NFL 2023: The draft / post-draft / preseason thread

Enix wrote:

Here's Cranky Mike Tanier from FO nuking my Jets Vibes take right into orbit:

By (finally) acquiring Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets just traded one 10-win season for having no first-round pick and no quarterback in 2024.

That’s not the catastrophist scenario, the pessimist scenario or the smart-aleck scenario. That’s the most likely scenario.

He's probably not wrong!

It's gonna be so much fun when he forces them to let RFK Jr. give the team a pep talk.

Prederick wrote:
Enix wrote:

Here's Cranky Mike Tanier from FO nuking my Jets Vibes take right into orbit:

By (finally) acquiring Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets just traded one 10-win season for having no first-round pick and no quarterback in 2024.

That’s not the catastrophist scenario, the pessimist scenario or the smart-aleck scenario. That’s the most likely scenario.

He's probably not wrong!

It's gonna be so much fun when he forces them to let RFK Jr. give the team a pep talk.

0 related to football but I think worth sharing as I went down a RFK wormhole for a whole 3 minutes and he's married to Cheryl Hines which I hope somehow makes it into a Curb season.

So the fun rumor for today is that the 49ers explored a trade for Lamar Jackson.

Of course, when you look deeper into it, the reality seems much less exciting. It seems like it's more a case of, "the 49ers gauged the cost of every QB option out there, and ultimately chose to sign Sam Darnold." The report is new, but when you drill back to the original quotes, it's in the past tense:

Dan Patrick wrote:

"I was told this yesterday -- the Niners have monitored everything, including Lamar Jackson, (...) They’ve explored that, or at least looked at it. They kicked the tires on that. And of course you should do that. Always try to improve."

That distinction seems to have been lost on some sportswriters, who are writing it up like the 49ers looked at Lamar yesterday. You'd think after years of, "Niners look at Brady trade", "Niners look at Rodgers trade", etc. that people would pick up on the fact that this is just how Shanny and Lynch operate, but apparently not.

I'm not sure how bringing Lamar onto the 49ers roster would have worked cap-wise, given the team has been built around having a low QB number. Would probably have to give up at least one, probably two of their bigger money players, like CMC and Arik Armstead, plus restructuring some guys and pushing money way out into the future.

The 49ers heard about that annoying guy in Bill Simmon's NFL fantasy league who just drafted QBs and thought they should do that irl.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/BXwkrts.png)

That's, uh... not exactly a denial.

jowner wrote:

0 related to football but I think worth sharing as I went down a RFK wormhole for a whole 3 minutes and he's married to Cheryl Hines which I hope somehow makes it into a Curb season.

I need someone to ask him if he's okay with being paid by Johnson & Johnson.

EDIT: Brett Favre says Aaron Rodgers 'will do great' with Jets

IMAGE(https://img.atlasobscura.com/E8zDQwoEw_vfCQL5X5SMAe4j2ECx8jVD8vDR1OlNS_Y/rs:fill:580:580:1/g:ce/q:81/sm:1/scp:1/ar:1/aHR0cHM6Ly9hdGxh/cy1kZXYuczMuYW1h/em9uYXdzLmNvbS91/cGxvYWRzL3BsYWNl/X2ltYWdlcy9kMjE5/ZGNjMy05YjYxLTRh/MzktYTU0Yi00MGRi/NDg3MDQ1MDdhZjgz/Y2ZhYWEyOThlMDRj/MGJfMjU2MHB4LUVs/X3BldG_MgF9kZV9s/YV9Nb3J0LmpwZWc.jpg)

I see him doing ok with the Jets, good his first year with the Vikes, and trash his second season with them.

Spoiler-tagging an article from The Athletic, in which Bruce Feldman speaks with NFL coaches on the condition of anonymity about the draft QBs. These are always some of the best articles:

Some context, for those that don’t know: the prospects all took a cognition test called the S2 test. Scores were leaked, and Stroud’s were not good. One of the S2 guys went on McAfee’s show to state that some of the leaked scores didn’t reflect final re-test scores, and that some prospects were tested in bad environments (ie. late at night after a full day at the Combine, etc). He avoided naming names but was obviously hinting that Stroud’s score might not be reflective of a normal test environment score.

