WITH THE 12TH PICK OF THE 2021 DRAFT...

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:
I swear I hate this team sometimes. Love to win meaningless games and lose the meaningful ones when it actually matters. Went from being the 1st overall pick to ending up with McGlinchey by winning 5 meaningless games after being eliminated. Should've cost ourselves Nick Bosa with another meaningless end of season win but Cardinals
bailed us out by hiring Kliff who is the only coach / GM in the nfl that would've taken Kyler at 1.

This this this. Bro, it's not a popular take but I feel the exact same way

Originally posted by pickle:

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:
I swear I hate this team sometimes. Love to win meaningless games and lose the meaningful ones when it actually matters. Went from being the 1st overall pick to ending up with McGlinchey by winning 5 meaningless games after being eliminated. Should've cost ourselves Nick Bosa with another meaningless end of season win but Cardinals
bailed us out by hiring Kliff who is the only coach / GM in the nfl that would've taken Kyler at 1.

They don't play to lose--I swear,. I hate these niner fans sometimes.

I don't give a rats ass what you think. You have to remember that each pick is capital. And if we have to give up something valuable to trade up to a spot where we should have been then you set your franchise back. But you are right, the players and coaches don't play to lose.

Originally posted by raywm3:

Originally posted by pickle:

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:

I swear I hate this team sometimes. Love to win meaningless games and lose the meaningful ones when it actually matters. Went from being the 1st overall pick to ending up with McGlinchey by winning 5 meaningless games after being eliminated. Should've cost ourselves Nick Bosa with another meaningless end of season win but Cardinals
bailed us out by hiring Kliff who is the only coach / GM in the nfl that would've taken Kyler at 1.

They don't play to lose--I swear,. I hate these niner fans sometimes.

I don't give a rats ass what you think. You have to remember that each pick is capital. And if we have to give up something valuable to trade up to a spot where we should have been then you set your franchise back. But you are right, the players and coaches don't play to lose.

The bolded is key. They just don't.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by raywm3:

Originally posted by pickle:

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:

I swear I hate this team sometimes. Love to win meaningless games and lose the meaningful ones when it actually matters. Went from being the 1st overall pick to ending up with McGlinchey by winning 5 meaningless games after being eliminated. Should've cost ourselves Nick Bosa with another meaningless end of season win but Cardinals
bailed us out by hiring Kliff who is the only coach / GM in the nfl that would've taken Kyler at 1.

They don't play to lose--I swear,. I hate these niner fans sometimes.

I don't give a rats ass what you think. You have to remember that each pick is capital. And if we have to give up something valuable to trade up to a spot where we should have been then you set your franchise back. But you are right, the players and coaches don't play to lose.

The bolded is key. They just don't.

With the physicality of the game you just can't. Otherwise they're just putting themselves out there to get hurt if there's not 100% effort

Originally posted by Howlett49:

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by raywm3:

Originally posted by pickle:

Originally posted by 49oz2superbowl:

I swear I hate this team sometimes. Love to win meaningless games and lose the meaningful ones when it actually matters. Went from being the 1st overall pick to ending up with McGlinchey by winning 5 meaningless games after being eliminated. Should've cost ourselves Nick Bosa with another meaningless end of season win but Cardinals
bailed us out by hiring Kliff who is the only coach / GM in the nfl that would've taken Kyler at 1.

They don't play to lose--I swear,. I hate these niner fans sometimes.

I don't give a rats ass what you think. You have to remember that each pick is capital. And if we have to give up something valuable to trade up to a spot where we should have been then you set your franchise back. But you are right, the players and coaches don't play to lose.

The bolded is key. They just don't.

With the physicality of the game you just can't. Otherwise they're just putting themselves out there to get hurt if there's not 100% effort

Most these guys are trying to prove they belong - there not gonna just lay down.

The main fallacy of the "we won a meaningless game - our future is doomed" crowd is that historical experience does not bear them out.

It is true that the first round has a higher chance of containing high impact players.

Trading first rounders for veterans tends to cripple teams, thought there are some rare cases it has worked out. In general it's a terrible idea to dump first rounders.

