Kiper sounds off on Tannehill and other phin draft picks.

[phinatic1399]

Ryan Tannehill-“However good he is going to be at the pro level, whatever he is going to develop into, this was probably the best-case scenario for him because of the help he’s going to get,” Kiper said on a conference call to wrap up the draft Monday.
“(Coach) Joe Philbin is the guru of quarterback gurus,” Kiper went on. “He developed Matt Flynn and Aaron Rodgers (in Green Bay), and he not only developed them, he altered the delivery of Rodgers and he made Flynn tweak his mechanics.
“So in Tannehill he has a work in progress, and he’ll understand that. So he (Tannehill) can watch and learn and it’ll be a nice situation. How good is he going to be? Nobody knows that. Nobody knew Aaron Rodgers was going to be as good as he is right now. He went 24[SUP]th[/SUP] in the draft.”

“Right now he (Tannehill) is not good enough,” Kiper said. “He makes too many bad decisions. He doesn’t understand you’ve got to throw the ball away. You’ve got to live and fight for another play. He’ll force it; he’ll make some ill-advised throws that result in interceptions.
“He showed he could throw on the move _ he had some great throws on the move. He also had some inaccurate ones. But in the red zone he was good, (which) was shocking. His completion percentage (there) was right around what (Robert Griffin III’s) was, like 64 percent. His bad decisions were on the rest of the field.
“He’s got to be groomed. Second year, at best, is when he should be out there. Does he have the ability to be a starting quarterback in this league? Sure he does. Is he going to work on and completely change the areas of concern? It’s up to (offensive coordinator) Mike Sherman and Joe Philbin.”


OT Jonathan Martin (second round) _ “I think he will be their right tackle (this year). He fits their scheme. He’s got to get more power, get stronger in the weight room.”


DE Olivier Vernon (third round) _ “I don’t know about Vernon, just because he didn’t play enough last year. He wasn’t on the field enough. He showed he could play the run for his size very effectively, and he was a good pass rusher at Miami when he was out there.”


TE Michael Egnew (third round) _ “He caught the ball very well; his numbers were down (last year) because of the play of his quarterback. But he’s going to get a lot bigger and stronger. He’s going to be 265 (pounds) in a couple of years, with the same ability to catch the ball.”


RB Lamar Miller (fourth round) _ “A heckuva runner for where he was picked. He’s a game-breaker. That was a real value pick. I like him in the role as a pure runner … He’s a lot bigger than some people think. A lot of people think he’s 180 or 190; he’s 214.”


LB Josh Kaddu (fifth round) _ “He showed pass-rush ability at Oregon.


WR B.J. Cunningham (sixth round) _ “Can he get open? Is he just going to be a good college receiver? He got more consistent catching the ball late in his career.”


DT Keeston Randall (seventh round) _ “Randall was an underachiever.”


WR Rishard Matthews (seventh round) _ “I think Matthews can surprise, and help that wide receiver corps.”

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/thed...herman-will-maximize-ryan-tannehills-talents/

 

[whodizking]

Boom or bust draft. Let's hope training camp and preaseason gives us something to cheer about. This team at moment is boom or bust. I hope by year 3 we are contenders for a title ..... O please football gods LOL

 

[Vaark]

Surprisingly fair eval from The Spray-Haired one. Still, I'm led to believe that had T/hill's agent been the late Gary Wichter's successor, Kiper might well have been raving about him. :idk:

 

[Hayden Fox]

Solid draft for Jeff. I like it and stick by it.

 

[MarshallFin1]

i have seen andrew luck makes mistakes and throws interceptions for pick 6's, kiper favors the top name qbs, its very evident.

 

[Zounds]

I have to say I agree with Kiper, especially about Vernon and Randall, the 2 head scratching picks imo.

 

[DolphinShawn]

Rhandall is a 7th rounder with unused potential- that is where they are supposed to be picked.

 

[LouPhinFan]

I'm not sure how much Kiper really knows about Philbin and the Packers. I'm guessing Tom Clements had more to do with Rodgers and Flynn's development than Philbin did.

 

[Vaark]

I'm not sure how much Kiper really knows about Philbin and the Packers. I'm guessing Tom Clements had more to do with Rodgers and Flynn's development than Philbin did.

With Flynn I can't really say, but soon after the hire, Rodgers was quoted as attributing much of his professional and personal development to Philbin :idk: It's been posted here verbatim at that time... so you might say that was "straight from the horse's mouth."

 

[Zounds]

Rhandall is a 7th rounder with unused potential- that is where they are supposed to be picked.

With the 6th and 7th rounders, you tend to go with guys who had good production but arent as athletic, or very athletic guys with low production, or special teamers. Randall isnt any of those imo. I guess he could be on our g-line base D, or a cheap replacement for McDaniel, but I dont see this guy even making the team unless we are forced to cut McDaniel for salary cap reasons. I would have rather picked someone else with this pick.

 

[MIAphins2323]

Good read. I was expecting a way worse write up.

 

[phinfan40353]

Kiper has a job just like everyone else. I remember a few years ago there was major doubt if ESPN would continue with him. His ability to "predict" and "grade" talent, as an analyst, was coming under a lot of fire. He was very defensive on the show about his picks and didn't accept criticism well. At that time, their draft coverage really set him as the focal point.

Now, they've mixed in a lot more talking heads and he shares the camera a lot more. Mel's still gets defensive when critiqued but I think he's handled himself better and taken a lesser role better than he might have. His name, while polarizing, is a brand when it comes to the NFL Draft.

Love him or hate him, he is opinionated and tends to sink with his own ship.

