At 1:30 AM on April 30th of this year, I realized that the NFL draft was happening the next day (or rather, that day, but we call that "the next day" because otherwise terminology gets messy and annoying). I wrote up a number of predictions for the top-ranked players in the draft, based on whatever tape I watched of them, drunk, that morning. I realize now that that was a Thursday night. Don't judge my lifestyle. Here's the initial writeup. Now to the players!
Leonard Williams:
PREDICTIONS: I thought Williams looked slow off the line and in general, that he was bad at getting off blocks, that his tackling skills were lacking, and that he lacked some hustle. I was impressed by his ability to dodge blocks and his awareness. I thought he looked like a bust.
RESULTS: So far Williams has done nothing. He has one sack and three tackles for loss, total, this season. That's bad. Of course he's a rookie, and he might still be good, but don't hold your breath.
COMMENTS: I'm good at predicting when extremely highly-touted defensive line prospects are going to bust. Remember when I called Clowney to "bust" (i.e. play much worse than his draft stock)? No? It's right here, preserved for all eternity. That comment, by the way, is so fucking accurate (and poorly received) that they should call me Cassandra. (Clowney, coincidentally, has exactly one sack and four TFL on the season.)
Jameis Winston:
PREDICTIONS: I thought Jameis had questions on accuracy and decision-making. Most of my other comments are pretty technical and I haven't watched enough TB games to determine how accurate they are.
RESULTS: Winston's accuracy has been pretty bad so far this year (57.7% completion rate), which also reflects his decision-making. He hasn't been a particularly good quarterback so far, but I like to give QBs some time to develop in the NFL; it takes longer for them than for players at other positions.
COMMENTS: As long as you have that Reddit comment fresh in your mind, I'd like to remind everyone that I HARD called Manziel to bust. #Cassandra
Marcus Mariota:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Mariota's accuracy and pocket presence, as well as his speed. Again, I haven't watched enough Titans games to know how accurate my technical comments were, but I'm assuming they're all perfectly insightful and 100% accurate.
RESULTS: Mariota has had two amazing games, some decent ones, and some bad ones. Notice, please, his completion rate of 65.2%, which is very solid for a rookie (and a far cry better than Winston's).
COMMENTS: MariGOATa will rise.
Dante Fowler Jr.:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Fowler's pass-rushing versatility and ability to get off blocks. I also liked his hustle.
RESULTS: Fowler tore his ACL in training camp and is in the process of missing the entire season.
COMMENTS: Knee injuries suck. But they're not life-threatening. The two scariest injuries I've ever seen had nothing to do with the knee. The first, chronologically speaking, was the Johnny Knox hit. Don't look it up if you haven't seen it. He's alive, thankfully, but he had a severe spinal injury that forced his retirement. The second injury (again, chronologically) was Ricardo Lockette's in the last Seahawks game. It obviously wasn't as severe as Knox's, but the way that he wasn't moving after he hit the turf scared the shit out of me. I never want to see someone die on the gridiron. Unless it's, you know, important, like a league game or something.
Ereck Flowers:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Flowers a LOT as both a run- and pass-blocker.
RESULTS: It's hard to say. I don't have access to PFF's special stats, but his name does come up in their latest writeup. They find him unprepared for the LT position, which is reasonable for a rookie (it's a HARD position to come out and excel at). I'd hold off on judging Flowers, but I'm optimistic.
COMMENTS: I don't love all the love that Joe Thomas gets at the LT position. I feel like with the retirement of the greatest generation of left tackles the league has ever seen (that would be Walter Jones, Jonathan Ogden, and Orlando Pace, in that order), everyone was looking for the Next Big Thing, because they didn't realize that those three guys (along with Anthony Munoz) were three of the four greatest left tackles ever. Joe Thomas has been good. He's even been great. But he doesn't hold a candle to the worst of those guys (Pace, who still should have been a first-ballot HOFer), and he certainly doesn't merit the conversation that's inevitably going to take place in about six years when people start wondering whether he belongs on Mt. Rushmore with them. Spoilers: He doesn't. #Cassandra
Brandon Scherff:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Scherff as a run-blocker but not as a pass-blocker. My recommendation was to draft him to play a guard position, since left tackles who can't handle pro-level pass rushes often excel when pushed inside.
RESULTS: Again, it's hard to say. Washington took my advice (you're fucking welcome) and moved him to guard, but I haven't watched enough Redskins games to know how he's doing. PFF comments that the interior hasn't been great at pass blocking, and even mentions his name, but they don't actually comment on his performance.
COMMENTS: Continuing the Joe Thomas train of thought--the really tragic thing is that some young statistically-minded fool might come along and say "Well, Thomas had five [or seven, or nine] first-team all-pro selections, while Walter Jones only had four. So Thomas was better." Wrong. Because who's the second-best LT since '09? No one. Whereas the second- and third-best LTs of Jones's era were the third- and fourth-best LTs of all time, respectively. Young fools make the exact same mistake with Tony Gonzalez, thinking he's the GOAT when really he was just getting FTAP nods over the likes of Alge Crumpler.
