At the end of part 3, I said I’d attempt to address why teams don’t examine their processes more closely, why they don’t try to refine or improve them. I think the answer comes down to how decisions are made in the NFL.
I think the NFL has a corporate culture that incentivizes not making waves and not going off the beaten path.
I’ve made notes throughout the first few parts of this mega-post regarding players who fell in the draft despite their obvious talent, notes that said I would address in part 3.
Well, I apologize. Part 3 ran over 4500 words, so I broke it into two parts as well. This will be a four-part post.
Onward:
In both previous sections, I highlighted players and factors that I think speak to why the NFL struggles to master the draft. I wanted to delve into those factors in detail, and perhaps more importantly, attempt to answer the question of why this continues to happen. Here’s how I see it, in short: Teams worry about the wrong things and have too many incentives against changing.
I was quite excited for what the Cleveland Browns might do in this year’s draft. I watched a lot more baseball in the 1990s and 2000s, and was well aware of (and paid close attention to) Billy Beane’s work with the Oakland A’s. (I also haven’t forgotten how old-school scouts derided it as nerd nonsense by people who had never played the game and didn’t understand the arcane complexities of their sport. That’ll come up later.)
As someone who believes the NFL, both on a league-wide and on the individual team level, is in many ways run by backward, ossified processes that seem to have all the scientific rigor of bloodletting or the Ptolemaic system, I was intrigued by the thought of a team applying real analysis and big data to their front-office processes. This draft was the first chance to see the new front office in action.
So it turns out I have a lot more to say about this year’s NFL Draft than I thought I did. In my first draft of this article, this was my opening paragraph:
When enough is said before the draft– and I’ve been saying a lot, at least on Twitter if not on the blog– there’s not much to say afterward. Just a collection of observations from me, some about certain teams or their executives, others about general trends:
Well, once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. By the time I got somewhere north of six thousand words, I decided I was going to need to break up my draft posting into multiple entries, to cover the several major topics I intended to cover.
Part 2 will be a deeper look at the Cleveland Browns draft and the idea of analytics in football. Part 3 will be some thoughts on the NFL’s processes as a whole. For part 1, here are some observations I made about a handful of teams’ drafts.
Owners of professional sports teams have a lot of responsibility when it comes to the success of their franchise. They are the ones putting up massive sums of money in an attempt to generate profit, but they also control the direction of personnel hirings. Much can be said about terrible owners in other sports, such as James Dolan of the Knicks, who can’t seem to get over his love affair with Isaiah Thomas. However, Dolan at least supports his team and his city and wants the best for them. Recent events have revealed an NFL owner who does not display this courtesy, in addition to ineptitude.
With the Saints struggling to the finish line in a dismal 2015, and the impending end of the Drew Brees era, I thought about going back and looking at how the team got to this point, what went wrong, and what they could have done differently (and can do differently in the future).
I decided some weeks ago to choose their performance in the draft to examine for this purpose, but only now have had the time to collect the necessary data for this article. Even though Mickey Loomis has been GM of the team since 2002, I decided to start with the arrival of Sean Payton and Drew Brees in 2006, because of Payton’s strong input on the personnel side of the ball. I then decided to review the drafts from that point on through 2014.
The reason I’m not reviewing 2015 is largely because, after the 2014 draft was such an obvious disaster, the team fired longtime Director of College Scouting Rick Reprish, and most of the college scouting department. So far, the improvement has been immediately obvious, with Stephone Anthony and Hau’oli Kikaha already being impact players in the linebacker crew, and Delvin Breaux, Damian Swann, Tyeler Davison, and Bobby Richardson all have contributed to one degree or another, with Breaux and Richardson starting. We haven’t even talked about a number of their other picks yet– Andrus Peat projects to be a long-term starting offensive tackle, and several players who have gone on IR figure to contribute in the future, too. This is easily the best Saints rookie class since the much-ballyhooed class of 2006 (three of which remain on the team today).
In hindsight, comparing the 2015 class to the ones before it makes it pretty clear this move was long overdue. Let’s take a look at the previous classes and see how the team did.
Earlier this week, I posited the question on Twitter for two nearby teams that were having poor years: What if the Saints and Texans merged rosters?
They seemed to have rosters that would fit together well, with each team having a strength where the other hand a hole, and vice versa. To make it more interesting (and also realistic), I decided to look up the 2015 cap hits for every player and build the team under the salary cap (listed on spotrac.com as $146,025,476). My goal here was to create the best 53-man roster possible while remaining under the salary cap.
I’m only considering players who were on the team as of this week, when I wrote this– not players who were on the team earlier in the year (like, say, Akiem Hicks or Kenny Phillips for the Saints).
And here we go. Texans fans are likely to be unhappy for a little while.
OFFENSE
QUARTERBACK
This one is fairly straightforward. Brees is the only NFL-caliber starting quarterback on either roster, so he has to make the team, even at his age and cap hit. McCown is by far the cheapest of the next three options (Brian Hoyer’s cap hit starts with a 5, which would be fine if it were one digit fewer). And Garrett Grayson is the best prospect for the future. (Tom Savage is on injured reserve; we’ll get to IR at the end of the roster, but frankly, Grayson is the best prospect irrespective of Savage’s presence.)
RUNNING BACK
I know this one will make Texans fans unhappy. It’s pretty straight-forward: Arian Foster is a 29-year-old running back with a significant injury history and a cap hit of over $8.7M. You might be able to justify paying Foster and carrying one fewer running back if he could still reliably perform at his peak level, but at his age, you can’t count on that.
With Foster too expensive to risk, I think the rest of the Texans running backs are pretty bad, so this was fairly easy. No one besides Foster on Houston’s roster is even as good as Khiry Robinson, let alone Ingram and Spiller. Marcus Murphy adds value as a kick and punt returner. I went with Austin Johnson over Jay Prosch, knowing little about fullbacks, because he’s cheaper (and I don’t know how much Prosch plays, if at all).
WIDE RECEIVER
DeAndre Hopkins is a budding superstar, an obvious choice for our #1 receiver and a must-have even at five times the cost. Brandin Cooks hasn’t turned into the star the Saints envisioned, but at his current age and cap number, he’s still a bargain– and he’s more suited to this role, the #2 to Hopkins’ #1. Willie Snead has come on strong as arguably the Saints’ most reliable receiver. Jaelen Strong is very young and a fine prospect to ease along in a fourth or fifth wide receiver role. I chose Nate Washington as the “cagey veteran mentor” to round out the bunch. Marques Colston is too expensive and has seemingly lost it. You could argue for Cecil Shorts, but Washington is on a one-year minimum deal and Shorts is being paid $6 million for two years. Even though he’s younger, I’m not sure he adds much value to the team at all, let alone over Washington. Cooks, Snead, and Strong can contribute on special teams, so I wasn’t worried about finding a player to fit that type.
TIGHT END
It was a lot easier to justify Watson for the top spot after the game he had Thursday night against Atlanta. He’s the best do-it-all guy on either roster. Hill has the most athleticism; Fiedorowicz is a guy I don’t think is all that special, but is young, cheap, and has a relatively high draft pedigree (then again, I’m not sure if the Texans understand the draft).
