2019 Draft - Edge Rushers

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by JAFF

I'm not sure I understand the "better value" concept.

I believe that there were many people on this board (and in the press) who said taking a guard at number six was stupid because you could get someone else later in the draft. How does Nelson's draft selection look now?

Now Leonard, that was great value at a second pick, looking back. But I'm betting there were some people who where critical because he was a small school guy, they could have waited until the 3rd round.

Every player in a sport can have a $ value placed on his by every single team. Some teams value other positions or talents differenly than others, or characteristics that a player may have or not have.

I think the Ballard really wants guys who love to play. They will need physical talent, but the LOVE to play. They are team guys, they are workaholics and they are driven. I'm not sure how you put that into a metric.

Positional value is definitely a thing. If you don't believe me, check out the franchise tag numbers by position. The reason people made the argument bolded above is because predicting a player will be an All-Pro talent as a rookie is folly, and from a positional value perspective, OG is not a position on which a good GM would typically spend a top 10 pick. Nelson worked out better than anyone could reasonably expect, which is why it ended up working out, but let's not pretend that Ballard wasn't risking drafting the next Jonathan Cooper at the time.