NFL 2024 season - v. Greatest Pats...and 31 other cool teams

[TAC]

None of that is precisely true.  The game has NOT passed him by, KRAFT did, he wasn't fired, it was a mutual decision by all accounts, and there was interest, even if it didn't pan out. 

Bill wasn’t fired? Bill decided to leave on his own? No chance.

[Stadler]

Bill wasn’t fired? Bill decided to leave on his own? No chance.

Well, I'm not saying he left on his own.   I think when you piece the parts together, it was a meeting between Kraft and Belichick that started "Look, how are we going to handle this?".  There was no way that Bill was walking out of that meeting as coach of the Patriots, but that doesn't mean that he would have wanted that, or that he was fired.   

You know this from the Portnoy thread; I love Her, but it bothers me when we jump to the easy answer when the reality is often far more complicated.

[King Postwhore]

I would say Bill's theories on the draft may be obsolete.  He talked recently that the data on taking QB's is not good and he'd rather take a QB in later rounds.  I will agree that more than 50% of the QB's picked in the 1st round fail but that is the toughest, cerebral position to fill and you need to take multiple shots for that position.  It isn't when they are picked, it's if they can process everything coming at them and have the physical skills.  You need both with the speed of the league. 

[El Barto]

I would say Bill's theories on the draft may be obsolete.  He talked recently that the data on taking QB's is not good and he'd rather take a QB in later rounds.  I will agree that more than 50% of the QB's picked in the 1st round fail but that is the toughest, cerebral position to fill and you need to take multiple shots for that position.  It isn't when they are picked, it's if they can process everything coming at them and have the physical skills.  You need both with the speed of the league.

I think you just made his point. There's really no way to tell if a QB is going to hack it in the NFL, and where you draft him doesn't matter. A WR or OL, on the other hand, you can project. That's why I'd be all over MHJr if I weren't going to trade down. Using a high value pick (like a number 3) on a role of the dice, when franchise QBs are just as likely later, makes zero sense.


edit: Also, two words: Mac Jones. By all accounts that was RKK's pick rather than BB's.

[Stadler]

I would say Bill's theories on the draft may be obsolete.  He talked recently that the data on taking QB's is not good and he'd rather take a QB in later rounds.  I will agree that more than 50% of the QB's picked in the 1st round fail but that is the toughest, cerebral position to fill and you need to take multiple shots for that position.  It isn't when they are picked, it's if they can process everything coming at them and have the physical skills.  You need both with the speed of the league.

I'll take a cerebral QB over an athletic QB any day of the week.

[Dream Team]

Found this awesome bit of writing from my favorite NFL writing on the difficulty of predicting star quarterbacks:

Imagine a Fortune 500 company with 32 regional branches, all of which are locked in a Darwinian struggle to be the most profitable branch. Underperforming CEOs get the Glengarry Glen Ross treatment at the end of each year. Headquarters then dips into the college ranks for replacement CEOs, where they find dozens of qualified applicants for a handful of wide-open positions.

Three-to-five young hotshots – magna cum laude MBA graduates with glowing internships who were also Greek Council presidents – are given the reins to the worst branches, the ones which were recently restructured and/or have a depleted, demoralized workforce. Perhaps a dozen others are hired into the bean-counter department, where they have a slim chance of working their way up through the ranks. Occasionally, one newcomer earns an “heir apparent” opportunity behind some Cornelius Vanderbilt-type, though such captains of industry remain in power for so long that the heir might end up withering in obscurity.

The rookie CEOs sometimes get a brief grace period or some mentorship. By their second year on the job, however, they must start producing bottom-line results. Otherwise, the branch might splurge to lure a veteran CEO from another branch or dip back into the collegiate pool. If a bean counter or a creaky former CEO steps in during a crisis and outperforms the rookie, it could spell the end of his executive career: it’s really hard to come back from a demotion to bean counter.

Under those circumstances it would be weird if many of the top CEO candidates did not end up victims of circumstance, crack under the pressure or discover that earning an A-plus in macroeconomics and earning actual money require two different skill sets. These young execs don’t have to “fail” to fail; they can do so by not succeeding enough, quickly enough.

Every top five pick is expected to quickly become a top ten quarterback, but that math simply does not work out. The 25th-best quarterback in the NFL is objectively very good at his job – compare Daniel Jones or Gardner Minshew to, say, a UFL quarterback – yet he’s also in danger of being replaced. If the replacement also maxes out as the 25th-best person on earth at his profession, he will suffer the same fate.

Seen from that perspective, the NFL does a pretty good job of identifying quarterbacks! Utter stumblebums rarely take the field. Come-from-nowhere success stories like Tom Brady, Kurt Warner and now Brock Purdy are also rather rare. But the competition is brutal, the stakes perilous, the variables numerous and complicated, the gestation periods brief, and the price of failure – for the franchises and the prospects – absolutely staggering.