OFFENSIVE TACKLE
A no-brainer. This might be the best trio of tackles in the league.
OFFENSIVE GUARD
Evans is on the decline at 32, but he’s still the best guard on either team. Brooks is not someone I know much about, but I’ve generally seen his play well-graded and spoken fairly well of– or at least well enough to be the team’s other starter. Su’a-Filo is on this team for roughly the same reason C.J. Fiedorowicz is.
CENTER
It’s easy to pick both starting centers when they come this cheaply.
TOTAL OFFENSE: 24 players, $66,473,127
DEFENSE
I’ve listed the team in a base 3-4, which made the most sense to me with the personnel I had to work with.
ENDS
Watt and Jordan are a fantastic duo to have here and well worth the money. Bobby Richardson has played well so far his rookie season, particularly against the run. I don’t know much about Crick, but he’s cheap and he plays a lot of snaps for Houston, so he makes the team.
TACKLES
One of the weakest groups on the team, but a very young one with lots of chance to improve playing between Jordan and Watt. Jenkins has the size to be a true nose tackle, so he’s the starter in the run-stuffing role. The word is that Vince Wilfork has looked ordinary, and even if he hasn’t, 2 years and $9 million is a lot for a 33-year-old nose tackle. (Though it’s not out of line with the kind of deals the Texans like to hand out– see “Reed, Ed.”) The other three are all rookies with varying talent level and skill sets; Davison is the most explosive of the bunch.
OUTSIDE LINEBACKERS
Clowney hasn’t produced the big numbers yet, but he’s shown the flashes of greatness that made him the top pick in the draft. Kikaha now leads all rookies with four sacks (in six games); he’s been less flashy but steadily productive. Mercilus is a fine player, although nothing special, and Edebali has shown some signs of life as a rotational pass-rusher.
INSIDE LINEBACKERS
I hate to say it, but Brian Cushing might be done. He looks like a shell of his former self out there– and to make matters worse, he’s on the second year of a six-year deal, one where his cap hit each year is higher than the entire ILB crew I’ve assembled here.
Anthony is the star of the bunch, but Ellerbe has been surprisingly good, surpassing my expectations. McKinney is a long-term player there, though he’s more of a run-stopper. I had no idea whom to go with for the fourth ILB spot; Tuggle beat out Akeem Dent based on age, salary, and slightly higher PFF grade. Feel free to replace him if you like someone better. Mauti won the special teams roster spot with his blocked punt Thursday night.
CORNERBACK
Another difficult decision I had to make was Joseph vs. Kareem Jackson. I was initially on Jackson because he’s younger and had a lower cap hit, but upon further research, I discovered he’s graded out really poorly this year, and he’s in the first year of a four-year contract extension; he’ll be 31 when it ends. Joseph is 31 now, but his cap hit is lower for the next two years than it is now, and the team can cut bait after 2016 with no further penalty. With the play so far of youngsters Johnson and Breaux, that is likely to happen. Also, Lewis has proven himself a fine #1 corner, even if he is exiting his prime, and Swann has performed solidly so far after winning the Saints’ nickel job as a rookie.
SAFETY
The Saints structured Byrd’s contract such that his cap hit makes him an affordable risk here– and even allows us to spend $3 million on Moore for when Byrd is inevitably injured. Vaccaro seems like an obvious choice, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Hal so far.
TOTAL DEFENSE: 26 players, $67,901,347
SPECIAL TEAMS
I chose Hocker before Thursday night, but he’ll probably be fired after that game. Well, the Texans already fired Randy Bullock this year, so I decided to go with the guy who stuck around the longest.
Morstead is more expensive than Shane Lechler, but he’s also twelve years younger and has a lifetime pass for hitting the greatest onside kick in NFL history.
Drescher is cheaper and younger than Jon Weeks.
TOTAL SPECIAL TEAMS: 3 players, $4,710,000
TOTAL 53-MAN ROSTER: $139,084,474
We’re still nearly $7 million under the cap, so I decided to add some players to our Injured Reserve list (who do not count against the 53-man roster, but do count against the salary cap):
That brings the entire roster, 53-man and injured reserve, to a GRAND TOTAL of $144,638,424. Still close to $1.5 million and change to work with; if you’re not comfortable cutting it that close, I totally understand removing Bush from IR. The team’s only contracts that are both long and expensive going to legitimate stars like J.J. Watt and Cameron Jordan, leaving money to extend key players currently on their rookie deals, such as DeAndre Hopkins and Terron Armstead, when the time comes. Not a bad spot to be in. Of course, it’s easy when you get to pick and choose from two rosters.
I started writing this after the Saints fell to 0-2 and it was revealed that Drew Brees injured his shoulder against Tampa Bay. With Brees missing the first game in his career due to injury in week 3 (the Saints are now 0-3), and with the team trading Akiem Hicks today for a blocking tight end, it seems clear that the season is a lost cause and the team is looking to clear cap space– yes, even their minor restructuring of Brees’ contract to create space this year was because they pretty much had to. (That said, if they let Hicks leave as a free agent, New Orleans might get a compensatory pick for him– but they’ve never valued compensatory picks, as we’ll cover below.)
What’s wrong?
I wrote some things about the Saints last year when they fell apart, and I don’t want to repeat them too much. Many of the problems (unreliable receivers, Tim Lelito, overall lack of defensive talent, Jairus Byrd’s contract) remain, and between the sheer lack of overall roster talent and the cap situation, it’s going to take time to fix those things.
I do want to mention that with the trade of Hicks, nobody from the team’s 2012 draft remains on the roster. The team fired the director of college scouting and cleaned out the department this offseason, and after the disastrous 2014 draft has left exactly one player from it on the active roster one year later, it’s understandable. But these kinds of draft misses– compounded by frequent trades up– have been part of the problem for years. For the handful of late-round gems the team found, they had many more late-round whiffs and early picks who disappointed or outright busted; Stanley Jean-Baptiste was simultaneously the apex of this trend and the straw that broke the camel’s back. The 2015 draft, with the new team headed presumably by Jeff Ireland (although his title is Assistant General Manager, not Director of College Scouting) is looking better, but the roster is threadbare and the cap is spent.
And with the roster threadbare and the cap spent, Drew Brees can only take them so far. If the Saints suck even with Brees, which is looking like the case, then the road to rebuilding could be long. 2016 is probably lost as well.
That leads into our next question:
Is Brees done?
I don’t think so. The murmurs about his deep ball and failing accuracy started last year (even though Football Outsiders disagreed), and increased in intensity after he put two deep balls to Brandin Cooks far too short in the Tampa Bay game. However, those both happened after Brees took the hit that injured his shoulder to the degree he missed the Carolina game. Before, I think he was fine. The problem is that his receivers just aren’t reliable– Marques Colston isn’t getting enough separation and is dropping too many passes, and no one else has the ability to reliably make difficult or contested catches. The team lost Jimmy Graham and Kenny Stills and tried to replace their production with undrafted free agents; it isn’t working because those guys aren’t as good.
