08-13-2023, 05:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-16-2023, 10:30 AM by lemonoppy. Edited 1 time in total.)
13.121: Negs picks a worse LB than Ronson and it's not particularly close, Spicy Ron, LB
If I were to only look at volume stats, then Ron, who has played 10 seasons not counting S43, actually looks a little better than Ronson. He's 26th in tackles, 21st in sacks, 2nd in TFLs (and only 4 behind 1st in Bender Rodriguez, who has played 3 more seasons thus far), and despite barely being in the top 50 of PDs, he's 15th in picks. He's 14th in FF and FR as well. So why did I tell you guys that he was getting an F? One Pro Bowl. His peak year is OK, 18 TFLs, 7 sacks, 1 pick and 2 FF/1 FR. I'd like a hell of a lot more awards than that for a non-coverage linebacker. As said last article, this is an easy F and is arguably the single worst LB drafted out of anyone. And there are still 15 or so LBs that were drafted for this project.
13.122: Mobi goes for recency bias again, picks a newly minted HOF, Jaja Ding Dong, OL
"I'm most surprised that Jaja Ding Dong went before the guy I've had my eye on
but all the others are at least understandable"
"Jaja probably a HOF player soon too"
"oh, he's HOF IMO
but, uh...let up 21 sacks"
Ding Dong is a 7 time pro bowler, with a single 1st Team and 3 2nd team All Pro spots and 7 pro bowls over a 12 year career at OL. That being said, there's a pair of mistakes I think here; first off, I don't think Ding Dong is a top 3 OL, maybe not even top 5. Ding Dong has the 3rd most pancakes ever, but has a much worse ratio of pancakes to sacks allowed than most others that high up, and also has a worse award cabinet than literally every OL to be drafted that isn't Byron Dolls. Dolls was drafted 55 picks later, and people were drafting OL that I just think are definitely better than Ding Dong 54 picks from now. Ding Dong has more seasons allowing 3 sacks than he does allowing 0 as an OL, and as such isn't anywhere near the 3rd best OL ever. Add the wrong identity of the OL pick here to the distance between Jaja and OL picks of comparable or better quality, and this is an F in my book.
13.123: Simo picks an LB who actually has more than one Pro Bowl, Xavier Walls, LB
Walls manages to have as many pro bowls as the last 2 LBs combined. With 2, over 10 seasons. Not a great mark, but he did get a 1st team All Pro, LBotY, and DPOY in one of those 2 seasons. He also is much more well rounded in the volume stats department than even Ron; 29th in tackles, T-8th in sacks, 16th in TFLs, and T-4th in both FF and FR. He's comparable in some ways to Ron, but he also has an astronomically higher peak with his S35 season including 36 TFL and Sacks combined, along with 9 FFs. Not exceptional, but at the very least a B for Simo's LB2.
13.124: Frost takes a player I'm convinced should have gone earlier, HonkyTonk Haywood, DT
"Had to manually count his pro bowls since wolfie glitched bc his name has a dash in it sometimes"
"7 pro bowls, 4 first team AP 2 second team AP
Best DL left imo"
The 2 to Chuck Roth's 1 for Best DT of the early New Sim era, HonkyTonk isn't merely one of the best players ever to be almost completely lacking a positional excellency award despite playing his entire career in that era. Over his 11 seasons, he garnered the 18th most sacks, T-9th most TFLs, 3rd most tackles, 5th most FFs and T-7th most FRs for any DT ever. I believe Haywood arguably should have been drafted over some of the DLs we've seen taken more recently, and I'm guessing he ended up being glossed over a bit because of all the years he ended up as the 2nd best DT, only winning the DTotY once in S30, and because whenever people searched his name they missed that award along with 5 of his pro bowls. A+ pick, at bare minimum is Raphael McTurtle level in my head due to the better award cabinet and that came a round ago; add to that the previous couple of DLs were nowhere near their quality and Haywood's an A+ for me.
13.125: Modern Duke makes me very sad, Willie Miller, CB
"willie - great peak (best cb season of all time), soon to be HoF paired nicely with dermot for CB2"
"Can’t believe duke picked someone who couldn’t even win DPoTY"
"Well, my strategy of “lying about the status of positions” ALMOST worked.
I would have picked Willie Miller but I thought there was a higher chance of him getting back to me than the guy actually in the Hall."
In hindsight, cannot believe Willie didn't win DPOY for his S36 season where he had the 2nd most PDs ever and 10 picks. 2 first team and 3 2nd team All Pros, though only 4 Pro Bowls, mean that in my opinion this is a better award cabinet than Bayley, the CB who was still on the board and in the Hall at this moment, as well as a few other CBs who had previously been picked. A+, also the pick that messed up my plans more than any other. I did not vote myself for Best Team (though I think it's still top half), and if Duke had allowed Willie to fall to me I would have done so. Didn't happen, I have bad CBs, and Duke has arguably the single best pair of CBs despite drafting his 2nd one after a good portion of the draft had already filled out both their roster slots.
