WONDER: DRAFT LT BECTON at 1.04

UltimateNYG’s draft analyst Wonder is about halfway through the Combine tape. So while his Draft Board is a work in progress, he already has evaluated many players. And there is one guy (beyond Chase Young) who stands out in the 2020 Draft:

Left Tackle MEKHI BECTON

“This draft is loaded with Offensive Tackles,” says Wonder. “Contrast that with last year, when it was not top heavy at all. This year it is a great draft for Tackle. Also WR. I have not looked at Defensive Line or Defensive Backs yet, so everything is incomplete, but it is a great moment for the Giants to take Tackle.”

Right now, here is how Wonder ranks the Top 3 prospects at OL:
1) T Tristan Wirfs
1A) T Mekhi Becton
3) T Andrew Thomas

So why not Wirfs? Wonder: “An extra 40 lbs of power. Wirfs is more of a zone blocking scheme fit. Becton is better for a power running game. I would love Becton for the Giants.”

What does Becton offer? Our draft analyst elaborates. “He is a beast. 6’7” Carries 350-360 lbs easily (weighs 364 lbs). MAULER! Powerful hands. Agile. Moves quickly. Mauls defenders like insects. He is athletic. If Becton is coached right and he has the proper work ethic, there is unlimited upside. As a prospect, Becton offers the most potential we have seen in many years.

“This guy will protect Daniel Jones for 10 years. You can’t put a price tag on that. He’ll help turn Barkley loose in the running game. He will change the whole Offensive Line by himself. If you draft him, move Solder’s awful contract to RT. I am not in love with this, but you can even possibly move him to Guard.” Considering how poor the Giants OL has been … for nearly a decade …. doesn’t that mean everything??!! Becton is going to have 80 lbs on the DEs in the run game. Think about that kind of dominance. The game is won and lost at the line of scrimmage. Doesn’t that explain why this position makes so much sense?!

The safe pick is Wirfs, who Wonder projects to be an All-Pro. But if you want to hit a homerun, you take Becton, because if he is healthy and reaches his potential, he could be a perennial All-Pro. Taking Wirfs at 1.04 is not horrible because it will work.

Wonder compares Becton to LT Jonathan Ogden. “Becton is built like Ogden. His upside is Ogden or Pace. I actually played basketball versus Jonathan Ogden in a pickup game. He had tree trunks for legs. So I know what Jonathan Ogden is. By the way, Ogden is a super nice guy, he went easy on us. Mountain of a man.”

Any other comparison? “He can be a much better version of Trent Brown, the Raiders Pro Bowl Tackle (who was coached up by Scarnecchia in New England before hitting paydirt in Free Agency). A much better bigger version than HOFer Art Shell. A bigger better version of DAL T/G HOFer Larry Allen.”

Maybe Judge just pays his old colleague Scarnecchia to coach this kid up in training camp. Everything Scarnecchia touches turns to gold. Just get Becton some decent coaching and it is over.

Let’s talk intangibles. Here is a piece from before his senior year in college. He says all the right things and walks the walk. No red flags here. I like this kid, he seems like he wants to put his head down and get to work, which is precisely the culture of a 10 year lineman.

The last time the Giants took a Tackle really high, they got burned with Ereck Flowers. And once burned twice shy, so you might be afraid to go there again. “Flowers was never projected to be a mauler. He was projected to be a solid LT that could protect Eli. My eval was wrong because even though I specifically said that he needed a year of coaching before establishing himself, he never learned the proper technique to get to the next level. He did a lot better with Callahan in Washington because he had better coaching and better technique. They also moved his feet inside to Guard. Becton, on the other hand, is massive, has much better athleticism than Flowers, and frankly should not be compared to him. He has a much higher ceiling, it is not even close.”

Wonder continues. “The thing which is most intriguing about taking Becton is that other teams will have to gameplan to address what he does in the run game. And once you have a player of that caliber who does that to the opposition, you’ve already won.”  Think about how every week, opposing teams needed to gameplan Lawrence Taylor. Well, right now they don’t need to gameplan Barkley as much because the OL s**ks at run blocking. Becton will change that.

