Ray_T

I read an article suggesting Tennessee was the place hed land. though I dont think that article was from a good source. but even a blind squirrel will sometimes find a nut. Tennessee does need a QB but I dont think they have a chance to win with the addition of Rodgers. so might as well continue with the rebuild. (in my opinion)

yeah me too. but something was wrong with that guy. super talented but barely scratched the surface in terms of living up to that talent. of course playing on bad teams could be the answer. but I suspect there is something else there.

no. and if they draft someone (even in round 1) it is likely at least a year and probably 2 years until that player becomes what I would consider to be a true WR1. and that would be IF he actually becomes one. Not all WR drafted in round 1 become a WR1. When they do, it is rarely on day 1 that they are one. usually it takes a year, sometimes 2 or 3 years to get to that point. So drafting someone likely isnt an immediate solution to the problem but it is usually the cheaper way to do it. Acquiring one via trade usually means a lot of cost in terms of money and/or draft capital to acquire. even looking at this years draft class (which was considered to be the best WR class in a long time) I dont know that anyone in this class was a true WR1 on day one. but Nabers, Thomas, and McConkey likely got there by mid season and should be considered WR1 going forward. I suspect Marvin Harrison Jr. will be one in short order. but keep in mind most NFL draft classes at this position are not anywhere close to being as stacked as this class was. most years you are lucky to get one.

might be sooner haha you never know

its an interesting prediction. It will be interesting to see if you nailed it. resume this convo in a couple years?

I actually thought he was ok. hes knowledgeable about the sport in a way nobody else is. hes got his quirks but so does everyone. Lots of commentators and play by play guys start their first year sounding like this and they get better as they go. I doubt that Brady is any different. if he sticks with it I think he will be good at this. but I suspect hes got other things in mind for himself.

I agree. if any WR on this roster is worth anything it is likely Douglas. hes probably a WR2 but wont put up WR2 numbers until they get a true WR1. Right now I think hes getting the other teams best corner and hes not able to put up the numbers he should because of this. if he has a true WR1 on the roster who takes the other teams top cover guy, I could see him topping out at 8-900 yards a season. Admittedly it could be 2 years down the road until we see this(possibly 3) so I wouldnt get too excited.

well, the top 3, Tennessee, Cleveland and New York desperately need a QB. yes, if you dont believe in the guy at #1 of course you look to see if there are any good trade back options. Tennessee has enough holes in their lineup that if a team picking in the top 10 offers 2 number 1 picks and 2 number 2's I think you need to at least consider the offer. I dont think this is a situation where one player will turn this franchise around. Honestly Cleveland had the right idea in stocking up on #1 picks until they shot themselves in the foot with the Desean Watson signing. if they signed a QB who could play, they might still be a playoff contender.

in the past, Mahomes has been able to step up his play to get away from the rush so I think if there was one fault it was that Reid believed in his guy. its also a case where if you use another TE to block, the other side can rush with another person so its not always as easy as that. but the 'chip' block from the TE or the RB as they leave to go out for a pass certainly could have been done more often to assist the Tackles. in the end, it was mostly an inability to protect Mahomes and solid coverage that really made the sledding tough for the KC offense. You also need to give credit to Philly. They had a good game plan and they executed.

has he announced who his staff will be yet?

with Desean Watson as a role model this should not be surprising. His career was likely over anyhow. this just guarantees he wont come back.

maybe. hard to say how the bottom of the lineup changes. bottom of the lineup tends to be more fluid. if he passes him on the depth chart then yeah, no value. but this discussion is based on the current depth chart. I think its obvious that Gainwell becomes valueless if hes drops to #3 or #4 on the depth chart in Philly. As it is now, he only has value when Sequon is hurt. if this development actually happens than Shipley becomes the back to own.

I dont know about that. The Eagles O line is good enough that I do think Gainwell would be an adequate fill in. I wouldnt expect RB1 numbers, but low to mid range RB2 numbers is likely something I'd expect from him until Sequon returns. hes a good handcuff who really only has value to the Sequon owner and will only put up reliable stats while Sequon is injured. In a deeper league hes likely ok to roster as a handcuff on your bench as your RB4. but hes not a keeper in any format and should not be drafted until most of the legitimate RB3's are off the board.

