I can't wait for the post-Twitter world (and it is coming)!
Getting a little tired of the "Bijan's just a RB therefore shouldn't be paid, shouldn't be drafted, becuase we all know RB's arn'y human and don't deserve basic respect". If Bijan was as good a TE, WR, DE, any other position as he is as good a RB he'd be the #1 consenus pick. That's how all the scouts, all the people with knowledge talk about him as a RB, as a generational (because we've all lost what that term means and we can now use it once or twice a year) talent akin to Saquon, akin to McCaffrey, akin to the very best of the very best at his position.
You take a player like that put him on a run-first team like the Seahawks, it's a match made in heaven! You get fun schemeing him, Kw3, Dk, NoE and our TE's into wild sets of plays that will be nightmarish for defences to match. And you can build a ton of variability into that to keep it fresh over 17+ games. You take so much pressure of Geno to make magic happen (because he's not that kind of player) and lean on his processing and read ability (which is one of his best traits). You let the OLine get nasty, get phsycial. Give the team an Offence-First Brutal Dirty Gritty Nasty identity. Legion of Boom, coming straight at you like a train from the offence. Put a focus on drafting more fighters and ballhawks on defence and this team becomes one that may not win 14 games a year, but my word will it be entertaining and one not a single team wants to encounter in December or January.
Because it should not surprise anyone at all if the Texans take Anderson and the Cardinals take Carter (smart play for the Caridinals is to take just a couple of picks from the Colts in a trade then grab Carter at #4). And it should not surprise anyone if there isn't a rush for the #5 pick with teams happy to wait on AR & Levis. Bijan, it just makes so much sense, as soon as you look at him beyond just the "oh, no-one will take a RB at #5", because he is not "just a RB".
I think the Colts will trade up to #3 if the Texans don't draft a QB to block other teams (like the Raiders) from doing so. After Young and Stroud are gone, the market for trading into the top 5 might also be gone. The question then would be, does Arizona like Carter? Are they more likely to take a chance on him knowing that he'd likely go to their division rival (us) with the very next pick? Unfortunately, I feel like this worst case scenario might also be the most likely. Of course, if Houston picks a QB all that goes out the window and the Colts pick gets real interesting for us.
I heard from 'my sources' that Deejay Dallas has a Josh Allen-type of arm. Unfortunately, it only comes out during practice.
Seriously: I only look at tape & combine numbers. From that standpoint, Carter or Anderson (please please please) are the only two that seem to fit the draft worth & Seahawk front office. Regardless, a trade back is likely if the terms are good.
I have been considering lately that I am just as much a fan of Pete as I am of the Seahawks. I love his attitude and zest for life and the job of coaching the Seahawks. For that reason I am willing to roll with the decision that he and John make with the #5 pick even if it isn’t who I would like them to pick—Carter—because Carter is (to me) the obvious choice given the moves made in FA.
Elon Musk is one of the biggest jerks in America. I really wish Twitter, Farcebook, Tik-Tok, etc would be regulated by the gvt in a non-partisan manner (good luck with that).
Yep. You know I saw recently analyst are trying to figure out a games above replacement stat for NFL players - eg how much does an elite player translate into the number of wins as opposed to having a league average player. QB of course dominate this statistic because having an elite QB can add 3,4,5 games over a replacement player . The problem in a salary capped league is that when elite QBs are consuming more and more of the teams resources the number of the remaining players who are below the replacement cost increases offsetting the QB value. As your chart pointed everyone but the Chiefs this year have had a balance of an above replacement QB on a contract that did not force the team to rely on too many below replacement placement players at critical positions.
Why I bring this up here, is that I saw the games above replacement in context with Carter. The argument against Carter is he is not worth the risk versus the potential reward of a long shot QB based on their college play and I don't think that is true. The analyst had Carter as the highest rated non-qb for projected games above replacement at .81. I don't know how that stat was arrived at but it feels accurate. His ability to dominate the interior of the field impacts a game far more than fans appreciate. Add on the extremely low bust rate for top DT, which translates as the ability to project the prospects potential based on their game film, and you have the surest pick in the draft, which is why I think he started as the number 1 prospect.
