Anyone know what Mike Detillier had to say about our first pick? (1 Viewer)

I use collegefootballmetrics.com. I'll DM you the PDF if you'd like to take a read. Have been using them for 4-5 years and they're always on top of the guys that media have no clue about.

They've been high on all of the Saints drafts since 2017 and we consistetnly take players from their list.

I hadn't even purchased this year (been doing other things besides Saints) but once I saw the pick, checked the site and saw they had a guide up I went and bought. Solely to get their take on him. I was happy after I read
I wouldn't mind seeing that, too. Who do they like at cb?
 
That's kind of short sighted by Mike. Not factoring in that the guy was miscast as a DT for two years is exactly why his production wasn't as good as it could have been.

Drop 20lbs off your frame and imagine how much more explosive you'll be.
Not to mention his first year at a new position he averaged 1 sack and 2 tackles for a loss a game
 
No one hits on every single pick, or even every single first rounder. But a first round linemen should generally be pretty low risk picks, not boom or bust, and it seems like we reached on a guy with a lot of question marks at a position where we need more consistency.

A low 1st round pick is no guarantee at all, for any position. The Saints have done pretty well there with Ireland at the helm. Ram, McCoy (actually an early 2nd), Ruiz...I think the core of our future offensive line...I think folks are going to be shocked how good Ruiz is at his proper position and McCoy will be fine at G....I also like this year's pick the more I learn about him....

Mike used to be on a local radio show in Lafayette most Saturdays. The year that the Saints had the worst defense in history, his comment just before the season started was that was the most athletic and deep defense that the Saints have had since the Dome Patrol. My friends and I remind each other about that often.

Yep, not a big fan, his misses are often and I think he is more of a down home type personality then a real draft analyst nerd type...I'm sure he is a nice guy, I just don't take him too seriously....
 
I didn't hear his take... But I am going to go out on a limb and say his response was something along the lines of : "Man! Dats one big dude rite dere!"
I could actually hear Mike's voice when the pick was announced.

"Folks, the Greeks figured this out a long time ago. If you have to choose between a really athletic big man and a really athletic little man, you go with the big man every time. God only made so many big guys with that kind of athleticism on this earth."
 
Turner also had a strong Senior Bowl. The Saints FO seems to put a lot of stock in how a player does in Senior Bowl practices against other elite level competition. There is also a lot talk about how he would’ve shot up draft boards had there been a combine. He has terrific measurables and eye popping athleticism. But watching video of him he was never really stood out as the best player on the field and wasn’t really a game changer.
 
saints have taken 2 guys who detillier had mocked in the 4th round
 
The lack of first round grades this year is because of the situation with covid so players got less time to refine their skills. It has nothing to do with the actual talent level of the class. Payton might be a third round pick but he has a high upside. You cant teach elite wingspan. He could very well be our defensive MVP 3 years from now. Davenport might not be on the team by then and Jordan probably doesnt have 3+ years of elite play left in him. Armstead was a third round pick with high upside too. That one worked out pretty well.
 
Just want to highlight, for those who maybe have never thought about this, that any media scout/analyst draft board, or all of them combined, lacks context. They rate players (sometimes well, sometimes not well, and most often in a derivative way and peppered with info they get from team sources) without any reference to a team's way of playing, skills/ experience criteria, or physical parameters.

Therefore, a single media draft board, or a composite, without reference to a specific team, is skewed. And using that to assess 'value' is meaningless, or at best fraught with inaccuracy. A left tackle best suited to a direct, power type run game has less value to a team who plays a stretch/zone type scheme. A great zone cover corner has less value to a team who primarily likes to play man. A smaller, bendy rush specialist at DE has less value to teams who are looking for bigger, longer, more powerful DE's who have flexibility to play inside outside, 2-3-4 point, and left and right (like the Saints).

So the notion that a player/pick presents a good or bad value relative to a media evaluators as the primary way to (instantaneously) assess a draft is a bit of a fool's errand.

What I see from the 3 Saints picks so far is a very consistent drafting of players who fit the physical parameters the team likes, whose skills fit what the team wants to do and have some critical traits like high character and football IQ. This is not random throw a dart at the dartboard drafting, but clearly the culmination of a well structured evaluation process which is in harmony with the desired requirements of the team.

