Draft Grades

College football and the NFL Draft

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Hiphopopotamos
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Found this chart on twitter:

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Holy Shit - We got Justin Fields!

In my former life I was known as FencikFanatic.

Oh, and if you were wondering - yes I'm real. And I'm fantastic.
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The Marshall Plan
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I have no earthly idea how anyone could not give this Bears draft anything other than an A / A+.

What else exactly did you want?

A potential franchise QB drops to 11 for whatever reason. Pace trades up and gets him.

Then a LT / RT, who we should have drafted had we stayed at 20, was there in the second round and Pace trades up to draft him too.

The rest was your typical special teams, fringe roster type talent and then separately Borom who could start in the interior or RT.

So we got a potential franchise QB, a day one starting RT at a minimum with strong potential for LT, and then a maybe day one starting RT or RG.

I mean really, I could not have dreamed a better scenario than that.
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IotaNet
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Hiphopopotamos wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 11:23 am Found this chart on twitter:
VERY cool - nice find!
The Marshall Plan wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 12:19 pm I have no earthly idea how anyone could not give this Bears draft anything other than an A / A+.
I think some of the pundits can't bring themselves to give us an unqualified A / A+ based on our history of getting it wrong. "It's the Bears -- surely SOMETHING is wrong with this picture." Think about it -- most of US can hardly believe it and we're the ultimate Bears fans. (Tell me truthfully - aren't you still in a minor state of disbelief.)

After so many years of us "Bearing it up," I don't think the writers are uniformly willing to give Pace (and the McCaskeys) the benefit of the doubt just yet. It's going to take a year or two of success. I couldn't believe it but more than one site is calling Cleveland "one of the smartest organizations in football right now." The BROWNS??? :o

If opinions about them can change, we'll get there eventually.
“Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it.”

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Boris13c
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I give this Bears draft a solid A, and I am shocked Pace and Nagy stepped up to make that happen

I think all 7 guys drafted will make the roster and contribute in some capacity
"Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."
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Yogi da Bear
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Normally, I allow myself this week lamenting the fact that the Bears once again ignored my advice and how foolish they were in doing so. Then after this week, I accept the results and root for the players they drafted like the Bears they are.

Not this time. For the first time since I started doing my Picnic Baskets, I'm humbled. No, not humbled, HUMILIATED! That's how much stronger the Bears draft was then my Picnic Basket.

In my Basket this year, I had to sacrifice one of my favorite prospect, because I felt we absolutely HAD to get a QB to give us some hope, even if it was a purely developmental prospect like Davis Mills. I thought that the five top QBs would be gone by pick 10, certainly pick 15. I thought that Fields would go either #3 to San Francisco or #4 to Atlanta. I thought the last of those five to go would have been Lance, and I would NOT have been happy with a trade up for him, a more athletic Trubisky, but with the same accuracy problems and inexperience and simplistic offensive design in college.

When we traded up in the first, I was in shock. Numb. Resigned. I thought for sure we did it for Jones. Imagine my surprise? Elation. Then we traded up again in the second. Holy cow!

There have been quite a few times when I've screamed at the television for a draft pick, only to be devastated, and rightly so. The first time was for Randy Moss. We picked Enis. I remember begging, "Please not Cade McNown." :frustrated: I further remember screaming, "Anybody but Cedric Benson!" :flick: Heavy sigh. I remember how happy I was the Panthers didn't take Branden Albert (Cblaz I think turned me on to him). We could get Albert. Certainly we wouldn't be stupid enough to go for Chrissie Williams. I ended up banging my head again and again on the coffee table. Then there was Trubisky over my guy Mahomes. :sad: I was more defeated than mad. Just :kickme: while I'm done.

But Friday Night, we traded up in the second, and I was once again yelling at the screen. It couldn't be could it? Just couldn't be? YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssss! MY GUY! Hallellfuckinglujah! In my basket, I sacrificed him for Davis Mills. Pace got BOTH him AND Justin Fields. What can I say? :ashamed: Now Hub Arkush claimed we overpaid for the trade up. And he's right. We overpaid the equivalent of a low fifth round draft pick. I think that Jenkins is fucking worth that pittance.

I picked Borom in the fifth, and I was like Who? Then I saw his tape. Wow. Guess we finally decided to go real smashmouth along the OL. We got Hilbert, who I wasn't expecting. We got one of my Ducks, Graham, who's a player. He's got some speed, but even more, he's really instinctual. Dazz? I don't know, he doesn't look like a 4.57 guy to me. And finally, we got the TONGA!

