stitches
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Posts posted by stitches
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2 hours ago, shasta519 said:
But those are FA deals. They are sort of bidding against themselves right now. I am more curious why it took so long. I figured they would wait until after the draft anyways, but they really waited til the 11th hour.
It probably was close decision in their mind and thus it took until after the draft to make the decision.
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After the way Gus Bradley talked about Paye last week I fully expected them to exercise the option. I guess the question is - if he was a free agent next year would you give him 13m? I think it's probably a good decision when you look at the market this year and projecting some inflation for next year. Example - Dorance Armstrong got 11m average. Marcus Davenport got 13M average last year. IMO with the increases in salary cap, this one looks reasonable.
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Some things that made an impression on me:
- we did try to move up. I wonder for who? Last year Arizona put up a similar video after the draft, I would love to see if they show the Colts calling them for 4 this year...
- we DID meet with Laiatu. Seems like it was at the combine, probably one of those quick 15 minute ones and he probably had tons of them and didn't remember this specific one. I love that as a throwaway question as he was walking out they asked him what he's going to run... he said in the 4.6s ... and he went out and did it. There is something about a prospect who promises something and then hours later goes out and delivers on that promise. Especially in athletic sense since he wasn't one of those prospects that had athleticism as his calling card. On the rest of the video... I like him... he looks like a genuine guy who loves every step of this process and enjoys it. Love how excited Partridge was too... what a vote of confidence for him as a new coach not just on this team but in the league - give him the best pass-rusher in the draft to work with.
- everything in the bit about AD Mitchell was about his talent. "Way too talented to pass up here"... Every single word we got from scouts, coaches, FO members... everything was about his talent. Not a word about the character/attitude stuff. Not one. Now it's obvious to me they probably cut off some of that stuff, but interesting to see what the Colts want to portray about the player. So yeah... with AD it's all about the talent. For whatever it's worth, he looked like a pretty chill dude in the interview they showed. Part of the rumors that were floating around was that his interview with one team was so bad that within the first minute of the interview they knew they wouldn't be drafting him. I guess we will never know what exactly all that was about. In the grand scheme of things... it's all on him now... just like with Stroud, none of the noise will matter if he comes out and works his tail off and shuts up every naysayer in the world.
- Matt Goncalvez seems to be the favorite player of the Colts in this draft. Kind of like Khari was a few years ago. "culture fit" is probably the best descriptor here from the video. They love his personality and they love his attitude. One of the best calls/reactions to getting drafted you will ever see/hear... kind of reminiscent with the Downs one last year. I don't know where exactly he will fit on the field... but he will fit somewhere. They will give him chances... he has all the good will of that coaching staff and that FO.
- Bortolini - impressed in the workout. IMO he will be understudy to Kelly... the new Pinter I guess? Probably won't start right away, but he has clear role IMO.
- They seem very optimistic about Carlies ability to translate to linebacker. Looking at some of those highlights they showed... he does look like EJ Speed or Shaq or Okereke... with his speed in pursuit. They mentioned him potentially covering TEs. I can see it.
- Loved seeing Ballard giving Jamie Moore the chance to make the call to the guy he's been fighting for throughout this whole draft season(Jaylin Simpson). Good gesture by Ballard, bet it was a great feeling for Moore.
- In general I love all those calls and videos of the reactions by the prospects. Seeing young prospects achieve one of the big goals of their lives and starting their paths to even bigger things, is awesome. Love it.
- "That's not a prank call, is it?"
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I wonder if what the previous episode ended on - Ballard saying "I do think there is a shot he's there at 15", was referring to Latu or Bowers?
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84th percentile against man, 83d percentile against press...
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21 minutes ago, chad72 said:
@stitches is it Latu on your avatar? If I didn't know any better, I thought he looked like the guy making his call to his Mom at the beginning of the Independence Day movie.
Yep, Latu on draft day receiving the call from the Colts
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40 minutes ago, Superman said:
Yeah, quite the opposite. In this case, Ballard went out of his way to defend AD publicly. I have little doubt that the off field concerns played a part in AD being the 10th WR to be drafted, when he's probably the 4th or 5th most talented prospect in the class (IMO). But it does the Colts no good for Ballard to acknowledge that in the presser.
Instead, you call out everyone who wondered about AD's character, and you talk about how lucky you are that he was still available when you were on the clock (even though you traded back instead of drafting him yourself). To me, it's clearly coachspeak.