The difference is that within the first round a few positions up or down make very little difference on average. Sure, there are cases where one team ends up with a superstar and another a couple of picks after ends up with a dud. But on the whole, over the years, this effect is so volatile and occasionally reversed (i.e. the good player is the one picked lower) that it makes very little difference if you pick a few slots up or down.

Let's see the history of early 1st round QB picks. I'll test both for the "The Jets blew their future by winning two games" thesis, and the one about us winning yesterday's "meaningless" game. I'll therefore look for QB picks at the very top (to test for the Jets/Jags), and also around the 7-15 region which is the area of variation for our team (had we lost both final games we would have probably picked around 7, if we win out we're picking 15ish).

Let's start with the famous 1983 draft and go on to the present. I will divide the two regions (1-5 and 6-15 range) by dashes and make bold the bona fide good selections (that doesn't mean "superstars" or HOF'ers necessarily). Sometimes it merely indicates longevity (examples: Testaverde, Smith, Bledsoe, McNabb, Vick) rather than objective "greatness". I personally found Testaverde very limited but he stuck around forever. Other cases were marred by injury (e.g. Palmer, Luck) but indicators were that these players would have been bona fide greats. All that's according to my personal judgment, especially for recent cases where HOF selections have not been made. Some non bolded cases range from very decent to merely workmanlike, rather than outright busts, but the overall pattern doesn't change. I will also disregard the few notable supplementary draft cases in the 1980s as they really don't apply in our usual discussion about "damaging meaningless wins" in the regular season.

1983: Elway (1) - Blackledge (7), Kelly (13), Eason(15)
1984: N/A - N/A
1985: N/A - N/A
1986: Everett (3) - Long (12)
1987: Testaverde (1) - Stouffer (6),Miller (13)
1988: N/A - N/A
1989: Aikman (1) - N/A
1990: George (1) - Ware (7)
1991: N/A - N/A
1992: N/A - Klingler (6)
1993: Bledsoe (1), Mirer (2) - N/A
1994: Shuler (3) - Dilfer (6)
1995: McNair (3), Collins (5) - N/A
1996: N/A - N/A
1997: N/A - N/A (first QB drafted was... Druckenmiller!)
1998: Manning I (1), Leaf (2) - N/A
1999: Couch (1), McNabb (2), Smith (3) - Culpepper (11), McNown (12)
2000: N/A - N/A
2001: Vick (1) - N/A
2002: Carr (1), Harrington (3) - N/A
2003: Palmer (1) - Leftwich (7)
2004: Manning II (1), Rivers (4) - Roethlisberger (11)
2005: Smith (1) - N/A
2006: Young (3) - Leinart (10), Cutler (11)
2007: Russell (1) - N/A
2008: Ryan (3)- N/A
2009: Stafford (1), Sanchez (5) - N/A
2010: Bradford (1) - N/A
2011: Newton (1) - Locker (8), Gabbert (10), Ponder (12)
2012: Luck (1), Griffin (2) - Tannehill (8) (I'm stretching it here)
2013: N/A - N/A
2014: Bortles (3) - N/A
2015: Winston (1), Mariotta (2) - N/A
2016: Goff (1), Wentz (2) - N/A
2017: Trubisky (2) - Mahomes (10), Watson (12)
2018: Mayfield (1), Darnold (3) - Allen (7), Rosen (10)
2019: Murray (1) - Jones (6), Haskins (15)
2020: Burrow (1), Tagovailoa (5) - Herbert (6)

OK. Let's start with the "Dumb Jets won and lost the generation talent" case. #1 overall picks for QBs have become more common recently. There were 3 per decade before the turn of the century, then became much more common (8 in the 2000s, 7 in the 2010s). I don't believe that "generational talents" have become more common - genius is what it is, and arises when it does with equal likelihood in space and time. What has happened is that teams have become obsessed with the "franchise QB" concept, which combined with the rookie salary cap after 2011 means that the cost of whiffing on a Bortles or Winston/Mariotta pick is less severe than paying Sam Bradford tens of millions for being mediocre, or heaven forbit paying Russell, Harrington or Leinart for being outright crap.