[King Postwhore]

I think you just made his point. There's really no way to tell if a QB is going to hack it in the NFL, and where you draft him doesn't matter. A WR or OL, on the other hand, you can project. That's why I'd be all over MHJr if I weren't going to trade down. Using a high value pick (like a number 3) on a role of the dice, when franchise QBs are just as likely later, makes zero sense.


edit: Also, two words: Mac Jones. By all accounts that was RKK's pick rather than BB's.

Yeah, but without a QB, you are sunk so you have to take one when you can.  It's a crap shoot but you've got to give yourself the best chance.  You just don't pick the wrong guy which Bill did.

Cough chough, N'Keal Harry as an example.  Drafted after him, Deebo Samuel, DK Metcalf.

[King Postwhore]

I'll take a cerebral QB over an athletic QB any day of the week.

If you get both, "Mahomes" then he's generational.

[El Barto]

Yeah, but without a QB, you are sunk so you have to take one when you can.  It's a crap shoot but you've got to give yourself the best chance.  You just don't pick the wrong guy which Bill did.

Cough chough, N'Keal Harry as an example.  Drafted after him, Deebo Samuel, DK Metcalf.

Yeah, you're still making his point. "So you have to take one when you can," / "it's a crap shoot." Right. They're all crap shoots, even the number 1, 2, and 3 pick. Other positions not so much. Take the sure thing with the most valuable pick and roll the dice on a QB with a later one. They could take the alleged Minnesota deal and still pick up Penix or Bo Nix along with two other first rounders. Are you confident that Drake Mayes will be 2 first rounders better than Nix or Penix? Is anybody? There are times where it's obvious. Lawrence is the most recent example. More often than not it's a bad bet. I'm sure the Bears thought they were lucky to draft Mitch Trubisky instead of that Mahomes guy. Hell, he wasn't even in the top ten!

[King Postwhore]

Would you think the % are better drafting a qb in the 1st round or latter rounds?  I'd still take a qb with #3 because hoe many times will you be in this position?

[Stadler]

Would you think the % are better drafting a qb in the 1st round or latter rounds?  I'd still take a qb with #3 because hoe many times will you be in this position?

Many times, if you keep taking QB's with the third pick! 

[hefdaddy42]

If you have a high draft pick, and your biggest need is QB, and there are multiple highly thought-of QBs, then you should take a QB in the first round.

You might have a 50/50 shot of the pick being great or a bust.  But your odds of finding a diamond in the rough in a lower round have gotta be less than that.  There is reason people are still celebrating Brock Purdy - cause that shit don't happen.  That's a lightning strike.

[El Barto]

Would you think the % are better drafting a qb in the 1st round or latter rounds?  I'd still take a qb with #3 because hoe many times will you be in this position?

Hoe many times you'll be in that position is exactly why I wouldn't squander a top 3 pick on a longshot.

As to the odds, that's tough to answer. First, I would take one in the 1st round simply for the 5th year option. I just wouldn't necessarily assume that a top 3 QB is going to be better than a top 3 WR, OL, or Edge, because the odds suggest he won't. Of the 2022 QBs the only one taken in the top 5 was Tua. Herbert and the Mighty Daniel Jones were taken 6th. Seems to me that the opportunity Minn is allegedly presenting is the way to go. NE can still get a 1st round QB, but also some other quality, more assured players.

Again, would you want Drake Maye, or would you want the unfortunately named Penix plus two first rounders? Penix might suck, but so might Maye.


edit: Also, my position might change if Jayden Daniels were available there. Higher ceiling, higher floor. It just seems to me that the mantra right now is quarterback or bust, and that's a really, really stupid attitude with such a valuable pick.

[Stadler]

Bob Kraft, always keeping it classy.

[King Postwhore]

All honesty I don't know. I don't watch college football so I have no clue the disparity between the top 6 or 7 QB's.

[El Barto]

Bob Kraft, always keeping it classy.

I'm not sure how much I buy the original article. At the same time I know Kraft and Blank are longtime allies, so I'd expect him to give his honest opinion of him, and as we all know his honest opinion is pretty silly.

For my part, I'd stick with the time honoured "company policy is that I only confirm that person was employed by us from Jan of '01 to Jan of '24."

[King Postwhore]

Today on sports radio they talked about Kraft in March saying why they couldn't get a top receiver.   He stated that it wasn't money but the girlfriend wanted a warmer state and it might have also been the the lack of QB uncertainty in N.E.

Eliott Wolf was asked this week why they didn't land the receiver.   He said they were outbid.

So who's telling the truth?  I'd bet Wolf.

[TAC]

Today on sports radio they talked about Kraft in March saying why they couldn't get a top receiver.   He stated that it wasn't money but the girlfriend wanted a warmer state and it might have also been the the lack of QB uncertainty in N.E.

Eliott Wolf was asked this week why they didn't land the receiver.   He said they were outbid.

So who's telling the truth?  I'd bet Wolf.

Classic!

[King Postwhore]

Tim, I know you'd agree. I like Kraft but he definitely loves to spin things PR.