We have been begging for Offensive Line 8-10 years ago, and re-upped the need 2 drafts ago from the moment they selected Saquon Barkley. Frankly, I wasn’t kidding when I said in 2018 that it would be fine if they took OL the rest of the Draft. How about this draft? Wouldn’t you take 2 offensive tackles in this draft? “Not a bad idea. Yes,” said Wonder.

Wonder imagines life on the Giants Offense with Becton. “You get a good solid blocking TE to pair up with him on the left side and oh my God it is a feast of riches. I run 12 package play action out of a set with Shepard, Tate and Engram wide and it cannot be  defended. If you run the ball you’ll get 5 yards every time, so the LBers will be drawn up to stop the run. On play action, Tate, Shepard or Engram can get 10-15 yards easily.”

ODDS and ENDS: This is a thin draft for Tight End. Washington QB Jacob Eason is value. If he can be taught properly, he has an arm. Round 2 coach him up. Another value guy in Round 2 or Round 3 is WR Chase Claypool. More Draft coming while we are all in lockdown.

December Rollerball is the New Regular Season

The new 2020 CBA for the NFL was approved by the Players Union. The players get more money. The owners get more money. The fans get to pay more money.

I can’t be any more blunt about this CBA. It is the dilution we have warned about numerous times in the past. NFL ownership, in their never-ending quest to “grow” the game, had their stump man Roger Goodell argue fruitlessly in campaign after campaign for an 18 game season. But that strategy paid dividends, as the persistent anchoring of requests for 18 games made a 17 game CBA begrudgingly tolerable. Owners wore down the players (here is an old post from 2009) and got the extra game.

That is not all that the owners got. They also got a 14 team playoff structure. Adding an extra 2 teams to the playoffs may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Starkly, the best way to see this with the ratio of the playoff qualifiers to those knocked out of the postseason. This ratio changes from 12:20 to 14:18. That is an old ratio of 60% to the new ratio of 78%.

“When everyone’s super… no one will be.”

Dilution. Death by a thousand cuts. Longer season. More playoff qualifiers. Memo to NY Giants blog readers and all NFL fans- THE REGULAR SEASON WAS JUST WATERED DOWN.

You don’t need to have taken calculus to know that as a limit, more regular season games and more teams in the playoffs cheapens every single regular season game. The greatness of the NFL is the regular season. It matters. These gladiators bust their butts, play hurt, wage war, all on our behalf to win every precious regular season game. Each win is precious. Each loss is potentially crippling. Well, you add an extra game and 2 extra playoff qualifiers and the result… of that valuable game… is just not as valuable. More supers.

If you want more proof of the dilution, the NFL owners made concessions to the players to get this deal through. Not only is there more money for them, but they also drop the number of padded practices in training camp from 28 to 16. Bwaaahhaaahaa. Why don’t we just set up mani pedis next to the blocking sleds?!

The dilution continues with 3 more players dressed for games, 2 more players on the active roster, and 2-4 more practice squad players.  The last I checked, the NFL still only has 22 players for each snap, so that means you’ll be seeing more journeymen and more turnstile players than ever before. Yet instead of being cut before the season, they’ll be playing football, because the season will wear on longer and they’ll go through more bodies. Player safety? You’re joking, right?

You can bet your bottom dollar (which the NFL is reaching for right now) that the TV networks will weave their public relations masterpieces on that “new” fringe player who “got his chance” and made it to stardom. What would we ever do without the new CBA?!! Do not believe it. That fringe player already has his shot numerous times in training camps, practice squads and other teams’ roster cuts.

The rank & file players who got this agreement passed will get a 20% raise for playing one extra game. I have nothing against more fringe players making a (fabulous) salary by getting a professional contract. But make no mistake, that is how the owners got the votes. The Richard Shermans and JJ Watts were against this deal because they did not want to play extra games and extra playoff games in order to win a title. They have the money. They want the money and their bodies. Rank & file members who are getting that 20% bump are out of football in 1-2-3 years. The owners got their vote and a new CBA. Fans will get less stars and more rank & file.

Steve Young was the first to coin the phrase: “September is the new preseason.” It was a dig at the 2011 CBA agreement, which watered down practices and put out a garbage product to start the regular season. The new 2020 CBA means that with weaker training camp, weaker play, weaker players, longer seasons, and more playoff teams, that December rollerball is the new regular season.

