DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2022 NFL Season 2022 NFL Draft Who to take at #44

I'll repeat what I said around the senior bowl. McBride reminds me of Kittle

Jordan Davis would be a nice addition. I thought about this a little. There is one more player that Berry has not resigned and he is Denzel Ward. Minnesota is sitting at #12.

Getting Davis and adding Clowny means you can play 3-3-5:
DL: Clowney; Davis; Garret.
LB: Phillips; Walker; JOK.
DB: Hill; Newsome; Greedy; JJ; Delpit.

Play Phillips and Walker in the middle. Hill and JOK as the slot corner and WOLB.

You can add, mix, and match to play different schemes, but that is still a solid group without Ward.

Oh God No! I think many of you are way over-rating Davis.

Is it many over-rating, or is it a few under-rating?

Ward is a interesting mention. He very well could be a player we use as trade bait. He could be a player we use to move in to the 1st round because I have a feeling we aren't going to sign him.

I'd trade Ward for Davis.

I am 100% opposed to trading Ward. He is an excellent player and I am always miffed when other posters give him crap. You two are not doing that, but others have. The guy is an excellent corner and the Browns put him in some difficult circumstances. The draft is exciting and sexy, but proven NFL stars are hard to find. Ward is an elite corner and any thoughts of trading him are counterproductive.

I also think folks undervalue Hunt. Chubb is my favorite Brown's player. However, I think Hunt is a more complete back. He is a better receiver than Chubb and is a superior blocker. Chubb is a better, more explosive runner if he has a hole at the first level, but Hunt runs better in traffic. I love both of those guys and wish to keep both. Hell, I really like D. Johnson, as well. Now, that we have a good qb.......the running lanes will open back up and our trio is going to be a huge force.

I have to fess up, I have called him Hospital Ward on more than a few occasions.

I agree he is an excellent corner. My feeling is he may not fit the cap profile we will be seeking. That isn't to say we won't sign him, or he will want a larger slice of the cap pie than we want to allocate.

I just find it hard to believe at this point we don't have some idea of what his agent is looking for, and if it is too high, i could see him being traded. Better than having to cut the kid.

I don't want to trade him, I just see it might become one of those necessary evils.

Most Draft sites had the guy rated as an early 2nd round pick before the combine now people are talking about him as a top 15 pick. I've watched a few of his games and while he's got some talent he sure doesn't come anywhere close to being dominating. He played in 41 games in his college career and averaged 2.2 tackles a game, 0.28 tackles for loss a game, and 0.17 sacks a game. His career college numbers are less than what Aaron Donald and Danny Shelton put up in 1 year. Now the guy is going to the NFL and will face better Olinemen then he did in college and people think he's all the sudden going to be a stud. I just don't see it.

I agree. That is why I have mentioned trading Hunt for a while now. He has trade value, and the time is now(ok....up until the trade deadline)

I hope Berry doesn't trade Ward, although if he does you can probably get a #1 for him now, I could live without Hunt even though I would rather not, what do you think we could get in return for Hunt, or do we throw him in with Baker to Seattle?

I honestly don't see Davis being a big factor against Lamar, Trubisky, or even Burrow really. If the league were entirely filled with Baker Mayfield at QB, maybe I'd be more on board. Even at 44 I'd be much more comfortable with taking a guy with documented weight control issues in college. Didn't play a ton of snaps. One play chasing Jackson and he might sit out the rest of the quarter. Maybe something clicked and he's going to get into great condition. More likely, getting paid will just make him more of who he has shown in college discipline wise. He's not a guy I'd trade up for. I think it's unlikely this FO would move that far up for a guy that isn't in one of the important positions from the guardrails (QB, CB, Pass rusher, OT.)

He could end up being a great player. I'm just not sure it is a gamble that I would pay a premium to make.

It's been said and stated several times by several posters that it's very hard to build or maintain a competitive roster after signing a QB to huge money. The salary cap dictates that we will now have to sacrifice talent at other positions in order to compensate for the cost of the QB position. Of course if you sign a QB who you drafted, at least you have first round draft picks with which to attempt to replace players you can no longer afford to extend due to your QB eating so much of your cap space. And then sometimes you place yourself in a position where you can't even do that.

