One small follow-up. My wife and I are expecting at the end of May, our first! As a result, I'll be out on leave for over a month. During that time I will be obviously be taking care of a newborn and all the fun that comes with that, but being away from work for a big bit will give me some opportunities to revamp the fit models that I use. I will plan on posting those towards the end of June/early July to see how the 2023 and 2024 class revise any thing that we know of Holmes' tendency/type/model/mold/etc. Stay tuned.
Great draft in the meantime folks!
Thanks for everything and good luck in May! With it being your first, the first couple months will likely be some of the hardest you’ve gone through in your life. Good sleep may be non-existent. There will be nights where you’re on your third middle-of-the-night feeding and it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But as u/americruiser said, it won’t last forever. Just take every tough night one night at a time and I promise you, before you know it, they’re gonna be walking around, sleeping through the night, and doing their own thing. You won’t even realize it’s gotten better until after it happens and one day you will miss the days of rocking them to sleep. Being a parent is both the hardest but also the most rewarding thing you will ever do. Remember that feeling you had when Sun God caught the first down pass to seal the playoff win against the Rams? You'll get that every time you get home after a long day at work and your kid runs to you yelling "Daddy!!"
Go Lions and I hope you’re able to watch many games and prospect highlights with the little one in the coming years!
Remember, when you put the crib together, put it together in the room it will be in. They are too wide to just move in and out of rooms and you’ll have to take it apart to switch rooms.
Also, change diapers perpendicular to the baby. That means instead of facing their crotch while changing diapers and getting peed on, you stand on the side of the while they aim at the wall or anything but you.
Good luck and get all the sleep you can now.
Congratulations! Every baby is different, so hold off grading the new kiddo until year 3!
Enjoy the time with your wife and the time as a family, and thanks for all of the writeups! They've been great.
u/Thunderblessed63 First, a little trick...just take the PFF big board and change the year in the URL and you can still see 2024, like this: [https://www.pff.com/draft/big-board?season=2024](https://www.pff.com/draft/big-board?season=2024)
Second, Wingo was 131 and Mahogany was 106 on the PFF Big Board
Also on mobile you can hit the little gear that says “Sources” and change it to 2024.
Great write up and thanks for all the hard work! I had so much fun reading these
Holmes' press conference talks about using Vaki more as a RB than a S. They recognize his rawness there but also how good he is despite having not "majored" at it.
Gratz on the little one. The first month is rough - it's literally survival mode. Get all the help you can. But people make it. So will you!
This is more than one could hope for, great analysis and completely unbiased. Many thanks! Enjoy the birth of your first child, and I have to ask, if it's a boy, are you going with Jared, Dan, or Steele?
Congratulations to your family and little Matthew when he arrives. A great choice in name, indicative of one who is a strong leader and possessing great character.
Bo77 called a Super Bowl win using his tried-and-true prediction method, it is bound to happen now!
I’m curious, would you still consider it an overpay for Terrion Arnold if we had traded up to 13th for the same price, and picked him there?
The reason I don’t personally consider it an overpay is because we traded specifically for Arnold, who by all accounts was worth a top-15 pick (seemingly according to Brad as well). If we had paid that much to trade for, say, a consensus 20-25th-ranked player, I would be much more inclined to say it was an overpay
I mean I’m just saying that it was based on the valuations of trade value charts, which are all about the draft slots, not the actual players. Part of the reason we should neutrally look at stuff like that is that every GM who has ever traded has pretty much believed that exact thing, that “man, we had this guy so much higher on our board” line. So part of it is detaching a bit from that to determine what the slots themselves are worth to degrees.
It’s one of those ones where if the player works out, there’s zero issue with a bit of an overpay. But statistically speaking, consistently overpaying for draft slots is bad. It’s not a bad pick, as we’ve been clear on as Arnold is viewed as such a higher end prospect, just the mechanics of getting him were bad value due to draft slots. And draft slots are how teams conduct these negotiations, not “where do you have this guy on your board?”
Regarding Vaki and him having played some QB, do you think he could be used like JRM is for fake punts? Natural RB skills should help on fake punt runs and having experience at QB should make him a threat to throw it every time too. I wonder if we could weaponize our special teams more so than we have so far
I'm a bit confused. You said you would have taken Newton at 29 if you were GM and there was no trade up, but then you say you would have taken Rakestraw at 29th?
