2021 GMO Draft - UDFA

Hey all -- didn't think I was up again until tomorrow morning. Let me get a lay of the land and I'll make a pick.

 

The new York Giants select :

Ifeatu Melifonwu
DB
Syracuse

 

Jags ready to pick if the Bucs are around tonight

 

@Willie OTC

 

I don't know if there was a "universal" top 50 that early. But I just searched and found as examples the The Sporting News and DraftTek lists of the top 100 prospects for that draft. These are presumably the final lists, published long after we had done the GMO draft. Significant differences between the lists.

Both had two of my five players (the ones I took at #14 and #37 overall) in their top 50, and two of my five didn't crack their top 100. The other one was in the 60s for TSN and in the 90s for DT, if that will give you an idea of the variances.

 

I'm right there too. I really thought about taking Najee Harris in round one because he's a need for the Steelers. So was OL so I made a choice and it seemed to go OK.

What if the BPA is a QB and you're drafting for KC? Are you gonna do it? Of course not. It's not a real scenario for any team. You just go with the flow and the heck with the experts.

 

BPA really means BPA within reason. And what's within reason is entirely up to interpretation.

The Giants used to tier prospects instead of assigning them a numeric grade. All the players in a row were arguably "BPA." So you need a position in the row -- take that even if you think a guy is potentially better. They just (in theory at least) stuck to the highest row that still has players left. I have always kind of liked that approach and it sort of how I think about prospects here.

 

In reality something like that is what I do too. And I think most teams do. I might have 6 guys graded with a tag like 1st-2nd. I look at that group when I'm otc @34 and go "yep, we'd love an upgrade at DE. Joseph Ossai might live up to that."

Maybe I'm comparing him to say Pat Freiermuth and Asante Samuel Jr. But what is our bigger need? Or which one is the most ideal scheme fit?

 

Exactly. It's why so many teams can say "we took the BPA" with a strait face. Maybe Freiermuth had a higher raw grade, but for our system and our needs Ossai was the best player available.

 

The mechanics are frequently misunderstood. If you're KC, the clear best player on the board is a QB and you're up, you don't make the pick yourself. But you don't pass up the obvious value and take a lesser player just because you can't use the QB. Instead, you trade the pick to a team in dire need of a QB and reap the rewards.

 

That's basically the philosophy behind the BPA approach - get the maximum value from the pick.

The mathematics behind it go something like this. Say you grade prospects on a 0-100 scale. When you're up in the mid/late first round, the very best player still on the board is a linebacker with a 94 grade. But your top need is a DT, so you take the best DT available, who has a 90 grade. In round two, the very best guy available is a safety with a grade of 86. But TE is next on your shopping list, so you take the best one. His grade is 81.

Repeat this process, and four years later you have a core of eight first and second rounders (a third of your starting lineup) that had lesser grades than the guys you passed up.

 

Which is why the correct version of this approach is to trade back from the mid/late first to the late first, get an extra third rounder, take the 90 graded DT you were going to reach on anyways, then use that extra third rounder to nab an under-rated true BPA defender (maybe your offense was top 5 last year, but defense was 22/23).

Now navigate that maze correctly 5 out of every 6 tries and you might get to keep your GM job longer than 4-6 years. Congratulations!!

 

I got another fun scenario to discuss. So again, complications to the BPA approach; at it's essence you're trying to add the most talent to your roster.
But another way of looking at that is plugging the most holes on your roster efficiently, so your coaches can run their system to the highest potential level possible.

I'm just watching tape on another tab (trying to get back into gear), and I've stumbled across a late rounder I like for one (or a couple) of my teams. So maybe at my next pick the BPA is a DT. Wrench in the system of making an easy decision is I have a DT I love as a late rounder who offers a comparable skillset. So is the best thing for my team to take the true BPA at say pick 67 (the DT) and just keep moving? Or do I help my team the most by bypassing him for option 2, an only slightly lower graded TE (a secondary need), knowing I will come back in round 5-6 and nab a DT there who might just prove to be an absolute steal?

This is yet another example of what can easily sidetrack GM's from staying true to the overall BPA philosophy (possibly something of a myth).

 

I was just typing up something on this...

Scarcity is also a factor in the grading. Purely based on talent, the top guy when you're up might be a WR. But if there are a half dozen WRs with roughly equal grades and only one "instant starter" OT left on the board, that OT suddenly becomes a much more valuable pick.

One of my favorite examples of that is the OT position in 2008, because it's multiple examples in one. It also might be the one and only thing Matt Millen got right as a GM.

The Lions had their sights set on Gosder Cherilus in round one. Whether that was a wise move is a completely different question for another discussion. Suffice to say that Cherilus was widely considered a somewhat lower target than their pick (#15) would have indicated, and there were at least two other tackles (Jeff Otah and Sam Baker) graded as first year starters - frequently above Cherilus.

Meanwhile, Branden Albert was on the board at guard, and there was a pretty big dropoff to the next tier of guards available. This is the part Millen got right. Rather than leaving the value on the table and taking Cherilus immediately, he traded down two spots as KC (#17) was eager to get Albert and didn't want to risk having some other team trading with Arizona (just ahead of them at #16) to snipe them.

So Millen got the same player he wanted in the first place, but he also moved up 10 spots in round 3 and picked up an extra 5th rounder for waiting the extra two picks to turn in the card. He used that fifth rounder to draft a bottle of artificially flavored maple syrup, but at least he got the trade right.

But the example continues... Carolina wanted a tackle and may have taken Cherilus or Baker in round two. But when Millen took Cherilus off the board in the middle of the first, the Panthers figured there was no way that Otah (the last tackle with a true first round grade) or Baker would last until their second round pick and guessed (correctly) that when Otah was taken, someone else would be quick to move up and snag Baker. Otah suddenly became a lot more valuable.

And that was big for Philadelphia, who cashed in and made the trade to let Carolina take Otah. The Eagles dropped to the second round but picked up a fourth rounder plus Carolina's 2009 first rounder.

And that made Sam Baker a bit more valuable as well. Washington was able to move from the late third round (#84) up to the mid second (#48) and from the fifth (#154) to the early fourth (#103) for dropping 13 spots from #21 to #34.

 

I would have to go back but yes, you said their would be a trade during your time slot, and then disappeared and we all waited for about 15 minutes into my time slot...lol... I wasn't mad, I just also had to get back to work that day, which was the only reason I had to press a little to have a decision made about proceeding. If I could have, I would have just waited until 10:30 and then announced my pick, giving RT an abundance of time to respond. It all worked out because I have the best dual TE in the draft and I picked up arguably the best interior OL in the draft, so we both won in our first two rounds.

 

the TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS select;

ROBERT HAINSEY - OT - NOTRE DAME

 

JAX @YoungHawk03

Your up to start Round #3...

 

Quiet here this morning....

 

I’m in busy phase at work for next 2 hours. Low on data too.