Bud Dupree:
PREDICTIONS: I had a hard time figuring out what Dupree's role in the defense was. He just chilled in space. I also found him bad at coverage and pass-rushing, and found his balance lacking. Basically I didn't like him.
RESULTS: Somehow, Dupree has a decent 4 sacks, but still only 3 TFL. That actually implies that the sacks might be flukey, since really disruptive defensive linemen should be busting up plays even if they don't get sacks. (e.g. JJ Watt and Michael Bennett, with 15 and 12 TFL respectively, both have more than 37% of their tackles for loss. Whereas Dupree has just under 19%. Clowney has 19.1% and Williams has 11.1%. #busts). So Dupree might not be as bad as I thought, but he still might be. Sacks can be misleading.
COMMENTS: Did you know that in Titans @ Texans in week 8, JJ Watt recorded not only 1.5 sacks but also an additional 10 QB hits? That's ten instances where Watt got to the QB (Zach Mettenberger) and knocked him over just after Mettenberger released the ball. TEN TIMES. For context, the average team in the league right now has about 44 team QB hits. Watt produced almost a quarter of that, by himself, in one game. If even half of those had gone for sacks (in general around a third of them do), Watt would have sniffed the single-game sack record IN ADDITION to his five extra QB hits. Oh, and remember this? When Mettenberger took a jab at Watt on video and Deadspin called him a dead man? Yeah. Don't piss off JJ Watt.
Danny Shelton:
PREDICTIONS: Deceptively fast for his size; good at getting off blocks; good tackler.
RESULTS: Shelton has done nothing so far. But sit tight.
COMMENTS: Shelton was a beast at Washington. But I'm mad at UW right now because of their shitty policy toward post-bacs so I'm cutting this blurb short.
Melvin Gordon:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Gordon's vision but wasn't blown away by his speed or his ability to break tackles or stay up. As such, I expected him to be mediocre, competent, but never elite, and essentially dependent on his offensive line.
RESULTS: Exactly that. Gordon's been mediocre so far this year. I could see him doing a little better, but not blowing up like a certain other running back on this list.
COMMENTS: I mentioned in my first writeup for Gordon that to be successful in the NFL, you usually want a running back who's either insanely fast (think Chris Johnson, being gone the instant they hit the open field) or amazing at breaking tackles (think Marshawn Lynch, who's virtually impossible to bring down with only one or two guys). If you have a guy who's just competent across the board in college and doesn't particularly excel at anything, odds are that guy's not going to be anything special at the pro level. This is as opposed to a position like quarterback, where if your QB is successful in college by virtue of some singular facet (e.g. being huge or having an amazing offensive line--coughManziel), they probably won't be good enough in general to succeed in the NFL. Gimmicky quarterbacks don't make it in pro football, unless they're Michael Vick and they're so insanely good at running the ball that even pro defenses can't stop them.
Todd Gurley:
PREDICTIONS: I didn't like Gurley's blocking, but I loved his running. He looked fast on tape and showed an ability to stay up a lot longer than Gordon. I liked his vision and his elusiveness. I thought he'd be a great runner even if he was never a great blocker.
RESULTS: Hashtag nailed it (although I haven't watched many Rams games so I have no idea how he's blocking). If you don't know Gurley's name by now you haven't been watching football. After not playing/barely playing in weeks 1-3, Gurley exploded with four straight games of 120+ rushing yards (on good averages, too). His game against Minnesota is his weakest of the sequence, but Minnesota's defense is sneaky amazing this season.
COMMENTS: I didn't expect quite this level of dominance from Gurley, but I'm glad to see him doing well. I just wish it wasn't for the Rams. St. Louis hasn't had a winning record since '03 (that's right), and I want it to stay that way.*
* For kicks I looked at the last winning, and last losing, seasons for each of the 32 teams in the NFL. The Rams have only the second-longest dry spell--the Raiders haven't had a winning season since 2002, when they made (and lost) the Super Bowl. The third-longest streak is a tie between the Browns and the Jags, both of whom had winning seasons in 2007. The longest streak without a losing season belongs to the Patriots, who haven't had a losing season since 2000. Runners-up are Steelers, who haven't had one since '03, and Ravens, since '07.
Cameron Erving:
PREDICTIONS: I liked Erving as a center, particularly his run blocking, but not so much as a left tackle. Again, bad pass-blocking tackles can often be very effective as interior linemen (with some adjustment).
RESULTS: Erving isn't starting for the Browns, but that isn't a shot at him; the Browns' line this year is AMAZING. Erving will get some playtime if the Browns get unlucky with injuries, and definitely if they have some FA departures, but odds are I won't be able to judge this prediction for a while.
And with that, I'm done.
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