I saw early that this would be a different game than the previous meeting between these two teams a couple years ago in the superbowl. one thing I noticed is that in the previous superbowl, the KC passrush pushed up a wall to the right side of Hurts, forcing him to run to the left. That was significant because Hurts is not nearly as effective rolling to the left as he is when he rolls to the right. in this game they were not able to do that. I'll call this the Barkley effect but it could just be better line play(or possibly a bit of both). My belief is that by playing that strategy in this game, it would make it harder for them to control Barkley at the LOS. so I noticed Hurts was rolling to the right on numerous occasions throughout the game. Something that rarely happened the previous time these teams met at Superbowl. so from that perspective, the Eagles had too much to contain. Chiefs elected to stop the ground game, and while a noble cause, and they were able to mostly contain him, they were not able to contain the rest of that offense. I was a bit surprised to see how badly the Chiefs line was manhandled in this game too. Normally the line has been pretty good. but that was the story. They gave Hurts the most outstanding player, but for me the unsung heros were the players on both sides of the line that won the battle in the trenches for Philly

this was an old fashioned curb stomping. the Iggles fully controlled the line of scrimmage and that has largely been the difference

wow, world class drop from Hopkins here just before half time

well, this is 100% on the browns. they knew there were issues with this massage gate when they signed him in the first place. you would think that this would deter them from doing a long term deal. but clearly not. and as with more serious off field issues it inevitably affected him on the field (my opinion) and now everyone is regretting the contract (except maybe Desean because hes getting paid)

I suppose it depends who you talk to. all I said is hes a better QB than Desean Watson. I never said he was better at molesting the hired help. I do agree we need to keep this in perspective until all the facts are out. if hes guilty I look forward to a lot of funny jokes and hopefully a conviction of sorts. if hes not guilty.... hopefully they properly clear his name.

agreed. your team was hit hard by injury this year. its hard to win when your players are not on the field. Ceedee was on the field but his starting QB was not. and that affected his numbers too. Pacheco was a notable early season injury too. that one hurt me in other leagues but not this one. it also feels like the injuries affected the WR position more than the RB position this year (with one or two notable exceptions like Pacheco) and so in a WR heavy draft format, there were people who were eliminated from the contest early due to these injuries. its not like your guys had a long history of injury either. I'd suggest most of this is bad luck on your part. my best suggestion: dont buy any lotto tickets until this turns around lol

now is the time when we all need to evaluate what went well and what did not in terms of our drafting if there is an interest, I could do a post mortem of the July Mock. usually part of my post mortem is looking at my draft and analyzing what I did well, and what I didnt. then looking at the team who won and analyzing what they did well and what they didnt (presumably they did almost everything well because they won of course) This I think is an important thing for every team to do so that we can improve our own performance in future years. I could go through this with my draft in the july mock. the draft is still available online so others can chime in on things I could have missed as well. if there are any of you who are new to fantasy football, going through this process with your own team/league is the best way to learn and become better at fantasy. the most important thing you need to do is be honest with yourself about your picks. if they performed terribly for any reason other than injury dont tell yourself that it was bad luck. if your players dont perform you need to give a critical look into why you liked those players and try to do better. If there is interest and if time permits, I'll also look at late round picks that turned out for some people.

yeah, sometimes the separation a player gets also depends on the competition they are against too. probably you want to look at how he does when hes up against top college corners. Those guys will be closer to NFL calibre than the weak opponents

