I agree with your description on ASJ. I see his bigger plays coming from scheme design, and jmo, he isn't a gym rat kinda guy, looks to me that his physique has atrophied some. Lot of folks are putting him in the first...I wouldn't.
Brian Griese just said some teams have Blake Bortles above Teddy Bridgewater as the top QB in the Draft. Not totally surprised. People were bound to catch up on Bortles eventually.
We don't need to draft WRs high. Anyone can play WR. It all depends on the QB. Sounds silly, right? Well, I have seen that said more than once by one particular "expert" in this forum. That seems to be Jeff Ireland's MO anyway, so anyone against WRs taken early should love our Jeffy boy. It was real smart bypassing Alshon Jeffery and taking Jon Martin instead, for example.
Wouldn't be shocked if the top three QBs in this draft are Teddy Bridgewater, Blake Bortles and Jimmy Garoppolo.
Lotta hype (at least among the internet draft people) around Derek Carr as a top 2 or top 3 QB in this class. I haven't had a real good chance to look at his game, but I'll get around to it pretty soon since I'm studying the QBs. Were some people potentially putting him above Teddy, although I think a lot of it is just boredom with the status quo.
He's had a good year and people like the narrative that says his mediocre showings in 2012 were due to injury.
I'm not sure I'm feeling Derek Carr on the same level everyone else is after watching/ charting all but three games. From an eye test he obviously has an excellent arm. He can really gun it in there and gets great distance on his throws. Some of the deep throws he makes while on the run or scrambling from the pocket are superb and make you go wow. I'm not one who normally gets excited about someone who has a good arm, to me it's more important that they make the passes - but it's still nice. It doesn't take stats to see that he throws a ridiculous amount of passes into coverage. Maybe that's a product of trusting his arm too much or the one-read system at Fresno State, but it scares me. Sure he only has 7 interceptions, but I'd be very worried that NFL DBs are going to convert those deflections into INTs the way that New Mexico or SDSU (by far his worst game) couldn't. He's obviously not Geno Smith, but there may be a similarity or two. Geno had a bad habit of throwing it into coverage in college as well, I remember having that discussion about a year ago now on one of these boards. Similarly, both of their offenses are/were really screen heavy. I've got 33% of Carr's passes as screens which is taking away from a lot of the intermediate throws (6-10 yards and 11-20 yards). That's not a problem if you're making your passes, but I get a little nervous about that transition in scheme. After adjusting for drops, Carr is hitting the intermediate ball (11-20) at a 64% rate which is higher than last year's average but lower than Teddy (67%) and the deep ball at a 44% rate which is lower than last year's average and Teddy (50%). The average YPC for Carr is 4.4 yards compared to 6.2 for McCarron and 7.4 for Bridgewater. Those are all okay stats, you could rationalize them away. Here's the few things that start to bother me. ~8.5% of his total attempts are thrown into coverage and defensed by a DB. That's higher than most every QB in the last class (including fan fav Tyler Bray!!) and Geno (7.9). Other than that, I've started keeping track of throws on third down and their relation to the first down marker. IE...if it's 3rd and 9 does the QB throw more than 9 yards or less? The idea is to look at how much a QB is contributing to conversions on third down or if they're just checking it down. For that stat, Carr threw it past the sticks on third down 51% of the time, McCarron 60% of the time, and Bridgewater 66% of the time. Between the screens, the throws into coverage, and the throws short on third down - I'm a bit worried you could have a Chad Henne on your hands with Carr. Makes beautiful throws at times, could make costly decisions throwing into coverage, and checks down when it matters. Don't get me wrong, there are some things to like with Carr, but no way I'm calling him the best QB in this draft.