Spoiler:

C.J. Stroud: No. 1 or No. 2 overall because of that test?

NFL QB coach 1: “I’ll be honest, I had Stroud ahead of (Bryce) Young. But then I dug into some other things and put Young ahead of him. He’s got mobility and size, (he) can make all the throws and he throws with timing (and) anticipation. I think people have some concerns over what those guys from (Ohio State) have done the past few years. But I don’t think you can do that to the player. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Stroud’s stock, though — at least as reflected in media circles — has taken a hit as word has surfaced over his reportedly low score in the S2 Cognition Test. S2 researchers last year studied the scores of 117 quarterbacks who had taken the test through the 2022 draft and charted the data. According to the company, the S2 Eval for quarterbacks examines nine different cognitive skills: Perception Speed, Search Efficiency, Tracking Capacity, Visual Learning, Instinctive Learning, Decision Complexity, Distraction Control, Impulse Control, and Improvisation.

NFL QB coach 1: “To me, that’s what flipped me (to put Young ahead of Stroud). When I saw that S2, it was brutal,” he told The Athletic. “That’s scary. Now listen, if we were in that position, I’d get him to retake that test. Sometimes that happens. Guy gets a false read on a test, but I do believe in S2 and … well, if I believe in it and you’ve got plenty of evidence from looking at the scores and the players that you’ve coached, you can’t discount it or deny it.”

NFL QB coach 2: “(I’ve) been staring at that (Stroud S2) for a while. But I wouldn’t say there’s a direct correlation because if there was, everybody would be picking off that. … I had a great interview with him. On the board and talking to him, he did a great job. He was aware of the stigma about past Ohio State quarterbacks. I was like, ‘Dude, you just threw 41 touchdowns. You’re good. You don’t have to sell me. I just want to get to know you as a dude.’ The only reservation that I would have that would keep me up is C.J.’s receiving corps (at Ohio State) that’s gonna be the best he ever has for the rest of his life. … I think if Aidan O’Connell from Purdue was at Ohio State, I think he would’ve thrown for 40 touchdowns, to be honest.”

NFL QB coach 3: “I feel like every year now they pick one guy to drag through the mud at the end, and now it’s C.J. Where is this coming from? … When you meet him, he’s very nice, very humble. A lot of stuff analytically that has come out is not good, but I think we’re still early in this S2 stuff. Is there really enough data? The total score is not important. A good overall score doesn’t mean they scored high in what’s important.”

Bryce Young: No. 1 or No. 2 overall because of his size?

NFL QB coach 3: “(I’d take) Stroud ahead of Young. … I think people are viewing Bryce as a perfect prospect otherwise, but he’s not perfect even without the size. His arm is not strong. It is below what most of the better quarterbacks in the NFL have. I think he will struggle to make some throws to the field outside the numbers. On seam routes, crossing routes, he’s going to be a little late. His footwork isn’t good because he’s got this Steph Curry style, that’s like, ‘I’m playing like I’m not even sweating.’ It’s awesome, but you’re gonna miss on some throws being a tick late. He was a little loose in college because I think he knew, ‘I can get away with this.’ C.J.’s footwork was tight, really good. He has a much higher floor. Bryce has a higher ceiling for sure.”

NFL QB coach 2: “He’s been very successful, but that’s gotta be something that you look at. He’s not 6-2, not thick, but you can’t deny his talent and his ability. I like him better than I liked Tua (Tagovailoa). He sees the field a lot better. Tua is really effective in the RPO game, but I didn’t feel like he read the field very well. He fell back on some instincts — and he’s an instinctive player, which has gotten him to where he is. In the league, you’ve got to be able to see it because things happen so fast.

