MOCK

His value on CBS is as the 6th BPA.

Trent Williams is projected as a the starting OG for next season. My feeling was that he was relatively advanced in certain respects and could play sooner than Iupati, and he also projected as a quality backup at OT.

I can’t control the placement of players on the Big Board. The point of the exercise was to only take players who were available when we draft. Cody was available and met the draft desideratum.

I intentionally used their Big Board because I hadn’t looked at it lately and wouldn’t know when (specifically) players would come off the board. Therefore, I can’t reverse engineer my strategy to take players I’m aware of being available at that point. I’m trying to make it as realistic as possible. My biggest complaints about MOCKs is the numerous devices (trades, etc.) used to allow the MOCKer to take whoever they want, and often at somewhat unrealistic spots.

The RBs simply I had targeted — Tate, Hardesty, Gerhart — came in before our picks. There were no RB near our pick that fit my criteria. However, Dwyer was available at #48, and I considered him, but his usage for blocking and pass catching limited his use for us. And I also didn’t see big back as worth taking this early. Gerhart fell between in-between our 2nd and 3rd. Dixon (MSU) fell right before our 6th.

I was willing to let the big RB position slide and go UDFA for a FB. We can’t fill all our needs so something had to slide.

The story on taking Sanders and then Ajirotutu is that he looked like the BPA (IMO) and offered a different skill set than Sanders. I was trying to find help at WR because of the uncertainty over Marshall and Ajirotutu fit the criteria of low priced insurance for Marshall. I was specifically mindful of the fact that certain positions were values late — WR, TE, OC, etc. Sanders has speed, and great production, so I’m perfectly happy with him, too.

Re: “if I had gone…” The added 6th pick is a real choice. I decided that I would avail myself of a trade and then assumed that Scheffler had already been traded to supply the extra 6th. And I made the next pick even though I’d just drafted a WR. I can see on re-reading it that I didn’t make it clear. I was only explaining why the CB pick was dictated even though I went ahead a gave myself another pick to use.

I really didn’t formulate much of a plan, but I had expectations of the ranges for a lot of positions and I had a sense of what we could reasonably find in 4 rounds (I discount the 6th and 7th as not having much other than the deep positions (WR, CB, etc.) or the positions of low value (OC, etc.).

That leaves enough high picks for 2 offensive players (probably OLs but I leave the door open ) and 2 defensive players (probably LBs or DBs but possibly a DL). Positions such as CB are so numerous that you can wait for opportunities when there are no non-reaches and take them. The Cody pick was a complete surprise, but it met the critieria. The OC pick was also quite easy. The Chaney pick was another that fell close enough to the pick.

I didn’t try to slavishly follow their values this time and willingly traveled 10, 11 and 14 spots down the board to find acceptable prospects. I have far less faith in DraftTek this year and more in CBS, Frank Cooney’s site.

Perhaps it’s partly this crop but I could go to town with middle round picks, although only a minority of them. I hope it’s not overoptimism because I liked last year’s and many of the prospects I liked didn’t produce much — so far.

Immediately before the draft, I had just been commenting on another thread and composed a draft plan, or what might be called somewhat incorrectly as a needs list. The position of NT was an upgrade position, and there are quite a few other positions in that category, too. The point is that I was aware of positional needs/wants going in. The Cody pick fell in my lap, but it also was picked with full knowledge of our positional needs.

Jamal Williams is hardly the long-term answer and Reid, although solid, begs for an upgrade. Baker is someone I’ve talked about since before he was drafted but he’s as unproven as they get. I like what we’ve done with the DL but I’m also objective. Moreover, I’ve often argued against Cody as a pick, which should put to rest any complaints about favoritism.

The Cody picks illustrates a common event in drafts — when a player you hadn’t considers drops in your lap. I wasn’t trying to draft an NT but it just worked out that way. Strangely, I was mad at DS’s Big Board at that point because there were a number of players I wanted to draft who weren’t there. My original plan was to possibly take an OLB (Sapp came under heavy consideration) but Cody won out on merit.

Re: the Scheffler trade. I did a very poor job of explaining this trade. Unlike most MOCKs, I made no attempt account for who, what and how much. A trade of some sort happened involving Scheffler and we got a 6th and perhaps more out of that trade. I didn’t bother to stop and compose an elaborate scenario because I didn’t have the time and I thought it was highly believable that we would make a trade and that we could get AT LEAST a 6th in the process.