Love the breakdown. A few thoughts though. 1. I'm not as ready as you are to reward higher percentage of throwing beyond the 1st down marker. I just think that a well executed pass in front of the sticks with good ball placement for RAC against the right defense can very OFTEN be the exact correct throw. There are a lot of NFL quarterbacks who convert on 3rd down exactly that way, consistently. I think the stat needs to be modified to reward a guy for successfully converting the down with an underneath throw. Maybe the better idea is just to measure the player's success in converting 1st downs off 3rd down, adjusting for drops? 2. I love the idea of tracking how often a guy has a ball defensed by the defender. But what I think I might like better is how often the guy throws it into double coverage. I don't know if this is even possible, maybe it's a nightmare to think of...but perhaps something that combines the two. I actually don't mind that much when a ball is broken up by a defender in single primary coverage. NFL quarterbacks ask their players to win in single coverage. What I do mind is if the pass is broken up by a second guy that didn't have the primary coverage. That's a bad decision.
1. I definitely understand where you're coming from, it's something I've thought of. The problem is that I typically don't keep track of where the WR ends the play or else I'd be charting forever, so straight up third down conversion rate isn't something I could do right now. I do agree the stat is a little punitive, especially if you're hitting your guy 1 yard in stride before the sticks. Maybe I'll mess around with percentage of yardage needed that's gained on a throw. For instance, if you have a third and ten and you throw it one yard and only gain 10% of the needed yardage that's a lot different than hitting him four yards from the sticks on a third and ten. Nothing may come of it, I'll see what the numbers show. 2. I do try to limit passes defensed to obvious plays that are on the QB. I'm not going to penalize a guy for poor WR effort, but still I see the point. I'm going to add in a double coverage category (which I actually had last year, but took out this year). It obviously won't affect the stats I already have on Bridgewater, McCarron or Carr - but it'll still be something. I've given up on waiting on Bortles' decision, so I'm just going to chart him and if he doesn't come out, oh well. Looks like I'm missing the Temple and FIU games, so it won't be a full season unless I can find those.
Man that Temple game is one you really don't want to exclude for Bortles too. Not only was the game a statistical heavyweight (10.6 YPA, 4 TD, 0 INT) but it was also just a heroic performance. For whatever reason the UCF defense decided they couldn't stop this juggernaut (/sarcasm) Temple offense including especially at the end, and Bortles just matched up and beat them with great throws. Of course Whorton also contributed with one of the best catches of the year but as a QB that's kind of what you do, throw the ball and put your guy in position to make a play.
As I really like Tannehills improvement so far this season ( I think he has improved steadily and can become a legit top 10 QB in the future), I actually would gamble a little and release Moore in the offseason to save Money and be able to get some more cap room. Then we would be left with Devlin on whom I am not really sold. Therefore my question, who would be a QB you would like the Dolphins to target starting in the mid rounds(3-4) as a project/competition? I would like Garoppolo but fear he will be taken to early, maybe Murray or Thomas could be worth a gamble in the 4th round?
Releasing Moore would only save about $2.5 million. I'm all for drafting a guy to eventually replace Moore but the damage is done, as far as the money being paid to him. The Dolphins gave him $5.5 million in 2013. They might as well keep a good backup in the fold when they're only going to save $2.5 million if they release him. I like Jimmy Garoppolo a lot as well but when all is said and done, like you I believe he could go too early. With both Matt Moore and Pat Devlin still here, what you'd really be looking at are very low round developmental prospects. To that end I think you'd look at Keith Wenning of Ball State, James Franklin of Missouri, Tyler Russell of Mississippi State, Jeff Matthews of Cornell, Brendan Kay of Cincinnati and Brandon Mitchell of NC State. I think Wenning probably stands above all those guys...but that group is pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Alright I come bearing Bortles. So here's the breakdown. Everything I cite in here in including drops as catches. Normally I haven't done that, but looking at the numbers for a bunch of QBs pretty much shows that drops can cause a lot of variance in key stats, so I'm just taking it into account on every stat now Included here is every UCF game but FIU, 11/12 ain't bad. I won't rehash everything that's been said about Bortles' ridiculous pocket mobility, but it is extremely impressive. Rolling to the right he completes 67% of his passes, and somewhat unusually rolling to his left completes a higher percentage of passes at 77%. It's very strange to see a guy who throws better rolling and passing across his body, but with Bortles' excellent mobility it