rayzor

true to all that. i mean these draftniks are more educated than the OG draftnik Kiper was when he first started and some of them have been around the game a good bit of their lives, but they are limited by essentially being solo acts with limited funds tying to hit a lot of players over the course of the year. Some are able to this all year, but still they are just one person and limited to what they can do compared to regional scouts funded by pro teams. Teams are just plain able to cover more terrain and more players, plus they are able to spend more time on it and collaborate with more people. Trips to schools don't have to come out of pocket. They will also have more access to coaches, teammates, families, etc. They look at more tape (as a collective) and hit more games. i am grateful for the draftniks and am glad that it has become the industry it has and i think they get a good bit of things right, but as good as some of them are, i just don't think they have the resources or intel (especially team intel) that regional scouts employed by the teams have. When we grade picks, we are basing those grades on a culmination of work less informed parties have done.

you're thinking the same thing i am, and not just by these two. he's one of the top 4 slot(ish) guys i hope we get...with Ladd, Corley, and Malik Washington. Give me any of those 4 and a X(ish) type WR who can stretch the field and i think we're good. oh...and a TE. and another RB who is a thumper and decent receiving option.

i'd honestly be shocked if Baker makes it out of the 3rd round. He's one of those guys that hasn't had a lot said about in the media, but teams are very well aware of and aren't discussing. Pearsall is kind of one of those guys...i mean the media has talked about him some, but teams aren't talking about him either, even though they are definitely interested. Pearsall might not make it out of the 2nd round.

if the guy calling the shots won't listen to anyone else because he thinks he knows more than anyone else, it's hard to convince him of anything. from the way it sounds, there wasn't much communication going on between scouting department and coaches until this year. they are doing things differently this year. doesn't matter that some of the players are the same because the big dogs at the top calling the shots the last few years aren't there (except maybe tepper and he's being quiet). that, on it's own, is enough for some optimism. the problem wasn't the scouts. it was the decision makers.

fitt and rhule thought they knew more than anyone else. they tried to be clever and had an angle on things that no one else had. hurney only ever paid attention to who would be there in the first round and just winged it from there. maybe if we listened to our own scouts we might have had better picks. those guys weren't about to listen to anyone. they were, in essence, speculators and wild guessers.

how do you figure they do more than a regional scout employed by the teams? why would you think that these regional scouts haven't been around the game their whole lives or that they spend less time or do less work than brugler or whoever? these regional scouts aren't volunteering their work. teams also are looking specific things and traits that the draftniks may not be taking into consideration that are specific to their teams. draftniks aren't as dialed into specific teams as much as regional scouts who are tied to the teams. regional scouts are just going to be better at evaluating for the specific teams than any of the draftniks...at least they'll know more about what the teams that employ them are looking for more than the draftniks. teams will have a big board that is done by their guys that is specific to what they have deemed important for their teams. draftniks just do a broad based big board that isn't specific to any team so they are ranking players and picking for teams based on incomplete information about these teams. it just doesn't make sense for teams to rely on them for anything except to maybe get an idea about where players might fall...but even with that they shouldn't count on that being reliable intel. teams may notice what draftniks are saying, but they also have their own league sources that they will use. i think we just put too much stock in draftniks and their rankings.

Teams don't use the media rankings we use, not should they. Where these draftniks rank players has no bearing on anything.

I watched it this afternoon and I thought some of the best discussions was before it even got to the players. One thing that really jumped out to me was when Smitty was asked about how things have changed since he played and the thing he talked about was how when he played and going back to Jerry Rice says, the #1 targeted or looked to receiver was always the X and there's still a lot of people who's minds are still stuck in that idea. But what has happened is that the, what he calls, the F receiver...the flanker...is now the go to guy. You need the X to try and get safeties out of the box, but the QB is now looking for his flanker most of the time. Lots of good discussions all through it, but for some reason the ones involving Ladd, Corley, and Leggette was the most interesting. Ladd was how he may be best fit for just the slot, but he's the best slot guy in the draft and he's just a guy who gets open and doesn't drop the ball. Corley and Leggette are playmakers who are at a risk of being pigeonholed. Leggette is too stiff to be a slot guy but he can do things like Metcalf. Corley is likely to be used much as he was in college, as the big playmaker you just get the ball in his hands however you can, but he's got a lot of room for development as a receiver. It's just good football talk all the way through

i think this front office iteration is doing a better job of keeping things quiet. there have been times that it isn't until right before the draft starts that we start hearing things so who knows? the fact that there are so many unknowns as far as how the draft is going to fall is keeping them from making any definitive plans. this could be an insane draft and i think no one has any confidence at all in how it's all going to shake out the first round. so much talent in so many positions. it's going to be governed by unpredictable runs on positions.

