I kinda question if that Patriots-Steelers trade really was "just" to mess with the Jets. The article was an anonymous outsider's opinion. A GM, yes, but not one who was in on trade talks at that moment. Belichick would not likely have traded down for that reason alone. He might not have pressed for as much in return as he might otherwise (the fourth instead of a third), true. But he might also have been pressed for time, might not have had better offers on the table, etc. It also wasn't a bad trade given the way the draft had unfolded to that point. Better deals did happen a bit later, but the trade right before that one had #10 moving to #9 for only a future fourth rounder. A current 4th for moving 17 to 14 might still be a bit soft but wasn't out of line given that precedent.
Appreciate the positive energy. But I don’t see the two as very close at all. And this from a guy who actually mocked Hurts to the Colts in one of our exercises. What Ridder did at Cincinnati was impressive. But you watch the game against NFL talent, when they finally got to the playoff against Bama, he was a deer in the headlights. They couldn’t do anything. I could still be wrong, but I wouldn’t trade a late pick for Ridder myself.
I'm obviously biased, but I'm more optimistic about Ridder than some of Atlanta's past QB prospects or veteran acquisitions. I also think he'll have an edge in that he won't need to press and try to win the game on his own the way Matt Ryan had to in his later years. Just to put that in proper context, Ryan had two consecutive games in 2018 where he completed 74 percent of his passes, threw for 793 combined yards, 8 TDs, 0 interceptions, and passer ratings of 148.1 and 134.5. Atlanta's defense still managed to lose both of those games. Seriously, that actually happened. The Falcons should surprise a lot of people with their defense this year - it's not the no-budget 2021 or 2022 defensive roster anymore. The team is also giving Ridder a strong running game, at least competent if not spectacular pass protection, and good outlet options. His debut last year was rough, which wasn't surprising. His next game was better, and his last two games were better still. He showed a pretty solid grasp of the offense, good chemistry and timing with Drake London, and poise in the pocket on third down. I do think he still has some mechanical issues to work on, particularly when he throws on rollouts. If he can be more accurate on those throws (even by stopping rather than throwing on the run), he should do well enough to make the "power rankings" writers look like lazy idiots. Among those lazy idiots, I'll go ahead and call out Mark Lane (USA Today's "Touchdown Wire" and Yahoo! Sports) by name. Not because he ranked Atlanta #32. I simply laughed at that one. The thing that got under my skin is that he couldn't even get Ridder's name right while pointing to Ridder as his lone reason for declaring the Falcons to be the worst team in the NFL. You're passing yourself off as an expert on NFL teams and you don't even know the name of a starting quarterback??
This post reminds me of the CBS days. Because he called me Ruth? LoL Good one Ruth........lol I miss the Old CBS Days.......remember some of the Assholes (DalyDaly) would come on and Post Verbal diarrhea.
Can’t remember the whole handle, ____Sol ? Used to get into it with him regularly enough. Anyone else remember that troll who would write like a 7 page thing trying to use “logic” and stats to prove Cam Newton was the greatest QB of all time? Those were entertaining
Yes I remember that Ruth. Was that not IHO.....(I Hate Orange).....he was a HUGE Alabama Fan. I also remember SOL.........and you two had great Banters. I guy I miss is Rok.......he was a Buckeye Fan and really good guy.......but he Vanished and reappeared and vanished again.
No it wasn’t IHO. Don’t recognize that name at all. This dude had a Cam avatar (shocking), and I feel like it was a dummy account just for trolling. Another guy @LAOJoe will remember from all our mocks was neilp. Pats fan. You wouldn’t see or hear from him for two days, but within 5 minutes of Pats going otc in our mocks, bam! Pick made. Guy was like a mock ninja. Made us laugh. Definitely had the record over any 3 year span for quickest picks made.
The formulas I had in mind for the mock draft spreadsheet are working. It's a success. For a future mock, the mysterious "Sheet 19" from this year's mock will become a true Big Board with hopefully something like 500-600 players (to avoid "Stump The Truck" moments), listed alphabetically. When a pick is made, whoever is updating the spreadsheet would simply type in the pick number in the column next to the player's name, and the player automatically shows up as that pick on the appropriate page. One benefit in this year's version was that in addition to being quick and avoiding typos, the cut/paste approach made it easier to spot when a player had already been taken. This new version should make that part better / faster. It also avoids a weird situation we ran into this time around where @LAOJoe and I were both cutting and pasting the same player at the same time. Google Sheets decided that we had deleted each other's work rather than leaving the pick where we had both pasted it. Behind the scenes, the other experimental success in this year's version was that dealing with trades in the spreadsheet was much easier. I'm definitely keeping that upgrade. The other main changes for future mocks won't matter for the GMs, but for @LAOJoe, @RTTRUTH, @Campbell or anyone else setting up a mock, it should be much faster to set up the spreadsheet than it used to be. You still have to pull in the full list of which teams have what picks, and you will need to find a big list of prospects somewhere to use for the "big board". But once those two things are formatted and copied into place, the rest of it is about 90% automatically set up. The formulas are set up so that you can choose how long the time slots will be for each round. I had initially set up formulas to try to make the dates automatic, but I think it's better just to leave that as copy and paste. So I have a scrap page where the dates are saved in text format. You simply paste the date at the top of the page for each round, and when a new day starts in the middle of the round, you insert a row and paste in the new date. Likewise, I decided it was easier to paste in the start times for the first pick of each round and each new day. I'm typing up some instructions for it - mainly to help myself remember what I did when I open it up next year. But those instructions should also make it straightforward enough so that someone else could use it to host a mock. Many thanks once again to @Lyman for the style / layout of the original spreadsheets that we used in prior years. I have modified the layout a bit for simplicity, but I kept a lot of Lyman's style elements intact. They have become a sort of tradition after all, just like Lyman.
