No, I didn't. I thought he really was on the trade block. That sucks. Not that we would've traded for him anyway. 

I'd love Dotson, but we'd have to trade up to get him. No way he gets passed Green Bay and Kansas City.

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Brian Robinson will probably be available in the 5th or 6th round. This RB class is loaded with a lot more athletic guys, which should push him down the board.

I highly doubt that, I don't care about what RBs are more athletic, I want the best RB and Robinson is right up there with the Walker and Hall.  I'd love to add Pierce as well.

LOL

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The O-Line Matters wrote:

No, I didn't. I thought he really was on the trade block. That sucks. Not that we would've traded for him anyway. 

I'd love Dotson, but we'd have to trade up to get him. No way he gets passed Green Bay and Kansas City.

What's to say that's not Doug and Baalkes top 6 WRs?


I'm convinced the first 6 best WRs will be gone by 33.  Wilson, London, Williams, Olave, Burks, Dotson, and maybe Moore will all be taken.  Nothing I've seen out of Pederson and Baalke leads me to believe they would be bold enough to trade back up into the 1st.  And I'm not sure it would be best for the construction of the roster anyway.  It will take a lot of draft capital to move up.  You're easily trading the possibility of 4 or more contributors to move up for the WR you may covet.  At this stage in the rebuild, I don't think that's necessarily wise.

I wouldn't be shocked if the reached for Trey MacBride at 33.  The value chart may say you should only draft him in the lower half of the second.  We might possibly trade down if we can find a partner.  But if he's your guy and you can't find a partner, I wouldn't crucify them for taking him.  I think we can find value in round 3 for a WR.  And since I think we still need to find 2 IOL and a LB, we may have to prioritize pass catcher lower even if that means we don't get the TE or WR we really covet.  To me nothing is more important than fixing the OL.  And as it stands at the moment, it's not fixed.

What's to say that's not Doug and Baalkes top 6 WRs?  Not to mention McBride might be in their top 33 players.  I don't know but I don't think these GMs are getting their boards and player rankings from these mocks and sites on the internet

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The O-Line Matters wrote:

No, I didn't. I thought he really was on the trade block. That sucks. Not that we would've traded for him anyway. 

I'd love Dotson, but we'd have to trade up to get him. No way he gets passed Green Bay and Kansas City.

I'm convinced the first 6 best WRs will be gone by 33.  Wilson, London, Williams, Olave, Burks, Dotson, and maybe Moore will all be taken.  Nothing I've seen out of Pederson and Baalke leads me to believe they would be bold enough to trade back up into the 1st.  And I'm not sure it would be best for the construction of the roster anyway.  It will take a lot of draft capital to move up.  You're easily trading the possibility of 4 or more contributors to move up for the WR you may covet.  At this stage in the rebuild, I don't think that's necessarily wise.

I wouldn't be shocked if the reached for Trey MacBride at 33.  The value chart may say you should only draft him in the lower half of the second.  We might possibly trade down if we can find a partner.  But if he's your guy and you can't find a partner, I wouldn't crucify them for taking him.  I think we can find value in round 3 for a WR.  And since I think we still need to find 2 IOL and a LB, we may have to prioritize pass catcher lower even if that means we don't get the TE or WR we really covet.  To me nothing is more important than fixing the OL.  And as it stands at the moment, it's not fixed.

I just hope we don't ruin Trevor Lawrence's confidence, because we won't provide him with any decent receivers. We finally have a good QB and we should be doing everything necessary to get good players to throw to and we've failed miserably. 

I agree that we need to find a Center and another Interior O-Lineman in the draft to compete with Bartch for the other OG spot. I also think we'll take a TE relatively high since that position plays so prominently in Pederson's offense and Engram is only on a 1 year deal. Inside linebacker is something I believe we will draft, but probably more on the 3rd day. IMO, getting a pass catcher, both WR and TE has to be priority #1, if we don't wanna ruin Trevor Lawrence before he even has a chance to show what he can do. Personally, I can live with the O-Line as it stands now, as long as we draft a franchise Center. That would give us Robinson, Bartch, Rookie Center, Scherff and Little. That's a lot better than what we had last season. Not everything is gonna get fixed on a long term basis this season. I'm hoping we use our 2023 first round pick on getting a franchise LT, since I'm counting on that LT class to be much better than this one.

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We need to be competent before we can be good. We need to be good before we can be a playoff caliber team. We need to be a playoff caliber team before we can be a legitimate contender. We need to be a legitimate contender before we can be a championship team.

Right now, we need competent players, and ideally, you would like to get competent players with at least some upside. Zay Jones is a competent player with at least some upside. We don’t need him to catch a 100 balls, break 1,000 yards, or score 10 touchdowns. We just need him to get open and catch the ball when his number is called to keep the chains moving. He can do that.

