I believe this wholeheartedly. Ballard likes big and fast if possible. I'm still trying to figure out if he likes Smith or Edmunds better as a LB.

QB is the only position you draft for position only.

Only if the grades are very close. Otherwise he will take BPA. There are holes at every position on this team. Can only hope QB isn't one of them

And if our top 4 choices in the 1st and 2nd rounds are RB, WR, TE and SS because those are BPA, then the draft will be a complete failure no matter how good those 4 guys are in their NFL career.

Luck will be killed in 2018 behind an O-Line that NEEDS more talent and our defense will be killed due to lack of pass rush and quality LBs.

It is always a combination of Need and BPA. Always.

I talk about the guys that I want to draft because while I see lots of holes on the roster, some holes are MUCH deeper than others. If we don't fill in those holes then the rest of the team will just not matter much.

Regardless of where the Colts have their draft board, right OT is one of those deep holes, IMO. It needs to be filled and if it can be filled with a kid whom has the potential of coming in, starting day one and being compared to 2 guys whom have had pretty good NFL careers, then that, to me, is worth an early 2nd round pick.

You call it drafting for need, I call it smart team building.

But, I don't have enough data on Ballard to know for sure what kind of drafter he is.

Hooker was a BPA pick. Safety was not a top position of need; Mike Adams was returning from pretty good 2016 season, Clayton Geathers was fully expected to recover from his injury and we had drafted T.J. Green in the 2nd round just the year before. While most were thrilled he was still available because he is projected to be a stud, safety was not a #1 concern.

Wilson was both a BPA and need pick. We needed CB help and he was drafted right around when he was projected.

Basham appears to be purely a need pick. Very few mock drafts had him going in the 3rd round.

Mack and Banner? Both filled needs and both were picked right around where they were projected to be picked. Who knows BPA?

Not enough data. There appears to be a fair amount of "need" rolled into all of Ballard's "BPA" talk.

Walk Worthy,

Every position on this team has needs. Won't matter who Ballard picks. If it's BPA it will fill a need

You have on most occasion talked about taking Chubb at 6 then looking for a guard or OT in the second and then looking for RB in the 4th etc. paraphrasing. But that is completely picking by need which makes you reach.

Let me ask you this. When was the last time a draft went as you hoped?

BPA isn't this brilliant idea you seem to think it is. "Best player" isn't something most teams are going to agree on. It's best player on their own board. When they set up that board, they take their own roster, scheme, and philosophy into account. A team like ours will not value a 340 lb two gap NT the same way a traditional 3-4 team would. Therefore a NT ranked in the 40s by us might be a top 12 player for another team.

Team fit matters. No GM ever sets out to draft a "best player" that doesn't fit their team.

I’d throw out tiers of players being a factor as well. If you have a RB as the top rated player on your board, but you have 3 other RBs with relatively similar ratings do you take that top rated back? What if you are confident one of those 4 similarly rated RBs will make it to your next pick, but there is only one similarly rated guard and then a huge drop off? A smart GM probably takes the guard.

The bottom line is that any GM that goes strictly BPA or strictly need is going to be a bad GM. There is more to building a team than just acquiring talent. At some point you have to put the talent on the field and it has to mesh.

2016 was a draft that went as hoped.

2x O-Linemen in the first 3 rounds.
Safety, LB, DT all 4th round picks or better
But yet 2x more O-Lineman as depth

We were screaming for O-Line help in 2016 and that draft "delivered." The safety in the 2nd round was a head scratcher as I was hoping for a defensive front-7 guy but Grigson talked him up so much that I said what the heck.


Now, obviously, the results ended up being underwhelming. Kelly has been fine when healthy and Haeg has played much better than your typical 5th round draft pick. I think Ridgeway will shine in a 1-gap system.

But Green, Clark, Morrison, Bates and Blythe? Yeah....

But 2016 pretty much went according to my plan. I had hoped that we were going to get 2x O-Line starters out of it (Kelly, Clark) with at least one quality backup (Haeg) and that, along with a healthy Mewhort would have made the O-Line a positive position on the theam.

That did not pan out but I was pleased with the draft at the time.

Now, I completely understand that you are going to come back and analysze every pick and say that they were "need" picks and thus sucked. And I don't have a ton of response to that other than "Grigson sucked in talent evaluation (and just about anything not involving the cap)."

So, there it is...


Walk Worthy,

So, it has been widely conjectured that if BUF wants to move up for a QB to our current #6 spot, it would take their #12, #22 (or 2019 1st round pick) and their first pick of the 3rd round # 65. Total points for that are 2,245 vs 1,600 for our #6 pick.

NE now has two 2018 first round picks after trading away Cooks to LAR and one of the conjectures is that they are looking for a QB. To get to a point value similiar to what is being said about the Bills, they would need to trade:

#23, #31, #43 (2nd round), # 63 (2nd round) and #95 (3rd round)

OR

#23, #31 and 2019 1st round draft pick


Would you trade the #6 overall for 2 1st round picks, 2 2nd round picks and a 3rd round pick?

If Ballard would do that, it would mean that the #3 overall pick in the draft would turn into:

#23 (1st round)
#31 (1st round)
#37 (2nd round)
#43 (2nd round)
#49 (2nd round)
#63 (2nd round)
#95 (3rd round)

+ 1 2019 2nd round pick (NYJ)

1 premier prospect versus 8x 1st/2nd/3rd round good prospects

Thoughts?

Walk Worthy,

I am all for trading back again. Lot of Chubbies around here for Chubb but I would prefer adding the 8 players ... :cool: