Keenan Allen, Justin Hunter, Robert Woods, who do you target in next years draft?

[Kevlared]

Keenan allen or hunter in the 1st round

a guy live tavon austin or bailey in the 2nd. I like tavon more though, his after the catch ability is through the roof. Allen is good with YAC too. but tavon may have the best yac ability in the whole draft class.

 

[PhinsTD]

I'm a big fan of Allen who can run the slants and in cuts while also getting YAC and being a deep threat. That, to me, is a #1 WR. A guy who can run the full route tree and force a Safety to help to stop him.

Tavon Austin is a more refined McCluster in my view, and would be a bit of a luxury pick for our team in the top-50 picks. I like Stedman Bailey who is much more physical and is a deep threat. I like Marquess Wilson more than both, but I'm not sure he'll come out since he'll still have a QB next year and the WR corps looks elite at the top, but he could slot into that #3 area in the pecking order behind Lee and Watkins.

Hopkins has improved and Da'Rick is a good player as well. Cordarelle Patterson is a guy who will help a team. There are a lot of WR's I like in this drat, so much to the point that I don't think you have to lock yourself into one in the 1st round.

 

[Pinkboy]

I'm getting a big man crush on Keenan Allen, He is clearly more well-rounded and more talented than the rest. And he has no FEAR going over the middle and in traffic ( I love that), a real football player to go along with his talent. I love the kid and he'd make an excellent addition to this offense.

I'm hearing TE Finley is in cahoots and in the doghouse in Green Bay. Draft Allen and trade for Finley and let's see what happens next season. The rest of the draft can go to pass rushers and the secondary (and maybe a LB as we are very thin there). Add in a good free agent for the missing piece, hopefully an impact guy with clear leadership qualities for the cherry on top of the 2013 offseason.

If all that happened I'd be quite content & happy going into next season.

 

[datruth55]

I'm getting a big man crush on Keenan Allen, He is clearly more well-rounded and more talented than the rest. And he has no FEAR going over the middle and in traffic ( I love that), a real football player to go along with his talent. I love the kid and he'd make an excellent addition to this offense.

I'm hearing TE Finley is in cahoots and in the doghouse in Green Bay. Draft Allen and trade for Finley and let's see what happens next season. The rest of the draft can go to pass rushers and the secondary (and maybe a LB as we are very thin there). Add in a good free agent for the missing piece, hopefully an impact guy with clear leadership qualities for the cherry on top of the 2013 offseason.

If all that happened I'd be quite content & happy going into next season.

Finley's play has dropped off dramatically. He's dropping a lot of passes, he can still get open but the drops are part of the reason the Packers are struggling on offense (for them).

 

[ckparrothead]

He has been dealing with a bum ankle the past season and a half. I'm curious to see what a healthy Robert Woods looks like. Haven't seen it since his freshman year.

Also, keep in mind a large chunk of Woods' receptions are bubble screens. Kiffin has an addiction.

Isn't that in itself a big concern? Who fights an ankle issue for 2 years?

---------- Post added at 09:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 AM ----------

That's my concern. He looked best his freshman year and either due to injury or whatever he hasn't developed. I'm just not banking on a healthy Woods being better than he is now when there are other options. Now if he slips to the 4th round or later then he may be worth the risk then I'm just not spending a high pick on this kid.

Egnew ran a bunch of bubble screens and look how much he's struggling to get a hold of the offense. Pearcy Harvin is another guy that did that a lot at Florida and he still doesn't run good routes. Harvin has elite speed though so they still run a lot of short passes and screen plays to him now, just get the ball in his hands and let his speed and elusiveness do the rest but Woods doesn't have those elite skill...not that I've noticed anyway.

I don't like that Michael Egnew is already a cautionary tale. I just don't think it carries much validity.

 

[ckparrothead]

Like it or not this league is about size when it comes to the dominating forces at WR.

Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson and Andre Johnson are widely considered the best WRs today, perhaps the best of our time. The thing they share in common is they're all freaking huge. Demaryius Thomas is coming into stardom, another huge guy. Brandon Marshall, gargantuan. A.J. Green, 6'4" and 215 lbs. Marques Colston, monstrously sized. Julio Jones 6'3" and 220+ lbs. Dwayne Bowe over 6'2" and 220+ lbs. Vincent Jackson is a monster. Anquan Boldin is big. Jordy Nelson is huge at 6'3" and about 220 lbs. Dez Bryant is huge. Miles Austin is 6'2" and 220 lbs. Eric Decker is 6'3" and 215 lbs. And then you've got guys like Hakeem Nicks who aren't huge on listings but seem like it on the field. Then you've got the players that don't have it anymore but used to dominate, like Randy Moss and Terrell Owens...huge guys.

Heck even guys you wouldn't think of as big players, really do have decent size. Brian Hartline is 6'2". Roddy White is over 6'1" and was 207 lbs coming out, probably heavier now. Torrey Smith is over 6'1" and 205 lbs. Victor Cruz is 6'1" and 200+ lbs.

There are certainly exceptions, I'm not saying there aren't. I think Marqise Lee and Stedman Bailey are going to be great examples of exceptions. I just think you do have to keep that in mind when you're looking at the very top of the WRs class and you see guys like Keenan Allen (6'3" and 220 lbs) and Justin Hunter (6'4" and 200+ lbs with plenty of room to grow out more). Those guys are up there because they have the potential to be dominating forces at the receiver position.

 

[datruth55]

I don't like that Michael Egnew is already a cautionary tale. I just don't think it carries much validity.

You don't think he's struggling cause of that Mickey Mouse offense they ran at Missouri? Reports are he's having issues just grasping the playbook...we're not even talking about reading defenses and option routes.

 

[ckparrothead]

You don't think he's struggling cause of that Mickey Mouse offense they ran at Missouri? Reports are he's having issues just grasping the playbook...we're not even talking about reading defenses and option routes.

IF he's not grasping the playbook it's more a commentary on him I think. But also keep in mind the Dolphins run a no-huddle system that involves very fast communication to where it's easy to get lost. Rishard Matthews didn't necessarily come from a pro style system but I've heard the same criticism that's keeping Egnew off the field is keeping Rishard off the field too. On the other hand Lamar Miller didn't come from any kind of mickey mouse offense and he's not being allowed on the field either. Nor Marcus Thigpen, for that matter. These guys are all first time NFL'ers coming into an offense that clearly involves so much speed communication that they're not keeping up. Lucky for Jon Martin he plays right tackle and there's not a whole lot for him to have to communicate. He's also a Stanford grad, and I'm sure that helps. Ryan Tannehill was raised in this system for five years in college. If he'd been raised in some other system hell at this rate we wouldn't see him on the field until 2015.

 

[datruth55]

IF he's not grasping the playbook it's more a commentary on him I think. But also keep in mind the Dolphins run a no-huddle system that involves very fast communication to where it's easy to get lost. Rishard Matthews didn't necessarily come from a pro style system but I've heard the same criticism that's keeping Egnew off the field is keeping Rishard off the field too. On the other hand Lamar Miller didn't come from any kind of mickey mouse offense and he's not being allowed on the field either. Nor Marcus Thigpen, for that matter. These guys are all first time NFL'ers coming into an offense that clearly involves so much speed communication that they're not keeping up. Lucky for Jon Martin he plays right tackle and there's not a whole lot for him to have to communicate. He's also a Stanford grad, and I'm sure that helps. Ryan Tannehill was raised in this system for five years in college. If he'd been raised in some other system hell at this rate we wouldn't see him on the field until 2015.

Don't get me started on Miller. I said he had a lot of things to work on if he had come back to the Canes...there are a lot of little things and big things he's got to fix most of all pass blocking.

I don't necessarily see Miller sitting as a bad thing though given his bad shoulders. This has really been giving him time to heal.

