*Update: AD Mitchell signed

[ColtStrong2013]

10 hours ago, stitches said:

You know I had my own reservations about that outburst by Ballard at the presser, but the more I'm learning about Mitchell the more I actually believe in what Ballard was saying and the less merit those reports have in my mind. Maybe I have my own unconscious biases too, now that I have vested interest in Mitchell actually being good for us. I don't know  

 

I never had reservations about his comments. I thought he was making a strong point in backing the player, not the pick. I took it as if the only person he wanted to hear it was Mitchell. Back your new player publicly over concerns that clearly led him to fall in the draft. I don't think that's a crazy statement to state either, that Mitchell undoubtedly fell because of the reports. I'm pretty confident he goes higher, if not first round, without that report/commentary. 

 

28 minutes ago, Superman said:

And that scout -- who I think was the harshest -- also said that when AD's blood sugar is right, he's great. So to me, he offered a reasonable explanation, and I don't think he came across as someone who dislikes AD or would have him as a character red flag. I think there was nuance that doesn't get fully considered when this stuff gets repeated.

 

He might have even liked Mitchell, and strategically put it out there to get a great value pick... Here's a crazy thought, it could have even been a Colts scout, or connection to one. 🙃

[Superman]

1 hour ago, shasta519 said:

 

Sure. It's possible that teams could have had boards that included many WRs as R1 grades, including Mitchell, and they just chose one over him. I worded that weirdly, but what I meant was that teams that didn't have him as a R1 player, it was for reasons beyond the rumors in this article.

 

But the "surefire first rounder until he was done dirty by rumors" doesn't track. 

 

We know that AD ranked poorly in some advanced metrics (like yards per route run) that typically operate as requisites for successful NFL WRs (outliers are rare). We know what some team scouts had concerns from his Combine drills. And we know what happened at the draft. 

 

And those comments that McGinn published weren't even his thoughts...they too were from NFL scouts.

 

Seems like the easiest and logical explanation is that teams had legit concerns (for multiple reasons) about AD and that, not rumors, is what pushed him down in the draft. But Destin seems to be spinning a couple of those concerns (that Ballard had addressed) to drive his narrative.

 

I mostly agree. I think there might be teams that had him highly graded, but went in a different direction. The first round was wacky. And maybe for some of those teams, it was a coin flip between AD and another player, and maybe the concerns about maturity were the deciding factor.

 

There are other teams -- like the Colts, IMO -- that generally don't value WR as a first round position, which is not necessarily a reflection of the individual player. Maybe the Colts would have taken one of the top three guys if they were in range, because they're that good, but generally, that's not how the Colts handle the position. 

 

Your other thoughts are definitely valid as well. It's not like he's the perfect physical prospect, he didn't have outstanding college production, some of the advanced stuff doesn't look great, etc. I don't think he's the 11th best WR prospect in this class, there are several players I think he should have gone ahead of. But it's not like he's a top five prospect who dropped to the middle of the second round. The Colts don't see it that way either, otherwise they wouldn't have traded back to #52. Speaking of top five prospects dropping, there were some unsourced rumors about Malik Nabers' character before the draft; he still got drafted where everyone expected him to be drafted. 

 

So yeah, I don't think these reports torpedoed AD's draft stock. Maybe the character concerns played a role, but I don't think these reports are the source of those concerns; I think it's the other way around. 

[Superman]

17 minutes ago, stitches said:

On the other examples of rumors/reports about other players(Caleb, Levis, Stroud) - absolutely, if you are going to disparage the character of any of those players the very least you must do is ask them for a comment. The fact that this practice of just throwing rocks and hiding hands and not even giving the opportunity of the target to respond, is prevalent in today's draft media, doesn't make it right.

 

I don't necessarily disagree. I do think there's a double standard, though. When it's a positive report about a player we like, it's fine. When it's a negative report about a player we don't like, it's validating. We eat all of that up, all through draft season, no problem. But when it's a negative report about player we like, now the practice is unfair.

 

It's a shrug for me all the way around, though. If it's a topic I care about, I'll dig and try to get past the surface, and make a determination on how I feel about the substance of the reports.

 

Quote

Also, I still want to underline something here... there is obvious conflict of interest here that I still haven't seen anyone address. 

 

What do you mean?

[stitches]

4 minutes ago, Superman said:

What do you mean?

I mean that anonymous scouts and anonymous execs work for some team in the league. Those teams have interests very separate from the interests of the reporters giving them platform... 

[Superman]

 

2 minutes ago, stitches said:

I mean that anonymous scouts and anonymous execs work for some team in the league. Those teams have interests very separate from the interests of the reporters giving them platform... 

 

Got it. But what do you think should be done about this?

[stitches]

25 minutes ago, Superman said:

Got it. But what do you think should be done about this?

