TSE's Quick Draft Primer

[TSE]

This is nothing like what my personal offseason would look like which would include wholesale changes, but rather the best we can do with Mayhew's conservative style of mngmt...

FA - Not much to do here other than re-sign some of our own guys and grab some secondary help to tide us over until a more opportune time to draft CBs arises.

Some positional notes:

S - I like only Mark Barron or Harrison Smith, so Rd 1 for Barron or Rd 2 for Smith or do not draft a S

CB - I don't like anybody in Rd1 other than Claiborne, and particularly think this is a terrible year for CBs with the next couple drafts a better time to make a splash here, so I only see a good shot in Rd 2 or Rd 3 for somebody like Josh Robinson or Chase Minnifield.

DL - It's OL or nothing for the offense for our first 2 picks and I think we are going to miss out on having a chance at any decent OL value until Rd 3 or later, and so BPA DEF is a must-consideration, as is building around Suh some more, I like DE's Mercilus/Perry/Curry as possibilities or maybe some good ol' UofM help at DT w/Mike Martin if we don't re-sign SLH or Fluellen.

Mock Draft Considerations:

Rd 1: (expecting to miss out on qualified OL choices and do not want to pick in this spot but...)

Luke Kuechly LB Boston College (remove after Tulloch signing)

Mark Barron S Alabama

Whitney Mercilus DE Illinois (more important to me as I prefer loading and attacking with a more dynamic and aggressive front 7. I like to force the action faster and have the 2ndry adapt accordingly)

Zach Brown LB North Carolina (w/resigning of Tulloch and Levy, Durant, and Hogue as a rotation to handle the OLB spots, we can't use a Rd 1 pick on him, this has to be a trade down to top of Rd 2 to consider)

Rd 2:

Vinny Curry DE Marshall (BPA DL?)
Bobby Wagner ILB Utah St (remove after Tulloch signing)
Harrison Smith S Notre Dame
Josh Robinson CB Central Florida
Chase Minnifield CB Virginia

Rd 3: (Expecting only 1 of these available:)

Michael Brewster C Ohio St
David Molk C Michigan
Kelechi Osemele OT Iowa St
Jared Crick DE Nebraska
Mike Martin DT Michigan (trade Corey Williams)

Rd 4: (good spot for a WR that can help on ST or an OL that surprisingly drops)

Matt Reynolds OT BYU (or whoever BPA OL is)
Tyron Carrier Houston WR/RS
Ryan Broyles Oklahoma WR/RS
Keshawn Martin MSU WR/RS
Damaris Johnson Tulsa WR/RS etc.

Rd 5: (lots of WR/RS above so most likely OL in Rd 4 and push back the list for Rd5)

Cliff Harris Oregon CB/RS (too many possible choices to list so I just picked one extra)

RD 6:
BPA FB/RB/WR

Rd 7:
BPA QB (Case Keenum / Kellen Moore / Russell Wilson)

Thoughts on who is missing or who is misplaced?

[DocRI]

This is nothing like what my personal offseason would look like which would include wholesale changes, but rather the best we can do with Mayhew's conservative style of mngmt...

Okay, I'll bite — what "wholesale changes" would you make? Seeing as "Mayhew's conservative style of management" just delivered us from 0-16 to 10-6 (and our first playoff appearance in over a decade) in the span of three years, and seeing as we've got quite a core of young talent, I'm curious to know how much you feel needs to be changed. If you were in charge of the Lions, what would you do?

(By the way, I'm certainly not completely sold on everything the Lions' front office has done or are doing, either; I'm just intrigued to hear how much you would overhaul after the team's most successful season in a long, LONG time ...)

[TSE]

Well to simply answer your question in the most basic and fundamental way, I believe that you don't let assets depreciate for nothing, or for low yield championship runs. If you simply "swap" an asset for one of equal value that is displaced towards the future and if you keep doing that, then you will eventually find that you can create a perpetual level of greatness.

