Beat me to it, YA. Well said, PJ.
One other interesting note that I found out today. WR-Kolby Listenbee/Texas Christian was a player the Packers interviewed at the combine. At that time the draft experts had him as a fourth/fifth round type player. He missed a couple games this season with a hip injury and then didn't do shuttles at the combine due to a groin injury. There were no reports to indicate that he had any major issues, and the 4.35 second 40-time certainly would indicate that there were no major issues. I still found it odd that Thompson was looking at him because he didn't seem to fit Thompson's preferences for a fourth/fifth round wide receiver (he's purely a speed guy at this point, not a player that was super-productive and not very good in traffic). Turns out Listenbee has a sports hernia injury, and while it's probably not serious it sounds like something that could take the 20th best receiver in the draft and make him into the 30th best receiver in the draft, which would basically take him from a 4th/5th rounder to a 7th rounder. It will be interesting to see what happens with this player.
"To be honest my interest in attention as a whole is pretty minimal these days" - The Kardashians
Ted doing his pre-draft presser now (being streamed on packers.com).
Packers general manager Ted Thompson met with the media on Wednesday morning to preview the 2016 NFL Draft. Here are some highlights from his news conference:
Opening statement:
Good morning, I’d like to start off saying that the draft, as we can see today, is a very popular thing. I want to make sure people understand my appreciation for this organization, our coaching staff. Everybody works so hard to try to help us put it all together. Obviously, the personnel people, the football operations people, all the coaches, player personnel, video people – all those people are directly involved in the actual draft process whether it be helping in terms of logistics or arranging for travel for guys we bring in for visits. It’s an enormous amount of work. It seems like most of the attention is direction is directed to me – that’s not warranted because we have a whole team of people who help put this on. We still have a week to go, but we think we’re close to be about where we need to be. I was thinking about this – when we played Washington in the playoffs, we were staying downtown. I went out for a walk. It turned dark. It was 8:30 in January in Washington D.C. and I’m walking along, I’m trying to dodge traffic – there’s a grass area and there’s cars going this way and this way and I’m in this grass area. Right there is the capital building and it’s under construction. I just stopped there in the middle of it – I didn’t go out for a purpose, but when I got there I said this is the reason I went out for a walk. I hope the same thing happens with the draft. That when it’s done we’ll say this is the reason we put in all this work.
On how the first round plays out:
Parts of it do and parts of it don’t every year. I don’t know if one is any more than another. There’s always surprises. I guess it’ll be a little bit of both.
On if they do mock drafts:
No, we don’t. We’ve tried to, but we’re so personal with it and so locked into it, we make it up. If there’s somebody we really like, we say, ‘Oh yeah, we can get him there,’ and we kind of fool ourselves.
On draft-room emotion:
There are gut-wrenching times to where you’re so close to getting the perfect player for your time and they might get picked right in front of you. As it happens, you were better with that happening than the first place.
On picking 27:
It depends. When you’re picking 27, it’s much more difficult to come up with the actual 27 names. It gets to be a little bit mathematically difficult to predict. You have groups of players. You try to say these guys are pretty close. It’s constantly evaluating.
On Leventee McCray:
We thought he had some good snaps in Denver. We think he has a nice body type. He has good athletic ability. He’s shown the ability to be an outside backer.
On the roster:
I think it’s a good roster. I feel pretty good about it going in. We’ve got a number of players that we’re going to add to our roster. We’ll do that through some late free agency, through some drafting, through some college free agent type of stuff.
On immediate holes vs. long-term planning:
We meet every day and talk about personnel and talk about those things: depth and longevity of your players, where you think that is. So you’re always thinking about it and going over it.
On having all the scouts together in one place for pre-draft talks:
It’s good. It’s not always comfortable because there are disagreements where people, rightfully so, think differently. They’re paid to do so. They’re encouraged by everybody, myself included, to make sure their voices are heard. … You still want to have the passion and energy to stand on the table and say, ‘This is what we need to do, and this is the reason we need to do it.’
On inside linebacker:
We think it’s a pretty good group. They’ve been able to get some experience. Sam’s experience got thwarted a little bit with an injury.