13.126: Infinite goes for a deep cut forgotten Safety with an "award", Walt Green, S
"hmmmmmm do i desperate pick a DT or a S"
"It's getting bleak for DL and S lol"
"Yeah DL probably a few more but definitely a step down Safety is a “pick a name and pra” at this point"
Walt Green looks like an OK pick. He played for 11 seasons, went to 4 Pro Bowls and won a DBotY award. Not great, but fine. Then I checked his stat page...and I was left with one question. How did he win the DBotY for a season where he had 5 PDs? Part of it was getting absurdly lucky, he had 4 picks, but part of it was that the voters suck and have always sucked and thus decided to pick him over players with the same amount of picks but 3+ times the PDs, or even guys with less picks but over 20 PDs. This isn't even a "this was a 13 game season" thing, this is just awful voting. As you might expect from a guy whose award winning season looked like that, Green doesn't exactly have a ton of impact plays to his name over his 153 game career. He's 5th in tackles, sure, and 6th in sacks, but T-32nd in picks, T-36th in FFs, T-18th in FRs, and only 49 PDs all time makes him 15 below T-50th for PDs at the Safety position. I wouldn't be shocked if Green was in the bottom third or so of Safeties who had played at least 100 games for PDs. It's true that Infinite will need DL help in some form considering he still needs to pick 2 of them. On the other hand, that's what Angus Winchester is for, and Alex Selich. As is, Infinite's Secondary isn't that strong of a position either and he kind of left them out to dry with Green as a pick. D-.
13.127: Rusfan picks Tyler Montain+, Leonardo McTurtle, DE
"Is Leonardo not a LB?"
"Did Rus pick the wrong turtle"
"Oh he didn’t swap to LB til he got too zona"
There's also one other problem...he wasn't good until he got to Arizona either. Well, perhaps that's not entirely fair to say, he was good, just wasn't the stat machine that he became in AZ. He did get a single 1st team All Pro in S36, the last season of his DE career. Over his 4 DE seasons, he got 37 sacks and 22 TFLs, along with the 1st team All Pro and a Pro Bowl berth the same year. Not bad, but not the career that has him with the 7th most sacks of any player ever, T-24th in sacks and T-34th in TFLs despite only 96 games at the LB position over 6 seasons. He is amazingly T-20th with 10 FFs for DEs in his 64 games at the position, but otherwise doesn't really make a splash. C- for this pick, even his all pro year isn't that great and is only 1st team because nobody else stood out other than David Moyes who got the 1st spot.
13.128: Zayn picks a current player over multiple HOF RBs, Jarvis Harbinger-Marjin
"give me a sec
I’m slandering the two remaining RBs in the HOF rn"
"When looking at some of the remaining RBs in the HOF I couldn’t help but think that JHM was better then them,
He is currently just outside the top 20 in both touchdowns and yards, before he has even entered regression (needs one touchdown and 400 more yards to be in the top 20 and the distance between 20 and 10 is somewhat close)
On top of that he has won MVP and OPoTY already and helped CTC win a ring"
I can't really disagree with Zayn on this one, JHM has already put together a career that's better than both Apollo Reed and Maco Mendoca over 7 seasons. He has 4 Pro Bowls and 3 1st Team All Pros, is 23rd in Rush Yards as of the end of S42 (he's all the way up to 18th now), is T-20th in touchdowns, and on the 4th best yards per carry of all time at 4.75. He's also T-23rd in receiving touchdowns and 50th in receiving yards among RBs, albeit not at a good yards per reception at 8.71; that being said, in terms of pure efficient rushers, he's one of the best ever and is easily on his way to the Hall after his 3rd straight 1st team All Pro season. He's for sure the best RB remaining on the board. B+ pick.
13.129: DarknessRising picks Yet Another Wraith, Douglas Quaid, LB
"HoF...............
4 pro bowls and 2 all-pro 2nd teams, pairs with 3 Ultimus', and 3rd in tackles at the positions, decent PD/TFL numbers and #12 n FR. has top 20 posteason tck/sack/ff"
Quaid's in the Hall, but feels a little bit fringe. A lot of his stats come from playing 12 seasons, 189 games, at LB, and as such only 4 Pro Bowls doesn't exactly feel like a feather in the cap. That being said, he does have a decent chunk of stats; 30th in sacks, 32nd in TFLs, T-20th in picks and 2nd in PDs, along with a T-9th place for FRs among LBs. In terms of pure stat getters, he runs a bit short of a couple people left, and in terms of playoff performers, I really don't think that Quaid's abilities were what got him top 20 in those playoff stats, more than just being on a perennial playoff team that often made deep runs in the S20s Wraiths. Still, we're running up near the end of the draft in terms of LBs, and Quaid is fine, even if I do feel his Hall case is more than a bit fringe. Those dots are there for a reason. All that being said, I'm giving this pick a B. Fine but unexceptional.
Edit: After looking at the rest of the round, downgrading this to a D, there's a better LB taken later in the round.
13.130: Let'splay takes one of the best CBs left which isn't saying a lot, Dan Foster, CB
"I've had a draft strategy that I feel has worked out in a couple cases and...very much hasn't in a couple others. I'm happy with my safety picks and RB picks despite not picking them up as early as others, but I think I left CB too late.
