Jake
Beyond tired of Jerry
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*#3 I don't have insider info to 100% validate it, but I think we all suspect in the 2017 Draft that Marinelli was a primary voice in the room that misevaluated TJ Watt as a 3-4 OLB, which was ultimately a factor in passing on him in favor of Taco Charlton.
- Nick Eatman talked about how during the 2019 Draft the Cowboys the debate in the war room was whether to take DT Trysten Hill at #58 or one of the safeties still on the board (Adderley, Rapp, or Thornhill). Eatman said that Marinelli went to bat for "his guy" Hill and the team rolled the dice thinking they could grab one of the safeties with their next pick at pick #90.
- On the Feb. 9, Draft Show Broadduss was once again rehashing the 2016 Draft debate between Jalen Ramsey and Zeke. You'll remember this was when the team had almost identical grades ("tags were touching") between the two players. The interesting bit to me was not that Marinelli (and McClay) advocated for taking Zeke, but rather that they had misevaluated Ramsey as a safety and not a corner.
Marinelli sucks, just to be clear, but to say TJ Watt was "misevaluated as a 3-4 OLB" doesn't make sense. He played that position in college and he plays that position in the NFL. He's never played a 4-3 DE position, so there's no evidence to support the "misevaluated" position.
Maybe he'd be a good 4-3 DE, but we don't know. We do know Taco sucked, but that doesn't necessarily mean Watt would've been good at that position. But he probably wouldn't have been any worse, so it was worth a shot.