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Yes. If he is just combining rankings from other people, they appear to be from his mailman, his mother-in-law, and his bank teller.
While there are several differences with this list and the consensus that is forming in mock drafts now. Many of the usual suspects are represented here. Even though this list was done almost a year ago. So there is prolly someone worse than this guy.
The problem is that with the information they give you it's virtually impossible to do this. Mostly by design IMO. The last thing most of these guys want is accountability. Have an encyclopedic knowledge of the players in the draft, write or talk about them convincingly (without making hard predictions), then duck and run after the draft and move on to next year. It's the fantasy football equivalent of a Sunday morning political talk show. What does it even mean when a guy tells you someone is his '10th ranked RB?' In 2008 it could have meant he thinks he's pretty damn good. In 2009 it could have meant he thinks he's a bum.
the site tries at least in terms of can the "expert" at least get the top 100 players drafted right. In terms of long term was ______ a really good player or not, it does not have any system either.http://www.thehuddlereport.com/Free/top100scoring.shtml
Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
FWIW - I worked the draft last year and got to interview Thomas right after he ws picked - he said McD told him they wanted him not just because they thought he was an outstanding WR but that he had good character and that was important to the Broncos organization.Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.
Good to hear, during last offseason i remember hearing only good things about him as a person. Also read a gtech message board last year with a thread on him and students that had classes with him posted how he was just a regular student and didn't have any pretense of being better then anybody, and he always went to class.On another note this offseason the wr coach of the cowboys stated they are less concerned about Dez not attending meetings and more concerned about him keeping his weight down. That scares me longterm.Russ ranking thomas over dez is not a reason to doubt his credibility at all imo. At this stage would most rank dez higher? Yes, but a career is a lot longer then a players rookie season.Andrew Garda said:FWIW - I worked the draft last year and got to interview Thomas right after he ws picked - he said McD told him they wanted him not just because they thought he was an outstanding WR but that he had good character and that was important to the Broncos organization.moderated said:Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
I've been wanting to write something on this thread for days, but wasn't sure where to start. After some thought, here's my take. I think there are two separate issues in this thread that are easy to mix together: - Projecting the draft- Projecting talentI believe Lande ranked Crompton as one of his best quarterbacks and gave him a second-round rating. It doesn't mean that he projected him as a second round pick for a team. Crompton didn't see the field this year, but like other players he gave high marks just before they had unremarkable first or second (or third) years to their careers and then became big-time players (Brady and Bulger), it's too early to discuss this assessment of Crompton in a meaningful way. I believe the Sporting News, which Lande provides a lot of the talent assessment for, gives the round by the player profiles as an assessment of where they would pick the player based on their grade and not where they believe the player will go. 'Projection of round is strictly mock draft material. If you project the draft, you're trying to guess what other teams think. If you're projecting talent, you shouldn't care what other teams think at all. They are two entirely different processes. Many analysts try to do both and that's fine - but as a reader I suggest you try to separate the two. I suggest this because the more I get a chance to meet peers of mine that study film for hours every day or former scouts/NFL personnel people, the more validation there is to my assertion that the number of NFL teams that have player evaluation down to a tight, well-crafted process is few and far between. Some teams might be great at evaluating some positions on a consistent basis where others have a glaring hole. I've been told that many teams have scouts that fill out reports on players by paraphrasing/plagiarizing draft resources the average fan can get. This is why some teams have poor drafts more frequently than others. It's why some excellent players fall through the cracks every year. And it's why some good players languish on benches on bad teams and flourish on a new one or bad players get repeated opportunities and continue to fail. I'm not completely bagging on the NFL here. This is common with any business and the NFL is nothing more than federation of businesses with a union of skilled workers. Every business has strengths and weaknesses with how they run it. It's just like calling a company's customer service line. If you belong to USAA you're probably very impressed with their employees that answer the phone and help you with your accounts or concerns. But if you belong to another bank you probably want to take a Valium before dialing. Personally, I'd rather read an assessment of player talent and not where they go in a draft because of all of this variation with teams and how they value players or their fit with a particular system. But that's just me. I'm biased because I've met Russ, I like Russ and I've listened to him talk about players enough to believe he puts in the work. I felt that way before I ever met or spoke with him. But none of the things I mentioned earlier are anything I learned or ever talked about with someone like Lande. Ranking players is completely a customer-driven concept in my opinion. People want a bottom-line, executive-summary, KISS-method answer for everything. It's fair to want it that way, but difficult to do because you're trying to incorporate not just a player's talent, but project his match with offensive systems that he might not have performed in as well maturity level, projected ability to learn, stay healthy, etc. It's a worthwhile challenge to get clarity on how you view them at a moment in time. I never want to get into projecting the draft. I just want to score players, learn about what they can and (currently) can't do. Ranking is a fun exercise, but good luck trying to find a way for everyone to be on the same page when most of the people I've seen rate any player don't even provide a full explanation of the process they use to score. It might be deliberate for some people who do this work, but I think it's just not something most people ask for. There might be 50 guys on this board that want to see it, but they probably don't represent a majority of their customers - just a guess. Plus NFL teams don'tt even reveal its scoring system other than ranges, but not how they actually determine these scores when evaluating players. I'd love to see that.
