LinvilleGorge

Would not be mad about it. Wouldn't be mad at all.

I honestly think it's very possible that weakside 4-3 OLB is where he's best suited.

It's my concern with Collins to be honest. I don't know if you take an in the box safety with poor ball skills in the 1st round. Now, Kam Chancellor is largely an in the box safety, but he also has the benefit of playing with arguably the best CB and best FS in the league. Having a true sideline to sideline center fielder like Earl Thomas playing on the back end opens him up to just wreak havoc and wreak havoc he does. I like what I saw out of Tre Boston last year, but I don't think it's any knock on the kid to admit that he's no Earl Thomas.

Yep, we were very interested last year, but if we weren't willing to give him that type of contract in the FA market last offseason, we sure as hell aren't going to trade anything to acquire that contract with Collins coming off of a bad season. Nor will anyone else. If the Bucs want out of that deal they're gonna have to cut him.

You wouldn't take a really good slot guy and returner in the 4th round? I would. The reason nickel CBs are so valuable these days is because there are a lot of high impact slot WRs out there now. If you can get a good one in the 4th round, I wouldn't even hesitate.

Honestly, I kind of see it the other way. Gettleman seems to want value over anything else in the draft. When a draft is deep at a position, it's probably inevitably going to push some prospects at that position a little further down the board than they may normally go. That's the type of situation Gettleman seems to relish. Last year's WR class was considered one of the best of all time and their rookie production absolutely lived up to the hype they got. At #28, Gettleman still took a WR even though it was the 5th WR off the board. We all know what KB did as a rookie. Once again, if a guy like Jaelen Strong is sitting there at #25, I don't think Gettleman lets him get away. This is another deep WR class, but after the top 4 guys, I think there's a big drop off to the rest of the field. I think Cooper, White, Parker, and Strong are about as close to sure things as you can get in the NFL draft. After those guys though, you have a mix of WRs who have speed but not great hands, have great hands but not great speed, have durability concerns, etc. I think those 4 are probably the top 4 WRs on just about every board, maybe not in that order, but those 4 guys. After those 4, I think boards are going to vary widely based on what teams are looking for in a WR.

Well, we all know that the Panthers are almost certain to draft some project out of a small school, so Lynden Trail certainly fits that mold. I don't like him though. He was supposed to have tremendous upside, but the workout numbers didn't reflect it. You also want to see small school prospects dominate at that level. 5 sacks in D1AA from a guy who is supposed to be a freak? How did he do at the Senior Bowl? Hell, did he even go? He was invisible all week according to most reports. I like Lockett a lot. He should be able to come in and inject some much needed speed into our WR corps, but just as importantly, be able to provide a much needed spark to our return game. We simply didn't have a return game last year. Bersin was essentially sent out there to simply fair catch the ball and he even sucked at that. I can't ever remember being so nervous during punt returns in my life. Forcing the other team to punt is usually a good thing. It was nerve wracking last year. In short, I like you're 1st, 2nd, and 4th rounders, but IMO you've taken two guys in the top 5 rounds who have a decent chance of going undrafted.

Look at all of his other measurables. They were BAD. If his hammy was still bothering him, he and his agents are idiots for having him go through the drills at the combine. He should've just shown up to get measured, did his bench press reps, and went through his interviews and gotten out of Indy and headed onto his pro day. His pro day becomes HUGE for him now. A lot of people over-hype the workout numbers. If a guy is expected to be a mid-4.4s guy and he comes in and runs a 4.4 flat or a 4.5 flat, that's fine. It doesn't change opinions on the player that he is. It's basically what was expected. Okay, he was slightly faster than we thought or he was slightly slower than we thought, but either way, our assumption of who he was as an athlete was basically confirmed. Especially if the other workouts were good. But, the opposite is also true. A lot of people on the other side completely downplay the workouts as irrelevant. That's just not true. Those workouts tell you what type of raw athletic ability a prospect has. That's important. It gives you some type of indication of how that guy translates to the next level. Look at O'Leary's measurables and try to find an NFL comp. The closest I can come up with is Henry Hynoski who is a quality NFL FB, but he went undrafted.

The combine only truly matters when someone performs way worse or way better than expected. That gets scouts' and GMs' attention and sends them back to look at the tape again. When a TE or H-back runs a 4.93...

Tell me how O'Leary translates to the NFL and how that's worth a 3rd round pick. That's all I'm saying here. If we were talking about him in the 6th or 7th, I'd be singing a totally different tune.

