Spielman Personally Scouting College Quaterbacks
- According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Vikings' Rick Spielman was one of at least five NFL general managers scheduled to be at Heinz Field on Thursday night to watch No. 25 Pittsburgh against North Carolina and top quarterback prospects Sam Howell of the Tar Heels and Kenny Pickett of the Panthers.
- Ben GoesslingA #Vikings tidbit to file away: GM Rick Spielman was in Nevada over the weekend to evaluate QB Carson Strong, according to a source.Not sure if this is good or bad… ;)
@"Havoc1649" said: We had our QB of the future available last year in Mac Jones. I was furious then and even more upset now that he’s having the success I expected. Spielman is lousy at figuring QB’s, but then again most people are.Well said.
I have no idea how high Mac Jones ceiling is - and I'm not convinced this staff and system would get the same out of him. I doubt he'd be playing year 1 here with KC on the roster tbh.
So not ready to label him a franchise guy, just like I'm not ready to label any of those year 1 qb's anything yet.
I was cool with the Vikings doubling-down on what they had, drafting a good looking LT and free-agenting a re-vamp on D.
Only thing I really want is Fields to be mediocre in ChiTown or that team is going to be a real PITA (or more).
@"purplefaithful" said: I have no idea how high Mac Jones ceiling is - and I'm not convinced this staff and system would get the same out of him. I doubt he'd be playing year 1 here with KC on the roster tbh.So not ready to label him a franchise guy, just like I'm not ready to label any of those year 1 qb's anything yet.
I was cool with the Vikings doubling-down on what they had, drafting a good looking LT and free-agenting a re-vamp on D.
Only thing I really want is Fields to be mediocre in ChiTown or that team is going to be a real PITA (or more).
the mere fact that you want Fields to be mediocre tells the whole story. Spielman had a one in a lifetime opportunity to pick between Fields and Jones.
If we are worried Fields could be a PITA that means we know deep down he could be good so why did we not take a chance on him or Jones (who is currently playing well even though as you say you “cant project his ceiling”)?
All I know is both Fields and Jones currently pass the eye test and are playing well and we still do not have an answer at QB. It would have been nice to have one of these and let other teams be worried about our QB as you are now about Fields.
Spileman had that opportunity and whiffed.
He could have had Fields or Jones and probably Darrisaw (trading up) but he decided to do what he is comfortable with… trading down and amassing late round picks
@"mblack" said: I am really getting pissed more and more with Spielman. He had a chance to draft Mac Jones without giving up anything and he passed. I cant say enough how frustrating it is watching him excel in NE.
So, he should have drafted Jones, or even Fields in the first round and ignored (once again) the most pressing need at offensive line?
@"Riphawkins" said:@"mblack" said: I am really getting pissed more and more with Spielman. He had a chance to draft Mac Jones without giving up anything and he passed. I cant say enough how frustrating it is watching him excel in NE.
So, he should have drafted Jones, or even Fields in the first round and ignored (once again) the most pressing need at offensive line?
- Potential franchise QBs dont grow on trees. There were 3-4 this draft and we had a shot at one without moving up (Jones) which was the one I thought we should go after. We clearly thought highly of Fields but thought the ask was high or Spielman developed cold feet.
- Lets talk about the presssing need (left tackle). Once we moved down from our original position and gained extra picks, we could have drafted Jones (again preferred) and then packaged picks to get a tackle (maybe still get Darrisaw). I am not sure how many picks that would have required or if future picks wiuld have been needed.
- The current approach of amassing late round picks only to cut the said players does not help
We picked Mond...and that Heineken guy is starting in Washington....enough said.
Well, Darrisaw is passing the eye test. Jones is playing for the most dominant team of the last two decades, so he had a helluva system to walk into. Fields is looking decent, but he looked like a dumpster fire early and his team is even less consistent than we are.
The grousing over them reeks of the people that thought Chicago, Detroit, and Green Bay were going to be winning all the Superb Owls with Stafford, Rodgers, and Cutler. These same people believed in McFlabb.
Huh.
It takes a whole, poised team. Even with a herd of zebras protecting him his whole career, Erin has one ring that's old enough to be won with Favre (damn you, autocorrect) leftovers. Dog murderer Vick has zero, but Trent Dilfer has 1 and Eli Manning has 2.
"Heineken" won over the Brady bunch, today. Russell got blanked in Lamb-Blow.
It's all about the team, in any given game.
@"mblack" said:
- I am not sure how many picks that would have required or if future picks wiuld have been needed.
This right here is all that needs to be said.
Rick (apparently) knows this stuff, and weighs the options and decides if prices are too steep to get who you want.
Anyone can be an armchair GM, it’s actually pretty easy. There is no regard to salary cap or future cost.
