Average at best draft?

[chicagoravensfan]

[QUOTE=Goob24x7;544561]Bernard Pierce-
I think Bernard is a great player, will become an even better player and an is a nice guy in person as well. I absolutely hated the fact that the Ravens took a running back in the third round, and that they gave up a fifth round pick to move up to get him as well. I know Pierce has a ton of upside and is a change of pace for Rice but a veteran free-agent could have filled the same role. I've frankly seen more of Pierce than I'd like to because Rice needs his touches and he clearly hasn't gotten them consistently this year.

So yes, Pierce is a great value and a good player. But, this team had plenty of other issues they needed to address in the third round before not only their pick in that round but giving up a fifth round as well.

Christian Thompson-
He has a lot of upside and played at a smaller school due to off the field issues but watching him in training camp every day, he just lost me. He wasn't someone who stood out and wasn't someone who did anything wrong. Before he was placed on IR, he was just around as a special teams player and once again, was nothing extra special.

I'm not the only person who felt this way about him as well. It'll be more interesting to see what he can do next season with Reed probably not returning. I love the addition of James Ihedigbo and think he's someone to be considered at safety, even though he's primarily played at strong safety while replacing Bernard Pollard who has been dealing with a rib issue.

Gino Gradkowski-
Possibly the most head scratching pick of the draft. He's extremely undersized (listed at 6'3 300lbs) but seems smaller than that. I could accept drafting a smaller guy like this had he played at a big time school and proved that he can handle bigger defensive lineman but that's not the case. The only film coaches are seeing is from him playing at Delaware and I could care less what he does against someone from Towson versus seeing a small guy being able to block someone from LSU or Alabama.

Matt Birk hasn't had his greatest season and has essentially shrunk Joe Flacco's pocket because he's constantly pushed backwards. For as bad as Birk has played this season, don't you think they would have eventually put Gradkowski in if he was able to play?

Asa Jackson-
Once again, an undersized player but I like Jackson. He won me over when I saw a 6' guy leaping into the air and beating Tommy Streeter 6'8" multiple times to break up a pass in training camp. He was only a thought to sniff the field when Lardarius Webb went out with his ACL injury as the plan was to use him and Corey Graham in the slot. When he did have his time, he didn't stick around long as is currently suspended for violating the performance enhancing drug policy.

Not the best move.

Tommy Streeter-
Waste.Waste.Waste. This guy is a project but can't catch a ball to save his life. Throughout training camp, I watched him closely each day and he was allowing Jackson as I previously mentioned to out-leap him. He's got the ideal body of a prototypical red zone threat but you have to have the effort and heart to go along with it. He is raw in his route running and just didn't show much during practice or the games for that matter in training camp/preseason.

The Ravens only placed him on IR because of his potential but there was no way that even if he was "healthy" he was on the bubble to even be placed on the practice squad where he could be claimed by another team. Streeter could possibly turn into something but I'd only give it a 9% chance based off of what I saw through watching him at training camp each day.
QUOTE]

This is really interesting. I don't remember reading anything good, bad or indifferent about Christian Thompson so this perspective is interesting, though disheartening, to read.

I also was disappointed on draft night when the Ravens had traded up for a Running Back who wasn't really touted as a game-breaker. I wonder how much of that decision was driven by concern about getting Ray Rice locked up to a long-term deal. The Ravens also traded up in the 3rd round for Jah Reid in 2011, which to this point is not looking like a great move.

[JustaslowZ06]

Yeah def no home run blue chip pro bowl type players, but still contributors. So depending on how you grade, sure I'd go with average.

Oh and Cody=Bust. Never seen a guy that big get shoved around that badly.

[leachisabeast]

Yeah because all 3rd round picks are ''great moves''.

Jah Reid is now a starter at LG and is holding out well, while Bernard Pierce had 13 carries for 124 yards on Sunday. What do people expect?

[Boulderraven]

Yeah def no home run blue chip pro bowl type players, but still contributors. So depending on how you grade, sure I'd go with average.

Oh and Cody=Bust. Never seen a guy that big get shoved around that badly.

Cody and Kindle the bust draft. At the time it looked good, but you never know about a draft until 3 years later. That is why those silly draft grades annoy me, pointless.

[steelerhater]

Thanks, Kris. I don't disagree with your assessment. I had a reaction to "average at best" not in that I disagreed, per se, more that was perplexed -- I could see the argument that it was fairly weak in that no one outside of Baltimore will look at it and think, "wow,' but I could also see the argument that it was one of the strongest from a next-man-up/budget-management point of view.

That's what made me wanbt to sort of think out loud with my post to figure out where ended up on the question. I guess I haven't really decided still. I think I'd call it average to above average, but not great. Probably a "B" but not a "C" at best kind of draft.