NFL QB coach 3: “I wish Bryce was bigger. It’s so frustrating. I do love his film. I’m a big fan of the person. I think he’s a savant. But if we had a top-10 pick, I’d be terrified to take him. Jalen Hurts just got hurt from being landed on and he’s a really big dude. Lamar (Jackson) hasn’t finished a season. They just get hurt, and these guys are way bigger than him.”

NFL QB coach 2: “The thing that’s a little scary to me: I think we’re losing some of the track of the position traits when you’re talking about length and size. We keep talking about these 5-11, 6-foot guys. It’s gotten to the point where when you see a 6-2 guy at the combine, he’s a big dude. Go back five or six years ago, that was (Dak) Prescott’s year. There was (Jared) Goff and (Carson) Wentz. These guys were big guys, and when you look at the elite players in the league — (Patrick) Mahomes is a big dude; (Josh) Allen’s a big dude; Prescott’s a big dude. Hurts is not tall tall, but he is a big, thick dude.”

Where will the promise of Anthony Richardson land him?

NFL QB coach 3: “Who has been more physically gifted than him? Andrew Luck? Richardson has a more gifted arm and is much faster. Cam (Newton) is taller, but Anthony is much faster and with a more dynamic arm. Josh (Allen) is bigger, but their arms are similar, and Josh is not even close to as fast.”

NFL QB coach 1: “If you’re taking him, you can’t play offense the way a lot of teams are playing offense in this league. You’ve gotta play to him. He is a freak. Play to his strengths. Don’t put him under center. Let him develop into that.”

NFL QB coach 3: “Teams have proven that you can do it with a (talented) guy that is ‘not ready.’ They do the Jalen Hurts model. Look at what happened in Philly. They tried to do it the normal way and they were like 2-5. Then they said, ‘OK, this isn’t working.’ We’re gonna get fired, so let’s do the Oklahoma offense — and then they started winning.

“Anthony has shown so much raw ability, and the Florida offense is fairly complicated. When you involve that many shifts and motions, you still have to operate it. There’s some full-field progression reads. He’s reading three-level floods. It wasn’t just read the corner here or not every single play was an RPO or they cut the field in half. He clearly wants to be a passer. It’s just that he happens to run a 4.43 too. He is just so unique as an athlete. Josh Allen went to Wyoming and was playing against not good competition. If Josh Allen was QB-ing for Florida with that surrounding cast, how bad would his film have looked? And he had some bad film at Wyoming.”

NFL QB coach 2: “Anthony has the most natural and most consistent whip I’ve seen. And he’s 20. He hasn’t even turned 21 yet. I don’t see how this guy can’t do it.”

Should NFL teams wait a year to draft USC’s Caleb Williams?[

NFL coaches were all pretty effusive about the quarterback talent in this year’s NFL Draft, but if you bring up the QB who isn’t yet draft eligible, the tone changed.

Every single time.

“Caleb is unbelievable, man,” one NFL offensive assistant told me. “I think he is, by far, better than these guys.”

Caleb, of course, is USC’s Caleb Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner who is a year away from being eligible for the draft. The former five-star recruit actually has been on some NFL folks’ radars since before he even arrived at Oklahoma, his first college (he followed coach Lincoln Riley from Norman to Los Angeles after the 2021 season). But that doesn’t mean he has been studied and picked apart anywhere close to the way this year’s crop of quarterbacks has been.

Asked if he thinks Williams would go first overall if he were in this year’s draft, one NFL QB coach paused for a few moments.

“I want to say yes,” he began, “but I don’t think it’s fair to the guys in this class. When you actually go through it as a prospect, you’re under a different level of scrutiny. People really dig into you.”

He added, “He’s the closest I’ve seen to (Patrick) Mahomes. He’s like a refined Mahomes. It’s hard to compare anybody to Mahomes, but he really does play like him. I don’t think his arm is quite like that, but it’s definitely special for college. It’s not quite as freaky as Pat’s, but it’s upper-level for the NFL.”

I especially appreciate the coach pointing out the arm limitations of Young and how everyone seems to be glossing over them.