Frankly, I hate the guy, but you've got to admire his ability to get paid for merely voicing his opinion. Think about it... what else does he do?

Wouldn't we all LOVE to get paid just to scout players and build a fantasy draft every day of every year?

I know I would.

 

[Quadfather]

F*** Kiper...Kiper is nothing but a pencil pushing pinhead. What the hell does he know about QBs..He probally hasnt played a down of football in his life. I know there are 100 guys who post on this board that are more qualified to evaluate the position of QB than he is. Some guys who are qualified like Gruden and Phil Simms loves the kid and thinks he is a franchise QB. Thats all that matters. I trust our FO, they have been evaluating him seen last august. Philbin knows his stuff, and I think everyone of us should be very very excited about the QB we had. Ill say this too, if Luck and RG3 didnt come out for whatever reason, Tannehill would probally have been drafted 1st overall, thats how good he is. But there is a dolphin bias mainly because our owner is an idiot, and because those two qbs did come out everyone said we overdrafted him...But im not worried about what all the experts say, the 4th qb we draft in the first round, wont happen for another very very long time.

 

[finny1333]

kiper is the worst.. only at ESPN can a guy like him be considered a draft "expert"

 

[Vaark]

As I posted herein previously, this is one of the less estrogen-ranting post draft evaluations Kiper has made, especially since he wasn't at all sold on T/Hill unlike McShay. I have been critical of him, especially since he went ballistic when we rightfully passed on Brady Quinn taking it as a personal insult, even before it came out that he was on the late agent Gary Wichter's payroll pimping his clients, but generally have agreed that he was largely responsible for the media fascination the annual NFL draft has become.

Interestingly though, for anyone who thinks Mel was the pioneer, he wasn't. It was a nerdy guy named Joel Buschsbaum obsessively cluttering up his parents house in Brooklyn with pre-computerized hard copy information and ringing up $1500 monthly telephone bills. I did know about him previously but he skipped my mind until listening to Jim Rome yesterday interview The Colts new GM, Ryan Grigson (who actually sounds sharp as ****) whose background and obsession since a youngster was in player scouting and evaluation. My memory got refreshed when he brought Joel up as the pioneering gold standard and bragged about actually getting to meet him once. Joel was an interesting reclusive character who essentially got usurped by Mel as the draft pioneer. I for one am happy to do my small part to spread the word that Mel wasn't all that as a visionary either.

Here's a link to a good article on the late Joel Buschsbaum. This guy deserves a helluva lot more recognition and respect than being buried in the archives of NFL history as an afterthought:
http://www.marfdrat.net/2012/04/28/if-you-watch-the-nfl-draft-you-have-the-joel-buchsbaum-to-thank/

excerpted:

Tonight, the second-most-popular televised football broadcast of the year takes place from New York's Radio City Music Hall. ESPN will broadcast round one of the NFL Draft, with the remaining rounds to be broadcast on Friday and Saturday. An estimated 40 million people will watch the draft, an event that even for the most interested fan moves at a snail's pace.

"We all thought, way back when, how can this become the most watched non-movement sporting event in professional sports?" former NFL executive Carl Peterson says. "That's what it is. Nobody's moving. We're just drafting. Now it's prime time. Thursday night?"


The draft has come a long way since beginning in 1936, when teams selected players based on rumors and gut feelings. Now the business of drafting is big business, and the business of scouting and projecting what teams will pick which players is equally big.


In 1979, the brand new ESPN petitioned the league to televise the draft live. The network was initially turned down by a unanimous vote of the league owners. But ESPN persisted, and in April 1980, the cameras rolled as Oklahoma running back Billy Sims was selected first by the Detroit Lions on an early Tuesday morning.


But it was one man's work that provided the inspiration to televise the draft, leading to an entire industry that revolves around pro football's spring ritual. Joel Buchsbaum was a small, frail recluse who left his apartment in Brooklyn only to walk his dog, visit his mother, or go to the gym. He would leave Brooklyn only once a year — to attend the NFL draft in Manhattan. But the five-foot-eight-inch, 100-pound Buchsbaum was a giant in player analysis, who, as Dallas Morning News reporter Juliet Macur writes,


could tell you anything about football, anything about players — even from 10 years ago. Heights. Forty-yard dash times. Injuries. If a guy sprained an ankle, he knew which ankle.
When a Police Athletic League coach told Buchsbaum he was too small to play sports he began a lifelong obsession with player analysis.


Buchsbaum wrote for Pro Football Weekly and each year produced an analysis of each of the 600 to 800 players available for the draft that NFL insiders considered the definitive draft guide. With his nasal Brooklyn monotone, he also became a cult figure on weekly radio programs in Houston and St. Louis.


Most people had no idea what Buchsbaum looked like. He turned down all lunch and social requests. Yet he was phone friends with NFL brass around the league. Bill Belichick, Al Davis, and Bobby Beathard were buddies, as was New York Giants general manager, Ernie Accorsi, who said, "There weren't a lot of people who influenced all these top people in the league like Joel did."


"I was never in his presence. That puts me in the same category as 99 percent of people that knew him," said NBC sportscaster Bob Costas, who hosted a St. Louis radio show with Buchsbaum in the late 1970s. "A sighting of him was like a sighting of Bigfoot."




His apartment was so messy, his mother refused to visit. He used his bathtub to store books. The gas was turned off to his stove. The air conditioner didn't work. But from there he worked 80 to 90 hours a week, never taking a week off. He often watched and recorded three games at once, and racked up phone bills as high as $1,500 a month talking to his sources.


Buchsbaum wrote his first draft report at age 20 and sent it out to 120 newspapers and magazines hoping to get published. The next year he was hired by the Football News.