Dan Labbe did a nice job with a brief listing/analysis of the Browns wide receivers pre-draft. He includes PFF grades for them.
Dan also separated himself from the herd by😮 mentioning how Todd Haley has Njoku and Johnson to use like wide receivers.
I need to add that Seth DeValve, a former wide receiver himself, is like Njoku (except different).
The summary is there's Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landry, and some other guys who didn't perform well, but (good for Dan here) might in the future. (Ahh, shaddap! "Might" implies "might not" is that close enough to "he sucks cut him" for ya gimme a break...)
One reason I say that is something Dan overlooked:
The quarterback. For the one or none of you who might be reading this Blog for the first time, here's some remedial stuff nobody else seems aware of:
You see, if a quarterback is good, he makes receivers look better! No it's true!
Now, PFF, Swish, and the other guys do a great job of breaking these receivers down, in detail, but they have to stick to certain empirical rules for the analytical numbers to work, you see? Otherwise each individual watching a given film would corrupt the data with his own subjective judgements.
I'm not sure of the details, but I have to guess that any pass touching both a receiver's hands MUST BE called "catchable" (unless it's out of bounds). Their baseline stats are catches vs targets, then there's YAC yards, etc etc etc.
But a bad quarterback can slant these stats as much as a good one can. For that matter, so can scheme and surrounding talent. There are a bunch of factors which the numbers geeks will never find a way to consistently quantify (and remember I'm an "analytics" guy myself).
PFF can't (reliably) factor in a quarterback's bad timing or inaccuracy. A bad one will undermine YAC, because the receiver has to slow down and wait for balls that were supposed to be there when they made their break and got their separation, or had to reach low (go off balance) or high (leave their feet).
Surrounding talent: PFF can identify a "primary" receiver, separate double from single coverage, press/off-man from zone coverages etc., and reliably document a given receiver's performance vs each.
But they really can't quantify how a Njoku (or DeValve) might pull a safety or linebacker away from a Jarvis Landry (or vice-versa); rendering him useless to tackle one or the other any time soon (YAC, remember?)
Scheme: This is why Labbe mentioned Todd Haley! Hue Palmer, to his credit, used Duke Johnson out of the slot sometimes. However, he rarely used DeValve and Njoku at the same time (I can't bash him too much: He needed Telfer to help Drango a lot---Joe Thomas Drango aint).
Still, Hue is mostly a "stuck in his ways" blockhead who does NOT NOT NOT adapt his offense to his unique personnel (but Todd Haley does, and this matters, and PFF can't put numbers on that.)
Josh Gordon managed a pretty good PFF score mainly because of his speed and catch-radius. He caught a number of badly thrown passes that few other humans could catch.
It's just sad that he was so often standing still, or falling backward, or whatever at the time.
But I digress: Dan really should have mentioned Kizer vs Taylor and Hue vs Todd. His reference to Corey Coleman's hands was also kinda ignorant: Corey Coleman had ONE critical drop (couldn't believe it was actually on the money for once, no doubt), but never had a drop issue. No fair Dan.
Of course, I myself have cited Coleman's off-the-field animalistic thuggery and (apparent) lack of commitment (plus evident fragility) as reasons why Coleman might be traded anyway.
It's the punkthuggery for me: I was a bad boy, but I was never a "pack" predator who hunted down some guy who "disrespected" me so we could beat the guy down, okay? No honor. Cowardly. Disgusting.
This is a LOT worse than Josh Gordon, do you understand?
Corey Coleman is immensely talented, and might get it together and kick ass...but if Dorsey can cash out on him, he will, and I hope he does.
Anyway, John Dorsey needs to scoop up at least one skyscraper possession receiver (of which there are a BUNCH) in this draft.
Thomas Moore wrote another really great article on this whole Josh Rosen controversey, but he spoiled it at the end:
Yes, Hue Fisher might get kicked to the curb after 2018, but not Todd Haley.
I'm pretty sure Tom expects the Browns offense to look MUCH better in 2018 than it did under Hue Palmer, and if he thought Gregg Williams would leave, he would have said so.
I got Tom this time:
When Dorsey hired him, I pointed out that Haley had already been an NFL Head Coach, and that he would be a prime candidate to replace Hue Jackson.
My intelligent estimate (that was a joke zing!!! Nevermind) of Gregg Williams is that he would rather be the best defensive coordinator in history than a Head Coach, okay? So if he's in a good situation (and nobody can out-bid Haslam), he's not going anywhere.
Same offensive and defensive systems, you see? Continuity. Why would Todd Haley turn this down, and who could pay him more?
Get over the Stockholm Syndrome, Tom!
No link here, because the article was kinda stupid and (unlike Corey Coleman) I don't like kicking puppies, but one asspiring pundit mock-drafted Saquon Barkley to the Browns at first overall.
That's not what bothered me. In fact, the guy kinda sorta made a case that this quarterback class is unique, so it's hard to pick one winner (so at least he's either not mentally impaired, or else reads my blog), but here's a few of his screwups:
1: He never bothers with fourth overall.
2: He ignores the Giants, who will either trade down, or else are as likely to draft a quarterback or Chubb themselves as to draft Barkley.
3: While stipulating Landry, Taylor, Dorsey, Haley, Gordon etc., he still recites the "nobody wants to play for Cleveland" mantra, so we got us a Memorex Moron here.
If this amatuer (and just to be clear, I'm an amatuer too) rates Barkley as a "must-have" in THIS PARTICULAR DRAFT over Bradley Chubb for THIS PARTICULAR TEAM, he needs a brain transplant.
Ah! At least this was an article from Green Bay, so at least it doesn't undermine intelligent life in Cleveland much (whew!)
Ok last call okbye...
Except I love that Myles Garrett likes to speak out (in a civil, calm, intelligent way). He's really a smart, thoughtful guy!
I don't know if I agree with him, but I know I could talk to him. In english. I really like Myles Garrett the person. I really hate his ankle, but the rest of him is cool.
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