For the Seahawks I believe that the games above replacement stat actually translates into 2 or more additional wins. Last year I felt like our interior defensive line played at least 2 game below replacement level players. Think about the games against Tampa, Carolina, Los Vegas, we were better than those teams from top to bottom of the roster but we still lost. What those teams had in common was they all had a better than average interior offensive line as a whole and where they had a weak player we could not take advantage of it. They beat us because they dominated the center of the field on offense and that dictated how the games went. The Seahawks certainly thought our DTs were not getting it done because they go rid of all of them.
If Carter plays to his prospect grade he is a analytical no brainer for the Seahawks.
The caveat is that if a QB that the Seahawks believe is worth the risk unexpectedly drops the Seahawks would take him and I just don't see that happening. For the Seahawks to take the player they have to project him as their starter in 2024 . I say that because of Trey Lance and Jimmy G. Trey Lances picked number 3 in 2021 guaranteed contract is basically the same as the number 5 pick in 2023. Lance's cap hit in year 2 was 7.5 million and Geno's cap hit if still on the team in 2024 is 31.2 million without incentives for combined cap cost of 38.5, which is a pretty hefty hit per Kenneth's look at costs of QBs against the salary cap. If the Seahawks cut Geno or trade Geno prior to 2024 league year the dead cap hit is 17 million which translates to a combined QB cost of 24.5 million under this scenario they would also have to sign a back up so lets say total cost of 27 million and some change. If the Seahawks wait until 2025 to replace Geno with their 2023 quarterback drafted at number 5 then they take a dead cap hit on Geno of 7.8 million and take a cap hit of 10 million for their new QB plus new back up so say 20 million and that is okay I suppose but the Seahawks have used up half of their savings and have 1 year to make a decision. What the numbers say is they can have a QB taken at 5 sit for a year but no more, which is why the 9ers pushed Trey Lance on to the field to start 2022, when he was pretty clearly the third best QB on their team.
So when looking at Richardson and Levis ask yourself this question are they clearly better prospects than Trey Lance? Will just one year in the offense make them better than league average in 2024, and capable of winning it all in 2025. If one is not confident of those things then the numbers say it is a bad bet to take them and the risk is not worth the reward.
Twitter, ugh! “Please Please Me”-Beatles song. Need defensive wrecking ball, please! Intrigued by 3 players. One is Hunter Luepke a fullback from North Dakota State. In 2022 he rushed for 619 yards, had 9tds. and a 6.3 average. What caught my attention was 0 fumbles in 3 years? Two other players that are intriguing to me are Noah Sewell of Oregon and JL Skinner of Boise State. Always have a soft spot for fullbacks because of Dan Dornink. Think I spelled that right. Go Hawks.
I think you're probably right about Carter. Given the options that are there, he would seem to make the most sense. Not a pick without risk but that's the draft.
I'd be thrilled if we traded down with Washington and landed their 2024 first rounder. Again, not without risk but I think it could be a smart move.
I'm also with you in being pretty close to certain that Young will be gone and that Seattle probably grabs him if he's not. Same for Anderson. Maybe his ceiling isn't quite as high as Carter's but his floor seems considerably higher -- subject to the reality that there are no guarantees.
I'd not be heartbroken if Seattle chose Richardson or Robinson but neither is my preferred choice. The tandem of Walker and Robinson seems off the charts great but five is awfully high for a guy more likely to get injured than land a big second contract. At five, I think you've got to shoot for a guy who's got a decent chance at a longer career.
My guess is that the Texans draft a QB simply because the NFL is more of an entertainment business than a sport and QB is the most marketable position.
We still have a couple weeks to go but I do think we’ve beat the Jalen Carter horse to death. I agree with your perspective on Carter and that this draft lacks depth of “top 10 talent”.