You do. You also have to stretch your imagination to consider that QB not only has to perform well, he'll have to compensate for weaknesses in other departments of the team because those departments will end up lacking in top level talent to help pay his salary.

Only a couple of the names you mentioned cost those teams multiple first round draft picks to acquire in upcoming seasons. Most were drafted by their teams. That allows those teams to draft fisrt round talent to try and supplement the talent they will lose. Of course I already mentioned that part.

I don't know what we could get for Hunt. Maybe a 4th round pick? Maybe a 3rd? Maybe a 5th?.

As for Ward, we probably could get a 1st. I can't imagine less than a 2nd rounder.

Again, I don't WANT to trade either, but I also don't want to get nothing for them if we can't keep them. Before I made any move to trade them I would know what it would take to keep them. That would be option A. If I didn't know that or they turned down a offer, then I would have to look at different plans, and a different plan would include the possibility of a trade.

A GM's job is to act in the best interest of the team. If the GM knows he isn't going to be able to extend a player for whatever reason, letting them walk with nothing in return isn't acting in the teams best interest.

As fans we primarily focus on the roster for this season. A GM is also focused on the roster a year or three down the road. They know all the moving parts. As fans we don't get that view.

It's odd how so many here pointed out just how much paying huge money for a QB hampered teams from building talent around them due to salary cap restraints. Now you pretend it isn't an issue. It most certainly is. It's simply the trade off you decide to make. How most of the scenarios you mentioned hasn't even had time to play themselves out yet. So we'll see.

Of course if one only looks in the opposite direction it's easy to see that just as many teams value the draft picks more than their QB's or these trades would never happen.

No doubt that for the Ying, there is the Yang.
Teams and people have to make those decisions every day.

I agree.

This will be a difficult decision either way. Keep him and you are making him the highest paid CB for four or five years. You must consider what you will do with Greedy and Newsome in the coming years. Trading Ward and you are giving up arguably the best corner in the NFL today.

My question to Berry why haven't you extended Ward yet?

I will almost bet Davis goes to Baltimore or Pittsburgh.

Interesting cap debate on whether you pay Ward or not. Easy to say "yes" but it will mean sacrifices elsewhere.

Kareem Hunt is another interesting debate. He is 26 years old. Is he tradeable? Can a team do reasonably well drafting a RB in the middle rounds? As you say we have a good QB. Do we need a high end RB? Is it better to spend the money on receivers? Don't get me wrong I like Hunt. I'm simply looking at it from a GM's perspective.

I think the discussion about whether to keep or trade Ward and/or Hunt has been good. Both sides are making good points. I would like to add one more factor to the Ward discussion. In today's NFL, you need multiple corners. There are many times you need three on the field. Teams are throwing the ball all over the place and often trot out 3 WR sets. Corners also tend to get nicked up during the season. Most tend to be slighter built guys and they are going against much thicker men in the TEs, downfield offensive linemen, and stout running backs. Hell, even some of the WRs are huge. Guys like Brown in Tennessee, Metcalf in Seattle, etc. Another thing to consider is that the AFC is loaded w/really good qbs who can beat you w/their arms and their legs. I am the belief that you can't have too many good corners.

Good point. Having Newsome and Ward is definitely a bonus. But, it comes at a cost. Can Berry continue drafting/FA supplementing the DL and safeties? Paying corners means you have limits elsewhere. Not saying that is good or bad it's simply the nature of the beast.

This is the same debate I had about whether Linderbaum was a good selection at #13. Tough bypassing the best seen at a position in 10 years. Kyle Hamilton is another good player. I know a center and safety is not the same ranking as a corner. Still, you want to draft the best.

Deciding where the money is spent keeping good players in something we'll have to watch Berry these next few years. Technically, we really don't know what Berry and Stefanski value the most. They have talked about it but talking and doing are two different things.

