Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. Athleticism isn't the be-all-end-all, but the more athletic you are the better, obviously, and there are some positions where it's just hard to be any kind of impact player if you're not an athlete. Pass rusher is one of those positions. (Plus, you can teach technique-- you can't teach athleticism.) It's definitely less important at some positions than others, where traits besides pure athleticism matter a lot. (I think this is mostly true of offensive skill positions. A running back's vision and ability to maintain balance through contact. A wide receiver's route-running, hands, and ability to either separate or make contested catches.)

You gotta watch out for fake athletes, too. Guys who run fast 40s but have ****ty 3-cones and broad jumps aren't real athletes but they get overdrafted.

Anyway, here's Aaron Donald's mockdraftable.



And for an example of what I mean as far as offensive skill positions, here's Antonio Brown's.

One thing I have learned in my time posting here and professionally, I am much much better at evaluating what happened and determining the best ways to correct it than projecting a player to play at the NFL level. If pursued, one path is much easier and more attainable than the other. In that case I am very happy my skill set fits the better of the two.

And not to brag too much a lot of my high school recruits just went undefeated and have a faux National title. So I think I have a decent resume of that now too.

I do wonder how I would do given the film, measurable, and the skeleton playbooks that NFL scouts get and had an entire year to watch and evaluate the players what my % of hits would be.

was hoping needle would've essentially called gabe a dumbass so I'm disappointed there.

As an experiment I watched one game of each player and came up with a first impression comp

Lamar Jackson--Michael Vick's style anyway. The thing about lamar that draws me to him is simply he makes some things look easy that are not. Your guess is as good as mine as to where the hell he goes in the draft and if he goes to a team that will bother to try to use his actual skillset and all that stuff.

Sam Darnold--Mark Sanchez? This was hard.
Josh Rosen--Jimmy Clausen with a better arm. Eli will be the comp for sure on the networks at draft time though.
Baker Mayfield--Johnny Manziel? Doug Flutie if I watched more games might be the comp I'd get around to if I watched more than whatever plays on the first link I clicked on, he just can't see sometimes.
Josh Allen--Kyle Boller?
Mason Rudolph--Rex Grossman.

edit--you can't teach WIM/effort/toughness either. A lot of athletic guys fail here. Donald passed this test with flying colors and I think scouts and teams gloss over that too much in their evaluations.

Gabe is an ass without question, acting high and mighty over a sport and pretending your opinion is better than anyone else is just dumb. Gotta have an open mind and willing to discuss when it comes to sports. I know I just flaunted some stuff but I hate when its brought out in a discussion like that. If I ever had discussions on this board or with Nath what I've done or do has no impact on the conversation.

I'm probably getting set in my ways in certain things but you must be always willing to learn. Gabe doesn't seem willing to learn. Especially in a game that is everchanging. But both people in that twitter fight made me go "ugh."

Jackson isn't hiring an agent and will be repped by his mum, yikes

Uhhhhhhhhh

That level of decision making should leave him undrafted

No room to negotiate on rookie deals. So what are you paying the agent 2-3% for?

there isn't no room as we saw with the chargers and the Joey Bosa debacle but with everything slotted now there is so little that I get this.

That said, an agent also should be good at preparing you for the combine/NFL which your mother will not. He should have a QB coach at the very minimum right now. How to interview with teams, take that stupid wonderlic literally nobody but media narratives give a **** about, prepare for combine drills, prepare for training camp, all of that **** his mother won't know a damn thing. It's not a good sign unfortunately and I want that kid to succeed to stick it to the old NFL scout people that don't like him. Someone who knows how to cover up **** you got yourself into, (unless you're JFF where literally nobody can help you until one day it clicks in your head)

while the combine prep aspect is obvious, agents also work towards getting endorsements, appearances, etc.

Imagine how high Ereck Flowers could have been drafted had he prepped for the combine under the guidance of an agent. Dude ended up going 9th and didn't even have an elite mother like Lamars.

“There are contract lawyers that you can pay a one-time fee to look over the contract for you,” Richard Sherman told FOX Business. “There are also players unions that keep track of every single contact that goes through the NFL, so I can get all the information that I need, so an agent is becoming an unnecessary commodity.”

Hiring an agent, according to Sherman, is especially unnecessary for rookies because for them there is really nothing to be negotiated.

“You just got drafted,” he said. “You can’t say I want more money.”

Okung who was laughed at for representing himself in his deal w/ Denver is now the 2nd highest paid LT in the league.

And who's to say Okung wouldn't have been paid even more with an agent? The highest paid LT in the league has an agent, Tavon Austin got a 4/$42m deal with an agent, etc.

As dkgo also points out agents also help with endorsements, branding, exposure etc. There's more to it than just the rookie contract.

The last player who had his mother have such a huge impact on his career and finances was Eli Apple, that turned out pretty well.

It's easy to post exceptions. But there are probably only 50-100 players in the league that truly need to have agents because they have endorsements, branding, exposure, etc. Most players don't need it nor can probably afford it. If you are in a position that you need one, it's pretty easy to get one. I don't see the problem with what Lamar is doing. He'll know in a few years if he truly needs an agent or not. An example, Lebron needs and agent and an agent makes sense because of all the crap he's involved in. With that being said, Lebron can easily negotiate his own salary--MAX without much issue. There are guys that can basically get whatever they want. NFL is obviously different but the market is set by other players and agents. Again, Lamar can worry about that in the future if he needs it.

I'd argue Okung is more of an exception than my examples. And it also ignores the contract he negotiated with Denver, which was appalling

so basically dumb people need to be protected from themselves is why agents deserve 3% of a deal?

Most definitely

You just described why the legal profession exists.

Also: everyone is dumb.

Yes? It's not even dumb people, it's people who have no idea what they're doing

Pretty good information:

Luke Falk absolutely crushed interviews(went 100% in defense recognition and play recognition). Very good interviews from Flowers as well. JT Barrett skipped some interviews. Kyle Lauletta from Richmond excited some people as well.

i think Falk will go late in the draft but also end up having a sneaky decent pro career...and not just as a clipboard warrior.

lol that's a pretty silly comparison for these purposes

L. Jackson: 6' 2 1/4" ... 216 lbs
D. Watson: 6' 2 1/2" .... 221 lbs
M. Trubisky: 6' 2 1/8"... 222 lbs
P. Mahhomes: 6' 2" .... 222 lbs
A. Rodgers: 6' 2"......... 223 lbs
J. Garoppolo: 6' 2"........226 lbs

Concussions are a huge issue with him. He had some concussions that were reported and a bunch of others where he stayed in and played despite being almost assuredly concussed.