There isn’t a team in the world who makes decisions based off of the next regime. But I do agree on drafting for upside especially when you are basically starting from scratch on defense. Swing for the fences, even if Reese isn’t a home run he will most likely be a triple. edit: and if whoever our coach/DC is in 2027 has Reese and decides to implement a defense that doesn’t suit him, he’s probably a terrible head coach and we shouldn’t have hired him.
Yes, but the main position he plays doesn’t exist save for situational passing downs. For the #2 overall pick I’d want a guy who’s on the field on every down. We don’t run a 3-4, so even hypothetically if we were facing an offense that was a base 2WR set for most of the game, you’d have to put Reese at DE where’s he’d be a massive liability against the run. While it’s not apples to apples, I’m reminded of Jabrill Peppers, who was a tweener draft pick between S and LB. Superb athlete and great football player through and through, but as a tweener he never really found a home for a position and bounced around the league alot. That’s the trajectory I see with Reese.
I don't think he's that much of a liability against the run as a lot of people are pushing, he's definitely better than WMd. Just googling his scouting profiles against the run and none are bad, most are along these lines "With elite strength at the point of attack, he can be a very effective run defender"
When did I miss Reese becoming a liability against the run AT ALL? And we gotta stop pretending we run a 4-3. We just have to. I highly doubt the front office and coaching staff are thinking that way and that's not an opinion, that's based off what the guy running the defense has said out loud, publicly.
In nickel or dime with 4 DL rushing I have my doubts putting him at DE. So it’s not just “base defence”. If we run cover 1 and we blitz then maybe it could work having him as the 5 rusher off the wide edge.
I agree with this, he’s actually good against the run. The kid is a sideline to sideline tackler. His speed gives him good angles on his tackles. He can cover TE with his athleticism and length as well. This is why I see him as a really good weak side linebacker. He’s Shaq Thompson 2.0 My main concern is if we draft him at 2 overall and he plays the will LB role that we could have just filled in free agency. Pass rushers off the edge is where we need the juice
I am no draft expert…I really only watch the college playoffs so not a huge college scout type at all. However, sometimes when I watch I get a strong gut feel on some guys. For ME, watching players in the playoffs is huge…I HIGHLY value guys who ball out in big games and big moments. That’s the reason I HATED the Vernon Gholston pick way back when…he disappeared in the championship game and I wanted no part of him. But that’s old news. For this draft, it sure feels like it’s a choice between Bain, Reese, and Bailey? I don’t know enough about each guy to choose, but I tend to lean on some philosophical points…to me, give me the guy who PRODUCED in big games against the best competition. Let’s not over analyze fucking arm length or broad jump or whatever else the combine is so good at tracking. Did the guy ball out or not? When you are in our position, where we need to upgrade the talent significantly and at almost every position, I’d probably tend to value high floor over superstar potential at this time. Maybe with a better roster or proven coaching who you feel can really develop players and put them in the best spot to succeed (think Belichick here instead of AG, who pretty much watched almost EVERY SINGLE player get worse on his watch), then you can try and prioritize potential, or maximizing a high ceiling. But I don’t know, it just feels like we need to hit on these first four picks, so I’d tend to go for more of a sure thing…if that’s Bain, great. He plays a premium position and he’s delivered throughout. I’m good with not overthinking this pick. And I’d want to go best receiver at 14. Yes I know our defense sucks, but many of these guys played SO much better for Saleh and Ulbrich that I blame Wilks and AG for a lot of the regression, and damn it, we fucking NEED a receiver just as badly as we do a defense, because we STILL only have 1 legit starting WR…I would NOT count on Mitchell learning how to catch, or Metchie learning how to show up every game, until I see it on the field week in week out…until they do that, I’m not counting on either guy being anything more than a WR4 or spot if pressed WR3.
In Detroit Glenn ran a cover-1 and mixed up his looks up front. I really think the terms 4-3 and 3-4 need to die in general. I was just reading this the other day, and Sabo is one of the few guys I do put stock into when it comes to breaking down X's and O's. He actually points out how Reese could be a monster in Glenn's defense. https://jetsxfactor.com/2026/02/02/new-york-jets-2026-defense-aaron-glenn-4-3-or-3-4-coach/ He breaks it down using screenshots from Lions games. You can see how he mixes up looks and where a guy like Reese could thrive.
