. There's a very real chance Smith wouldn't have survived to the 53. I completely agree that talk of not resigning Moton is foolish. Tackle is where we have our biggest question marks. I'm actually fine with the rest of the line. I suspect our plan is to utilize Scott and Erving as temporary plugs at LT (whoever wins the camp competition) while grooming Christensen to take over either before the end of the year or start of 2022. And if he isn't showing any potential to make the leap, we're back to figuring out a solution in the 2022 offseason. But hopefully he does.

Moton isn't the type of player you gamble with. He's young, skilled, healthy and plays a key position. Even if we spend a couple million more than we want, the loss of Moton would be harder to recover from than whoever we might have signed for the $2 million or per year so we might be apart on in contract negotiations. Drafting Christensen doesn't suddenly make Moton expendable. And Erving has been a liability at tackle whenever he's been asked to start. He functions better as a swing tackle for depth. Our offensive line situation has been a major question mark for years. Resigning Moton gives us the opportunity to have a very solid outlook for the next few years if Christensen can grow into the LT role. And if he can't, then we will need Moton even more

Our drafting strategy actually made a lot of sense. Most drafts have around 10-15 consensus elite prospects. And once you start approaching the 3rd round, player evaluations start to muddle together. The difference in perceived talent between a 4th and a 6th round pick is a lot less than the difference between the 10th pick and the 20th pick. So while we held onto our ultra valuable top 10 pick, we readily traded down in the later rounds to accumulate multiple picks where the difference in value is negligible. It's like trading a dime for 3 nickels.

The same organization that cut Cam with only 1 year and roughly $20 million left on his contract after busting his ass for a year to get healthy, just so they could sign Teddy Bridgewater of all people, suddenly reveres him so much they make his number off limits?

Honestly even if he isn't an elite receiver, does it really matter? There's only so many targets to go around between DJ, Robby, Marshall, David Moore, CMC and Dan Arnold.

Lighten up guy. Do you have trouble picking up on jokes? I'm not grading picks based on interviews even if it was hilarious. But guess what? It doesn't even matter cause I'm still giving the pick a positive grade. You realize he was our comp 6th? One of the last picks in the 6th round. I'd venture to guess that over 80% of the players picked after him won't make their team's 53 man roster. At that point in the draft you can take one of the top 1 or 2 special teamers in the country or a guy with major question marks overlooked round after round by 31 other teams who has to compete with a half dozen NFL veterans at his position just to make the roster. We took a guy with a great chance to be a starter for years to come and save $1 million on our cap this year. And if the pick wasn't justifiable enough, Washington picked a long snapper 3 picks later.

A pure blocking tight end does seem like poor value in the 3rd where you can find starter potential at more important positions like guard and wr. I've been able to reason it in a couple ways 1. He can help shore up our deficiencies on the offensive line with meaningful snaps as a rookie. Think of him as a part-time starter 6th O lineman. 2. We lost both Manhertz and Armah. He effectively takes the place of 2 starters in 1. 3. Many clamored for us to draft another lineman but at a certain point you can have too many bodies. We already signed Erving, Elflein, and Miller, still have Daley and Little, drafted Christenson and Brown and signed Moore as an UDFA. Some of those names will compete for time at tackle but all of them could or have been used at guard. Why not take a guy who will actually see the field and help the line than someone who'd compete for a backup spot with 4 others. 4. Short yardage situations were a major weakness in 2020. Drafting him was an effort to shore that up. 5. Ideally you take a guy like that in the 5th or later but he was 52nd on Daniel Jeremiah's board. If we really liked him, I'm not sure we could have counted on him being there even in the 4th. As far as the long snapper, I have no problems there. Getting a potential starter with a comp 6th (basically 7th), even special teams, is a win. And seeing as how a long snapper was drafted 3 picks later only sells it more.

Keep in mind the following: 1. We let Douglas and Elder leave, both of whom had a fair amount of playing time last year. 2. Bouye is on a 1 year contract and is suspended for the first two games. 3. Donte has missed multiple games every year and is on the last year of his contract. 4. Melvin hasn't played since 2019 (he opted out last year) and before that had played for 3 different teams in 3 years. He's 31 years old and is on a cheap 1 year contract. 5. Stantley was a 7th round pick and Taylor is a 5th. Day 3 picks are usually developmental guys that you're not necessarily expecting to contribute a ton right away. Stantley got more time last year thanks to injuries and our lack of depth, but chances are, at least one of these guys is stashed on the practice squad this year and can get called up if injuries hit. Considering Pride and Stantley are the only two corners under contract beyond this year other than our two new draft picks, it's unlikely they're done. More likely they'll be relegated to roles they should have had last year (depth and developmental) but were thrust in above their heads because our secondary was so devoid of talent.