In particular, we are now well past the point that I think people are at best fringe HOF; when David Rector, the guy who people thought I was talking about when I wrote an article about a guy who didn't belong in the Hall, was picked 30 picks ago you know the pickings are slim. Foster does not belong in the Hall in my estimation, but he does have a couple of key points that made me feel he was the best of what was left. First, he's high up on the all time stat charts, which is...more OK than anything in my estimation. Second, he had one of the greatest performances the league has ever seen from a defensive player in the Ultimus, especially as a rookie. That put him over a couple people in my estimation."
To be more specific, Foster made 3 Pro Bowls and got a single 2nd team All Pro at CB over 10 seasons. His legacy and excellency, though, is much more wrapped up in his sheer output: Among CBs he's 5th in tackles and 8th in PDs. That being said he's only 36th in picks. I probably should have picked Bayley over him anyways, and Foster+Snuggles rounds out what I believe is the 2nd worst pairing of CBs among the entire league roster, with only Rusfan's duo of Quendyn Quarterstorm and Albert Ruschmann being worse in my book. The only reason I'm not completely sunk in the passing defense department is due to my strong safeties and my line being just that good, but it's still an almost fatal weakness in my view. On his own, Foster's a C pick in my head, he's not the worst CB2 but he's one of them.
14.131: Let'splay actually gets a good WR very late in the draft process, Saba Donut, WR
"Saba Donut managed to put together a Hall of Fame career before the new sim with Jay Cue throwing in his general direction."
Donut retired top 10 in most volume stats, and had 6 Pro Bowls and a WRotY award over his 11 year career. Unlike many others, though, Donut wasn't WR1 in the twilight years of his career. As such his stats and pro bowl to year ratio are even better than they might otherwise look. Donut is still 31st in yards, 20th in touchdowns, and 15th in yards per reception at 16.5, despite only playing 156 games. And 16 of those games were as WR4. I think this is an A pick, the best WR remaining and better than Infinite's pick of James Bishop a round and a half earlier. While Oles wasn't a great 1st WR, as far as 2nd WRs go Donut is more than acceptable.
14.132: DarknessRising cannot stop picking long time Wraiths, Nate Swift, WR
"Hof who always produced, took home 3 ultimus (in a row across 2 teams), who still remains one of the greatest post-season WR's ever, 7th in receptions, 3rd in yards (was 5th and 2nd respectively when entered HoF) whilst also being 17th in all purpose and 8th in scrimmage (much harder for a WR to be high in scrimmage). Add to that 7 pro bowls with being like the 21st/22nd WR taken, I think he comes in pretty well at that point for the team, unless wanted to bet on what-ifs that are still in their prime
Also means my offence is likle entirely out of the YKW playbook that was dominant so connections is amazing in my team (Colby/Sakura/Hanyadi/Swift/Buckley)"
"Obviously we are getting down the list and the quality isn't the same. But funny how at the top the reasons were like awards and records. Personal stuff. Now down here it's like this guy won rings."
Swift played for 12 seasons, though only 167 games due to playing through the entire 13 game season era, and unlike Donut was an actual WR during the final season of his career with more than 3 receptions. He ends up 25th in yards, 34th in touchdowns, but only T-47th in yards per reception; 14.7 all in the old sim isn't actually a good mark in my book. That being said, in terms of legendary playoff WRs, very few people seem to compare: Bradley Westfield and Kotoni Staggs are straight up improvements in my book, but they're the only ones to win in both yards and touchdowns. The strange thing is that Swift had a really small number of playoff TDs for how many yards he amassed at only 4. That's T-38th, and players with half of his receiving yards in the playoffs have more TDs. That one bit of weirdness aside, still a legendary playoff WR and a great WR overall. I'll give him a B-, the awful yards per reception really knocks him down for me, but the playoff performances do drag him back up.
14.133: Zayn picks an old school player, Johnathon Saint, LB
"8 time pro bowler, 1 time LBoTY and a HOF player, this felt like a super undervalued pick for an old school user"
Due to differences in names on the archives, sometimes he's Johnathon Saint and other times he's Jonathon Saint, I'll have to take Zayn at his word that he's an 8 time pro bowler. I can confirm the HOF player and the LBotY, though it's a pretty weak one with only 4 PDs and 18 sacks+TFLs. That's not even really an era thing, just a really weak 1st season. That being said, Saint does show up in a few places on the volume stats over his 140 games played. He's 32nd in tackles, 32nd in sacks, T-29th in TFLs, T-20th in picks, and T-36th in PDs. He has a couple seasons that are much, much better than his S1 LBotY season, anyways, from S2 through S4. I think this is a better pick than any other LB this round, and it's not particularly close. A+.
14.134: Rusfan picks the other Montain, Asher Montain, DE
Asher Montain played 12 seasons and only got a single Pro Bowl. He is pretty high up on the all time stat charts for DEs, but part of that is playing 192 games at the position, more than almost any other player. He's 13th in sacks, T-31st in TFLs, 7th in tackles, T-13th in FF and T-8th in FRs for DEs all time. However, this still makes for a really, really poor all time DE. Rusfan has now picked 3 different DLine players and the best one he's picked played only 4 years at the position. He has a grand total of 2 combined Pro Bowls over 3 different DLine players and as such, basically solidified having the worst DLine even with him picking a 4th member later. F as a pick, even counting for the fact that this many players are taken there are still a plethora of better DLine players still on the board, including the guy who Rusfan will pick up in a couple rounds.