Unfortunately, what can the team do in the meantime? They won’t have cap room to sign free agents. If they draft receivers highly, they may take a while to develop. Brees may be too old to benefit by then. He may not even be on the team anymore.
Brees’ contract expires after 2016 and they may just be better served playing it out. With the new figures from Wednesday’s adjustment (via Spotrac), Brees sits at a $23.8m cap hit for this year, and with an extra $10m in dead money on top of that if they trade or release him, they have to stick it out. (That’s right: Brees would leave $33.8 million dollars in dead money on the Saints’ 2015 cap.) His cap hit in 2016 soars to $30 million, but would only leave $10 million in dead money if they released him. Even considering those $20 million in savings, it may still be best to just let him play out the year and re-assess. No point in eating cap room to stink and throw a guy into the fire. (If they really think Garrett Grayson is The Guy, another year on the bench can only help. As could drafting some more reliable receivers.)
What can be done?
It’s going to take a serious and strong drafting effort over the next two years. The cap should look better in 2017. The team would do well to mostly stay out of the free-agent market this year; they don’t have a ton of free agents (Hicks would have been the better ones), but by letting them walk, and not spending on more free agents, they might garner some compensatory picks. The Saints’ approach has not involved much of this strategy, with the team needing to rebuild to become competitive again, they should be looking to stock pile as many draft picks as possible. (The Baltimore Ravens use this strategy to great effect.)
The 2015 rookie class already has shown promising returns. Stephone Anthony still makes some rookie mistakes, but he’s been outstanding in several facets of the game. Delvin Breaux (GIF-able moments aside) and Damian Swann seem to be legit additions to the secondary. (Keenan Lewis is scheduled to come back this week; this may be the first chance for us to see the Saints’ cornerback crew at anything close to full strength.) Hau’oli Kikaha has been positive, as have some of the rookie defensive linemen, particularly Bobby Richardson. The defense is not good yet, but they have some solid young parts and a couple of guys who could be franchise cornerstones. Another draft this good on the defensive end, and the team could have the foundation they’re looking for in place.
On offense, the two biggest weak spots seem to be Tim Lelito and the receivers. If Lelito doesn’t improve, the team should try to find a guard at some point in the 2016 draft. As I’ve said many times, the team needs a true #1 receiver, someone who can make the difficult catches as well as the big plays, someone you turn to in critical situations, someone you can count on when you need a catch.
Finding a Drew Brees replacement is critical, of course. Garrett Grayson may or may not be it. But I don’t think the team should pin all its hopes on a third-round quarterback (but then again, I wasn’t that high on him to begin with).
I also want the team to lock up Terron Armstead. Yes, I think Andrus Peat can play left tackle, but I’d rather have both. They have few proven players who are young and talented enough that they could be considered foundational pieces; Armstead is one.
2016 Mock Draft
I rolled over to Fanspeak’s On the Clock Mock Draft (while they’re running a trial period where the “premium” feature, with custom boards and trades, is free). I haven’t done enough draft work for 2016 to have my own board, so I just used Fanspeak’s. (Which also means I don’t necessarily know who’s good, but the exercise was still fun nonetheless.)
I did not set the draft order. Fanspeak decided of their own accord that New Orleans deserved the #1 pick.
Here are my selections and reasoning:
http://fanspeak.com/ontheclock/sharedraft.php?d=yshmhs (NOTE: As of publishing this link was down. Picks are still written and explained below.)
YOUR PICKS
1: R1P1
JOEY BOSA
OHIO STATE
Immediate substantial upgrade to the pass-rush. Talent jumps off the screen, even in a draft full of pass rushers. Saints have been running a 4-3 a substantial amount of the time and Bosa would be perfect opposite Cam Jordan. (There’s a strong argument to take a QB here; Jared Goff is my favorite at this time. I did exploit Fanspeak’s rankings to target a different guy, as you’ll see below.)
2: R2P7
WR MICHAEL THOMAS
OHIO STATE
I then traded down with Jacksonville, acquiring the 2.07 and 4.07 for the 2.01. Thomas I don’t know much about yet, but he was Fanspeak’s highest rated receiver at the spot, and I liked what I did see of him against Virginia Tech. I’ve made it clear I think the team needs more receivers who can make difficult and contested catches, and Thomas fits the bill with his size and strength, and adds nice ability after the catch to boot.
3: R3P1
OLB DADI LHOMME NICOLAS
VIRGINIA TECH
Probably won’t be available here in reality, but again, another guy whose athleticism is evident from tape (and will likely measure out that way in the Combine as well). Jumps off the screen with a fantastic first step and very good bend, too. If they stay in the 4-3, they now have one of the best young trio of linebackers in the league in Hau’oli Kikaha, Stephone Anthony, and Nicolas– add the outside ‘backers to Bosa and Jordan, and you have four young, fearsome pass rushers. This could be a return to the glory days of the Dome Patrol. (I’m not sure if Jordan or Bosa is Wayne Martin.)
4: R4P1
WR STERLING SHEPARD
OKLAHOMA
Another guy at the top of the board who I liked when I saw. Adds more speed and quickness to the mix. I like Shepard and Thomas to make tougher catches and also draw coverage away from Cooks to let him maximize his speed.
5: R4P7
ROBERTO AGUAYO
FLORIDA STATE
He was near the top of Fanspeak’s board, and I’ve really had enough of the kicking problems that continually plague this team.
6: R5P1
QB JACOBY BRISSETT
NC STATE
Likely won’t be here in real life, but he shows some really high-level deep accuracy and ability to read progressions on film. May need some work, but truthfully could be better than Garrett Grayson. The team really should do whatever it takes to find and develop their next starter.
7: R7P1
WR BRAXTON MILLER
OHIO STATE
Okay, fine, I don’t know what to do with him, I just took him because of the name and the idea of using him in a bunch of gadget stuff. In reality, they probably take a special-teams player or a developmental offensive lineman.
I like this draft (especially if Brissett pans out, obviously). It fills in two of the most obvious weak spots on the defensive front seven, and greatly upgrades the pass rush in the process. The team keeps searching for the QB for Year One A.B. (After Brees), and adds two receivers who should substantially strengthen the group for whoever that guy is.
2016 outlook
Even assuming a draft like this and Brees back to health, this is probably still a middling team. The young talent won’t be fully developed yet. They’ll bounce back a little bit, perhaps to .500. There’s even hope they could make the playoffs in 2016, if the rookies contribute right away, Andrus Peat takes over for Zach Strief (and becomes the dominant tackle he showed the potential to be), and everyone stays healthy.
Decisions will have to be made on Kenny Vaccaro and Jairus Byrd in the 2017 offseason. (My guess will be that Vaccaro regains form and earns a second deal, but Byrd, whether because of injuries or age or both, will be let go.) The team will have to fill in for those guys, as well as anyone else dropping off due to injury or age. With this 2016 mock and presuming things go roughly as I expected, the biggest needs in 2017 will probably be at safety, interior offensive lineman (and perhaps defensive, too), and running back.
And, of course, whether or not the single most important question of the franchise’s future has been answered: Who will be the next quarterback after Drew Brees?