makes some sense. In terms of depth of throws, his intermediate ball isn't anything special. After drops it comes out at 64% which is right around average - it's about the same as Carr and Bridgewater. However the fun comes with his deep ball. On 20+ yard passes, he completes 55% of his total attempts. That compares to 51% for Bridgewater and 44% for Carr. Interestingly I don't have a ton of really deep throws from Bortles, I only have three passes that traveled 40+ yards (of which he completed all 3). That compares to 7 from Bridgewater and 10 from Carr. The average YPC of his passes is 5.9 which is lowered because 24% of his passes were screens. Good numbers against the blitz, 71% completion percentage (76% for Bridgewater). However, the good stuff comes when he was pressured on the play. When pressured he still completed 62% of his passes, that compares to 60% for Bridgewater and 50% for Carr. To keep in line with what I've done with the other QBs, I kept passes defensed (still need to work on the double coverage stats), Bortles' score is second lowest so far at 7.2% Bortles was plagued by drops a little more than the other QBs so far, Carr, McCarron and Bridgewater were all around 5% drop rate on all passes. Bortles was up around 6.9%. So after I adjusted for drops and plugged all of their relevant numbers into my QB aggregate score, it came out like this: ----------------Norm-DropAdj Bridgewater ----73.74 -> 74.6 Bortles ---------63.5 -> 69.2 Carr ------------64.7 -> 65.8 And for kicks and grins, here's Bortles' pass chart. Still working on tuning the aesthetics, but blue (cold) means a lower completion percentage while red (hot) means a higher one.
Hm ok was not totally aware that we just save 2,5M by releasing Moore, my mistake Than probably best thing would be to try to grap someone out of your group as UDFA to compete, still I would be tempted to draft Garoppollo if he falls to the 4th round by some unbelievable luck, maybe a minor pre draft injury
Speaking of back up QBs, I wouldn't be averse to looking at Mettenberger assuming he falls due to injury/skill. I haven't finished up the stats, but he throws a really nice intermediate/deep ball and does so really frequently. Throwing over 10 yards more than 50% of the time, which is pretty unprecedented. He works the sidelines well, but also can hit nice 20 yard passes down the seam. The problem of course is pretty flat feet in the pocket and a tendency to stare down his receivers. If he drops to say...the 4th round for whatever reason I'd be a proponent of the Dolphins drafting him. Sit him for a while and work on his footwork/ mental aspect of the game as a potential contingency for Tannehill or trade bait later on. Like I've said, I'm not a big proponent of 'big arm' guys for the sake of it, but when they're able to use it and throw a nice intermediate and deep ball it's pretty enticing. With a dearth of early to mid round QBs (Boyd, Carr/Garoppolo, McCarron, Murray, Fales) it's possible Mett could get lost in the shuffle and drop for some nice value. I still need to watch more, I may retract this opinion later.
Tyler Russell had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder this past week. I don't know how soon he will be able to throw for scouts. I have my doubts that he will be able to work out prior to the draft. Probably has him getting a look at a UDFA. He's a good guy that was a bad fit for Dan Mullen's offense. Tyler is a quiet guy, loves to hunt, fish, strong christian.....has a great arm.....fits the ball into tight windows.....feet looks like he wears cement for shoes.....holds the ball too long.....very tough......will stand in the pocket and not bail even against heavy pressure.......don't ask him to run. Dan Mullen just can't make his offense work with a pocket passer. Dan has another Tim Tebow now in Dak Prescott (6'2", 235 bull) though.
I like Mettenberger. But I'm not sure what you're getting in him that you wouldn't be getting in a Keith Wenning, for example.
Tonight on ESPN2 we are going to get a chance to look at Jimmy Garoppolo as he's playing in the FCS quarterfinals against Towson. This will be a good chance for most of the country to get their first look at Garoppolo and I hope he does not disappoint. Thus far in the playoffs he's been 43 of 72 for 717 yards, 9 TDs and 1 INT...with 6 runs for 16 yards and 2 sacks for -13 yards. No fumbles. The keys to watch for are: - Garoppolo's feet and total package of footwork which I think compares with a welterweight boxing champ - Garoppolo's quick arm release which combined with his feet makes him a very quick passer - Garoppolo's accuracy which tends to be very good - Garropolo's decision making which also tends to be very good - Garropolo's pocket presence under duress which is something I'm still not totally sure about yet - Garoppolo's arm strength which I don't think is really great and compares to a Matt Moore - Head coach Dino Babers' offense which is just DAMN fun to watch and has Art Briles' fingerprints all over it I know it's easy to dismiss FCS teams but these are teams that went over to the FBS level this year and embarrassed some of those FBS teams. Eastern Illinois doused San Diego State 40-19, and then got into a 43-39 shootout with Northern Illinois (Jordan Lynch's team). Towson beat Connecticut 33-18.
