Indians add yet another Sabermatrician to the fold
February 25, 2014Infographic: Where the Browns rank in terms of draft value
February 25, 2014Without downs and drives, we’re forced to focus on broad jumps and the bench press? No thanks.
Maybe it’s because I spent a whole week out of state without access to NFL Network, and subsequently only followed the combine tangentially through the news and Twitter, but I feel as if we live in a new NFL world. The combine is important to figure out which guys are healthy and as one of many tools to help organize a draft board, but it also feels largely marginalized. As we watch players climb and fall, draft charts organized by analysts who largely get things wrong as real drafts unfold, I’m left less and less compelled by the variance in tenths of seconds by various NFL draft prospects.
This isn’t to bag on NFL draft analysts completely. It’s an impossible task. Between trying to rank players objectively and also reading signs – some intentionally misdirection – it isn’t even realistic to expect Mel Kiper and folks like that to be “right.” Also, when they analyze players on the day they’re drafted, they try to explain what Team X might have been thinking when they selected Larry Linebacker in the fourth round. They aren’t saying that their talk of potential and upside will actually be realized. That depends on Lawrence finding a comfortable fit in the NFL and staying healthy and enjoying the weather and not getting multiple DUIs and whether or not his mother comes to live with him in his new city and and and… Mel Kiper can’t predict the future of each individual guy and he knows that a certain percentage are going to find themselves falling in line with the “out of the league” statistics.
If that remains to be the case and guys like Ray Farmer are using visits and Pro Days and the Senior Bowl and college game tape to make his board up, why would I pretend like I can tell him where guys should be placed based on one of his miniscule factors? The answer is that I shouldn’t. I’m working very hard as an analyst of the Cleveland Browns to keep in mind all the things that I don’t know when formulating my opinions. In this scenario, even being “informed” by the NFL combine leaves me—and everyone watching with bated breath, Twitter vehicle in hand—woefully uninformed.
As a result, with this year’s NFL draft approaching, I’ll be making cases here and there like I did with Johnny Manziel, but I’ll stop short of being one of the loudest, most definitive, voices in the field. The fact is that I loved when the Browns traded out of Julio Jones. I still stand by that kind of maneuver. Is it my fault they followed up something so brilliant with a senseless trade-up for Trent Richardson, followed by a desperate drafting of Brandon Weeden? Nope.
So, as I said, we learned that Johnny Manziel is fast.1 But seriously, didn’t we already know that from watching his game film against SEC competition?
So I hope you enjoyed the combine and all it had to offer, but I sincerely hope that you take it the way I do as just one in a slew of metrics. I think history proves that we really don’t want Cleveland Browns personnel guys obsessing on guys’ verticals or 40 times over the all-important game tape and interviews, and you shouldn’t either. There are few factions of people who are more insufferable than wannabe GMs. Let’s let the cards fall where they may, and judge accordingly.
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(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
- Well, pretty fast, anyway. The “official” results came out and put a bit of a damper on his track speed, I guess. [↩]
17 Comments
You didn’t miss much.
Johnny Manziel has hands the size of a Yeti.
Sammy Watkins caught all the balls. All of them.
Some kid from Kent fan faster than a speeding locomotive.
Jadaveon Clowney divided by zero.
Ha! and AMEN! i dont know if its the constant loosing and/or the changing of players, coaches and FO, but its getting harder and harder to continue to fool myself into caring about this organization. In years past I was all over the offseason player stuff, but as you say theres really no point as you explained well. Winning fixes everything, and we fans have no impact on that, so we might as well wait until this team gets competitive and gives us some reward for all the time, money, attention, emotion we (foolishly) invest in the Browns.
I do always look at 40 yard times of corners, safeties, receivers and RBs. But it’s really just more brilliant marketing by the league, like draft day.
I’ve never watched the Combine because if how guys perform in training camp football drills and practices often bears little resemblance to how they perform in preseason games, and if performance in preseason games often bears little resemblance to whether they can cut it at full game speed against competition that cares, can’t figure out a reason to watch these drills. Other than to pretend I’m Paul Brown and know what I’m looking at.
If I wanted to watch a Track and Field exhibition I’d watch a Track and Field exhibition, otherwise I will wait til official measurements are released and then pretend they have some meaning in a vacuum.
all you need to know about draftniks is comprised in the coverage juxtaposition between tavon austin last year and dri archer this year. (archer blows him away. yet no PD experts are urging the browns to take him.)
in other words: manziel is slower than connor shaw, less agile than jordan lynch, has smaller hands than keith wenning, and the shortest of all 19 QBs in indy. but that won’t get you clicks now will it.
sure it will. if you are willing to be bold enough to say that it will cause Johnny Football to fail. it’s just that noone wants to make an actual stand, they want to generate buzz.
and, there are football reasons to think Manziel could succeed more than those legit, but smaller issues. I go back-n-forth with Manziel. I think he’s worth a 1st round pick, but I’m not sure I would want the Browns to be the team to tab him. If I knew that we could get Shaw later, then I’d just go that strategy and go with 2 other players in the 1st.
I wasn’t high on Tavon, so I’m not really that high on Dri. Love his speed especially for PRs and he should be a better version of Benjamin. That’s worthy of a 3rd round pick to me (especially given guys his size tend to get hurt quickly), but we might have other needs that trump him in the 3rd.
The good news for Johnny Drama was his speed. The bad news was a DL (Clowney) being even faster. Get used to it Manziel!
The real fun starts on March 11…
Well said. I understand why the NFL markets the combine (because there IS a market for it, simple enough), I just can’t understand why there’s a market for it to begin with. You glean so little from the combine, is it even worth your time as a fan? Are there NFL players who were “found” in the combine? I can only remember guys whose value was artificially inflated.
Jordan Cameron’s stock definitely rose because of the combine.
oh one key thing missed if you weren’t tuned in today craig. joe haden was in the booth adding insight on the d-backs and he’s really great. he presents nicely, seems a genuinely nice and engaged guy, added a lot to the broadcast.
it’d be nice if HE were in the browns war room.
“Well I wouldn’t say I’ve been MISSING it, Bob”
it’d be nice if he were in the Browns war room right after signing a lengthy extension and getting his buddy TJ to sign one too.
From what to what? I don’t think we can say climbing into the 4th round is a rising stock. There isn’t a big difference between 4th and 7th round as far as expectations for those players. Cameron may have already been on several teams’ radars after the East-West Shrine Game.
Oh you don’t enjoy the Combine?
Go on, tell me more about things you *don’t* care about
I saw the interview. Good stuff.
Kind of gives one…
Hope.
Yeah it’s way overblown. On a side note I think the Draft should’ve been moved forward a month, not backwards. Mid to early March would be fine for it, instead by the time it finally arrives i’m so burnt out on the speculation and draft boards.