So yeah, we didn't get my very favorite, Jaelon Darden. We let another one of my favorites go right after our pick (my big receiver Michael Strachan), and we took Hilbert over Jermar Jefferson.

And I'm okay with all of that. I give this draft an A+++++++. Pace can use my Picnic Basket for bun wad.

I am so happy. And guess what. Some of our UDFAs are players as well.
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The Marshall Plan
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Right there with you Yogi.

I figured Pace was going to draft Fuller's replacement at 20. That's not what I wanted, but it's what I thought would happen.

Like how does the same guy who drafted Kevin White and trade up for Mitch and Floyd do something like this?

It's making my Bear-Anon Deep Bear conspiracy brain light up. Like is Ryan Pace just a figurehead and Skull & Bones decided to just take over and draft players for us now? (J/K LOL)

Did aliens from Zeta Reticuli beam down multi-dimensional knowledge right into Matt Nagy's bald head and give him a vision of the future or something?

I will say something nice about Ryan Pace. He does have balls. Brass ones. Rightly or wrongly he isn't afraid to make the big move.

But yeah this is usually a week of mourning for us. The guy we wanted goes a pick just before we do or we're too dumb to draft him and the next team drafts him.

I figured there was no way in hell that Jenkins would be there in the second round for us. Again, kudos to Pace for having the brass to trade up.

P.S. Hub Arkush is a moron.
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mmmc_35
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I think this is easily an A graded draft. In 4 years I could see 4 of these players still being on the team.

Obviously if Fields doesn't work out then it doesn't matter. The rest of the draft is solid. Baring injury or unseen misfortune you can generally assume Jenkins should be a starter. That's 2 starters.

Then comes day 3. I think Borom and Graham have the most upside. Both have starting potential. If one works out that's 3 starters.

I group Newsome, Herbert, and Tonga as guys who likely will always be rotational players. If any of them become a core depth piece you are happy. All of them could become this years Mooney, but if one becomes a RRH type contributor you have 4 legit players.

Thats a good draft.
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WIth us getting Fields makes this an A draft. Only other QB worth taking in the first round.

Adding Tevin Jenkins who is as prototypical a RT as there is.
Getting CB Thomas Graham who I believe at worst will be our starting slot CB.
Getting another late round RB. Lets be honest our scouting department knows RB's. Most likely a steal.
If Brohom can add the missing element to his game. Strength then he could be a steal.
Picking up a one trick pony at DT (Almost impossible to stop one on one) was a steal.
Getting a WR that is like Anthony Miller(Gang ties and all) later in the draft is better than trading up to get him. Holding judgement for a few on this kid.

All in all, I give this draft an A+

Not only Pace's best draft to date. But the best draft in the draft with Jacksonville , Miami, Detroit and Pittsburgh right behind them.
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wab
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I must've missed the article where it said Anthony Miller had ties to a gang...
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Arkansasbear
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The Marshall Plan wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 12:19 pm I have no earthly idea how anyone could not give this Bears draft anything other than an A / A+.

What else exactly did you want?

A potential franchise QB drops to 11 for whatever reason. Pace trades up and gets him.

Then a LT / RT, who we should have drafted had we stayed at 20, was there in the second round and Pace trades up to draft him too.

The rest was your typical special teams, fringe roster type talent and then separately Borom who could start in the interior or RT.

So we got a potential franchise QB, a day one starting RT at a minimum with strong potential for LT, and then a maybe day one starting RT or RG.

I mean really, I could not have dreamed a better scenario than that.
I don't think we could have had a better draft. I spent a little bit of time looking at the final board and tried to figure out if it was possible to get a better combination of players using our first three picks than we got. Nope not possible at all. I came up with some creative combos that would have been "ok" but in no way could we get the value we got (granted we don't have next year's 1st or 4th).

I could see how some "expert" could say "they got 2 top players, but they traded a lot of draft capital and got very little in the late rounds, so they get a B+." Don't agree with the argument but I guess i could see their point. They could also argue we did very little to address the issues at WR and CB. That being said, I watched the highlight of Newsome where he pins the ball on the DBs back. HOLY COW!!!
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wab wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 1:11 pm I must've missed the article where it said Anthony Miller had ties to a gang...
Never said he had ties. But he did through up gang signs in a game.
EricTighe
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Just in case you missed it.
EricTighe
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I regress I did imply it. My bad.
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Rusty Trombagent
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gang signs, huh
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