DefensiveEnd76
Football Guru
Joe Philbin will have a talk with Mike and tell him he needs to find a roster chocked full of Sunday School Teachers.
Robert Nkemdiche at # 13
- Thread starter Goonies
- Start date
Joe Philbin will have a talk with Mike and tell him he needs to find a roster chocked full of Sunday School Teachers.
I'm more and more intrigued by this guy for the Dolphins. I saw a thread on FootballsFuture.com's draft forum in which Nkemdiche was rated the best metric fit and lowest risk of the entire crop as an edge rusher. I'm not surprised at all. He oozes explosiveness, although Bosa is clearly more refined and instinctive. Those numbers have a great track record recently at identifying NFL pass rush stars and busts. Dion Jordan was pegged to flop, as I mentioned earlier. I remember seeing that before the draft but not caring much about it, because Miami had no chance at Jordan, until we invented a method.
Everything in the way Nkemdiche moves screams that he would be perfect on the outside. On the other hand, he's often too narrow at defensive tackle and can wander around at times. You would have a guy with some Earl Mitchell tendencies but vastly more ability.
One reason to be intrigued by Nkemdiche is that it's an overrated defensive tackle crop overall, as j-off-her-doll pointed out a few weeks ago. The tests results were basically dreadful compared to how they are rated subjectively. One guy who didn't test due to injury is Adam Gotsis of Georgia Tech. I really liked him in 2014 and he could be an interesting value pick. I remember that Slimm was very high on Gotsis also. Georgia Tech had a disastrous season in 2015 compared to expectation, with tons of injuries on both sides of the ball. Consequently there could be some value in their players. Gotsis is like a rangy monster out there. I wouldn't know who to compare him to. He's raw but quite talented. Georgia Tech also had a defensive back named D.J. White who I always liked. Their scheme is rather cautious on defense so the defensive backs often improve in the NFL once unleashed. White made the game saving play against Georgia on overtime two years ago. Somehow he had a huge standing broad jump but a rather pedestrian vertical jump. That makes little sense. There is normally a natural correlation there. His metric scores will be dinged by the vertical but it might not fully represent his true athletic ability.
Among other defensive tackles the Hargrave kid from South Carolina State is worth an investment. He was upside. I'm not sure if he would still be there in the third round. In fact, I have a lot more trouble these days figuring out where prospects will be taken, including Nkemdiche. Decades ago it was far easier for me to identify a range. The availability of information may be higher these days but the gap from decades ago is overrated compared to conventional wisdom. The aspect that is understated is that with all the daily barrage of info and all the mock draft fixation on the top 20 or 30 guys it's more difficult to assess where the second and third tier guys will be taken. Path to the Draft covers the same players day in and day out and hands out a first round mock draft as if the world would end without another one. Pathetic. Joel Buchsbaum decades ago would focus on 4th and 5th round guys to the point I knew as much about them as the premier picks.
Before I brag about the draft forum on FootballsFuture.com too much, there is an amusing development on that front page right now. One of the regulars posted a "Scout's Quotes" thread that became popular immediately. Quotes on dozens of players. I recognized the source within 5 seconds. The scouts quotes all come from Nolan Nawrocki's Draft Preview book. Nawrocki gives his summary of the player and then provides a "Scout's Take" at the end. My copy arrived about 10 days ago and I quickly scanned it. I first looked at DeForest Buckner's scouting report as a litmus test. I love litmus tests. If that scouting report didn't describe Buckner as a long strider who had trouble changing directions in traffic and therefore wasn't an ideal fit at defensive tackle, then I would be skeptical toward the book as a whole, no matter how much I respect Nawrocki. But it was all right there, as it should have been. The long strider aspect was front and center as a weakness, along with a summation that Buckner was a 3-4 end more than a 3-technique defensive tackle.
Somehow that related thread on FootballsFuture.com has reached 5 pages without anyone identifying the Nolan Nawrocki book as the source of the quotes, and the OP has yet to cop to where he found them.
Everything in the way Nkemdiche moves screams that he would be perfect on the outside. On the other hand, he's often too narrow at defensive tackle and can wander around at times. You would have a guy with some Earl Mitchell tendencies but vastly more ability.
