Anyone know what Mike Detillier had to say about our first pick? (3 Viewers)

[gregg2g]

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...

The lb from Ohio state (a top college program despite what some LSU fans think) led his team in Tackles. How is that not being productive?

 

[new city champ]

Gents, my point was not that the club doesn’t evaluate among prospects that meet a set physical profile. It’s that they seem to discount or disallow good players that don’t meet that profile. What was Billy Bean if not a freak athlete? Tall, fast, the arm, the look, a guy to dream on. Great players come in different packages. I think we’ve all seen that for ourselves...

 

[NeverGiveUP2]

Well we all know Mike knows so much more than Ireland. So there you go. And Bobby was drunk

 

[NeverGiveUP2]

Based on everything I've read and heard so far about Turner, Detillier had him undervalued. He was shooting up teams' draft boards in the last two weeks and was starting to be talked about as a late first round pick. He is actually a classic Jeff Ireland pick in that his relative athletic score (RAS) is 9.74, which puts him at the highest end for size and athleticism in this year's draft for DE's. As long as Ireland has been with the Saints, the FO has never drafted a first round pick with a RAS under 9.

Thursday morning was the first time I heard of him. SX radio NFL channel said don’t be surprised if this guy goes in round 1. Said there were 3or 4 teams very interested in him early. Guess those guys didn’t get their copy of Mike’s book in time

 

[AmericanHeroJameis]

I value his opinion. I figure he will let us know, but just wanted to know if anyone had heard anything.

mike doesnt like jameis, he wanted a qb drafted earlier.

 

[HouseCall]

"Man we had an old saying growing up on the bayou, 'You can't catch a gator with rice in your ears', And I guarantee you Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis are learning that the hard way right now."

I’ve been laughing at this for 3 hours now.

 

[MLU]

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...

We're talking about rookies here, which have no body of work against top level of competition to show for it unlike the process you're talking about which 100% involves taking known abilities from professional players and leveraging their talents after every other team has cast them aside, so your analogy is way off.

When one projects players I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure they fit a minimum physical standard. Think back to Ditka drafting players like Danny Wuerfel or Troy Davis. These guys had a ton of college production, but they had physical limitations that prevented them from that same level of success in the NFL. Having a certain minimum standard for each position decreases the odds of making that same mistake. There are no guarantees, but there are ways to lower the chance of error. That's what the team does here by drafting DEs for a 4 man alignment that weigh 220lbs or press-man CBs that are 5-9. Those DEs that weigh 220lbs or CBs that stand 5-9 and do have success are outliers and teams are lucky to find them. The biggest difference between the players that were drafted this year and players like Stanley Jean-Baptiste and Stephone Anthony is high football IQ and leadership qualities.

You can't build a team by trying to fill the roster with outliers because most of them are not going to be successful. This is what Ditka and Haslett did with the Saints, so you 'd think that a Saints fan would recognize what Loomis and Ireland have done, specially since the NFL community has looked to emulate the Saints' success. No team is spot on with every pick, every year but the Saints are easily in the top 5 of teams drafting players since Ireland has arrived and really enforced the current standard of selecting players. Once you realize this, it becomes clear just what an absolute crapshoot the NFL draft really is in terms of player projections. You also can't equate where mock drafts and fan speculation with a player's value, either. While mock drafts are fun, they are in no way, shape or form an accurate representation of a player's future production. This is why you see player drafts re-done 3 years later look wildly different than when they occurred. Mock drafts have a habit of warping our expectations as fans.

 

[MLU]

mike doesnt like jameis, he wanted a qb drafted earlier.

WHich to me is funny because Mike loves to say that Stafford is going to be successful with a change of scenery, but not Jameis despite both QBs having ridiculously similar performances in their first five seasons. I love Mike, but I'm going to trust Sean on this one.

 

[sfidc3]

We're talking about rookies here, which have no body of work against top level of competition to show for it unlike the process you're talking about which 100% involves taking known abilities from professional players and leveraging their talents after every other team has cast them aside, so your analogy is way off.

When one projects players I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure they fit a minimum physical standard. Think back to Ditka drafting players like Danny Wuerfel or Troy Davis. These guys had a ton of college production, but they had physical limitations that prevented them from that same level of success in the NFL. Having a certain minimum standard for each position decreases the odds of making that same mistake. There are no guarantees, but there are ways to lower the chance of error. That's what the team does here by drafting DEs for a 4 man alignment that weigh 220lbs or press-man CBs that are 5-9. Those DEs that weigh 220lbs or CBs that stand 5-9 and do have success are outliers and teams are lucky to find them. The biggest difference between the players that were drafted this year and players like Stanley Jean-Baptiste and Stephone Anthony is high football IQ and leadership qualities.

You can't build a team by trying to fill the roster with outliers because most of them are not going to be successful. This is what Ditka and Haslett did with the Saints, so you 'd think that a Saints fan would recognize what Loomis and Ireland have done, specially since the NFL community has looked to emulate the Saints' success. No team is spot on with every pick, every year but the Saints are easily in the top 5 of teams drafting players since Ireland has arrived and really enforced the current standard of selecting players. Once you realize this, it becomes clear just what an absolute crapshoot the NFL draft really is in terms of player projections. You also can't equate where mock drafts and fan speculation with a player's value, either. While mock drafts are fun, they are in no way, shape or form an accurate representation of a player's future production. This is why you see player drafts re-done 3 years later look wildly different than when they occurred. Mock drafts have a habit of warping our expectations as fans.

