Get it in now!! Go on record with your intial thought on the draft...

[45catfan]

7 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

"One of the best drafts ever......"

 

Lets pump the brakes a bit

On paper, yes...absolutely.  I'm not, repeat NOT a Hurney fanboy.  Whether or not they pan out or not is speculative.  However, many folks including myself, have routinely shat all over Hurney's drafts.  So for him to get praise from me, is saying how well this draft went.  Obviously they have to get on the field and produce, but from a pure optics standpoint, this Hurney's finest draft and it's not even close.

[mattnasty919]

1 minute ago, 45catfan said:

On paper, yes...absolutely.  I'm not, repeat NOT a Hurney fanboy.  Whether or not they pan out or not is speculative.  However, many folks including myself, have routinely shat all over Hurney's drafts.  So for him to get praise from me, is saying how well this draft went.  Obviously they have to get on the field and produce, but from a pure optics standpoint, this Hurney's finest draft and it's not even close.

This is the point I'm trying to get across. Usually hurney drafts do not induce excitement for me. For the first time in several seasons I have hope in the future. At least let me have that huddle! 

[run-run-pass-punt]

I absolutely love this draft for a few reasons.

First, I trust Brady, Bridgewater and the weapons we have on offense to be good enough to put points on the board, even with the help we need on the O-line. Bridgewater will be sufficiently protected by scheme, and we'll be ok until reinforcements on the front can be brought in.

Feeling comfortable enough there, we addressed our biggest issue early and multiple times over the draft - the porous run-D. If we only got Brown out of the draft, I would have been ecstatic. I was infatuated with him, and I would have been crushed if Detroit (or someone else) grabbed him or we stupidly passed on him. He's a game changer imho. And all 3 of the players added on the D-line will be significant contributors imo, and I expect Brown to become elite sooner rather than later, and I think YGM has a very high ceiling as well. I also love the quickness/size combination we got with Roy.

And I don't just love Brown because of what he brings as beef against the run in the middle. He has real push, and adding a player at the line of scrimmage on defense that can create problems immediately at the point of attack benefits the WHOLE team.

With the line transformed, we just needed some speed and physical punishers at the back, and I feel we got that with Chinn and co.

There will be growing pains that come with development for sure, but I love the foundation we have now. I feel like we've got the base for a truly interesting and competitive team going forward. I can't wait to see things unfold over the next few seasons.

[45catfan]

My grade with a brief explanation and how I mocked them (heavily, seldom or never):

Brown-A+ (Some had Brown #3 overall and happened to be our #1 need. Bingo!) HEAVILY

Gross-Matos-A- (Top 3 DE prospect at a position of need.  Could have gone shut down CB here.) NEVER

Chinn-A+ (A stud athlete that people overlooked because D-II, position of need.) HEAVILY

Pride-A (Arguably the best prospect remaining at CB; position of highest priority here.) SELDOM

Robinson-B+ (Mocked safeties here some, but mostly hybrid CB/S and his rank suggested a reach.) NEVER

Roy-A  (Got to love hitting a late rounder whether mocked 6th or 7th.  Needed a true NT-type.) HEAVILY

Thomas-Oliver-B- (Occasionally mocked CB here; generally already had 2 picked. OL /DE needed.) NEVER

When the 7th rounder is your biggest 'gripe', then it's a successful draft.  Had we addressed CB in the 2nd and take a more polished prospect in the 7th, then possibly an 'A+'.  There's no such thing as a perfect draft though.

[bigdavis]

Off the wall observation here --

On almost every pick the first day, with players surrounded by family at home, there was an air of hopeful anticipation, waiting for the call of his name.

Then, wild celebrations immediately after the announcement by Goodell.

My question: why was it that within seconds, the chosen player was donning the cap of the team that chose him?  Is all this staged, to the extent that each player knows ahead of time where he's going, and the excitement's all phony?

Looked that way to me.

[kungfoodude]

4 hours ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Cant really argue with this.  Solid b+ to A grade.  Filled out some positions of need.  It will be interesting to see how this draft style affects the overall roster and quality of it by leaning on all defense.  We are going to have the same type of holes on the oline after 2020.

Yeah, we just have to accept the "Rome wasn't built in a day" sort of thinking at the moment. We nuked everything so you have to start pretty much from scratch.

We will see how this process goes.

[kungfoodude]

6 minutes ago, bigdavis said:

Off the wall observation here --

On almost every pick the first day, with players surrounded by family at home, there was an air of hopeful anticipation, waiting for the call of his name.

Then, wild celebrations immediately after the announcement by Goodell.

My question: why was it that within seconds, the chosen player was donning the cap of the team that chose him?  Is all this staged, to the extent that each player knows ahead of time where he's going, and the excitement's all phony?

Looked that way to me.

Maybe they all got a 32 team NFL hat grab bag?

[mrcompletely11]

5 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Yeah, we just have to accept the "Rome wasn't built in a day" sort of thinking at the moment. We nuked everything so you have to start pretty much from scratch.

We will see how this process goes.

Totally.  I understand that.  The thing that I keep going back to however is a lack of quality line affects the qb greatly.  We ruined cams career for neglecting it, Luck had to freaking retire because of it and we are staring at a rookie qb starting sooner than later so my question is how quick can we get a line that is even adequate?  We absolutely do not want to trot Fields or TL out there just to get pounded on.  I felt bad for Allen last season but he just got shell shocked towards the end there.  ANd we all know about Grier.

[bigdavis]

8 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Maybe they all got a 32 team NFL hat grab bag?

Nah, they all, to a man, reached down and plucked the cap from right at their feet.  No selection going on that I could spot.  Reaction by the player was immediate.

[kungfoodude]

8 minutes ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Totally.  I understand that.  The thing that I keep going back to however is a lack of quality line affects the qb greatly.  We ruined cams career for neglecting it, Luck had to freaking retire because of it and we are staring at a rookie qb starting sooner than later so my question is how quick can we get a line that is even adequate?  We absolutely do not want to trot Fields or TL out there just to get pounded on.  I felt bad for Allen last season but he just got shell shocked towards the end there.  ANd we all know about Grier.

Well we have a stop gap QB right now so he is obviously going to be the guy taking the shots until we get that cleaned up. I assume they largely view him as expendable in the building process. 

Teddy has a high sack rate, so we will see if he catches "Battered QB Syndrome."

[JARROD]

I loved every pick. It’s the first time in many years where every pick excited me.

[yasuhara2241]

We had so many holes on defense, it would have been impossible to fill them all without reaching. That was my thought entering the draft. 

The best quote I heard was when we had some oline and TE targets that got picked before us so we just got the next player on our board. It really felt like we never reached which is odd for a Panther draft. 

You could see we went after developmental players. We aren't going to be good next year but we are grooming our team to be in a great position right when Brady and Brees retire. 

Fantastic draft and the most excited I've been about an entire class in a while. 

[Jon Snow]

19 minutes ago, bigdavis said:

Off the wall observation here --

On almost every pick the first day, with players surrounded by family at home, there was an air of hopeful anticipation, waiting for the call of his name.

Then, wild celebrations immediately after the announcement by Goodell.

My question: why was it that within seconds, the chosen player was donning the cap of the team that chose him?  Is all this staged, to the extent that each player knows ahead of time where he's going, and the excitement's all phony?

Looked that way to me.

They had hats for each (32 hats) to choose from.  

[kungfoodude]

3 minutes ago, bigdavis said:

Nah, they all, to a man, reached down and plucked the cap from right at their feet.  No selection going on that I could spot.  Reaction by the player was immediate.