Thursday, January 21, 2010

2010 Draft – Tinshaker’s Top 10 by Position Projections - CORNERBACK

While I see no need to draft a cornerback in the first day, I wouldn't be against the Dolphins picking up another body during the draft in addition to one in free agency.  We really didn't have enough competition there last year, which led to Sean Smith being named the starter early on.  He got beat a lot last year, and failed to intercept a single pass.  Vontae Davis, on the other hand, after a shaky start, seemed to get better as the season went on.  Eric Green was a bust, Will Allen missed most of the season to major injury (he wasn't playing well before the injury, either), Jason Allen is considered just a special teams specialist, and Nate Jones simply gets burnt time after time.  We seriously need to fine tune the entire secondary - it's not as simple as just plugging in new players - but it all starts with competition in camp, and thus we need more bodies.


14 comments:

  1. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 9:35 AM

    Tin for all the reasons you stated is the reason to draft another CB early. Not in the 1st round but if a good one is available in the 2nd round why not? I'd prefer FA for a solid corner but they're not easy to find in FA.

    It's a passing league, we have two talented but young corners, W. Allen coming off of surgery, J. Allen can never stay in the lineup, Nate Jones had stretches of playing very well and very bad, and our safeties struggle in deep coverage. The secondary still needs more talent and depth.

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  2. Agreed, Knight. The main reason its hard to upgrade corners in free agency
    is because usually the good ones get re-signed. Almost all the good CBs
    available are reaching the twilight of their careers, so unless you're
    desperate (like New England every year due to injuries) there's not a lot of
    upside to signing someone like that.
    So the draft is a lot easier. If a guy like McCourty is available in the
    3rd round, then why not draft him?
    I'm not convinced as other Miami fans that we need to draft a NT in the 2nd
    round either, and would rather pick up someone like Owusu-Ansah than risk
    another Ron Brace when we could probably get a guy like Boo Robinson in the
    4th.
    It would be really nice if we could somehow change the quality of our picks
    and get more mid-round picks as opposed to 5 garbage time picks. I would
    love to have another 3rd and a 5th to work with.

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  3. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 12:02 PM

    Agreed.

    As for your poll on trades, the numbers don't seem to match up per the team and the 1st round pick.

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  4. The numbers are not based on teams, but on the value of the picks. They are
    examples of combinations of picks that the 12th overall pick is worth
    according to the trade value chart.

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  5. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 1:09 PM

    Oh, but we could never get those combinations because no team would have those numbers. It's just a range?

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  6. No it's not a range. It's an example of possible value.
    The 12th pick is worth 1200 points. The 16th pick is worth 1000 and the
    78th is worth 200. 18th is worth 900 and the 60th is worth 300.
    Say we were to trade with the Bengals at 21. They could give us their 2nd
    round pick (#54, 360 pts) and that would bring us to 1160. Then a 5th round
    pick would get the total up to 1200 or close enough.
    So if we were to trade with the Bengals, they would likely give us their
    21st, 54th, and 148th (a guess) in exchange for the 12th overall.
    It's basically what the Jets did last year to get Sanchez...I think they
    traded 3 picks and 3 players?
    Anyway, I didn't want the poll to be so complicated so it's based solely on
    'monetary' value, not on actual draft order or potential trade partners.

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  7. I can see moving down but not below the 20th pick.  With the first 20 picks you are most likely to get a true #1 player at all the positions other than kickers and punters.  Any thing below pick 20 and you're looking at the second best player at any position logically speaking.  Of course things never work out in a logical manner, but if it does it's nice to have the bases covered.  For me the #12 pick is perfect.  We are going to get a really good player at a much more reasonable cost for cap space once a CBA is signed.  Those first few picks really put a smack down on the cap space, and if you miss on those players a team can be in a world of hurt for a few years.

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  8. My kung fu logic is stronger than your kung fu logic.
    The top 20 is usually littered with offensive tackles, defensive ends/pass
    rushers, quarter backs and the occasional beat WR or RB.
    Rarely do you see many if any Centers, Guards, Tight-Ends, Safeties (an
    exception this year), or inside linebackers go in the top 20. These are
    positions that traditionally are not taken with a team's 1st round pick, at
    least not a losing-record team. The top 5 teams generally go for franchise
    type players like a Quarterback or Left Tackle, and the 6 through 20ish tend
    to go for best player available after that with some emphasis on need. The
    rest tend to be teams that are one or two players away from contending for
    the Super Bowl and thus will usually draft based on need.
    At this time last year, almost everyone in the country (especially Dolfans)
    thought Rey Maualuga was the clear best linebacker in the country and would
    never fall to us at 25. He got picked by the Bengals with their 2nd pick
    and promptly showed he he had the mental capacity of an eggplant.
    Laurinaitis got picked as the 1st ILB at # 35 by the Rams and had a much
    better rookie year, doubling Maualuga's tackle stats (JL=120 tackles, RM=63
    tackles).
    Or what about cornerbacks...Malcolm Jenkins was chosen 1st at #14. Vontae
    Davis was 2nd at #25. Hakeem Nicks and Kenny Britt (29 and 30) both had
    better years than Heyward-Bey and Michael Crabtree (7 and 10). Donald Brown
    (27) had a better year than Knowshon Moreno (12).
    Percy Harvin was chosen at #22 and was better than everyone chosen above
    him.
    And don't make me bring up the defensive ends: Tyson Jackson, Aaron Maybin,
    Robert Ayers and Larry English all chosen in the top 20, and none made any
    impact in their rookie years.
    There's no reason why an impact player/starter/pro-bowler can't be found
    outside the top 20 picks or even outside the 1st round. 5 drafted rookies
    made the Pro-Bowl this year, two from within the Top 20 and three from
    outside the top 20.

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  9. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 4:35 PM

    Tin, I didn't say it right or ask properly. I see what you're saying. 

    I know how the trade value chart works, I have it. Jimmy Johnson created it but teams have veered away from it a little bit recently.

    Do you think we should trade down because the draft is deep, do what we can to move up and land a top player, or just stay put and let the draft come to us?

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  10. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 4:37 PM

    Well said. That's why I laugh when fans start rating drafts they really have no idea about. They read lists of rankings for 3 months and when it doesn't follow their mock it's a bad draft. LOL

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  11. The Knight who says Ni!January 21, 2010 at 4:40 PM

    Laurinaitis got pushed around though. He doesn't have much protection in front of him but a lot of his tackles were after big gains. The Rams defense got beat up a lot. That's when stats don't tell the whole story.

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  12. Personally I would do what I could before the draft to get more picks and
    then move up. I wanted to move up last year as well.
    But since Ross is so broke he has to sell the team off like pieces of the
    Berlin Wall, I don't see us doing that. Although, keep in mind, with
    Pennington, Porter, Ginn, J Allen, Ferguson, Torbor, Ayodele, Brown, and
    Wilson all either gone in 2010 or on the brink of gone, there will be a huge
    amount of cap space available for the future, as well as a lot of space on
    the books. So there's no reason why we couldn't attempt to trade up for
    Suh.
    Don't get me wrong, I like McClain as well as several others who could be on
    the board at #12, but you and I and everyone else knows there is a prize
    jewel in this draft that is the biggest prize I can remember in the last 5
    or 6 years, and that is Ndamukong Suh. I would trade our 1st, a 3rd, a 7th,
    and two players to get the top pick. Of course, the Jets totally screwed
    things up to where we'd have to give our 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 2 players.

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  13. Yes but Maualuga practically failed the wonderlic, got hurt walking into a
    door at rookie camp, missed all of training camp, then started 15 games and
    was a blip on the radar. At least Laurinaitis made a name for himself and
    looked like he was trying. It's not his fault his team sucks so badly. Rey
    on the other hand was on a pretty good Bengals team that won their division,
    and has great defensive coaching around him (word is they taught him how to
    tie his shoelaces on his own now).

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  14. The Knight who says Ni!January 22, 2010 at 6:49 AM

    Agreed on Suh. Would love to land him.  :)

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