For example, imagine if you had $100 in the bank and you kept spending money as fast as you earned it. Well you would never get to a super high balance. But if you are safe to earn 5% interest on your money, well how much is a lousy 5 dollars going to help you get a stranglehold on building vast wealth? Imagine if you could acquire a $1000 balance somehow. Well if you had 5% interest on that balance, a nice $50, well that interest alone could be a staggering value to you on a yearly basis when compared with the absolute value of other peoples' bank accounts.

So I prefer a trade system that either forces you to win with what you have, or if you can't do that then you must displace current assets with assets of a different shape that can help you avoid massive depreciation costs. It is the ongoing depreciation of your 53 man squad across all 53 assets that prevents you from ascending beyond that $100 of value. You have way too many liabilities and no leverage.

My system of logic turns negative liabilities into positive leverage. And you can't beat logic, because logic doesn't have pride and it is void of making mistakes. When you harness the power of logic, you harness the power of efficiency and you can create larger expected values of probabilities of winning. There are time value and price/proportion values. How good is Stafford, and how much does he cost? Well we drafted him at a time when the salary was ridiculous to sign him before we knew how good he was. Andrew Luck is CLEARLY a higher rated QB prospect, yet costs less money, does that NOT seem odd to you? Why should the team drafting #1 this year get a better QB prospect for a lot less money? The aim of the game isn't about the men, it has nothing to do with Mr. Stafford or Mr. Luck, but rather the logic of the GM that puts the team in a position to have favorable "pot odds".

So to answer your question, I would trade players for other players of equal value. In my opinion as I have a difference of opinion in how I evaluate and grade players, every single trade I make in my opinion is actually receiving a HIGHER VALUE ASSET than what the other team believes. From their POV they will think they are getting the HVA. But I have confidence that I'm right and they are wrong because I have logic as my guide and logic is incapable of choosing a lower "expected value" path. It's in logic's nature to observe all possible paths, and combinations of paths, and to then work forward and backwards until the highest expected yield of a initial decision point becomes clear, and I take that initial decision point.

Thus, there is no specificity to a specific and exact agenda of what to do, as every decision in the future is dependent on the previous decision. So if one trade is made, then the next move becomes more apparent. If we reverse that trade and trade something else, well the next move becomes different than the first scenario. So there is no exact agenda that can be determined as every transaction is negotiable, and depending on those negotiations the flavor of the future moves can alter and across many transactions the final picture can become infinitely complex.

Now that all that has been said, let me ACTUALLY answer your question literally, this is the right time now. You asked an intelligent question and more importantly you asked it in an intelligent fashion, because you are following simple logic, and with logic everything becomes easy at furthering progress....

What I would do is trade as many players as humanly possible. The reason I would do this is because "by logic" every trade is a net gain for me, as each individual player I believe I can see the logic of his future value to our team and i will make use of that value to win or I will displace him for something of only a greater value. I could write a couple hundred pages to expound on these ideas more as I'm trying to explain my ideas in less than 1/10,000 or so of the amount of words it would actually take to bring those ideas to extreme clarity, but to fast-forward to the final page and skipping ALL of that pertinent detail, this is the list of players I have identified as strategic to CONSIDER trading and ultimately very likely to produce a "net gain" to the franchise:

Matt Stafford

Jahvid Best - could have been good but we didn't win with him so that was a loss, and now he's unhealthy and his value sucks now, so now we have no play here. This is bad. We should have never have drafted him, or we should have traded him before his health went down, or we should have won a SB with him. We did NONE of those things, that's bad football and I don't make those mistakes. Why am i bringing it up now if we can't do anything now? Cause this was a conversation to have LAST year, or the year before, and as such we wouldn't be in this position now.

Mikel Leshoure - same as above, we can't trade him for big value after spending a mid-2nd and him getting hurt, wtf can we do here, and we didn't win a SB or have a dominant chance to do so previously? This is also a late conversation. The point here with these two is simply that you can't look at one present day in time and snap your fingers and make everything better, but OVER TIME you can prevent from acquiring these types of players and player-risk types so that you can make moments like your question now much easier to handle in actuality.