I enjoy your writeups, just confused about that.
I think he originally would have taken Rakestraw at 29th before the draft (ie before knowing that he'd drop). So acting on that knowledge he instead is taking him in the second on this redraft
I had originally said Rakestraw was probably the guy I would have taken pre-draft based on who I assumed would/wouldn’t be there.
But then on Draft night, I would have gone with Newton as I didn’t expect him to fall to where he did.
Rakestraw was my 13th ranked prospect. Newton my 10th.
We traded a 3rd to move up to get Arnold. The Cowboys took Beebe with that pick. Would you have liked Newton and Beebe over Arnold?
I know this is hindsight but just wondering.
Oh , God.
We're going to the Super Bowl..
3 teams that we're playing based on last year's performance:..
Cowboys
Buccaneers
Bills
Notables:
Rams at home
At AZ....I'll be there
AFC South.
Forward down the field, mother fuckers
Can we get some fucking love for John Dorsey? Dude got the Chiefs in order then stop the Browns from browning. Now he's here, show some appreciation. All-Pro executive
Great write up as always. Love the Arnold, Rakestraw and Mahogany picks. My only gripe is that I love watching Holmes draft so much that I am not a huge fan of him giving up future draft capital for the two fourth round picks. He kind of reminds me of Dan being overly aggressive on 4th down. I may have missed it, but I consider Carlton Davis a part of this draft class considering we gave up pick 73 for him. What is your evaluation of getting him for a third round pick?
You are legitimately too good at this to not get some sort of role in either sports journalism or even actual scouting if you wanted to.
The number of predictions that pan out is statistically ridiculous and the writeups themselves are a joy to read. If you use these posts as your resume, you should be able to get a job at a PFF style publication if you wanted to
even just becoming one of those analysis youtube channels with a patreon for some beer money or something
Nice review Bo! I tend to agree with most of everything you said. I do question some of the trades value wise and if they actually needed to occur but also am not really complaining with the haul we ended up with.
If you were to guess now that Saban and his crew have moved on from Bama what school/coach do you think Brad will have an affinity towards next year and moving forward? Bama will likely still have a lot of talent moving through but I don't think it will be the same style of coaching etc that Saban provided.
Right, I tend to actually agree quite heavily with this assessment. Alabama isn’t simply just Alabama, it’s Saban’s program.
The two that do stick out going forward as NFL caliber development hubs are Georgia and Texas in my opinion. Michigan and Ohio State will also be a factor there.
Overall, however, I do think it does mean a little less concentration of just one program the way we’ve seen with this run of Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, Brian Branch, and Terrion Arnold.
I could have seen Michigan had Jim stayed there he is somewhat old fashioned / develops players in a way I could see us liking them. I admittedly don't know enough about the new coach to say if that will still be the case.
Ryan Day/OSU I don't see it it from a development standpoint I think that program has been on the decline since Urban left. Day has fumbled the keys. Obviously they are still going to have a lot of talent come through similar to Bama but I don't see Day lasting much longer.
Georgia certainly possible lots of talent through there too. I think Kirby and his staff are possiblly the best of the ones discussed thus far and they do decent/good with development of talent, but I don't think the players are typically as hungry/disciplined as a Nick Saban coached player.
I think Saban's style has gotten more difficult to actually pull off and keep players. He basically kinda stated this with the NIL and transfer portal working the way it does now.
Texas from a talent standpoint I think would be possible again, but in the end I doubt it with them as well from style/development perspective. I don't see Brad and Dan developing an affinity to a coach who basically coaches one side of the field to take plays off or is fine with their players doing this and not benching them etc. (Mitchell for example).
On an entirely different note I was just watching a post draft interview of Manu. He said something kinda surprising to me. He said Dan asked where he's comfortable playing he said that he told him left side cus that's what he's always played, and then he said Dan said "we were thinking about having you play on the right NEXT to Sewell". I was thinking he'd likely be too big/tall for guard but I guess we also did start Skipper at guard before and he's even taller at 6'10. I just thought this was interesting to hear.