The argument for taking T Will evolved from an idea for taking a hybrid OT/OG. The hybrid idea echoed the versatility emphasized in the New England system but it originated earlier in the practice of using OLs to backup several positions, which was necessary because teams found carrying a full compliment of backups burdensome and preferred to carry more help at other positions, such as RB.

OL positions are often classified in a C/G versus Tackle dichotomy but there are OT/OGs, more typically on the right side where blocking run blocking skills come more into play. An example of this on the Broncos was the use of Kuper to play RT, which occurred when Pears was injured — if I recall correctly. College OTs are frequently moved inside and it’s more common than many people seem to realize. And Kuper, a college OT, is an example of this.

My feeling on Trent Williams (T Will) is that he’s the most talented OL available at that point in the draft. Iupati should develop into a very good OG at some point but he’s not a good prospect for OT. He’s also relatively slow compared to T Will, who ran a 4.81-40yd. at the combine, which bodes well for his ability to pull as an OG, which he played in college at one point.

http://www.nfl.com/combine/profiles/trent-williams?id=497073#tabs:tab-analysis

The general idea in drafting T Will is that he projects as a probable starter at OG as a rookie. He also could fill the backup role at RT. It’s not a knock against Pouncey. We have the ability to stay put and take T Will but it would be somewhat of a reach to take Pouncey at this point. Value in the MOCK is partially determined by Big Board rankings but I override the BB’s rankings when I deem it appropriate. In this case, T Will was at #14 and Pouncey was at #30. I disagree somewhat with the disparity between the two but not entirely.

I see Dan Williams @ 11, Ducasee @ 45, and Walton @ 80.

Why do you think it’s a reach @80 for Walton? (besides the hawley argument).

The possibility of other picks in 1st 3 rds (via trades) will supplement these picks with (luxury) picks, like Gerhart or Butler. IMO

First, the trade pick isn’t necessarily the entire value for Scheffler. I didn’t try to work out the details, I simply had a spur of the moment impulse to bring in one more draftee. The point is not whether a 6th would be the whole value we could reap but whether we could get that much, and we obviously could. I was looking for realism and an extra pick seemed realistic since some trade action seems quite likely. The realism is in the process. I responded to the conditions and made the decision because it seemed like the thing that they might do.

DratTek wouldn’t be my choice for a Big Board, but their BB had T Will available. I recognized this might happen and I addressed the point by saying that I would do a follow up MOCK using CBS. And I wrote that at a point when I had yet to conduct the MOCK so I anticipated complaints about BB rankings.

Re: J. D. Walton’s placement. This is the consensus round/range for him. Center rankings have been consistent from the beginning with Tennant and Walton flip-flopping places in the 2nd and 3rd, so there’s argument as to which of them is the better prospect but the ratings have been very consistent.

It’s not that there isn’t that possibility but I wanted to avoid the unrealistic aspects of many MOCKs. Oddly, it’s not so much a problem with the values in the trade value chart, although it is part of the problem, but because most trades are unlikely. They’re a minority of what happens, and they depend on unlikely circumstances. Many, many more trades are proposed than agree upon.

Most MOCKs have no restrictions on trades so they make them as often as desired and to the benefit of the home team. A realistic scenario would be if the team seeking the trade paid a premium for the trade — an initiators fee.

I wanted to impose an arbitrary limit on trades because the only limit in many MOCKs is imagination and the MOCKsters seem to imagine far too many, especially favorable ones that help their team. Interactive setting is which GMs from different teams agree on trades is a far more realistic and believable process. However, it requires many people to compose a MOCK.

Re: Pouncey, Ducasse and Butler. Except Pouncey, who’s a hard trade to position for, they were available. Ducasse would have been a greater reach at #2 and Butler a lesser reach at #3. There was some consideration of them as choices, but the actual choices rated higher in the desiderata used. Ducasse was under consideration after a OT/OG had just been picked. Butler was under more serious consideration but OC was a higher need than ILG.

The Butler v. Walton decision is actually one of the critical decisions in the MOCK. I was more intent on finding an OLB however, and Sapp was nearly picked instead of Cody. Filling OC if possible, and with the right candidate, was one of the major goals in this MOCK. Curiously, since Butler and Tennant come up in consecutive picks, the decision as to which position to take was made tentatively at that point and finalized when Walton appeared slightly lower (a greater reach). Walton was considered to be a better positional fit.