Once again doing a little crossover work with our friends at Inside the Pylon, I appeared on their Thursday podcast to talk about the Saints’ struggles. You can listen here.
(I apologize in advance for the excess of “Ummmmm”s. Even being prepared doesn’t help me in the morning.)
I didn’t get to cover everything I think about the Saints’ prospects for this season and beyond, so I’m hoping to do so in a future column.
The New England Patriots play the New Orleans Saints on Saturday for preseason week 2. My old college friend and roommate, Dave Archibald, a lifelong Pats fan who contributes to Inside the Pylon, reached out to me, a lifelong Saints fan, for a Q&A session about the teams and what to watch for beforehand.
My answers on the Saints have gone live on ITP. Dave’s answers on the Patriots will run on our site tomorrow.
Now, you can view every pick your team made, along with our grade of the player, in one handy spreadsheet.
Don’t lose too much heart if we have a “N/A” grade next to your player. It simply means we didn’t have the chance to evaluate the player properly. Some of those players we’ve heard of; some of them we haven’t. Either way, we didn’t see enough of or hear enough from other experts about them to assign them a grade with any confidence.
Since we try to focus on top prospects first and work our way down, it’s rare we get to watch anyone we grade as “undraftable”, but it does happen. That didn’t happen this year; any “undraftable” drafted players would have been marked as such on the chart.
Some interesting tidbits about the chart and pick value:
Enjoy.
I’ve linked to four spreadsheets we made over the course of the day to help with your NFL Draft experience.
The first won’t be too much help now, but in case you wanted to view the Day 2 mock vixticator and I made in the afternoon, before proceedings resumed, now you can.
The second is a list of our overall big board, with prospects already drafted marked out in red.
The third is a repeat of what we did on day 1, another list of brief reactions to picks.
And the fourth chart is a list of picks by team, including our grades of each prospect, so you can compare what we thought of them to where they were drafted.
Fresh off the griddle so you know they’re piping hot, vix and I have our takes on each pick in this draft.
1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Jameis Winston, QB, Florida State
2. Tennessee Titans – Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon
3. Jacksonville Jaguars – Dante Fowler Jr., EDGE, Florida
4. Oakland Raiders – Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama
5. Washington Potatoes – Brandon Scherff, G, Iowa
6. New York Jets – Leonard Williams, DL, USC
7. Chicago Bears – Kevin White, WR, West Virginia
8. Atlanta Falcons – Vic Beasley, EDGE, Clemson
9. New York Giants – Ereck Flowers, OT, Miami-FL
10. St. Louis Rams – Todd Gurley, RB, Georgia
11. Minnesota Vikings – Trae Waynes, CB, Michigan State
12. Cleveland Browns – Danny Shelton, NT, Washington
13. New Orleans Saints – Andrus Peat, OT, Stanford
14. Miami Dolphins – DeVante Parker, WR, Louisville
15. San Diego Chargers (trade with San Francisco) – Melvin Gordon, RB, Wisconsin
16. Houston Texans – Kevin Johnson, CB, Wake Forest
17. San Francisco (via San Diego) – Arik Armstead, DL, Oregon
18. Kansas City Chiefs – Marcus Peters, CB, Washington
19. Cleveland Browns – Cameron Erving, C/G/T, Florida State
20. Philadelphia Eagles – Nelson Agholor, WR, USC
21. Cincinnati Bengals – Cedric Ogbuehi, OT, Texas A&M
22. Pittsburgh Steelers – Alvin “Bud” Dupree, EDGE, Kentucky
23. Denver Broncos (trade with Detroit) – Shane Ray, EDGE, Missouri
24. Arizona Cardinals – D.J. Humphries, OT, Florida
25. Carolina Panthers – Shaq Thompson, LB, Washington
26. Baltimore Ravens – Breshad Perriman, WR, UCF
27. Dallas Cowboys – Byron Jones, CB, Connecticut
28. Detroit Lions (via Denver) – Laken Tomlinson, G, Duke
29. Indianapolis Colts – Phillip Dorsett, WR, Miami-FL
30. Green Bay Packers – Damarious Randall, S, Arizona State
31. New Orleans Saints – Stephone Anthony, LB, Clemson
32. New England Patriots – Malcom Brown, DT, Texas
All in all, it was a pretty typical offseason as far as upheaval in the NFL head coaching ranks goes. Since the dust finally seems settled (only Atlanta’s head coaching job remains open, and it’s all but given that Seahawks DC Dan Quinn will immediately take it following the Super Bowl), I thought I’d look at all the moves made (and the moves not made) and offer my thoughts.
New York Jets
Though I like Rex Ryan as a head coach in general, I felt it was time for New York to move on from him. After six years, and nearly every major offensive component turning over at least once while Ryan was head coach– GMs, offensive coordinators, starting quarterbacks– the ultimate responsibility for failing to field an offense that could allow the team to compete is on him. (Chase Stuart of Football Perspective has a much more detailed account of Ryan’s flaws and the circumstances that demanded his firing.)
Todd Bowles has been a rising star in the coaching ranks after two years of maintaining the high standard of performance as Arizona’s defensive coordinator that was established when Ray Horton had the job. I think it’s a solid hire; I certainly prefer hiring a rising assistant to a known mediocrity.
I’m really intrigued by his hire of Chan Gailey as OC. While Gailey at first glance might seem like another face in a sea of retread coaches, he’s one of the more innovative faces there, having a history of developing unconventional offenses to maximize his talent at hand (most notably with Kansas City in 2008, when, left with only Tyler Thigpen at QB, he resorted to a spread attack similar to the one Thigpen ran at Coastal Carolina). That track record intrigues me, because it makes me think Gailey will do whatever is necessary to maximize his offensive talent and performance at QB– whether that QB is Geno Smith or someone else.
Buffalo Bills
In one of the most unusual moves in head-coaching history, Doug Marrone opted out of his contract due to a clause, that as far as I know, has never been executed in NFL history: The “If the owner dies and the team is sold, I can opt out of my deal after two years” contract. Marrone opted out of his deal, and though he was rumored as a hot head-coaching candidate for the available jobs, particularly the Jets and Falcons, he ultimately took the job of offensive line coach and assistant head coach in Jacksonville, not exactly a lateral move.
Marrone’s failure to find another head-coaching job wasn’t a total surprise; rumbles from Buffalo were that he was significantly overrated and had little to do with the team’s success (he’s an offensive coach, which means he is responsible for the team’s stagnant offense the last two seasons, and the complete disaster of the E.J. Manuel selection and development). Rex Ryan seems like a solid hire, although his specialty– rushing the passer– is something the team already does well, and he won’t fix the offensive problems the team has had the last several years.
Atlanta Falcons
I’m not surprised by Mike Smith’s firing: despite opening his career with five straight playoff appearances, the team cratered in 2013 and 2014, and while injuries and a thin roster played a serious part, so did his absolute terror at fourth-down situations and his inexplicable time management. The Falcons became a bad team at about the same time Smith lost his aggression on fourth-down situations.
I don’t know much about Dan Quinn, but he’s the second defensive coordinator to be hired away from Seattle since 2013, and I think Gus Bradley is doing well despite a poor record for two seasons. Without more specific information on Quinn, I expect he’s a solid hire, especially for a team that already has the most important building blocks to an elite passing offense and needs help revitalizing the defense.