Groan...Not anymore. He's reportedly torn or ruptured his achilles tendon.moderated said:Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
Oof!moderated said:Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
Even better.Groan...Not anymore. He's reportedly torn or ruptured his achilles tendon.Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
Next to a spinal chord injury, that might be the worst possible injury for an NFL player. I wouldn't touch him.Even better.Groan...Not anymore. He's reportedly torn or ruptured his achilles tendon.Agree, thomas is FAR less of a character risk and works hard with a good head on his shoulders.This offseason is the time to go after him in dynasties.The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
What would you take for him if he was on your roster?
Haven't given it much thought, but I think somebody posted in the Thomas thread that something like 1/3 of players who rupture their achilles never play again.
i've followed him closely over the past few years. He is a complete hack.to the above post saying at least he does his own work, while when doing your own work leads to horrible conclusions you should just give up and find another hobby.His report on Baldwin while not even being there with no mention of that is completely irresponsible. there is likely a reason this hack isn't a real scout anymore, he was a failure then and he's a failure now.he's an embarrassment to the scouting community.
While we can debate the merits of reviewing a pro day without being there, as Lande states, on tape - which is to say in many games he's played as opposed to a day where he played amongst friends, at home with no crowd and no DBacks - he has a tendency to make catches with his body.Pro Days can help but the tape doesn't lie.
I agree with your post Matt, and I buy the SN draft mag every year to read Lande's outside the box thinking. He's hit on people like Anquan Boldin, but also misses a fair amount, like Crompton. He not only had him as a 2nd round "grade" like you said but the #2 QB overall (Tebow was #6 and McCoy #8) and the 29th best overall player in the draft.
While I believe Russ made a mistake with not being clear about how he came to his conclusion about Baldwin's Pro Day and Baldwin busted him on it, it's a common problem with today's web/radio people. I think panning Lande for the Crompton pick after year one is kind of like panning anyone who liked the futures of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and about 3/4 of the players in the league that don't "show something" in the first year or two.
I wish all NFL Draft analysts would focus more on player evaluation and less on where and what round players get drafted. After the last how many months of mock drafts, I am really sick of them right about now. The "Path to the Draft" guys on NFL Network are killing me with all these mock drafts.
I can't comment on his talent evaluation abilities, but his draft projection is absolutely horrible.I mean you look at his current mock (http://www.gmjrnfldraft.com/mock_draft.php) and he has Von Miller falling out of the top 10 and J J Watt falling to 31!
The main advantage to paying attention to predraft stuff for years is you learn who knows what they are doing and who doesn't.lande is the worst high profile draft nit out there at both talent evaluation and draft projection. I almost think he tries to be bad as it gets him attention as no one who has paid any attention to college football could be as bad as him.
Apparently King has come down with an acute case of Landeitis too, with J J Watt falling to 27http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/04/20/2011-nfl-mock-draft/index.html
I agree completely. I get no value whatsoever from a mock draft, but player evaluation and ranking is gold. The worst thing about this time every year are the analysts who adjust their rankings to match their mocks. They see Amukamara going to Detroit in every mock and move him up/down to match that in their rankings. It's awful.'The Lung said:I wish all NFL Draft analysts would focus more on player evaluation and less on where and what round players get drafted. After the last how many months of mock drafts, I am really sick of them right about now. The "Path to the Draft" guys on NFL Network are killing me with all these mock drafts.
I like that too, but why is when u turn it in the key? If its more accurate day of, why not do it then?
I've learned that the unexpected will happen. No one could have seen Tyson AluAlu go ahead of Jimmy Clausen last year, much less go almost a full round ahead of him.
What I am starting to hate about draft and mock draft season is that people get so wrapped up in thinking and specualting about what will happen that they forget is that the NFL draft is REAL thing and that the "there no way that ____ happens" happens all the time and ususally by pick 10 every mock draft in the country is already very wrong.
I was trying to explain to someone yesterday that since it's INCREDIBLY tough to get mock picks right, the real value in mocks IMO is the analysis of team needs and who might fit in a spot. It's one of the reasons I like Scott Wright's mocks a lot. There is plenty of detail and several options beyond his pick - it's a great insight and look at the first round.People get caught up in accuracy of mocks but to me, it's not vital to get every pick right so much as make salient points as to WHY a pick fits.
Why go the final step of doing a mock, then? Wouldn't a detailed listing of team needs plus analysis of draftable players' values give you everything you need without forcing it into a mock draft format?
Mostly because people love mocks. Most people LOVE them. Of course, it's getting old since now EVERYONE does them - they force every person on NFLN to do one, sometimes one a week. Every site on the planet has at least one. So you get mock burnout.But people love to guess and love to read/listen to analysis in mock format. The chess game of TRYING to figure out what a team will do is also a challenge. But to me, the real meat of a mock comes in the analysis of each pick.
The little bit Thomas was actually on the field this year, I saw flashes of absolute freak in him. I wouldn't take the bet if somebody was laying money that he'll have a better career than Dez. Not saying Dez doesn't look every bit the part himself.
