Draft grades by Draft order:
Goats #1
Its no small secret that Goats needed to stay healthy after having one of the most snake bitten seasons in recorded history last year. That said they entered the draft healthy this year and looking to rebound. They had all of their natural picks save for one in the 5th round and they traded for picks 84 and 98, oddly enough giving up a 5th next year. Does Oat not like his 5th rounders?
Elliot is a no brainer and should be factor back for years to come. Fuller has the wheels but is he a number 1? Either way 15 is probably where he should have went. Louis, and Roberts were really intriguing picks as names but seemed a little early to me, just slightly. Vannett, Beasley, and Brooks were all late rounders but solid late rounders. The real noise to me was W. Tye the TE of the Giants going at the 43. That was a great move to me and definitely late. Overall the goats will be back on top sooner rather than later and this draft will go a long way towards helping that ascension. Grade A
Utter Dominance #2
No small secret, Roberts puts in bare minimum effort and reaps bare minimum rewards. Traded away or forfeited all his picks except number 2 overall, never showed up at draft, made us all text and call him multiple times well past start time of draft. Sent one message text return at 6:23 pm "Goff". That's really all that need be said. Goff is good but obviously that pick comes dressed in a burlap sack on this team. Grade D-
Bohemians #3
Its easy to look at the draft of Bohemians and simply say "what was that first rounder?" and grade it low. However, the issue seems so much more ,,,,sophisticated,,,, than that, allow me some leeway here a minute.
Bill decimated his roster in the off season, and to grade Bohemians draft, one must first step back and put themselves in Bill's shoes one minute before draft start. Lets look at the team as it stood at 5:59pm Friday night:
QB--A. Smith, R. Fitz--- needs a qb of some sort both in short and long term
RB--E. Lacy, followed by a bunch of roll players-- could use a RB2 but that typical of most teams TBH
WR--D. Thomas, possibly Diggs and then essentially roll players the rest of the way , that's an emergency in a three WR start league.
TE--none (problem)
K--None to speak of (problem)
Def--none (problem)
OL-- Buffalo (awesome) then nothing.
That all stated: in a vanilla way, lets look at the picks that were made, in the order that they were made.
1 WR L. Caroo--?? That's a ww pickup or a 5-6th rounder at best. I don't mean to sound harsh but that's just fact. 5'11 220 is not a WR in the NFL.
2,3 WRs M. Thomas, T. Boyd--Thomas is another reach but might be something, Boyd is another reach, way way way to skinny for the NFL if you ask me. However these two names are probably only a little early to me believe it or not. So not horrible.
4,5,6,7 were all RBs in the third round, S. Ware, P. Barber, J. Williams, and T. Watson, all of these are special cases. Oddly enough J. Williams of Buffalo might be the gem here.
Bohemians closed out drafting for the night with J. Heuermann the TE of Denver who I feel was late or exact so that's the high water mark.
So what does all this mean? It means that we know that Bill is starting to draft like he runs the rest of his off season----wild and gun-sling-y. Is Bill crazy? Probably. Is Bill hunchy? Definitely. Does Bill make weird picks and trades? Sure. My point? To simply say that Bill had a weird and bad draft with a low grade would be to easy, and intellectually lazy, IMHO. Bohemians appears to be an evolution of an owner bringing everything in focus under the same strange tent through the years. The draft appears to simply be the last piece of that puzzle. The grade is obviously low by traditional standards but this team is not being run "traditionally" so with enough altitude that issue must come into focus when grading this team and this draft. Grade D but what a world it would be if this stuff ever worked.
Savages #4
Josh does the same thing every year. Goes in order of the real NFL draft and simply takes rookie-only names in the order that they were drafted in the NFL. The only variant is what position to prioritize year to year. Is Josh Lazy? Maybe. Most likely its age and inexperience that leads one to deny that the extra 5 minutes can mean all the difference in the long run. That said lets look at who and what and where stuff was acquired. Henry, Cooper and Z. Miller were all high water marks that should be on this team for years. Brissett might be a nobody, Matthews, White and James almost certainly are. This owner will learn over time, but for now this draft feels like middle to low end of the road to me Grade: B-
Remove Kebab #5
Ryan is new, and crazy and gunsling-y also, much like Bohemians (obviously the inverse politically), that said, he has taken over a team from a previous owner that ran the team like an evil scientist making different cocktails week to week. The curve here is going to be steep but not because of the knowledge base that Ryan owns, it will be more likely due to the change over from one type of owner to another different type of owner. All Considered lets go over the picks. Round one they took P. Lynch at 5, I do not like that pick or that placement period. B. Miller is a project on a project team right now. Boeringer is the definition of project in the Third round. C. Cook and Gaithers I like and both seemed late to me so they were good. Overall this is exactly what it looks like. A new owner trying to take shots and figure out just how serious the rest of the league is. My feeling is that Ryan is going to find out by week 3-4 the answer to that question. Grade C- but he will learn quickly.
