The Odd Duality of Draft - Three Weeks Out

[Fletch59]

 So this time of year always comes with some shock. For the 30th draft in a row, I followed along with every pick, where possible.  I've missed a scant few picks - a few for family obligations, I remember seeing the choice of Tyler Gaffney at a restaurant somewhere near Raleigh - a few for travel (dare you to be in Asia for work, waking up to go to a vendor, and have to talk yourself into a tradeup for Matt Fucking Corral), and occasionally fun (I got to be at one of my favorite concerts, in Asheville, the night Carolina picked Kelvin Benjamin), and in most cases there's no amount of preparation that you can do, that ends up providing the sort of cushion to the blow of them doing something to which you weren't prepared.  And it's almost always, something to which you are not prepared. Rarely have they chosen a guy you really want after 3 - for instance I really liked Tony Fiammetta and Corn Elder, neither of which did anything of real value and neither of which made it through their rookie deals.  Often after 2, it's generally no longer predictable on what will even happen.  I for instance get so stuck in need mode, though the last few years depth has been so shallow that Best Player and need just have to align in some mode, because there are so many needs.   So after 1, you also have to assume, best player is also the only real play.   Trading down when you get a mega-deal, which they did, is even better for BPA, I guess - but then trading back up, obviously isn't.  So clearly they thought Xavier Legette and Jonathon Brooks were respectively targets, and therefore also had to have been more highly rated than others -at least you have to hope, right?   But the first time they traded down without trading back up, Trevin Wallace.   Wallace has a lot of athletic ability but very well could also be a project - outside of special teams - and it's hard to call him BPA, at least compared to the consensus. A good prompt I read the other day suggested, well, sure the consensus has value but why did the team deviate so hard from it?  In this case, to start, we know team ideals versus consensus ideals, there's going to be potential for a big gap. So, much as with DJ Johnson last year you probably have a need that goes with a dwindling of supply.  With ILB this year, I think you have to remember that it's reasonable to have pulled Peyton Wilson for medical.  And that since "LB" is a very broad topic in general, sure, you kinda have to drop a 4-3 OLB if you are 3-4 only.  If you do that, add it to the picks ahead of it (Edgerrin Cooper at 45, Junior Colson at 69), if Wallace is the last guy you really think will help out, maybe you gotta take him.   or you have to be a whole lot higher on him than everybody else.  But you also probably have to have Wilson off the board for meds, and don't like Cedric Gray, Jeremiah Trotter Jr, etc - which I get.  Don't pick guys you don't like. And Carolina grabbed probably the last guy on the board who had the profile they were after.   Of the other consensus guys out there, remarkable that the others went at 98, 106, 155 respectively. So you have a reach, for a good reason, or at least, there has to be some reason to do it.  If you believe that reaches have a reason to exist at all.  Clearly Carolina does, because for a second year they went back-to-back offense and then had to throw the defense a bone. So I get left with how the whiplash difference between the Wallace pick and the Ja'Tavion Sanders pick fit you.  Sanders was the guy I wanted, at that pick, along with Troy Franklin, Sedrick Van Pran-Granger. But by that point, any of those three were fine, and with low expectation it would have to be any of them.  The more I go through all of this, the less I throw into what I pretend I can demand to happen. 



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