The Consigliere wrote: Thu Apr 17, 2025 3:47 pm
skinsinparadise wrote: Thu Apr 17, 2025 3:06 pm
Coming from a dude who loved both Maye and Jayden. I don't think Maye was that hard of an assessment. I think its a product of how much you watch the player, how many games and which games? Maye had three games where his accuracy was a hot mess. And when his critics hit him, it was referencing those games. Ultimately they put all of his games on youtube where you could watch every game-every throw in sequence. And when you watch it, you could see how those three games were outliers, he was great otherwise. He was great the season before, too. Then you add his upside, tools, etc. He was an easy read IMO.
Jayden took a little more projection. But I was early on him during that college season. Then I became infatuated with Maye. And Jayden had that one fan NFLchick on the board who would go so over the top about Jayden and slammed Maye so much that lol it made me for a spell defend Maye and prop him over Jayden. But then NFLchick dissappeared and I found myself becoming Jayden's top defender on the board with some saying the more they watched the more concerned they were about him. I seriously doubt though those people watched all of Jayden's games. I watched them all twice. Ditto Maye. And I was reassured about Jayden the more i watched because you can see him throw at times with anticpation, throw on the move, throw in between the numbers. You had some sample of him doing well what his critics say he struggled with. So I was sold.
My point is I am not draft guru. But if I had to think of what helps me provide my best takes and where am likely going to get it right is watching a lot of games. Not a game or two but at least 4. And in Jayden's-Maye's case I watched everything more than twice. It's powerful if you want to get a sense of a player. I think of anyone here just watched all the games they'd have good takes on any player, doesn't matter the player. Doesn't mean we'd get them all right. No one does. But we can talk in an educated way about any player we've watched extensively.
There is a dude for example on youtube who put up every rep of every game of many of these top RBs. I've watched most of them. Some twice, like I have with Judkins and Henderson. I've watched every Henderson game once. I'll probably hit it twice before draft day. I've watched every run of Skattebo, etc.
I love the anayltics and numbers and using that to do projection. I can't post what I got on that front here the way i could on the previous board. For some reason it comes off small and unreadable when I try to post it here. But in short I have every metric imaginable on all these players on most spots. I subscribed to Warren Sharp's draft numbers, too. i love looking at numbers. But I don't think that trumps actually watching these guys. It complements it.
But heck even if I did think numbers-anayltics are king, as you know you can use stats to fulfill biases. If you see Kaleb Johnson for example as a big powerful back and by extention all the stereotypes that come with that -- you'll find metrics to back up the predisposition. Hey he's not that fast. He's big. He had a late breakout year.
If its about production and fantasy #'s. And Hampton is the stud on that front and don't get me wrong i love Hampton and prefer him over Kaleb. Lets play with the numbers purely to make a point.
Kaleb 6.4 YPC. Hampton 5.9
That slowpoke Kaleb
with 28 runs of 15 plus yards. Hampton with 26.
Kaleb 4.42 yards after contact. Hampton: 4.35
Kaleb: 81% miss tackle rate. Hampton: 72
Kaleb 21 Tds. Hampton 15 Tds.
As I mentioned Kaleb top in this class against light boxes. Kaleb had the most stacked boxes to deal with and yet he put up stats like that. Teams played Iowa to shut down the run. He accounted for over 40% of Iowa's offensive yards -- which is insane, only Jeanty among this class had more. He ran for over 1500 plus yards.
If we are running with the numbers, he can make quite a case for himself.
I think what it comes down to me with these various things is this:
Maye vs Daniels:
I was 1000% Maye, and I still am, to some extent with some Bayesian thoughts mixed in (Jayden is absolutely better now, period, but if you're asking me who I'm taking, I still want Maye because I no longer see any risk at all of him busting, there's nothing really missing in his game, nothing that critics can point to anymore, he's substantially younger than Daniels too, and I have no concerns about injury risk. With Daniels, my chief concerns were answering the question as to why it took him 5 seasons to produce a season as good as either of Maye's, injury risk, and some system concerns (can he make all the throws consistently and operate a bunch of different offensive approaches and schemes), at this point he's basically erased concerns I had about him hitting at all, but he still is an injury risk walking to me, I hate his frame, I hate his age, and I remain alarmed that critics remain about how he works as a thrower, and whether he's limited in terms of the type of schemes he could be effective in (I think they're wrong, but they know more than me in this area). So after season 1, Jayden obviously won the battle, but those of us who were Maye boosters were also proven right, and with a far worse train wreck of a team (i think both rosters were horrible going in, but the Patriots were worse in terms of weapons because of OL issues mixed with a total --- WR group front to back, at least Jayden had McLaurin (everyone else was like a 4th or 5th option on a good team though which made Daniels season even more impressive), on top of all that, the advantages in profile that made Maye more attractive to us, remain (age, size-health, ability to play in any system, ridiculous arm traits etc), and it feels to me like a situation where Jayden won the battle, but the war for best QB of the '24 class remains. We wont know who wins for decades, interestingly, all of the QB's who got a reasonable amount of snaps looked legit. Caleb figured it out as the season went on, and gave plenty of ammo to critics but also evidence that with better coaching, and OL, he could be fine, Daniels had perhaps the best rookie year ever (I'd still take Marino's '83 though), Maye was ridiculous in limited starts, the Denver dude hit his ceiling outcome (league average QB+), the Atlanta dude looked absolutely fine, the Michigan kid didn't hurt his stock missing the year. It looks pretty nuts.