Tomorrow at noon, ESPN will be showing North Dakota State versus Coastal Carolina. That will give the national audience a chance to see another good FCS prospect in OT Billy Turner of North Dakota State. I'm not trying to BS anyone and get them to watch some sh-tty FCS teams and players that don't really matter. North Dakota State beat KANSAS STATE in the first week of the season. And the game Billy Turner had against K-State was jaw-dropping. He and Jimmy Garoppolo are genuine good prospects for the draft. Turner is CERTAIN to go in the top 100 if not the top 50, and I think Garoppolo has the potential to go top 100 and maybe higher depending on how he fares in All Star and Combine stuff.
I've watched a bit of Jimmy G, watched/charted the 5.5 games I could find online. In addition to the things already mentioned: His throwing on the run. I thought he was pretty mobile/ solid at throwing on the run but the numbers through 230 or so snaps suggest that's not the case (~35% completion percentage rolling to the right). It could just be an aberration, but it's something I'll be keying in on. He throws a quality deep ball, often 30+ yards to the sidelines. It's not a high percentage pass for any QB, but he does it well I'll be watching his throws into coverage/ passes defensed. His numbers on passes defensed aren't outrageous, but I'd like to see a few less passes defensed that aren't just great plays by the DB. Like in the recent Tennessee State game where he throws the fade short in the endzone and the DB almost picks it off, just left it short there.
I didn't realize this but not only is RB Jeremy Hill of LSU draft eligible but he is likely to declare for the draft. Holy cow that is one huge and talented mofo. He's got to be near the very top of my tailbacks list. I mean that guy is just damn hard to stop. He absolutely trashed Auburn in their only loss on the season.
Yes this is a definite weakness of his. He can't throw well on the run. Most times he's just going to throw it away. Sometimes he'll find a guy to get the football to across his body but you can tell this is a weakness because he doesn't have a good natural arm. It's one of the biggest weaknesses of his as a draft prospect. He gets a good pace on it too, especially when he's able to get his hips into the throw. I've seen him throw 58 yards with a good pace for that deep of a ball. I agree. It's not a high rate of him doing that. I think the bulk of his passes defensed are just him trusting a guy in man coverage and trusting his own ability to throw the player open. I don't know how much he trusts his arm strength (which you can see when he's trying to throw on the move), but I know he trusts his accuracy to the point he thinks he can pit the ace with his ball placement, putting it exactly where the player needs to have it.
cbsdraft has Kelvin Benjamin listed as 2014 rSo prospect. Is he expected to declare? If he's in this draft, there is the #1 choice.
One guy that stuck out a bit to me while watching Mettenberger was Chris Smith on Arkansas' DL. He consistently had great initial quickness off the snap, so much that I noticed it multiple times while keying in on charting Mett. I haven't watched a whole lot of Arkansas football this year, nor have done much research - but it looks like CBS has him as a second rounder. Don't know if anyone else has more info on him, haven't gotten around to DEs/pass rushers yet. Here's a gif of one of the plays that caught my eye, he's at the top of the DL, #42.
He's a good player. To my knowledge he's their best DL, the guy they talk about a lot. But on that particular play he jumped the snap and was lucky to have guessed it right. If he can do that consistently without going off sides like Bjoern Werner used to then that's one thing. But if not, you need to see snaps where he doesn't take off at the same time the ball does.