 

Running Back Manifesto

These are the facts as I know them:

1. Saquon Barkley is a phenomenally talented football player, with skills that may only be surpassed by his character and leadership.

2. Running back is not key to winning championships.

It is 2020 and we are into a new fantasy. I am not talking about Draft Kings or rotisserie. I’m talking about the resurrected belief that running the ball in the NFL is the script for winning. And if this gospel has a preacher, we can look no further than Dave Gettleman, the General Manager of the NY Giants. It is hard to believe, but the GM of this once noble franchise is still living in the 20th Century. He is an anachronism. He is a Neanderthal. The worst part is that he does not know what he does not know. He does not know that assigning greater value to Running Back in the NFL in 2020 is a destruction of value.

Before we dismantle this ‘Running Back is back’ myth, let’s begin with the quote from where it all began.

“But at the end of the day, it’s the three things you’ve had to do in 1935 that you got to do now in 2018. You got to run the ball. You got to stop the run. You got to pressure the passer.”

That was Gettleman’s quote from when he became GM of the Giants back in 2018. He chose Saquon Barkley at 1.02 overall and the rookie set the NFL afire. A funny thing happened along the way. The Giants finished 5-11 and then 4-12 the following year. Barkley is still only one player. While different from Barry Sanders in physique and style, both may end up sharing similar characteristics as electric Hall of Fame skill players without a ring… unless things change from the front office.

How can it possibly be argued that you can draft a player who can go to the Hall of Fame and it be the wrong decision? Success in the NFL is measured in championships. The Giants organization proudly displays its 4 Super Bowl titles. Winning is good. Winning seasons are better. Winning titles is best. Parcells taught us this. Either you are winning championships,  building for championships or you are failing. It does not take a rocket scientist blogger to point out that the Giants organization has been failing. Why?

Look no further than the 3 principles laid out by the new Giants GM.

RUNNING THE BALL AND STOPPING THE RUN ARE NOT 2 OF THE 3 KEYS TO WINNING IN THE NFL IN 2018 (or 2020).

This whole myth accelerated when the Neanderthal quoted another fraudulent statistic that sent the Twitter World ablaze.

“People say it’s a passing league, I get that. But you know that graphic on Sunday afternoon should not have been lost on anybody. The top four passing teams were not in the playoffs, the top four rushing teams were in the playoffs.”

Oh. My. God. It was a like a flea infestation. Anyone who loved Barkley, who loved ground and pound, who loved running, who hated analytics, “ran” with this stat.

Thankfully we got some saner heads to explain that this was a classic example of correlation, not causation. “Duh,” said Wonder, who in half a sentence dismantled the latest fantasy- “teams run more with the lead.”

JJ Zachariason did a great job of blowing up the myth about teams with the most rushing yards. Click through his Twitter thread. He compared the % ratio of Pass/Rush of winning teams in closer games (+/- 6 points) versus the % ratio in games where they were not. It clearly showed correlation but not causation.

I wouldn’t be blogging for the first time since the end of the season if I did not have more evidence on this myth about running. Thankfully, blissfully, I had another savior who came running to my aid. His name was Damien Williams. Damien Williams is the Unrestricted Free Agent Running Back who now owns a ring. Yes, 19 Running Backs were drafted back in 2014. None of them were Damien Williams. He was signed by the Dolphins as a UFA. The Dolphins let him go to Free Agency, and the Chiefs signed him. Those 19 draftees have compiled a grand total of 14 seasons as starters. Williams backed up LeSean McCoy, McCoy had injuries, Williams got more carries and the Chiefs got a title.

IT IS NOT RUNNING BACK. IT IS OFFENSIVE LINE.

Control the line of scrimmage. Protect the QB. Push the pile. Create holes for ordinary RBs. Is Williams as good as Saquon Barkley? Of course not. Williams can’t hold Barkley’s jock. Would Barkley be another enormous weapon for the Chiefs. Yes! But at WHAT COST? The Chiefs built their team with other players grabbing cap share. Mahomes was still on his rookie contract. The salary + roster bonus + proportional hit from Williams signing bonus was $1.7M this past season. This is on a veteran contract! Barkley is on a rookie contract and his cap hit (Salary in 2019) was $7.1M. That is a pretty stark comparison, that a veteran contract can be 24% of a rookie contract for the same position. That extra $5.4M dollars can be spent on other things. Each year. That is the world of a hard salary cap. You have to play that hard cap game and allocate resources to where the value is.