Not sure. To me a lot of those (not just about AD) read very gross and icky, especially coming from people who have things to gain from perpetuating a narrative. IMO unless it's factually supported, you probably shouldn't print it(this is specifically about character/attitude things... things that we cannot see with our own eyes on the field - about those... go wild... print whatever you want, unless you are concerned with looking foolish). Or at the very least you should make everything possible to corroborate it with people who are close to the situation - for example, your anonymous scout tells you AD Mitchell is uncoachable. You do NOT print this unless a coach who has worked with him confirms it. Your anonymous scout tells you that when AD Mitchell is not taking care of his blood sugar levels, he's hard to work with. OK, this seems reasonable enough. But does it give an accurate picture of what it is like to work with Mitchell? In other words - how often does that actually happen? Because Mitchell's interview with Destin seems to suggest that he's been taking the necessary measures to control his blood sugar levels. Did it happen like once or twice in the span of 3 years in college? Or is it happening every second practice? Because when you write it like McGinn wrote it and then suggest that he's uncoachable, what's the picture that comes to your head? And the fact that your scout also told you "but when his blood sugar is ok, he's great", doesn't really do anything to balance the story here. 

[Superman]

4 minutes ago, stitches said:

Not sure. To me a lot of those (not just about AD) read very gross and icky. IMO unless it's factually supported, you probably shouldn't print it(this is specifically about character/attitude things... things that we cannot see with our own eyes on the field - about those... go wild... print whatever you want, unless you are concerned with looking foolish). Or at the very least you should make everything possible to corroborate it with people who are close to the situation - for example, your anonymous scout tells you AD Mitchell is uncoachable. You do NOT print this unless a coach who has worked with it confirms it. Your anonymous scout tells you that when AD Mitchell is not taking care of his blood sugar levels, he's hard to work with. OK, this seems reasonable enough. But does it give an accurate picture of what it is like to work with Mitchell? In other words - how often does that actually happen? Because Mitchell's interview with Destin seems to suggest that he's been taking the necessary measures to control his blood sugar levels. Did it happen like once or twice in the span of 3 years in college? Or is it happening every second practice? Because when you write it like McGinn wrote it and then suggest that he's uncoachable, what's the picture that comes to your head? And the fact that your scout also told you "but when his blood sugar is ok, he's great", doesn't really do anything to balance the story here. 

 

Does the same dynamic and conflict exist when it's a positive report, based on unnamed sources? 

 

What if a reporter just generalizes this information, without offering quotes? 'People I've talked to have concerns about this player's maturity...' Is the standard the same in that case?

 

I think if media didn't share these anonymous insights, the stuff we love to consume during draft season would dry up, and we'd be in the dark. There's a voracious appetite for this kind of information. That doesn't mean the media has no responsibility and shouldn't be held to some kind of standard, but I think your standard is more strict than it needs to be. JMO.

 

To the bolded, I think that's the job of the scouts, and it's one of the reasons there's a HUGE difference between watching video, and actually scouting. That's why teams who have access to film and independent scouting reports still pay their own scouts to go into the schools, talk to the coaches, talk to family and friends, etc., and write up in-depth reports on players that they'll likely never draft. I'm confident the Colts got sufficient answers to those questions, which is why I'm not concerned about it. If the Colts didn't have a reputation for being so thorough with stuff like this, I might feel differently.

[stitches]

1 minute ago, Superman said:

 

Does the same dynamic and conflict exist when it's a positive report, based on unnamed sources? 

Yes. Just like you might want to try to make a player drop to you, you might want to bump up the stock of another player so he gets taken ahead of you and this drops another player you actually like to your team. 

1 minute ago, Superman said:

What if a reporter just generalizes this information, without offering quotes? 'People I've talked to have concerns about this player's maturity...' Is the standard the same in that case?

This to me looks even worse. This provides even further layers of anonymity and even more questions about the veracity of the report. With what McGinn is doing at least we know where(generally) this is coming from and what the potential pitfalls might be(conflict of interest). If he generalizes it to "People are saying"... this could be anyone... it could be a scout... it could be an exec... it could be an actual coach of the player(this might actually be valuable)... or it could be a water boy the player didn't give an autograph to... In a certain way it makes it easier to ignore, but it feels worse to me because of lack of specificity about the reliability of the source. 

1 minute ago, Superman said:

 

I think if media didn't share these anonymous insights, the stuff we love to consume during draft season would dry up, and we'd be in the dark. There's a voracious appetite for this kind of information. That doesn't mean the media has no responsibility and shouldn't be held to some kind of standard, but I think your standard is more strict than it needs to be. JMO.

