AZ54

Yeah. Luther burden was upset where he was drafted and that worked out well for us.

Makes sense

Too funny. Squirrel can at least catch.

I've watched his highlights 3 times now. There is no zig zag to his game, he's a linear athlete and a little one at that, and doesn't appear to have good vision in traffic. That's not the kind of guy you want as a kick returner. He also goes down very easily. I think without much lateral quickness he's going to struggle getting off the LOS or even just when DBs or LBs body up on him at the 5yd mark and they will reroute him. Years ago, before I started watching players closely, I used to think fast guys will find a way to be successful. Nowadays, after many years of scouting feedback here on this board, then watching which players ultimately succeed in the NFL (i.e. I was wrong), I value quickness in/out of cuts and open field agility far more than speed. There's a reason Jaxon Smith Njigba just got big money and it wasn't because of a 4.3 forty. Antonio Brown ran a 4.6 forty but nobody could cover him in his prime. By the way I've come to learn that agility matters equally as much for the trenches. See Gervon Dexter struggle to get off blocks because he can't flip his hips. Don't misconstrue me because obviously this is not the only trait to make a player successful. It definitely makes a difference in what you see on the field.

Who do you see Squirrel White beating out for a roster spot? Zavion? Bigger, faster, more agile, and more versatile and most importantly does not always go down the first time someone touches him. Khalif Raymond who already knows Ben Johnson's offense? Who do you see Caden Bennett beating out? Newman? McFadden? Bradbury? Both played well when called upon last year and a year of experience in this offense is a big help for them. I don't see a rookie UDFA from a small school beating either out. Jayden Loving might have a shot since our DT depth after Gallimore is so weak. Street reportedly had some decent years under Dennis Allen but nobody here is counting on him. If Loving can show some positional versatility (i.e. line up some at DE) he might wiggle his way onto the 53. We have a lot of risk at DE until Dayo and Turner return from injury. Of course Van den Berg is also a pretty good athlete. If we don't sign a FA DE this is something to watch as we head into camp.

I feel good the team prioritized protecting Caleb and didn’t just let the draft play out according to the experts. See the guy you really want and go get him. They backed it up with an insurance plan in Bradbury.

Clowney made $3.5mil last year.

Oddly our new OC was a high school sprinter. Easily replaces Dalman

If he Keeps Caleb upright and the offense scores more points than last year I’ll buy your swamp. 🙂

Dude was limping and still outran everyone.

Pro Football RumorsBears Restructure Contracts Of TE Cole Kmet, OL Jonah Jac...The Bears restructured a few contracts last week to ensure they have financial flexibility during the draft.

There were clearly some issues with DJ early on in the new offense. Caleb clearly didn't trust him early on in the season. Ben figured out how to get something out of him early on but I believe you are right Ben's demands on disciplined route running never quite fit DJ's style.

Why didn't this guy get drafted? I see him handling double teams and staying at the LOS, sometimes splitting them to make the tackle. He's got some knock-back power in 1v1 to push the pocket. Can get off the blocks push/pull to get after the QB, and enough agility to handle stunts. He's like Billings except he can actually run. Seems like a dude who can develop into a rotational depth player. Even in the highlights I can see some plays where he's slow off the LOS and looks fatigued. I'm sure there are some other deficiencies but still seems like a guy some team would take a flier on in the 7th Rd. I see him earning a spot on the practice squad.

I can see where he develops enough on the practice squad to take Bagent's place. If not, we try again. No long speed some happy feet but love the quickness in his cuts. Practice squad candidate.

Clearly needs to work on the legs but great seeing him doing every day things with no brace.

Good catch on the hands. Very odd that at LSU he bodied the ball more on his catches. Wonder if that is something coaches wanted but seeing the hands catches gives away from his body gives me more confidence in the pick.

Yeah those AI summary videos are all over the place and really boring.

Don't look at a forty time when White was coming off an injury and still rehabbing. Reportedly he hit 24mph in one game. However, I just watched some highlights of him and he is more of a long speed guy and doesn't have the same quick burst Zavion has, nor the quick agility in his cuts and he does it at 190lbs. Among 170lb WRs, Tank Dell a couple years back had elite quickness in his cuts that made him so hard to cover. We drafted the better player and I doubt Squirrel ever amounts to much more than a practice squad guy.

In no way am I complaining about the Van Ness pick.

I hadn't even thought about supporting the LT with TE blocking. That's a legit concern and adds value to drafting the best blocking TE in the draft where we did.

I would not rule out Cam Jordan joining this team. A trade for Kayvon Thibedeaux wouldn't totally surprise me either but his production has been horrible the last two seasons. They've been trying to dump him off on another team for a year now with no takers, which is telling. Among those two I'd strongly prefer Cam Jordan for a year. Having him mentor Booker and Turner (if he's still a DE) would be beneficial too. I'd feel good with that 4-man rotation.

Highly doubtful in this complex offense. Aside from the extra demands from Ben's offense, rookie TEs always struggle to get up to speed in the NFL because there is so much to learn. Coleston Loveland was still learning things late into the season, and still missing assignments even into the playoffs. I won't mind if you're correct since it's means the offense will be in a great position. The good thing here is that Roush is a legit receiving target and has far better YAC potential than Smythe (and Kmet). For sure by the second half of the season I expect Roush to be getting more targets than Smythe was seeing, and on running routes not the stop here and turn around college plays. Then teams won't be able to key off him in terms of knowing who is blocking and who is running a route. Ben said it in the press conference when asked about how this helps the offense since we already had two good TEs: "We can go heavy or we can spread it out, however we choose to attack a defense." I think now even the easy plays around the LOS become more productive because these 3 TEs can do so much in space. Jet sweeps and WR screens with Zavion on the field? Not that we have to do a lot of it, more so that we can do it depending on how a defense is playing us. We're going to be a very difficult offense to prepare for each week because of all the options. We just need Caleb to take the next step in quicker reads and quicker accurate releases to the right player. After seeing the progress across last season I think he'll get there.

Kmet is a better receiver than Roush, wider catch radius, better hands, etc. Roush is better at blocking and running and is more dangerous with the ball in his hands. I doubt Roush could make that game-tying TD catch Kmet made in the playoffs. However, after seeing how many snaps a nearly useless Dylan Smythe got last year it's very clear Ben wants 3 good TEs. That said I can see a future where we move on from Kmet to free up money. Which means I won't be surprised if we draft another TE next year.

IMO comparing this pool video to Gilbert years ago is taking it out of context. Gilbert literally had almost no highlights to his production at a small school. He was drafted purely on a traits projection. Here we're taking a 6yr old video of a high school kid who was already focused on improving his athletic ability. At 240lbs he was still growing and had no idea what he'd grow into as a player. Watching his press conference, and seeing his work out numbers, it's clear his work ethic is still there to this day. He played in the ACC against good programs last year: Clemson, Georgia, Duke, BC, NC State, Pitt, and BYU and had production in those games. That's a lot better level of competition than San Jose St. Given the level of competition having an average depth of tackle of -0.11 is pretty good.

The value charts always assume a linear value to players and picks. Poles said they had excluded a lot more players this year and were very focused on finding "football guys". That narrow focus means there are going to be some big cliffs and valleys in players on their board throughout the process. Using OC as the example, the Bears led the workout for Sam Hecht. They said they were in on as many OC workouts via Roushar as they could be. They had a very good idea on which OCs fit their scheme best and that increases the grade and value of Logan Jones by a lot in their eyes. While the rest of the NFL draft world has him graded similarly to Hecht and maybe a couple others. They went and got their guy locked in early and that doesn't bother me as long as the evaluation is right. At the point of the trade down I saw your points analysis and agreed it was clear Poles well selling low to get the additional pick. As of today we lost on the trade value charts but if Malik Muhammad turns into a good starting CB2 for us then I'd say we won the value battle finding that talent in the 4th. Plus adding a good depth LB with starting potential on a pick we never had. Given the way the draft happened and this tight fit on evals makes me wonder why we avoided guys like Dani Dennis-Sutton. It's the late 3rd Rd pick on a WR where all this meshes into a WTF moment. Certainly if any of those Edge or DT prospects were one of Poles players we'd have grabbed them in the 3rd. Darrell Jackson Jr., Kaleb Proctor, Gracen Halton. In my mind, and in my mocks, several of those players were logical choices for us at that pick.