yep. that's the curse of management. we may not agree with things, but we don't get paid to agree with everything. we get paid to make things work in whatever situation we find ourselves in. how we feel about the situation doesn't matter. you just have to make it work somehow and making it work a lot of times depends on you being able to sing a song you'd rather not be singing.

100% agreed with all of that, esp. #1. initially it pisses me off that these things are new concepts here, but i'm just glad we're doing them. One thing that i remember from last year was that Reich was trying to figure out some things to be more trendy. like having to have the 100 thing explained to him. it was funny but one of those moments where you say "at least he's trying" but then you realize he looks like a dork just like i would if i tried to be trendy in public (which i only do to embarrass my daughters). but we really saw no energy from reich. he was like this contemplative introspective guy who seemed to be full of wisdom (or full of something) that i wanted to like...i wanted to like. but he just kept saying things...kept saying things over and over. worse the way he spoke was contagious. it was just contagious. moving on. moving on. Canales has an attitude that is contagious as well, only his attitude will bring some needed positive confident energy to the team.

i think they all have them. i even saw one for rhule at one point. they had it on some video that got released, but i think there was a lot of second guessing when it came time to make picks. but i'm guessing that probably happens a lot when the draft goes differently than what you think it would. it would have to. you see one position falling that you had placed a bit of importance on and to make sure that you get that addressed you jump the gun so you don't miss out. you have to watch the waves within the draft and either ride them or work your way around them to make the right calls. i think you can make it work if you make yourself a slave to your draft board's ranking, but i think you can also lose out on some good players that could help if you do that.

yeah, there's so many things to consider in it....scheme fit, personality fit, square hole fit...so many things to consider. it comes down to what each team values or just is looking for and they all aren't specifically looking for the same thing. just look at the current crop of WRs...who is the top 5 in the game right now and rank them. I would be shocked if there was anything close to a total consensus. the whole thing is completely subjective and each team decides for themselves how they rank. now they will try and get an idea on how much other teams like certain players, but the rankings that we all see are done by NFL outsiders who might have some connections within certain franchises, but all of those should be taken with a grain of salt. no team is going to base their board off walter football or mel kiper rankings or anything like that. we use them and think we're experts, but teams have their own and they go by their own boards. BPA is always based on the individual team's rankings made up specifically for their team which will likely be skewed by what they are looking for.

It's been a few years, but that was what i was hearing from people inside. Just a frustration from the scouting department. to be fair, it was only a couple instances that i heard it mentioned but the way i heard it or the way i interpreted it anyways was that this was a recurring issue. i can't remember if it was ever reported, though.

You choose the best by the standards and criteria you set based on things you deem important. There is no set ranking that everyone goes by. I think this where a lot of people get messed up thinking that everyone uses or has the same ranking of players or ranking system.

Lots of credit goes to Cam for a steller rookie year, but we were also built a hell of a lot better for a rookie QB. Said this in another thread... legendary WR, two absolute stud RBs who were also great receivers, and two stud TEs. Cam would have been good, but he needed all those parts to have a great rookie season. What did Bryce have? Hint: none of that. We are still weak at WR, especially for the long term. Imo, we need to get at least two out of this draft. We are abysmal at TE. There are maybe 5 in this draft who would be an immediate upgrade. We need one of them. And Chuba scares no one. Get us a damn playmaking hoss of an RB. There's at least 10 who would REALLY help us out. Get one of them as well. Go BPA....Best Playmakers Available. Get us some damn offensive talent. Overload on them. Fug balance. Just get yourself some damn offensive play makers.