Fine. But how about crippling yourself with a meaningless win. Sure, there are a couple of cases when the first drafting team got the better player (Manning), and the one just after got the proverbial Ryan Leaf. I can count in fact two such cases: 1993 (Bledsoe/Mirer) and 1998 (Manning/Leaf). But in 1999 McNabb was the better player but he was picked after Tim Couch. Similarly (and famously) in 2017 Mahomes and Watson were picked after Trubisky. It's a wash. However, in most years there is one player who's the consensus good QB pick and there are no others worth picking early (in the Top 5, by my definition above). True, but for every Vick, Ryan, Newton, Luck, and Stafford you have Winston, Bortles, Carr, Vince Young and Heath Shuler. It's a crapshoot. I have nothing against Lawrence. He may be amazing and have the impact of Manning or Aikman. But he can equally flame out like Jamarcus and Winston, or be just damn unlucky like Luck or Palmer, or be merely serviceable for a few years like Bradford or Testaverde.

OK, let's move on to our team and the "foolish" victory that condemned us to picking around #15 rather than around #6 (and I'm stretching the range here). Again the pattern is very random: in fact, other than Mahomes and Watson, I could find no case where a feeding frenzy in the 6-15 range where the latecomers were left holding the chaff while the early pickers made off with the wheat. In 1983 famously Jim Kelly was picked around where we will be picking (13), while at #7 lay the generational talent of... Todd Blackledge. Only one year (2004) yielded genuine multiple stars in the top 15. Rather more (notoriously: 1999, 2006 and 2011) yielded multiple busts in the 6-15 range.

Long post, I know. Apologies. I don't write that often, but this "meaningless win" rubbish is always amusing me because it simply is not borne out by the facts. These say in short:

Having first round picks = good. Trading them away = bad.

Picking 5-8 picks up or down within the first round ---> irrelevant in the great swing of things.

Winning NFL matches = always a good thing. It fosters a culture of success, hope and camaraderie. It projects an image of professionalism and pride. "Tanking" does not actually work in this sport, because careers are short and contracts non-guaranteed. It may work in baseball or basketball, but then again not always there either (I'm a Phillies fan in baseball, and we all saw where tanking for a decade got us).

Originally posted by raywm3:
I don't give a rats ass what you think. You have to remember that each pick is capital. And if we have to give up something valuable to trade up to a spot where we should have been then you set your franchise back. But you are right, the players and coaches don't play to lose.

And I don't give a rats ass what you think. They don't go into a football game thinking about a draft pick.

Some good news for us today: complete chaos in the draft order and now as things sit, teams 3 through 6 are probably teams that won't want a QB.

That's big for us. Definitely a lot of trade-up fodder.

Still at 14 👎🏼 Nobody helped us out today.

Sos is killing us.

Possibly at 15 if CAR loses tomorrow

Originally posted by paulk205:

The main fallacy of the "we won a meaningless game - our future is doomed" crowd is that historical experience does not bear them out.

It is true that the first round has a higher chance of containing high impact players.

Trading first rounders for veterans tends to cripple teams, thought there are some rare cases it has worked out. In general it's a terrible idea to dump first rounders.

The difference is that within the first round a few positions up or down make very little difference on average. Sure, there are cases where one team ends up with a superstar and another a couple of picks after ends up with a dud. But on the whole, over the years, this effect is so volatile and occasionally reversed (i.e. the good player is the one picked lower) that it makes very little difference if you pick a few slots up or down.

Let's see the history of early 1st round QB picks. I'll test both for the "The Jets blew their future by winning two games" thesis, and the one about us winning yesterday's "meaningless" game. I'll therefore look for QB picks at the very top (to test for the Jets/Jags), and also around the 7-15 region which is the area of variation for our team (had we lost both final games we would have probably picked around 7, if we win out we're picking 15ish).

Let's start with the famous 1983 draft and go on to the present. I will divide the two regions (1-5 and 6-15 range) by dashes and make bold the bona fide good selections (that doesn't mean "superstars" or HOF'ers necessarily). Sometimes it merely indicates longevity (examples: Testaverde, Smith, Bledsoe, McNabb, Vick) rather than objective "greatness". I personally found Testaverde very limited but he stuck around forever. Other cases were marred by injury (e.g. Palmer, Luck) but indicators were that these players would have been bona fide greats. All that's according to my personal judgment, especially for recent cases where HOF selections have not been made. Some non bolded cases range from very decent to merely workmanlike, rather than outright busts, but the overall pattern doesn't change. I will also disregard the few notable supplementary draft cases in the 1980s as they really don't apply in our usual discussion about "damaging meaningless wins" in the regular season.

1983: Elway (1) - Blackledge (7), Kelly (13), Eason(15)
1984: N/A - N/A
1985: N/A - N/A
1986: Everett (3) - Long (12)
1987: Testaverde (1) - Stouffer (6),Miller (13)
1988: N/A - N/A
1989: Aikman (1) - N/A
1990: George (1) - Ware (7)
1991: N/A - N/A
1992: N/A - Klingler (6)
1993: Bledsoe (1), Mirer (2) - N/A
1994: Shuler (3) - Dilfer (6)
1995: McNair (3), Collins (5) - N/A
1996: N/A - N/A
1997: N/A - N/A (first QB drafted was... Druckenmiller!)
1998: Manning I (1), Leaf (2) - N/A
1999: Couch (1), McNabb (2), Smith (3) - Culpepper (11), McNown (12)
2000: N/A - N/A
2001: Vick (1) - N/A
2002: Carr (1), Harrington (3) - N/A
2003: Palmer (1) - Leftwich (7)
2004: Manning II (1), Rivers (4) - Roethlisberger (11)
2005: Smith (1) - N/A
2006: Young (3) - Leinart (10), Cutler (11)
2007: Russell (1) - N/A
2008: Ryan (3)- N/A
2009: Stafford (1), Sanchez (5) - N/A
2010: Bradford (1) - N/A
2011: Newton (1) - Locker (8), Gabbert (10), Ponder (12)
2012: Luck (1), Griffin (2) - Tannehill (8) (I'm stretching it here)
2013: N/A - N/A
2014: Bortles (3) - N/A
2015: Winston (1), Mariotta (2) - N/A
2016: Goff (1), Wentz (2) - N/A
2017: Trubisky (2) - Mahomes (10), Watson (12)
2018: Mayfield (1), Darnold (3) - Allen (7), Rosen (10)
2019: Murray (1) - Jones (6), Haskins (15)
2020: Burrow (1), Tagovailoa (5) - Herbert (6)

OK. Let's start with the "Dumb Jets won and lost the generation talent" case. #1 overall picks for QBs have become more common recently. There were 3 per decade before the turn of the century, then became much more common (8 in the 2000s, 7 in the 2010s). I don't believe that "generational talents" have become more common - genius is what it is, and arises when it does with equal likelihood in space and time. What has happened is that teams have become obsessed with the "franchise QB" concept, which combined with the rookie salary cap after 2011 means that the cost of whiffing on a Bortles or Winston/Mariotta pick is less severe than paying Sam Bradford tens of millions for being mediocre, or heaven forbit paying Russell, Harrington or Leinart for being outright crap.

Fine. But how about crippling yourself with a meaningless win. Sure, there are a couple of cases when the first drafting team got the better player (Manning), and the one just after got the proverbial Ryan Leaf. I can count in fact two such cases: 1993 (Bledsoe/Mirer) and 1998 (Manning/Leaf). But in 1999 McNabb was the better player but he was picked after Tim Couch. Similarly (and famously) in 2017 Mahomes and Watson were picked after Trubisky. It's a wash. However, in most years there is one player who's the consensus good QB pick and there are no others worth picking early (in the Top 5, by my definition above). True, but for every Vick, Ryan, Newton, Luck, and Stafford you have Winston, Bortles, Carr, Vince Young and Heath Shuler. It's a crapshoot. I have nothing against Lawrence. He may be amazing and have the impact of Manning or Aikman. But he can equally flame out like Jamarcus and Winston, or be just damn unlucky like Luck or Palmer, or be merely serviceable for a few years like Bradford or Testaverde.

