2028 Draft Utility is now available

[Aston]

With linebacker Tyrone Nelson, we hope to finally turn the tide on a forgettable offseason.

We have a few options on the table now for our final second round pick, and though trade is always on the table, starting to feel good about targets and value.

[Aston]

Our final second rounder, Anthony Mitting, is bandaid for our wounds. Hopefully he softens the blow of our colossal screwup. We weren't at all likely to draft him before, and ended up taking him one spot before Mike's Irish were waiting.

Silver lining, at least.

[Clay]

Our final second rounder, Anthony Mitting, is bandaid for our wounds. Hopefully he softens the blow of our colossal screwup. We weren't at all likely to draft him before, and ended up taking him one spot before Mike's Irish were waiting.

Silver lining, at least.

Liked him. Wanted him to fall to the 3rd.

(Editor's Note: My team sucks so my opinion sucks)

[mike17]

Our final second rounder, Anthony Mitting, is bandaid for our wounds. Hopefully he softens the blow of our colossal screwup. We weren't at all likely to draft him before, and ended up taking him one spot before Mike's Irish were waiting.

Silver lining, at least.

The bees suck

[Guest]

I took a garbage cornerback and a hopefully serviceable TE in the 3rd round. Feels like 4th/5th round talent.

Dakota going into snooze mode until 5.27....

[Aston]

At 4.10, we had a very good trade offer on the table, but had to take P Patrick Schwartz before we risked letting him fall any further.

He looks like a carbon copy of our current guy, and the competition is going to be pretty hot. Courtney Ellison has a hell of a leg, but his hangtime is wanting. When we punt from midfield, we want our coverage team to get down there and down the ball if they can. Hopefully Schwartz gives us some sort of chance here.

It doesn't hurt that he should be a coffin corner king, too.

It's lousy to spend a high 4th on a doppleganger over a current position, but Schwartz was a high rated guy with a VU look, and that is awful hard to pass up. In this year's 4th round, that's making the best out of a bad situation, IMO. It's longshots and camp fodder from here on out.

[Aston]

^ additionally, Schwartz was our top rated punter. The other guy is probably more skilled, but apparently is a diva in front of the microphone or something.

At 4.32, we pick dumbnuts DE Omar McWilliams. We've gone this route a few times before in the 4th round, with mixed success. So I probably shouldn't expect a ton out of this one. HTR, I have pretty little read on him. But he looks like he has potential to be well-rounded, and move to DT even. I just hope that PRT holds up.

[Aston]

I liked him and everything, but I definitely did not expect this guy



to land 90/90. Or anywhere even close to that. Really, really surprised.

[Guest]

Whoa. I wanted to pick him up after the other punter went, but I too didn't expect him to come out that high. Wow.

[Aston]

I guess he just isn't coming out very masked. Even though he sure looked like it.

We're having a fun 7th round here. The tried-and-probably-not true, "When everyone zigs, zag" strategem. Maybe this draft isn't as weak as it seemed and it's just that a disproportionate amount of players had poor combine showings. Or maybe these are just guys that look good now because all the real good ones are gone.

6.28 RB Josh Clovis - seems like a reasonable RB, underrated, and we're looking specifically at his receiving bars. He's someone we marked down as a possible WR.

6.32 CB Adam O'Neill - a very underrated guy who is probably just a 16-rated player who goes up four points or something. Dakota was about to take him 7.2, so this was the right spot for him. We almost swapped those picks last night, too.

7.23 G Mercury Garcia - center prospect. If we have to keep only one center in the regular season, I'd like some unsigned rookie on hand to take the spot if needed.

7.27 S Wayne Bouman - looked like the most promising cover guy left. Someone who can probably show enough in camp to merit at least a trade offer. He'll have a hard time unseating any of our safeties though after Chester Foster's return, but age and vol can wipe that depth out in a hurry.

7.28 FB Michael King - looking at him as a TE conversion only. Morgantown took our top FB->TE target early; King was the backup plan for down. Seems like good weight, but I'm not sure what's ideal.

7.29 G Colin Cassidy - another C prospect; complete longshot. We had him as AS and I don't know if I believe that. No combine, very low (13%) development, so the fact that he's ranked the #672 player in this draft doesn't bother me too much. The real high block strength has me thinking he has a reasonable chance of being that one in a million guy.

7.32 WR Juan Connelly - we left 11 other guys on the active queue and pulled Connelly out of the inactive list for the last pick. The other guys, none of them looked special at all - bubble guys or cut bait at best. Connelly, on the other hand, is a NC WR (the second NC WR named Connelly in this draft) with solid big play that we got VO on. VO could well be possible, but so could the opposite. If our scout hit a 180 here, we'd have by far the most to gain.

Once I pulled up Connelly again I felt I should have made him an earlier pick. Really sweated out that 7.30 and 7.31, worried he would get scooped. Thankfully, he did not.

With that, we wrap up the draft with 12 picks in all, and five in the 7th round. Seven of our picks occurred after 6.28, haha. I think last year we had 11 picks, so we outdo that total by one this time.

[nelmsm]

Went through my Excel sheet that I use and here are some interesting draft facts for this year;

Highest rated player not chosen - at #73 QB Herb Morton Minnesota
Lowest rated player chosen - at #676 G Colin Cassidy out of Syracuse
Number of players picked by position;
QB = 17
RB = 20
FB = 8
TE = 9
WR = 25
T = 18
G = 14
C = 6
DT = 20
DE = 15
ILB = 12
OLB = 15
CB = 24
S = 11
K = 5
P = 3

So breaking those picks down a bit broader;
Offense = 117
Defense = 97
Special Teams = 8

Just realized that I'm missing 2 picks somewhere so my numbers are off just a bit.

[Aston]

Great stuff nelmsm. I love stats like that. I'd love to have a database of these things year after year.

I'm honored to have the lowest rated player chosen, hehehe.

[Sharkn20]

Great stuff man :)