I don't care what you want to call him, he's a terrible NFL athlete. That's not going to change. His best attribute by far is his hands. I'm not saying Tolbert is great. You seem to be hung up on that. I think there's a good chance he'll be cut. Hell, we don't really use him. Hence why I think its dumb to draft a poor athlete in the 3rd round who will likely rarely be used. What makes h-backs dangerous in most offenses is the match up nightmares they cause. O'Leary isn't a good enough athlete to do that.

O'Leary is one of those guys who was a productive college player who really gets hurt by the combine when the truth about his athletic ability gets exposed. Not every good college player translates to the next level. There are a handful of those types every year. No one expected O'Leary to run a blazing time, but I think most people expected him to run in the 4.8 range. Running 4.8 flat wouldn't have hurt him. Barely breaking 5.0 hurts him. Hurts him bad. In college, O'Leary gave up athleticism but made up for it with skill. In the NFL, he'll be giving up a TON of athleticism and those far more athletic guys will have a lot more skill than those he went up against in college.

Nobody has said Tolbert is fast. He's not. But, he's fast compared to Nick O'Leary. For the record, he has three 100 yard rushing games in the NFL, but they were all for the Chargers. I know for a fact that Brad Hoover had at least one 100 yard rushing game for us. He was very rarely called upon to carry the ball for us, but back in '00 when we just flat out ran out of RBs he started at RB for us and carried the ball 24 times for 117 yards in a win vs. the Packers. Tolbert ran a 4.75 40 coming out of college. Brad Hoover reportedly ran in the 4.6s. O'Leary barely outran the fastest offensive linemen at the combine this year while weighing about 50 pounds less. That's why I have serious questions about him being an NFL caliber athlete. O'Leary was... 17th out of 18 TEs in the 40 (4.93) 7th out of 12 TEs in the 3 cone (0.55 seconds behind 1st place, only 0.22 seconds ahead of last place) 6th out of 11 TEs in the shuttle 10th out of 10 TEs in the vertical (tied with two other for last at 30.5") 9th out of 11 TEs in the broad jump (2" ahead of last place) 4th out of 14 TEs in the bench press (Yay!) Now, keep in mind, this is considered one of the weakest TE classes in recent memory and Nick O'Leary is clearly one of the, if not the worst athlete at the position in the class. If you want to classify him as a FB, fine. FBs are very rarely drafted anyway these days. The numbers add up to a guy who will be a late round draft pick or possibly even go undrafted. That's just the truth. Drafting this guy in the 3rd round would be insane.

TNS, you're assuming that all of us hate O'Leary. That's not true. I like the guy. I think he's an old school throwback type of player. I'm just not sure he's an NFL caliber athlete and that's why I wouldn't touch the guy until the 5th or later.

Fat and old Tolbert would still probably outrun O'Leary while moon walking.

Ali Marpet terrifies me. God knows we love our small school OL prospects even though they never work out for us.

I'm not big on any TE in this draft. I mean, Nick O'Leary, an undersized guy who can barely break 5.0 flat in the 40 and who barely had over 600 receiving yards won the John Mackey award this year. That says everything about this year's crop of TEs.

Hey, I've been that guy before. I hated the pick when we took Kuechly. I wanted Stephon Gilmore, Dontari Pow, or Michael Brockets with that pick. I'm not complaining now.

That it will. Hey, if we take him in the 3rd (or at all), I'll hope like hell that he's a beast!

Mocks can be notoriously incorrect on some guys.

I like O'Leary as a football player, I just HATE him in the 3rd round. There are very serious concerns that he's simply not an NFL caliber athlete. You don't draft that kind of guy until late if at all.

O'Leary benefited greatly from having a great college QB. You're acting like he dominated. The guy had 600 receiving yards. Hell no to that guy in the 3rd. Not with the depth at WR in this class. I wouldn't even look at him until at least the 5th.

How many snaps a game does Tolbert see? You really wanna spend a 3rd round pick on a less dynamic version of Tolbert?

What I see in O'Leary is Jeff King with better hands. I just don't think the hands are gonna matter much because he's just too slow to get open in the NFL. Virtually every LB in the NFL is faster than this guy.

I wouldn't be shocked if we cut Tolbert either. Wonder if he'd be willing to take a pay cut? Not a restructure, but a real pay cut. I just don't want to spend a 3rd round pick on a backup TE and utility type player.