Vinegar Strokes is always legit with the news. No reason to doubt him. It’s probably just behind a paywall somewhere
Was Quin bad last year? $8M doesnt seem like a ton, but 'spose we arent trying to compete this season anyways ...
I actually wouldn’t hate it. I think this guy is a lot better than Enron was coming out of college. Let’s see how he does at the combine though. I rather have this guy than someone like Gary. Just depends who is on the board.
I would be fine with that. I think he's the best offensive player in the draft for us in that range. Counter argument would be that TE is really deep this year and we can get someone who can probably step in and play on day 2. Would depend on who is available among the DL in terms of whether he'd be my preference. Kiper's mock has four DEs off the board in the top 5.
I still don't understand what Patricia is looking for in a pass rusher and have no clue how they'll value a guy like Clelin Ferrell. Gary doesn't seem like their kind of guy, either, and I'll be surprised if he goes as high as people are currently projecting him.
I did some research on taking a TE in the top 10 back when the Lions drafted Ebron that was lost in a board crash, but gist of it was that it's a bad idea. In the last 50 years of the NFL draft, only Ebron, Vernon Davis, Kellen Winslow Jr., Ricky Dudley, Kyle Brady, Ken MacAfee, Charle Young, Paul Seymour, Riley Odoms, Jerome Barkum, and Ted Kwalick have been drafted as TEs. How many of them were worth a top 10 pick? Davis? Tony Gonzalez was 13th and he's the best ever, but the success rate on TEs is a lot more palatable later in the first or anytime in the second. I fully expect the Lions to burn a top 10 pick on a TE for the 2nd time in 6 years.
No disrespect to your research, but I'm a pretty big believer in that stuff being dumb. It's about taking the right players who turn out to be good. It's not about whether players taken at a specific position in previous years panned out or not.
What it tells me is that when people slot TEs into the top 10 best players in any draft they're almost universally wrong, for whatever reason. I would be willing to stipulate that it is largely because TEs in general don't get the workload to really measure up to top 10 value, but that doesn't make me any more likely to think the Lions should take a 3rd option on offense at #8 this year.
That's reasonable. I just always push back on the "shouldn't take (position) in the 1st round (or top 10)" stuff. I think about it every year at RB. At TE, if you re-did old drafts, Gronk, Kelce and probably Jimmy Graham would all go in the top 10. That other players did and turned out worse than them doesn't really tell me anything more than the teams picked the wrong players. I would be more concerned with taking a TE in the top 10 if those types of guys didn't exist and it were basically impossible to find a TE with that kind of value. They exist. They just haven't been properly evaluated leading up to the draft. I think your concern there about teams mis-evaluating the position that high is noteworthy and something that needs to be considered, but it's not stopping me from taking someone at that position if I think he's worth it.
Would George Kittle go top 10 if they redrafted? I would say yeah. By all accounts this guy is better than Kittle
I thought this was interesting: In four seasons with the Lions, Ebron averaged 47 receptions, 518 yards and three touchdowns. He essentially replaced Brandon Pettigrew, another former first-round pick. Pettigrew, the No. 20 choice in 2009, posted similar receiving production his first five seasons with the Lions, before his role in the pass game was reduced in favor of Ebron. From 2009-13, Pettigrew averaged 57 catches for 566 yards and three scores. Two first rounds TEs in the Stafford Era averaged around 53 catches, 540 yards and 3 TDs a season as full timers. Maybe with Darrell Bevell they've make better use of that sort of player. In fairness to Pettigrew, he looked like he was going to be pretty good before he started getting hurt. Two straight years of 70+ catches and 700+ yards in his 2nd and 3rd years. And Darrell Bevell has a decent history of using TEs to good effect. Fuck it, let's ruin TJ Hockenson's career by drafting him #8.
We also had Golden Tate having career years operating from the slot. That cuts into any TE’s production.
Hockenson is supposed to be a good blocker, which is a big reason I would be okay with him at #8. If he's as good as advertised as a blocker while being at least an early Pettigrew-level receiver, I think he's a reasonable choice there. Anything more as a receiver and I think he's a good choice in the top 10. If he's not as good a blocker as advertised, he doesn't seem to have the athletic ceiling to be worth that kind of pick.
Yeah, it's interesting that he isn't as much a physical freak but a very good blocker who catches the ball. Maybe that's for the best. It'll be interesting to see how he runs. Of course, a CBS mock from 7 hours ago has Hockenson going 27th.
This Justin Rogers mock draft has the Lions taking Clelin Farrell (DE - Clemson) at 8, a spot ahead of Oliver, with Gary going at 13 to the Dolphins and TJ Hockenson going to the Packers at 30. https://www.detroitnews.com/picture...in-rogers-2019-nfl-mock-draft-1-0/2767928002/ It also has the Jags taking Murray at 7 and the Broncos taking Lock at 10.
Doesn't seem like the beat writers think we sign a LB after last off-season, but would CJ Mosley make sense? Or is he more of a name than a player at this point?
someone said in the other thread that he wants $14-16 million a year. Can't imagine they or anyone pays anywhere near that. Collins probably makes more sense from a cost and familiarity standpoint