For receivers this offense is going to be tougher on them if they're coming from programs where they're never asked to read defenses and they play in true spread offenses. They're used to running a specific route and catching the ball, not much thinking involved.

 

[ckparrothead]

I just think that until a guy actually goes out on the field and struggles, we don't really know that he's struggling. We can hear it, other players can say it, even coaches can say it, but we don't know if that's really true. You know, the coaches for some reason loved Legedu Naanee but he went out and played football like a dog's anus. And dogs' anuses are pretty bad at football.

And if we're not even to the point of confirmation of struggling, how do we go one step beyond that to attribution of reasons why a guy is struggling, and then a step beyond that to where we're taking lessons on how decision making in the future should be shaped based on the attribution of reasons for a guy's struggles. It's like building a skyscraper on a swamp...if the foundation for the whole thing isn't solid then you might have some problems.

For instance a player says Egnew has trouble remembering plays. What's that based on? Is it based on one play in practice where Egnew forgot the play and got blasted for it? Does that player have a proper context for that? Hell we just watched Chaz Schilens on MNF have no freaking clue what route he's supposed to run on a play, lazily just defaulted to a slant and actually caught the ball. Because of the result, you're probably not going to see a teammate cite to reporters that Schilens "can't remember plays". But under different circumstances, let's say Schilens never saw the field and then when he did he didn't know what route he had to run and an interception occurred...then a whole bunch of people would say about Schilens "He can't remember the plays". Charles Clay can't remember the plays. I've seen that myself out on the football field. Did the teammate also point out that Charles Clay can't remember plays? Or did he gloss over it because Clay actually see the field?

When a guy doesn't get playing time there's a natural inclination to explain it, to isolate the one reason that he's not getting playing time, and this can lead to really over-emphasis of minor issues as well as exaggeration. For those reasons, when it comes to this Egnew stuff, I'm not even on Step 1 (he's struggling) let alone Step 2 (why is he struggling) or Step 3 (what we can learn from why he is struggling).

 

[WitheringPlant]

Isn't that in itself a big concern? Who fights an ankle issue for 2 years?

The injury needs to be put into context. He hurt his ankle right before his Sophomore year and decided to hold of surgery until after the season. Keep in mind that at the time, he WAS USC's offense. Marqise Lee entered camp as a defensive back. Probably wasn't the best choice, but it is what it is.

That said, its been 10 months since surgery and he still hasn't (to my knowledge) completed a full week of practice. I don't know a lot about ankle injuries, but that is worrying. Not enough to write him off, but I do wonder if he would be better off sticking around his senior year and showing what he can do on a (hopefully) healed ankle.

 

[ckparrothead]

You bring up good points about holding off on the surgery, etc. But 10 months post surgery and still hobbling still does concern me.

 

[WelcomeBack]

You bring up good points about holding off on the surgery, etc. But 10 months post surgery and still hobbling still does concern me.

I haven't really seen him favoring the ankle, although I think he doesn't practice as much so that he's ready to go on gameday. I think that, combined with another off-season will get his ankle right.

My one concern from him should he return his senior year, he's got some very talented players that could leap-frog him in the draft, of course Marqise Lee is one of them.

 

[Kdawg954]

That first pick has to be BPA. There are some solid pass rushers in this draft but if a guy like Keenan Allen is your highest rated player, you take him over the pass rusher and don't think twice about it.

With all the Egnew talk, I'm interested in Jared Cook in Free Agency. He's still raw as a blocker but man talk about a weapon for Tannehill. He's a FA after the season. Hell if Egnew does come around and you add Cook, throw in Keenan Allen and maybe a STedman Bailey . . . it starts looking real nice on offense for Tannehill. Plus Matthews no doubt in my mind is going to be a solid WR for us down the road as well.

 

[Mage_Phin]

Keenan Allen is an absolute stud. Don't see him falling to us unfortunately.