Denver Broncos
I have mixed opinions about John Fox, but ultimately I think John Elway made a gutsy move to fire him. While Fox has always brought a solid defense with him wherever he goes, he actually doesn’t have a particularly impressive track record– only three winning seasons in ten before Peyton Manning became his starting quarterback; he’s basically the non-scumbag Jeff Fisher– and his overly conservative approach to offense was holding the team back. We saw it two years ago in the playoffs, when Fox sat on the ball at the end of the first half and again at regulation, despite having timeouts and, you know, possibly the greatest quarterback of all time behind center. This year, Fox seemed to not prepare for the divisional playoff game at all: the offense was anemic and a defense that had finished fourth in the regular season was invisible. I’ve heard rumors that Fox is one of those guys that treats the playoffs as “just another game,” not introducing new wrinkles or opponent-specific concepts into his gameplans. I think any coach that does this is giving up significant win equity, and in that sense, I absolutely agree with Elway that Fox would keep the team from reaching the next level.
Unfortunately, Elway replaced Fox with Gary Kubiak, someone even more averse to scoring points and offensive aggression (even more bizarre since he’s an offensive coach), and someone whose offensive system of play-action rollouts and bootlegs isn’t well-suited to Manning. I am skeptical this will work, and it would be a real shame if Peyton Manning’s career ended with another playoff upset caused in part by a head coach holding him back.
Chicago Bears
I ranked Marc Trestman much higher in my coaching rankings last year for a few reasons: I believed he had a much better sense of creating a strong offense and playing to his team’s strengths (Lovie Smith and his offensive coordinators stubbornly clung to deep dropbacks with a poor offensive line, subpar receiving talent, and removing Matt Forte at the goal line), as well as a much better sense of in-game situational management.
Fast-forward a year and it seems he completely lost the locker room. Obviously a guy has to go when that happens; what I don’t understand is how that happened. Without a better idea of why, I can’t say what Trestman should have done differently or if he deserves another chance to be a head coach someday. He’s on to be the new offensive coordinator in Baltimore, replacing Gary Kubiak.
John Fox is the new man in Chicago. If he can fix the defense, he’s a good hire, but you just read my concerns about him, and it’s possible he makes the offense even worse and more inconsistent than it was in 2014.
Oakland Raiders
Since the team dismissed Dennis Allen midseason and installed Tony Sparano as interim coach, a full-time replacement has been long in the making. I’m not sure why the team was so gung-ho about Jack Del Rio (and even more baffled that the team’s only apparent serious head coaching candidates were Del Rio and Sparano). Jokes about potentially dropping an axe on Khalil Mack’s foot aside, Del Rio has a 68-71 record as a head coach, with only two playoff appearances in nine seasons. The team looked at two mediocre retreads; I simply don’t understand the aversion to bringing in new blood, someone whose track record may be shorter but at least isn’t mediocre.
Del Rio’s first hire was Bill Musgrave as offensive coordinator. Musgrave’s history of coordinating NFL offenses is, frankly, not good. However, he was Matt Ryan’s quarterback coach for his first three years in the league, and I suppose Del Rio has some hope he can develop Derek Carr in the same manner. Or maybe Del Rio is just hiring his old buddy from the 2003-04 Jaguars (team record: 14-18). Given that Del Rio’s head-coaching record screams “mediocre retread,” my first thought is that Musgrave falls into the same category.
(Yes, I used the phrase “mediocre retread” a lot. Get used to it. The NFL has Mediocre Retread Syndrome.)
San Francisco 49ers
Jim Tomsula may be an inspired head-coaching hire, but I strongly believe this was the culmination of a series of moves designed to compete long enough simply to secure a new stadium before returning to running the team on the cheap. Jed York should be embarrassed.
Other Situations
After the last few weeks, I can no longer pretend the New Orleans Saints’ fortunes this season are a result of bad luck, getting bad breaks at the end of close games. This may have been true early on, but it’s clear the team is overall performing significantly worse than expected this season, and, with the Carolina game as evidence, is capable of even lower lows than I’d previously thought possible. After playing arguably the worst game any team has played all season, a 41-10 home loss to a 3-8-1 team that was somehow not as close as that score suggests, New Orleans sits at 5-8, still with a chance to make the playoffs but with a team that is a total mess.
I’m going to try to take a look at what’s gone wrong this year, from specific problems to general trends. A game this week against a team that’s possibly more dysfunctional than the Saints might help, but they can’t count on that every week, so here’s what they need to honestly examine and start repairing.
Offense:
1. The receivers aren’t getting it done
Marques Colston has gone overnight from a receiver with excellent hands and body control to having one of the highest drop rates in the league. Jimmy Graham has disappeared from multiple games and seems increasingly averse to contact. Darren Sproles’ absence has really hurt the team’s ability to spread the field in the passing game. Brandin Cooks had been fine until he was placed on IR, but comparing the draft capital spent on him to the returns some of the other members of the 2014 receiver class have provided has to be a little disappointing.
Kenny Stills is the biggest bright spot, a steal of a fifth-round receiver who was used primarily as a deep threat his rookie year but has strong route-running and ball skills. Still, though, this receiving crew has turned thin overnight, and the team passed on a chance to add multiple parts in the draft this year (more on that later).
2. Brees has made some sloppy decisions
Drew Brees hasn’t declined as much as some observers want to claim, but at a time when the rest of the team seems to be slowly declining as well, any mistakes he makes are magnified. He’s made some baffling decisions that have cost games– think the late interception in Detroit. He’s thrown multiple pick-sixes again.
If the rumors they want to take a QB high in 2015 are true, it only disappoints me even more that they didn’t stand pat at No. 27 and take Teddy Bridgewater. (If there’s one team that should appreciate an accurate, decision-sharp, but physically underwhelming QB, it’s the New Orleans Saints.) Of course, Brees’ struggles are in part due to points 1 and 3…
3. The line is not living up to expectations
The team let Brian de la Puente, a Pro Bowl center and another one of their undrafted free agent finds, walk in the offseason. They’ve generally done well with their next-man-up philosophy to not overpay middling or slightly-above-average talent, but occasionally they miss and don’t have a backup plan. Tim Lelito, a fine run blocker, wasn’t ready to take over at center, so the team signed 35-year-old Jonathan Goodwin back away from San Francisco (after they’d poached the New Orleans free agent a few years back). He has been… adequate.
Jahri Evans and Ben Grubbs aren’t quite playing to their expected level anymore. The whole team is aging, and collectively, each player’s small decline is adding up to a serious decline overall.
4. The play-calling can get silly
Sometimes I think Sean Payton is a little too interested in coming up with clever or creative ways to get one yard. Other times I think he calls too many plays with limited options despite having a quarterback who’s among the best at surveying the field and making the best of multiple decisions. Other times, he leaves Jimmy Graham off the field in the situations he’s designed for.