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[quote pid="1460955" dateline="1649541754"]
flgatorsandjags:

What's to say that's not Doug and Baalkes top 6 WRs?  Not to mention McBride might be in their top 33 players.  I don't know but I don't think these GMs are getting their boards and player rankings from these mocks and sites on the internet
[/quote]

Probably not.  Discounting the mock draft sites, which most of us look at with a jaundiced eye, if you look at the totality of rankings by reliable draft experts, they are not far off from reality.  There are always the curveballs in the real draft like Mayock drafting Cleland Farrell in the first round. Otherwise the top media experts get it pretty close.  If a team's draft board looks markedly different from the rest of the teams' draft boards, it's not usually because they are better and smarter than everyone else...

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We need to be competent before we can be good.  We need to be good before we can be a playoff caliber team.  We need to be a playoff caliber team before we can be a legitimate contender.  We need to be a legitimate contender before we can be a championship team.

Right now, we need competent players, and ideally, you would like to get competent players with at least some upside.  Zay Jones is a competent player with at least some upside.  We don’t need him to catch a 100 balls, break 1,000 yards, or score 10 touchdowns.  We just need him to get open and catch the ball when his number is called to keep the chains moving.  He can do that.

Yes, good point. Sometimes these little adds end up being a difference in a league with razer thin margins. Not every signing has to be Deandre Hopkins to improve the passing game. Look at how well the Patriots operated without a true stud receiver all those years (I know, easier with the GOAT).

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[quote pid="1460955" dateline="1649541754"]
flgatorsandjags:

What's to say that's not Doug and Baalkes top 6 WRs?  Not to mention McBride might be in their top 33 players.  I don't know but I don't think these GMs are getting their boards and player rankings from these mocks and sites on the internet

Probably not.  Discounting the mock draft sites, which most of us look at with a jaundiced eye, if you look at the totality of rankings by reliable draft experts, they are not far off from reality.  There are always the curveballs in the real draft like Mayock drafting Cleland Farrell in the first round. Otherwise the top media experts get it pretty close.  If a team's draft board looks markedly different from the rest of the teams' draft boards, it's not usually because they are better and smarter than everyone else...
[/quote]

There is a big difference from the top 5 to the guys in the 2nd.   The guys that fall to the 2nd they are usually wrong more often than not.  It's why there are always steals in that 2nd round

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We need to be competent before we can be good.  We need to be good before we can be a playoff caliber team.  We need to be a playoff caliber team before we can be a legitimate contender.  We need to be a legitimate contender before we can be a championship team.

Right now, we need competent players, and ideally, you would like to get competent players with at least some upside.  Zay Jones is a competent player with at least some upside.  We don’t need him to catch a 100 balls, break 1,000 yards, or score 10 touchdowns.  We just need him to get open and catch the ball when his number is called to keep the chains moving.  He can do that.

Agreed, Jones and Treadwell are 2 guys that have always had the talent to be a very good WR they just haven't been able to put it together for whatever reason.  If we could get 1 of those 2 guys to live up to their talent it would be huge for Trev

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Every Jones target from last year here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbXc-MfqyZo


I'm encouraged watching this cut-up.
He gets good separation on 95% of his targeted routes here. Whether playing vs man or zone.
Accurate route runner that gets in and out of breaks cleanly and anticipates the football at the right moments consistently.
Great hands. Fast enough to get open deep. Lined up at all 3 receiving positions at some point and got open from them all.
I can see why raiders fans think he was underutilized and sometimes squandered by QB limitations. His upside seems to be well above that 546 yards and 1 TD mark from last year.

One of the biggest takeaways from that reel is how many horrible passes Carr threw his way.
Oof. Some pretty ugly stuff in there.

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Looks like the link is blocked. What’s it called? I’ll head to YouTube to check it out.

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Looks like the link is blocked. What’s it called? I’ll head to YouTube to check it out.

Zay Jones | Every Play | Weeks 1 - 17 Full Highlights | Fantasy Football Scouting 2021

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Never mind I see, can just click on it hah. I have to say, he is a very smooth route runner. Lots of good things on that tape.

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Looks like the link is blocked. What’s it called? I’ll head to YouTube to check it out.

Zay Jones | Every Play | Weeks 1 - 17 Full Highlights | Fantasy Football Scouting 2021

Thanks

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I am more pumped to see what he can do after viewing that.

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Jones is related to Jimmy. What's not to like?