On drafting best player available:
We try to draft the best player available. We think it’s important to stay focused and try to take the best player. I think that from a personal standpoint. Situation about needs isn’t normally a temporary one. As long as you’re taking really good players and best players you can identify, then you’re in some respects you’re able to stay a little bit in front of the curve. There can be some of both. You can be in a position where this solves problem A on our roster, but he’s also the best player available. If you get lucky where you can address both – if it comes to one or the other, I prefer to take the best player.
On excitement of draft time:
I don’t know if excitement is the word I’d use. This was the first week our players were back and it’s certainly good to see them in the building and moving around, and that sort of thing. The draft thing gets dragged out so long that you’re kind of ready to do it one way or another.
On changes in the pre-draft process:
There’s been some. There’s a lot more information now. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s not so good. There’s all kinds of analytical stuff you need someone paying attention to. It’s more work. It’s more comparisons. Because there’s more time, I feel like it kind of evens the playing field. Most teams are probably similar.
On if defense has what it needs to move Matthews back outside:
We’re not playing anybody tomorrow. I hope not. I think there are places on our rosters where we’re relatively thin when looking at the 90-man roster. We have a number of guys who were on the team before this spring and going forward.
On Jared Cook:
He’s very athletic. Great catch radius, big target. We think he’ll add some stuff to us athletically of the offensive side of the ball.
"It takes a big team to do what we do, quite frankly. I'd like to think our former equipment guy, Joey Bagodonuts, for his hot tip on Justin Harrell"
Opening night of the draft is in my livers "top 3 worst day's" of the year now.
Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is still #1 followed by Arbor Day.
Out for a walk in DC, standing on a park bench or picnic table and say, ‘This is what we need to do, and this is the reason we need to do it.’
Wow ... Eagles announce they've acquired the second overall pick from Cleveland.
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) April 20, 2016
@Jeff_McLane: #Eagles have agreed to a trade with the Cleveland Browns to acquire the second-overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft.
@Jeff_McLane: #Eagles traded 2016 1st, a 2016 3rd, a 2016 4th, a 2017 1st, and an 2018 2nd to get the Browns 2d pick.
@Jeff_McLane: The #Eagles also get a 2017 4th rounder from the Browns.
@Jeff_McLane: #Eagles all but assured that they will draft North Dakota State QB Carson Wentz with the second pick.
lol
@andrewbrandt: If Eagles are to take a QB, which we assume, after signing two for $34M guaranteed in March, they must feel very good about rest of roster.
@andrewbrandt: Eagles just agreed to pay Bradford $22M minimum and to pay Daniel $12M minimum. Now using valuable resources to acquire their replacement.
Probably the smartest thing Cleveland has done in years. Other than Cutting Johnny House Trasher.
You would swear Chip Kelly is still running the Eagles
Now the REAL question is....
Will the Factory of Sadness use the picks well? or just flush them down the toilet like they always do?
Sam Bradford? It's John Elway. How'd you like to beat Mark Sanchez out of a starting job again?
Friend of mine in Philly is a season ticket holder. He said the Eagles have solid information the Rams are taking Goff. Once they had that info they moved up based on their infatuation with Wentz. He also thinks they will deal Bradford to SF.
Now watch the Rams take Wentz
@andrewbrandt: Bradford got $11M signing bonus. Daniel got $6M signing bonus, $3M roster bonus. 2nd pick will get $16M signing bonus. $36M in bonus alone.
@RapSheet: The #Eagles aren't trading Sam Bradford. Instead, they created a situation where their rookie QB doesn't have to play for a year (or two).
Fortunately Eagle fans are a patient and understanding collection. I'm sure they'll be fine giving away 6 early picks so they can watch Bradford **** all over Lincoln Financial for 2 years while the future sits back and learns.
What could go wrong?
Insanity continues, the Eagles just said they'll take whichever QB the Rams don't take. And neither guys is anything close to a certainty to be a top 10 QB in the NFL.
@andrewbrandt: People, the Eagles aren't trading Sam Bradford. The $11M bonus is their responsibility; Lurie's not paying that for someone else to have him.
Jeebus, sanity and logic would say someone offered them a decent pick for Bradford so they felt this was a reasonable move.
Jeff Lurie laughs at sanity and logic.
lol from a Washington fan blog:
@BurgundyBlog: Protip, @Eagles: Draft another one in the 4th.