Payton’s fourth-and-short play calling in the last two years has included a fullback dive, a designed pass to the fullback in the flat, a quarterback sneak by a guy who measures six-foot-even, quite a few tosses or slow-developing stretch runs to Mark Ingram, and, in the coup de grâce for opinions of Payton’s short-yardage play-calling, a third-string tight end getting a handoff on an end-around. Payton seems to love being either overly fancy or utterly predictable in these situations. The Saints are at their best when they do what they do best– namely, give Drew Brees options, and make sure one of those options is Jimmy Graham.
Defense:
1. An overall lack of talent
I’d like to take a minute to talk about how the current Saints roster has been a bit hamstrung by two things:
Since 1999, the Saints have traded up six times in or into the first round. (The 1999 trade was all Mike Ditka, but the next five were current GM Mickey Loomis’ decisions, so he bears serious responsibility for this approach to drafting.) Some cursory research suggests this is easily the highest number of any team in this time. What’s worse, they keep doing it even though the results don’t seem to really merit it:
I bring up all this in the section on defense because the team likes to make mention of how many undrafted free-agent rookies they find and are able to get contributions out of. Well, it’s time to face the flipside of that coin: They often do this because they have to, because their trading up spreads their draft capital too thin. And this year, those guys have not been getting it done. (To be fair, neither have most of the drafted guys.) When you trade up constantly, you lose the steady stream of day one and two picks that are supposed to be your starters, the core of your team. When you lose that stream, you have to start looking at lower picks, undrafted free agents, and cheap veteran free agents to fill those roles.
Sometimes you get a great contributor (Junior “SACKMAN” Galette has been one of the more valuable UDFAs in recent memory), but more often, you have guys who are simply overmatched. While the Saints have found some late-round and undrafted gems, this well simply doesn’t have a high enough success rate to be able to sustain building a team this way in lieu of day one and day two picks. As a result, the overall level of talent is just not there. There are Pro Bowl players on the defense, but no real star. And once you get beyond the five or so best players on the defense, the cracks show pretty quickly.
2. Jairus Byrd might be a colossal bust
The Byrd signing was a gamble, especially given his history of foot injuries, but if he was able to play at the expected level, he would have been a valuable addition to the Saints’ defense, a center fielder who range would allow the team to mix and match a variety of looks and coverages in front of him. That never materialized. I certainly don’t regret letting Malcolm Jenkins (another first-rounder who never lived up to expectations) walk, but without either one of them, the position is undeniably downgraded.
The real issue is if Byrd can’t rebound: The Saints’ gamble on offering him a major contract may quickly turn into an albatross. Rebuilding will be even harder with the guaranteed money facing Byrd tied to the cap for a player who can’t play.
3. Still can’t find a second cornerback
The team might want to start thinking about finding some new scouting for the secondary, because this isn’t about a lack of capital. The team nailed the Jabari Greer and Keenan Lewis signings, correctly identifying underrated corners who were strong in coverage, but virtually every other move at the cornerback position has failed: from signing Jason David to drafting Patrick Robinson in the first round to drafting Johnny Patrick in the third round to signing Champ Bailey this year (a signing that cost them $500,000 guaranteed for a player who never played a snap) to drafting Stanley Jean-Baptiste this year, none of their significant moves have worked out. The team is getting significant minutes from Corey White (2012 fifth-rounder) and Brian Dixon (undrafted rookie) out of sheer necessity, because so many of their other attempts to find cornerbacks haven’t worked. And, unsurprisingly, they’ve been overmatched. (Greer’s ACL tear, which effectively ended his career, is the hidden explanation for the Saints’ struggles– the team simply no longer has a second capable cover corner.)
The Jean-Baptiste one is the most baffling. As someone who had Phillip Gaines rated as a first-rounder, it’s been a little frustrating seeing him move into Kansas City’s starting lineup while the Saints struggle at the position, but even so, I thought Jean-Baptiste was someone who had enough natural talent to get on the field right away. Instead, he’s played eight total snaps on defense this year. That’s less than one snap a game. I don’t know why SJB can’t get more playing time, unless he’s completely unable to pick up the defense. If that’s the case, it’s unacceptable to use a high pick on someone without verifying that sort of thing. (I admit, in my own ranking of Jean-Baptiste, I failed to account sufficiently for his combination of rawness and age– I can live with a 21-year-old who needs some time to get up to speed, but a 24-year-old needs to be able to contribute almost immediately.)
The only team that’s gotten less contribution out of a corner taken in the first three rounds is the Jets, who drafted Dexter McDougle early in the third round despite the fact that he missed most of his final season at Maryland with an injury, only to see him succumb to another season-ending injury before the year even started.
The Saints simply have to do better at identifying and developing starting-caliber cornerback talent.
4. Nobody can tackle
I don’t know how you teach a team to tackle. I also don’t know how you teach a team to take proper angles of pursuit. These are pretty basic fundamentals; NFL players should know them by the time they get to the Show.
The Saints have a lot of rebuilding to do. It’s possible the Drew Brees era is functionally over, due to the decline of the talent around him. By the time the cap room is cleared and the roster is re-stocked, he may be too old to benefit. For the most part, the Mickey Loomis – Sean Payton team has been able to build a contending roster around Brees that maximizes his skills. As he ages and the talent around him declines, though, it’s time they looked honestly at what they’re doing wrong in roster building and start making the changes that will allow them to return to perennial contention.
This story has been updated to reflect the Saints’ 2005 first-round trade. GM Mickey Loomis has traded up in the first round five times in twelve seasons.
I’ll try to get a series of midseason reviews about various divisions done this week. I may not get to all of them, so I’ll try to start with the ones that interest me the most.
NFC SOUTH
New Orleans Saints
Current record: 4-4
The Saints lead the division, although they’d surely like to have a better record at this point. Losing three close games on the road in rough fashion has held them back early on. That said, they did look shakier in the early season than they have since the bye, barely beating Tampa Bay and struggling to put away Minnesota.
Two solid wins against Green Bay and at Carolina indicate that the team is a lot better than the one that struggled for six weeks. The question is: Were the better performances the result of favorable matchups, or of sustainable improvements on both sides of the ball? It’s a question with evidence to support each argument: Green Bay only stopped scoring when Aaron Rodgers was hurt, and the Saints match up particularly well with a Carolina team with one serious receiving option and a porous offensive line. On the other hand, getting Mark Ingram and Kenny Stills back to full health opened up the offense, and Rob Ryan may have used the bye week to re-engineer a defense that was conceived around the free-range ability of Jairus Byrd. For those reasons, the Saints may be the most intriguing story of the second half of the season, as they try to prove they are a real Super Bowl contender.
Carolina Panthers
Current record: 3-5-1
Losing Greg Hardy has been more difficult on the defense than I think anyone anticipated. Kelvin Benjamin has played incredibly well, all things considered, but the same problems that were perceived in this team before the season continue to surface: An undermanned offensive line and receiver crew, running backs who can’t stay healthy, and a lack of talent in the back four on defense. This roster needs to be rebuilt, and it needs to be done before Cam Newton develops too many bad habits from working with subpar talent.