Our team has a lot of young talent and we will have even more young talent after the draft (potential for 10 draft picks!). With that context in mind:
- I think there’s a > 50% chance we trade up on day 2-3 and wind up with 7-8 picks.
- there is a reason PCJS have brought back veteran leaders on the D and that is to teach the young guys how to be pros. As long as Carter is “coachable” I’m confident guys like Bobby and Diggs can show him the way.
I absolutely think that HOU could take Anderson at 2nd overall because he's by far and away the best player in this class, however I expect them to go QB for a reason you've touched on: they might not get a chance to draft this highly next year. I know the Texans are light on talent but can you really feel certain that, post-draft, they'll be worse than both Indy and Tennessee next season? Worse than the Cards, Raiders and 3/4 of the NFC South? I don't, so if I'm the Texans GM, I've got Stroud/Young on the board, I'm not looking a gifthorse in the mouth.
Great to see mock draft scenarios with variety! To me, Bijan is the most intriguing fit at #5. I like how you called out the cap/salary implications associated with picking him so high… although I see Waldron’s system exposing Bijan as “more than just a RB” and come 4 years from now, in the heat of contract negotiations, the narrative of his value will be similar to what we saw with unique game changers like Debo Samuel.
Kiper Jr. and friends will roast Pete, John and even sweet Jody for selecting anyone besides Anthony Richardson… and that makes me even more confident in Bijan.
Weird, I was wondering why you didn’t link something to your assertion that sdb said, “Seahawks fans who disagree with that point by saying they’re either stupid or ignorant.” Word search on the guarantee article came up empty on both stupid and ignorant.
Seahawks Mock Draft: Don't be so sure about the top-4 picks
I can't wait for the post-Twitter world (and it is coming)!
Getting a little tired of the "Bijan's just a RB therefore shouldn't be paid, shouldn't be drafted, becuase we all know RB's arn'y human and don't deserve basic respect". If Bijan was as good a TE, WR, DE, any other position as he is as good a RB he'd be the #1 consenus pick. That's how all the scouts, all the people with knowledge talk about him as a RB, as a generational (because we've all lost what that term means and we can now use it once or twice a year) talent akin to Saquon, akin to McCaffrey, akin to the very best of the very best at his position.
You take a player like that put him on a run-first team like the Seahawks, it's a match made in heaven! You get fun schemeing him, Kw3, Dk, NoE and our TE's into wild sets of plays that will be nightmarish for defences to match. And you can build a ton of variability into that to keep it fresh over 17+ games. You take so much pressure of Geno to make magic happen (because he's not that kind of player) and lean on his processing and read ability (which is one of his best traits). You let the OLine get nasty, get phsycial. Give the team an Offence-First Brutal Dirty Gritty Nasty identity. Legion of Boom, coming straight at you like a train from the offence. Put a focus on drafting more fighters and ballhawks on defence and this team becomes one that may not win 14 games a year, but my word will it be entertaining and one not a single team wants to encounter in December or January.
Because it should not surprise anyone at all if the Texans take Anderson and the Cardinals take Carter (smart play for the Caridinals is to take just a couple of picks from the Colts in a trade then grab Carter at #4). And it should not surprise anyone if there isn't a rush for the #5 pick with teams happy to wait on AR & Levis. Bijan, it just makes so much sense, as soon as you look at him beyond just the "oh, no-one will take a RB at #5", because he is not "just a RB".
I think the Colts will trade up to #3 if the Texans don't draft a QB to block other teams (like the Raiders) from doing so. After Young and Stroud are gone, the market for trading into the top 5 might also be gone. The question then would be, does Arizona like Carter? Are they more likely to take a chance on him knowing that he'd likely go to their division rival (us) with the very next pick? Unfortunately, I feel like this worst case scenario might also be the most likely. Of course, if Houston picks a QB all that goes out the window and the Colts pick gets real interesting for us.