Also, I need to put something out there that I’m not hearing nearly enough:

People keep talking about the Texans trading down from #2 with a team that wants to come up and get a QB, because the Texans supposedly don’t like the QBs enough to use #2 on them.

The teams most often suggested as trade-up candidates are the Colts and the Titans.

What do these 3 teams all have in common? They’re in the AFC South. Are the Texans going to trade their pick so that a division rival can draft a QB they like? The answer isn’t definitely “no”, but there’s a good chance that it’s “no”, and people talking about the Texans trading out from #2 are completely glossing over it.

If a non-AFC South team wants to move up, then sure, but there’s not a lot of obvious candidates there. And the Cardinals should have no problem with trading pick #3 with either of these teams. But when it comes to what the Texans do, I think the odds that they find a trade-down partner are a lot smaller than expected.

Can we stop trying to use intelligence tests to tell how good a qb will be at understanding football when intelligence tests aren’t even good at telling how smart people are?

Prederick wrote:
Enix wrote:

Here's Cranky Mike Tanier from FO nuking my Jets Vibes take right into orbit:

By (finally) acquiring Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets just traded one 10-win season for having no first-round pick and no quarterback in 2024.

That’s not the catastrophist scenario, the pessimist scenario or the smart-aleck scenario. That’s the most likely scenario.

He's probably not wrong!

It's gonna be so much fun when he forces them to let RFK Jr. give the team a pep talk.

You're underestimating the number of athletes who hold the exact same political opinions as Rodgers. Most of them just don't talk to the press on a regular basis.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Can we stop trying to use intelligence tests to tell how good a qb will be at understanding football when intelligence tests aren’t even good at telling how smart people are?

It's not an intelligence test. It tests how quickly and accurately they process information. Fairly important skills for a player that needs to quickly process where receivers and defenders are and quickly determine where they will be based on current trajectory.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Can we stop trying to use intelligence tests to tell how good a qb will be at understanding football when intelligence tests aren’t even good at telling how smart people are?

It's not an intelligence test. It tests how quickly and accurately they process information. Fairly important skills for a player that needs to quickly process where receivers and defenders are and quickly determine where they will be based on current trajectory.

Exactly. S2 is what replaced the old intelligence tests.

One of the PFF guys tried it, and he described one of the tests as having to visually keep track multiple things at the same time, and how he found it overwhelming once the number of things to track reached a certain point. That's a lot more relevant to QB play than figuring out when two trains will reach the same point.

Whether or not the S2 results measure what they're trying to measure well enough to be predictive of on-field performance is open for debate. But it's indisputably an attempt to measure sports-relevant processing abilities.

*Legion* wrote:

People keep talking about the Texans trading down from #2 with a team that wants to come up and get a QB, because the Texans supposedly don’t like the QBs enough to use #2 on them.

Speaking of the Texans, CJ Stroud shares an agent with ... Deshaun Watson. That's something to keep in mind if the Texans take Will Levis or an edge rusher with the #2 pick.

Thursday night is going to be absolutely wild. Can't wait!

The more I hear about Richardson, the more I want SEA to just do it.

What could possibly go wrong? Too much upside!

Top_Shelf wrote:

The more I hear about Richardson, the more I want SEA to just do it.

What could possibly go wrong? Too much upside!

Imagine being the NFL's most athletically gifted QB, and spending every play handing the ball to Walker and Dallas.

*Legion* wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

The more I hear about Richardson, the more I want SEA to just do it.

What could possibly go wrong? Too much upside!

Imagine being the NFL's most athletically gifted QB, and spending every play handing the ball to Walker and Dallas.

Well, sure.

You do get the green light to throw inside the 2, of course.

Somebody posted some images of the Raiders' draft book from 2010, pretty interesting. I think this had been around before, but I hadn't seen it.

Even they thought Jimmy Clausen was kind of a douche.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Somebody posted some images of the Raiders' draft book from 2010, pretty interesting. I think this had been around before, but I hadn't seen it.

Even they thought Jimmy Clausen was kind of a douche.