There is a lot of appetite for more and more information about the players. I'm not so sure there is a ton of appetite for anonymous reports about character failings specifically. In fact, I think those are some of my least favorite pieces of content around the draft. I think there is TONS of good(and some bad) substantiated, analytical, narrative content for fans to consume without going into the gutter of dirt that a lot of those anonymous reports are dealing with. Unless it is factually substantiated(example, player X is being charged with Y crime, i.e. there's actual case... it's all fair game to explore that...) 

 

1 minute ago, Superman said:

To the bolded, I think that's the job of the scouts, and it's one of the reasons there's a HUGE difference between watching video, and actually scouting. That's why teams who have access to film and independent scouting reports still pay their own scouts to go into the schools, talk to the coaches, talk to family and friends, etc., and write up in-depth reports on players that they'll likely never draft. I'm confident the Colts got sufficient answers to those questions, which is why I'm not concerned about it. If the Colts didn't have a reputation for being so thorough with stuff like this, I might feel differently.

Someone pointed out that it was Ballard that went to Marcus Peters' house and spent a couple of days with him and his family to give the OK to the Chiefs to draft him. Ballard is not a stranger to having to clear a prospect's character for his team so they'd be able to draft him. IMO he seems very confident in his read on Mitchell. I don't think he'd go to that length to defend his player the day he drafts him if he didn't really think the things he said. And I really think he feels strongly about this. I guess we will see in due time if he was right. 

[Superman]

6 minutes ago, stitches said:

Yes. Just like you might want to try to make a player drop to you, you might want to bump up the stock of another player so he gets taken ahead of you and this drops another player you actually like to your team. 

 

Kind of an extreme example, but Jim Irsay specifically praising Bryce Young last year could qualify. In general though, if a team is trying to throw off the scent by floating positive information about other players, that seems harmless. It's different if a team is trashing a player to try to get him to drop into their range, and I don't think that's something that actually happens. If it did, I think that would be highly inappropriate, and I think a good reporter would look back and recognize that their source was using them, and think twice about trusting that source again.

 

Quote

This to me looks even worse. This provides even further layers of anonymity and even more questions about the veracity of the report. With what McGinn is doing at least we know where(generally) this is coming from and what the potential pitfalls might be(conflict of interest). If he generalizes it to "People are saying"... this could be anyone... it could be a scout... it could be an exec... it could be an actual coach of the player(this might actually be valuable)... or it could be a water boy the player didn't give an autograph to... In a certain way it makes it easier to ignore, but it feels worse to me because of lack of specificity about the reliability of the source. 

 

So I think this is way more common than what McGinn did. And I don't think people ignore it, unless it's something they don't want to hear. Most sports reports include some version of 'I've been told...' without naming or directly quoting a source. A lot of those are just fact-based, black/white reports, but that often happens with more opinion-based or viewpoint-based reporting as well.

 

Quote

There is a lot of appetite for more and more information about the players. I'm not so sure there is a ton of appetite for anonymous reports about character failings specifically. In fact, I think those are some of my least favorite pieces of content around the draft. I think there is TONS of good(and some bad) substantiated, analytical, narrative content for fans to consume without going into the gutter of dirt that a lot of those anonymous reports are dealing with. Unless it is factually substantiated(example, player X is being charged with Y crime, i.e. there's actual case... it's all fair game to explore that...) 

 

I don't know if anyone necessarily likes those reports, but I do think we consume them, and are generally influenced by them. Yeah, the substantiated/analytical stuff is way more valuable than a report discussion a potential character issue, but if it has a legitimate foundation -- AD Mitchell does have diabetes, it can be difficult for someone with that condition to control their mood and energy levels -- then I think it should be considered. Ultimately, I know the quality of information I have access to is nowhere near what the teams are getting, so I don't worry too much about it. 

 

Quote

Someone pointed out that it was Ballard that went to Marcus Peters' house and spent a couple of days with him and his family to give the OK to the Chiefs to draft him. Ballard is not a stranger to having to clear a prospect's character for his team so they'd be able to draft him. IMO he seems very confident in his read on Mitchell. I don't think he'd go to that length to defend his player the day he drafts him if he didn't really think the things he said. And I really think he feels strongly about this. I guess we will see in due time if he was right. 

 

Yeah, I fully agree. Ballard faced the media when the Okereke story came out, and it was obvious the team had done their homework. He was firm when asked about Ogletree coming back. The Colts are thorough. Doesn't mean nothing can go wrong once they draft the guy, but I'm confident they've checked all their boxes. 

 

And definitely, I think Ballard 100% meant everything he said, and I have no problem with him saying it. But, I think there's a difference between McGinn's report, and the narrative that came later. I think the report was based on anonymous insights, and the narrative was based on sensational headlines. And I'd say Ballard's comments apply more to the narrative than to the report.