I have only talked about 3 players so far, and 1 I am open to trading, and 2 i can't trade. Can you see the problem? It takes time to clean the slate of players/resources that don't have a high-yield of ROI exit strategies, and we weren't ready to draft a premium RB at the time that we drafted both of those guys. I didn't need to look at any game film or do any scouting to know that. Logic in itself told me not to waste my time. It's nothing personal against them, but the same chance they could have impressed so far is the same that some other guy at a more strategic position could have impressed so far. (we're missing 1000 pages or so that describes this more)

Here's where the list stops. Do you see what happened? I mentioned 3 guys, I started with the top position, moved to the next famous, found only 1 guy to trade, and 2 I couldn't. The point of what I would do is a long-term process of constantly avoiding players that you can't win with or have an exit strategy with, just avoiding RISKS of NO-MAN'S LAND players. Forget for a moment what you think of Stafford, whether you agree to trade him or not I could care less, whether you think he's great or sucks I could care less, but you can't argue with me that he is a trade-worthy asset can you? Well Best and Leshoure can't be traded, but Stafford can. So of those 3 players the only one who could be traded is the one I MUST trade. Because whatever Stafford is TRULY worth, I know I can get more.

So I go through all 53 men on the roster, and I CHOOSE to trade EVERY player I can. And that's because I'm forced to. I can't trade ALL 53 guys, because many are ineligible. If this was a perfect team of MY DESIGN where I took over 5 years ago, I bet you I would have really close to 50 trade-worthy players by now, and with that comes power and dominance. But now we may have only half a couple of dozen players that could be traded, that's frakking it! The solution here is to identify THOSE men, and to negotiate the best possible deal for all of them that make the most sense. Does that mean we trade CJ? Maybe, maybe not. I know CJ is a super-stud and I'm certainly not looking to get rid of him, but if some stupid team will give me 1.5x CJ value for 1.0x CJ value, then I have to take the trade.

A truly intelligent GM is not afraid to trade any player on the team OR to trade for any player in the league based upon inside-the-box conservative thinking.

For logical purposes, there is another long discussion that could be had to explain the timing of trades, and for those undisclosed reasons if I was the GM tomorrow I would not trade CJ for almost any price until after every single other player on the team I have identified their exit-strategy or staying-strategy. Those blue chip assets should be the later choices because they have the highest yield of returns. If I trade CJ first and get "x" assortment of players, well what if I run into a wall of not finding the right types of configurations with the remaining tradable assets? So I choose to trade from the smallest values outward generally. And with each trade the next one becomes easier and the targeted proceeds become more logically obvious. Plus I consider most of the GM's to be monumentally stupid due to their lack of understanding of game theory logic, and whoever is the most advanced of these is severely handicapped in comparison to my own agenda of serving the logical interests of our franchise.

Look at this way, imagine you never fired a gun before, and you had to battle a gunslinger of high reputation. In this game you even get to shoot first before he fires, but you stand 100 feet apart. Would you fire right now with your one bullet if you only had one? What if you could negotiate the distance down? How about you find a way to get within 90 feet, how about now? 60 feet? 40 feet? What if I was within 10 feet? Ahh, now I'm 10 feet away and I have a trade chip, a CJ trade chip. I don't know how many feet CJ is worth to close the gap, but at 10 feet I'm pretty sure this greatest gunslinger in the world is a dead man at 10 feet when I fire first despite never firing a gun before, BUT I'm ABSOLUTELY FRAKKING SURE that if I'm 10 feet and I can get whatever distance CJ is worth to close the gap that I'm willing to go all in and assume I win. The best gunfighter in the world has no chance, and his brains will be blown apart even worse than they would have if I somehow got lucky as a supreme underdog from back in the general pack at 60 feet away. I win, because I'm smarter than you, that's how I play.