Appreciate the analysis but I'm disappointed you didn't give the long snapper an A+. The video of him getting the call from Rhule was one of the highlights of our whole draft

If you're WR5 or 6 on the team, it helps to bring something extra to the table (e.g. special teams ace, kick returner) because chances are you won't see the field on passing downs. Better Zylstra actually contribute on special teams than Bayless sit on the bench all the game. Maybe Bayless would do well on ST, I don't know. But I do think that will factor in. You can always stash Bayless on the practice squad and put him on the roster if we have multiple injuries.

When you have a dozen draft picks and only 53 spots, the chances a late round draft pick making the team isn't great. So why not take the best rookie long snapper and save $1 million on your cap? Honestly one of the soundest picks at that point of the draft.

Well one of the benefits of collecting a bunch of 3rd rooms picks is you can go BPA rather than focus on filling immediate needs. You still have a chance to do that in the 3rd. Pick makes sense. Good value at the end of the 2nd and sets us up to move on from Robby if his price is too high next year.

Can't see us being comfortable trading back to 20 when we only have 1st round grades on 15 players. Also, getting future 1sts is great and all but if you're foregoing an elite prospect for a 2nd tier one by dropping that far, kind of dampers your prospects this year which may not be optimal when you traded away your 2nd round pick in 2022. Would hate for that to be a high 2nd rounder. Gotta put yourself in a position to be semi-competitive this year.

Not exciting but if you think about it, it's the sensical pick. 1. Covers the biggest hole on our team 2. Chance of finding a competent day 1 starter at cb after the first round was not very good. 3. Get our choice of the top player at the position rather than whatever is leftover. 4. Our 2nd biggest need, tackle, has a ton of depth in this draft and we had just missed out on the 1 clear elite LT prospect with question marks about Slater being a better fit at guard. Much more likely we find a starter in the 2nd round and consider switching Moton to LT. 5. With Denver taking a cb and Dallas with a huge need at cb, if we really honed in on Horn, trading back probably wasn't going to work (not to mention, given how long we took to make the pick, I bet we tried but the offers were paltry).

Guaranteed at a chance for Sewell or Fields... holy smokes!

They just put a graphic that said the Jaguars have had 6 different starting qbs since 2018 and I thought "Wow that's terrible." Then I realized we had Cam, Heineke, Kyle Allen, Will Grier, Teddy B, and PJ Walker. Just in case it wasn't painfully obvious enough that we need our long term answer.

Unless we draft Fields, our 1st 2 picks should start on day 1, likely OT and CB in some order, although safety is possible in the 2nd (or Moehrig in the 1st wouldn't be crazy if we trade back with WFT). After that, it's a crap shoot. I'm not sure a guard in the 3rd or later is going to beat out Elflein, Miller and Daley and unless the TE is Kyle Pitts, I think Arnold is safe. You can find a decent coverage linebacker in later rounds so I wouldn't rule out a 4th round LB taking an outside spot and shifting Chinn mostly to safety. With 3 6 rounders, I'd also consider using one of those on a kicker if we really like one and creating competition with Slye l. Not a high priority but that late, no guarantees those picks even make the initial 53.

Hmm so we save an extra $3 million and get a 6th round pick? Pretty solid. Better to get some value before the draft in case we draft Fields and the whole world knows we're not keeping Teddy and lose all trade leverage. That being said, it feels like Denver got a good deal. Get Teddy for $3 million by giving up a 6th round pick that's more likely than not to be out of the league in 3 years? Sure Teddy for $20 million is a tough pill to swallow but at $3 million he's a great bargain. Seems like one of those win win situations.

For those complaining that Greg Little's combine should have made him an obvious pass in the draft: Orlando Brown's combine performance made Little look like Aaron Donald. It was historically abysmal. That's why he dropped to the 3rd round. One example of why the combine, while important, isn't the end all be all.

Not crazy about a cb at 8. However, I'd be on board with a cb in the teens plus the haul from trading down, and snag an OT in the 2nd given there should be plenty of decent ones to choose from. CB is a huge need. We have no current starting caliber corners signed past this year, Donte is guaranteed to miss games and Bouye is suspended the first 2 games with his best years behind him. You could argue it might be our biggest need. I'd still rather have Sewell if he's there but if he's gone and a team is willing to pay big to move up to 8, we should hear them out

If Sewell, Pitts and Fields are all gone, I'd see if Philly is willing to give up their extra 1st in 2022 to move up to 8. Maybe they anticipate Miami's 1st will be in the 20s and consider giving that. I'd do that for sure and land either Slater or Darrisaw at 12 as one of them should be there. I'd probably be wary of trading back any further and losing out on one of the elite talents, even with a good haul.