Quote
Deadpool
so I am absolutely clear on this.

If the Rams drafted 11 offensive players, and all 11 started and they were also the worst starter at their position according to whatever metric you want to use, you would consider them all hits?

Because to me that seems too low of a bar. Even for a team that has been as bad as the Rams for as long as they have been. but then again, I have been on record as saying any year that doesn't end in playoffs is a failure. Again, JMO. We disagree. That's fine.

Remember I said I divided the thing.

First, just so there's some kind of basic standard and not just opinion without any basis, it's necessary to ask what around the league counts as having a basic number of hits to be a good drafting team. In terms of hits, I count starters and significant role players who see some action (like Joyner, or like Hakim in 99). The point of that is to get some ground under our feet for discussion. If good teams, as I've found out, hit on 40%, then 40% is good---at this basic level. But that's not the same as qualitative judgments and player grades. That's a different step.

So I said above that qualitative grading is different. For example right now, in spite of being slow to develop and then slow to return from injury on top of it, Quick is contributing. Football Outsiders ranks him as the league's 22nd receiver. How do you grade that? It's probably really too soon to say on Havenstein and Brown. But they are starters. Donald was an instant ROY and is considered one of the best players in the league. How does that count? Austin contributes and last year had 900+ yards from scrimmage and 9 TDs. Was he worth trading up for, or is that just good production and you count it. Etc.

The grading part is important but trickier.

But before the grading conversation begins, IMO, you need some basic parameters. Getting 7.7% hits is just plain bad. Getting 36.8% hits is just simply not as bad as that. But then how GOOD is it? Different question.

Personally, when it comes to that, I am not prepared to write off the Rams offensive drafting until I know how I am going to grade Brown, Havenstein, Gurley, Mannion, Goff, Cooper, and Higbee down the road. I will say some of the earlier picks are more iffy (Quick, Robinson, Austin) and there are some busts in there before 2014 (Pead, Givens) plus some lost players (Bailey, Mason). So it has not been tops. However I would not call it terrible. The 2006-8 drafts were terrible on offense, and this is not like that. This is to me more like "so far has not been good enough but that could change."

....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2016 01:33PM by zn.