Ducasse's last shot to stick is this year in a different blocking scheme. He sucked in zone, we'll see if he improves in man and under a new OL coach. Things aren't looking good for him, but at the least he's shown good push in run blocking. As for Kenrick Ellis, I haven't been reading much of this thread, but anyone who's calling him a bust already is in the wrong. He got reps in last year, some good and some bad, he could progress. Too early to write him off.
I don't understand how you can make that argument for Ellis but not Ducasse, they were extremely similar picks and are in extremely similar situations. It is too early to declare either of them busts, as they both have their first full off-seasons ahead of them with training camp, OTAs, and everything else
Ellis pushed the pocket and wrecked the blocking scheme a few times last year, in addition to taking some poor angles. Nevertheless you see the flashes. He's only one year in. Ducasse was drafted the year prior to Ellis. He did nothing his first year, and much of the same in 2011. Ducasse has only shown flashes in run blocking, his pass protection has been putrid. An OL must be adequate in both pass protect and run block whereas an NT can probably get away with lack of passrush so long as they occupy their gaps. I'm much more optimistic about Ellis than Ducasse for those reasons. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on Vlad.
Wonderful work getting to the main point about how you have never heard of the term "game theory" in your life. You probably never even saw A Beautiful Mind and you sure as hell can't tell me about Nash Equilibriums if you don't do some thorough research on Google beforehand. If my assumptions are so unfounded, why don't you tell me why I'm wrong? Why don't you just offer up a single line to that effect? Make a degree up if you have to. Come on it'll be fun. All that you actually go on to do is prove that you're totally clueless by picking out lots of favorable modestly priced trades that yielded players that created tremendous production for the Jets and frequently earned big contracts that you feel are somehow bloated or whatever other bullshit you can dream that just shows your ignorance. If you give a fifth round for a guy and you're giving him $24M guaranteed shortly thereafter you think that was a bad trade? I really really wish I could use the words that I really want to describe you. It would be so much more fun. Yeah Santonio Holmes was a bad acquisition. Cro too. Kenrick Ellis is a bust. Kris Jenkins never could have done anything for us in a million years. I find the seething rot and pus that is your soul to be despicable. I mean that as honestly as I can possibly convey it to you. Your call to logic in this latest sad attempt to show any intelligence behind your ravings is Tanny's modest 41-39 overall record since 2006. You neglect to mention that his overall record as GM is ACTUALLY 51-45. You're a troll. Of course you neglect to mention that the team that he inherited DURING 2006. You neglect to mention that he actually brought us to the playoffs THREE TIMES IN SIX YEARS SINCE BECOMING GM. I guess in your sad life you think it's better to say that Tanny only brought us to the playoffs in 2 years out of 5 rather than the truth. THREE YEARS OUT OF SIX. You literally sicken me. You forget that the team he inherited from 2005 WENT 4-12. FROM 4-12 TO THE PLAYOFFS IN ONE YEAR. Of course you neglect to mention that Tanny inherited Mangini. He inherited Chad Pennington. He drafted Brick and Mangold and Revis in his first 2 years. He drafted the entire team that led us to 2 AFCCG's in THE LAST 3 YEARS. You're miserable. You're hopeless. I won't waste my time on you anymore. I just wish there was some way to warn the many unsuspecting readers that consider your words carefully on this forum before they learn your true nature. Sometimes freedom of speech really should be restricted. You're public enemy #1 of the Jets in my eyes. You're the fan that creates discontent and the seeds of mutiny from deep within party lines to as many as will listen under the guise of knowledge and healthy skepticism. Nothing could be further from truth. You're a cancer. You fuel the hype journalism market and give it credibility. You sway polls of the fan base to force the Front Office into a corner where they can't put together the team that they really want to for fear the fan base will turn on them fueled by ravings like yours. Nauseating.
I just want to bump this comment up for everyone. This is an outside opinion directly reacting to the same post I just quoted and responded to. Bradway's opinion is worth less than nothing. He's a pathetic troll that just wants to make you buy into his miserable attitude about life. He's probably the worst poster on this forum.
Just as a question: what the fuck does this have to do with anything? You bring up game theory and then begin castigating me because I won't engage you on that term? What's the point? The NFL draft and draft strategies have almost nothing to do with game theory. They're about acquiring talent at the NFL level. You can babble on about A Beautiful Mind and it means nothing in terms of what I was discussing in either of the posts which centered on flawed draft strategies and not game theory. I'm tired of the conversation with you at this point because your position has essentially devolved into a series of personal attacks on me as opposed to discussing the issues at hand. In that light you're on my ignore list. Feel free to rant and rave. I'm sure you will get something out of it.
