After talking about the weak-spots for each team on the NFC side, I’m switching to the other conference. Once again, I’m going to start discussing each team’s starting line-ups and what moves they have made so far in the offseason before coming to the conclusion of what their biggest need is. I didn’t use this article to discuss depth or future plans, it’s just about starters for this upcoming season. Oh, and no quarterbacks. NFL people talk about them enough already.
Tag Archives: NFL
Biggest roster holes for each NFC team:
Two weeks ago I talked about newly formed position groups that aren’t talked about enough. Now I want to look at one spot for each team that has to be improved. This article is not about adding depth or planning for the future, but rather where a team needs help this upcoming season. You could make a case for multiple teams having to upgrade their quarterback play, but there aren’t many solutions out there. That’s why I focused on other positions.
I wanted to give an overview on each team and discuss why they need to improve at that specific spot. This week I talk about the NFC teams.
Appealing qualities for last year’s rookie class:
A lot of qualities young players show early on won’t be the same five years from now, while others might not even have come up properly yet and the player is just scratching his surface. I want to use this article to point out the one quality for the rookies from last year heading into the 2017 season, that will help them make a living in the NFL. These are traits that give them a very good shot at being able to perform at a high level for a long time. I’m not going to put Ezekiel Elliott’s name up because he is widely considered one of the premiere running backs in the game already and was talked about all year. Neither will you see the Bear’s Jordan Howard or Michael Thomas, because they were number three in rushing and number nine in receiving yards respectively. And one more name you won’t find is Tyreek Hill, since he was on the highlight reel almost every week.
I listed those ten second-year players according to the spot they were drafted in.
Newly formed position groups not talked about enough:
Through the offseason all 32 NFL teams have looked at their roster and tried to improve it, whether that is through free agency or the draft. That has resulted in some much improved position groups in combination with the pieces those teams already had. I want to point out six of those newly formed units, who I think will be a strength this season and help their respective teams win football games after hurting them to some degree last year. Here they are:
Biggest winners, losers, steals and reaches of the 2017 NFL Draft:
The 2017 NFL Draft is in the books and every team got better last weekend. Yet, some teams did a better job than some others and a couple of players got help via the draft. On the other hand, there are a few prospects who saw their draft stock drop and they had to wait longer than expected to hear their name called, while a bunch of them did not have their phones ring at all. Here’s a recap of what happened in Philly:
Sleepers in this year’s draft:
The 2017 NFL Draft is only a couple of days away and while everybody’s discussing what will happen in the first round, I wanted to shine some light on the prospects that not everybody might know about, but that I really like. Most of them will be selected on day three, even though they are really good players. There’s no actual criteria for what is defined as a sleeper. I just looked at where these guys are listed on the big boards if the major networks and compared it to my rankings.
First Round Mock Draft 2017:
With the 2017 NFL Draft less than a week from today, I finally put up my predictions for the first round. It is basically impossible to predict all the picks, because of the crazy things happening on draft day every year, whether that be trades or last-minute information coming up, which led to Laremy Tunsil sliding pretty far last year. I decided to leave the order the way it is and try to mock the first round that way. The number one pick should be easy, but nobody really knows for sure what will happen from there on. Each pick can have a domino-effect on the entire draft and things could shape up completely different. Here’s what I came up with:
Top 100 players in the 2017 NFL Draft:
Over the last five weeks I ranked my top prospects at each position in the draft. Now that I’ve finished evaluating them all and putting lists together, I compiled all of that into a top 100 big board. The crazy part about this list is that it includes a total 27 defensive backs. On the other hand I have only six quarterbacks and offensive tackles respectively on my board – the two most important offensive positions according to most coaches. This is an extremely deep draft at so many positions, which kept some great players off my list, so I added ten more names.
Different to my positional rankings, I took injuries and off-the-field concerns into account. If you are interested in analyses on the top prospects at each position, you can find them all right here.
Top quarterbacks in the 2017 NFL Draft:
After publishing my rankings on all the other positions in the draft, I want to wrap things up with the quarterback class. Overall this is a pretty weak group of signal-callers coming into the league for this upcoming season. There are four of them that could end up being selected in the first round because of how many teams are looking for a QB. After that the other players available all have question marks, whether those are injuries, a lack of size or arm strength, accuracy or decision-making. Personally I would only select two of them in the first round and maybe another five on day two.
I watched tape on a few other guys if you want my opinion on them, but this is a very good and deep draft at many positions. Some teams will reach to find their solution at the most important position, while better prospects stay on the board.
Top linebackers in the 2017 NFL Draft:
This year’s linebacker class is pretty interesting. There’s the All-Conference players most college football viewers know, but there are a couple of guys who have helped there stock immensely in the pre-draft process. I include inside- and outside in both 3-4 and 4-3 schemes. Some of the players mentioned could have also been mentioned among the edge rushers, but I decided to list them here because I see the versatility to fit multiple schemes. I think my LBs froms one to ten are all top 100 prospects and there are a bunch of guys I really like, who will probably hear their names called on day three.
I mentioned a number of extra guys at the bottom. If you’re interested in a scouting report on one of them, just let me know. I didn’t want to make this article even longer.
Halil's Real Footballtalk 