McGinn Draft Series Part 6: RB

[RS12]

Im not convincing myself of anything. Im being rational. 5 trades downs in 58 day 1 and 2 picks over the last 20 years. Thats an 8.6 percent chance. A rational person doesnt bet on something with an 8.6% chance of happening. If you dont like the fact that trading down is a long shot, then thats on you. If you're gonna pimping it as a likelihood, I'm going to keep shooting it down.

FYI according to Schefter this is the first year since 1993 that every team has their first round pick. What I take from that is teams that want to trade up will likely find fairly friendly deals because there will be many teams in that general area of the draft to deal with. So unless the right player falls and happens to be there at 12, I think the odds of a trade back are low. I will add I think Jeanty and three QBs will be gone by then. So even less reason to trade up.

 

[gimmesix]

I’ll be honest I’ve been as miserable now as I was in the Romo days. It was no different for me personally. Actually I might say I like this era more because we’ve had some incredible things happen such as the Dak/Zeke rookie year, Bland record breaking year, Diggs record breaking year, Aubrey..way more exciting now for me but miserable because of the same results.

And my view is the opposite. We don’t build through free agency so build as much as you can through the draft. If we were players in free agency I’d care less about finding starters and would be ok with Jeanty in the first. But with the minimal resources I am not ok with it.

I’d of course would love to have him I just don’t think it’s the proper way to build your team when no contender is doing it. I don’t believe in reinventing the wheel if teams are showing you what it takes to contend why not emulate it? Or emulate it as much as you can anyway.

To go back to the 2016 draft do the Cowboys end up any worse taking Ramsey in the first and Henry in the second then they do Zeke in the first and…..Jaylon in the 2nd or Myles Jack or whoever?

I think you are buying into the fool's gold that Jerry and Stephen are selling. The way to build a team is to use both the draft and free agency well. The championship teams have shown us that. We are not building like any of the contenders for Super Bowls have. There's not a single team that has won using a draft-cheap FA strategy.

The things you've enjoyed, like me, have been individual accomplishments. I would rather have a championship team than those individual accomplishments, but that clearly is not going to happen. If you believe it is after 30 years, then shame on you.

I'm not going to quit watching my team, so give me individual performances worth watching at least. Jeanty is a top-five player. He's well-worth our pick if he falls to that point. Take him and enjoy. Don't worry about our minimal resources because they are always going to be minimal as long as we don't supplement with free agency. It wouldn't matter if we are chess masters in the draft when we're playing checkers in free agency.

Honestly, this conversation is even making me rethink my strategy of trading back in the first (if Hunter, Graham, Carter and Jeanty are gone), so that we can get a WR, RB, DT, CB -- our biggest needs IMO -- all in the first two days (which Dallas probably wouldn't do anyway, much to my chagrin). I think I'm switching to best value regardless of position when I've always been a strategic needs guy, even if you have to move around to fill them.

Give me a few exciting players to watch as Rome continues to burn. For example, I've been against taking the TE Warren because the position is not a priority need. (My strategy was to trade down or take a priority need player.) Now, I think I'm for it if the others are gone and he's clearly the best available.

 

[TheMarathonContinues]

I think you are buying into the fool's gold that Jerry and Stephen are selling. The way to build a team is to use both the draft and free agency well. The championship teams have shown us that. We are not building like any of the contenders for Super Bowls have. There's not a single team that has won using a draft-cheap FA strategy.

The things you've enjoyed, like me, have been individual accomplishments. I would rather have a championship team than those individual accomplishments, but that clearly is not going to happen. If you believe it is after 30 years, then shame on you.

I'm not going to quit watching my team, so give me individual performances worth watching at least. Jeanty is a top-five player. He's well-worth our pick if he falls to that point. Take him and enjoy. Don't worry about our minimal resources because they are always going to be minimal as long as we don't supplement with free agency. It wouldn't matter if we are chess masters in the draft when we're playing checkers in free agency.