14.135: Infinite picks a player who actually played in the new sim for any length of time, Quentin Bode, LB
I didn't actually realize that was the case when I first saw Bode's career, but no, his last year was in S27, the first year of the new sim. He played for 13 seasons and made 4 pro bowls. In 184 games, Bode is pretty high up on one stat; he's 2nd all time in tackles. He's T-27th in FFs and T-19th in FRs, but is 20 sacks below 50th, 14 TFLs, and 10 PDs. I criticized Quaid and Roenick, and had reservations about Bender Rodriguez for kind of just being tackle bots, but Bode goes a step above and beyond that. There is a limit, and it's here. There are numerous other LBs that are still on the board that I think are better, as punctuated by half of Bode's Pro Bowls being poor and arguably not Pro Bowl worthy. F and one of the worst LBs anyone drafted, and kind of continues my opinion of Infinite's lineup having very high highs and very low lows.
14.136: Modern Duke picks his version of Tyler Montain, Ian Bavitz, LB
"bavitz - again lots of LB spots to fill, two others I was considering saint and bode just went"
Bavitz played 5 seasons at LB of his 8 year career, from S1 to S5. He made 4 Pro Bowls over those 5 seasons, the same amount as Bode did in 13. Over those 70 games, he had 513 tackles, 15 TFLs, 48 sacks, and 31 PDs. To compare, that's 10 more sacks than Bode has, 8 less TFLs, and 29 less PDs, while getting one half tackle per game less than Bode. Very much a peak over longevity player with only 4 seasons, but he has a really nice peak over those 5 seasons. B+ as a pick.
14.137: Frost takes his own version of Tyler Montain, D'Pez Poopsie, DE
"6 time pro bowler (4 at DL)
Has an interesting career due to swapping positions in the middle, however put together a very solid career overall, and has 5 seasons of 6+ sacks, as well as 3 with 10+ TFLs. Not to mention his above average CB play who I have no doubt would have made the hall, or at least snagged a few votes if not for the position swap. At a position that has an extreme falloff, this felt around the right spot to take him"
Poopsie switched to DE in S14, and thus played only 93 games at the position. He got T-40th in Sacks and T-43rd in TFLs among DEs in that time, and made pro bowls in 4 of the 7 seasons he was a DE. I'm not sure he's the absolute best DE still available, but getting a guy who made over 50% of the possible pro bowls is nice, especially considering the last DL who was picked we could say that about was Raphael McTurtle, two and a half rounds ago. A- as a pick.
14.138: Simo takes a player who won titles on 3 different teams, Godfrey King, DT
"93 sacks (4th all time for DTs), a positional awards. 4 pro bowls also."
Over 152 games and 11 seasons, King also ranks 18th in tackles. Really, though, this is about his sack skills, where he's in the top 5 in the equivalent of less than 10 seasons of 16 games. Part of that has to be playing in one of if not the single weakest period for OLines in the ISFL's history, but it's still quite notable. Picking up a DLotY award in the era of Jayce Tuck and Dan Miller isn't a small feat either. I think I'm going to give it a B+ as a pick, and Simo rounds out what I think is easily the 2nd best DL in total behind only myself. And that is due to drafting his final DL player seven rounds after I did.
14.139: Mobi picks a player based on the season he was having at the time, Danny Nedelko, OFlex
"Man, Zayn, if you were insulting the RBs in the Hall with the JHM pick, what's Mobi doing?
Spitting on their graves?"
Nedelko just completed his 5th season with the 3rd most rushing yards ever. He has made 2 Pro Bowls, a single 2nd Team All Pro, and MOP+OPOY for his performance in S42. That's really what he was drafted for, though he has broken into the top 50 rankings in a few spots: as of the end of S42, he's 48th in rush yards and T-35th in rushing touchdowns, on the T-12th best yards per carry ever at 4.55. That being said, this is very much a single season pick, and for as impressive a single season as it was, it wasn't even a 1st team All Pro season, as the award committee ended up giving it to Jarvis Harbinger-Marjin. There are a few RBs left who have better resumes, and this doesn't really end up saving Mobi's RB pair of Zohri and Goose. Somehow Mobi managed to put together 3 RBs with less than 10 pro bowls combined and a total of a 1st Team and 4 2nd Team All Pros despite all of them playing in the All Pro era. D pick.
Negs picks a 3rd LB that's probably better than both of his previous LBs combined, Ernest Lover, LB
"Ernest
2 ultimus
1 1st team AP
2 2nd team AP
Top 15 in tackles, sacks, FF
1st in blocked FGs
4th in tackles + TFL in playoffs all time"
Some of that list needs to be updated due to not playing LB for their first 2 of their 13 seasons; Lover's 18th in tackles among LBs, T-12th in sacks, T-41st in TFLs, top 30 in INTs, T-6th in PDs, and T-11th in FFs. The big mark against them is technically that they didn't make a Pro Bowl, though Pro Bowls are hard to come by as pass defense first LBs. As such it's not too much of a mark against them. A+ pick, only Johnathon Saint compares in terms of LBs taken in these 2 rounds and he was picked 3 LBs earlier.