Speaking about spending, let’s look under the hood and see where NFL GMs spend their cap dollars. Here is a list of average annual salaries (source: Spotrac). The math is not perfect, as we take the total value of all contract at a position, divide by the number of players and the length of those contracts to get an average salary per year. Because we use the same methodology with every position, the results are precise, not accurate. Still, the table below is revealing…

    1. QB  $8.7M
    2. T     $4.0M
    3. C     $3.6M
    4. DE  $3.5M
    5. G    $3.5M
    6. DT  $3.3M
    7. WR $3.2M
    8. LB  $3.2M
    9. CB  $3.1M
    10. S    $2.6M
    11. TE $2.2M
    12. RB $2.0M

Yes, Running Back is dead last. Why? Because they are replaceable. Money talks. Running Back walks. Is Barkley worth more because his prototypical body gives him a chance at having a far longer career? Yes. But the spending patterns show that investing in RB is not critical to success in the NFL. Only 42% of plays are running plays. The NFL is a Passing league.

Another way to see success is to look at the list of Winning Super Bowl RBs.  It is a who’s not who.

41 Rhodes UFA
42 Jacobs R4
43 Parker UFA
44 Thomas UFA
45 Starks R6
46 Bradshaw R7
47 Rice R2
48 Lynch R1
49 Vereen R2
50 Anderson UFA
51 Blount R3 / White R4 /Lewis R5
52 Blount R3
53 Michel R1 rookie
54 Williams UFA

Assigning a R9 value to UFA means that the average Super Bowl Running Back over the past 14 years sported a Round 5.3 pedigree. The Brady Round 6 outlier at QB is the standard for Super Bowl Running Backs.

Someone please send this memo to Gettleman, because nearly everyone else has figured out that you do not need a superstar RB to win a title. Marshawn Lynch is the only “star” on this list, and he was traded by the Bills. Sony Michel was taken 1.32 at the very end of the first round and helped the Patriots as a rookie. So the evidence is very clear that RB is merely a cog in the engine. Allocate outsized salary resources at RB from your cap total at your expense. WORSE, allocate outsized DRAFT resources at RB from your draft capital at grave expense. Barkley became the 4th highest RB from the moment he was selected, burning the value of the cheap rookie contract, which pretty much exists for almost every position except RB and TE in Round 1.

Another thing that is striking about that list of Super Bowl champion running backs is that it is a turnstile. There is only one player on the entire list who shows up twice, LaGarrette Blount. And it is not because he is good. It is because he is good  value . In 2016 with the Patriots, he was signed for ~$1M and got $0.5M in incentives for a grand total of $1.5M. In 2017, with the Eagles, he took up $1.25M in cap space. So Blount did not cost the Patriots or Eagles much in cap allocation and he also cost them zero in Draft capital.

Career length/injuries is another issue. Tiki Barber pointed out that for a RB, each game in the NFL was the equivalent of going through a car crash. The toll it takes on bodies is very high. As a position, RBs have the second lowest career length.

So let’s summarize the low positional value of RB:

  • Only 42% of plays from scrimmage are running plays
  • RBs get hurt more than other positions
  • Their careers are shorter due to injury
  • RBs are replaceable
  • RBs have the lowest salary of all starting positions on Offense & Defense
  • The Super Bowl blueprint shows only 1 pedigree’d RB winning in the last 14 years
  • Teams that are running the ball more are doing so because they have the lead in games, not because they took the lead by running the ball

A steady change on rules/enforcement making passing easier has diminished the value of running the ball. We are not advocating abandoning the run altogether. There has to be some balance. Running backs also need to pass block and run pass routes. And yes, in the North/East, you do need to run the ball in inclement weather in December and January. Yet the Giants GM is fooled by a statistic saying that the teams with the best running games were in the playoffs while the 4 best passing Offenses were not. The answer is to build a strong Offensive Line, which leverages both pass and run while protecting the Franchise- its Quarterback.