For those who look for grabbing a real impact player, and that's the way they judge good drafts, I can see how you'd call it average. Upshaw seems like a pretty solid replacement for Jarret Johnson, but he isn't an elite pass rusher, which you'd probably want out of your first pick. Osemele is a solid replacement for Grubbs. And Pierce steps in to fill a role that guys like McGahee and Ricky Williams moved on from. They saved a bunch of money without really losing a lot in terms of production with those three picks. Not sexy, but a pretty good outcome.

If it means being able to spend money elsewhere to keep big hitters like Rice and Flacco and Ngata in the fold, that's not bad. As I said, budget management.

In the 2012 draft I don't see even a Lardarius Webb or Paul Kruger or Torrey Smith type player in terms of adding a guy who can impact a game all on his own. So it's hard to call it a great draft from that perspective. In fact, Justin Tucker may be the biggest impact guy, and he wasn't even a draft pick.

On the other hand, It's hard to find a draft that beats this one in terms of solid role players that they got out of their first three picks -- players who I suspect will all play for a number of years. 2009 also saw them pick up three players who filled roles in Oher, Kruger and Webb -- and two of those players are impact players, which makes 2009 better probably.

2012 is probably like getting three Michael Ohers. Oher is a disappointment for those who think the first round pick should be a Ring of Honor type player. But if he was taken in the third round that would have been a damn good pick.

Getting three Michael Oher-level players (or Ben Grubbs) from two seconds and a third isn't bad. Solid, not spectacular.

Even a 3rd-rounder should be expected to, at least, slow down a defensive lineman.

[ballhawk]

Yeah because all 3rd round picks are ''great moves''.

Jah Reid is now a starter at LG and is holding out well, while Bernard Pierce had 13 carries for 124 yards on Sunday. What do people expect?

Agreed. Ried has looked decent, avlot better than williams anyway. And i understand the critcism of the piece pick, but he is a guy that definately has "impact player" written all over him. God forbid Rice goes down, i dont think the offense would miss a beat a beat with pierce. Plus i think he is better short yardage/goaline back than rice. Nothing wrong with having two studs in the backfield.

[leachisabeast]

Agreed. Ried has looked decent, avlot better than williams anyway. And i understand the critcism of the piece pick, but he is a guy that definately has "impact player" written all over him. God forbid Rice goes down, i dont think the offense would miss a beat a beat with pierce. Plus i think he is better short yardage/goaline back than rice. Nothing wrong with having two studs in the backfield.

Yeah I agree.

People are always harping on about ''BPA'', well Pierce was clearly the BPA here, and is an impact player. If you think he can be a pro bowl player, you draft him regardless of how stacked you are at one position. Who knows how the contract talks were developing with Rice at the time, plus we did need a back up RB, as Anthony Allen would have clearly been terrible.

[Coastergenius]

I think that one of the problems that we've been having in the first round in the past few years has been the Patriots screwing us. We could have had Dez Bryant if they wouldn't have traded their pick to the Cowboys, Gronkowski was taken one selection before us, Hernandez was taken right before we picked, and they took Chander Jones and traded right in front of us to get Hightower in this draft. But without a rediculous number of picks next year, the Patrtiots draft day reign of terror might be over.

[Bhcforlife]

I think that one of the problems that we've been having in the first round in the past few years has been the Patriots screwing us. We could have had Dez Bryant if they wouldn't have traded their pick to the Cowboys, Gronkowski was taken one selection before us, Hernandez was taken right before we picked, and they took Chander Jones and traded right in front of us to get Hightower in this draft. But without a rediculous number of picks next year, the Patrtiots draft day reign of terror might be over.

The problem isn't the Patriots, it's Ozzie's unwillingness to trade up. They could have had Dez Bryant if Ozzie had been willing to part with a later pick in that draft to move up two or three spots. Same can be said for Gronkowski and this year they sat in their spot while guys like Hightower, Zeitler, Mercilus, and DeCastro all went in the five spots directly before their pick.

Instead of Dez and Gronk they ended up with Kindle and Cody. Think about where the Ravens would be if they had both Bryant and Gronkowski right now - they were 1 pick away from having them.

Also...can't judge this draft yet. They seem to have a few solid picks with their first three guys, not sure about the rest. If you include Tucker in the group then I think it's their best draft in several years at this point. Pierce selection was puzzling but it's also a guy they can look at as trade bait down the road, or eventual successor to Rice. Nothing wrong with having two strong RBs with different skill sets in today's NFL.