I heard from 'my sources' that Deejay Dallas has a Josh Allen-type of arm. Unfortunately, it only comes out during practice.
Seriously: I only look at tape & combine numbers. From that standpoint, Carter or Anderson (please please please) are the only two that seem to fit the draft worth & Seahawk front office. Regardless, a trade back is likely if the terms are good.
I have been considering lately that I am just as much a fan of Pete as I am of the Seahawks. I love his attitude and zest for life and the job of coaching the Seahawks. For that reason I am willing to roll with the decision that he and John make with the #5 pick even if it isn’t who I would like them to pick—Carter—because Carter is (to me) the obvious choice given the moves made in FA.
Elon Musk is one of the biggest jerks in America. I really wish Twitter, Farcebook, Tik-Tok, etc would be regulated by the gvt in a non-partisan manner (good luck with that).
Yep. You know I saw recently analyst are trying to figure out a games above replacement stat for NFL players - eg how much does an elite player translate into the number of wins as opposed to having a league average player. QB of course dominate this statistic because having an elite QB can add 3,4,5 games over a replacement player . The problem in a salary capped league is that when elite QBs are consuming more and more of the teams resources the number of the remaining players who are below the replacement cost increases offsetting the QB value. As your chart pointed everyone but the Chiefs this year have had a balance of an above replacement QB on a contract that did not force the team to rely on too many below replacement placement players at critical positions.
Why I bring this up here, is that I saw the games above replacement in context with Carter. The argument against Carter is he is not worth the risk versus the potential reward of a long shot QB based on their college play and I don't think that is true. The analyst had Carter as the highest rated non-qb for projected games above replacement at .81. I don't know how that stat was arrived at but it feels accurate. His ability to dominate the interior of the field impacts a game far more than fans appreciate. Add on the extremely low bust rate for top DT, which translates as the ability to project the prospects potential based on their game film, and you have the surest pick in the draft, which is why I think he started as the number 1 prospect.
For the Seahawks I believe that the games above replacement stat actually translates into 2 or more additional wins. Last year I felt like our interior defensive line played at least 2 game below replacement level players. Think about the games against Tampa, Carolina, Los Vegas, we were better than those teams from top to bottom of the roster but we still lost. What those teams had in common was they all had a better than average interior offensive line as a whole and where they had a weak player we could not take advantage of it. They beat us because they dominated the center of the field on offense and that dictated how the games went. The Seahawks certainly thought our DTs were not getting it done because they go rid of all of them.
If Carter plays to his prospect grade he is a analytical no brainer for the Seahawks.
The caveat is that if a QB that the Seahawks believe is worth the risk unexpectedly drops the Seahawks would take him and I just don't see that happening. For the Seahawks to take the player they have to project him as their starter in 2024 . I say that because of Trey Lance and Jimmy G. Trey Lances picked number 3 in 2021 guaranteed contract is basically the same as the number 5 pick in 2023. Lance's cap hit in year 2 was 7.5 million and Geno's cap hit if still on the team in 2024 is 31.2 million without incentives for combined cap cost of 38.5, which is a pretty hefty hit per Kenneth's look at costs of QBs against the salary cap. If the Seahawks cut Geno or trade Geno prior to 2024 league year the dead cap hit is 17 million which translates to a combined QB cost of 24.5 million under this scenario they would also have to sign a back up so lets say total cost of 27 million and some change. If the Seahawks wait until 2025 to replace Geno with their 2023 quarterback drafted at number 5 then they take a dead cap hit on Geno of 7.8 million and take a cap hit of 10 million for their new QB plus new back up so say 20 million and that is okay I suppose but the Seahawks have used up half of their savings and have 1 year to make a decision. What the numbers say is they can have a QB taken at 5 sit for a year but no more, which is why the 9ers pushed Trey Lance on to the field to start 2022, when he was pretty clearly the third best QB on their team.