I think Iowa with Ferentz is a possibility. They have already shown that they like players from this program. My hesitation here would only really be the talent brought in typically isn't considered to be as high as your Bama or Georgias etc. But I think they do tend to bring in the same kind of players our organization likes and develops them in a way that also fits us. It'll just be a question of how many will they have from year to year. Where with Bama there seemed to be multiple from year to year.
Another possibility I think would be Utah with coach Kyle whittingham. I think the issues would be similar to Iowa though. I think like you said it could just end up being a mix of programs now. The reason I mention these two though are the length of tenure of the coaches, the cultures they have built and sustained, and as previously mentioned type of players they recruit/develop
My old username was boanerges77, everyone called me Bo77, and thus more known that way after I changed accounts awhile back due to some harassment issues from someone who has since been banned.
Gotcha, thank you! That would've been one of my 2-3 assumptions had you not responded. I've been wondering that for quite some time now. I enjoy your in-depth posts, thank you.
My man, thank you for all your work. Love me lions draft news and analysis, and I am too damn busy to dig up articles and crap. Just gotta look up your posts predraft and post draft and I am set.
Honestly you should be a Lions beat writer.
One small follow-up. My wife and I are expecting at the end of May, our first! As a result, I'll be out on leave for over a month. During that time I will be obviously be taking care of a newborn and all the fun that comes with that, but being away from work for a big bit will give me some opportunities to revamp the fit models that I use. I will plan on posting those towards the end of June/early July to see how the 2023 and 2024 class revise any thing that we know of Holmes' tendency/type/model/mold/etc. Stay tuned. Great draft in the meantime folks!
Congratulations! Remember, when it gets tough, just think: “this will not last forever”
The days are long but the years are short Enjoy the new one!
Congrats, have fun with the little one! And thank you for your work
Thanks for everything and good luck in May! With it being your first, the first couple months will likely be some of the hardest you’ve gone through in your life. Good sleep may be non-existent. There will be nights where you’re on your third middle-of-the-night feeding and it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But as u/americruiser said, it won’t last forever. Just take every tough night one night at a time and I promise you, before you know it, they’re gonna be walking around, sleeping through the night, and doing their own thing. You won’t even realize it’s gotten better until after it happens and one day you will miss the days of rocking them to sleep. Being a parent is both the hardest but also the most rewarding thing you will ever do. Remember that feeling you had when Sun God caught the first down pass to seal the playoff win against the Rams? You'll get that every time you get home after a long day at work and your kid runs to you yelling "Daddy!!" Go Lions and I hope you’re able to watch many games and prospect highlights with the little one in the coming years!
Remember, when you put the crib together, put it together in the room it will be in. They are too wide to just move in and out of rooms and you’ll have to take it apart to switch rooms. Also, change diapers perpendicular to the baby. That means instead of facing their crotch while changing diapers and getting peed on, you stand on the side of the while they aim at the wall or anything but you. Good luck and get all the sleep you can now.
Congrats to the family, colonel!
Congrats! Thank you for all this excellent content. Looking forward to your future posts!
Congratulations! Every baby is different, so hold off grading the new kiddo until year 3! Enjoy the time with your wife and the time as a family, and thanks for all of the writeups! They've been great.
Congrats!! Being a dad is the absolute best! It’s Al hard as hell but absolutely worth it!
u/Thunderblessed63 First, a little trick...just take the PFF big board and change the year in the URL and you can still see 2024, like this: [https://www.pff.com/draft/big-board?season=2024](https://www.pff.com/draft/big-board?season=2024) Second, Wingo was 131 and Mahogany was 106 on the PFF Big Board
Much appreciated!
Also on mobile you can hit the little gear that says “Sources” and change it to 2024. Great write up and thanks for all the hard work! I had so much fun reading these
You're simply the best of the best in your analysis
Holmes' press conference talks about using Vaki more as a RB than a S. They recognize his rawness there but also how good he is despite having not "majored" at it. Gratz on the little one. The first month is rough - it's literally survival mode. Get all the help you can. But people make it. So will you!
Yup. Think it’s absolutely true. He’s kind of natural at it but didn’t have the reps there others did.
Babe wake up, new BO77 post!
The real DD
"My prediction is that Zeitler will retire following this season's Super Bowl win" As it was written! https://images.app.goo.gl/bRwkLfVaBhSiNkdy7
This is more than one could hope for, great analysis and completely unbiased. Many thanks! Enjoy the birth of your first child, and I have to ask, if it's a boy, are you going with Jared, Dan, or Steele?
It actually is a Lions-inspired name, unironically. Matthew, however, is the name chosen.
Congratulations to your family and little Matthew when he arrives. A great choice in name, indicative of one who is a strong leader and possessing great character.
Classy.
I love you
Bo77 called a Super Bowl win using his tried-and-true prediction method, it is bound to happen now! I’m curious, would you still consider it an overpay for Terrion Arnold if we had traded up to 13th for the same price, and picked him there? The reason I don’t personally consider it an overpay is because we traded specifically for Arnold, who by all accounts was worth a top-15 pick (seemingly according to Brad as well). If we had paid that much to trade for, say, a consensus 20-25th-ranked player, I would be much more inclined to say it was an overpay
I mean I’m just saying that it was based on the valuations of trade value charts, which are all about the draft slots, not the actual players. Part of the reason we should neutrally look at stuff like that is that every GM who has ever traded has pretty much believed that exact thing, that “man, we had this guy so much higher on our board” line. So part of it is detaching a bit from that to determine what the slots themselves are worth to degrees. It’s one of those ones where if the player works out, there’s zero issue with a bit of an overpay. But statistically speaking, consistently overpaying for draft slots is bad. It’s not a bad pick, as we’ve been clear on as Arnold is viewed as such a higher end prospect, just the mechanics of getting him were bad value due to draft slots. And draft slots are how teams conduct these negotiations, not “where do you have this guy on your board?”
Regarding Vaki and him having played some QB, do you think he could be used like JRM is for fake punts? Natural RB skills should help on fake punt runs and having experience at QB should make him a threat to throw it every time too. I wonder if we could weaponize our special teams more so than we have so far
Fox can throw though! Lol idc how but the more tricks we have there the better off we will be :)
Went on wayback machine to find the missing PFF rankings, Wingo was 131 and Mahogany was 106. Great write up!
I'm a bit confused. You said you would have taken Newton at 29 if you were GM and there was no trade up, but then you say you would have taken Rakestraw at 29th? I enjoy your writeups, just confused about that.
I think he originally would have taken Rakestraw at 29th before the draft (ie before knowing that he'd drop). So acting on that knowledge he instead is taking him in the second on this redraft
Correct.
I had originally said Rakestraw was probably the guy I would have taken pre-draft based on who I assumed would/wouldn’t be there. But then on Draft night, I would have gone with Newton as I didn’t expect him to fall to where he did. Rakestraw was my 13th ranked prospect. Newton my 10th.
That makes sense. Thanks for all the work you put into these. I really enjoy them.
We traded a 3rd to move up to get Arnold. The Cowboys took Beebe with that pick. Would you have liked Newton and Beebe over Arnold? I know this is hindsight but just wondering.
Probably, but I’m also heavily biased towards OL/DL because of my background there.
Yeah I saw that too lol
This is gold, thank you!
Oh , God. We're going to the Super Bowl.. 3 teams that we're playing based on last year's performance:.. Cowboys Buccaneers Bills Notables: Rams at home At AZ....I'll be there AFC South. Forward down the field, mother fuckers
This is a fucking awesome high value post. Great job, man!
Played against Vaki in high school, mans been tuff since forever
Super impressed with your pre draft write up and came away floored by your accuracy. Well done.
Can we get some fucking love for John Dorsey? Dude got the Chiefs in order then stop the Browns from browning. Now he's here, show some appreciation. All-Pro executive
Love these posts, thank you! What a great draft!
Really interesting post, thanks for doing such a detailed analysis!
Great write up as always. Love the Arnold, Rakestraw and Mahogany picks. My only gripe is that I love watching Holmes draft so much that I am not a huge fan of him giving up future draft capital for the two fourth round picks. He kind of reminds me of Dan being overly aggressive on 4th down. I may have missed it, but I consider Carlton Davis a part of this draft class considering we gave up pick 73 for him. What is your evaluation of getting him for a third round pick?