Atlanta Falcons
Current record: 2-6
All that draft-day trading up and top-heavy team-building has come to roost the last two seasons for the Falcons, as injuries and lack of cap room have left them with multiple subpar units. After 2012, it would have been crazy to suggest anyone in the Falcons’ braintrust might be in jeopardy, yet less than two years later, here we are.
The team needs to build a healthy offensive line and a pass rush before it can consider itself a playoff contender again. I know this is an unreasonably short writeup, but there’s not much to say: The good (Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Desmond Trufant, eventually Jake Matthews) and bad (just about everything else) with this team are pretty obvious.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Current record: 1-7
I feel like “solid” and “high floor”, when used to describe draft prospects, often means “low ceiling.” I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve heard described that way have just been complete busts (Aaron Curry and Jason Smith are two of the more recent ones; Luke Joeckel is heading there). All this is a metaphor for Lovie Smith’s “veteran coaching presence.” His supposed “high floor” isn’t manifesting itself; the roster has a decided lack of talent and he’s doing nothing to get any kind of special performance out of it. Lovie Smith was supposed to be a throwback to the Dungy era, but right now, it’s looking more like the Hugh Culverhouse years.
Mike Glennon is probably not the answer, but he hasn’t been outright terrible, either. That said, no matter how the team goes about it, they need a real passing game to compete in the modern NFL. Smith doesn’t have much of a track record of delivering those.
Post-script: After I initially wrote this, Smith announced Josh McCown would return to being the starter. He also said Mike Glennon was still “the future of this team.” Those things appear to me to be mutually exclusive, but what do I know, I’m not an NFL head coach (of a 1-7 team).
With the final edition of this series, we have one of the most exciting divisions in the league; the NFC North. These teams carry some of the most storied rivalries in NFL history, boasting as much glory and heartbreak as any other division in the league. Led by three very good quarterbacks and the best running back in football, these teams are primed for yet another season of mutual disdain.
Year in year out the AFC North boasts some of the stronger teams in the AFC. This is generally due to great management. Ravens Ozzie Newsome has been the NFL’s best GM of the last decade, and the Steelers have been well run under the Rooney’s for quite some time. The Bengals might be the thriftiest team in the league, never spending much money, but always scooping great value in the draft on players with “character concerns.” I use quotes because somehow these players seem to do just fine under Marvin Lewis, one of the best examples being LB Vontaze Burfict. Initially viewed as a high pick, Burfict went undrafted last year because teams were worried about his “character.” The Bengals scooped him up, and he immediately rewarded them with over 1100 high quality snaps against both the run and pass. The Browns have been the bottom feeder of this division for awhile, but their talented roster could change that in a hurry.
I believe the Vikings did the best job in the draft of stockpiling very talented players. Just two seasons ago, the Vikings made the playoffs on the back of Adrian Peterson’s MVP / “nine yards short of the all-time single season rushing record” campaign. All of this happened with a then-sophomore year Christian Ponder at quarterback. The selection of Louisville signal-caller Teddy Bridgewater marks the end of the Ponder era and should usher in a new era of quality quarterback play, one that will give Adrian Peterson some badly-needed help with carrying the offense. I’ll return to the Bridgewater pick and the rest of the Vikings draft in the closing paragraphs; what I want to do now is shed a light on a couple of middle- to late-round picks who didn’t receive much attention in the mainstream draft coverage. The two players I’ve selected for the Vikings are both early entries (juniors): defensive end Scott Crichton and offensive guard David Yankey.
ROUND 3, PICK 72
Scott Crichton, DE, Oregon State
In the weeks before the draft I pegged the big Oregon State defensive end as a surefire late first-round pick. The draft class didn’t have much size at defensive end– at least, not that came with the kind of get-off and strength needed to rush the passer, which I believe Crichton has. In terms of measurables, Crichton stands 6’3″, weighs 273 lbs, with 32 3/4″ arms, ran a 4.84 40, hit 24 reps on the bench, and ran among the fastest shuttles at the combine. In this post we’re going to take a look at the bowl game against Boise State and two conference powerhouse opponents in Stanford and Oregon.
The Boise State game is nothing short of an extended highlight reel for Crichton. He doesn’t just play well; he takes over the game. We’re going to start with three consecutive plays on the tape. First, this play: the tight end tries to wash him out of the play, and Crichton shows his closing speed, going around the block to make the tackle for a large loss. On the very next play, he explodes off the line from a wide-9 position and uses an arm-over move on the hapless right tackle to force a fumble for a touchdown. Boise State hasn’t yet learned not to block him with a tight end, so on the third play Crichton sheds the blocker immediately and bursts upfield to meet the runner for another tackle behind the line of scrimmage.
Skipping ahead over several other quality plays (only for brevity’s sake; there’s plenty of good material there), let’s take a look at this play, where he’s matched mano y mano with Bears 7th-round pick Charles Leno, Jr. (no slouch himself). We see an extraordinary speed rush where Leno has no play but to grab and hold Crichton to keep him from slamming the quarterback onto the turf. The referees, in a game Oregon State has a 31-0 lead, do not call holding as an act of mercy. And in this one last play from the Hawai’i bowl, you can see Crichton bull-rush the guard, forcing the quarterback to scramble for not much on a long third down, effectively ending the game.
I’ve selected the Stanford game next because this is arguably the worst tape of Crichton’s I watched at Draft Breakdown. The biggest problem with Crichton is consistency during games. He can go series after series getting stalemated, or worse, at the line before he flashes very high-level play. The reason I really like him as a prospect is that he flashes a few times in every game. On this play, Crichton is facing Patriots 4th-round pick Cameron Fleming, and Fleming is able to nearly get Crichton off balance, using his left arm to push him away. The good news is that Crichton didn’t fall down and wasn’t taken out of the play completely, but this is one of those issues I mentioned that pop up for Crichton from time to time. Much later in the same game, Crichton briefly gets double teamed off the snap on this play, which leads to Fleming taking Crichton for a ride down the field and away from the ball carrier. And for good measure, this time on a pass play Crichton is double-teamed by the left tackle and by his new teammate, guard David Yankey (#54). The result is our man Crichton taking some time to enjoy the view from the ground.
As I said earlier, not a game goes by where Crichton doesn’t flash some high-level ability, and the Stanford game is no different. While I will concede the game is an overall negative for him, I want to showcase several plays which will get any Vikings fan excited and will have Lions fans such as myself hoping he never realizes his full potential. Here’s an incredible play where Crichton is lined up inside at defensive tackle and simply rag-dolls the right guard to the ground, which, if not for the awareness of the running back to briefly shield Crichton, would have resulted in a sack. Alas, this is not the first time in the game where Stanford’s right guard wound up on the ground. It happens earlier in the game on this play, where Crichton crashes inside, puts the guard on his back, and this time does get the sack. If you watch the entire Stanford game you’ll notice Crichton struggles to do much against the left tackle; here is one play where he does get in a strong bull rush.
I want you to see one more game, this time against Oregon. We’ve seen one play earlier where Crichton played inside. Now, in this Oregon game, we’ll see his versatility, as Crichton lines up everywhere along the defensive line. For example, on this play Crichton is aligned at nose tackle, and Oregon utilizes three blockers to hold him off. On another play, again at nose tackle, Crichton is not able to shed the left guard’s block, which opens a lane for the runner to gain big yards in the red zone. The tale of the first half is that Crichton isn’t able to get much going, either because he isn’t shedding the block or he’s getting double-teamed at the point of attack.
If you watched the first half of the Oregon tape and turned it off because Scott Crichton was not doing much, then you’d have made a grave mistake, my friends. It begins right before the second half, on this play: Crichton attacks the right shoulder of the center off the snap and brings down the runner for a staggering 10-yard loss. What is “it” in the last sentence? Simply put, Scott Crichton transforming into The Incredible Hulk. Early in the third quarter, Oregon decides to go for it on a 4th-and-1 at midfield by running the ball directly at Scott Crichton. The result is the same as the last play I showed you.
The Hulk, you say? Crichton toss right tackle aside. Crichton see runner, Crichton kill runner. You get the idea. Luckily for the Ducks, quarterback Marcus Mariota can elude a pass rush because Crichton also gets to him several times in the second half. Right here, Crichton once again displays his strength on a bull rush against a guard, and eventually the play ends with Mariota running out of bounds. Towards the end of a tight game, Crichton explodes around the left tackle and hurries Mariota into an incomplete pass.
As you may have guessed by now, I was an enormous fan of Scott Crichton’s game. When the Vikings selected him a mere four spots before the Lions could, I died a little bit on the inside. By no means do I anticipate that he will come right in and make the Pro Bowl, but I do believe he has the talent to start immediately and contribute in a positive way as a rookie. If you watch all three of these tapes, you’ll see more of what I showed you here: A player– at least in the Stanford and Oregon games– who disappears over stretches and turns his back to the play on a few too many spin moves. There’s no glaring hole in his game which pops out to me; all of his issues seem very much fixable.
ROUND 5, PICK 145
David Yankey, OG, Stanford
David Yankey has been a key player in Stanford’s run-heavy offense these past three seasons, playing both left guard and left tackle. His 40 time is… well, let’s agree to say it’s not important. What does jump out from his combine measurements are his 34″ arms. For some perspective, those arms are longer than these three first-rounder linemen; Jake Matthews, Taylor Lewan, and Zack Martin. Yankey also stands 6’6″ and possesses a large frame that can easily carry his 315 pounds. I hadn’t seen any of his 2012 tapes at tackle until I started doing the research for this column.
Briefly, these are my findings from two 2012 games at left tackle:
I feel comfortable ruling David Yankey out as a tackle. It’s not only these five plays above; Yankey simply doesn’t grasp how to play the position, and it shows repeatedly during the 2012 USC game. Sure, experience will help with that, and perhaps he can work on his technique enough as a pro to move to tackle years down the road. In any case, he’s not playing there any time soon, and the Vikings selected him to play guard, so that’s what we’ll focus on. Let’s take a look at several of his plays in 2013 against Notre Dame, Arizona State, and Michigan State.
His play at left guard is significantly better from his play at tackle. Yankey is a terrific athlete for a player of his size, as he demonstrates on this play. Notre Dame brings a linebacker to the outside of the defensive end; Yankey quickly sprints out to meet him, which allows for the passer to complete a 20-yard dart. Steelers second-round pick Stephon Tuitt gets bullied around a little bit by David Yankey on a few plays: On this play, Yankey rides Tuitt out towards the sideline, making room for the runner to eventually find a nice running lane on the outside. The next play requires little explanation, as Yankey simply uses Tuitt’s momentum to toss him right to the ground. The perfect play call helped in the last instance, but it’s still nice to see a good pancake.
Yankey has a few lapses in pass protection in the three games I reviewed, both to his inside and to his outside shoulder. These only happen occasionally, but it’s worth noting that his pass protection is not always clean, and even if this “only” happens twice each game, that is twice too many. Another area he really needs to work on is his coordination at the second level. When he squares up on a defender while pulling around the block, it can be a thing of beauty, and he can do it both on passing and on running plays. But it isn’t always a thing of beauty: all too often he gets lost at the second level and finds himself laying on the ground having failed to block anyone. In this case, the linebacker throws him to the floor.
I haven’t yet shown any plays from the game against Arizona State because I’m leaving the best for last. I guarantee you Will Sutton, who was selected in the third round by the Chicago Bears, does not want to get wham-blocked by David Yankey ever again. In fact, perhaps Will Sutton would prefer never to see him again period: In this play Yankey simply pummels Sutton to the field. On this play, you can hear the POP of the collision if you turn the volume on YouTube up a bit. Last but not least, I’ll leave on a second-level block where his lunge actually helps neutralize the safety and leads to a touchdown.
MORE ON THE VIKINGS DRAFT
If you want to see a high quality breakdown on Anthony Barr I strongly recommend checking out Channel Needle. I personally wouldn’t have taken him #9, but I understand the pick and I didn’t think it was a complete blunder. Mike Zimmer has an excellent track record with coaching up defensive players from his Cincinnati days; no reason that record won’t continue as a head coach.
Teddy Bridgewater was the #1 quarterback among every single one of us at Zone Reads. The Vikings are the perfect team to break in a rookie signal caller, with a top-notch offensive line, weapons outside in Greg Jennings and Cordarrelle Patterson, and the best running back in Adrian Peterson. Bridgewater does not need to play like Joe Montana reincarnated (well, he’s still alive, but you know) in order for the Vikings to return to the playoffs. He simply needs to hand the ball to Peterson and hit receivers when a pass is called, something the trio of Viking quarterbacks in 2013 could not do on a reliable basis. Adrian Peterson should have enough in the tank to make for a smooth transition for Bridgewater to be given more and more responsibility the same way Matt Ryan in Atlanta and Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh were. Hey, that second-year gunslinger Russell Wilson leaned on a veteran running back and just won a Super Bowl.
Among the remainder of the Vikings draft, the only player’s game I can recall off the top of my head is Georgia Southern’s do-it-all Swiss army knife athlete and Combine wonder Jerick McKinnon. “He was just, from an athletic standpoint, too good of an athlete to pass up,” said General Manager Rick Spielman of McKinnon in the Minnesota Star-Tribune. It’s hard to disagree. McKinnon played all over the place in Georgia Southern’s option attack and played a large role in their upset of Florida.
The Vikings smashed the value button repeatedly with those first five selections. Not only did they get good value, but they also addressed pressing needs, and have set themselves up more than any other team in the draft for a bright long-term future. As a Lions fan, it breaks my heart. As a football fan, I can’t wait to see these players hit the field together for the first time.
Finishing up the NFC West grades, I’ll address the offseason performance of the top teams in the NFL’s most competitive division. Before I start, I’ll take a minute to comment on the year-long suspension of Cardinals ILB Daryl Washington. When on the field, he is one of the best players in the league at his position, so it goes without saying that this is a massive loss for the Cardinals. It irks me quite a bit that this suspension is due to multiple failed drug tests for marijuana, while other players face no suspensions for behaviors such as assault and street racing. However, the NFLPA negotiated the terms of the current CBA, so they really have no one to blame for this but themselves. This is not the fault of the Cardinals, so it will not factor into their grade.
Zone Reads 