Ray_T

to be clear, a breakout candidate isnt someone who got 1000 yards or more last year. for me a breakout candidate is someone who got 500-750 yards (or less) last year and bursts on to get 1000 yards or more the following year. so we are looking at at least a 30% increase in production year over year. if a young guy gets 850-900 yards a boost to 1000 yards isnt really a breakout. its likely an expected progression. if that playre gets 1200 yards then I'd say fine, thats a breakout.

Ex-NFL star Antonio Brown files for bankruptcy after more than $80 million in career earnings (yahoo.com) 80 M in career earnings. now broke. sad

I kinda figured the timeline was close to the same. I got the impression an achilles injury affects a RB different than it does a QB. though I wasnt 100% sure that the timeline for a QB is substantially different. with a RB you need to run with a burst and make cuts while a QB rarely has to do that. but there is still the throwing motion to consider and depending on which leg had the injury it may or may not affect his throwing motion to a great degree. I fully acknowledge the injury will affect Cousins ability to scramble, but he was never much of a running QB to begin with. he plays out of the pocket and the Line he has on his new team is far better than the line he played behind last year, so I dont think he will have a ton of pressure to scramble either. unfortunately I dont know enough about the injury to say more. Usually I'm pretty diligent about doing research on these things, but its still early and I have not done any digging yet.

here is a news article regarding cousins recovery. didnt say much other than he is throwing footballs. Kirk Cousins Reveals Where He's At With Injury Rehab (msn.com)

lots of first round QB's start at #3 on the depth chart. quite often coach wants them to earn their spot on the roster. at this point in the pre season, this is a nothingburger. if hes still #3 on the depth chart once they get beyond game 1 of the pre season then I'd be concerned he wont play this year. either way, its too early to panic. Personally I dont care either way. I did like his scouting report and watched the tape posted by doug earlier. he looked like he had some potential but may not be a day one starter. so as far as I'm concerned hes not really that far behind where I thought he'd be at this point.

its because of Rodgers risk of injury and his age. if they have to go with a backup, his numbers drop. given the risks, I think hes about where he should be (give or take)

ok thats the sort of thing that keeps a QB on the bench. but it is early in pre season. Lets see if this is still the case later in the pre season. sometimes that adjustment to the pro game can be rough. if hes still doing this when they start the pre season games, then I think he will sit as a rookie until late in the season.

what is his ADP looking like?

sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. Sometimes when someone says this they are not sure what they want for the guy and they dont want to ask too little and rip themselves off. so if you offer something they want, they may consider it. so there is opportunity. but sometimes when they say send an offer they have no plan to trade the guy, they just wanna know what they could get for him. that can be frustrating. but thats the nature of making a deal sometimes.

there are a couple signs I look for when looking purely at stats. rookies are noted for their inconsistent play, but if the talent is there, they will still occasionally produce. Nico, being a 3rd round pick is a guy who you think may develop into a player, but you are not sure about him. so when I looked I noted as a rookie he had a couple of decent games with a good average yards per catch. one game with double digit targets (week 14). while the catch rate wasnt high, he also didnt have great QB play (david Mills/tyrod Taylor) but week 14 and 18 he had 10 and 8 targets respectively meaning hes either open or (at the very least) hes where hes supposed to be at the time the read was made. and he was rewarded with some reasonable stats. but not enough to project a breakout in 2022 so we go into 2022's game log..... once again with Mills at QB its tough to expect much. he showed some signs early. in week 2 targeted 9 times but got 4 catches for 58 yards. had a couple middling games up to week 5 where he was averaging about 50-60 yards per game. not bad on limited targets it doesnt look like much but 60 yards a game works out to 1000 yards over 17 games played so this is decent production with backup calibre QB. then he got hurt. while his production was mediocre upon his return, 49, 48, 44 yard games and a 35 yard game, but look at the high # of targets. even with subpar QB play, you dont get that number of targets at the NFL level unless you are doing something right. dude is getting open enough to warrant that many targets, its usually only a matter of time until the production follows. I only watched a couple of his games, but there were a few times he was targeted and the ball was nowhere close to being where it needed to be. if it had I'm pretty sure his stats would have been more in line with where you want it to be (at least in the games I watched) even so, with a smallish sample size I was reasonably certain with a better QB (and better health) there is a chance he may have broken out in year 2. but its hard to say for sure. year 3. I will admit I was a big believer in the new guy at QB (Stroud) I was sure the QB play would be better than wed seen the last 2 years. I anticipated this kid was ripe for a breakout. if you refer to the July Mock on fftoday, I took this kid in round 13 and was happy to get him. So I'm not just making stuff up. I really liked the kid. and truly felt with good QB play hed be better. as it turns out he wasnt just better, he was a whole lot better. Even better than I thought he'd be. so the signs were there. Maybe I got a little lucky in that I noticed the things I did when watching the small sample size of games, but I felt he passed the eye test to me (which sealed it) I took him in every draft/auction I could last year and was well rewarded.

nope. I saw him in some games. he was getting open. he flashed plenty. bad QB made his stats less than they should have been.