Honestly, this conversation is even making me rethink my strategy of trading back in the first (if Hunter, Graham, Carter and Jeanty are gone), so that we can get a WR, RB, DT, CB -- our biggest needs IMO -- all in the first two days (which Dallas probably wouldn't do anyway, much to my chagrin). I think I'm switching to best value regardless of position when I've always been a strategic needs guy, even if you have to move around to fill them.

Give me a few exciting players to watch as Rome continues to burn. For example, I've been against taking the TE Warren because the position is not a priority need. (My strategy was to trade down or take a priority need player.) Now, I think I'm for it if the others are gone and he's clearly the best available.

Oh I don’t buy anything they said. I’m speaking on what this team realistically should do knowing how they do things. You have to be smart in free agency and the draft. It’s not about who has the most draft picks or most money. You just gotta be smart.

I’m all for smart roster building. Ultimately it’s tough to imagine them screwing the draft up. I’m just along for the ride. Not too hype not too excited just curious because I don’t know what to expect from this team.

 

[gimmesix]

Oh I don’t buy anything they said. I’m speaking on what this team realistically should do knowing how they do things. You have to be smart in free agency and the draft. It’s not about who has the most draft picks or most money. You just gotta be smart.

I’m all for smart roster building. Ultimately it’s tough to imagine them screwing the draft up. I’m just along for the ride. Not too hype not too excited just curious because I don’t know what to expect from this team.

I think smart went out the window a long time ago for this team. Now, I just want the CeeDee Lambs and the Micah Parsons, exciting players to watch on a team that's going nowhere.

If Jeanty's there and he's the best value, then I'm all for it, because I know our roster is filled out by failed No. 1 picks (Elam, Turner, Taylor) or low-cost FAs (Jones, Williams, Sanders, Sanborn, Campbell) who were low cost either because of injury setbacks, age or they simply haven't proven themselves and may never.

I understand where you are coming from, and there's always a part of me that will hope for the best for my team. But the realistic part of me knows you can't win in the playoffs roster-building like the Joneses do ... so just give me some exciting players in the draft to watch.

I'd love a high-quality 3-tech because we haven't had the dominant player you need at that spot since forever. But I'd be just as happy watching Jeanty, Warren or McMillan become stars on a team that wasn't going to be good enough anyway. And with those three, I get good value at 12 while I would need a trade-down or trade-up to possibly get a high-quality 3-tech.

 

[gimmesix]

I’m all for smart roster building. Ultimately it’s tough to imagine them screwing the draft up. I’m just along for the ride. Not too hype not too excited just curious because I don’t know what to expect from this team.

It's funny, after having this discussion with you, I kind of have a different mind-set about the draft. I'm usually against trading up because it costs too many draft picks when we're a team that builds on the draft and needs to hit on multiple players.

But after thinking about the fact of how many Hall of Famers' careers we've wasted thanks to how this front office operates, I would be OK with packaging picks and going and getting one of the four players I consider special in this draft (WR/CB Travis Hunter, DE Abdul Carter, DT Mason Graham, RB Ashton Jeanty).

They may not help us win in the playoffs, but I don't think what we get out of this draft will be enough to get us over the playoff hump (because of the front office's free agency philosophy), but they could be special to watch. Imagine having another Parsons rushing the passer from the other side. Or the next Deion who was coached by Deion himself. Or the possibility of having our own Aaron Donald or Chris Jones.

They may not turn out that way, but it is likely that they will turn out to be very, very good players at worst.

Even if you toss Jeanty out of the conversation because of the depth at running back, the possibility of getting one of those other three players is enticing to me as the fan of a team that hasn't been to an NFC Championship Game in nearly 30 years with a front office that doesn't show it is willing to do what is necessary to change that.

Maybe I've just gone crazy, or am just broken, but I would be OK with this now because we've known for years that one draft isn't going to fix our team, and we know that the front office isn't going to do anything outside of the draft to get it done.

Instead, we're going to draft players each year, lose some players in free agency, replace them with lesser free agents, rinse and repeat. This is an undeniable pattern of failure.