If I were to only look at volume stats, then Ron, who has played 10 seasons not counting S43, actually looks a little better than Ronson. He's 26th in tackles, 21st in sacks, 2nd in TFLs (and only 4 behind 1st in Bender Rodriguez, who has played 3 more seasons thus far), and despite barely being in the top 50 of PDs, he's 15th in picks. He's 14th in FF and FR as well. So why did I tell you guys that he was getting an F? One Pro Bowl. His peak year is OK, 18 TFLs, 7 sacks, 1 pick and 2 FF/1 FR. I'd like a hell of a lot more awards than that for a non-coverage linebacker. As said last article, this is an easy F and is arguably the single worst LB drafted out of anyone. And there are still 15 or so LBs that were drafted for this project.
13.122: Mobi goes for recency bias again, picks a newly minted HOF, Jaja Ding Dong, OL
"I'm most surprised that Jaja Ding Dong went before the guy I've had my eye on
but all the others are at least understandable"
"Jaja probably a HOF player soon too"
"oh, he's HOF IMO
but, uh...let up 21 sacks"
Ding Dong is a 7 time pro bowler, with a single 1st Team and 3 2nd team All Pro spots and 7 pro bowls over a 12 year career at OL. That being said, there's a pair of mistakes I think here; first off, I don't think Ding Dong is a top 3 OL, maybe not even top 5. Ding Dong has the 3rd most pancakes ever, but has a much worse ratio of pancakes to sacks allowed than most others that high up, and also has a worse award cabinet than literally every OL to be drafted that isn't Byron Dolls. Dolls was drafted 55 picks later, and people were drafting OL that I just think are definitely better than Ding Dong 54 picks from now. Ding Dong has more seasons allowing 3 sacks than he does allowing 0 as an OL, and as such isn't anywhere near the 3rd best OL ever. Add the wrong identity of the OL pick here to the distance between Jaja and OL picks of comparable or better quality, and this is an F in my book.
13.123: Simo picks an LB who actually has more than one Pro Bowl, Xavier Walls, LB
Walls manages to have as many pro bowls as the last 2 LBs combined. With 2, over 10 seasons. Not a great mark, but he did get a 1st team All Pro, LBotY, and DPOY in one of those 2 seasons. He also is much more well rounded in the volume stats department than even Ron; 29th in tackles, T-8th in sacks, 16th in TFLs, and T-4th in both FF and FR. He's comparable in some ways to Ron, but he also has an astronomically higher peak with his S35 season including 36 TFL and Sacks combined, along with 9 FFs. Not exceptional, but at the very least a B for Simo's LB2.
13.124: Frost takes a player I'm convinced should have gone earlier, HonkyTonk Haywood, DT
"Had to manually count his pro bowls since wolfie glitched bc his name has a dash in it sometimes"
"7 pro bowls, 4 first team AP 2 second team AP
Best DL left imo"
The 2 to Chuck Roth's 1 for Best DT of the early New Sim era, HonkyTonk isn't merely one of the best players ever to be almost completely lacking a positional excellency award despite playing his entire career in that era. Over his 11 seasons, he garnered the 18th most sacks, T-9th most TFLs, 3rd most tackles, 5th most FFs and T-7th most FRs for any DT ever. I believe Haywood arguably should have been drafted over some of the DLs we've seen taken more recently, and I'm guessing he ended up being glossed over a bit because of all the years he ended up as the 2nd best DT, only winning the DTotY once in S30, and because whenever people searched his name they missed that award along with 5 of his pro bowls. A+ pick, at bare minimum is Raphael McTurtle level in my head due to the better award cabinet and that came a round ago; add to that the previous couple of DLs were nowhere near their quality and Haywood's an A+ for me.
13.125: Modern Duke makes me very sad, Willie Miller, CB
"willie - great peak (best cb season of all time), soon to be HoF paired nicely with dermot for CB2"
"Can’t believe duke picked someone who couldn’t even win DPoTY"
"Well, my strategy of “lying about the status of positions” ALMOST worked.
I would have picked Willie Miller but I thought there was a higher chance of him getting back to me than the guy actually in the Hall."
In hindsight, cannot believe Willie didn't win DPOY for his S36 season where he had the 2nd most PDs ever and 10 picks. 2 first team and 3 2nd team All Pros, though only 4 Pro Bowls, mean that in my opinion this is a better award cabinet than Bayley, the CB who was still on the board and in the Hall at this moment, as well as a few other CBs who had previously been picked. A+, also the pick that messed up my plans more than any other. I did not vote myself for Best Team (though I think it's still top half), and if Duke had allowed Willie to fall to me I would have done so. Didn't happen, I have bad CBs, and Duke has arguably the single best pair of CBs despite drafting his 2nd one after a good portion of the draft had already filled out both their roster slots.