W/regards to watching the RB's. I'll be straight, I could do the time to get better at evaluating what I see when I watch clips, not games, but I have people I trust who I 1000% know are better, so basically I watch simply as a cross checking feature to make sure I don't see anything I hate, or I'm not missing something I'd love, but I also fundamentally don't view myself as terribly effective watching tape, and there are few I trust to do so either. The hit rate for NFL experts is basically negligable. The evidence is that even the experts generally only hit more, the more picks they have, and the higher the pick is, suggesting that for all the work they do, they are basically getting the edges in a general sense down, and a reasonably vaguely solid understanding of talent down for tiering purposes (this is a first round graded guy, this is a fourth round graded guy).
I just think the jump from college to the pros, and the mental make up piece, along with projecting how a 21 year old will mature and what he can become 24-28 and beyond is simply monstrously difficult and nearly impossible to predict reliably. The best they can do, the experts of experts, is generally get about a 50+% hit rate on firsts, and sub 50% after the first round. They've gotten better as the old idiots were cleared out and math geeks brought in, and connections becoming less and less important over the past 30 years, but it's still hard as hell to do, and most of the pros are simply totally erratic, watching tape, and evaluting metrics. As such, I just don't see a lot of value in me looking beyond looking here and there at clips, and when i can see more, watching more, as a cross check against who the more talented guys have brought in front of me, as a finishing touch to make sure I'm not steered wrong by my own biases (I always like to note that we all have things that kind of attract us when watching prospects which can actually misdirect us: an attraction for tough physical players makes you potentially more attracted to a Henry or a Bettis, less attracted to a Kamara or an Achane).
So for me, I'm gonna find the guys with a track record going back a decade or a half decade, and then dig into the guys they like, which is why I will look closer at Giddens for instance.
When I come across as ripping on tape grinding, it's more that after 37 or 38 years of watching drafts and looking at prospects, I've come to view obsessive tape grinding as chairs on the titanic beyond the little bit you can do. I think you doing it, makes you more aware of the nuances on the edge, clearly than me, but I also tend to think that if I listen to some rotoviz guys, dig up Fusue Vue and his iconoclastic takes, Scott Barrett, the playerprofiler guys, even Matt Waldman, I'm just getting more value for my time than watching hours of tape, which is impossible anyway with an 8 year old and while teaching 4 different subjects and helping coach soccer. Only so much time in the day right?
So do I trust your opinion more than mine? To some extent, yeah, you put in a level of work I do not, but I also trust that I'm an obsessive aggregator of tested analysts and evaluators, and a podcast addict, so I can absorb an absolute ---- ton of opinions related to QB-RB-WR-TE, and then cross check myself as needed. Generally speaking it's worked for me. I still miss plenty, but when I do like with a McLaurin here, or a Brian Thomas there, I'm going to try to avoid take lock, and dig into the why of it, a superficial Bayesian I guess.
It's cool. I am not saying anyone should trust anyone's take over another. But I do think there is nothing that beats watching players. Also learning as much as you can about them as a person if its a player you like. I like to form my own opinions but am far from oblivious (quite the opposite) for what the outside world thinks of these guys.
Cool that you are a podcast addict, I'd still be surprised if you digest more draft info than i do. I am freakish with it. It's a bit unhealthy.
I listen to everything I can. So I am perfectly aware of name that draft geek takes. Some anayltics in that mix of what I paid attention to. I have a grid that I create on most positions -- all full of numbers from multiple places. I subscribe to PFF, Sharp's site. And I'll watch pretty much every PFF podcast done by various anaylists especially Sikemma, and Monson, and Steve P. I listen to the old football outsider guys. I'll watch Josh Norris. I subscribe to the McGinn draft reports from scouts. I'll subscribe to basically almost anything draft related -- heck even Mcshay's new draft reports
Every night, I am watching some draft podcast before going to bed. When I take my dog for a walk, guess what am listening to? When I work out. Heck sometimes I'll listen to the same podcast twice. Back in the day, I would order the Kiper draft booklet when he used to do them. I ordered Brugler's "The Beast" every year he's done them, this year its free. But I'll read about every prospect that am intrigued by.
I am not saying this to brag. My interest in the draft is borderline unhealthy. My wife likes to joke that the draft is my real birthday.
