3 round mock draft

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big deli Vike
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Re: 3 round mock draft

Post by big deli Vike »

VikingLord wrote:
Yeah, drafting Randy Moss was just about the stupidest draft pick in the history of the franchise, riiiight? :roll:

Evaluating personality in a player is hard, and a huge amount of the hype around that stuff is spin by NFL insiders that want players to rise or fall. If you dig deep enough into most of the guys in the draft, you'll find problems of some sort. They're still basically kids. Stuff that most of us did as minors is stricken from the record. Stuff that a lot of kids did when they were 19 or 20 are long forgotten by the time they're 30. However, in pro sports, if you did something bad at 19, apparently you cannot tackle people + you are guaranteed to be a drunk.
no Onterrio Smith was, and Percy, unfortunately, was a pain.
Look at guys like stallworth and worse. Trouble
plus randy MOss never drove drunk or arrested for theft. The point is when there are as good or possibly better players that have character, so why bother
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Mothman
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Re: 3 round mock draft

Post by Mothman »

Rus wrote:Yeah, drafting Randy Moss was just about the stupidest draft pick in the history of the franchise, riiiight? :roll:

Evaluating personality in a player is hard, and a huge amount of the hype around that stuff is spin by NFL insiders that want players to rise or fall. If you dig deep enough into most of the guys in the draft, you'll find problems of some sort. They're still basically kids. Stuff that most of us did as minors is stricken from the record. Stuff that a lot of kids did when they were 19 or 20 are long forgotten by the time they're 30. However, in pro sports, if you did something bad at 19, apparently you cannot tackle people + you are guaranteed to be a drunk.
While it's true that sometimes taking a risk on a player with off-the-field issues can pay off, let's not just dismiss the flip side, which is that sometimes those issues become bigger problems and a risky pick doesn't work out. Sometimes players who show poor judgment at 19 or 21 continue showing it in the pros or their poor behavior escalates once they get the windfall of a huge signing bonus.

In the end, unless a player is a truly exceptional talent, the risk usually isn't worth it. Better to take a comparably talented player without character issues...
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Re: 3 round mock draft

Post by Eli »

Mothman wrote:In the end, unless a player is a truly exceptional talent, the risk usually isn't worth it. Better to take a comparably talented player without character issues...
I think that's overly simplistic. And, basically backward. More important to evaluate the level of risk than it is to just say a generic "risk" is worth it if the player is talented. I'm sure a lot of personnel guys spend a great deal of time asking each other and the coaching staff if they think they can handle a particular player's problems, which vary considerably.
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Re: 3 round mock draft

Post by Mothman »

Eli wrote: I think that's overly simplistic. And, basically backward. More important to evaluate the level of risk than it is to just say a generic "risk" is worth it if the player is talented. I'm sure a lot of personnel guys spend a great deal of time asking each other and the coaching staff if they think they can handle a particular player's problems, which vary considerably.
It is simplistic but for once, I decided to be brief and not qualify my comments with further explanation. ;)

Of course each case is unique and should be evaluated on it's own merits, risks and potential rewards. All I was getting at was that if a team is looking at two players with comparable ability/potential and one presents much more risk but not significantly more reward, it probably makes sense to select the less risky option.
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Re: 3 round mock draft

Post by Rus »

You really can't know how these guys will end up. I'd rather them flame out with a guy that had a lot of talent than draft a nice guy who couldn't make it in the pros, though. At least with the talented guy, you might possibly get something out of the guy before he gets in trouble. And if the guy realizes that he's got to keep things in order off the field, and he's a model citizen, you've got a great player.

You get a nice guy that you reach for, well, maybe you could have just drafted that guy later. Or a reasonable facsimile. There's plenty of guys in every draft that know they can't match up based on their talent, so they do everything they can just to get themselves in the league.

The smart talent evaluators look a whole lot closer at the issues in a player's past, and usually go so far as to interview the parties involved to get the whole story. What you read in the media is often distorted, and two different people may take away two different things from each story. What most of us have read was what was in the media. In Ogletree's case, the media makes it sound like he's a "repeat offender" that "keeps doing the same stuff each year". If you read into it a little, you realize that it's not really the same stuff, it's different things and some of them are far worse than others. The big problem is the DUI, but even those things can be fixed by being in the right situation. Jared Allen had problems like that, too.

Even bonehead Onterrio Smith, whom the Vikings only wasted a fourth rounder on, produced far more numbers than nice guy Ciatrick Fason. If Smith hadn't pulled the Whizzinator at the airport bit, and Tice were a little more logical at the time, they might have even been able to deal Smith for a second or third round pick if they had pulled the trigger at the right time.

Most teams passed on Percy Harvin as well because his failed drug test made the rumor mill prior to the 2009 draft. It was completely true, but his real problems had nothing to do with his failed drug test (nor were Randy Moss's real problems, for that matter). You couldn't tell me that you could prove without a doubt that the problems that Randy Moss and Percy Harvin got into when they were in school were exactly what led them to arguing with their coaches later on. The root of their problem to the franchise was really because they were both among the, if not the, most talented players on their respective teams and they knew it. Their problems were egos. However, that's not a bad problem to have because it generally ends up with the Vikings trading that talent away for more picks than they originally drafted those problem children with. And while they played, both of them put up some really nice numbers and made the team competitive. On the contrary, the Vikings have drafted a fair number of really nice guys, or guys with injury histories, that ended up netting the Vikings absolutely nothing in the long run (and maybe only marginally produced while they were playing).

So basically, if I were to draft Ogletree, and he started off his career putting up beastly numbers of tackles and a fair helping of sacks and interceptions...then went on to argue constantly with Alan Williams and the Vikings were forced to deal him, chances are they might be able to get themselves a fair trade. However, if I drafted Kevin Minter, and after about 3 starts it became painfully obvious that he wasn't quick enough to play middle linebacker in the NFL, almost no team will even care. The only way you can screw up a "dangerous" pick is if the guy has serious substance abuse problems and it's a known problem. (For the record, I don't think Minter will fail. I think he's a very good pick and wouldn't be displeased if he were taken in the first.)

However, I'll one up all of that. I don't think Ogletree is maybe the best fit for the Vikings defense. Most folks think he's really a 3-4 backer, which is what he was in college. He's maybe not an ideal NFL-caliber inside linebacker. There are different attributes you look for between an ideal inside linebacker and an outside linebacker, even in Williams's Tampa-2. Te'o might be a better fit, even with his weird off-field issues (which are actually a lot less alarming than Ogletree's...repeat offenses are a little disturbing, but the guy might realize that his fun times ended up costing him millions on draft night). Arthur Brown might end up being the pick there, oddly enough. He's a little undersized, but he does the things that Alan Williams seems to want out of his linebackers and he's got the instincts that Brinkley didn't seem to have. Ogletree is unmistakably a gifted player, but maybe he's not the right player for the Vikings...and not because of his off-the-field issues. His reported weaknesses are ones that I wouldn't want to see out of a middle linebacker in a 4-3. He's all athlete, and sometimes doesn't break through blocks very well. His tackling form is kind of crummy too. Leading up to the Combine, I had seen Ogletree play and was impressed, but after his Combine numbers (which were very good, but didn't blow me away), I started having my doubts about the guy. I had a harder and harder time imagining him playing the middle in a 4-3...he very well may do so and do very well, but I have some doubts. You want a guy who is a sure tackler, with good instincts, that doesn't overpursue and can deal with offensive linemen that try and open gaps.
-Rus
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