[ColtStrong2013]

3 hours ago, stitches said:

Not sure. To me a lot of those (not just about AD) read very gross and icky, especially coming from people who have things to gain from perpetuating a narrative. IMO unless it's factually supported, you probably shouldn't print it(this is specifically about character/attitude things... things that we cannot see with our own eyes on the field - about those... go wild... print whatever you want, unless you are concerned with looking foolish). Or at the very least you should make everything possible to corroborate it with people who are close to the situation - for example, your anonymous scout tells you AD Mitchell is uncoachable. You do NOT print this unless a coach who has worked with him confirms it. Your anonymous scout tells you that when AD Mitchell is not taking care of his blood sugar levels, he's hard to work with. OK, this seems reasonable enough. But does it give an accurate picture of what it is like to work with Mitchell? In other words - how often does that actually happen? Because Mitchell's interview with Destin seems to suggest that he's been taking the necessary measures to control his blood sugar levels. Did it happen like once or twice in the span of 3 years in college? Or is it happening every second practice? Because when you write it like McGinn wrote it and then suggest that he's uncoachable, what's the picture that comes to your head? And the fact that your scout also told you "but when his blood sugar is ok, he's great", doesn't really do anything to balance the story here. 

 

I think it could be a very sticky situation in the future where players file suit against writers for defamation of character resulting in financial loss. If a report with anonymous sources isn't substantially backed by anyone when challenged, and it leads to a player that is projected by virtually everyone to go top 10 and they fall (even to just later 1st round), it could be considered a serious financial loss. That would be an interesting conversation to know if that is precedented or even possible... First amendment rights only go so far, and confidential sources can revealed forcibly through court, based on my understanding. 

[jvan1973]

57 minutes ago, ColtStrong2013 said:

 

I think it could be a very sticky situation in the future where players file suit against writers for defamation of character resulting in financial loss. If a report with anonymous sources isn't substantially backed by anyone when challenged, and it leads to a player that is projected by virtually everyone to go top 10 and they fall (even to just later 1st round), it could be considered a serious financial loss. That would be an interesting conversation to know if that is precedented or even possible... First amendment rights only go so far, and confidential sources can revealed forcibly through court, based on my understanding. 

It would be an interesting case.   The writer would be compelled to reveal there sources.    I think freedom of the press protects them in some regard.   Here's my question,   what's to stop a reporter from completely fabricating a story and using "anonymous" sources.  Clicks are how they get paid.    I'm not accusing anyone of this,  but actual journalism is dying.   Thousands of websites trying to stay afloat.   

[ColtStrong2013]

57 minutes ago, jvan1973 said:

It would be an interesting case.   The writer would be compelled to reveal there sources.    I think freedom of the press protects them in some regard.   Here's my question,   what's to stop a reporter from completely fabricating a story and using "anonymous" sources.  Clicks are how they get paid.    I'm not accusing anyone of this,  but actual journalism is dying.   Thousands of websites trying to stay afloat.   

the big thing that I see when researching it (because I’m now interested) is nothing to back your case in the event you are sued for libel/defamation. If you have a source, when push comes to shove, you can use your privilege as a journalist to push the blame on the source. You’ll lose access to most sources going forward, but by that point, I would assume you would be one foot out the door and ready for a career change. It would take a serious suit, one that had strong chance of winning/settling. That requires serious money at stake on both sides, and a very determined plaintiff. My thought is that as more money pumps into the league, and as the salaries of top picks increases, there may be enough reason for individuals to take action in the future for damaging reports, especially without reputable/anonymous sources, or that are completely fabricated and not supported by others. Ballard possibly might be throwing a fit in the media because this is becoming a dirty tactic by a handful of teams looking to drop player values in the draft. Who knows. 

[CR91]

 

[Yoshinator]

10 minutes ago, CR91 said:

 

Yeah, I've been taking Mitchell a lot in Fanduel and Draftkings bestball leagues. Going in the 10-11th round mostly. I think he'll rise pretty soon. He's looking great so far!

[cdgacoltsfan]

5 hours ago, Yoshinator said:

Yeah, I've been taking Mitchell a lot in Fanduel and Draftkings bestball leagues. Going in the 10-11th round mostly. I think he'll rise pretty soon. He's looking great so far!

But......Someone said he's a spoiled brat.

[ColtStrong2013]

53 minutes ago, cdgacoltsfan said:

But......Someone said he's a spoiled brat.

When he balls out, he’ll be our spoiled brat… 

[rock8591]

On 6/21/2024 at 5:07 PM, ColtStrong2013 said:

When he balls out, he’ll be our spoiled brat… 

AD offered to lend me his jumper cables for my car this morning...but I told him not to start nothin'. 😁

 

J/K. Not based on a true story, it was a lame dad joke based on a pun. 😁😁