There is no way I intended to say I want to Trade Ward he is a top 5 CB in this league, and as Vers pointed out team play 3 CB's a lot, The NFL is a pass happy league and the AFC is loaded with great QB's, but as some have said and they are right also, the cost, Miami just signed their top CB to $25 mil a year, so you know Ward's agent is looking to cash in also and who can blame him, I think we are paying Ward around $13 mil this year so I expect him to play here and hope we can work something out for 2023. And thats the reason for the trade talk, teams just don't want to lose great players to FA which Denzel will be next year.

I think we are all making valid points. It's a good discussion and it's nice to read different takes w/out all the BS. I don't know what the Browns will do and I think the money factor that some of you have brought up is a very valid and strong point. I hope we keep Ward because excellent outside corners are really hard to find, just as bonefish pointed out. However, I won't be surprised if we don't keep him. I just hope we do.

Vince Wilfork played 964 snaps (80% of NE's defensive snaps and some ST) in 2012 (the earliest pro-football reference has snap count info for him.)

Jordan Davis played 1127 snaps his entire college career. (47 games) Even in his best conditioned year (2021) he's only playing ~40% of Georgia's defensive snaps. His measurables were impressive. I have questions about his ability to play up to those measurables consistently without wearing down. He generally was replaced in 3rd down situations. His highlights and cut ups don't show all the time he was over on the sidelines. Half his TFLs were in September as were 1.5 of his whopping 2 sacks. He looked pretty good in the playoffs but he had almost a month off between the SEC championship and the playoff game against Michigan, then a Friday to Monday "long" week to the NCAA championship. How will he hold up over an even longer season against better competition?

I don't know who will be available at #44, no one does or if we will even stay there. JMO I believe we will take the BPA at #44 at a position of need. Edge rusher, DL,LB and WR I would guess. Right now it could be anyone at those positions. Of course that may change after FA. Remains to be seen.

I am with you on this. Davis is a run stuffer in a passing league. His snap counts will be limited. He's ineffective on passing downs.

Like you mentioned, once he gets paid, I could see him really letting himself go, physically.

His highest graded year per PFF was this past season with a grade of 79.8 which rated him 80th of 861 graded defensive interior lineman.

From PFF:

Pros

Comically large. As powerful a defensive tackle as we've seen in recent college football.
Surprising range for a man his size. Can make plays on wide runs.
Sinks his anchor very well against double-teams. Rarely moved at all.

Cons

Wore down very easily. Had such a low workload, even when games weren't blowouts.
Lateral agility nowhere near his linear explosiveness.
Has a bull-rush and pretty much nothing else as a pass-rusher.

I agree that corner is a important position. You need numbers and you need good. You still have cap allocation to consider.

Earlier someone wondered why we haven't inked Ward to this point.

First, I think his injury history plays a role. For whatever reason, he has been hurt a lot. More than the dings you mentioned.

The other reason is I think the Browns and Ward are waiting for the new cap figures to come out. And this was before signing Watson. Right now we probably don't have room to extend Ward.

I wonder if Watson's contract is a factor. Not capwise, but simple cashflow. The Haslams have money, but how much of it is liquid? Almost a quarter billion of it just got set aside with the whole NFL guarantees/escrow deal.

I don't know, but when you have that much, you are also smart enough to keep more than nickels and dimes in your pocket.

No matter, I am sure they could have several million in maybe a week if needed. Even minus the Browns and the escrow amount they are still worth near 2 billion. It doesn't take your broker or whoever that long to raise some cash if needed. I am sure they will be able to put groceries on the table for the next week or so.

It's not grocery money I'm thinking about. If Ward wants ~$50M in guarantees, that's not exactly nickels and dimes. An older Xavier Howard just got $36.3M guaranteed. If Clowney wants upwards of $20M guaranteed, that adds up quick. They just took $230M out of their pockets.

The speed with which you can raise cash depends upon where your assets are allocated. I don't know the cashflow of the annual TV deals. Is that spread out monthly or is it in one big annual chunk? Could they be waiting on a large scheduled inflow?

Warren Buffett paid $2.76 billion for its 38.6% stake in Pilot Travel Centers in 2018. I think Jimmy is fine in the "cash" department.