AB’s 1st Draft is an A
- Thread starter Lou Groza
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My favorite excerpt from the free TLOD article on AB:
Berry’s Harvard education with a master’s in computer science is a blessing and a curse. It surely attracted him to DePodesta, another Harvard grad and the famous baseball Moneyball guru. They speak the same language. But that background also made Berry a suspicious candidate to pick football players in the minds of fans.
The truth is, Berry is a football guy at heart. He played quarterback for Bel Air (MD) High School and then started four years at cornerback at Harvard, making All-Ivy League three times.
At the last Super Bowl, 49ers fullback and Harvard grad Kyle Juszczyk told me that Berry “was an absolute legend” in the Harvard football program for his football ability and mental acumen.
When Berry’s playing career ended, he was hired by the Colts as a scouting assistant at the age of 22. Bill Polian, the Colts president at the time and the ultimate old-school football dinosaur, old enough to be Berry’s grandfather, said Berry “was a star when he walked into the building, a rising star. And a guy I did predict 4-5 years ago would become a general manager soon.”
Berry returned to the Browns after a one-year tutorial under Eagles GM Howie Roseman in Philadelphia under less-than-ideal circumstances.
He was replacing Dorsey, an NFL lifer who only a year earlier was the toast of the town for injecting the franchise with loads of football talent. He wasn't hired until after all the college all-star games that kick-off the draft season were over. And he was immediately saddled with the logistical challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Berry caught up fast, and he proved perfectly adept to handle the technological multi-tasks required throughout this strange draft season, culminating in a unique virtual draft.
But the question always was: Could he pick the right players?
That answer realistically won’t come for two or three years. That’s when the final grades of Berry’s first draft will be posted. For now, everyone can breathe easier. Berry aced his first test as a general manager. Which is what you’d expect from a football player from Harvard.
Berry’s Harvard education with a master’s in computer science is a blessing and a curse. It surely attracted him to DePodesta, another Harvard grad and the famous baseball Moneyball guru. They speak the same language. But that background also made Berry a suspicious candidate to pick football players in the minds of fans.
The truth is, Berry is a football guy at heart. He played quarterback for Bel Air (MD) High School and then started four years at cornerback at Harvard, making All-Ivy League three times.
At the last Super Bowl, 49ers fullback and Harvard grad Kyle Juszczyk told me that Berry “was an absolute legend” in the Harvard football program for his football ability and mental acumen.
When Berry’s playing career ended, he was hired by the Colts as a scouting assistant at the age of 22. Bill Polian, the Colts president at the time and the ultimate old-school football dinosaur, old enough to be Berry’s grandfather, said Berry “was a star when he walked into the building, a rising star. And a guy I did predict 4-5 years ago would become a general manager soon.”
Berry returned to the Browns after a one-year tutorial under Eagles GM Howie Roseman in Philadelphia under less-than-ideal circumstances.
He was replacing Dorsey, an NFL lifer who only a year earlier was the toast of the town for injecting the franchise with loads of football talent. He wasn't hired until after all the college all-star games that kick-off the draft season were over. And he was immediately saddled with the logistical challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Berry caught up fast, and he proved perfectly adept to handle the technological multi-tasks required throughout this strange draft season, culminating in a unique virtual draft.
But the question always was: Could he pick the right players?
That answer realistically won’t come for two or three years. That’s when the final grades of Berry’s first draft will be posted. For now, everyone can breathe easier. Berry aced his first test as a general manager. Which is what you’d expect from a football player from Harvard.
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Um, "Ragnar", it isn't racist to point out the ethnicity/skin color of a person, especially when giving the guy credit for the job he's doing, which has NOTHING to do with his skin color, but ESPECIALLY especially when he works in a field where he's one of two (I believe) GM's who aren't...how do I put this so as not to offend your sensibilities..."a later shade of pale".
Anyway, back to praising our very, uh, "not advanced in number of circulations around the sun" GM who is also a human being who happens to have skin of a hue that is on the darker shade of the human skin tone spectrum, not that that matters at all, because it doesn't, unless it does, in which case only if it matters in a way that is not negative, to anyone, ever.
