I joined twitter just before the 2014 draft.  It can be insufferable, yes.  But I find it entertaining and can be informative.

 

I'm very peculiar about who I do/do not follow.  I follow folks with opposite views from me on purpose, but when it gets too bad, you have to just unfollow.  Life is too short for misery.

 

I agree. I use it more as a news aggregator than a place to interact with people.

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The biggest thing that I think goes missed by a lot of these armchair talent evaluators is that the draft is, always has been, and most likely will continue to be about measureables. Teams want big, fast, athletic guys who can run fast, lift heavy things, and jump really high. It's that way because teams know that you increase your odds of getting a good football player if you start with a good athlete.

 

It's why the media world was shocked when Bortles went early, but none of the football people were. It's why Dante Fowler, despite producing fewer sacks than Beasley, was rated higher almost universally. It also seems to be the impetus for coming up with all kinds of weird statistics and metrics that pump up a player with lesser physical attributes.

 

They, the armchair scouts, watch and breakdown technique and hone in on little details and quirks but it seems like they miss the big picture that by and large you have to be an amazing athlete to survive on an NFL field, much less be productive out there. It's not a game for little guys with big hearts; it's a game for big guys with emotional issues.

What? Everything you just said was exactly why you didn't want to draft Fowler. Dante has good size, but he is not fast, does not lift heavy things, and does not jump really high...Beasley destroys Fowler across the board athletically. 

 

EDIT: I will say that if you put stock into DE sprint times then Fowler runs fast. Almost everyone agrees 40 yard is useless and 10 yard splits are better, but not nearly as good as 3 cone to determine DE "speed"...which Fowler was unfortunately horrible at.

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What? Everything you just said was exactly why you didn't want to draft Fowler. Dante has good size, but he is not fast, does not lift heavy things, and does not jump really high...Beasley destroys Fowler across the board athletically. 

 

I disagree. Beasley was seven one hundredths of a second faster than Fowler while being 15 lbs lighter. To me, those 15 lbs mean a lot when it comes to a players movement. The one thing that may be a cause for concern is the bench press item, but a bench press is hardly a good measure of a players power.

 

Again, I have no problem with Beasley as a football player and I think he's going to be a fine Defender in his own right. But I do understand why teams want a 6'3", 260+ lb guy going up against NFL Left Tackles in lieu of a 245 lb guy.

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I'm trying to make myself more informed and less opinionated.

Stop saying whatever stupid thing you're talking about and pay attention to all the interesting things I have to say!

I disagree. Beasley was seven one hundredths of a second faster than Fowler while being 15 lbs lighter. To me, those 15 lbs mean a lot when it comes to a players movement. The one thing that may be a cause for concern is the bench press item, but a bench press is hardly a good measure of a players power.

 

Again, I have no problem with Beasley as a football player and I think he's going to be a fine Defender in his own right. But I do understand why teams want a 6'3", 260+ lb guy going up against NFL Left Tackles in lieu of a 245 lb guy.

Look at the edit I made just before you posted this. The sprints =/= speed for a dlineman. The 3 cone and broad jump are far better indicators and Fowler was extremely subpar in both. 

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Look at the edit I made just before you posted this. The sprints =/= speed for a dlineman. The 3 cone and broad jump are far better indicators and Fowler was extremely subpar in both. 

 

Okay, and I can agree with you, I guess. I haven't done any kind of empirical data on how a 3 cone measurement affects a 260 lb guy vice a 245 lb guy and I don't really care to. Again, I'm not even saying that Jacksonville was right in selecting Fowler. But I am saying that the way I perceive the Draft and how NFL teams approach it, is that they are trying to get the best athletes they can and that when you actually lay eyes on a guy the size of Fowler, it makes sense to me why they picked him.

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I'm trying to make myself more informed and less opinionated.

Stop saying whatever stupid thing you're talking about and pay attention to all the interesting things I have to say!

Look at the edit I made just before you posted this. The sprints =/= speed for a dlineman. The 3 cone and broad jump are far better indicators and Fowler was extremely subpar in both. 

 

 

Okay, and I can agree with you, I guess. I haven't done any kind of empirical data on how a 3 cone measurement affects a 260 lb guy vice a 245 lb guy and I don't really care to. Again, I'm not even saying that Jacksonville was right in selecting Fowler. But I am saying that the way I perceive the Draft and how NFL teams approach it, is that they are trying to get the best athletes they can and that when you actually lay eyes on a guy the size of Fowler, it makes sense to me why they picked him.

 

Seems like a spider chart would help here...

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N/m, found one....

 

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Okay, and I can agree with you, I guess. I haven't done any kind of empirical data on how a 3 cone measurement affects a 260 lb guy vice a 245 lb guy and I don't really care to. Again, I'm not even saying that Jacksonville was right in selecting Fowler. But I am saying that the way I perceive the Draft and how NFL teams approach it, is that they are trying to get the best athletes they can and that when you actually lay eyes on a guy the size of Fowler, it makes sense to me why they picked him.

I agree teams are usually like this, which is why I was surprised the Jags and their supposed heavily analytically weighed process would land them with Fowler...considering he was pretty much the antithesis of what analytics would want. 

 

I think Fowler was just a Gus Bradley guy. The personality, the motor, and the 'juice'. Everything about him screamed Gus Bradley incarnate as a player. 

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What? Everything you just said was exactly why you didn't want to draft Fowler. Dante has good size, but he is not fast, does not lift heavy things, and does not jump really high...Beasley destroys Fowler across the board athletically. 

 

EDIT: I will say that if you put stock into DE sprint times then Fowler runs fast. Almost everyone agrees 40 yard is useless and 10 yard splits are better, but not nearly as good as 3 cone to determine DE "speed"...which Fowler was unfortunately horrible at.

And yet he was really good at football, so sometimes that doesn't tell the entire story. 

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