I feel like part of it is coachspeak, but part of it goes beyond that. He could have just said "we are really lucky he fell to us, so happy to draft him... On the character/attitude thing - we did our due diligence and we are happy to draft him. We think he is a good kid and we can work with him." Or something of the sort. But he went beyond that by directly targeting the reports and going off on them. Kind of like he did with Stroud last year. I think Ballard has a strong sense of justice and I don't think this is purely performative on his side. I think he really feels like those reports were not fair. And he's going to bat for his guy beyond what just picking him at any specific pick would mean. Picking him at any position simply means "we are good taking the risk for the potential reward if he pans out". Here it seems like Ballard is backing his guy not just in terms of risk/reward calculation. He is backing him character-wise. Which can backfire on him spectacularly if the guy starts having issues of that sort once he's in the league since Ballard's rant has already gone somewhat viral in NFL media.
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AD Mitchell all targets video for 2023 season. ^
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1 hour ago, el duderino said:
Latu #97
AD #1
Wasn't Downs no. 1 last year?
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Here's another positive indication about Mitchell. He seems to have great relationship with his WR coach at Texas and this is their call after he got drafted by the Colts. You aren't getting that type of personal relationship if the guy was a bad worker or had bad attitude with coaches or something of the sort. It seems like his coach genuinely cares about him and wants the best for him and seems like AD reciprocates with a lot of respect for the guy that helped him get where he is now.
So yeah... I guess at this point I will trust Ballard and assume it wasn't grandstanding just to make ourselves look better.
Lets hope he continues to work hard and lets hope he proves all the naysayers wrong.
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In soccer no. 9 is traditionally reserved for the striker - the scorer... and some of my favorite players have worn that number. I wouldn't mind Mitchell taking the 9 and turning into our scorer...
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3 minutes ago, NewColtsFan said:
And FWIW: I just double checked…. This is the last year of Kelly’s current contract. He is a free agent next year. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t extend him a little if we wanted, lower his cap hit, though I doubt it. We could even tag him for a year if we wanted, though I’d doubt that too.
All sorts of possibilities for the Colts.
Kelly was asked about his contract about a week before the draft. He said they haven't really had talks about extension. And he said he wants to keep playing(so retirement doesn't seem to be on the table at this point). Kind of weird, maybe Ballard wanted to see what happens with the draft before he initiates new contract talks? Or maybe he's decided we cannot afford Kelly going forward with Raimann soon to be paid ? I guess we will see/hear about it soon enough...
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Kevin Bowen made a great point in one of his podcasts about AD Mitchell and him producing in big games. He has 5 games in the NCAA college football playoffs... and he has a TD in every single one of them including 2 championship games. Including TDs in his freshman year in both games Georgia won for their national championship, then he did it again next year.
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44 minutes ago, Superman said:
I don't disagree with any of this.
But I do think there are good drafters, and bad drafters. And I think they become obvious with the benefit of time, especially if you have some issues at QB or you have to change the coaching staff. What might be more important is whether a GM can be good enough at drafting to offset other limitations in his approach (that's the big question with Ballard; maybe the Cowboys are a better example), or if a GM's poor drafting can be compensated for by other things he does in team building (Jason Licht?) Howie Roseman is one of the best GMs in the league; he runs hot and cold in the draft, but he's relentless in using every possible avenue to improve his roster.
yeah, Ballard definitely needs to compensate inactivity in other fronts with excellent drafting. And not just excellend drafting but rather - overall good draft philosophy. The trade backs IMO are key feature here. Because he doesn't rely on FA, he needs more shots in the draft. If he has 2-3 more picks in the draft every year, that's one or two more cheap hits every year that contribute to your team that other teams don't have. At least that's the idea I would presume. And I think Ballard has done relatively good job with the draft. Every year I feel better about the team right after the draft.
44 minutes ago, Superman said:And then there are some GMs that are doomed by one, really dumb decision along the way. Which highlights again that it's just about overall hit rate in the draft. It's hard to recover from drafting Tim Tebow or Johnny Manziel in the first round.
Yeah... unfortunately the QB position is key deciding factor not just on the field but about GM's work in general too. You don't get to make too many QB mistakes as a GM.
44 minutes ago, Superman said:Back to Brugler, I did some reading on him. Apparently he's had offers from teams, probably to be a scout, and he's not interested. I don't blame him, that's a tough gig. Based on what he does, he might be suited for a director of college scouting role. I like that he shows his work and stands by it. And I think he also displays a level of humility that people like Ben Solak are lacking; the depth of his work probably helps him appreciate that, as much as he learns, there's still a lot that he doesn't know.
