Bad News Browns

Most mock drafts are highly ignorable, but Gil Brandt mocks the exception.  Along with his didactic memory and well-known judgement, he has more connections to active GM's and scouts than probably anybody else.

This is why his accuracy in predicting drafts is almost legendary.

And here is what he predicts:

The Browns will (predictably) get screwed out of their trade-down, as the top three tackles will be gone in the top five.  Gil thinks that Ansah and Milliner will also be gone.

It feels personal, but Gil is a nice guy and doesn't hate the Browns.  It just appears to him that #3 and #4 will trade down.  They don't hate the Browns either...it just seems like a huge conspiracy.

Gil predicts that the Browns will draft Dion Jordan at 6.  This doesn't bother me--he's a perfect fit, and with Ansah gone, the best available--with zero red flags, and upside.

But...DAMMIT they just had to tease us with visions of another second-rounder and...well just here we go again.

This would leave us still in need of a cornerback, and with the remaining picks, they would miss out on the other elite ones.  Then, there might be a good guard like Long high in the third, but could they draft him and forego the best available cornerback?

Safety isn't as urgent.  There are candidates on the roster, plus a couple pretty good geezers still hanging around as free agents.

BUT there's Sheard and Rubin.  I love them both.  I'm hearing good things about Sheard's conversion to OLB and would be reluctant to peddle him given this new information...but if Jordan is the pick, I say go ahead.

I'm a big Rubin fan too, but he makes the most money, is the oldest, and is pretty short to play DE here--the tackles reach advantage will give him hell.  And if you think that either of these young veteran players wouldn't get a second rounder, you are in need of head-extraction surgery.

Some guys write about the "MY guy" thing, and assert that every new regime plans to replace each and every inherited player as a matter of course.  That's BS.  Players who match the new offensive and defensive systems can stick around if they're good enough and affordable enough.

Sheard has been a defensive end his whole life, and Rubin is a much better tackle/nose tackle than DE.

I'm surprised that Robertson is getting the first shot at ILB next to D'Qwell, but he made a point about the Pittsburgh inside backers.  They're listed at 240, which might more might not be accurate, but it's close enough.  Nor is Horton obliged to make an exact copy of LeBeau's system.

Robertson covers even better than D'Qwell, and I'm thinking he'd do a lot of that.  He's also a run-and-hit guy with good instincts.  He did blow a lot of tackles last season (failed to wrap up), but this is fixable--Horton won't tolerate it.

Well, with nickles and dimes being the default defenses in the NFL these days anyway, a real 3-4 look probably won't be practical on more than about 30% of the plays.  This is what Horton meant when he talked about multiple fronts.

I'm thinking that he wants his best coverage linebacker built into the base.  I'm also starting to suspect that the front 3 will seek penetration more than LeBeaus' defenses do.

If you recall, Rogers rote havoc as a 3-4 nose tackle.  The trouble was that he was freelancing, and opened up huge cutback lanes behind him.  The guards also just let him go by and overshoot the play, and went out to smash poor D'Qwell.

But penetration can work here as long as the other guys know about it in advance and know where the cutbacks are libel to be.  It's also important that the offense doesn't know where to expect it.  The offensive lineman sets up to engage a huge quick guy making a frontal assault, and when his guy shoots to his right or left instead, it's very hard to "un-plant" your feet and stay with him.

The threat of that makes it hard for them to target the linebackers--Taylor in your face can drive one guy back.  Taylor with leverage is in your backfield before you can react.  If a guard fires out at the linebacker, HE opens up a gap for the surprise-penetrator.

The reason I suspect this is that one of the inside linebackers might be coming right behind  the lineman, unblocked.  The center or guard tries to go with Taylor or whoever, and here comes Jackson or Robertson right through where he was standing a second ago.  This helps the Robertson thing make sense.  

INSIDE pressure is the best pressure.  

This might also be a reaction to the Read-option.  It's trading mass for speed/quickness.

But I'm just guessing.

Hope Gil is wrong--or that somebody who wants Smith bad is ready to deal.