My point is i am VERY aware of plenty of other people's takes on the same player. Don't get me wrong, I bet you got a great handle on other people takes on these guys. But me, too. I am the same.
I gather you are more about the fantasy anayltic guys versus the straight anayltics guys. I'll read some takes mostly on twitter from the fantasy guys but nope I don't follow them religously the way I follow everyone else.
But just like our debate about Terry back in the day. I only bring it up because it helps illustrate a point whenever we delve into this. And I think you miss my point when i bring it up. I am not bringing it up because I was right and you were wrong. Everyone here will be right about someone and wrong about someone else, including of course me, so no big deal.
My point on it is that even if you want to say you are all about the numbers. You are unemotional and just working the odds. Versus people like me who are using more flawed-emotional based takes. So if we went to Vegas, you'd come out on top but I on occasion would defy the odds because heck outliers happen. You implied something like this in one of the debates we had years back. And while I get the point, I reject the premise of it.
It's not like you are debating someone oblivious to anayltics or how to use stats. It's a factor in how i see things. But in my mind at least factoring in context along with the analytics and not being a slave to either one -- is sound decision making.
Coming from a dude who eons ago TA'd stats in college. My college professor often loved to say, that stats still require context. Because it's so easy in some cases to find numbers that help present your case but also can be misleading and or not present the full picture. It's hard to isolate variables as to this matters more than that without biases creeping in.
Bringing this back to Terry. He was everything the numbers indicate according to you back then as to being a bust -- late breakout season, dominator score was "meh", he was the third wheel in that offense, older prospect, on and on. But IMO that was a myopic view even looking at it from a pure numbers stand point.
It wasn't that there weren't any numbers to make the case for Terry. He had a sick 20 YPC. 700 plus yards as the third target is impressive. He ran a sub 4.4. Then how many narratives can you ignore? He was the best player at the Senior Bowl. Urban Myer said he was one of the most special players who ever played for him. Captain. Beloved on the team. The stories about how he improved as a WR by working Rocky like everyday with the jug machine. On and on and on.
So some of the numbers are intriguing in my book. But some of the numbers you hated in your book. Cool either way. But explaining my logic. The stories about Terry were epic level with multiple layers to it. And yes i liked what I saw when I watched him. That was the key. Those are way too many variables converging in Terry's favor. It didn't feel remotely like an outlier to me.
There were so many things in the soup where it shouldn't have been a shock. A dude who works like crazy, is beloved by his teammates, was the best player in the Senior Bowl, killed the combine as far as speed, was a proven deep threat with a sick 20 YPC -- was it really that much of a shock. Is the "breakout data" so strong that it overrides everything? It seems way over the top to be that level married to a data points like that where you ignore so many other variables that collide with it.
In my business, sometimes I do polls but its not what I major in. But its my job to often digest the poll for the client. if the pollster isn't giving their anaylsis, its up to me to provide my own to the client. If all I did was just go by the book and spout the numbers, i would suck at my job. I can't just regurgitate numbers. I have to see context and meaning and counter arguments as part of the process. To me its similar with the draft. I do think the numbers matter. But I do think context matters too. It's all part of the soup. Why is it so? Are their numbers that counter it? Narratives? I am not saying you aren't aware of this. I am just saying for me, i take the context part very seriouslty but it has nothing to do with not being aware of trends and numbers.
And bringing that same point to Jayden versus Maye. This is coming from a dude who loved them both but did prefer Maye. I was wrong. To me now its Jayden > Maye. Why? While I agree you are shooting in the dark some when you are guessing the personality of the player before they are drafted. Once they are in the house, you have a good sense.
Tom Brady wasn't special because the dude killed the combine and his college numbers were spectacular and was blessed with freakish talent. He was special for a number of reasons and among them was: work ethic, drive, ability to see the field, clutch gene, toughness, etc.
Both Joe Gibbs and Shanny in different ways have said they don't know if they have a special QB or not until they have them in the building and they can see their personality up close, and then they know. I liked everything I've read about Maye before the draft.
However, the narrative about Daniels was even easier to love with the stories about how they had to give him a key to get to the building early, he got the WRs to prepare with him, etc. Hearing all the stories about Daniels work ethic once he arrived here take that narrative up a few notches further -- which are Brady like levels.
Doing walk throughs at 5 am, on and on. The dude is driven in a way that's special. And its not something that the anayltics can quantify.
I just don't get the sense watching and reading about Maye -- and I digested a ton about him -- his intangibles match Daniels. And that includes clutch play. I don't think Maye is bad in the clutch but watching his college games, he was on and off in those big moments. We can see that Daniels is special on that front. Special in the 4th quarter. Special in big games.
As much as I loved Maye, it would be nauseating to me the thought of swapping Daniels for him. I think Maye has a good shot of being a top 7 type QB. I think Daniels has a good shot of supplanting Mahomes as the best QB in the league and am far from alone on that thought.
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