That scout's take on Earl Thomas:

"Although he can cover, he might have to get a little more physical against TEs."

Whoo-boy.

Top_Shelf wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Somebody posted some images of the Raiders' draft book from 2010, pretty interesting. I think this had been around before, but I hadn't seen it.

Even they thought Jimmy Clausen was kind of a douche.

That scout's take on Earl Thomas:

"Although he can cover, he might have to get a little more physical against TEs."

Whoo-boy.

Now I really want to see why they got their pick, Rolando McClain, so wrong.

Al Davis was still alive, and McClain ran fast?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Al Davis was still alive, and McClain ran fast?

Damn those were fun times.

Rapoport tweeted that the Ravens agreed to a deal with Lamar.

5 for $260.

Whew.

I was hoping he’d end up in Detroit. Oh well, at least it’s over.

Top_Shelf wrote:

5 for $260.

Whew.

"Only" $185 million guaranteed.

*Legion* wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

5 for $260.

Whew.

"Only" $185 million guaranteed.

Right?

As you pointed out before, the big QBs are getting all their moneys, and he's now #2 in guaranteed dollars and #1 in overall (right?).

Still would like to see the abolishment of the salary cap and let the players take everything they can get. That may be bad for competitive balance (?), but that's a billionaire problem and, frankly, I'd feel better about being a fan of a sport where players are getting a bit more over on their bosses in what is essentially a combat sport where we are all watching for blood.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Still would like to see the abolishment of the salary cap and let the players take everything they can get. That may be bad for competitive balance (?), but that's a billionaire problem and, frankly, I'd feel better about being a fan of a sport where players are getting a bit more over on their bosses in what is essentially a combat sport where we are all watching for blood.

The former NFLPA head Gene Upshaw made noise about eliminating the cap for years. He said if it ever went away, they would never allow it to come back.

Then in 2010, the uncapped year happened, and the union got to stare into the abyss of what would really happen in a cap-less NFL.

They have never once made a peep about eliminating the salary cap since.

No salary cap means no salary floor, and the players come out losers in that scenario. Getting a few big-money owners to spend above current cap constraints isn't worth letting all the other owners instantly cut $100 million off their annual payrolls. And there is no scenario in which owners will accept a floor with no cap, in the same way the union rightly refused to accept a cap with no floor.

Also, "bad for competitive balance" has the potential to be bad for players too in the long run. The NFL has enjoyed unprecedented growth for the last few decades. It blows away the rest of the sports world. It's no accident that the league's growth took off like a rocket ship in the "parity" era.

There's ways for players to fight for bigger slices of the pie. But you don't want to end up taking a bigger slice of a smaller pie, because that's a losing scenario too. There may be a way to fundamentally restructure the division of money in the NFL without killing the goose laying the golden eggs, but that's a dangerous game to play.

Back in the day, players were paid in peanuts. I don't think there's much reason to believe that, in an uncapped environment, the total cut of revenue that goes to players would go up. I suspect it's much more likely that it would go in the other direction, and that's even before any potential damage to fan interest that disrupting competitive balance might cause in the long run.

Maybe that's a pessimistic viewpoint. Maybe there'll be a shift in attitudes as the "poorer" old guard owners keep getting replaced by the mega-mega-wealthy, and there would be more additional spending in an uncapped environment. Spending an extra $100m on payroll is a very different thing for Mike Brown than it is for David Tepper. And new NFL owners tend to be David Teppers.

But it feels like there's way more scenarios in a major upheaval where the players come out behind rather than coming out ahead. Tying player compensation to a percentage of revenue has been an unmitigated success, and is the #1 upward driving factor in player compensation. Throwing that away to try and do better another way is VERY risky.

Eh, Lamar will be old news in about 30 minutes when the Panthers enter the BRYCE YOUNG* ERA.

* Or CJ Stroud or Will Levis or ...

I don't like this "I'm happy with whatever QB we take" attitude from Enix. I want strong opinions, and the potential for misery.