Understanding the Neal Pick

[pbmax]

This isn't about the value chart Leap. It's about having Neal vs. having Neal AND another pick. That was an Al Davis-esque reach to grab him there. He wasn't going any time soon.

There is no way we, as fans, can know this. Its a flat guess. And teams, even after the fact, aren't going to fess up.

[Gunakor]

but I know Thompson didn't offer that trade or anything similar to anybody else to move down.

Source?

Seriously though, you know this?

Put yourself in the shoes of an NFL GM.

Someone calls you and makes you an offer where you move up 15-20 slots from a high 3rd to a low 2nd, and all it costs you is a 7th round pick. Are you going to say no?

Nobody else would either.

I wasn't there. Like I said, I used logic and applied it. No GM worth the ink he signed his contract with would turn down an offer like that.

If what you say is true about all GMs automatically taking that offer, then it is logical to conclude that the trade is really bad for one team and it stands to reason that no GM worth the ink of their signed contract would/should ever offer that trade.

Indeed it is, if you're judging the trade by that Jimmy Johnson point value chart. You're missing the point though, as are most people here. The fact that it seems so idiotic to make that trade is the reason why I'm suggesting it be made in the first place. I'm using the point value chart to add value to the Packers, not points. The value to the Packers isn't determined by some point value chart that the team the Packers would be trading with would be using. The value to the Packers is quite simply in the extra picks in whatever round we'd have had on top of drafting Neal.

What is better for Green Bay, Having Neal and an extra 7th round pick or having Neal and no extra 7th round pick? That's really the argument I'm making, in a nutshell. We wound up with absolutely nothing on top of the Neal pick, and my argument is simply that we could have had Neal and SOMETHING else.

I'm just setting up a scenario where the Packers would have netted more out of the draft as a whole than they did in reality. I firmly believe, as many do including both fans and media draft gurus, that Neal was a 3rd round prospect at best. That there's no way in hell he'd have gone by the end of the second round, especially with higher rated DT/DE's still on the board. So if we were going to draft him at #54 anyway, may as well move down to the bottom of the second round where he'd still be available and take whatever you can get from anybody you can get it from. Even if the Packers lose out according to the point value of the picks, it wins because it gets the player it wants and more.

[Gunakor]

but I know Thompson didn't offer that trade or anything similar to anybody else to move down.

Source?

Seriously though, you know this?

Put yourself in the shoes of an NFL GM.

Someone calls you and makes you an offer where you move up 15-20 slots from a high 3rd to a low 2nd, and all it costs you is a 7th round pick. Are you going to say no?

Nobody else would either.

I wasn't there. Like I said, I used logic and applied it. No GM worth the ink he signed his contract with would turn down an offer like that.

Perhaps the teams in the trade window were fine where they were and didn't want to pay the guys they were set to pick 2nd round money instead of 3rd?

I just think it's kind of rigidly naive to simply assume that because logic dictates that something should happen, that it did happen. Unless of course you're just looking for something to bash Ted over the head about, but I never paid attention to who was pro and anti Ted, so I don't know if that's the case.

I have actually been one of Ted's strongest and most vocal supporters ever since he stepped in. But he fucked up on this one. I'm not above harsh criticism of someone I support.

[sharpe1027]

That there's no way in hell he'd have gone by the end of the second round, especially with higher rated DT/DE's still on the board.

And yet he did just that.

Your entire argument rests upon your personal ability to read media reports and evaluate players. If I say you are wrong, you can't prove otherwise. The beautiful thing about this situation is that I don't need to prove that he would have gone in the second round, I just need to be able to say that maybe he could have. That's the point, nobody knew at the time or even now, including the Packers and, yes, even you.

Could the Packers have gotten Neal and something else? I'll go as far as to say that the probably could have. That doesn't mean it was guaranteed and if they couldn't get enough value in trade to offset the risk, then they should just pick the guy.

[Gunakor]

This isn't about the value chart Leap. It's about having Neal vs. having Neal AND another pick. That was an Al Davis-esque reach to grab him there. He wasn't going any time soon.

There is no way we, as fans, can know this. Its a flat guess. And teams, even after the fact, aren't going to fess up.

You're right, I can't know this entirely for certain. But it's not exactly throwing darts blind. There's some factual evidence to support my claim that he was taken out of position. It's a guess, but it's an educated guess.

For shits and giggles, who drafting immediately behind us do you think would have snagged him? I mean, was there any cause for concern that he might be gone in a very short while?

The only other DL taken in round 2 after us was Terrance Cody, taken immediately after us. Cody was by far the more highly rated prospect, odds are Baltimore was going to take him anyway. No DL was taken after that until 3rd round #72, the pick after we selected Morgan Burnett, when Buffalo took Alex Carrington, another more highly rated DL. Odds are Buffalo takes him over Neal also, though I'm not so sure. However, I am 99% certain that Neal would have fallen at least this far.