[jonboy79]

The problem isn't the Patriots, it's Ozzie's unwillingness to trade up. They could have had Dez Bryant if Ozzie had been willing to part with a later pick in that draft to move up two or three spots. Same can be said for Gronkowski and this year they sat in their spot while guys like Hightower, Zeitler, Mercilus, and DeCastro all went in the five spots directly before their pick.

Instead of Dez and Gronk they ended up with Kindle and Cody. Think about where the Ravens would be if they had both Bryant and Gronkowski right now - they were 1 pick away from having them.

Also...can't judge this draft yet. They seem to have a few solid picks with their first three guys, not sure about the rest. If you include Tucker in the group then I think it's their best draft in several years at this point. Pierce selection was puzzling but it's also a guy they can look at as trade bait down the road, or eventual successor to Rice. Nothing wrong with having two strong RBs with different skill sets in today's NFL.

We got Oher instead of Dez, as well as Hakeem Nicks still ont he board and Veldheer for a couple more rounds...

We got Kindle the Pick after Gronk, and then Cody with Geno Atkins on the board a few rounds, and DIckson instead of Jimmy Graham or Aaron Hernandezx who went right in front of Pitta....

[mfdoom42]

Upshaw has kinda quietly come on as the season has progressed IMHO.

He's definitely the kind of guy I would expect to make the jump to stardom in his 2nd season.

[Bhcforlife]

We got Oher instead of Dez, as well as Hakeem Nicks still ont he board and Veldheer for a couple more rounds...

We got Kindle the Pick after Gronk, and then Cody with Geno Atkins on the board a few rounds, and DIckson instead of Jimmy Graham or Aaron Hernandezx who went right in front of Pitta....

Dez was in 2010, Oher was 2009 but that is a good point about Oher instead of Nicks who many people wanted. They have had some pretty big misses recently...

[steelerhater]

I think that one of the problems that we've been having in the first round in the past few years has been the Patriots screwing us. We could have had Dez Bryant if they wouldn't have traded their pick to the Cowboys, Gronkowski was taken one selection before us, Hernandez was taken right before we picked, and they took Chander Jones and traded right in front of us to get Hightower in this draft. But without a rediculous number of picks next year, the Patrtiots draft day reign of terror might be over.

Gronkowski wouldn't have fit in with Cam Cameron's offense. He makes catches in the middle of the field, which was foreign to Cameron.

[jonboy79]

Gronkowski wouldn't have fit in with Cam Cameron's offense. He makes catches in the middle of the field, which was foreign to Cameron.

he also is the best blocking receiving TE in football. Cam obviously values blocking very little as they drafted Dickson and Pitta inthe same draft and neither can block their way out of a wet paper bag.

[saintmatthew]

He's definitely the kind of guy I would expect to make the jump to stardom in his 2nd season.

After some of the plays I've seen him make in the last few weeks, he could damn well make his jump to stardom in the post-season.

[Real Fan Dan]

Shas, i always thought you espoused the "A draft can't be properly graded until 3 years have passed" philosophy.

Based on Upshaw's, Ossemele's, and especially Pierce's contributions as Rookies, i would agree with your "B rather than C" assessment. Still, we won't know for sure for at least another season and a half. I'm thinking the writer probably would have been more accurate to say "Average at the least" rather than "at best"

[Coastergenius]

The problem isn't the Patriots, it's Ozzie's unwillingness to trade up. They could have had Dez Bryant if Ozzie had been willing to part with a later pick in that draft to move up two or three spots. Same can be said for Gronkowski and this year they sat in their spot while guys like Hightower, Zeitler, Mercilus, and DeCastro all went in the five spots directly before their pick.

.

I agree, I was actually about the right the part about not trading up enough, but I deleted the paragrah I had written about it and posted about the Patriots instead. I think that one of the things that made me change my mind is that many of the players that looked like steals that we could have gotten this year haven't panned out that well. It's also ironic that the one time in recent history that we did trade up for a guy was Oher, and that hasn't been too promising.

A silvering lining on the Patriots, as of now, they only have a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and two 7ths. Hopefully they won't get a lot help from comp picks, but as of now, they don't have a whole lot of ammuniation to trade up, and will be picking so late that they won't be attractive suitors to track back that much.

[AirFlacco]

Ditto on the great thread.

I just read the article before coming in here and wondered what the writer was smoking. He must have
missed all those guys breezing past KO on the way to creaming Joe. Another guy playing out of position, he's
more suited for Guard where he played. He might be
good but wasn't this year.

Much has been posted and written about Upshaw doing well his rookie year. He almost won the Philly game chasing Vick out of the pocket forcing an INT and had several big games. He has great upside to him.

Pierce has done well giving Ray a breather with a big game last week and huge gainer.

It takes a couple of years to grade a draft but Upshaw
and Pierce will be even better in couple of years and maybe KO too if they move him back to LG.