One reason to be intrigued by Nkemdiche is that it's an overrated defensive tackle crop overall, as j-off-her-doll pointed out a few weeks ago. The tests results were basically dreadful compared to how they are rated subjectively. One guy who didn't test due to injury is Adam Gotsis of Georgia Tech. I really liked him in 2014 and he could be an interesting value pick. I remember that Slimm was very high on Gotsis also. Georgia Tech had a disastrous season in 2015 compared to expectation, with tons of injuries on both sides of the ball. Consequently there could be some value in their players. Gotsis is like a rangy monster out there. I wouldn't know who to compare him to. He's raw but quite talented. Georgia Tech also had a defensive back named D.J. White who I always liked. Their scheme is rather cautious on defense so the defensive backs often improve in the NFL once unleashed. White made the game saving play against Georgia on overtime two years ago. Somehow he had a huge standing broad jump but a rather pedestrian vertical jump. That makes little sense. There is normally a natural correlation there. His metric scores will be dinged by the vertical but it might not fully represent his true athletic ability.
Among other defensive tackles the Hargrave kid from South Carolina State is worth an investment. He was upside. I'm not sure if he would still be there in the third round. In fact, I have a lot more trouble these days figuring out where prospects will be taken, including Nkemdiche. Decades ago it was far easier for me to identify a range. The availability of information may be higher these days but the gap from decades ago is overrated compared to conventional wisdom. The aspect that is understated is that with all the daily barrage of info and all the mock draft fixation on the top 20 or 30 guys it's more difficult to assess where the second and third tier guys will be taken. Path to the Draft covers the same players day in and day out and hands out a first round mock draft as if the world would end without another one. Pathetic. Joel Buchsbaum decades ago would focus on 4th and 5th round guys to the point I knew as much about them as the premier picks.
Before I brag about the draft forum on FootballsFuture.com too much, there is an amusing development on that front page right now. One of the regulars posted a "Scout's Quotes" thread that became popular immediately. Quotes on dozens of players. I recognized the source within 5 seconds. The scouts quotes all come from Nolan Nawrocki's Draft Preview book. Nawrocki gives his summary of the player and then provides a "Scout's Take" at the end. My copy arrived about 10 days ago and I quickly scanned it. I first looked at DeForest Buckner's scouting report as a litmus test. I love litmus tests. If that scouting report didn't describe Buckner as a long strider who had trouble changing directions in traffic and therefore wasn't an ideal fit at defensive tackle, then I would be skeptical toward the book as a whole, no matter how much I respect Nawrocki. But it was all right there, as it should have been. The long strider aspect was front and center as a weakness, along with a summation that Buckner was a 3-4 end more than a 3-technique defensive tackle.
Somehow that related thread on FootballsFuture.com has reached 5 pages without anyone identifying the Nolan Nawrocki book as the source of the quotes, and the OP has yet to cop to where he found them.
I can start paying attention to the draft again now the the Masters is over. For some reason I always do well betting the matchups in years ending with 6. That held up again, although not to the extreme of 1996, my alltime best year from a Masters wagering perspective. I did have some matchup winners on Danny Willett. I watched him at Doral a month ago and was very impressed. In fact, he led briefly during the final round and had a big chance until driving into the water on the treacherous 18th.
Right now, Nkemdiche, Bullard, and Rankins are the only DT's I'd draft in the 1st. There are some good space eaters in this group, but few, if any, have the tools to develop into a threat as a pass rusher. I'm not spending a 1st on that. Hargrave is an exception, but he'll need some time. Michael Pierce is a 6'0 330lb NT, who can seriously move (best SPARQ of any 300+ lb DT), and he's not currently rated as even an UDFA. Will probably take some extra time, but I like that he played LB in high school, and Samford even used him at LB on a handful of plays - good LB instincts.
xXwarXx
☠️ Banned ☠️
Really like Bullard, but position wise I'm not sure if he can handle playing DT for entire games at the NFL level. The games I watched of him he def wears down significantly as the game goes on.
He will def find a place rushing QBs in the NFL, just not sure where or how yet.