Co's Pros #6
Cohen is a manipulator that likes to use vets and established players rather than rely on his moxie as a rookie drafter. He has been burned to many times on that road and simply hates returning there. He did not pick until the 4th round pick 48. He had 16 picks overall in the bottom 4 rounds so lets look at them in groups. QBs Stanton, Daniels, Keenum, Glennon, and Hill. Average age 27.8 all vets and backups but also all maybe's, Glennon is the gem here in this group. RBs, Smallwood, Riddick, Turbin, and Davis average age 24, this group was stellar and all of them are names that should have gone way before they did by at least 5-6 spots each time. WRs, Patton, Robinson, Inman, and Wright average age 26. I like Robinson out of this group, the rest is a toss out. TEs, Griffin and Rivera, average age 26. I like Griffin but only slightly. No K or Def., and One OL which was Houston I don’t like. This draft was surgical and efficient and I would challenge more than half of the teams in this league to make 16 picks past number 48 and come up with anything that looks even close to that list. However, because of the later nature of these picks I am not sure what they add up to in the end. Grade A for efficiency and that list of late RBs
Cellmates #7
After being screwed in the Cho-lo trade last year Cellmates limped into the draft having not been in the play-offs last year for the first time in a long while. 7 Players were identified on the current roster that needed to be dropped and replaced and they started with 4 first round picks and 10 others among the last 5 rounds. Lets take a look at this one round by round and then overall. Round one: Wentz Doctson, Treadwell, and Prosise. All Solid names for years to come, give the roster a +3. Prosise is the only one I don't like but that's where the internet had him slotted, that said I still feel like that was less than stellar give the roster a +.5 under that one. Round three, Griffin and Seimian QBs that both are starters and possibly way to late both have massive upside give the roster a solid +1 under that round. Round 4 Kessler and Mcdonald. Kessler is possibly a huge nobody, Macdonald was late give the roster +.5 for that round. Round 5 Devalve and Boswell. Boswell is solid Devalve is a reach backup on a bad team roster +.3. Round 6 Parkey and N. Paul may be something big, file under hunch category. Roster +.3 Round 7 S. Ridley and K. Taylor, both nobodys roster 0. Overall this draft conservatively achieved a 5.6 add to a roster that needed a 7. Not bad considering Grade B+ the Prosise thing hurts.
Crushers #8
Lou looks to have given us all the year off as he usually drafts 35 late rounders and waits all off season to see where it goes. This year he got lazy and sat back with a scalpel rather than the usual hammer. Lets see how he did. Round 1 Colemen, was stellar and right where he should have been. Round 2 had three picks in a row and took J. Howard, A. Hooper, and D. Washington. I like Hooper a lot right there and I love Howard even more, history may show that he should have been a first rounder (#12 cellmates?) Washington was late also. Aquayo, and Abbredis in late rounds might be nobody’s but so what. The first 4 of 6 picks for this team appear to all have been right on the money. If you are gonna go small, go this way. Grade A-
Horsemen #9
Beckage decided to follow suit with Lou and go small this year with only 6 picks (1 first, 4 seconds and 1 third) lets see how he fared. First round was K. Dixon at 9, I felt like he was the second best back in the draft so this one was stellar move right there. Second rounder were Booker, Hackenberg, Perkins and Mitchell. I like these guys "kinda" but they all seem to have that (gonna get it here but) "Beckage feel" if ya know what I mean. Hard to imagine Perkins not doing well with his build and talent and that team so that pick alone was stellar. Marshall was a reach but a sexy one so I kinda dig that one also. Overall a smaller and more successful draft then Mr. Beckage is used to I assume. Grade B
DDR #10
Jim Cholewka dropped out of the football league last year but showed up with his wife and and brought me a few things and said Hi to every one and had a great time he even discussed with the new owner that took his team strategies and thoughts. Why say this right here? I have a sneaking suspicion that C. Barone is chomping at the bit to get in on some of this social action but neither of these guys took part in this draft. Overall grade? an incomplete.
Goodfellas #11
My arch nemesis, and funniest comedy duo of the draft circuit, Pelonero and Sardina, showed up this year missing one half of the ambiguously gay couple. Mr. P was all alone but held it all together well. They had 6 picks almost all their natural picks in their natural order. S. Sheppard was right where he should have been in the first round (possibly even late) so that part is fine. DHB, Fells, Richardson and Patton all felt like fun-time-safe moves and ones that may not amount to much but fun was probably what they were having over there at the other end of the patio (dunno) so I would not give this draft a bad grade per se but I certainly would not give it a good one either. Overall Grade C+
Gamblers #12
See DDR (he doesn't read this anyway)
Endzone Animals #13
After losing the Super Bowl in 2015 Keith finds himself with a rather uneventful off season with only his natural picks to speak of. They traded with Remove K for 2 4th rounders but other than that made 8 picks mostly in order lets take a look at them. H. Henry The TE in the first round was OK but I just don’t like that dude as much as I liked other TEs this year. C. Jones QB Bills in the second? D. Prescott in the third was a better pick than their second rounder. Fourth round saw three picks D. Lewis and M. Thomas at WR. D. Lewis I don’t like, M. Thomas is awesome right there so I love that really late one. His fourth round also had A. Collins at RB who I also like a lot in that spot. The last three Wilson, Carey, and Thomson were all Gambles but that's what those picks are supposed to be. Keith also had the funniest line of the night "at least mines not purple" which I have been laughing about periodically ever since. All in all the draft was small, concise, too the point, with hits and misses. I give it a solid B due to the fact that the later rounds made up for some of the early ones.
Incubus #14
Paul Klein won the Super Bowl.....................let it sink in. Ok back to the draft. Klein comes in with only his natural picks all at the end of each round. He traded away his last two and made 5. Drake at RB was good right there at the end of the first. Thats due mainly to a combination of two factors #1 people drafted weird stuff this year in the first. #2 Klein was smart enough to take advantage of #1. T. Ervin was a gamble in the second and felt like a dart-at-a-map type thing to me. Higbee at the end of the third was way way way late to me so that one is yu-ga!. Moore and Davis were gambles and I think Klein realized that his “draft prep tank” was empty and traded away the rest at that point. Drake and Higbee alone move this otherwise flaccid draft up to a solid B-