ok, This is part 1 of the post mortem analysis of the July mock. The first thing I'm going to say is this may have been one of the most interesting Mocks I've been a part of. in watching the results over the course of the year, there were actually a very large number of lead changes that happened and I think each of the top 4 or 5 teams had the lead in this draft at one point in the season or another. and the difference between the top 3-5 teams largely was good health and I would like to congratulate everyone for having a good draft. in this part, I'm only looking at the team that won (Hawkeye) and looking at what they did right. The first thing I noticed when looking at his draft: 1) his team remained mostly healthy all year long 2) not many of the early picks were spectacular. they were solid, mostly safe picks that performed close to their expected value 3) he did not miss on any of the early picks (other than for injury). 4) Late in the draft, he took a lot of high upside players who ended up breaking out. What won this draft for Hawkeye was the fact that he had drafted two QB who both finished in the top 5. and he drafted 3 WR who finished in the top 16. and 2 starting calibre WR very late in this draft. I'd honestly be surprised if anyone had a better draft at WR or QB. His RB's were mediocre, but given how good he drafted at WR and QB he didnt need anything more than this. As with last years draft, the person who drafted two top QB in this draft ended up winning the draft. Here is the team drafted by Hawkeye 1.06 #6 overall Amon Ra St Brown 3rd WR off the board #3 Ranked WR at end of year. comment: Solid pick. He went off the board. I dont think many had Amon Ra St Brown Ranked this high. I know I sure didnt. but he nailed the pick. I gotta give him an A on this one 2.07 #19 overall Kyren Williams 9th RB off the board #6 Ranked RB at end of the year. Comment: solid pick. This is around the spot where I expected he would be drafted, and he slightly outperformed his draft spot. Gotta give him an A for this one too. 3.06 #30 overall Travis Kelce. First TE off the board. #10 ranked TE at end of the year. I'd have to give this one a C. Comment: Not a complete miss, but when you take the first TE off the board you expect he should be top 3 at his position. I'll admit, I didnt think he should be taken as the first TE off the board, but I also didnt think hed finish outside of the top 4 or 5 TE. so the result of this one is mixed. Normally I'd give a D for this but given that nobody in the fantasy world expected him to finish outside of the top 5 TE I'll upgrade this to a C-. 4.07 #43 overall Josh Allen- 3rd QB off the board 4th ranked QB at the end of the year Comment: A. Well done. I always say if you take a QB early, you need to nail the pick. and that is exactly what happened here. Only reason this wasnt an A is because there were more than one QB on the board at the time this pick was made 5.06 #54 overall: Christian Kirk 28th WR off the board- did not finish in the top 50 Comment: this pick was a miss due to injury. he played 8 games, and got 379 total yards receiving. pro rated over a full season he likely would have been a WR3 so I'll give a C-. He got a half season out of him and noting that while healthy, he performed at the level he was drafted at. 6.07 #67overall: Tee Higgins 32nd WR off the board #16 ranked fantasy WR at the end of the year. comment: I gotta give him an A+ on this one and scold all the other fantasy owners (myself included) for passing on this guy prior to this point. a Great pick. Drafted as a low end WR3 based on rank and delivered high end WR2 production. 7.06 #78 overall David Montgomery 28th RB off the board finished #18 overall in only 14 games played due to injury comment: I gotta give an A- for this. Based purely on production hes a B but he performed like a low end RB1 or high end RB2 while healthy. so basically he got a RB2 for the price of a RB3. Well done! 8.07 #91 overall Austin Ekeler- 34th RB off the board finished #36 overall comment: average. C+/B- He drafted a guy who was expected to be a RB3 and an RB3 is what he got. Nothing exciting but a decent pick. 9.06 #102 overall Ladd McConkey 44th WR off the board 10th ranked fantasy WR comment: A+. it doesnt get much better than this. drafting a guy expected to rank as a WR4 who gives you WR1 numbers. this could be the draft winning pick here. 10.07 #115 overall Xavier Worthy 48th WR off the board which means he was drafted as a WR4/5 and he was the 33rd ranked fantasy WR. Comment: another very good pick. I'll give him an A. anytime you get a starting calibre player at this point in the draft, thats a win. after this I'm only speaking to outstanding picks. nothing taken after this point in the draft is expected to yield a fantasy relevant player (other than on Defense or possibly TE) key picks after this point: 12.07 #139 overall: Baker Mayfield. #22 QB off the board #3 fantasy QB- Grade A+ 14.07 #163 overall: Cade Otten #19 TE off the board, #13 ranked Fantasy TE Grade B+ Congrats to Hawkeye who drafted a very solid team top to bottom if there was one actual weak area I'd say it was the team Defense (Baltimore) who finished #12 overall and was the #2 defense taken off the board. All things considered, I actually drafted Baltimore in some of my drafts this year and I thought they would have a good year. so while this was a miss I feel like it was expected at the time to be a good pick. In my next post I will go through my draft process and give a critique of my own draft.

yeah, and whether you end up with decent coaching at the pro level. I honestly think this is as important as the talent around the young QB

from the sound of it he might also be a better QB

I did not win, nor was this the strategy I wanted to play. my path was mostly decided for me by the previous draftees and I zigged when the rest of the league zagged. As luck would have it, it turned out for me reasonably well in some respects, but reasonably poorly in others...... but I will get into that when I do my analysis. Likely to do it properly I'll do it in multiple parts. I'm a bit swamped at work right now but I am expecting work to slow down over the next week (two at most) so I'll get going on this when time permits. with luck I'll have part 1 done by the end of the weekend.