Yeah, from what I remember he had offers to be a scout for teams a few years ago but he had a young family so he decided to stay home with them and instead continue his work in media. That's why I was wondering before - just how high of a position would it take for him to actually take a job in the NFL. He definitely won't take a scouting job it seems. He's probably getting paid more by the Athletic and his other media work than he would make as a scout and he wouldn't be travelling all the time for work. So where is the threshold you think? For example, would he take a FO job with path to being a GM in the future? Would you give him VP of player personnel or director of college scouting or something of the sort? Would he take that?
On a side note - what is your opinion of Solak? I feel like he does good job and generally knows what he's talking about too. But he's definitely more talking head-y and is less measured and humble than the Cosells and Bruglers of the world, but in general... I kind of don't mind it too much... I view it more as a question of style and I listen to his podcasts and read his articles too because I feel like he too does the work and I don't mind having his perspective even if a lot of his takes are not as disapassionate as Brugler's for example.
44 minutes ago, Superman said:Daniel Jeremiah spent a decade as a scout. Nate Tice worked as a scout. Cosell is as connected as anyone. These aren't random bloggers and Youtubers. Dane has taken an interesting path, but he's also not just a random guy who hopped on a microphone one day.
Anyway, way off topic. Lots of respect for Dane, for sure. The Beast is unparalleled.
Absolutely agreed
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Dane Brugler's scouting report on Dalton Tucker:
26. DALTON TUCKER | Marshall 6064 | 307 lbs. | 6SR Paris, Ky. (Bourbon County) 3/18/2000 (age 24.10) #68
SUMMARY: Dalton Tucker grew up in northern Kentucky (outside of Lexington). He was a three-year varsity letterman at Bourbon County High and played both ways (left tackle and defensive end). He earned honorable mention All-State honors as a senior. A two-star recruit, he received two FBS scholarship offers and chose Marshall over Louisville. He was a reserve and spot starter over his first four seasons, then became the starting right guard over his final two seasons (and filled in in at right tackle). Tucker has a large-sized frame with an enormous wingspan. He sets up quickly and reaches his pass-set landmarks to answer rushers (see 2023 NC State tape), although his hands and lower body aren’t consistently on the same page. He blocks with a downhill mentality in t he run game, physically removing gap defenders. Overall, Tucker needs to play with consistent pad level, but his size and lower-body explosion are traits ready to be developed by an NFL coaching staff.
GRADE: Priority Free Agent
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Dane Brugler's scouting report on Jason Bean:
23. JASON BEAN | Kansas 6016 | 196 lbs. | 6SR Mansfield, Texas (Lake Ridge) 6/9/1999 (age 24.88) #9
SUMMARY: Jason Bean was an All-District passer at Lake Ridge High in Mansfield (south of DFW) and threw for 1,682 yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior. A threestar recruit, he stayed close to home and signed with North Texas. He showed promise as a first-year starter in 2020 and entered the transfer portal. He signed with Kansas, where he shared starting duties with Jalon Daniels. With Daniels injured in 2023, Bean became the full-time starter and set career bests in yards and touchdowns. With his skinny, lean-muscled frame, Bean doesn’t have desired size, and his arm strength is average. He can layer throws as a passer, but his decisionmaking and timing are inconsistent and lead to mistakes. He trusts his “fight or flight” instincts as a runner and has the qu ick feet to evade and pull away from pursuit. Overall, Bean has above-average straight-line speed and shows flashes as a passer, but his accuracy and pocket presence aren’t currently on an NFL level.
GRADE: Priority Free Agent
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Dane Brugler's scouting report on Kedon Slovis :
14. KEDON SLOVIS | BYU 6024 | 223 lbs. | 5SR Scottsdale, Ariz. (Desert Mountain) 4/11/2001 (age 23.04) #10
BACKGROUND: Kedon Slovis, who has two older brothers, grew up in Scottsdale with his father (Max) and mother (Lisa LaPedes-Slovis), who were both middle school teachers. He started playing flag football in third grade. Against the wishes of his mother, who worried about him getting hurt, Slovis started playing tackle football in sixth grade. He also played basketball throughout childhood and often was coached by his father. Slovis attended Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale and played primarily on the JV squad and as a backup for the varsity. With NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner as his offensive coordinator, he became the starting quarterback as a junior and completed 64.0 percent of his passes for 2,987 yards, 32 touchdowns and five interceptions. As a senior, Slovis earned honorable mention All-State honors with 62.2 percent completions for 2,542 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions in 2018. He also had five rushing t ouchdowns as a starter. Over Slovis’ junior and senior seasons, Desert Mountain had a 9-12 record. Slovis played basketball as a freshman before deciding to focus on football, including working with his quarterback coach Shawn Seaman.