I love Saquon Barkley. He is a class act and he can make a difference on the field. (Remember, he was the #1 rated prospect by Wonder on his 2018 Draft Board.) Barkley can catch passes out of the backfield, which is critical in today’s NFL. He is a luxury that Gettleman could not afford when given the task of rebuilding the franchise. The Giants did not have an Offensive Line in 2018. Now that Barkley is on the team you have to leverage him. From the moment he was picked, yes that evening, we pounded the table to draft OL. Since then, Gettleman has selected Hernandez in Round 2 (very good, although disappointed in his 2nd season) and R7 Asafo-Adjei (Injured Reserve, 0 games). That is CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH. It is 2020 and the Giants still do not have an Offensive Line. Trade down, draft OL in Round 1, and draft OL in a later round. Rebuild.

NY Giants: Post Mortem 2019

PART 1- Shurmur Out, Gettleman Remains

It is really one large cosmic joke that the Giants have not parted ways with Gettleman. The conventional wisdom (brainwashing) is that you want stability and that Gettleman needs more time. A friend, Dimitri Raitzin, counters this with correct perspective:

The problem is that Mara wants the Giants to be the Steelers, but Gettleman is no Kevin Colbert. Stability is nice when you’re competing for the playoffs every year. The Giants are annually competing for a Top 5 draft pick. That type of stability is worthless.

Therein lies the problem. John Mara is living in the past, thinking he is one fix away from getting back on track. We have noted how he needs to remove himself from this process completely, relinquishing control and stepping down as Chief Executive.

The Giants have Gettleman for at least 1 year but more likely at least 2 years, as he will now be attached to the next Head Coach’s fate. Gettleman can recognize talent in the Draft but he does not make good decisions. His Free Agency track record is awful. Gettleman chose Shurmur. He lacks fundamental understanding of what wins in the NFL in 2020. And he lacks understanding of how to make value-based decisions in a hard cap value world (as evidenced by him paying Barkley top 4 RB money on his rookie contract when the rookie contract is a key to extracting value in the post-2011 CBA order).

PART 2- Head Coach Search

Front and Center, the Giants now embark on a Head Coach search. It will be Gettleman who will conduct this search.  His due diligence on Shurmur was flawed. If one looks at Shurmur’s track record more carefully, we see that he was the Interim Head Coach in Philadelphia yet Philadelphia did not elevate him- why? We know why now, 2 years later. Note how 2 years ago the Giants wanted an “adult” post-McAdoo. Today the owners are singing a different tune, saying that they want a “leader.” Get the picture? Maybe Gettleman will get lucky this time. I prefer to make my own luck.

Mara and Tisch will sign off. Garbage in, garbage out. There are a few prominent names under consideration from this report collected by Jordan Raanan.

  1. Matt Rhule. This one can make a lot of sense. “Rhule is acceptable,” says Wonder, the Draft Analyst for UltimateNYG NY Giants Blog. “He will get them back on course. He does a good job of organizing and putting together his team. While I am not overwhelmed by him, I do like him. He is pretty solid. He is a much better selection than a retread like Ron Rivera.” And speaking of retreads, Wonder issued a very stern and sharp warning for those even mentioning the name of Jason Garrett. “If the Giants tap Garrett as the next Head Coach, all fans should just turn in their Giants card. Go on strike. Throw in the towel.” I had independently reached the same conclusion, having tweeted that Garrett does less with more, the classic sign of underachievement. I think any Giants fan paying attention to Dallas (they are, after all, in the NFC East) knows that Garrett does not make his team better.
  2. Josh McDaniels. I was a little concerned about what happened in Denver in McDaniel’s first stint as a Head Coach. It felt like major dysfunction, along with immaturity. After reading this, I would be hopeful that his next opportunity would fare much better. Wonder would be comfortable with McDaniels. Realistically speaking, I do not think it will happen, as there are rumors that Belichick told both Patricia and McDaniels not to take the Giants job 2 years ago. Wonder really likes McDaniels, and thinks he would be even better than Rhule: “I am not concerned about what happened in Denver. He may have a handshake agreement on getting the job in New England if/when Belichick steps down, so that is the reason why I am more doubtful about the likelihood of it happening here.”
  3. Eric Bieniemy. “I want no part of him,” says Wonder. “The only reason why he is being considered at all is because the KC Offense is stacked. Even I could coach that team with all the talent there,” jokes our analyst.