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Magic 8 ball has spoken

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So I have seen a lot of contradictory opinions regarding Zay Jones. It seems that from the fans’ perspective, he is a relative unknown who is vastly over paid. That was my initial impression as well. However, he seems to always be talked of fondly by Raiders sports writers. They seem to indicate he is a great pick up, every time you hear them talk about him. What do they know from watching him play, that we don’t? Will he finally break out now that he is more of a clear number two target as opposed to an afterthought on the depth chart? What do you guys predict? Will he exceed expectations, meet expectations, or underwhelm?

I'm not worried. He's basically making the same (3yrs @$8 per) ball park as Agnew (3 @ 7, IIRC), are we thinking Agnew is anything significant in the passing game?

I'll admit last year I was critical of making Agnew an early signing, and a pricey (LOL, in retrospect) one considering his non-return game production. D'oh. He ended up being one of our brightest pick-ups.

Jones gives us options. He's got 2 years to either prove his worth, or he's gone. It's on him to figure his place in the system and to put a good showing out there to insure his spot is secure any further than that. I'm much happier that we made an effort to improve the WR room than to rest on our laurels.

Considering what the top WR are making these days, his pay is not that significant. Even if he ends up a role-player, that's great, so long as it helps the team out. What if he takes Agnew's place in the passing game, and Agnew has fresher legs for the kick returns? That alone may be the value in this signing.

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So I have seen a lot of contradictory opinions regarding Zay Jones. It seems that from the fans’ perspective, he is a relative unknown who is vastly over paid. That was my initial impression as well. However, he seems to always be talked of fondly by Raiders sports writers. They seem to indicate he is a great pick up, every time you hear them talk about him. What do they know from watching him play, that we don’t? Will he finally break out now that he is more of a clear number two target as opposed to an afterthought on the depth chart? What do you guys predict? Will he exceed expectations, meet expectations, or underwhelm?

I'm not worried. He's basically making the same (3yrs @$8 per) ball park as Agnew (3 @ 7, IIRC), are we thinking Agnew is anything significant in the passing game?

I'll admit last year I was critical of making Agnew an early signing, and a pricey (LOL, in retrospect) one considering his non-return game production. D'oh. He ended up being one of our brightest pick-ups.

Jones gives us options. He's got 2 years to either prove his worth, or he's gone. It's on him to figure his place in the system and to put a good showing out there to insure his spot is secure any further than that. I'm much happier that we made an effort to improve the WR room than to rest on our laurels.

Considering what the top WR are making these days, his pay is not that significant. Even if he ends up a role-player, that's great, so long as it helps the team out. What if he takes Agnew's place in the passing game, and Agnew has fresher legs for the kick returns? That alone may be the value in this signing.

If Agnew wasn't coming off an injury, he'd be our best receiver. He was last season before he got hurt. I don't see anyone better than him on the roster now.

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I'm not worried. He's basically making the same (3yrs @$8 per) ball park as Agnew (3 @ 7, IIRC), are we thinking Agnew is anything significant in the passing game?

I'll admit last year I was critical of making Agnew an early signing, and a pricey (LOL, in retrospect) one considering his non-return game production. D'oh. He ended up being one of our brightest pick-ups.

Jones gives us options. He's got 2 years to either prove his worth, or he's gone. It's on him to figure his place in the system and to put a good showing out there to insure his spot is secure any further than that. I'm much happier that we made an effort to improve the WR room than to rest on our laurels.

Considering what the top WR are making these days, his pay is not that significant. Even if he ends up a role-player, that's great, so long as it helps the team out. What if he takes Agnew's place in the passing game, and Agnew has fresher legs for the kick returns? That alone may be the value in this signing.

If Agnew wasn't coming off an injury, he'd be our best receiver. He was last season before he got hurt. I don't see anyone better than him on the roster now.

No he wasn't Marvin Jones was lol.  Since his 2nd year he averages close to 900 yards a season and 7 TDs.  In 18 he had just over 500 yards but he was out half the season. One of the most consistent WR 2s in the league for the last 8 years

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I'm not expecting any teams 3rd or 4th best WRs to come in here and be superstars. That applies to both Zay Jones and Christian Kirk. I'm just hoping to get good route running like Brady had with his mediocre WRs in his beginning years with the Pats (e.g. David Givens, Deion Branch, Troy Brown)

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If Agnew wasn't coming off an injury, he'd be our best receiver. He was last season before he got hurt. I don't see anyone better than him on the roster now.

No he wasn't Marvin Jones was lol.  Since his 2nd year he averages close to 900 yards a season and 7 TDs.  In 18 he had just over 500 yards but he was out half the season. One of the most consistent WR 2s in the league for the last 8 years

He pretends Jones isn't any good when he can no longer pretend he doesn't exist. There's something weird there with him, kinda like you defending CJ all those months ago.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato