That's what you got out of what I wrote...LOL. The overall point of my post was that the whole "who's to say [insert late round player here] doesn't turn out better than [insert top rated player here]" argument is weak? Of course, that can always happen but the percentages are against it.
Rather than responding on the main point of the post, you are focusing on a peripheral comment. Everyone's reading comprehension is different. If you want to discuss that comment only let's have at it. My comment speaks to Lyerla's physical talent and measurables which are comparable to only one other TE in the draft Ebron, who went in the top 10. Lyerla will probably never live up to that talent because he's a fucking head case but physical talent alone, he is better than Amaro. If you disagree with that, then not sure what else to tell you.
Yeah, what I meant by "last minute" was letting it come down to Tampa. There was no need to try and cut it that close. He should have gotten it done with Seattle @ pick #32. I mean, if there's any team he should be able to close a deal with, it's Seattle, with his relationships and history there. Look at what they took from the Vikings. Or what the Redskins took from Dallas. We could have topped those offers easily without sacrificing the rest of our draft. It's better to be "too early" than "too late."
Seattle was just one of several logical trade partners. The Redskins surrendered pick #34 for Dallas' 2nd and 3rd rounders. Our picks in each of those rounds were only 2 spots off from Dallas'. We could easily have tossed in an additional pick to get it done. (You think the 'Skins would rather deal with their arch rivals in their own division or us?) Houston let everybody know Thursday night that they were open for business at pick #33. Philly moved up 12 spots in round 2, from #54 to #42, and it only cost them a 4th. Other teams were able to move up, but we were not. If you claim "but...the chart, the chart!" well why is it an excuse for Idzik but not for other GMs who had less "ammo" than we did and yet were still able to get things done? Idzik waited too late, played hardball when he finally got a team on the phone, and got burned. For our sakes, I hope Amaro is better than what he shows on his college game tape. It may work out for the best, who knows. We won't have the final verdict for years on whether this non-trade up was good or not. But we should at least have some indication in training camp and when the season starts as to whether Amaro, Lee, etc. can play at the next level.
I basically agree, but there's slow and there's SLOW. I just hope that Idzik isn't the latter and doesn't miss out on opportunities because he's too methodical, too slow, too cautious, too cheap, but yes it is most refreshing after that idiot Tanny.
Those who question Lee's production last year forget that not only was he dealing with inconsistent (inferior) QB play, he also played through a knee injury. It's not as if he sat out, got fully healed, returned, and then sucked. The guy wanted to be there on the field for his teammates. He's not worried about how diminished production might affect his draft stock or public perception, etc. That's the kind of guy I think you'd want. You saw what he did when healthy at the end of the year in the Las Vegas bowl. I'm not predicting he's gonna be a great pro. All I'm saying is in my view, it was worth the risk to move up and grab him, especially after we opted for Calvin Pryor in round 1. Had we taken Cooks in round 1, I could see there being less urgency to trade up in round 2. If you think that's unreasonable, ok. I actually would have preferred Seferian-Jenkins, given the choice. But I like either of those guys before Amaro.
Really bad post. I won't even give your "run 3 times" garbage the time of day, because it's not worth it. On to Amaro... so we are delusional if we think a guy that lined up in the slot in college will be able to line up in the slot for us? Solid logic. We've added Amaro as a receiving threat, Decker as a receiving threat, will hopefully have a healthy Kerley, added Johnson as a pass-catcher out of the backfield (he's still a threat in open space) and we have wildcards in Shaq, Saunders and Enunwa. Basically, it's a little shortsighted to pretend to know what our offense is going to be. When projecting what our offense COULD be taking into consideration all the pieces involved, logic dictates we will not be one-dimensional. Not even close. But then again, if you think Amaro isn't going to be able to line up at WR as a 6'5" pass-catcher with solid straight line speed...
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/05/13/andre-johnson-wonders-aloud-about-texans-future/ Just a thought. He's on the downside of his career but could make a great mentor for the young receivers. Shouldn't cost too much in picks and his contract could probably be renegotiated.
As I said in my original post, the team ideally needs a dominant #1 (X) long term. But the thing is by adding Decker it doesn't necessarily preclude the team from benefitting in the short term without having that dominant speedy X because Decker has consistently proven the ability to perform that function. One of the toughest things about Denver's passing attack under Peyton and the talented receiving core was the ability to switch around X Y and Z responsibilities from play to play. Decker would default as Z with Thomas defaulting as X but they would switch that up consistently enough to make it a nightmare to scheme against from play to play especially because Decker wouldn't make it easy on corners at all when they got to press him. That's actually a big factor in why Decker is a far above average #2 in today's passing attack because he has aspects of a #1 to create dynamic flexibility to both scheme around and cause difficulties scheming against. So in the absence of a true dominant X who Decker would just be switching back and forth with anyway in a perfect world, you could still add plenty of value to the passing attack by infusing a less speedy or dominant X or a more natural Z. As long as the other guy is effective at what he does best you can create a lesser equilibrium by likely using Decker more frequently at X but still making it hard on defenses by switching up on enough plays to create remnants of the same difficulties he forced on defenses while in Denver. So I disagree with the entire premise that you can't add significant value with one of those guys because they're not a truly dominant X (which is hard to come by) so you might as well settle for whoever emerges from the shit heap competition to fill the other starting WR role. It just makes no sense at all. Your entire concept of trade value in this draft is also far off base. The third of those WRs selected was Robinson with the 61st pick. The Jaguars traded up the 70th and 150th picks to the 49ers for that selection which is a 7% discount for the trade up partner relative to the trade value chart that you base your whole argument off of, a significant discount. That example just highlights the overall discount trend and it wasn't the cheapest trade up in the draft. Philadelphia stole Jordan Matthews with Tennessee's 42nd pick for their 54th and 122nd pick, another second round trade up representing an obscene 15% discount on your trade value chart. Meanwhile, the 49ers moved up one spot after Lattimer was drafted to get the 57th pick from Miami for their 63rd and 171st which represented a 9% discount. Miami then used that pick to select Landry. Assessing the actual discount Denver received to trade up for Lattimer in that multi-team deal is more unclear because that aspect involved a later pick reciprocation and more importantly a 2015 selection but suffice it to say the discount probably falls somewhere in that 7-15% range. Despite the fact that nobody even pays the going rate on that outdated trade value chart outside of a few unique situations usually involving divisional rivals you go beyond that to say that a premium would have likely been required to acquire Adams representing all of the Jets remaining non-conditional picks to get a deal done. That viewpoint has no basis in reality if you actually look at what's going on. Notwithstanding a very unlikely major contribution as starting WR from one of the 3 later draft selections, based on what actually happened in the 2nd round there will be a very large onus on the production of a largely unproven McDougle to justify standing pat as a number of viable receivers passed by discounted striking range.
You're right. There are 23 modern era WRs in the HOF, and 7 of them were selected in the 4th round or later. That's 30.4%.
Just going to point out (again) that having the 71 to offer in a trade for the 61 is a completely different proposition than having the 80 to offer. Asking a team to trade down 10 slots is not the same thing as asking them to trade down 19. There's no reason at all to expect that the 49ers would have accepted the difference and still given a real discount on the transaction. People keep comparing what teams that were half the distance to the acquired pick did vs what the Jets could have done at twice the distance. It's just not the same thing. It's not even close.
You love 5th, 6th and 7th round picks. Can't live without them. It looks more and more like Idzik holds a similar view. The new CBA adds a premium to the value of lower round picks, all you have to do is compare dozens of recent draft trades to the trade value chart to see that's true. So how can you hold all of that so near and dear and then in the next breath say how worthless an extra mid/low round pick or two would be from a trade incentivization perspective? If your mantra holds any water other GMs should view an offer of similar overall value comprised of more cheap pieces as valuable if not more so than one with fewer valuable pieces. In fact, they should be discounting their higher pick even further for such a deal for all of the positive benefits you ascribe to acquiring and holding extra late round picks. Are you and Idzik the only two people in the world that properly value the difference between the 70th and 80th picks relative to extra late round picks to move up to the low 60's, or is that you just don't want to admit to yourself or anyone else that all signs point to such a move having been entirely feasible and quite possibly preferable to the action that was actually taken? Last year you wouldn't even admit that it would've been preferable to trade up for Warford even after he was proving himself to be an all pro guard because how could the team live without the worst starting guard in the NFL in Winters and two other guys that weren't quite good enough to win the competition to vie for that distinction themselves. That's with the benefit of hindsight seeing how pitiful our guard play was vs Warford's. I have a feeling that one of these 4 WRs could turn into the second best receiver in the league behind Calvin Johnson and you'd be sitting here a couple years from now telling me how important the depth and special teams contributions provided by those picks that could've been used to trade up for him were just too valuable to give up. Not that it's going to happen, but if it did it kind of makes you wonder if Idzik would keep looking at it similarly to you or not if it came to pass.
You've just watched all the perils and pitfalls of trading up play out in front of you over the last few years. How can you advocate for doing that again? Because these guys just happened to be better than all the other guys we traded up for? How do you know that? And I strongly disagree that a team views dropping 19 picks in the draft the same way they view dropping 8 or 10 or even 12 picks. When the Seahawks traded down from 32 to 40 they likely had a group of receivers they were looking at and pretty sure they could get the guy they wanted at 40. Then by 40 only 1 additional receiver had been taken, that being Lee on the 39. They went ahead and traded down 5 more picks and got a WR at 45. At no point during that process were they likely comfortable with trading down as low as the 49. Even if they had traded with the Jets that just means the Jets wind up with a WR and no TE out of the draft because the top TE's all played out well before 80. It just doesn't make sense to look at trades that occurred 17 to 20 slots in front of the Jets, returning picks 10 slots in front of the Jets and make the correlation that the Jets were ever likely to be seriously in the running for those picks. As you point out people don't really value late 5th, 6th and 7th round picks. They'll take them to balance out a deal but they're mostly looking for 4th rounders and earlier in trades up. To trade up the Jets would have had to suck the life out of their draft to take shots. It would have taken the 80 to move the 49 up, and it's not clear anybody was interested in that type of deal. Pointing at the Washington - Dallas deal doesn't really work because Washington moved back 13 slots, not 17 (as the Seahawks would have done from the 32), and the value in the deal is not discounted at all. In fact Dallas paid a premium to move up according to the chart, giving up 630 points with the 47 and 78 in exchange for 560 points at 34.
We can only go by their college career and measurables. Lee could be a complete bust but his resume says otherwise. And he certainly outperformed Saunders who cannot take an NFL starters beating at his size week in and week out. Not to mention Lee was a 3 year starter in the exact offense that we run. Had Lee come out in 2013 (after catching 118 balls against top comp) he would have been a first rounder without question. That's the kind of guy you make a move for in round 2 even if it means giving up a '15 3rd rounder. You are maximizing value.
The Jets had two real shots at Marqise Lee. They could have just taken him on the 18 which would have been suboptimal use of the pick or they could have traded down the 18 somehow and gotten him with one of the picks they acquired that way, any pick before the 39 would have done. After the Jets took Pryor, who was a great pick at 18, they really didn't have a shot at Lee and that's ok. You can't get everybody you want out of the draft. You have to pick and choose and make best use of your picks. It really is a Chinese menu with one from column A and one from Column B and so forth. If the Jets had come into this draft with 12 picks and traded up twice they would have actually exercised about 7 picks, their 1st, their traded up 2nd, their traded up pick into the 3rd and the 4 comp picks. That would have been a Tannenbaum draft. We'd be sitting here looking at 3 prospects we really like and the depth issues would still not be resolved. The problem with the Tanny draft scenario is that we'd never have had the 12 picks in the first place. He'd have signed free agents last year and retained players that we let go, like Matt Slauson and Mike DeVito, and we'd have been staring at 8 picks going into this draft, this assuming he could have worked the Tampa Bay deal for Revis. Then he'd have traded up for somebody in the 2nd and we'd have exercised 4 picks tops in this draft. That's just how things worked for a long time at Jets HQ.