ChilliJon posted:Fortunately Eagle fans are a patient and understanding collection. I'm sure they'll be fine giving away 6 early picks so they can watch Bradford **** all over Lincoln Financial for 2 years while the future sits back and learns.
What could go wrong?
For starters, hopefully it doesn't snow wet and heavy on
"Santa comes to the Link" Day.
DH13 posted:Meanwhile, starting at QB for CLE.....?
Whichever McCown they have as a stop-gap.
Robert Griffin III. They guy that kind of started this QB domino effect of fail between Washington, St Louis, and now Philly.
I guess their new analytics dept showed them that every time they touch the QB position you make it worse. So they figured they'd just get as far away from it as possible.
The Eagles gave up this truck full of picks to potentially pick a guy who's never thrown a pass in a live game against a DB who will play in the NFL? Check out this scouting report of weaknesses.
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/d...1907522/carson-wentz
And then they get the Eagles 2017 first round pick in addition to the #8 overall pick this year? It's well within the realm of possibility that that 2017 pick could end up being Top 5 overall (or better) in a year where DeShaun Watson of Clemson could be an easy consensus #1 pick. Not to mention that Leonard Fournette will be in next year's draft.
DH13 posted:Meanwhile, starting at QB for CLE.....?
Would you rather have a guy that started at North Dakota State (Wentz) and needs a lot of coaching on fundamentals and reading a defense, or RG3 and about 5 extra picks (and only having to drop down from #2 to #8 overall this year)?
There is no reason RG3 can't be a serviceable C- level sort of QB. Wentz is a very risky pick and he's likely only going to succeed if someone if patient with him - that's not likely to happen in Cleveland or in Philly.
Ah, so you're assuming CLE is now self-aware. Risky.
Hear me out on this one....
Why wouldn't GB just tank one full entire season, say 2016 for example, go 0-16, get the number one pick in the draft (Which is almost guaranteed to be QB Deshaun Watson out of Clemson) then wait for the dumb**** owners to start lining up to hand over 6 picks in the first three rounds to move up to 1?
Yes, it's greasy as can be. But if teams can mortgage the future for a one year shot at a Lombardi what's wrong with a one year tank to be borderline great for the next 5?
This seems like the kind of thing Goodell would lay in bed terrified over if he had any common sense.
ChilliJon posted:Hear me out on this one....
Why wouldn't GB just tank one full entire season, say 2016 for example, go 0-16, get the number one pick in the draft (Which is almost guaranteed to be QB Deshaun Watson out of Clemson) then wait for the dumb**** owners to start lining up to hand over 6 picks in the first three rounds to move up to 1?
Yes, it's greasy as can be. But if teams can mortgage the future for a one year shot at a Lombardi what's wrong with a one year tank to be borderline great for the next 5?
This seems like the kind of thing Goodell would lay in bed terrified over if he had any common sense.
This has already been done for the last 3-4 years in the NBA by the 76ers (tanking to get picks - admittedly not then packaging them in a trade). It hasn't worked.
Question for everyone. Having seen film on Hundley in the pre-season last year, would you rather be going into this season with Hundley, Goff, or Wentz?
Wouldn't you think Hundley would net a first round pick at this point if teams are willing to send Herschel Walker/Ricky Williams level of picks for the latter two guys?
Boris posted:Now the REAL question is....
Will the Factory of Sadness use the picks well? or just flush them down the toilet like they always do?
Noteworthy....
It’s reminiscent of the 2011 deal with the Falcons, who were as desperate for wide receiver Julio Jones as the Eagles were for a quarterback.
The Browns got Atlanta’s first, second and fourth-rounders in 2011, plus their first and fourth in 2012 in that deal.
They turned those picks into (hold your breath, or your nose) nose tackle Phil Taylor, wide receiver Greg Little, running back Owen Marecic, quarterback Brandon Weeden and then they used the fourth to move up in 2012 for running back Trent Richardson.
So before we congratulate Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta and Hue Jackson for swindling the quarterback-mongering Eagles, let’s make sure they actually pick guys who can play football first.
DH13 posted:Meanwhile, starting at QB for CLE.....?
Aaron Rodgers.....
Oh, you didn't know?!?!?
Colts "Sucked for Luck" in case you forgot....It can be done because the risk isn't as great now as it used to be, thanks to the rookie cap
Bob McGinn started his annual draft series at the JSO today.
First installment: Quarterbacks.