13.126: Infinite goes for a deep cut forgotten Safety with an "award", Walt Green, S
"hmmmmmm do i desperate pick a DT or a S"
"It's getting bleak for DL and S lol"
"Yeah DL probably a few more but definitely a step down Safety is a “pick a name and pra” at this point"
Walt Green looks like an OK pick. He played for 11 seasons, went to 4 Pro Bowls and won a DBotY award. Not great, but fine. Then I checked his stat page...and I was left with one question. How did he win the DBotY for a season where he had 5 PDs? Part of it was getting absurdly lucky, he had 4 picks, but part of it was that the voters suck and have always sucked and thus decided to pick him over players with the same amount of picks but 3+ times the PDs, or even guys with less picks but over 20 PDs. This isn't even a "this was a 13 game season" thing, this is just awful voting. As you might expect from a guy whose award winning season looked like that, Green doesn't exactly have a ton of impact plays to his name over his 153 game career. He's 5th in tackles, sure, and 6th in sacks, but T-32nd in picks, T-36th in FFs, T-18th in FRs, and only 49 PDs all time makes him 15 below T-50th for PDs at the Safety position. I wouldn't be shocked if Green was in the bottom third or so of Safeties who had played at least 100 games for PDs. It's true that Infinite will need DL help in some form considering he still needs to pick 2 of them. On the other hand, that's what Angus Winchester is for, and Alex Selich. As is, Infinite's Secondary isn't that strong of a position either and he kind of left them out to dry with Green as a pick. D-.
13.127: Rusfan picks Tyler Montain+, Leonardo McTurtle, DE
"Is Leonardo not a LB?"
"Did Rus pick the wrong turtle"
"Oh he didn’t swap to LB til he got too zona"
There's also one other problem...he wasn't good until he got to Arizona either. Well, perhaps that's not entirely fair to say, he was good, just wasn't the stat machine that he became in AZ. He did get a single 1st team All Pro in S36, the last season of his DE career. Over his 4 DE seasons, he got 37 sacks and 22 TFLs, along with the 1st team All Pro and a Pro Bowl berth the same year. Not bad, but not the career that has him with the 7th most sacks of any player ever, T-24th in sacks and T-34th in TFLs despite only 96 games at the LB position over 6 seasons. He is amazingly T-20th with 10 FFs for DEs in his 64 games at the position, but otherwise doesn't really make a splash. C- for this pick, even his all pro year isn't that great and is only 1st team because nobody else stood out other than David Moyes who got the 1st spot.
13.128: Zayn picks a current player over multiple HOF RBs, Jarvis Harbinger-Marjin
"give me a sec
I’m slandering the two remaining RBs in the HOF rn"
"When looking at some of the remaining RBs in the HOF I couldn’t help but think that JHM was better then them,
He is currently just outside the top 20 in both touchdowns and yards, before he has even entered regression (needs one touchdown and 400 more yards to be in the top 20 and the distance between 20 and 10 is somewhat close)
On top of that he has won MVP and OPoTY already and helped CTC win a ring"
I can't really disagree with Zayn on this one, JHM has already put together a career that's better than both Apollo Reed and Maco Mendoca over 7 seasons. He has 4 Pro Bowls and 3 1st Team All Pros, is 23rd in Rush Yards as of the end of S42 (he's all the way up to 18th now), is T-20th in touchdowns, and on the 4th best yards per carry of all time at 4.75. He's also T-23rd in receiving touchdowns and 50th in receiving yards among RBs, albeit not at a good yards per reception at 8.71; that being said, in terms of pure efficient rushers, he's one of the best ever and is easily on his way to the Hall after his 3rd straight 1st team All Pro season. He's for sure the best RB remaining on the board. B+ pick.
13.129: DarknessRising picks Yet Another Wraith, Douglas Quaid, LB
"HoF...............
4 pro bowls and 2 all-pro 2nd teams, pairs with 3 Ultimus', and 3rd in tackles at the positions, decent PD/TFL numbers and #12 n FR. has top 20 posteason tck/sack/ff"
Quaid's in the Hall, but feels a little bit fringe. A lot of his stats come from playing 12 seasons, 189 games, at LB, and as such only 4 Pro Bowls doesn't exactly feel like a feather in the cap. That being said, he does have a decent chunk of stats; 30th in sacks, 32nd in TFLs, T-20th in picks and 2nd in PDs, along with a T-9th place for FRs among LBs. In terms of pure stat getters, he runs a bit short of a couple people left, and in terms of playoff performers, I really don't think that Quaid's abilities were what got him top 20 in those playoff stats, more than just being on a perennial playoff team that often made deep runs in the S20s Wraiths. Still, we're running up near the end of the draft in terms of LBs, and Quaid is fine, even if I do feel his Hall case is more than a bit fringe. Those dots are there for a reason. All that being said, I'm giving this pick a B. Fine but unexceptional.
Edit: After looking at the rest of the round, downgrading this to a D, there's a better LB taken later in the round.
13.130: Let'splay takes one of the best CBs left which isn't saying a lot, Dan Foster, CB
"I've had a draft strategy that I feel has worked out in a couple cases and...very much hasn't in a couple others. I'm happy with my safety picks and RB picks despite not picking them up as early as others, but I think I left CB too late.