But there were a whole helluva lot of OT's and LB's taken inbetween. So, say we made a proposal to Al Davis (of all people) where he'd offer the 5th pick in the 3rd round (#69 overall) and a 6 or a 7 to move up 13 spots and get our 2nd round pick. Davis gets OT Charles Brown out of USC instead of OT Jared Veldheer out of Hillsdale. We still get Neal, plus one of the Raiders' late round picks. I honestly believe that everybody wins here.

Granted this is only one scenario, but it seems more than plausible that it would have happened should this trade have been proposed.

[sharpe1027]

This isn't about the value chart Leap. It's about having Neal vs. having Neal AND another pick. That was an Al Davis-esque reach to grab him there. He wasn't going any time soon.

There is no way we, as fans, can know this. Its a flat guess. And teams, even after the fact, aren't going to fess up.

You're right, I can't know this entirely for certain. But it's not exactly throwing darts blind. There's some factual evidence to support my claim that he was taken out of position. It's a guess, but it's an educated guess.

For shits and giggles, who drafting immediately behind us do you think would have snagged him? I mean, was there any cause for concern that he might be gone in a very short while?

The only other DL taken in round 2 after us was Terrance Cody, taken immediately after us. Cody was by far the more highly rated prospect, odds are Baltimore was going to take him anyway. No DL was taken after that until 3rd round #72, the pick after we selected Morgan Burnett, when Buffalo took Alex Carrington, another more highly rated DL. Odds are Buffalo takes him over Neal also, though I'm not so sure. However, I am 99% certain that Neal would have fallen at least this far.

But there were a whole helluva lot of OT's and LB's taken inbetween. So, say we made a proposal to Al Davis (of all people) where he'd offer the 5th pick in the 3rd round (#69 overall) and a 6 or a 7 to move up 13 spots and get our 2nd round pick. Davis gets OT Charles Brown out of USC instead of OT Jared Veldheer out of Hillsdale. We still get Neal, plus one of the Raiders' late round picks. I honestly believe that everybody wins here.

Granted this is only one scenario, but it seems more than plausible that it would have happened should this trade have been proposed.

I think you're missing the point. Nobody knew, at the time the Packer's were picking, whether or not there was a team that had him on their board. Nobody. So, trading down carried some risk (however small). I can only assume that the Packers felt that the risk was not worth what they would be rewarded with by trading down. Were they right? IDK. But it's not quite as simple as you were trying to make it in your earlier arguments.

[Gunakor]

Yes there was risk, I'm not denying that, but it was marginal at best - especially considering the other talent on the board at DL even if Neal was taken. Why did it have to be Neal, specifically? Why did we have to reach an entire round to grab him? When you consider the reward, it could have been an extra pick that we could have packaged to move up to get a quality punter (Zoltan Mesko). Or quality OLB depth (Arthur Moats). Or a quality cornerback (Dominique Franks). Things we could have really used, and according to many, things we really need. Or we could use it on a luxury like Carlton Mitchell, WR from South Florida. The point is we'd have something else to show for that 2nd round pick other than a 3rd round talent.

Instead we have nothing. That nothingness doesn't justify Ted's reluctance to take a gamble, especially over a 3rd round talent like Michael Neal.

Like I said, I've been one of Ted's biggest supporters ever since he took the job. But he fucked up here. I don't know if he just got scared of losing the guy or too excited about having him, but I think he pissed away an opportunity to get more out of this draft than he did. Hopefully I'm wrong and everything works out just the way he planned it in his head, but I remain skeptical.

[sharpe1027]

Gun, I can understand your position; however, it still relies entirely upon the conclusion that Neal is a 3rd round talent that nobody else had high on their board. The fact that the Packer's rated him as high as they did suggests that other teams may have done the same. I find it difficult to rely upon media draft boards as a basis to say otherwise.

In the end, is it really worth the risk of losing a guy you have rated highly, when all you would gain is a draft pick in the late 7th? The odds are that any guy you select that late could be signed as an undrafted FA anyway.

[Scott Campbell]

Instead we have nothing. That nothingness doesn't justify Ted's reluctance to take a gamble, especially over a 3rd round talent like Michael Neal.

Neal is a 2nd round talent.

[Lurker64]

There seems to be an underlying assumption that Neal was a player who was a 3rd or 4th round pick in terms of where he "should" go. Why are people so sure about this?

I'm sure most people here (or elsewhere) didn't spend a lot of time paying close attention to how the Purdue defensive line played over the last few years. They were a bad team in a conference with more interesting storylines, and they weren't even on TV much. Don't you think there's potentially a systematic bias for people who aren't professional talent evaluators, to overlook players off of bad teams from mid-level programs? Sure, they know all about whoever won the SEC, and everybody wants to discover the next first round pick from Div II or I-AA, but I'm pretty sure that your Purdues of the world get the short end of the stick.

