Maniacal Mocks
April 8th, 2017
It’s Gil Arcia’s Saturday column! His ninth since joining the team.
By GIL ARCIA
There is one thing my good friends on this very site taught me some time ago about this time of year.
The Joes have always referenced how this is the silly season and boy are they right. Jiminy Christmas! Dalvin Cook is the best example of this for the 2017 edition.
The kid started out as a projected Top-10 pick, to then being available at No. 19 when the Bucs pick, to now being a potential second-rounder?
It’s not like scouts start working after the regular season ends and start researching prospects at that time. They work around the calendar with a little bit of a break after the draft, and that’s about it. Include general managers in that, too.
Remember when Jason Licht & Co. watched Jameis Winston’s magical comeback against Louisville live and in-person one Thursday evening in October 2014? Yeah, that’s because they were doing what they are paid to do and not waiting to scout after the NFL season ends.
These fluctuations in draft projections are asinine. Smokescreens, if you want to be polite about it.
In The MMQB this week, Emily Kaplan wrote that an NFL scout graded Cook higher than Rams first-round running back Todd Gurley. But if you look around, mocks have Cook popping up now in the second round.
This is getting out of hand. Yet, it only gets worse.
Shut The Mock Up Already
The draft mob enjoys every bit of a mock draft that pencils in the Buccaneers drafting an offensive lineman in Round 1. That’s exactly what happened when they saw one of the latest mocks.
Via Nate Davis of the USA Today, the Buccaneers are seen passing on guys like Cook and tight end David Njoku for an offensive tackle in Garrett Bolles. His explanation screams of a classic case of national media not keeping tabs on a team.
“First, GM Jason Licht should lock down Winston’s blind side, which has too often been exposed by Donovan Smith’s struggles as a pass blocker,” Davis writes. “It might be time to move him inside and put a more nimble player like Bolles at left tackle.”
It might be time to replace Donovan Smith? The Bucs spent a second round pick on Smith in 2015. He’s only entering his third season. Add in the fact that the problems up front were not all on Smith.
Oh, and the team has made it known that they like their offensive line how it is.
This type of mock will geek some people out. But mocks like these also expose a hidden truth behind many national takes. And that is that many don’t keep up with the teams they are writing opinions on.
April 8th, 2017 at 10:36 am
Excellent piece gil. Your reasoning is sound, and well articulated. Keep up the good work mane.
April 8th, 2017 at 10:49 am
Agree w Blake. Gil has definitely grown over the past cpl months. More in depth and articulated now
Keep it up
April 8th, 2017 at 10:59 am
Nate Davis of USA Today spent his first four years out of college as a U.S. Army field artillery officer. Possible residual effect of shell shock on cerebral acuity! lol.
Just kidding. Nate’s a good guy but terrible at mocking the draft!
April 8th, 2017 at 11:08 am
And exactly how many fans & media predicted that Jason Licht would draft Roberto in the 2nd round? Bucs 1st rnd options this year are much broader than they were 3 yrs ago (Mike Evans), or 2 yrs ago (Jameis Winston), or even last yr (VHIII). Our priority need(s) were pretty well-defined back then, whereas this year … not so much. Personally wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Licht draft an OLineman with our #19 pick, if in fact that OLineman graded out significantly higher than what remained on the table. Bucs are building for the long term, and upgrading our OLine is probably just as high a priority to Licht as upgrading our defense or other positions in the offense.
April 8th, 2017 at 11:28 am
Is there anyone that doesn’t have a Mock? Not sure why anyone pays attention.
April 8th, 2017 at 11:32 am
So a scout grades Dalvin ahead of Gurley. I wonder if that is the same scout that Gil spoke to that had Brett Hundley ahead of MM.
April 8th, 2017 at 11:46 am
Thank you. Totally agree. There’s only a handful of positions they’ll consider in rd 1. WR, RB, TE and Safety. that’s it.
April 8th, 2017 at 12:01 pm
Protect Winston, job one.
April 8th, 2017 at 12:33 pm
National media often doesn’t keep up on the Bucs. Plenty of absurd picks out there. I am careful whose mocks I even look at.
April 8th, 2017 at 3:06 pm
Forrest Lamp…19th pick in the 2017 NFL draft.
April 8th, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Forrest Lamp….is he not a LT?
April 8th, 2017 at 4:56 pm
Most Scouts see Forrest Lamp in the same mold of Zack Martin or Brendan Scherff. Good Left tackle in college, but would be better served playing Guard or Right Tackle 1987.
April 8th, 2017 at 5:48 pm
He’ll be a guard/center in the NFL. He’s a Jason Licht type of player. Almost identical player to Ali Marpet in my eye.
See here’s the problem, some of you have become so freaking obsessed with Dalvin Cook that you have barely even looked at anybody else. Deepest draft in forever and all anybody cares to look at or talk about is one freaking running back.