PART 3- Nepotism

I keep hearing about Chris Mara wanting the NY Giants GM job, be it two years ago when he was passed over, now or whenever. Is there anyone who has confidence in his abilities? There was open dysfunction between him and Jerry Reese. How do you fire your own brother?

PART 4- The Draft

The Giants have the 4th pick overall.

Mara: “The key is still the Draft, making good draft picks and you have to supplement that with Free Agency. You can’t think that you’re going to solve all of your problems in Free Agency… it just doesn’t work.”

The good thing is that I agree with EVERYTHING Mara just said there. The problem is that his GM that he supports does not understand the value of his Draft picks (or how to make good sensible FA decisions either, but let’s stay with the Draft….). No GM bringing up the rear at the trade deadline gives up Draft picks FOR the expiring contract. Gettleman blew the 70th pick overall plus a Round 4/Round 5 pick in 2021 for Leonard Williams. The key is the Draft. Mara just said it. The value is in the rookie contracts. The CBA says it. The Giants threw away critical currency for its rebuild. Gettleman did it.

Preliminary indications are that this Draft is deeper in OL. Ya think that that 70th pick overall can help throw help at that problem?? Look at the Patriots, who are competitive every year. They collect massive amounts of draft picks and let veteran players walk, in return for … compensatory Draft picks. So the answer is right in front of you. This is how to do business in the 21st Century. To be fair to Gettleman, he did move some players (like JPP, Apple and Harrison) and collected picks. Yet to go in reverse and go for Williams on the hope of signing him was not consistent with value. Williams was bait for a playoff contender who needed (injury) help with interior DL. Period. If we could somehow sign Williams to a much cheaper deal before FA, that was the only way this was paying off. That is highly unlikely.

Every part of your plan must be efficient. Bad decisions add up. You find value through a series of decisions where EVERY decision has value. Just because it has value does not mean it will work out. If I throw a coin and heads I win $2 while tails I lose $1, I want to throw that coin. I may lose with tails but that is ok. The Williams trade simply did not have value. That was not a good coin toss.

PART 5- Analytics

Why are analytics important? We talked about this at length literally a decade ago on this blog when we recommended Money Ball by Michael Lewis. My old posts are gone due to a couple of host site migrations over the years, but all you need to know is that Billy Beane figured out that by cranking the numbers you can figure out what works for assembling a winning team. It was all about VALUE. Beane was able to field competitive teams on salaries that were significantly less than his peers.

Beane got outspent because he did not have a hard cap. Imagine Beane in a hard cap sport and that is football analytics. To belittle/ignore their value is like passing on that favorable coin toss. Or worse… not quantifying what the coin toss looks like in the first place.

Imagine our amusement, when hearing this from Steve Politi…

“I’m still digesting John Mara’s press conference today, but when an owner … tells everyone that his team has a killer new analytics department that you just didn’t know about… that was weird, right?”

Maybe it is completely weird when Dave Gettleman, only a couple of years ago, waves his hands, pokes fun at the nerds and calls analytics “nonsense.”

So who are you going to believe? Did Gettleman all of a sudden wake up and figure out that he needs to change and get into the 21st Century? Positional VALUE? I’ll believe it when Politi asks Gettleman that question tomorrow and we see a 180 from the Giants GM. “People don’t change. They become more so,” said a wise sage. No, I am not expecting lightning bolts tomorrow.

PART 6- Scapegoating Shurmur

Jay Glazer called out the Giants for contradicting facts.

Did you expect anything less when they decided to keep Gettleman? We know Shurmur was a boob on mismanaging the players. We never chased after Gettleman when Shurmur under-leveraged Barkley’s skills. Similarly, we did not go after Shurmur when the Giants traded draft picks for Leonard Williams.

I thought the Reese bye week pressers were comedy. Today was a continuation of the denial. Mara on Gettleman’s Free Agency boners: “He does know that the batting average has to increase going forward.” Well, at least we got that. The last time we got a warning from Mara to his GM, Reese lost his job two years later. I sure hope Gettleman nails the Head Coach hire because we fans can’t take another 2 years of this.