Let's talk ourselves into Collier

[DomeHawk]

Nothing about him screams he is going to be exceptional but he should be solid.

Not exciting. But for a later pick OK. The bummer was it was only a later pick because we traded down.

I don't think the 4th round picks are going to make up for what we lost here. There were some splash players available without trading down and even after trading down Harry had more upside for us. The Patriots are consistently smarter than our staff so the fact they bought in on him tells you all you need to know. We missed on that one.

His college production is solid. But watching him on film he didn't look exceptional to me, just good.

I would probably be more excited but he isn't going to come near Clark's level, not with several years of seasoning. So we just got worse on the line and replaced an exceptional player with a much less exceptional one.

The Patriots do not have a good history with WR picks in the draft. Deion Branch and Julian Edelman are the only guys they have drafted at WR that have done anything.

This is the first WR taken in the draft in the Belichick era. N'Keal is the perfect possession receiver for the Pat's style of offense. Brady will pick you apart and march down the field with receivers like this because they will get you first downs.

He was who I was hoping we would pick with our second pick.

We like 1st downs too, don't we?

 

[DomeHawk]

Looking forward to seeing what the kid can do. Listening to Baldinger gush over him today was awesome.
I trust his opinion over fans' opinions any day.
Welcome to Seattle kid!

Posters on here questioning the pick (some who admit to not knowing who he is) because of his height or whatever?! Go watch the tape, especially Balldinger's. Long arms, great hand fighter, non-stop motor, very good against the run as well as a pass rusher.
I think people are forgetting that we could improve the pass rush in other areas than replacing Frank. It's the most glaring spot but not the only position to improve. If LJ anchors MB's role for several years than I its a good pick. There are still quite a few pure rushers that could help immediately.
Not to mention the other way to improve the pass rush is to improve a below average coverage secondary.

Yes, but many had him on the board in the 3rd round.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Meh, boards mean nothing. Let's see what he can do.

 

[DomeHawk]

Meh, boards mean nothing. Let's see what he can do.

He may turn out to be fine but is he really a replacement for Frank?

As for the boards, a consensus of opinion among those who have the most amount of experience in any area does mean something. It isn't, however, absolute.

 

[TwistedHusky]

We love guys that have great hands and understand how to win at handfighting.

That is probably why we picked him.

If we had gotten him in the 2nd, I would have been really happy.

Just a bummer for a 1st rounder because you expect guys that have a better chance of being a top 5 or top 10 player at their position.

He isn't quick. At all. One of the lowest shuttle / 3 cone times so his change of direction is poor.

But you cannot argue with his production. The challenge will be whether he can overwhelm OL in the NFL physically like he did in college.

He looks to have a very high floor but low ceiling. Maybe we needed that right now.

Probably won't become a dominant player but not a guy that you will complain much about either.

And again, the loss of Clark just makes it harder because you naturally want to compare what you lost and hope you can replace it. He almost certainly isn't going to be the equal of Clark, but I would be shocked if he wasn't solid as a reasonable level starter after a year or 2.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

We will never know if another team was going to pick him soon after. It's easy for the fans to say "we could have picked him in x round" etc.

 

[TwistedHusky]

I never said we could have gotten him earlier (though he had a 2nd and 3rd round grade from some scouts).

It was more the kind of pick like this is better swallowed as a 2nd rounder.

This isn't a guy that has much of a shot of being a star. He is a guy that becomes a solid contributor on a roster.

This is literally the draft-day equivalent of getting socks and underwear for Christmas. You might be able to use them but it is still hard to get that excited about.

(The very thread title by the OP implies this.....'Let's talk ourselves into Collier" instead of "I'm excited about Collier" or "We got Collier!" or even a more generic "1st Round Pick Collier". We have to talk ourselves INTO it, not that much excitement about it. Not that he cannot be a good player but there is isn't a lot that you can project from here. )

 

[DomeHawk]

I never said we could have gotten him earlier (though he had a 2nd and 3rd round grade from some scouts).

It was more the kind of pick like this is better swallowed as a 2nd rounder.

This isn't a guy that has much of a shot of being a star. He is a guy that becomes a solid contributor on a roster.

This is literally the draft-day equivalent of getting socks and underwear for Christmas. You might be able to use them but it is still hard to get that excited about.

Lol, finally! an analogy that feels right!

 

[toffee]

I never said we could have gotten him earlier (though he had a 2nd and 3rd round grade from some scouts).

It was more the kind of pick like this is better swallowed as a 2nd rounder.

This isn't a guy that has much of a shot of being a star. He is a guy that becomes a solid contributor on a roster.

This is literally the draft-day equivalent of getting socks and underwear for Christmas. You might be able to use them but it is still hard to get that excited about.

Lol, finally! an analogy that feels right!

Two things that isn't speaking well for Collier:

1. He didn't excel at collegiate level, a rotational player at TCU?
2. His skill didn't translate into eye popping stats.

But then the same could be said about Bennett.

 

[TwistedHusky]

The most frustrating thing about this pick was this was EXACTLY the kind of pick we needed back when our SuperBowl window was open and we kept making weird reaches on draft picks or trading away our 1st round picks altogether.

We had all these studs on our team and just needed to address attrition issues. All we needed were guys that could plug holes and provide depth. Guys like this.

Now we finally get a guy like this when half the studs we had are gone.

I hope the rest of our draft isn't plugging holes. We need to just shoot for high ceiling, low floor guys with the understanding the failure rate is higher. We need to go back to what made this team great, getting great upside raw guys and developing them.

There is not a pathway back to the SuperBowl or even the top of the division, just finding guys that we can fill gaps with.