Oh I got sidetracked when I promised to answer your question whoops. But at least I skipped the 1,000 page detailed explanation. In summary, i would look at every single player on the team and try to trade every single one of them. I just showed you how it takes 2 seconds to realize guys like Best and Leshoure can't be traded, and so I simply read the list and remove the other impossible and obvious non-trade-worthy assets, and i negotiate with the rest, and over time, every single year that list becomes smaller and smaller as the obviously illogical assets start to depart. I never sign a FA or make any draft pick that doesn't serve a logical purpose or that possesses a logical expected value chance of a gain when they are unknown at the time, and that overall process in itself is what creates as close to a theoretically perfectly efficient franchise as possible.

It's nothing but free money when you are trading with somebody that understands the nature of the logic of the game and the value of the products/resources used in that game at an inferior level. A stupid man, or an ignorant man, will read attitude in that statement and lose track of the point, but it's a very real and important statement as the concept is what's important, not the personality here. If you talked to a doctor who spent 8 years in medical school to your 0 and he rudely yelled at you during a health emergency when your own mother was dying of a heart attack about how you are a worthless loser when it comes to health science and how he was the king, do you want to attack him for pointing out the truth, or do you want him to perform CPR and save your mother's life? It's human nature to become defensive when another expresses superiority, regardless of whether that opinion of superiority is indeed justified or not. And that's the problem with internet chat-rooms as you will see people more apt to debunking the doctor as opposed to watching him perform in the area that he is the master.

Nice bite by the way, cause it sure created a huge piece of meat for you to chew on! GO LIONS, but not in 2012, because we will still not be uber-special, but one day we could. All we have to do is think; and think logically. That is my message.

[DocRI]

TSE –

Wow! That was quite the read, and very interesting; thank you for taking the time to share all of that.

As is typically the case in these forums, I agree with a lot of what you wrote, and I also disagree with a lot of it. As such, I'm not gonna sit here and argue points of contention; they're really just a matter of a difference of opinion and/or philosophy, and as the old saying goes, "Opinions are like a**holes; everyone has 'em, and they all stink."

There is one factor, however, I would like to ask you about — the factor of random, dumb-ass bad luck. You made a lot of poker analogies in your post, so please allow me to respond with one. You're dealt pocket aces (both red), and you get into a sizable pot with someone playing K-Q of spades. The flop hits A-A-10 ... but the 10 is of spades. You get all your money in after the flop, and the J of spades falls on the river. You dominated the hand pre-flop, you dominated the hand post flop, your opponent had ONE out to beat you ... but now he's leaving with all your money.

Moving back to football, say you (as Lions' GM) can swing a trade with Indy that centers around Stafford for the #1 pick. As you correctly pointed out, Luck is going to be a MUCH better financial value than Stafford due to the new CBA; on top of that, say you rate Luck as a better pure QB than Stafford, and let's say you're correct in that assessment. By all your own criteria, you just won this trade, right? But then Luck blows out his knee in the first preseason game and is never the same. Theoretically, you did everything right ... and yet you got hosed in the end.

Cutting to the chase, here's my point — theory is great, but it's no guarantee of success no matter HOW smart you are (especially in a game like football, the proverbial "game of inches" where contests are decided by the slimmest of margins).

[TSE]

Well before Luck blows out his knee, the game was already over, and we won. Being a good GM is not determined by actual results, although an extremely strong correlation between the two exist, but that's just a correlation and to measure success purely by results is a foolish thing to do. Being a good GM has to do with the odds you give your team to obtain positive results, and he who obtains the greatest probability of success prior to the dice being rolled is therefore the winner, as that is the logical assessment. You may not be the winner of the Super Bowl, but you are the winner in the game of being the GM that maximized the portion of what was within the GM's control that leads to the odds that determine the likelihood to win that Super Bowl.

