Tired of these unresearched evaluations.......G Willis Edition

I’m hoping the Saints grab him but they don’t have any picks so that might be rather hard
 
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The New England Patriots having just lost Trey Flowers and Malcolm Brown will be looking to bolster their DL and Belichick has his eyes on both Gerald Willis and Joe Jackson. Would be amazing to see those two and Trent Harris play on the same DL together in the NFL.

Hey! I can dream can't I?
 
Take the shades off, Willis had a great year but he's not a 1st round can't miss prospect.

Fans are never realistic when it comes to draft evals, it's always either too high or too low.

This is an extremely deep draft for DLinemen, GM's & Scouts do everything by draft grade & value for the pick, meaning they'll drop or raise players based on where they would want them in the draft.

Willis is a 3rd-5th round pick, at the very very best he could get picked in the 2nd which is highly unlikely.

He's a great pass rusher & is disruptive in the backfield, he'll be a steal for whoever drafts him, but there's enough for teams to drop him in the draft & get value out of his pick.
Great analysis per usual @Liberty City El. I'm interested as to your assessment of Joe Jackson as it relates to the draft.
 
That's consensus on Willis. I have seen it on draft site after site...whether he is merely a situational pass rusher on the next level.

Granted, in a passing league a pass rushing defensive tackle can be very valuable and get a ton of playing time.

One big season wasn't going to alter nearly as much as posters here wanted to believe. Willis had essentially established a power rating his first four years in college. The worst analysts change mind and opinion based on most recent item on the plate. That power rating shifts glacially.

Properly weighted big picture generalities will absolutely obliterate an obsession with specifics. The people who overreact to recency always have comical reliance on some flimsy specific.
 
More emphasis needs to be put on the fact the character issues occurred in Gainesville. That place isn’t exactly steaming with moral highground lmao.

**** If I was in BFE Gainesville I sure as **** would have characters issues! It’s a big ole dump where the person most worshiped covered up murder.
 
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I follow the draft and scouts year round and Dane is one of the more highly respected people in the field by his peers so people saying stuff like he didn't even watch the film is bull ****.

Also Dane isn't wrong about the breakdown. When Willis doesn't win with initial quickness, he can be moved and turned in the run game. Willis also does have some character flags in his past. That's a fact. It's up to teams to research that and see whether he's grown and matured but any decent scout is going to note any disciplinary stuff they can find, even back to High School for higher rated guys

Also keep in mind, National scouts or non team scouts have to project players for different schemes and Willis might have a higher grade with teams like the Cowboys vs a team like the Patriots because of what they ask their DL to do scheme wise
 
Willis is a very scheme specific type of player in that he isn't ideal for every type of defense. He makes his money by getting into the backfield with quickness. He's more Warren Sapp than Cortez Kennedy. A poor man's Aaron Donald. He's got to play in a system that emphasizes his quickness and allows him to play the run on the way to the quarterback. It think if he had played more than just the one full season, he would probably be a borderline 1st rounder but NFL guys want to see consistency. If somebody grabs him in the 3rd, he'll be a steal.
 
You're looking at it from a fan's point of view, not as an NFL scout.

With all respect to Willis, he spent 5 years in college and had 1 complete year of playing.

Also, despite not putting the film in your face, at least he had a solid reasoning for his 4th round grade of Willis instead of saying "he's too short" or some dumb **** like the 247 evaluators said about Nesta. An expected 4th round grade for a DT that can't stop the run (in his opinion) and has off the field issues that you're HOPING was addressed as a draft agent...it's not THAT far fetched. Now if he's saying all these things about Willis and then turns around and say the HIGHEST he'd possibly be drafted is in the 4th round, which in draft talk is a completely different thing, then I agree with calling bull****. Because then that says he has no elite traits/abilities that a team would be willing to take a chance on his deficiencies with an earlier round pick.

1 complete year? You're completely clueless if you think he's had 1 complete year
 
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I figured he was a 2nd round talent. I consider Willis a "splash play" type of DT. He's going to get into the backfield and blow **** up a few times a game but I don't know if he's willing to do the dirty work at DT.

The TFL's look good on the stat sheet but (as a DT) at some point you have to do some dirty work, like taking on double teams without getting driven into your LB's. Like being a grown man and shedding a 300+ pound lineman on the occasions that you don't simply beat him into the backfield.

Some D-Linemen don't like to do the dirty work and prefer to take the path of least resistance all game. Like I said, that's good for a few splash plays but ultimately it's not going to help your defense become better against the run overall.

That may be the knock on Willis. I don't know. I haven't watched him in detail like that.
 
I've been saying for a while now that there is literally zero chance that he's a 1st rounder, and a very very small chance he's a 2nd. I'd say 3rd-4th is most likely.

He may have had the best run stopping grade, but that doesn't mean it neccessarily translates to the NFL. Fact is dude got blown off the ball a lot. And unless he won with the swim at the jump, he generally wasn't great.

By far his best quality was his get-off.
 
Regardless of where Willis goes in the draft, I took the OP's thread to be about the ****** analysis by the twitter guy. And, it was a ******, superficial analysis of game play. Unless he has come around and provided examples for his conclusions, I'll chuckle at "he often abandons his gap" comments considering the "analyst" doesn't have a f'in clue what the assignment might have been or is downplaying what our upfield scheme asks the 3T to do. Lot of bull**** is going to fly around this time of year.
 
I mean, how are these results 4th round quality?

His overall grade at the position was 18th. That sure seems like 4th round quality...

I think it's been so long since we've had truly elite players that we think 18th at a position is something special. It's not. It's really good, but it's certainly not special. If you think that's "special", you must think there are 100+ "special" players per year.
 
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Regardless of where Willis goes in the draft, I took the OP's thread to be about the ****** analysis by the twitter guy. And, it was a ******, superficial analysis of game play. Unless he has come around and provided examples for his conclusions, I'll chuckle at "he often abandons his gap" comments considering the "analyst" doesn't have a f'in clue what the assignment might have been or is downplaying what our upfield scheme asks the 3T to do. Lot of bull**** is going to fly around this time of year.

FYI, Twitter has a 280 character limit.
 
Dane's analysis was just plain lazy, but I do agree NFL scouts/GMs don't need much of a reason to drop you in the draft. Willis in the 3rd round will be great value for most teams in the draft. Hope the Dolphins to a look as they are in full rebuild mode and need to start with both lines.
 
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His overall grade at the position was 18th. That sure seems like 4th round quality...

I think it's been so long since we've had truly elite players that we think 18th at a position is something special. It's not. It's really good, but it's certainly not special. If you think that's "special", you must think there are 100+ "special" players per year.
You assume that 18th means 18th draft eligible DT, which it doesn't. Same analytics team, Pro Football Focus, has him as the 85th overall player from last season, including players not in the draft this year.
 
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