OK, let's move on to our team and the "foolish" victory that condemned us to picking around #15 rather than around #6 (and I'm stretching the range here). Again the pattern is very random: in fact, other than Mahomes and Watson, I could find no case where a feeding frenzy in the 6-15 range where the latecomers were left holding the chaff while the early pickers made off with the wheat. In 1983 famously Jim Kelly was picked around where we will be picking (13), while at #7 lay the generational talent of... Todd Blackledge. Only one year (2004) yielded genuine multiple stars in the top 15. Rather more (notoriously: 1999, 2006 and 2011) yielded multiple busts in the 6-15 range.

Long post, I know. Apologies. I don't write that often, but this "meaningless win" rubbish is always amusing me because it simply is not borne out by the facts. These say in short:

Having first round picks = good. Trading them away = bad.

Picking 5-8 picks up or down within the first round ---> irrelevant in the great swing of things.

Winning NFL matches = always a good thing. It fosters a culture of success, hope and camaraderie. It projects an image of professionalism and pride. "Tanking" does not actually work in this sport, because careers are short and contracts non-guaranteed. It may work in baseball or basketball, but then again not always there either (I'm a Phillies fan in baseball, and we all saw where tanking for a decade got us).

Nice post I guess some people are still traumatized by the kap win vs the rams that cost us Myles Garrett when we drafted Solomon Thomas. Then again like you said Watson and Mahomes were also available but you get the point.

I guess now it's a question of how far we are going to trade up in the draft if we need/want a top 3-4 qb

Originally posted by OliverKlozoff:

Still at 14 👎🏼 Nobody helped us out today.

Sos is killing us.

Possibly at 15 if CAR loses tomorrow

Today was still big though because the Bengals and Panthers won which completely shook up the order.

Originally posted by OliverKlozoff:
Still at 14 👎🏼 Nobody helped us out today.

Sos is killing us.

Possibly at 15 if CAR loses tomorrow

Carolina? You mean New England.

Week 17 scenarios. Cowboys winning and Washington losing may have helped us but it could go the opposite way if results go against us next week.

I have us 10th at absolute best, 16th at worst, more likely somewhere in between 12th-14th.

We win and Raiders lose then we have the same record and currently the same SOS so that will depend on a whole lot of other results as to who finishes 15 and who finishes 16.

Aside from that, if we win we can't drop below 15th and can't rise above 16th.

Now, assuming we lose...

Dallas can drop behind us with a win over the Giants (the Giants cannot drop below us).

However, Washington also have to beat the Eagles otherwise Dallas wins the division and Washington will slot back in ahead of us due to SOS.

Vikings beat the Lions and they will drop behind us. Lions win and they'll draw level but both Vikings and Lions will pick ahead of us due to SOS.

Broncos beat the Raiders and they'll fall behind us on SOS.

Chargers beat the Chiefs and they also drop behind us.

Patriots beat the Jets and they drop behind us.

So absolute best scenario we need the Cowboys, WFT, Chargers, Broncos, Vikings, Patriots to all win. That will put us at 10th.

Not sure what sort of price that would be paying for all six of those games to go our way but good luck with that.

Chargers to beat the Chiefs is a long shot unless the Chiefs rest a ton of players, but why would they when they already have the week off?

All of them being division games makes it really tough to pick. Can see a lot of those games going either way.

I think the Chargers lose, Cowboys win and WFT lose, Patriots win, Vikings win, Broncos lose. That would leave us at 13th.

We're at 14 now

If Dallas minn and the chargers win which all will imo (KC can rest their starters) we are picking 11th

Dallas vs giants
Minn vs det
Chargers vs KC

If the Broncos win vs Raiders we pick 10th bc they have a harder SOS

Originally posted by mayo49:

Originally posted by OliverKlozoff:

Still at 14 👎🏼 Nobody helped us out today.

Sos is killing us.

Possibly at 15 if CAR loses tomorrow

Carolina? You mean New England.

Yes sorry man (CARs old QB)... better?