Using your poker analogy suppose you could pick any 2 cards to begin a single hand and to simplify it further let's suppose there is no betting and it's a showdown all the way, you should pick A-A. If you do then you win at doing the most perfect job you can. The results are not relevant to analyzing that job performance. If you end up losing the hand so be it. If you get a chance to repeat the bet for the next hand and you decide to not pick A-A because of what happened in the past that defied logic and probability that are mathematically indisputable, then you failed at that job performance for that hand, again regardless of the results of the future cards to come.

Another simple analogy was suppose the Pistons were awarded a bonus pick in next year's draft because the league deems them to be worthy of charity. They can't select the number of the pick, but rather we get to pick which team's lottery pick we get to have after the final game of the regular season is played, but before the lottery.

Game theory is not about telling the future, but about measuring accurately the value of known information and options and the probabilities of all possible future paths and coming to a precise evaluation of what choice is most likely to win or most likely to yield the greatest result as an expected value compared to all other choices. Picking the highest expected value of all choices is all a person can do in life to attempt to be perfect and fate and luck will be what they will be; always irrelevant.

Once we select the team that purely had the worst record, everything after that is irrelevant, as we won the game, which was to make the best possible decision without knowing how the future plays out, and to select the team with the worst record is the best possible decision you can make. Suppose you were to do that every year and after 100 years the 2nd worst record just happened to win the lottery 100/100 times, well the next year you are a loser if you pick the 2nd worst record as the game is about logic and probability and if you win with those that's all you can do because you cannot control anything else in that scenario.

Although there's more to managing a team than just draft picks and trades. You could still potentially influence a reduction of injuries by doing a good job to find the best trainer, and if Luck is more prone to getting hurt than Stafford in general, well that's part of his value you have to identify as his overall grade when you are making that conclusion that he is a better overall value. But whether you make good trades or draft picks, you are going to want to find the best trainer anyhow, so that's isolated as a separate activity that you must also do well, but you could ace or fail that job while still acing or failing the draft and trade choices. Yeah guarantee success cannot be had, but that's not what the game is about and there is no logical way to produce a guarantee, that's not part of the equation. The "luck" factor is going to apply to everybody and should have no bearing on grading a GM's choices.

Coincidentally enough I was in the 2009 World Series of Poker and I went out on a hand where I had 3 of a kind, and the top 3 of a kind after the flop, which was 3 9s. There was a 2, 5, 9 after the flop. I bet first and a sizable bet and he just called and he did so immediately. He was actually holding a 4-7, so as you can see the player had no business calling the bet there. I knew I couldn't be beat because at best he had 4 to a straight there (with no chance for a flush). The next card was an 8 and 4 different suits were on the board so the flush was eliminated. I made another big bet and he just called and just as fast as the first time. The last card was a 6 and I put in the remaining chips and he called and then won with his 6 card straight to my trip 9's. The table was freaked out and immediately people asked the guy why he did what he did. And he just said I'm so sorry (he was extremely apologetic) I just made a mistake by calling so fast and I knew I instantly made a mistake. He said I bet so fast and it seemed so suspicious that he just on instinct called after the flop without really thinking about it and the moment he said call he knew he pulled a boner but it was too late and he decided right there he was just going to call to the end, assume he didn't make his straight and then try and bluff me with all his chips because he was so embarrassed about how he played the hand that in his mind he just felt sick from wasting his chips and he decided he didn't want to play any more and to just go home if he didn't majorly luck out and bluff me out at the end. When I made that last bet you can imagine my being stunned because how could he have a straight, cause to have a straight he would have had no justification working backwards to call either of those bets let alone both.

[TSE]

Remove Kuechly from the list, he probably wouldn't have lasted anyhow. There are now 3 targets left on my list but I am predicting that 1 of those 3 will be gone, so my guess is our best choice is to take either or of the 2 remaining players if we don't find a way to trade down which is what I think is still our best move.