Only problem that I have with this style is that he hasn't had a winning season with what he is currently doing. Now, it has only been two years and that may change, but if the current two straight seasons of 7-10 record continues year after year, then he needs to change his approach and stop looking for someone who is going to wow him in an interview and look at performance on the field. What someone says in an interview could be fiery and great but if you arent fast enough off the line, if you aren't sealing that edge, if you arent doing your job, that great interview is pointless. It is why employers in the real world can't hold employees at this point because the interview is more important than the end potential, it is why bad NFL teams aren't getting better year after year. They are focusing on a score and not skill on the field. Indy had the Stanford kid and he retired early and never got over that hump to get into and win a SB. Intelligence is good, but performance and attitude on the field are the most important. Quiet and reserve in personal life could result in fire and intensity on the field.
One more case of leap-frogging a division rival... I'm reading now that Atlanta might have traded up in the early second round specifically to jump ahead of New Orleans. The Saints had pick #40. Atlanta had #44. The Falcons wanted Syracuse OT Matthew Bergeron. Atlanta GM Terry Fontenot was previously in the New Orleans front office and knows Saints GM Mickey Loomis well. He would have pegged Loomis to have an offensive lineman pretty high up on the shopping list. The Saints also have a new offensive line coach, Doug Marrone (the former Jaguars and Bills head coach), who still has strong connections with Syracuse. With that in mind, Fontenot made a strong offer to move up with the Colts, giving Indianapolis a fourth round pick to move up just four spots. Bergeron is a near-lock to take over as the starting left guard for Atlanta this season. New Orleans would likely have groomed him as the fill-in and eventual replacement for OG Andrus Peat. The interesting catch is that Bergeron has never played guard, but the Falcons believe that he will be able to adapt and learn the role quickly. The extra pick that Fontenot sent to Indianapolis (#110) was the last pick that Atlanta stole from the Titans in the Julio Jones "trade". Three picks later, Fontenot used Atlanta's own fourth rounder to select cornerback Utah cornerback Clark Phillips III.
Oh Yes! It was absolutely shameless propaganda. I think that's the same guy that told everyone that Vinve Young was primed for a big comeback.
Rok passed away about 2 years ago, Thank You Lyman and Rest in Peace Rok. Outstanding Poster and he would always bring up The Senora.....Good Old CBS Days in the Bar and Grill.
There were a lot of seebs posters on here when we first exodused here from there but most have left. It would be nice to chat with them again.
Now that the deadline for exercising 5th year options on the 2020 first rounders has passed... Of the 26 players who were eligible, only 12 had their options exercised. 3 out of 3 QBs were exercised. (This does not include Jordan Love, who wasn't eligible because he already extended.) 4 out of 5 WRs were exercised. 3 out of 6 offensive linemen were exercised. Only 2 of the remaining 12 eligible players at all other positions (DT Derrick Brown and CB A.J. Terrell) were exercised. For me, the most interesting point is that teams declined to pick up the options for 9 of the 11 eligible defensive players. I feel pretty certain that Jeff Okudah would also have been declined, making it 10 of 12, but it turned out that Detroit picking up part of his base salary for this season counted as a contract modification that voided the fifth year option.
Ive decided to grade the 'experts' who do the Draft grades for various prominent networks and web-sites. I was inspired to do this after reading NFL.coms Draft grades, in which the Vikings got a D+, thats right, not just any old D, but a D+. So, to make a long dissertation short and to the point and done without bias, graphs or fancy schmancy shit. Lets get started, shall we. NFL.com - F PFT - F SI - F YAHOO - F ESPN - F cBS - F L4SN - A++++++++ Thats right we win, bitches!!! Its official now!
That's sort of how I feel looking at the comments the national media writers are making in their "power rankings" blatherings. I don't care that 11 of 16 articles that I have seen have Atlanta at the bottom or next to last in the NFC South and that they still generally rate the Dirty South as the worst division in the NFL. It's the utter cluelessness in the text that makes me say they're lazy idiots. Logan Reardon at NBC Sports summed up Atlanta's defense merely by saying "the defense has struggled for years". Wow, did he figure that out all by himself? Or did he get help from that other lazy idiot who couldn't even get Desmond Ridder's name right? Let's see... nearly the entire defensive coaching staff is new, more than half of the projected starting lineup has changed (Jessie Bates, Calais Campbell, David Onyemata, Kaden Elliss, Jeff Okudah, Mike Hughes) along with several key backups (Bud Dupree, Tae Davis, Eddie Goldman, draft picks Zach Harrison and Clark Phillips), the younger players from the past two drafts now have some experience (Richie Grant, Troy Andersen, Arnold Ebiketie, TaQuon Graham), and the muppets that played over 1200 snaps on the defensive line last year aren't even projected to make this year's roster. Sure - it makes PERFECT sense to assume the defense is the same as last year. F for Logan Reardon and NBC Sports.
Multiple people were saying the Eagles messed up by not drafting a LB. They did... last year. They drafted one a year in advance. Not to say Nakobe Dean will win the job this year or ever, but he has a year in the system and he's depth at least.
You already know how I feel about that one when it comes to Atlanta and edge rushers. The Falcons drafted TWO of them in the top 100 picks last year. They added Calais Campbell, Bud Dupree and Kaden Elliss this year and resigned Lorenzo Carter. Nope, not enough. Seems like every media nitwit out there was calling for them to take a QB or an edge rusher at #8 and again in round 2.