So when looking at Richardson and Levis ask yourself this question are they clearly better prospects than Trey Lance? Will just one year in the offense make them better than league average in 2024, and capable of winning it all in 2025. If one is not confident of those things then the numbers say it is a bad bet to take them and the risk is not worth the reward.
I remember that last year the Talking Heads had Malik Willis in the top 5 and Ridder in the top 10!
What happened ?
So much for mock drafts done by mental midgets.
Twitter, ugh! “Please Please Me”-Beatles song. Need defensive wrecking ball, please! Intrigued by 3 players. One is Hunter Luepke a fullback from North Dakota State. In 2022 he rushed for 619 yards, had 9tds. and a 6.3 average. What caught my attention was 0 fumbles in 3 years? Two other players that are intriguing to me are Noah Sewell of Oregon and JL Skinner of Boise State. Always have a soft spot for fullbacks because of Dan Dornink. Think I spelled that right. Go Hawks.
In my completely uninformed opinion I could see these as the likeliest outcome for the Hawks at #5:
Draft Anderson/Carter
Trade down
Draft CB
I think you're probably right about Carter. Given the options that are there, he would seem to make the most sense. Not a pick without risk but that's the draft.
I'd be thrilled if we traded down with Washington and landed their 2024 first rounder. Again, not without risk but I think it could be a smart move.
I'm also with you in being pretty close to certain that Young will be gone and that Seattle probably grabs him if he's not. Same for Anderson. Maybe his ceiling isn't quite as high as Carter's but his floor seems considerably higher -- subject to the reality that there are no guarantees.
I'd not be heartbroken if Seattle chose Richardson or Robinson but neither is my preferred choice. The tandem of Walker and Robinson seems off the charts great but five is awfully high for a guy more likely to get injured than land a big second contract. At five, I think you've got to shoot for a guy who's got a decent chance at a longer career.
My guess is that the Texans draft a QB simply because the NFL is more of an entertainment business than a sport and QB is the most marketable position.
I guess that what it comes down to is this:
* If Carter is available, do you draft him?
* If the first four picks are QB-QB-EDGE-DL and there’s no trade down to be had, what do you do?
The answers being the same.
We still have a couple weeks to go but I do think we’ve beat the Jalen Carter horse to death. I agree with your perspective on Carter and that this draft lacks depth of “top 10 talent”.
Our team has a lot of young talent and we will have even more young talent after the draft (potential for 10 draft picks!). With that context in mind:
- I think there’s a > 50% chance we trade up on day 2-3 and wind up with 7-8 picks.
- there is a reason PCJS have brought back veteran leaders on the D and that is to teach the young guys how to be pros. As long as Carter is “coachable” I’m confident guys like Bobby and Diggs can show him the way.
I absolutely think that HOU could take Anderson at 2nd overall because he's by far and away the best player in this class, however I expect them to go QB for a reason you've touched on: they might not get a chance to draft this highly next year. I know the Texans are light on talent but can you really feel certain that, post-draft, they'll be worse than both Indy and Tennessee next season? Worse than the Cards, Raiders and 3/4 of the NFC South? I don't, so if I'm the Texans GM, I've got Stroud/Young on the board, I'm not looking a gifthorse in the mouth.
Great to see mock draft scenarios with variety! To me, Bijan is the most intriguing fit at #5. I like how you called out the cap/salary implications associated with picking him so high… although I see Waldron’s system exposing Bijan as “more than just a RB” and come 4 years from now, in the heat of contract negotiations, the narrative of his value will be similar to what we saw with unique game changers like Debo Samuel.
Kiper Jr. and friends will roast Pete, John and even sweet Jody for selecting anyone besides Anthony Richardson… and that makes me even more confident in Bijan.
Weird, I was wondering why you didn’t link something to your assertion that sdb said, “Seahawks fans who disagree with that point by saying they’re either stupid or ignorant.” Word search on the guarantee article came up empty on both stupid and ignorant.
Do better.