(04-12-2018, 04:47 PM)pirkster Wrote: It's really a shame what college is doing to the NFL game.  They aren't producing the players the NFL prefers.

NFL is forced to change in response.  It's making players more difficult to evaluate, and also causing them to do remedial coaching and changing their schemes and playbooks to better suit what's coming out.

Sams just fall later in the draft as a result.  Fewer to choose from, lower versatility, lower priority, lower draft cost.

College turned football into a track meet, and that's forced the NFL being to reflect that as well.  They're forced to change to best use what's available.  College is producing less than ideal talent, generally speaking.  They line up the athletes and outscore the opponent.  It's one of the reasons it's felt that OL talent is dropping and many are struggling in the NFL.

Savvy coaches and GMs can use this to their advantage when rebuilding a team.  It's what brought about the popularity of the 3-4.  Instead of having distinct role players sam, will, and mike... you can place less than ideal players into productive roles.  Same for DL.  You only need an NT instead of two DTs.  Your ends can be cast off LEs and/or undersized DTs that aren't valued by 4-3 teams.  Your ILBs can be made of MLBs that don't have sideline to sideline talent.  Your OLBs can be tweeners that find it hard to be productive with their hand down in a 4-3.  You can build it quickly on a relative bargain.

That's not to say you can't put prototypical talent in those positions... you certainly can.  It's just more helpful to a 4-3 to have closer to the prototype than not.  With 3-4, you can get by a lot easier without prototypes with your front seven.

I get your point, but this seems like so much "victim mentality" to me. Yes, there are standards for what it takes to be on a an NFL roster, but to imply that coaches employed by the NFL can't get NFL-caliber athletes to perform at a necessary level is the worst kind of mindset. Look at what Scarnecchia does in New England. They rotate people through that O-Line like no one else and always put a quality performance on the field.

Yes, bad players exist, but at some point you have to wonder at the level of coaching these players are getting.

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