That bolded part is it for me. Sooooooooooo ridiculously fucking SICK of some kid who had shit for numbers yet goes to the combine and blows out the workout and all of a sudden is the next best thing. It's also the reason I HATE drafting kids who have played 15 fucking games etc. Did they play? Did they START 2 or more years and were they productive!?! I hear this arm length bullshit and it just infuriates me!! TRUST me, there is Z-E-R-O fucking difference, in general, about a guy who has 1/4" shorter arms than the next guy! I mean holy fuck. If a guy's wingspan is 5 or 10 INCHES different now we can talk arm length. If that number falls to less than 2" then get out of my face with that bullshit. Yeah, maybe on 1 out of 10,000 plays that 2" might matter but 99.9% of the rest of the plays who gives a shit. Seriously, if talking heads need to whittle their talking points down to hashing about less than 2" difference in a guy's wingspan then maybe they need to find a different topic. So, unrelentingly STUPID!!
Exactly…I couldn’t give two shits about it. I can’t remember the guys name, I think it was Melvin Ingram, but there was a DL a few (and by a few, maybe 5-10?) years ago who measured out with short arms and teams kind of dinged him for it…the guy was drafted by the Chargers and had a nice career… So yah I get the measureables, but with a guy like Bain, who has just flat out done it at a high level, just don’t overthink it and take the guy who plays a premium position. Is he going to be Myles Garrett? Probably not. But we need so much help all over, that we need some high floor guys…if he can be a 10+ sack guy for us, then well worth the pick at a position of need
I was elated that Ingram dropped to us, only to watch Tanny and Rex fuck it up taking Coples instead.
I hate doing this because the last thing I want to do is defend Gholston as an NFL player. That said, Gholston had a monster season in 2007 and a very good one in 2006. He didn’t disappear in that Championship game against LSU, he actually did have a sack in the game. If you ever have a chance to watch a re-run of that game, you’ll notice LSU took a “pick your poison” approach and built their entire gameplan around shutting down Gholston, which left the other high profile defender in the undersized an overrated James Laurinitis completely unblocked almost the entire game. Laurinitis had a boatload of tackles but they were almost all after giving up 5 + yards and he was being manhandled all game. The narrative after the game was that Laurinitis played well since he had so many tackles and that Gholston “disappeared” as you stated. It just wasn’t true, it was a smart and calculated move by LSU to take Gholston out of the equation. Gholston spent too much time on how his body looked vs how his body functioned as an athlete. He was very stiff and only got worse as time went by. He reminds me of David Boston, eho was a fantastic receiver that also treated his body like a bodybuilder and not an athlete. He too declined quickly and became stiff and injury prone. Had Gholston had the proper training and desire to be an athlete over a bodybuilder he could have been a great player in the NFL.
Detroit mostly ran a 4 man front though… Who would Reese be in that scheme? Hutchison has 40 pounds on him… also Glenn’s D was absolute trash and Detroit offence under Ben Johnson was what gave them success. Running cover 1 you need sticky corners and your pass rushers need to get home or you’re going to allow 35+ points a game. BTW we have neither…
Reese is a really good player but he’s a luxury pick. It’s crazy to take a WLB and hoping he can somehow transition into Micah Parsons under a terrible coach. It’s actually crazy to even understand. A team that already has an established defensive line and good corners. Would love a player like Reese
No worries, but the fact that you can’t tell me which player he would mimic in Detroit when Glenn was there tells me you have no idea about how to scheme Football. Sorry if that’s harsh but I’m a head coach of a high school team and my eyes tell me that Reese is an outside linebacker or a Will linebacker. He is not a defensive end no matter which way you wanna discuss that
You're missing the point I've tried to make three times. Glenn has said publicly, out loud, more than once I believe that he caters his defense to the talent he has. So yes, you'd love to be able to point at someone in Detroit and say "that's who Reese is going to be" butt he fact is you don't HAVE to. Unless Glenn is lying, he's doing to use what he has to generate the most pressure while the corners are playing man.
He can say that all he wants but there’s no evidence showing that he actually can do that, and drafting a guy dependent on him doing so with the #2 overall pick is insane.