In particular, we are now well past the point that I think people are at best fringe HOF; when David Rector, the guy who people thought I was talking about when I wrote an article about a guy who didn't belong in the Hall, was picked 30 picks ago you know the pickings are slim. Foster does not belong in the Hall in my estimation, but he does have a couple of key points that made me feel he was the best of what was left. First, he's high up on the all time stat charts, which is...more OK than anything in my estimation. Second, he had one of the greatest performances the league has ever seen from a defensive player in the Ultimus, especially as a rookie. That put him over a couple people in my estimation."
To be more specific, Foster made 3 Pro Bowls and got a single 2nd team All Pro at CB over 10 seasons. His legacy and excellency, though, is much more wrapped up in his sheer output: Among CBs he's 5th in tackles and 8th in PDs. That being said he's only 36th in picks. I probably should have picked Bayley over him anyways, and Foster+Snuggles rounds out what I believe is the 2nd worst pairing of CBs among the entire league roster, with only Rusfan's duo of Quendyn Quarterstorm and Albert Ruschmann being worse in my book. The only reason I'm not completely sunk in the passing defense department is due to my strong safeties and my line being just that good, but it's still an almost fatal weakness in my view. On his own, Foster's a C pick in my head, he's not the worst CB2 but he's one of them.
14.131: Let'splay actually gets a good WR very late in the draft process, Saba Donut, WR
"Saba Donut managed to put together a Hall of Fame career before the new sim with Jay Cue throwing in his general direction."
Donut retired top 10 in most volume stats, and had 6 Pro Bowls and a WRotY award over his 11 year career. Unlike many others, though, Donut wasn't WR1 in the twilight years of his career. As such his stats and pro bowl to year ratio are even better than they might otherwise look. Donut is still 31st in yards, 20th in touchdowns, and 15th in yards per reception at 16.5, despite only playing 156 games. And 16 of those games were as WR4. I think this is an A pick, the best WR remaining and better than Infinite's pick of James Bishop a round and a half earlier. While Oles wasn't a great 1st WR, as far as 2nd WRs go Donut is more than acceptable.
14.132: DarknessRising cannot stop picking long time Wraiths, Nate Swift, WR
"Hof who always produced, took home 3 ultimus (in a row across 2 teams), who still remains one of the greatest post-season WR's ever, 7th in receptions, 3rd in yards (was 5th and 2nd respectively when entered HoF) whilst also being 17th in all purpose and 8th in scrimmage (much harder for a WR to be high in scrimmage). Add to that 7 pro bowls with being like the 21st/22nd WR taken, I think he comes in pretty well at that point for the team, unless wanted to bet on what-ifs that are still in their prime
Also means my offence is likle entirely out of the YKW playbook that was dominant so connections is amazing in my team (Colby/Sakura/Hanyadi/Swift/Buckley)"
"Obviously we are getting down the list and the quality isn't the same. But funny how at the top the reasons were like awards and records. Personal stuff. Now down here it's like this guy won rings."
Swift played for 12 seasons, though only 167 games due to playing through the entire 13 game season era, and unlike Donut was an actual WR during the final season of his career with more than 3 receptions. He ends up 25th in yards, 34th in touchdowns, but only T-47th in yards per reception; 14.7 all in the old sim isn't actually a good mark in my book. That being said, in terms of legendary playoff WRs, very few people seem to compare: Bradley Westfield and Kotoni Staggs are straight up improvements in my book, but they're the only ones to win in both yards and touchdowns. The strange thing is that Swift had a really small number of playoff TDs for how many yards he amassed at only 4. That's T-38th, and players with half of his receiving yards in the playoffs have more TDs. That one bit of weirdness aside, still a legendary playoff WR and a great WR overall. I'll give him a B-, the awful yards per reception really knocks him down for me, but the playoff performances do drag him back up.
14.133: Zayn picks an old school player, Johnathon Saint, LB
"8 time pro bowler, 1 time LBoTY and a HOF player, this felt like a super undervalued pick for an old school user"
Due to differences in names on the archives, sometimes he's Johnathon Saint and other times he's Jonathon Saint, I'll have to take Zayn at his word that he's an 8 time pro bowler. I can confirm the HOF player and the LBotY, though it's a pretty weak one with only 4 PDs and 18 sacks+TFLs. That's not even really an era thing, just a really weak 1st season. That being said, Saint does show up in a few places on the volume stats over his 140 games played. He's 32nd in tackles, 32nd in sacks, T-29th in TFLs, T-20th in picks, and T-36th in PDs. He has a couple seasons that are much, much better than his S1 LBotY season, anyways, from S2 through S4. I think this is a better pick than any other LB this round, and it's not particularly close. A+.
14.134: Rusfan picks the other Montain, Asher Montain, DE
Asher Montain played 12 seasons and only got a single Pro Bowl. He is pretty high up on the all time stat charts for DEs, but part of that is playing 192 games at the position, more than almost any other player. He's 13th in sacks, T-31st in TFLs, 7th in tackles, T-13th in FF and T-8th in FRs for DEs all time. However, this still makes for a really, really poor all time DE. Rusfan has now picked 3 different DLine players and the best one he's picked played only 4 years at the position. He has a grand total of 2 combined Pro Bowls over 3 different DLine players and as such, basically solidified having the worst DLine even with him picking a 4th member later. F as a pick, even counting for the fact that this many players are taken there are still a plethora of better DLine players still on the board, including the guy who Rusfan will pick up in a couple rounds.