well, it is a situation where you can find value if the WR slides far enough. you certainly dont want to overpay for any Charger WR, but at least one will put up draftable numbers. Possibly 2. but there is a whole lot more risk to them. for me, Chargers WR are players to target late in the draft if they are still on the board.

either way, my hope is that this situation clears up a bit more come training camp. right now its a very interesting situation to speculate on

well, sometimes this is a function of the coach and O/C too. coach lost his job. but when a team drafts a player at the college level, they are rarely a finished product. the rookie camp is designed to get the kid up to speed and teach the nuances of the pro game before training camp arrives. if a player doesnt do well as a rookie, sometimes its the player, but sometimes its the coach. case in point: Goff. rookie year he was terrible. (I would argue beyond terrible) McVay arrives and his production explodes. to me that tells me the problem was more with the coaching and less with the player (in that case at least)

no they dont always get the rankings right. and sometimes certain skills of a player are invisible because his coach decided not to use him in certain ways. sometimes thats because the coach had a specialist who took that role or sometimes its because the offense wasnt designed for a player with his skillset. Leveon Bell was a good case in point. nobody imagined that he had the kind of receiving skills that he did on the day he was drafted because his coach never used him extensively as a pass catching back. he caught passes in college but they came nowhere close to maximizing his skillset. This was viewed as a potential skill that could be developed for him. as it turned out the skill was more developed than anyone anticipated.

fair comments all. and yeah it is tough to expect a rookie to lead the team in receiving. if he gets 800 yards and 5-6 TD as a rookie I'd say its a very successful rookie campain, but its not WR1 production. its likely palmer as the leading WR though there is an outside chance Chark steps up. but Palmer has to be the highest odds to thrive. Quentin Johnson is still a dark horse. going into his second year, it feels like we still dont know who he is as a pro yet.

possible. Lions are really good, Bears will be better than last year, Pack are a solid, young team on the rise. as a whole, this could potentially be the best division in nfl

its early. A lot of rookies struggle early in camp from time to time.

I know. I was just having a laugh at your expense. all good.

not entirely wrong and in some situations (this being one of them) its quite possibly right. I'm sure hes shuffled off some of his wealth and it is in the hands of some of his family members. also likely true. There is a certain portion of the bankruptcy amount that he will still need to pay off to make restitution to his creditors and there are certain types of debts that are likely exempt from the bankruptcy proceedings (ie. if you owe the govt, in most countries you still owe that money after a bankruptcy though this may be different in the US but I'd be surprised if it was) so hes not totally off the hook but there is no doubt hes screwed over some people by going down this road.

if he was a first round pick, or an early 2nd round pick I'd fully agree with you. but he was taken 83rd overall and some scouting reports have him as a top notch backup who can develop into a starter eventually. I dont think the team will have the pressure to play someone drafted at that point in the draft. Not right away anyhow. but I do think Williams needs to keep his production up to stop the kid from digging into his workload. the biggest issue is hes a smallish back like Kyren Williams is. based on performance at the combine I'm guessing the skillset is similar. so for me, hes likely a true backup. if he stepped in to play for Kyren Williams on a run play, the offense likely doesnt need to change much (if at all). on a pass play hes not great on pass pro (yet) and he could use some polish on his route running. so hes not gonna displace Kyren Williams on passing downs. They may use him on short yardage due to his propensity to break tackles. but that is just speculation on my part. bottom line is... the kid needs some work before hes ready to really dig into Willams usage. he also had some durability issues that may not translate well to the NFL. so there are enough question marks that I'd still draft Kyren williams where I said I'd draft him. but I do agree there is more risk here than what most people are acknowledging. Its just my belief that the kid will take at least a half season before hes ready to start taking significant reps at the pro level. (maybe a full season). problem is... with this kind of player its hard to say just how quickly he will progress, but I assure you there is no hurry as long as Kyren Williams is healthy.

you know, you can both like team nine. the fantasy football police wont throw you in the brig if it happens haha

good post. agree with nearly all of this. I'm not certain about jameson williams. hes boom or bust for me. If hes gonna break out I think it likely needs to happen this year. I loved his talent at the time he was drafted, but due to his size, I was concerned about how he'd deal with the Jam at the line. to some extent I'm still concerned about it. I have not seen enough of him to say I'm satisfied with this. and if he doesnt make it, this is likely the reason why (this or him doing something else stupid to keep himself off the field) but provided hes fully recovered from his ACL surgery, I dont have a whole lot of other concerns. so even with the concerns noted above, I dont mind picking him up late in the draft if hes still on the board.

To clarify further, I look at whether the WR shows signs, and then I look to see if anything in the offense has changed. in Collins case I knew he had a better QB than he had the year prior. that combined with him showing at least moderate improvement from year 1 to year 2. (same production in fewer games played) certainly helped. he was also starting to pass the eye test. it never showed in the stats partly because of poor QB play. this is one of those where it helps if you actually watch the game. tough to blame a WR when he gets wide open and the QB cant hit him with a throw.

I think the chance of a WR having an early breakout go down substantially when they have a crappy QB. so if you ask if Stroud had something to do with his breakout, I'd say for sure he did. but Nico was showing signs of a breakout late the season before and I already had him marked on my late round draft list. Picked him up in my auction for 2 dollars. Best bargain of the draft.