Game theory controls every strategic game in existence. It is impossible to make any judgment about another person's STRATEGY (STRATEGY STRATEGY STRATEGY) without understanding game theory. It means you don't understand strategy at all. You now go back to the original point that I said you would desperately grasp for which is that draft strategy is about talent acquisition. YOU COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG. Draft strategy has nothing to do with talent acquisition. It has everything to do with making moves that result in high value. You know absolutely nothing about this, you're dead wrong. Even if you could independently assess how he fared on each move you'd never be able to figure out what would have happened if he had done what you think "he should have done." You don't even understand why that makes you dead wrong. It's comical.
As far as I'm concerned there are only two NFL "draft strategies": Best player available and Need. We have a need for passrush. It doesn't take a mathematician to figure that out, it better get fucking adressed this year.
Im interested to see wilks and ellis progress this year not just bc of the offseason but this new d-line coach.
On Ellis I like him, but I'm not going to comment much till his court case passes, no point in discussing him if he gets deported. I hope he doesn't cause he fills the gap very well, doesn't make many flashy plays, but in a 3-4 a NT's job isn't to make big plays, just to occupy blockers and push the pocket, all things that don't show up in the stats or highlight reels.
The issue is the potential for trades at any moment makes it impossible to assess whether any given individual trade is really as "good" or "bad" of an idea as your average fan might think it is. To have a successful draft you have to work in the players you need on your team as best you can. You can go for depth. You can go for stars. You can do free agents. You can do anything. The problem is that you always have needs that need to be addressed, you have limited resources, and you do the best you can. This year, the Jets badly need a passrush. It is the top priority. Next year, it'll be something else. Just because we have needs doesn't mean they're doing something wrong. But guys like Bradway thinks it does. He thinks he has the whole picture, but he really really doesn't. Managing billion dollar franchises requires a little more care and understanding than the average punter fan is capable of relating to. Unfortunately most of those people that can't relate don't really realize their shortcomings and assume that there's nothing else going on. Little do they know there's a precisely orchestrated tight-rope act going on behind the scenes with millions of dollars changing hands all of the time. If it was so easy, everybody would be a professional sports GM. It isn't. One of the ways that I happen to be able to relate to that is factoring things like game theory into personnel acquisition and draft strategy. There are many things that I'm in the dark as well. At least I realize that I'm not able to see everything that's going on. At least I demonstrated one type of fundamental analysis that people frequently overlook that can compromise their understanding of what's really going on. By the way, it's no argument at all to say that all that's needed for a "draft strategy" is "best player available" and "need". Everybody has a list with their BPA. Everybody has a list with their needs. Most successful team/regimes don't tend to have too many glaring discrepencies between their assessment of either. In a game an effective strategy cannot possibly be created by following a 3rd grade rote chart and plugging in your picks by mail every time. The only thing you can do by playing a complex game that way is to create a strategy that "is unexploitable" but entirely ignores the possibility of "exploiting" others by trading with them and winding up with the better end of the bargain (at least from your franchise's absolute perspective, or even from an absolute perspective of "I just fleeced him".) Tannenbaum has played in the past 5 years what we would call "an exploitive" strategy. Not BPA. Not need. Not good and not bad. He has played to make trades for high profile high round picks. He has bet the farm on a few key guys. Everytime he pushes all his chips in for one of these "shitty" guys like Mark Sanchez and Brick he has gotten his chips back with interest. These guys have been worth their weight in gold. More than their weight. He picked up Santonio. He made moves for guys. He's wheeling and dealing. He's trying to always end up with the better end of the bargain. Sometimes he's wrong. Sometimes he's right. He's just trying to be more right when he's right than wrong when he's wrong overall. That's all that counts. If this sounds esoteric and complicated to you, it is. If you really want to have a game theory discussion, I'd love to...but it deserves it's own thread. I know how to think about mathematically quantifying a lot of the inputs (each pick or trade would be an input that is played at each player's turn) but it is extermely complicated to quantify all of that stuff. You can talk individual players all day all you want and tell me that's all that matters, but it just isn't. Every team makes trades...and the second you start trading the waters get very deep and murky. The best light is 40 years of consistent history like the steeler's success drafting. But we're not the steelers. We know the jets sucked in 1980's-90's for the most part. We know they sucked in 2005. The question is how they've been doing since Tanny came aboard in 2006. The answer is that it's TOO SOON FOR ANYBODY TO TELL. Just like a draft pick.
For the record I'm not trying to imply Tannenbaum's doing a bad job. I also firmly believe any draft pick made is made with the HCs approval. Why wouldn't they work together? RR knows what kind of players he wants in his D, and Sparano would certainly give his take on who's brought into the offense. When I hear people blame/praise only Tannenbaum for the last 6 drafts I shake my head. Our drafts haven't been nearly as good since Mangini left, which is an area I think he deserves a lot of credit for. I think it's logical to assume RR, Sparano, Westhoff, Tannenbaum and the scouts all come together to make these picks.
I agree with maybe half of this. Holmes for a 5th was not a bad trade. There was never a question about him in the steelers locker room as you incorrectly imply. You really have a problem with cro for a second? Cro has played well for us, in 2011 is was a stud with the exception of 1 game. We weren't getting a better corner for that pick in the draft. I doubt Ellis gets deported, I think you're judging the drafting of him prematurely.