A three-star recruit, Slovis was the No. 26 pro-style quarterback in the 2019 class and the No. 12 recruit in Arizona (QB Spencer Rattler was the No. 1 player and quarterback in the state). Playing at a high school program not known for producing Division I football players, he didn’t start to receive legitimate recruiting attention until a few schools came through the area the spring after his junior season. USC was one of those and offered Slovis in May 2018. Less than a week later, he officially committed to the Trojans (NC State and Oregon State were his other Power 5 offers). Slovis was the No. 21 recruit (out of 24) in former head coach Clay Helton’s 2019 class. After enrolling early in January 2019, he moved up the depth chart in his first spring and became the backup as a true freshman. When J.T. Daniels was sidelined with a knee injury in 2019, Slovis became the Trojans’ starter and became Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year, setting the conference singleseason record with his 71.9 completion percentage (previous record was 71.3 percent by Andrew Luck). Entrenched as the Trojan s’ starter moving forward, he led USC to a 5-1 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season but struggled throughout the 2021 campaign, opening the door for Jaxson Dart to earn playing time.
After Helton was fired and replaced by Lincoln Riley, Slovis entered the transfer portal in December 2021. He heard from seve ral schools but was intrigued by the chance to follow Kenny Pickett and throw to Jordan Addison at Pittsburgh, although Addison transferred to USC shortly after Slovis announced. After starting the 2022 season at Pittsburgh, Slovis wanted to play in a more pass-first attack and transferred to BYU for his final season in 2023, taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted because of the pandemic. Several Pitt players publicly criticized Slovis for “quitting” without talking to the team. Slovis graduated with his degree in communication from USC (May 2022) and is pursuing his master’s degree in biology. He accepted his invitation to the 2024 East-West Shrine Bowl.
STRENGTHS: Functional size and athleticism for the position … adequate arm strength when delivering from a wide base … when he has time, he is highly accurate in the short-to-intermediate part of the field … one of the better quarterbacks in the class at using his eyes to disguise his intentions and manipulate the coverage … bravely tests small windows downfield… uses tight footwork to navigate muddy pockets … routinely hangs tough while under fire and bounces back from hits … very even-keeled with his play personality … was voted a team captain at all three programs where he played college football … ranks top five in USC history in touchdown passes (58), despite an abbreviated stay.
WEAKNESSES: His process quickly unravels under pressure, forcing him to rush and make mistakes … uses his eyes well on some plays, then stares down targets the next … inconsistent decision-making process … fastball loses life when he can’t step in the bucket and fire … will occasionally make plays with his legs but doesn’t have the escapability or mobility to be a true threat … accounted for 31 fumbles in his career … suffered a concussion as a senior in high school and another during his freshman year at USC (September 2019), which sidelined him for one game; missed the final three games of the 2021 season with a left leg injury (November 2021); suffered another concussion at Pitt (September 2022) and missed one game; missed the final four games of his super senior season after battling several injuries, including a right shoulder issue (October 2023).
SUMMARY: A one-year starter at BYU, Slovis spent his final season in offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick’s RPO-heavy balanced scheme. He was a freshman AllAmerican at USC in 2019 (throwing to Michael Pittman Jr., Amon-Ra St. Brown and Drake London), but injuries and inconsistent play followed in two more seasons with the Trojans and one season at Pittsburgh before his final year with the Cougars (his completion percentage declined each of his five seasons). Slovis has adequate size and arm strength with toughness in the pocket and consistent ball placement when he stays in rhythm. However, h e isn’t a creator (with his arm or legs) and frequently makes stubborn decisions, despite coverage telling him to go in a different direction. Overall, Slovis has the functional skills to be a productive passer when everything around him is going right, but he didn’t put enough on tape to suggest he can elevate an offense when things fall apart around him. He is practice squad candidate who will have a chance to grow into a backup role in the NFL.