[TSE]

Lions signed DE Everette Brown, so it would seem they like the idea of giving him a chance at a roster spot and that could be a 5th DE spot, so unless we trade KVB or or work a deal for Avril or something like that, then I would probably have to settle in as Mark Barron and Zach Brown as the top 2 best possible choices if we are stuck in our spot. I'll still keep an open mind about Mercilus because he could be the BPA, but looks like Barron or Brown is the pick for right now. It could be just about perfect timing for one of those guys to get picked just before we pick and then we take the other.

[Bartender]

What don't you like about Janoris Jenkins? Besides the off field troubles?

He shut down Alshon Jeffrey and AJ Green in college. Looks to be perfect in our bump and run system.

Chase Minnefield doesn't fit that system. He's a zone player. Plays like Asante Samuel. Those CB's fit best in zone blitz systems. Not a front four rush, man to man system.

[TSE]

Well not really looking to draft players to fit a system as it's not my system and we don't have very much at CB anyhow. The CBs in that round I put at the bottom of my list as those just seemed like the only worthy value CBs for the round to even consider and I don't like this year's crop of CBs. The off the field troubles are enough to scare away for a 1st round CB and I don't like drafting CBs in particular unless i see something I especially like. He didn't light it up with INTs in college and a guy that doesn't do that just doesn't excite me for using our top pick on in addition to those issues. I place a lot of my faith in scouting skills but i don't have the time or the interest to study all the CBs so I'm half blind in that regard. Perhaps if i did my homework on him i would like him but having not done so i can't find a reason to like him and I want a 1st round pick that I like for all reasons and he already has 2 strikes there.

[TSE]

I'm dropping Zach Brown off of my Rd 1 list after some film review which I have just started doing. He's definitely fast and a good athlete but I seem to have a problem with him not being able to shed blocks well, taking bad angles, and over-committing to bad positions; he just doesn't seem to use his athleticism well to put in himself in the right position or to get to the right future positions. I also saw him whiff on several tackles and a few times it looked like he was either lazy or intentionally trying to take a specific route to a ball carrier to get there just in time to not have to be the first man of contact and to avoid confrontation in general. I think he's a good value to target as a trade down but no way would I select him at 23 after about 5 minutes on Youtube. He's going to need some serious coaching assistance to make proper use of his athletic tools.

I do like the idea of signing Everette Brown, so Mercilus is a more convenient pick if we could trade KVB, otherwise I'm keeping Mark Barron as the #1 target followed by Mercilus at #2 for now, assuming again that we are stuck at #23.

[kellmellus50]

TSE.....quarterbacks who could be available in the latter rounds are Russell Wilson (Wisconsin), B.J. Coleman (UT-Chattanooga), Austin Davis (Southern Miss.), Kellen Moore (Boise State) and Chandler Harnish (Northern Illinois). do you like any of them ?

[TSE]

Well I just picked 3 guys for the 7th round because I think there will be plenty of worthwhile sleepers that can be worthy of being the 3rd QB and inactive every week. So not really trying to study any of them and I just picked the top 3 guys that I thought seemed like underdogs in the eyes of some but did have fantastic production in college. I wish it could be my job to study them though and I could tell you more as there's a sea of QBs out there to look at for that final pick.

[kellmellus50]

This is nothing like what my personal offseason would look like which would include wholesale changes, but rather the best we can do with Mayhew's conservative style of mngmt...

FA - Not much to do here other than re-sign some of our own guys and grab some secondary help to tide us over until a more opportune time to draft CBs arises.

Some positional notes:

S - I like only Mark Barron or Harrison Smith, so Rd 1 for Barron or Rd 2 for Smith or do not draft a S

CB - I don't like anybody in Rd1 other than Claiborne, and particularly think this is a terrible year for CBs with the next couple drafts a better time to make a splash here, so I only see a good shot in Rd 2 or Rd 3 for somebody like Josh Robinson or Chase Minnifield.