Yes, but the HC serves at the pleasure of the GM unless the owner has a strong opinion one way or another. Tanny has the button, he deserves the bulk of the blame or accolades. Of course everyone works together and provides their input, but it's Tanny's decision to ultimately pick what the final roster will look like and it's on him to put HC's and scouts et al in place that are going to give him good and accurate opinions on BPA and Need and whatever else. To say that our drafts haven't been nearly as good since Mangini left, while an easy jab, is not necessarily that accurate. We didn't really deserve Revis or Mangold when we drafted them. We deserved a really solid starter but we got the best players in the game. Some of it is luck. It happens. Just because we drafted Gholston doesn't mean it was a bad DECISION. It might have just been a bad result. There's a huge difference. We also had gaping needs like Qb that we had to invest a lot in Sanchez in. To be honest your claim can't possibly be valid because if Mark ever becomes a Super Bowl MVP for us throughout his career I think a strong argument could be made that he is the most profitable pick that Tanny has ever made. Don't laugh it could happen pretty easily. Not to mention it's way too soon to assess Wilkerson or Kyle Wilson's long term impacts. Either of those guys could develop into perennial beasts at their roles, just like their predecessors. People just need to think about criticizing Tanny, then bite their damn tongue. If they've bit their tongue ten times in a row...then out with it, but only to save your tongue more abuse. It's probably still a flawed critique. That's not to say the man doesn't make mistakes. Obviously he does. I just think that few, if any, of us have enough knowledge and enough facts to even figure out which moves were his mistakes in reality. Even if you can figure that out you're definitely not going to be able to figure out what he should have done instead of making that mistake and what the hell our team would possibly look like today if that happened and what our record and accomplishments would be. It's an alternate reality. It didn't happen in this dimension of the universe, and it never will. You think you know, but really you have no idea. Other cliches, etc.
I'll leave the Holmes stuff aside because it's circumstantial. Cro on the other hand is not. The man just doesn't let it all hang out on the field. He gets in an open field situation and he's fairly useless. Watching him run parallel to a guy loose in the backfield trying to figure out if there is a safe angle to hit him is something that we've all seen a bunch of times since he came over to the Jets. Earth to Cro: there's no safe angle to hit somebody at but the sooner you make the attempt the better. The Chargers gave him to us because he let Shonn Greene run by without any attempt to stop him in the biggest game of the year for them. Ellis was a horrible risk given the disposition of the court case against him. The fact that there would likely be no OTA's to work with him was also a problem. Taking a guy from a small college in an off-season that will be short-circuited and who is facing felony charges and not a citizen is begging to lose the value in the pick.
except for the fact that you don't make a draft pick for immediate year only. Its a long-term investment, and if you get high returns in the first year thats even better. Everyone know Ellis was going to be a project, and now he should/could start to pay dividends and give the reward the Jets expected/hoped for out of a "risky" pick in the third round. Generally speaking, third rounders are expected to contribute marginally in year-one, and eventually develop into a capable starter. To get someone with much more potential than a "capable starter" in the third round obviously comes with risk, its why he was still available. If he didn't have that risk associated with him, he probably would have gone earlier. Its a classic risk/reward mentality. High Risk = (potential for) High Reward Best case: develops into a dominant force on the inside, a very good 3-4 NT Worst case: gets deported and the Jets got one-year of marginal contribution out of a third round pick. Most-likely case: Becomes a rotational player with Pouha for next 2 years, then inherits role if shows improvement and capability
Yeah but what happened to finding people who can play the damn game right away and at a high level? The Jets have all these projects going and the people they've found who can stick on the field are average at best. We're going into the 5th draft now since 2007 and the Jets have not come up with a single plus player in the 4 intervening drafts. And it's not like they haven't had high picks and followed the flawed strategy of bundling picks to move up either over that span. This team isn't going to win a Super Bowl until a few more guys hit the field and are good right away. The fact that the depth sucks also just points at a total failure of the Jets to build appropriately. This is a very similar failure to the approach they used from 2001 to 2004 before the team collapsed the last time. The Jets need to clean house on the personnel side. It's the only way to clean out the bad meme that is their talent acquisition process.
I never said Cro didn't have flaws. However, a second for Cro was a good trade, for you to say otherwise is foolish. He was young, and would be a # 1 corner on a lot of teams. Any corner we used that pick on would have many more flaws than Cro, and probably never develope into as good a corner.
But how do you know this is true? Teams find good all-around players in the 2nd round all the time. Taking another team's flawed player for that pick is just building weaknesses into the team. The Jets were the #1 pass defense before they got Cro. How did adding him and his flaws improve the team given they were already about as good as you can get in that area? Wouldn't spending that 2nd round pick on a potential pass rusher in 2010 have been a better use of the resource?