I tell you what. I had absolutely no intention of watching Towson play last night. I fast forwarded through their offense most of the time. But even just on limited viewing, that tailback of their Terrance West impressed me a LOT. He is a genuine NFL prospect and if the voting for the Walter Payton Award had been done today instead of a week ago or whatever, then Terrance West would be the runaway winner. He had 356 yards and 5 TDs last night. And I thought I saw on the broadcast that he's had two other 5+ TD games! He looked like he had the absolute perfect build, and the way he cut and moved was incredible. Forget the level of competition. You just have to see the way the guy moves, his speed, his cutting ability, pad level, size, etc...and you know this guy could make noise at the next level. I came to see Jimmy Garoppolo and came away with a lasting impression of Terrance West. Oh and Jimmy Garoppolo was pretty good too. Add another 300+ yards and 4 TD game to his resume. The thing he did that intrigued me is he provided some counter-points to the criticism about him handling pressure in the pocket. He showed a lot more savvy and natural instincts for getting out of that pressure. You always knew he had such incredible feet that he would HAVE to be elusive in the pocket if he started developing a better feel for how to work the pocket. But he needs development. He showed flashes of that potential last night. It just wasn't enough because Terrance West absolutely OBLITERATED the East Illinois defense. It was a one man show. Towson threw only 14 passes and ran West 39 times.
Billy Turner was fully dialed in for this quarterfinal game. That's not always been the case during some of the regular season games against lesser foes, especially during the 2nd and 3rd quarters, until the offense gets into the red zone. He played 60 minutes today like he did against K-State. Well I guess technically 54 minutes because they were winning so much they took him out at the end. You need to see what he can do against better competition obviously but the tools are there to be a dominant player.
Here's a video the Draft Breakdown guys did of Billy Turner's game against Coastal Carolina. Like I said, he was dialed in for that game. Didn't notice any real lapses in focus throughout the game. Just a whole lot of dominance. I counted about 14 or 15 knockdowns. [video=youtube;m80cmI7X_vU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m80cmI7X_vU[/video]
Wow...OT Wesley Johnson of Vanderbilt is good. People go on about OT James Hurst's performance against Jadaveon Clowney. Wesley Johnson's performance against Clowney was far superior to Hurst's, in my eyes. In the 3rd quarter, South Carolina actually moved Clowney to the other side of the line (which he rarely does) for an entire quarter because he couldn't get anything going against Wesley Johnson. That's an immense compliment. When Jadaveon effing Clowney raises the white flag and declares you the victor...that's a hell of a thing. Even when they got to the point when Vanderbilt was in obvious passing...Clowney got NOTHING on Johnson. Nothing. [video=youtube;3Q2pcIQRhss]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3Q2pcIQRhss[/video]
The 2014 tackle class may end up the best I've ever seen. EDIT: I'll amend this and say migh the the DEEPEST I have ever seen. Not sure if it'll be the best. It's just that the following list is pretty deep and full of guys that can play, to some degree: OT Jake Matthews, Texas A&M OT Greg Robinson, Auburn OT Cyrus Kouandjio, Alabama OT Wesley Johnson, Vanderbilt OT Billy Turner, North Dakota State OT Taylor Lewan, Michigan OT Cameron Erving, Florida State OT Cedric Ogbuehi, Texas A&M OT Ja'Wuan James, Tennessee OT Seantrel Henderson, Miami OT Justin Britt, Missouri OT Antonio Richardson, Tennessee OT Morgan Moses, Virginia OT Jack Mewhort, Ohio State OT Cornelius Lucas, Kansas State OT James Hurst, North Carolina OT Joel Bitonio, Nevada
I wonder if Matt Patchan is healthy enough to make some noise in the draft. He was a back to back winner of ACC OL of the Week this year, so he must have been doing something right after the transfer from UF to BC.
That's a complicated question. Some are candidates for left tackle and some are candidates for right tackle, not necessarily according to how good they are or aren't. I pretty firmly believe the top 10 of those are starters in the NFL, health and character issues notwithstanding. Most of those you're probably going to try at left tackle first and see where you go from there. Some of those (Ja'Wuan James for example), you'll start right away at right tackle. The next seven guys are a little bit on the "maybe" side of whether they'll be NFL starters, IMO.
We have B. McKinnie under contract in '14, based on BAL signing him to 2yr $7M deal in May, correct? So, if we add OT, even RT helps, but it comes down to draft slot and which of them are available.