This reach, value, and steal nonsense is just that.
 
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It seems like the Saints are the anti-“Moneyball” team. It doesn’t matter what you do in the games so much as how you measure out at the combine. They like to dream on the physical traits and project future performance based on those traits. That can get you in trouble and can signal an organization has gotten arrogant about its ability to mold any player with the right physical make up into a star. It gets you a Stanley Jean Baptiste in the second round, a Stephon Anthony in the first. It leads you to pass on really good football players because don’t “fit the mold” of what you think a player should look like at the position. That corner is too short. That linebacker is too light. That guys arms aren’t long enough...
 
It seems like the Saints are the anti-“Moneyball” team. It doesn’t matter what you do in the games so much as how you measure out at the combine. They like to dream on the physical traits and project future performance based on those traits. That can get you in trouble and can signal an organization has gotten arrogant about its ability to mold any player with the right physical make up into a star. It gets you a Stanley Jean Baptiste in the second round, a Stephon Anthony in the first. It leads you to pass on really good football players because don’t “fit the mold” of what you think a player should look like at the position. That corner is too short. That linebacker is too light. That guys arms aren’t long enough...
Totally agreed but with a proviso that this would only be true if that were the only criteria being used. It quite clearly isn't. A baseline of physical traits of what the team believes a prospect needs to fit into their way of playing is a pre-requisite, which then gets combined with a number of other elements of evaluation.

And as Sean said himself, they have prototypes and that's what they like to draft, but there are exceptions to this and where warranted (or necessitated), they allow exceptions to these pre-requisites.

Also, I could very easily use your moneyball reference to support the way Saints go about it, i.e. don't focus on the big name, 'everyone loves him' players that should be good, but focus on players that fit what you need and can produce what you want.
 
Well the central point of Moneyball was that scouts traditionally under valued actual skills and grossly over valued physical make up. That led to Billy Bean’s famous question: “If this guy is such a great hitter how come he doesn’t hit good?”

There‘s no one magic bullet in player evaluation and no crystal ball for looking into the future. I think the Saints have a tendency to reach on guys who have the physical traits they value and shy away from better players they could draft because those guys don’t meet a set criteria on measurables.
 
Well the central point of Moneyball was that scouts traditionally under valued actual skills and grossly over valued physical make up. That led to Billy Bean’s famous question: “If this guy is such a great hitter how come he doesn’t hit good?”

There‘s no one magic bullet in player evaluation and no crystal ball for looking into the future. I think the Saints have a tendency to reach on guys who have the physical traits they value and shy away from better players they could draft because those guys don’t meet a set criteria on measurables.
Moneyball is about small market teams competing financially with big market teams and doing this through focussing on players who can competently do a job for the team, rather than focussing on players who look the part and are seen to be great.

So again, in my view, the Saints, by taking a very focussed and analytical approach grounded in what the team requires, focusses on players that have the specific skills/ talents/ experience they need, rather than the big names, or players who everyone thinks are great, but maybe aren't necessarily that useful for the Saints themselves.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the premise and principles of moneyball, but I'm suggesting that your interpretation depends on the notion that the Saints only pick players based on (over-valued) physical traits (sounds like the raiders of old with their over-riding fascination with speed), which I don't believe is true. Certainly these physical traits form only part of an evaluation, but it's clear production, skills, experience, scheme fit, character, intelligence and other traits are also very important as part of that evaluation.

So, to test your theory, explain why the Saints drafted Payton Turner, rather than Odafe Oweh (who went 3 picks later)? On a purely physical traits perspective, Oweh is superior (9.92 RAS - 4.37 40 at 260lbs!), went to a bigger school, is also a tall, rangy and long DE prospect? Why on earth would the Saints not draft him if he's an absolute physical freak?

Or why, if the Saints were so desperate for a OSU linebacker did they draft Werner who has (slightly) worse physical abilities than Browning? Will you admit that there's is more at play here than purely a seeking out of coveted physical traits without regard to anything else?
 
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