dougthonus wrote:dice wrote:talent isn't everything, obviously. and the proof is jalen carter, whose talent significantly exceeds his consensus draft slot as was determined by many nfl execs
and yes, it's from a "math perspective." the expected value of the trade works out in the favor of the bears. if you're bad at evaluating draft talent, you just take carter. but no nfl gm thinks they're bad at drafting
I think it's the reverse. If you're good at evaluating talent, it's way more likely to be worth it to trade up than if you are bad at evaluating talent. If you are bad, you always do the math.
true. in this particular case, though, the talent evaluation is difficult to screw up. which you kind of allude to here...
But in this case, the talent gap was obvious and enormous which is something that I think is rarely true, and while I generally go with the math because I think people aren't as good at drafting as they think and luck plays a much bigger factor than you can quantify, this was an obvious exception, because this guy was a top 3 talent that fell because people are really stupid.
well, if poles thought the whole league was stupid for letting carter fall, AND he thought the culture here was viable for carter to thrive over the course of his rookie contract, then sure, carter is a viable pick there
The evaluation of his character over a drag racing car accident was stupid, because the motive behind this was "fun" and the actions were just really stupid, but the outcome was so bad that it seems overwhelmingly likely he'd learn his lesson. It wasn't like choking his coach or beating up his girlfriend, where the problem came from uncontrollable anger or refusal to listen to people or something that might actual scale into a real problem.
reasonable perspective IMO. there was also the issue of coachability though. question was always whether the bright lights and scrutiny and money and increased independence would be conducive to both cleaning up his act and meeting his potential at the NFL level. seems philly was a good place for him to land
lastly, let's not pretend that he's been a consistent game wrecker out there just because the bears could have had him. in his own draft class, here are his rankings:
sacks - 10th
tackles - 5th amongst interior linemen
total AV - tie for 10th, T-2 amongst defenders (tied w/ witherspoon, drafted 5th, and trailing will anderson, drafted 3rd)
do the raiders regret taking tyree wilson at #7? i would think so! but in a re-draft stroud, anderson, witherspoon, johnson and bijan would all still go ahead of carter. maybe bryce too simply due to positional importance. it's harder to make a major impact on the interior than it is anywhere else on the field. aaron donald was a unicorn. a DT drafted where carter was (9th) is EXPECTED to be a stud. i'm not even talking about a guy who FELL to 9th