However, the reality is that it’s Spielman’s actual job. I think he’s put plenty of talent on the team, they’ve underperformed because the head coach can’t get them to perform.
Have we given up on Mond already? If so, why? This is a redshirt year for him & rightfully so. RS may just be doing his due diligence on this year's draft eligible QBs. It would be nice if the local media asked about the status of Mond's development during one of the pressers.
@"Knucklehead" said: Have we given up on Mond already? If so, why?Yeah, I wonder this myself. Maybe Rick is just doing regular due diligence. Or they've seen enough of Mond to realize privately its never going to happen. Could be either.
Guys, Spielman does this every year. Don't read too much into it. That said, we'd be fools for assuming our 3rd round QB is the future.
@"Vikergirl" said:@"AGRforever" said:Are you confident that he can pick a qb? Also consider the rest of his drafts. He has had some hits but he has had his share of misses.@"Vikergirl" said: Sure he can look but he picked Ponder so his track record is not good. This is a concern. He needs people that are better equipped to make the choice that is if he is still here next year. So he’s terrible at scouting QBs because he picked Ponder? Whats the hit rate on QBs? It cant be north of 25% on first rounders can it?It's not about "picking" a qb. In most years the general consensus best QB ends up not being the best QB. What Spielman should be chastised for is not drafting enough QBs. You need to keep drafting until you have an elite QB. Most QBs won't be elite, but you need to get one, because the rewards are so massive.
@"medaille" said:@"Vikergirl" said:@"AGRforever" said:Are you confident that he can pick a qb? Also consider the rest of his drafts. He has had some hits but he has had his share of misses.@"Vikergirl" said: Sure he can look but he picked Ponder so his track record is not good. This is a concern. He needs people that are better equipped to make the choice that is if he is still here next year. So he’s terrible at scouting QBs because he picked Ponder? Whats the hit rate on QBs? It cant be north of 25% on first rounders can it?It's not about "picking" a qb. In most years the general consensus best QB ends up not being the best QB. What Spielman should be chastised for is not drafting enough QBs. You need to keep drafting until you have an elite QB. Most QBs won't be elite, but you need to get one, because the rewards are so massive.
drafting them is only half the battle, you have to be able to groom them into a starter, and then trust that they will get over that learning curve that most all new starters experience and become that next great one that every team hopes for. sometimes you have to take those bitter losses to get to the sweet wins. I dont see Zim ever to be the type of coach that would develop a young QB, Teddy was better than anything else he had, thats why he got in there, but its always going to be the safe bet with Zim IMO.
@"medaille" said:Like I said before, during, and after the draft....a QB doesn't just appear in a draft at the time you need to draft one. We apparently, didn't need a QB this past draft (locked in $$$ on Cousins) so we passed on moving up a few spots for Fields (which I advocated) and we passed on Jones altogether. I considered Cousins a sunk cost that should not have influenced us taking a QB - if we though one of them was a franchise player - obviously we didn't think either Fields or Jones were franchise QB's.@"Vikergirl" said:@"AGRforever" said:Are you confident that he can pick a qb? Also consider the rest of his drafts. He has had some hits but he has had his share of misses.@"Vikergirl" said: Sure he can look but he picked Ponder so his track record is not good. This is a concern. He needs people that are better equipped to make the choice that is if he is still here next year. So he’s terrible at scouting QBs because he picked Ponder? Whats the hit rate on QBs? It cant be north of 25% on first rounders can it?It's not about "picking" a qb. In most years the general consensus best QB ends up not being the best QB. What Spielman should be chastised for is not drafting enough QBs. You need to keep drafting until you have an elite QB. Most QBs won't be elite, but you need to get one, because the rewards are so massive
Now this next upcoming draft doesn't look very deep at QB but we might need one? So what happens the majority of the time a QB needy team will over value one of the QB's in a shallow pool out of need - ala Ponder. We all know the odds of hitting but we all also know the odds of hitting when you don't swing, right?NFL Draft record for QBs taken in Round 1 Six. In 1983, a record six quarterbacks were taken in the first round. That group included three quarterbacks that ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in John Elway (No. 1), Jim Kelly (No. 14) and Dan Marino (No. 27).
Other first-round quarterbacks that year included Todd Blackledge (No. 7), Tony Eason (No. 15) and Ken O’Brien (No. 24).
If there was ever a "Year of the Quarterback," this was it.
How many times did five QBs go in first round? Three. The 1999 NFL Draft featured five first-round quarterbacks. That group included Tim Couch (No. 1), Donovan McNabb (No. 2), Akili Smith (No. 3), Daunte Culpepper (No. 11) and Cade McNown (No. 12). McNabb was the only quarterback among those five who started in a Super Bowl.