Just wanted to say this is a great post and it really makes good sense. The Saints have been very good in recent years making the draft "less of a crapshoot"....

 

[woohoosaint]

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

Can you DM that PDF to me as well?
Would love to read it.

 

[St. Widge]

We're talking about rookies here, which have no body of work against top level of competition to show for it unlike the process you're talking about which 100% involves taking known abilities from professional players and leveraging their talents after every other team has cast them aside, so your analogy is way off.

When one projects players I don't think it's unreasonable to ensure they fit a minimum physical standard. Think back to Ditka drafting players like Danny Wuerfel or Troy Davis. These guys had a ton of college production, but they had physical limitations that prevented them from that same level of success in the NFL. Having a certain minimum standard for each position decreases the odds of making that same mistake. There are no guarantees, but there are ways to lower the chance of error. That's what the team does here by drafting DEs for a 4 man alignment that weigh 220lbs or press-man CBs that are 5-9. Those DEs that weigh 220lbs or CBs that stand 5-9 and do have success are outliers and teams are lucky to find them. The biggest difference between the players that were drafted this year and players like Stanley Jean-Baptiste and Stephone Anthony is high football IQ and leadership qualities.

You can't build a team by trying to fill the roster with outliers because most of them are not going to be successful. This is what Ditka and Haslett did with the Saints, so you 'd think that a Saints fan would recognize what Loomis and Ireland have done, specially since the NFL community has looked to emulate the Saints' success. No team is spot on with every pick, every year but the Saints are easily in the top 5 of teams drafting players since Ireland has arrived and really enforced the current standard of selecting players. Once you realize this, it becomes clear just what an absolute crapshoot the NFL draft really is in terms of player projections. You also can't equate where mock drafts and fan speculation with a player's value, either. While mock drafts are fun, they are in no way, shape or form an accurate representation of a player's future production. This is why you see player drafts re-done 3 years later look wildly different than when they occurred. Mock drafts have a habit of warping our expectations as fans.

I totally agree that Money Ball doesn't work in the NFL draft. First because you don't have stats against the same competition, but also because I don't think it works in football in general. Baseball comes down to objective stats with a certain amount of randomness based on the sequence of events like hits, strike outs, and walks. But, in the end, the law of averages plays out in baseball so good advanced metric stats really work if the sample size is large enough. Football just can't totally be reduced to objective stats the way baseball can.

Anway, I like the way the Saints draft and the reliance on RAS with the realization that their are exceptions makes sense in reducing the risks. The one criticism I have is that I would like them to trade up less often and do a better job of gathering more draft picks. I realize that there have not been a lot of open roster spots on the team the last few years, but because the draft is such a crap shoot, I like the idea of having more lottery tickets. But, that's a niggle. They have done a great job of building a deep and winning team over a long period of time.

 

[Saintscuffy]

And Mike may not have been far off. Spagnola had talent to work with, IMHO, but they didn’t fit his system. And Spags stubbornly didn’t adjust to his players’ strengths.

I remember that draft having more wtf? Players than any others..esp. the Olinemen.

 

[SoggyBottomBoy]

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...

I saw this way more with Haslett. Big physical specimen and we’ll coach them up. Has’ staff couldn’t coach up. Payton’s system appears to put a great deal of value on intelligence, scheme fit along with athletic measurables.

 

[Stalwart385]

Thanks for the link. Definitely helps put my mind at ease a little. I think that everyone gets a little uneasy when they see that NOBODY has the same evaluation as the Saints staff, but I guess that's not the case. Thanks again

Brett Kollmann was also all over the Saints picks with his grades.

 

[60minutes]

Let me add some clarity and insight to this discussion. The Saints had roughly 16 players graded out as first rounders. Turner was one of the 16. When they went to pick at 28, he was the highest graded player on their board by a wide margin.

Regardless of what another team could do or will do—and the Saints are not privy to other teams’ draft boards—you are not taking the chance of expecting him to fall to 60. You are also not passing on a player you grade out as one of the few first rounders to take a player at another position while, again, hoping to get the guy who carries a high value on your board later.

I think the assumption that we could have gotten him later is predicated on thinking of him as a lower value than where the Saints had him on their board. I think it is also driven by the place where internet draftniks have a prospect ranked versus where teams have a prospect.

I have sat in multiple draft rooms and seem different teams’ boards. It is night and day from what you get from the so-called draft experts. Further, the idea of a “late riser” is false and I’ve said this in the past. The late riser is only on internet draft boards as the scouting community begins to share information.

Lastly, I have graded players in the past that I rank highly and others that I rank lowly. And I have had arguments with people based on highly or lowly I value a player because they are relying on what some draftnik has said. Teams and their scouts are not perfect but it is a bunch of malarkey to say where a guy should have gone or not gone simply because Walter Football or someone had it that way. I can tell you they are not doing the scouting—at least I have not seen them do it before and I know the business very well. It is not just attending the games. It is attending practices and watching film while on campus and meeting with coaches and staff. These draftniks do not do this and cannot do this. So, they know just about as much as any of you.