I'd say it's better than average.

[Shas]

We can play the "what if" game forever and I'm not sure it really ever proves much. I wrote a three-part offseason piece chronicling some of Ozzie's moves that were genius vs. dumb, and included a lot of near misses that could have helped or hurt the team had they worked out the way he wanted. It's fun to speculate but in then end sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

We can talk about some of these players who might have been, but you always have to factor in the thinking at the time. I'm still not convinced I want Bryant on my team for instance. I can recall Gronkowski falling in the draft because of injury concerns. He missed his entire junior season at Arizona after having back surgery and the Ravens by some reports had taken him off their board entirely because of it.

In retrospect they were wrong about Gronkowski, and wrong about taking Kindle one pick later with the 43rd pick, but I understand the circumstances, which includes a shit ton of tight ends in that class, and I loved the Pitta pick from day one. I think he's a damn good value in the fourth round.

So I can accept why they didn't gamble on Gronkowski -- and to be fair to them, they probably would have had to use pick #25 on him if they were convinced his back wasn't an issue. It's really not reasonable to ask them to trade back to #43 that year, and then also anticipate that they needed to trade back up to get Gronkowski before New England jumped up for him at 42. And I accept that they knew they had other TE options who were cheaper in later rounds in 2010.

Sure, we can talk about wanting them to leap frog teams more often to move up to get players. Sometimes it works great -- Flacco, Pierce, Yanda.

More commonly I think, they would have been better off not trading up for targeted players because these players who they "just had to have" often disappoint -- Jah Reid, Adam Terry, Michael Oher, Kyle Boller, DeRon Jenkins, and Anthony Weaver, for instance.

What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to broadly ask them to trade up more often. Really, what you're asking for is that they broadly have a more accurate crystal ball so they know when it pays to trade up for a guy, or stay put, or move back.

When they trade down, or send away a pick for future considerations, they usually end up getting no more than one good player out of the package deal -- good talent like Courtney Upshaw, Jamal Lewis, Dennis Pitta, Anquan Boldin, Art Jones, Ray Rice, Ray Lewis.

But often when you look at the "extra picks" they also got in these package deals-- and sometimes even when you look at the entire package of picks -- you realize they don't typical yield a whole lot of extra value for the Ravens.

We're talking about players they've gotten this way like, Tavares Gooden, Gino Gradkowski, Ed Dickson, Tom Zbikowski, Chris Chester, Yamon Figurs, David Pittman, Scott Mitchell, Kevin Johnson -- these are the type of players who have ended up being the proverbial "player to be named later" in these deals, and some of these guys are the main guy they got from traded-away picks.

In other words, they almost never get two for the price of one. They really don't cheat the system. On draft day we talk about Ozzie being a genius for re-acquiring picks, or loading up on extra picks. But when you actually look at the track record they have not done much with the bounties they received.

Whether it made sense to trade back, therefore, comes down to whether they correctly determined that the value where they were originally were picking just wasn't there. It comes down to having a good crystal ball. Which is really just a metaphor for good scouting.

When you look at it, their best moves are the ones where they didn't move up or down. They stood pat and trusted their scouting. Or had enough luck that a player they liked in a spot was still left on the board.

[Shas]

Actually, I meant to amend my "cheating the system" statement to say that there is one type of sleight of hand that Ozzie has been successful with, but he hasn't employed it in recent years. His (ostensible) former boss in Cleveland Bill Belichick perfected it. I'm talking about trading a pick for higher pick in a future year.

The Ravens got Ray Lewis that way in 1996. In the 1995 draft they (Belichick) sent Eric Metcalf to the Falcons so they could move from 26 to 10. They then traded with the 49rs to move back down from #10 to #30, also getting the 49rs first round pick in 1996 (used on Ray) and some additional picks.

All that moving around and Ray was the one piece of value they got for essentially trading 1995's pick 26 for 1996's pick 26.

Ozzie later sent a 1999 second round pick to Atlanta for what became the 5th overall pick in 2000--Jamal Lewis.

When the Ravens acquired the 19th overall pick in 2003 to get Kyle Boller, they traded away a first round pick in 2004 that Belichick turned into Vince Wilfork. Belichick won that deal by being patient enough to acquire a pick in a future draft.

This is the one type of trade I'd like to see the Ravens attempt more often. When I hear DeCosta say that they kept losing out on players they liked in the 2012 draft it does make me think that this is the perfect scenario for trading away a pick for a higher pick in 2013. While Osemele is a nice player, the pick they used for him just might have become a star player in the first round of the 2013 draft. From that perspective, I agree with Kris that 2012 was an average draft compared to what above-average is really all about.