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2021 Mock Draft Simulators


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40 minutes ago, spicoli said:

 

This has nothing whatsoever to do with what you or I would do, I'm simply trying to predict what I think the Bengals will do. There's usually not a whole lot of logic involved. Plus, I'm pretty sure they think that they can draft OL in the mid rounds and Pollack will turn them into reliable starters. Just my opinion. 

 

 

Sounds accurate.  With the right prospects Pollack should have them coached up & ready to start just in time for Burrow to come off the PUP list next season.

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1 hour ago, T-Dub said:

 

You've got a QB like Burrow and you're going to give him the same OL as last year + a very average 32 year old OT?  You're one more injury to Jonah Williams away from 5 sacks a game.

 

Show me an OL that can keep him upright long enough for a deep threat to actually get deep and I'll start to give a shit about who plays WR.

Never said I wouldn't stock/improve the OLine.   I also wouldn't say "OK, we've got 3-4 kinda  solid OL's, that's plenty."

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1 hour ago, spicoli said:

 

This has nothing whatsoever to do with what you or I would do, I'm simply trying to predict what I think the Bengals will do. There's usually not a whole lot of logic involved. Plus, I'm pretty sure they think that they can draft OL in the mid rounds and Pollack will turn them into reliable starters. Just my opinion. 

Agree 100% , it is about what Dufus will do and that is often not logical. Last year is a perfect example 

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On 4/14/2021 at 11:55 AM, I_C_Deadpeople said:

 

 

But as we all know, opinions on draft prospects are varied. One thing i have always disagreed with is the 'you only find elite players at the top of the draft' thinking. Most of the best all time Bengals, even the recent ones were top 5 or top 10 picks. This is where teams with better scouting staffs flourish. Anyone can make a pick in the top 5 because the consensus is there. We pick any of the top 3 non-QBs we will make a good pick. It is after that where the rubber meets the road. 

 

 

I figure we will nail the later rounds of the draft as Mikey just hired a brand new high dollar (for him ) scout. Super Bowl Baby!!

 

 

draft2.jpg

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49 minutes ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

Last year we did not pick an OL until round 5 . Higgins was obviously a good pick but it shows that even if the team wants to go OL they will go in another direction - Squirrel 🐿 

Your...right...😒

Edited.

In 20 Jim Turner was Assuring 

everyone that the Oline was fine with Hart and Jordan starting.

His sickening praise led them to believe that was sustainable under his leadership.

So we go Higgins ..lookin back good choice aside from the Oline..

Pollack will be straight with them.

If he believes Sewell has that "It" 

factor about him He'll lobby Hard for the 20yr old to mold into an All-Pro..

Hes the run game coach so hed want a guy very good in pass and run games....Sewell...

 

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

Agree 100% , it is about what Dufus will do and that is often not logical. Last year is a perfect example 

I was probably one of the biggest detractors of selecting Higgins last year.  I'm glad he turned out to be a good player but it was still a dumb pick.  There were good Oline players in the 2nd round last year that would have made a bigger difference than Higgins.  It's pretty simple when you a have an elite QB.  Give them time and they will find open receivers and it also prevents your RB from getting him behind the line of scrimmage everytime they touch the ball.  If only the Bengals front office could understand this.

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6 hours ago, soundstreamer said:

I was probably one of the biggest detractors of selecting Higgins last year.  I'm glad he turned out to be a good player but it was still a dumb pick.  There were good Oline players in the 2nd round last year that would have made a bigger difference than Higgins.  It's pretty simple when you a have an elite QB.  Give them time and they will find open receivers and it also prevents your RB from getting him behind the line of scrimmage everytime they touch the ball.  If only the Bengals front office could understand this.

You weren't the only one.

 

 

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Article on draft rooms in the Athletic. 

 

 

Lombardi: What really goes on in an NFL Draft room? Often a lot of unnecessary noise

 
By Michael Lombardi 2h agocomment-icon.png 16 save-icon.png

NFL draft rooms are like the Batcave. All of Batman’s archrivals and closest friends wanted two things: to learn Batman’s real identity and to visit the Batcave, a sacred place where few got in and even fewer knew what happened inside. When it comes to NFL draft rooms, many want in and even more want to understand exactly what occurs inside those walls. Fans and mock draft experts study the players, but they can never peel back the layers inside the room to completely understand the dynamics that often alter picks and affect success.

What fans see on television is the finished product, the magnetic walls of the draft room lined with the player’s name. Some are overloaded with people dressed in coats and ties, tightly clustered together. Few rooms are populated with just the decision-makers — most teams want to make everyone feel included on this special day for the organization. Fans can only see the sideboards, the boards that have the players teams won’t draft, as their actual draft board is hidden from the cameras. Most teams’ draft boards will have between 100 and 125 names on them. Regardless of their public stature, the remaining players are on the free-agent board and will only be considered when the draft concludes. Some names will appear on the non-draftable board because of a medical or a character issue. These players will not be part of the team’s draft process regardless of the round.

So, how do the 100-125 names make the board? How do teams whittle down their lists from over 1,000 players? Remember, finding talent is first about eliminating what you don’t want or need. The best way to build a draft board is to define what is required at each position, then search for those who meet the requirements. The draft board is not a decorative item, littered with players’ names teams would never draft. If a player is on the draftable board, he earned that right from the debate that raged among scouts, coaches and executives. Teams streamline their board for clarity and purpose, resulting in only names on the board that have a real chance at becoming a member of their team.

That process is what fans never see — and that might be for the best. The old-school mentality of building the board has not changed since former NFL commissioner Bert Bell was running the draft out of the league office in Philadelphia. The way decisions are finalized has been the same for a long time, and at some point, a behavioral scientist will examine the entire process from start to finish and scream, “no wonder why there are so many mistakes.” It’s a system that allows bias, wishful thinking and noise to affect the picks.

The draft preparations begin in May after the draft concludes, as area scouts begin collecting information and writing reports on each prospect. Most teams use a grading system, correlating the talent to a round in the draft, which starts a false narrative. How can any scout watch a player in May and say with one thousand percent certainty that this player is an excellent second-round pick 11 months later? It’s damn near impossible. It causes the illusion of a player rising or falling, but players never rise or fall — they only become accurately graded. The “rising and falling” narratives are created by perceptions, not reality. The area scout has no idea who will be in the upcoming draft or how many other players could be available in the second round.

The draft room has two boards, the vertical board, ranking the players from top to bottom at their position, then the horizontal board, which values the players’ talents related to other positions. Only after every draft-eligible player is graded can the formation of the horizontal board take shape. On draft day, teams can predict what decisions they may face and prepare accordingly. However, nothing ever goes as predicted, so those who can make quick decisions based on their superior knowledge of the vertical and horizontal board can come away with the best possible results.

An example of the vertical and horizontal board is occurring in Atlanta. The Falcons, in all likelihood, have Florida tight end Kyle Pitts or Oregon’s offensive tackle Penei Sewell rated higher than any quarterback left on the board when they pick at No. 4. New general manager Terry Fontenot will have to decide whether dipping below the horizontal grades to take a quarterback is a worthwhile gamble for the future. Quarterbacks are always valued higher on the horizontal board, yet Fontenot must decide how far he is willing to dip to make short- and long-term sense. He then must decide what holds more value for the team — the left tackle or the tight end? Choosing between Pitts and Sewell is not a vertical decision, rather a horizontal one.

In February, once draft-eligible players declare their intentions to enter the draft, meetings will begin. In those meetings, each team has three types of scouts in their draft room. (Trust me, every team has these three, and personnel directors reading this article will nod their heads in agreement.) These three types come from Phil Tetlock, a Canadian-American political science writer and the Leonore Annenberg University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who breaks down how people think and reach decisions. The first type of scout is the Preacher. This is the scout who is convinced his/her breakdown of the player is one thousand percent correct and will use the power of his/her words to tell anyone who will listen why he/she is right. Next comes the Prosecutor, who is always trying to prove someone else is wrong. Finally, the Politician always tries to be on the right side of the argument, winning everyone’s approval. Having these three in every room guarantees heated discussions and ensures a real consensus is never formed. Whoever holds power in the organization breaks the tie with their vote. Preachers normally win, politicians claim they are on the right side, and the prosecutors always complain about the draft to their friends. It never changes.

So much time is wasted on stupid arguments that could be resolved if the person in charge would shift the conversation from whom scouts like to how they reached their conclusion. Shedding light on their process will either confirm or deny their evaluations. One of the many reasons for draft failures is that scouts/coaches are too similar in how they approach their evaluations. They all have opinions and thoughts, but unless they can explain their process based on the current pro game, they will make inaccurate predictions instead of quality decisions.

In The Athletic’s wonderfully insightful piece on the inner workings of the Eagles, Sheil Kapadia, Bo Wolf and Zach Berman write in detail about how owner Jeffrey Lurie wants to have a collaborative effort on all things, taking input from many different departments before reaching the best possible decision.

“According to Lurie, (Howie) Roseman’s role is to foster a culture of collaboration between different departments, but the philosophical lockstep the Eagles emanated in the wake of their Super Bowl triumph was far from the truth,” they wrote. “Tension simmered behind the scenes among different factions of football operations. Over the ensuing few years, the animosity festered to the point that certain departments were separated inside the building.”

Lurie welcomes opinions, he loves to hear both sides of the argument, which in the business world helps make smart decisions — but despite his efforts to build a collaborative organization, he has one that resembles a dictatorship.

Lurie is an example of good intentions with horrible results. If you listen to Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist on behavioral economics, having too many people involved only creates more noise and more chances to be wrong, regardless of their level of expertise. Most teams spend their time trying to eliminate bias from their draft room decision-making process when according to Kahneman the biggest enemy is noise. Not the noise from the media or outside factors, but the noise from the inside, from the people who think they might have the right answers. Kahneman says if you have five underwriters, all with the same level of experience and expertise, examine a loan, they will all have a different risk assessment. It’s easy to assume that more opinions mean more chances to find the right answer, but more opinions actually create more variables that become problematic to resolve.  When Lurie reads Kahneman’s new book, he will understand why collaboration and building consensus might be why there was discontent among his football operation in the past.

Once the draft board in both the horizontal and vertical fashion is finalized, the decision-makers must determine whether they want to move up to gain a top player or slide down to add more picks. And, most importantly, if they cannot move, they must figure out whom they should pick. We saw this happen with the Raiders in 2019. The Raiders knew Clemson defensive end Clelin Ferrell was not worthy of the fourth pick in the draft because of the grade he received. They also knew they could move down and acquire him — if they were able to move down. And, as often happens, they couldn’t move, so they over-drafted the player, feeling as though they had no choice. In 1986, Bill Walsh faced the same problem: take Larry Roberts, a defensive end from Alabama, or trade down. Trading down in 1986 from 18th was new territory, and no one had a trading chart, so it was easy for Walsh to take less value for the move down, as no one had the numbers or could criticize his bad deal. Now, every draft room has a trade expert who places the offers on the whiteboard to calculate value. In some cases, like the Raiders with Ferrell, you have to throw the trade value out the window.

When we actually take a peek inside the draft rooms, we’d see some sophisticated ones and some that are still operating in old-school methodology, relying on too many people and adding too much noise. The teams with the best drafts will have fewer people involved in the decision-making process — and even fewer in the actual room on draft day.

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This is from Tony Pauline at PFN, this was a mailbag question - so he ranks Chase higher than AJ and Julio.  Just an FYI

 

 

It’s clear based on your big board that Ja’Marr Chase is your WR1 in 2021. His grade seems exceptionally high. Where does Chase rank in your personal grades given out to WR prospects over the last two decades?

Great question. Fortunately, I have a massive database and can go back as far as 2003. Ja’Marr Chase ranks No. 4 out of the 2,385 receivers I’ve graded since then.

Only three receivers — Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Roy Williams — had higher grades than Chase. Fitzgerald and Johnson justified the grade, Williams did not.

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20 minutes ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

This is from Tony Pauline at PFN, this was a mailbag question - so he ranks Chase higher than AJ and Julio.  Just an FYI

 

 

It’s clear based on your big board that Ja’Marr Chase is your WR1 in 2021. His grade seems exceptionally high. Where does Chase rank in your personal grades given out to WR prospects over the last two decades?

Great question. Fortunately, I have a massive database and can go back as far as 2003. Ja’Marr Chase ranks No. 4 out of the 2,385 receivers I’ve graded since then.

Only three receivers — Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Roy Williams — had higher grades than Chase. Fitzgerald and Johnson justified the grade, Williams did not.

 

 

Does he have a similar comparison for Sewell?

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13 hours ago, soundstreamer said:

I was probably one of the biggest detractors of selecting Higgins last year.  I'm glad he turned out to be a good player but it was still a dumb pick.  

 

Particularly if they're going to turn around and try to demote him by choosing another WR at 5th overall. 

 

 

15 hours ago, claptonrocks said:

 

Pollack will be straight with them.

 

 

And they will straight ignore anything he tells them that doesn't fit their narrative.  "We can't rely on Jonah and need to keep looking at LT. moving him inside to LG if he does stay healthy"  How far do you think he gets with that line?  I'm gonna guess not very.

 

3 hours ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

Article on draft rooms in the Athletic.  [snip]

 

That is.. not how I picture the Bengals draft room.  I imagine something like this, but with more naps.

 

Y5hq79N.gif

 

 

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1 hour ago, T-Dub said:

Particularly if they're going to turn around and try to demote him by choosing another WR at 5th overall


3 wide is literally their base offense, they were in 3 wide sets 89% of the time last year. There are plenty of balls to go around to all of them. To say he’s being “demoted” is just nonsense. 

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8 minutes ago, spicoli said:


3 wide is literally their base offense, they were in 3 wide sets 89% of the time last year. There are plenty of balls to go around to all of them. To say he’s being “demoted” is just nonsense. 

 

It is, in point of fact, bountiful bullshit. 

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