takeitdown

3 cone matters for most football players. It *tries* to measure ability to change direction quickly. That's what makes a RB miss a defender or make that quick cut, it's what enables a receiver to break off a defender, it's what enables an EDGE to switch between an inside and outside rush faster than the OT can handle. For OL it lets enables them to get back into place once a DL switches his rush...it helps them mirror. That's change of direction skills in general. The 3 cone is just a way to measure it. But that particular skill, there is zero doubt, is huge in football. You do have to keep in mind, you have to have the size/strength to go along with it. A corner would hit all those marks, but wouldn't be able to hold up size/strength wise. Similarly with a 270 lb guard. So you have to balance times with size (and actual skill as well of course.)

Well that long video is pretty spot on. Money and resources at QB, OL, DL and spend the rest according to how the league and your team is doing at that moment. But without those 3, whatever you're trying to do isn't going to work wekk,

Outside of the top 2 guys, the next 10 are all very similar. Good players. You can argue whether Grady is 3rd or 12th and you'll have a good argument either way. One thing I can guarantee is his agent isn't arguing 12th. I'd like him to come in at 13-14, but it'll be more like 16. That's a lot.

Definitely curious to see the numbers. An unproven guy who has a couple starts and might have some upside seems more like 2.5/year type guy. It's not like Ty started all year and performed well. That still could be a fluke year, but at least you have a year of evidence instead of a few games. If it's truly 6, they could have likely gotten far better for 10. If it's truly 3 or 4, meh, whatever I guess.

Good concept. I hope we're able to get a good OL in FA, so we can take a DL with one of the first 2. But if we're not, then this is the way to roll.

Yeah, you always hope it's good for what you need. It just seems like OL are so hard to tell from college now. I normally scout WR and TEs and RBs, but I don't even really care right now. I want an offensive line and defensive line that are more help than hindrance and the rest can wait. I'm tired of the other team playing on our side of the line of scrimmage on both sides. We don't need a hundred players, but we need 4 good ones on the lines. But yeah, I'm not as dug in on this offseason...mostly because I can't really scout OL.

That's my formula as well. I was hoping there was room for a FA DT as well, but am less sure of that now. But you take 4 OL and DL between the FA and first 3 rounds of the draft and you have a good shot. A much better shot if you're able to cover 2 in FA, and take another DL and OL in first 2 rounds (guys you can reasonably expect to contribute immediately). Then you use your later rounds for RB, CB, LB. They'd have to have a good draft, but it's very doable.

If we could get 2 OL FA, I would be excellent with Oliver in the 1st and this guy in the 3rd/4th (or whatever mid round projection. That'd give us a young DT to develop while we still have Crawford, and a guy who can play 5T and DE in Oliver. Doubt he's still there for us, but I would love to see this combo on our D.

Think this is a good year to take a back in the 4th or 5th. Of course I'd take a back or LB in the 4th or 5th every year. If we spend the first 3 on trench players, and get LB, RB, TE/tall WR in the 4th and 5th we'll have a chance at a lot of players who can get good snaps and make a difference.

Yeah, I said he's top 10. Great is more about how much you affect the game. Sometimes there are 6 great DTs in the league, sometimes there are 1 or 2. My point (that I just made in a response a second ago) is these decisions aren't made in a vacuum. If you pay guys 15M, and a QB 30M...then by the time you get to the 5th guy, you're taking up 1/2 your cap space. For that to be the case, those guys need to be game changers game in and game out. If they're not a guy who has to be gameplanned against, and offenses/defenses changed for, then you're better off having four 5 mil guys at that position group. I like Grady. I liked Matthews. The question is...are these guys strong enough to be 1 of your 5 pillars? Do they tilt the field enough for that? Because you can't pay 15 people that way...you can only pay 5. I'd pay the dude because I think we have too many holes to try to fill another one. But there's a danger in paying good players like they're great players. To add: If you think Jarrett is a 8-10 sack a year DT the next 5 years who plugs the run also, you pay him. If you think he's a 3-5 sack a year DT who is consistent but not special, you don't because you can find that production for less.

My point is more that good players get paid nearly what elite players do. You're ok paying Julio 15, but you hate paying just an average 1 receiver 90% of that. I think Jarrett's a top 10 DT. I just think a top 10 guy shouldn't get nearly what a premier guy gets. I'm not pressed about it, it's just you can't use 1/2 of your cap on 4-5 good players. If you're going to be top heavy, those guys have to be game changing players (In our case, Ryan, Julio, Matthews, Trufant, and Grady). To me, two of those guys are great, and 3 are very good/not pro bowl level. With unlimited money, I wouldn't care. With a cap, you need to make sure anybody taking a big percentage of your cap is a week to week game changer. You pay Grady that only if you think he's going to be that.

Agree. My concern with them, being defensive coaches, is not going for a 4th and 2 in midfield situations, when stats clearly show it to be a good call. I guess the more accurate blackjack analogy is I don't want them staying on 13 worried that a face card might come. I just think they need a numbers guy in there who has all these scenarios. Belicheck does a better job of going by the numbers on these than others, and it tends to work. Not every time, but on average over the course of time.

I like this hire as a defensive sounding board. But for some of these things, we also just need the dude with the pocket protector and all of the computer simulations. There's a ton of information about the percentages when it's say 4th and 4 from the 50 yard line, 3 minutes on the clock, and you're down by 4. We don't need classic coaches trying to figure those out. We just need them all tabulated, with percentages ahead of time. We don't want coaches playing black jack and hitting on 19 because they feel like there might be an ace coming. Just play the numbers leaning toward aggressive.

Your good but not great players are always the hardest ones to figure out. Jake Matthews, Trufant, Grady. They're all good players, but not elite, and you feel like you should be able to get them for less than you can. People feel like you should be able to get all those guys for 10mil/yr, but you can't. I'd say Grady's value is about 10mil (he's in a defense very suited to the UT, and that will give stats to the UT) if we had young guns champing at the bit behind him. But we don't have stuff behind him. When that's the case, you have to pay for your good guys, even if it's a bit too much. So he'll get 15 or I'll be surprised. He's a top 10 DT, and that's not going to be cheap.

Yeah. He's not quite as low at INT% as some of the top guys, but when you mix his YPA, his INT, and his comparative O line during the time, you start to see a pretty compelling picture.