I haven't seen the whole thing but what I saw I really liked. Yeah....seems like a whole lot of "well....duh" basic poo, but that's what we've been missing here. Everything they did has been hodge podge for years. There has been no real vision and no real collaboration. There's always just been one guy making the call on everything. It was Hurney, then Rhule, then Fitt. Canales comes in "as a newb" eager to learn, but in the process he gets everyone on the same page. Starts with the basics and with that created a floor, a foundation, to build on. Should they need to start over? No. Should they start over! Yes. It's pathetic that we have to start all over. But that's where we are. Get over it and get past it. We were built haphazardly. The closest abd most recent thing we've had to an actual decent plan was when we drafted Cam and out in what ever extra pieces we needed...namely two big vet TEs. We had the remnant of a decent OL and stud RBs and a legendary WR already here. There was very little we needed to succeed right out of the gate, but they knew a rookie QB was going to need a slid run game and big-time reliable passing targets including those stud RBs. When after that initial year, things started falling to crap slowl and then Gettleman came and really started fugging things up like some kind of fat al pacino wannabe gangster. Ever since then we've just thrown poo at the wall and hoped it worked. We tried to be clever without any clear vision of what we wanted the team to be. I think Rhule thought he did, but he was built for coaching motivating kids who don't know that he doesn't really know poo about football. Point is, we've been walking around aimless for over a decade. We now have it abd for that im especially grateful. Are they saying all the right things? I sure hope the hell they are because it sounds like they really know way they are doing. One thing that I really appreciated was Canales giving the scouts unsolicited praise and talked about how they were brought into the meetings with the coaching staff who, coach by coach, position by position, said what they were looking for and then took the scouting work they had already done and continued it to prepare for this draft. It sounds like an actual collaboration where the scouts know what the coaches are looking for and work to pair up players with the team, trying to find, what they called, the right panther fit. Again, sounds pretty elementary abd basic, but also again, this is something we haven't had. I remember going back to hurney's time I remember hearing sentiments from scouts who would do a ton of research on players leading up to the draft and when the draft was going on they would try to give their input based on months and sometimes years of watching these guys, going to their games, watching tape, meeting with players, teammates, position coaches, teachers, even family to try and get good insight on all the prospects, only to be treated like they weren't even in the room. They'd get excited about a pick coming up and who they thought would be a good fit and Hurney would just go another direction and then they would be questioning why they even bothered. Hurney did what Hurney was going to do without any input from anyone else. Rhule did the same thing. And then Fitt did the same damn thing after that power was taken away from Rhule. Sorry for all the words, but I really do feel like we're heading in the right direction.

I'm not surprised. I still feel like by training camp he'll be a panther again.

i honestly wouldn't hate it. the guy is a beast. honestly a toss up between him and Leggette if we're going for big bully WRs. i want one of them and a separation/route specialist like Pearsall or Malik Washington later. i figure Ladd is going to be gone anyways so i'm not even thinking about him anymore.

but it's neil fuggin diamond. who doesn't like neil diamond?

i think there was a thread about this a couple days ago when it came out. my reaction is now just as it was then... those WR choices blah

should we thank kraft or light a pile of dog poo in a bag on his front porch?

i think we had heard that there was some of this going on last year or at least at the end of the year.

He's a long snapper. Of course he can.

he shows the capacity for screwing up and then scrapping it and trying it again. if he is learning how to be a not horrible owner, these are the kinds of things you need to see...not digging your heels in the ground and refusing to admit you were wrong. scrapping a plan and going a different direction is admitting that you fugged up and you're going to try again. maybe he stumbled onto something good. i'm just glad he's trying to get it worked out. looks like he figured morgan was someone who could and should be trusted and then trusted him with selecting his own HC. the fact that didn't go after a hyped commodity is also different than what he has done. he did things differently this time around and he's staying in the background. i thin there's plenty of reason to be encouraged by what's going on. he hasn't given up. the team is rebuilding and reshaping. we haven't lost any games this season yet. until this iteration is proven to be a failure, i'm not going to deem it as such. also not deeming it as a success...i'm keeping an open mind and being hopeful so i can enjoy the offseason. again this is all my take. it may not be for everyone. it's definitely not for those afraid of getting hopes dashed. it takes a bit of courage to choose to be hopeful feel good about what is going on considering what we've experienced in the past.