14.135: Infinite picks a player who actually played in the new sim for any length of time, Quentin Bode, LB
I didn't actually realize that was the case when I first saw Bode's career, but no, his last year was in S27, the first year of the new sim. He played for 13 seasons and made 4 pro bowls. In 184 games, Bode is pretty high up on one stat; he's 2nd all time in tackles. He's T-27th in FFs and T-19th in FRs, but is 20 sacks below 50th, 14 TFLs, and 10 PDs. I criticized Quaid and Roenick, and had reservations about Bender Rodriguez for kind of just being tackle bots, but Bode goes a step above and beyond that. There is a limit, and it's here. There are numerous other LBs that are still on the board that I think are better, as punctuated by half of Bode's Pro Bowls being poor and arguably not Pro Bowl worthy. F and one of the worst LBs anyone drafted, and kind of continues my opinion of Infinite's lineup having very high highs and very low lows.
14.136: Modern Duke picks his version of Tyler Montain, Ian Bavitz, LB
"bavitz - again lots of LB spots to fill, two others I was considering saint and bode just went"
Bavitz played 5 seasons at LB of his 8 year career, from S1 to S5. He made 4 Pro Bowls over those 5 seasons, the same amount as Bode did in 13. Over those 70 games, he had 513 tackles, 15 TFLs, 48 sacks, and 31 PDs. To compare, that's 10 more sacks than Bode has, 8 less TFLs, and 29 less PDs, while getting one half tackle per game less than Bode. Very much a peak over longevity player with only 4 seasons, but he has a really nice peak over those 5 seasons. B+ as a pick.
14.137: Frost takes his own version of Tyler Montain, D'Pez Poopsie, DE
"6 time pro bowler (4 at DL)
Has an interesting career due to swapping positions in the middle, however put together a very solid career overall, and has 5 seasons of 6+ sacks, as well as 3 with 10+ TFLs. Not to mention his above average CB play who I have no doubt would have made the hall, or at least snagged a few votes if not for the position swap. At a position that has an extreme falloff, this felt around the right spot to take him"
Poopsie switched to DE in S14, and thus played only 93 games at the position. He got T-40th in Sacks and T-43rd in TFLs among DEs in that time, and made pro bowls in 4 of the 7 seasons he was a DE. I'm not sure he's the absolute best DE still available, but getting a guy who made over 50% of the possible pro bowls is nice, especially considering the last DL who was picked we could say that about was Raphael McTurtle, two and a half rounds ago. A- as a pick.
14.138: Simo takes a player who won titles on 3 different teams, Godfrey King, DT
"93 sacks (4th all time for DTs), a positional awards. 4 pro bowls also."
Over 152 games and 11 seasons, King also ranks 18th in tackles. Really, though, this is about his sack skills, where he's in the top 5 in the equivalent of less than 10 seasons of 16 games. Part of that has to be playing in one of if not the single weakest period for OLines in the ISFL's history, but it's still quite notable. Picking up a DLotY award in the era of Jayce Tuck and Dan Miller isn't a small feat either. I think I'm going to give it a B+ as a pick, and Simo rounds out what I think is easily the 2nd best DL in total behind only myself. And that is due to drafting his final DL player seven rounds after I did.
14.139: Mobi picks a player based on the season he was having at the time, Danny Nedelko, OFlex
"Man, Zayn, if you were insulting the RBs in the Hall with the JHM pick, what's Mobi doing?
Spitting on their graves?"
Nedelko just completed his 5th season with the 3rd most rushing yards ever. He has made 2 Pro Bowls, a single 2nd Team All Pro, and MOP+OPOY for his performance in S42. That's really what he was drafted for, though he has broken into the top 50 rankings in a few spots: as of the end of S42, he's 48th in rush yards and T-35th in rushing touchdowns, on the T-12th best yards per carry ever at 4.55. That being said, this is very much a single season pick, and for as impressive a single season as it was, it wasn't even a 1st team All Pro season, as the award committee ended up giving it to Jarvis Harbinger-Marjin. There are a few RBs left who have better resumes, and this doesn't really end up saving Mobi's RB pair of Zohri and Goose. Somehow Mobi managed to put together 3 RBs with less than 10 pro bowls combined and a total of a 1st Team and 4 2nd Team All Pros despite all of them playing in the All Pro era. D pick.
Negs picks a 3rd LB that's probably better than both of his previous LBs combined, Ernest Lover, LB
"Ernest
2 ultimus
1 1st team AP
2 2nd team AP
Top 15 in tackles, sacks, FF
1st in blocked FGs
4th in tackles + TFL in playoffs all time"
Some of that list needs to be updated due to not playing LB for their first 2 of their 13 seasons; Lover's 18th in tackles among LBs, T-12th in sacks, T-41st in TFLs, top 30 in INTs, T-6th in PDs, and T-11th in FFs. The big mark against them is technically that they didn't make a Pro Bowl, though Pro Bowls are hard to come by as pass defense first LBs. As such it's not too much of a mark against them. A+ pick, only Johnathon Saint compares in terms of LBs taken in these 2 rounds and he was picked 3 LBs earlier.