DL - It's OL or nothing for the offense for our first 2 picks and I think we are going to miss out on having a chance at any decent OL value until Rd 3 or later, and so BPA DEF is a must-consideration, as is building around Suh some more, I like DE's Mercilus/Perry/Curry as possibilities or maybe some good ol' UofM help at DT w/Mike Martin if we don't re-sign SLH or Fluellen.

Mock Draft Considerations:

Rd 1: (expecting to miss out on qualified OL choices and do not want to pick in this spot but...)

Luke Kuechly LB Boston College (remove after Tulloch signing)

Mark Barron S Alabama

Whitney Mercilus DE Illinois (more important to me as I prefer loading and attacking with a more dynamic and aggressive front 7. I like to force the action faster and have the 2ndry adapt accordingly)

Zach Brown LB North Carolina (w/resigning of Tulloch and Levy, Durant, and Hogue as a rotation to handle the OLB spots, we can't use a Rd 1 pick on him, this has to be a trade down to top of Rd 2 to consider)

Rd 2:

Vinny Curry DE Marshall (BPA DL?)
Bobby Wagner ILB Utah St (remove after Tulloch signing)
Harrison Smith S Notre Dame
Josh Robinson CB Central Florida
Chase Minnifield CB Virginia

Rd 3: (Expecting only 1 of these available:)

Michael Brewster C Ohio St
David Molk C Michigan
Kelechi Osemele OT Iowa St
Jared Crick DE Nebraska
Mike Martin DT Michigan (trade Corey Williams)

Rd 4: (good spot for a WR that can help on ST or an OL that surprisingly drops)

Matt Reynolds OT BYU (or whoever BPA OL is)
Tyron Carrier Houston WR/RS
Ryan Broyles Oklahoma WR/RS
Keshawn Martin MSU WR/RS
Damaris Johnson Tulsa WR/RS etc.

Rd 5: (lots of WR/RS above so most likely OL in Rd 4 and push back the list for Rd5)

Cliff Harris Oregon CB/RS (too many possible choices to list so I just picked one extra)

RD 6:
BPA FB/RB/WR

Rd 7:
BPA QB (Case Keenum / Kellen Moore / Russell Wilson)

Thoughts on who is missing or who is misplaced?

Nice pick TSE you had Kellen Moore in the 7th we got him after that good call.

[TSE]

Oh thanks. I don't profess to be the best in the world at placing the players in specific rounds the best absent being able to spend full-time on this. I'm simply limited to internet lurking to decide my rankings on an overall basis. A few years back when I had more free time I used to do some pretty extravagant Excel sheets of rankings for all rounds and beyond and back in the day I used to know every single player's correct spelling of their name and the school they were from.

[kellmellus50]

Oh thanks. I don't profess to be the best in the world at placing the players in specific rounds the best absent being able to spend full-time on this. I'm simply limited to internet lurking to decide my rankings on an overall basis. A few years back when I had more free time I used to do some pretty extravagant Excel sheets of rankings for all rounds and beyond and back in the day I used to know every single player's correct spelling of their name and the school they were from.

Quote:Rd 4: (good spot for a WR that can help on ST or an OL that surprisingly drops)

Matt Reynolds OT BYU (or whoever BPA OL is)
Tyron Carrier Houston WR/RS
Ryan Broyles Oklahoma WR/RS (You also picked Ryan Broyles we drafted him in the second)
Keshawn Martin MSU WR/RS
Damaris Johnson Tulsa WR/RS etc.

[TSE]

Oh yeah I was tempted to put him higher at the time but I dropped him after I saw so many sites that were ranking him so low. I didn't know about the injury and hadn't reviewed any of him at that point. The Lions could probably afford to wait more time for a WR than other teams could so it makes sense that we would be one of the earlier teams to possibly pick him. I like to look for all those possible guys that could be a good value and Broyles would have been one heck of a value pick if he somehow made it to 4. But if you can find 5 guys you like for the 2nd that some other team might not take then you can have opportunities to get values in every round.