The 2018 NFL Draft also featured five first-round quarterbacks. That group included Baker Mayfield (No. 1), Sam Darnold (No. 3), Josh Allen (No. 7), Josh Rosen (No. 10) and Lamar Jackson (No. 32). Allen led the Bills to the AFC championship game last season, and Mayfield and Jackson reached the AFC divisional round.
The 2021 NFL Draft - Lawrence, Wilson, Lance, Fields, Jones
What does this say about QB Kellen Mond?
Rick has some weird thing about drafting players just because he knows another team right behind him is interested.
@"Knucklehead" said: Have we given up on Mond already? If so, why? This is a redshirt year for him & rightfully so. RS may just be doing his due diligence on this year's draft eligible QBs. It would be nice if the local media asked about the status of Mond's development during one of the pressers.
There's people on here all the time that say we should draft a QB high until it pans out. Scouting QB's and the rest of the entire teams that are playing each othere isn't a bad thing for people in charge of scouting to be doing.
@"AGRforever" said:@"Knucklehead" said: Have we given up on Mond already? If so, why? This is a redshirt year for him & rightfully so. RS may just be doing his due diligence on this year's draft eligible QBs. It would be nice if the local media asked about the status of Mond's development during one of the pressers.There's people on here all the time that say we should draft a QB high until it pans out. Scouting QB's and the rest of the entire teams that are playing each othere isn't a bad thing for people in charge of scouting to be doing.
Rick is doing what every GM does or should do. Most important position in football requires all hands on deck every year whether you "need" a QB or not. You rank every player and you can judge your accuracy of those rankings even if you didn't have a pick the whole draft to gauge your evaluation process into the future. I do not ever propose just "taking a QB high until it pans out" and I haven't seen any other poster indicate that either. I do propose that you work the QB evaluation process with everything you got every draft and evaluate your accuracy. For example, we can obviously all assume that we/Spelly did not evaluate Mac Jones at a Top 14 player even when you add +++ for the QB position. We can assume that Spelly did not evaluate Fields as a player to move up for a few slots and give up good draft collateral.But they know internally where they had every player slotted in every draft since Spelly was named GM. Maybe they had Trevor Lawrence as the 4th best QB, maybe they had Mahomes as a 5th rounder etc... we will never know, but they do!
It is easy for me to sit here and be bold in my thinking process but every draft also entails situation analysis for the team and the GM. Spelly sunk all that cost into Cousins and I think his situational analysis said it was more worth it to surround Cousins with more pieces and not risk that 14th pick on a QB unless one fell into our laps at 14 - That they had already evaluated as a top 14 pick. I'm not convinced that Spelly would have taken Fields at 14 if he were available. I think the little dabble in moving up was for Slater not a QB. It wasn't even a viable offer anyway.
Three things I think we can all agree on from our first pick:
We did not value Mac Jones or Darrisaw as a top 14 pick and we did not value Fields worthy of getting to 10/11 pick and giving up capital.
My situational analysis before the draft was pretty convinced that Spelly was going to lean to adding that support for his previous decision with Cousins and I was really pushing hard on here for him not to depending on the situation when it presented itself. I was hoping he would look at his Cousins decision (signing and the $$$) as a sunk cost that should not have a bearing on thinking the QB position is not worth the 14 pick or a move up. I thought/think draft was different for us - this team at this time. The combination of 1st round QB potential was one the highest in history and we had a relatively high pick for our historical standards with enough to get us into the 9/10/11 range....not top 5. So again this draft provided us a bigger pool of QB's and a high pick then usual - the situation.
I am not going to be revisionists in what I would have done and advocated for before, during, and after the draft:
I would have moved up for Fields into that 9/10/11 range but maybe we did try ( I don't think so) and the other team was asking for too much.
I would also have passed on Jones and the guard AVT from usc that the jets took which we did do of course. ( a decent amount of Longshippers wanted AVT)
I would 80% prob taken Darrisaw at 14 unless a trade down was too good which appeared to have happened. But I'm not sure I would have taken the risk that Spelly did because I really wanted Darrisaw.
Self evaluation without hindsight:
Fields looks like I expected at this point - the potential is there - and he is on the right track but not a lock franchise QB or anything. If I did move up for him (gave up picks) he would be on the bench so far this season (as would Mac Jones or any QB) and we would not have Darrisaw and a couple other high picks.
Mac Jones has been the best of the rookie QB's but under any of my scenarios he was never going to be in purple.
It was a good consolation prize for me (when we didn't make the Fields move) that Spelly was able to parlay and still get Darrisaw and multiple other top 3 round picks and then the picks we would have had to given up.
So I was and still am pretty happy with Spelly. I do think he is a Top 10 drafting GM easily.
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