April 8th, 2017 at 5:58 pm
No one forces you to visit this site dude👆.
April 8th, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Nope…I think I’ll choose to continue to come back and watch you type away on your crush right up until the point where he isn’t the one they want and watch your head explode when they pass. Or, I’ll watch them make the mistake of using another 1st round pick on a RB, just like they did with Martin and I’ll cross my fingers and hope it doesn’t haunt them just like it does 95% of teams that are dumb enough to do that.
And you can try to accept the fact that there are just as many like me that have chosen not to tunnel vision ourselves into one foolish selection and would love to debate the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the Bucs will option to pick from any one of the other players rated as 1st round picks that would make way more sense than a RB.
You’re not going to sway me from my opinion just like I won’t sway you from yours, but by God, I’m going to keep on trying to sway others. It’s a blog site, if the Joe’s wants me gone they can let me know, otherwise, ignore my posts guy.
April 8th, 2017 at 6:55 pm
Nope.. I’ll respond with bets anyone.
April 8th, 2017 at 6:56 pm
And last I Check there was something like a 1000+ Just like me. The archives are available homes.
April 8th, 2017 at 6:58 pm
And trust me I don’t want you and few others to go anywhere. I plan to let y’all hear about it everyday once Dalvin is officially a member of thid football team. Pretty much a done deal if you peep the signs the way I do.
April 8th, 2017 at 7:00 pm
– would make more sense to other teams but won’t make any sense for us to. You people similar to Jerry Seinfeld.
April 8th, 2017 at 7:09 pm
Tell me of these signs that u be peepn. Let the rest of us dipsh!ts in on ur secrets homes. Inquiring minds b wanting to know bru.
April 8th, 2017 at 7:17 pm
D@$! dude did you not hear Ira say there is pressure to draft Dalvin during one of those podcast??? He said its coming from a player that use to play at FSU. I know he’s been all over the place with recent podcast but his original podcast the comish said “he would raise an eyebrow if they didn’t draft Dalvin Cook”. Gil told us all on his first Saturday here that “there are strong rumblings coming out of one Buc place about Dalvin Cook”. He stated they are keeping a watchful eye on Dalvin”( don’t seem like an organization overly concerned with drafting at 19. Ira said this town would explode if they draft Dalvin Cook. Check the archives all this info is still on here. And lets not talk about the Joes poll results. You put it together.
April 8th, 2017 at 7:19 pm
Oh I forgot about the dinner engagement with the Bucs scout a few weeks ago.
April 8th, 2017 at 7:22 pm
Might as well add inn last years 1st round draft Pick saying “he’s special we need him”. Then the combine comes around and Dalvin stands in front of the entire league an says what he says. Joe stated it had the whole building buzzing over his comments. Starting to get the picuture any bro???
April 8th, 2017 at 7:24 pm
– signs-
April 8th, 2017 at 7:51 pm
That’s what you’ve got…..? It is called silly season for a reason dude. You can connect the dots for anything if you’re looking hard enough for something that you want to see.
I don’t listen to all these podcasts….I don’t sit and read every little thing that every media outlet out there gets fed by “unnamed sources”….I don’t care what a rookie corner back has to say on the subject. I use my own reasoning and thoughts on the subject and I compare it to the NFL trends and the tendencies of the GM sitting in the seat at the time. I had Dominik figured out pretty easily, Licht is a little harder but he’s put enough out there to start to understand how he’s trying to build this roster. Don’t rely so damn much on what the talking heads have to say, most years they can barely figure out the top 3 picks.
Do you think a NFL team is going to go out of their way to let that many leaks leave the building about what player they are actually targeting in the 1st round of the draft? C’mon. It’s still a crap shoot, no doubt, but trends say that these RBs won’t fly off the board like everybody thinks. It’s too good of a draft at too many more important positions for that to happen.
This is obviously just my personal opinion so don’t get all pissy about it, I’m just calling it how I see it. It’s a copy cat league, you have to acknowledge the trends.
April 8th, 2017 at 8:12 pm
So when Jason Licht gave his end of the season (2014)radio interview (45 minutes long) “when he said when you visit a program like FSU you come away realizing they have a wealth talent there”. He was just coach speaking right. He wasn’t hinting at the fact that his mind was made up he was drafting Jameis WINSton. Yea right dude.
April 8th, 2017 at 8:15 pm
Also said in that interview”we are not necessarily looking for choir boys either” when asked potentail draftees with questionable back grounds.
April 8th, 2017 at 8:17 pm
Y’all type well can pull up info fast use proper grammar but still be slow as s@$! In some regards.
April 8th, 2017 at 8:19 pm
Not even close to a comparable situation.
Like I said earlier, neither one of us is going to change the others mind so this is pointless to continue.
Good night.
April 8th, 2017 at 8:26 pm
G night homie.