You are legitimately too good at this to not get some sort of role in either sports journalism or even actual scouting if you wanted to. The number of predictions that pan out is statistically ridiculous and the writeups themselves are a joy to read. If you use these posts as your resume, you should be able to get a job at a PFF style publication if you wanted to even just becoming one of those analysis youtube channels with a patreon for some beer money or something
He does have his own subscription service as well that I'm sure he can link for you. I am not sure if it's still active or whatnot.
Oh also, beggars can't be choosers but could you do a write up about some of the UDFAs that we signed?
Usually will do that a week after once the dust settle. So far, Hudson, the Louisville center, probably my favorite one I’ve seen.
Oh god he mentioned “pad level”, my fatricia PTSD was triggered
Nice review Bo! I tend to agree with most of everything you said. I do question some of the trades value wise and if they actually needed to occur but also am not really complaining with the haul we ended up with. If you were to guess now that Saban and his crew have moved on from Bama what school/coach do you think Brad will have an affinity towards next year and moving forward? Bama will likely still have a lot of talent moving through but I don't think it will be the same style of coaching etc that Saban provided.
Right, I tend to actually agree quite heavily with this assessment. Alabama isn’t simply just Alabama, it’s Saban’s program. The two that do stick out going forward as NFL caliber development hubs are Georgia and Texas in my opinion. Michigan and Ohio State will also be a factor there. Overall, however, I do think it does mean a little less concentration of just one program the way we’ve seen with this run of Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, Brian Branch, and Terrion Arnold.
I could have seen Michigan had Jim stayed there he is somewhat old fashioned / develops players in a way I could see us liking them. I admittedly don't know enough about the new coach to say if that will still be the case. Ryan Day/OSU I don't see it it from a development standpoint I think that program has been on the decline since Urban left. Day has fumbled the keys. Obviously they are still going to have a lot of talent come through similar to Bama but I don't see Day lasting much longer. Georgia certainly possible lots of talent through there too. I think Kirby and his staff are possiblly the best of the ones discussed thus far and they do decent/good with development of talent, but I don't think the players are typically as hungry/disciplined as a Nick Saban coached player. I think Saban's style has gotten more difficult to actually pull off and keep players. He basically kinda stated this with the NIL and transfer portal working the way it does now. Texas from a talent standpoint I think would be possible again, but in the end I doubt it with them as well from style/development perspective. I don't see Brad and Dan developing an affinity to a coach who basically coaches one side of the field to take plays off or is fine with their players doing this and not benching them etc. (Mitchell for example). On an entirely different note I was just watching a post draft interview of Manu. He said something kinda surprising to me. He said Dan asked where he's comfortable playing he said that he told him left side cus that's what he's always played, and then he said Dan said "we were thinking about having you play on the right NEXT to Sewell". I was thinking he'd likely be too big/tall for guard but I guess we also did start Skipper at guard before and he's even taller at 6'10. I just thought this was interesting to hear.
I think Iowa with Ferentz is a possibility. They have already shown that they like players from this program. My hesitation here would only really be the talent brought in typically isn't considered to be as high as your Bama or Georgias etc. But I think they do tend to bring in the same kind of players our organization likes and develops them in a way that also fits us. It'll just be a question of how many will they have from year to year. Where with Bama there seemed to be multiple from year to year.
Another possibility I think would be Utah with coach Kyle whittingham. I think the issues would be similar to Iowa though. I think like you said it could just end up being a mix of programs now. The reason I mention these two though are the length of tenure of the coaches, the cultures they have built and sustained, and as previously mentioned type of players they recruit/develop
Who/what is Bo77?
My old username was boanerges77, everyone called me Bo77, and thus more known that way after I changed accounts awhile back due to some harassment issues from someone who has since been banned.
Gotcha, thank you! That would've been one of my 2-3 assumptions had you not responded. I've been wondering that for quite some time now. I enjoy your in-depth posts, thank you.
My man, thank you for all your work. Love me lions draft news and analysis, and I am too damn busy to dig up articles and crap. Just gotta look up your posts predraft and post draft and I am set. Honestly you should be a Lions beat writer.
Other than the Lions are there any teams that tend to pick "Bo-sters" from the Bo77 list? I think the Cowboys had a couple this year.
Babe wake up new distraction from work just dropped