GRADE: 7th Round-Priority Free Agent
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BTW not sure if this means much of anything but Spencer Shrader of Notre Dame is the 6th ranked kicker out of this draft in Dane Brugler's rankings. We paid big money to Matt Gay so maybe it doesn't mean much, but still notable IMO.
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8 hours ago, Superman said:
All this is true, to an extent. But there are more and more people talking about the draft every year, and some of them are serious, while others are just making noise. No doubt Brugler is serious, he's been doing this extensive draft guide for years now. I think other guys might just be rearranging names on a list.
Oh no doubt about that. I absolutely value the fact that people like Brugler, Cosell, Jeremiah, etc. actually do the work and take their job seriously. And I also agree that others do very surface level stuff(more akin to what most of us here are doing here as a hoby. Except... they get paid for it).
8 hours ago, Superman said:I'm not fully on board with the 'everyone is the same' angle. I get the idea, but there are a ton of factors involved when considering how player prospects turn out in the long run. And just because a player doesn't hit doesn't mean the evaluation was faulty.
My angle is not exactly "everyone is the same", they are not. That's why I value extremely highly the work some do and not so much others. And I agree that just because a player doesn't hit, it doesn't mean the evaluation was faulty... or just because a player hits unexpectedly, I don't think the evaluation was necessarily faulty either. It's important to see the reasoning behind the projections and it is important to recognize the uncertainty in any projection really. IMO the uncertainty covers for a lot of shoddy "work" and rankings because a lot of talking heads can just parrot hits and omit misses. So they are not all the same, but their results might be very close to each other. Just like in the NFL - the difference between good and bad GMs in hit rate is in single digit number over the long term. You won't get one GM that hits 80% and another that hits 20%(Although... Grigson probably was close to that one).
Part of it is because the ones that don't do the work, actually copy and plagiarize the work that the great ones do... example, they will take the Jeremiah and Brugler's big boards and will mash them together and just switch a few names around, or if they have a favorite they will bump him up while dropping a specific one they don't like, but in the grand scheme of things the results wouldn't be dramatically different. So the value for me is from the actual verifiable work those people do and the way they present information. WIth people like Brugler or Cosell you can actually tell that it's them that are doing the work. They give you detailed reports on why they think what they think about those prospects. And they are almost never extreme in their opinions - i.e. "this player is trash, he would never succeed in the league". You know they actually sit down and watch those guys play and actually do scouting reports from what they see on tape, rather than from what they've heard someone else say about those players. And with Brugler, even furthermore, you see a ton of background information about those players. He's pretty much doing what scouts for the teams are doing. He's digging about the childhood and adolescence of those players, he's digging up red flags, medical information(whatever is available), etc. And he's just one person. And he's doing it for 400+ players every year. You can only respect that. And I derive a ton of more value out of it than I do out of a random pundit's QB ranking for which I probably have watched more tape than he has.
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1 hour ago, Superman said:
I haven't paid much attention to Dane before this year's draft. He produces great content, and he's thoughtful, not reactionary or prone to hyperbole, etc.
But is he good from a quality standpoint? Do his evaluations tend to hold up once players get drafted? Or does he mostly fall in with other draft guys in this area?
You know my stand on this, right? Even multi-billion teams with huge scouting departments and resources get it right about 50% of the time and in the long run they they all run so close to each other that it's hard to separate them. I read some opinion piece a while ago that teams might as well go strictly off the consensus board with the caveat that you might take into account scheme fits and red flags and that the main value of scouts is in finding out character/attitude issues rather than evaluation of the prospects.
So to me the value in what people like Dane do is in informing about the prospects and about how teams feel about them. And like you mentioned I value that he's thoughtful and not reactionary(kind of why I love Greg Cosell, too). I don't really expect them to be any better than the consensus board and if he is better than the rest of the analysts at projecting it's probably not by much. And in that sense his guide is the most thoroughly researched piece of draft content I've seen. I've heard big names in the media credit him that they go to his guide for the background information on the prospects. And his evaluation is a dispassionate exposition of players strengths and weaknesses in which I have found him to be pretty good at too. But from then on... the projecting to the next level... Eh, no idea about his success rate and no idea how to even evaluate it.
I wonder if anyone has even tried to run some statistical analysis on the different media personalities actual ability to project players
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Yep, Latu on draft day receiving the call from the Colts 
Rookie numbers?
in Colts Football
Posted
You know that saying... The player makes the number, the number doesn't make the player.