(Whew. That should cover me in all the PC ways, right?)
It's hard not to love this draft. It was executed clearly, crisply and with a logic that was refreshingly simple.
No weird reaches in the top 50 (Corbett). No serious red flags (Callaway). And no drafting of guys who clearly prefer music to football but just happen to be large enough to pretend well (Thomas).
Most of all, no drafting two projects whose role was unclear (Wilson and Takitaki).
Looking at that list alone, and comparing it to this draft class, two things make AB's style clearly superior:
Hyper-experienced players who excelled against top competition, who also are EXTREMELY young (top three picks), and
Lower-round picks who may lack EITHER traits OR experience, but not both.
So, the risk is very calculated. The TE isn't stellar at anything but seems like he could be Darren Fells, the type of guy every team thinks it doesn't need until he's gone. The LSU LB (I'm sincerely not hating the Bayou Browns strategy, not gonna lie) has limitations but a clear road to be a two-down LB. The C is a perfect scheme fit for Stef. And DPJ is a flier on a guy who, if nothing else, could be a gunner for a year or two while he develops, and if we're a little lucky, a guy who gets reps in the rare 3 or 4 wide sets.
All of this seems WAY smarter (pun intended) than Dorsey's two drafts.
Anyway, back to praising our very, uh, "not advanced in number of circulations around the sun" GM who is also a human being who happens to have skin of a hue that is on the darker shade of the human skin tone spectrum, not that that matters at all, because it doesn't, unless it does, in which case only if it matters in a way that is not negative, to anyone, ever.
(Whew. That should cover me in all the PC ways, right?)
It's hard not to love this draft. It was executed clearly, crisply and with a logic that was refreshingly simple.
No weird reaches in the top 50 (Corbett). No serious red flags (Callaway). And no drafting of guys who clearly prefer music to football but just happen to be large enough to pretend well (Thomas).
Most of all, no drafting two projects whose role was unclear (Wilson and Takitaki).
Looking at that list alone, and comparing it to this draft class, two things make AB's style clearly superior:
Hyper-experienced players who excelled against top competition, who also are EXTREMELY young (top three picks), and
Lower-round picks who may lack EITHER traits OR experience, but not both.
So, the risk is very calculated. The TE isn't stellar at anything but seems like he could be Darren Fells, the type of guy every team thinks it doesn't need until he's gone. The LSU LB (I'm sincerely not hating the Bayou Browns strategy, not gonna lie) has limitations but a clear road to be a two-down LB. The C is a perfect scheme fit for Stef. And DPJ is a flier on a guy who, if nothing else, could be a gunner for a year or two while he develops, and if we're a little lucky, a guy who gets reps in the rare 3 or 4 wide sets.
All of this seems WAY smarter (pun intended) than Dorsey's two drafts.
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I think you guys had a fantastic draft. I don't know what some of these experts are talking about. Arguably the bet OT, arguably the 2nd best safety (with upside to be THE best), a guy at DT that some people I talk to thought was the 3rd or 4th best in the draft, and you STOLE, absolutely stole Peoples-Jones.
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You are so delusional it's not even funny.. Stop the cawk slobbering already... You sound like a buffoon!
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Peoples-Jones and Delpit have loads of potential. In DPJ's case, he played with a crap quarterback, and for an archaic head coach. If DPJ had gone to LSU, people would be singing a different tune about him. Peoples-Jones was in many top 15 positional rankings, and Delpit was often 2nd and sometimes 1st.
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Except that wasn't what was done nor how it was framed. It was framed "yay, look at our token black GM and the cool points we score because of it." It is condescending of Berry's race, which shouldn't have been brought up in the first place and in typical braindead libtard racist fashion takes away from the person being able to stand on their own merits as a man.
It is another in a growing line of racist shit being spouted by Shemp.
No, sorry, the rest of the NFL isn't sitting around going "man I wish we had a cool hip Tobie for GM working for us like them Cleveland Browns!" How fucking degrading can you get? Good God.
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You don't know what the experts are talking about how? Browns average "grade" from all experts is a 3.51, 7th in the NFL. I think it should be a little higher but it's fine, we'd been #1 the year before, not as much to do.