When people are saying that "he was rated so and so", and quoting an opinion of a scout or a website, were they evaluating him as a 3-tech or as a 5-tech? That matters quite a bit actually. A guy could be a mediocre 3-tech or base DE, but could be born to play 5-tech. Teams that don't run a 3-4, and "draftniks" in general have no reason to evaluate a player at 5-tech (generally a position these guys didn't play in college), and so a lot of these guys get much lower grades than they're given by actual 3-4 teams who actually scout these guys to play that position. I mean, Tyson Jackson did go at #3 overall. It was considered a "reach" by a lot of "experts" but the guy did play more, and better than any other defensive player taken in the top 12. We may also be in the middle of a shift in teams draft philosophy. Much like how you used to be able to pluck quality OLB prospects late in the draft when there were only a handful of 3-4 teams while they now command much more premium picks, something similar may well be happening with 5-technique ends.

Plus, I mean, Thompson's guys had a 2nd round grade on Neal. Who's to say anybody here, or anybody else, knows better?

[Gunakor]

Gun, I can understand your position; however, it still relies entirely upon the conclusion that Neal is a 3rd round talent that nobody else had high on their board. The fact that the Packer's rated him as high as they did suggests that other teams may have done the same. I find it difficult to rely upon media draft boards as a basis to say otherwise.

In the end, is it really worth the risk of losing a guy you have rated highly, when all you would gain is a draft pick in the late 7th? The odds are that any guy you select that late could be signed as an undrafted FA anyway.

Not by itself, no. But there were at least 2 and perhaps 3 other DL prospects who graded out as high or higher than Neal that were still on the board, and I'd have been happy with any of them should Neal have been taken early.

We wouldn't have to use that 7th round pick to draft in the 7th round, we could have repackaged it with say our 5th and, if needs be, our own 7th to move up 4 spots in the 5th round and grab that Zoltan Mesko punter extraordinaire from Michigan. He'd most certainly make the team - he would fill perhaps the most glaring hole on our roster - and he undoubtedly wasn't going to make it into UDFA.

In that scenario, is it worth losing Neal and having to "settle" on an equally talented prospect to move down 10 spots or so? Yes, IMO it most certainly is. I don't think you really appreciate what the reward would be. You're still thinking of a 7th round pick. I'm still thinking about the 5th round, and what better things we could have done with that 5th round pick rather than spend it on a luxury item with a troublesome history. Move down in the second, move UP in the 5th, both times giving way more value than we get in return, and wind up with TWO players you want instead of one.

Before I get a ton of crap about Quarless, let me say up front that this kid has all the tools to be great and I'm not complaining about the pick, given the way Ted handled the draft. But the fact remains that Zoltan was taken just 4 picks ahead of him, and whatever added compensation we got for moving down in the 2nd would almost certainly have been enough to move up 4 spots in the 5th and get our punter for the next decade. That's really where I'm at right now. By screwing ourselves on the trade value chart we could have drafted both a solid DE and a stellar punter with what we could have turned #56 into.

[Gunakor]

Instead we have nothing. That nothingness doesn't justify Ted's reluctance to take a gamble, especially over a 3rd round talent like Michael Neal.

Neal is a 2nd round talent.

Why, because he was drafted in the second round?

I hope I'm wrong. I don't see it. I live in Big Ten country, I've seen him play (albeit not a whole lot, but some). Others that have seen him far more than I have don't paint a much rosier picture than I have. Maybe I'm wrong, hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm not the only person who feels that Neal was drafted a full round to high.

Maybe I'm right.

[Pugger]

Neal was a good football player on a bad Purdue team. He was the guy that was game-planned for and usually double-teamed. Given his stellar measurables, injury history (lack of) and the fact he never came off the field (~80% of the snaps), I think this is a great pick-up.

As good as Jenkins and Jolly are, they have missed a number of games due to injury in the past and when they are nicked up, their effectiveness, especially Jenkins, drops significantly. Neal will fit into the regular rotation (ultimately starting down the road) and take off some of the pressure/load/snap count and offer more of a pass rush from the position.

This doesn't even take into account the legal/FA/Harrell issues, where it offers coverage.

+1

[Gunakor]

Plus, I mean, Thompson's guys had a 2nd round grade on Neal. Who's to say anybody here, or anybody else, knows better?

Thompson had a second round grade on Daryn Colledge too. Thompson ain't perfect. He's very good, but he makes his fair share of mistakes, same as anyone else.

This was one of them.

[Lurker64]

Plus, when people say things like "Terrence Cody was a much more highly rated prospect" it does sort of betray a certain ignorance about the evaluation of prospects. Cody is a guy who is an interesting story, and he's blocked a few really low kicks. But everything else should scare the living daylights out of NFL talent evaluators. He's the slowest kid ever drafted, he's got no lateral agility, he has to be kept to a very low snap count, and he could easily eat himself out of the league.

A guy with a lot of buzz, but a really, really risky pick.