Rag, I think you might be struggling with what it means to get a "steal" in the draft. I'll start with this: It doesn't mean everybody else wanted you. Who wants to go next?
Rag, I think you might be struggling with what it means to get a "steal" in the draft. I'll start with this: It doesn't mean everybody else wanted you. Who wants to go next?
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I'll go next: It means you didn't pay a lot for what you got. The draft position was low but the return was high. That's what a "steal" means, and every year, people try to guess who it'll be. It's often a guy like DPJ who's incredibly athletically gifted and a good kid but for whatever reason it didn't happen in college, the numbers weren't there, chickens and eggs.
Moving on: PFF gave out four A's and the Browns were one of them. Tough to top them in 2020 and I don't know how many don't but about 32 teams do... pay attention to PFF. So that's a lot of them.
It's basically analytics. Grading, mapping, identifying trends, etc. So it makes sense that the Browns got an A. It comes down to whether you're a Fauci or a Trump, I suppose. The 3Ts versus injecting Diamond and Silk's evangelically-blessed blood directly into your veins.
Moving on: PFF gave out four A's and the Browns were one of them. Tough to top them in 2020 and I don't know how many don't but about 32 teams do... pay attention to PFF. So that's a lot of them.
It's basically analytics. Grading, mapping, identifying trends, etc. So it makes sense that the Browns got an A. It comes down to whether you're a Fauci or a Trump, I suppose. The 3Ts versus injecting Diamond and Silk's evangelically-blessed blood directly into your veins.
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Zero teams follow PFFucktards. And we have already been over the A grades. Fucking yippy, the Browns "won the draft" yet again. Like every year. Meanwhile how many games will fatass #1 of 5 win for us? That'd be a zero.
You truly are as fucking retarded as your hero Joe Biden.
You truly are as fucking retarded as your hero Joe Biden.
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Rags....WRONG!!!
PFF, while not perfect, is a reputable source of data for NFL teams.
As for LT, if we had avoided a sack, or penalty, in several key situations last year we could have won 3 games more easy...so while he won't make a splash play (lazy way of looking at things), he most definitely will move the needle.
PFF, while not perfect, is a reputable source of data for NFL teams.
As for LT, if we had avoided a sack, or penalty, in several key situations last year we could have won 3 games more easy...so while he won't make a splash play (lazy way of looking at things), he most definitely will move the needle.
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DF, I'm sorry you had to explain why left tackle is unanimously considered a prime position even though they don't score touchdowns. I had to explain a "draft steal."
I'm not doing it anymore and I'd love it if we didn't C&P KoK, it's like closing my eyes so I don't have to see Trump but then realize he's bought space on the insides of my eyelids. Every time I close my eyes, he screams "Enemy of the people!!!" but the Nazi version.
I'm not doing it anymore and I'd love it if we didn't C&P KoK, it's like closing my eyes so I don't have to see Trump but then realize he's bought space on the insides of my eyelids. Every time I close my eyes, he screams "Enemy of the people!!!" but the Nazi version.
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Of course, I'm hoping Wills is the OT that everyone thinks he is, and Williams continues to play only sometimes, and is on the decline.
The Skins messed this up.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LOL Dorsey <a href="https://t.co/n47OhOP0vF">https://t.co/n47OhOP0vF</a></p>— Ryan Burns (@FtblSickness) <a href="https://twitter.com/FtblSickness/status/1255547921451200512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Skins messed this up.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LOL Dorsey <a href="https://t.co/n47OhOP0vF">https://t.co/n47OhOP0vF</a></p>— Ryan Burns (@FtblSickness) <a href="https://twitter.com/FtblSickness/status/1255547921451200512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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To be fair, I think he was sick and tired of watching his franchise quarterback take a beating.
It strengthens the decision Berry made to select Wills - we know how problematic the tackle situation was in the eyes of both this regime and the previous regime.
Pretty incredible to think we've gone from desperately trying to address the position with a massive offer for Trent Williams, to adding Wills and Conklin.
Also, makes the Redskins look weird as fuck. I don't even know why Rivera would admit that publicly. The Redskins got offered a first rounder and said.... no?
Yeesh.