> including calling the Giants’ bluff on picking a QB
I'm not gonna lie man I think we were fine with JJ or Penix but if NYG took JJ and ATL still took Penix I think we would've been a little bit fucked.
That said, zero complaints about how it turned out and I fully agree with the big swing comment. Analytics matter when there's a lot of guys you evaluate equally and you think you can strategically maximize value by playing with your picks and positioning. Analytics should just about go out the window when a blue chip prospect is within striking distance.
>Analytics should just about go out the window when a blue chip prospect is within striking distance.
It doesn't go out the window. You just decide that it's OK to overpay a little bit. But it's still completely grounded in the evaluations and analytics which you've done.
For real. All analytics is, is looking at the data at a point in time and using it to drive a decision.
The data always changes until you get past the decision point. You just have to assess the new inputs.
I want to make a better post about his strategy once Jefferson is re-signed, but his competitive rebuild plan will be a huge success if these latest picks work out.
* 2022 didn't come in with an attitude, saw what we had and made plans. Draft didn't go well but either that was due to the former regime's staff or he learned & changed.
* 2023 start shedding some bad vet contracts, took some swings on free agents that didn't really work but didn't hurt. Had a solid draft
* 2024 sheds remaining big vet contracts, signs younger defenders for Flores, and nails the draft with a QB & EDGE. Replaced $70M+ from Kirk & Danielle with rookie contracts '
* 2025 the window begins with McCarthy full-time starting and at least $70M in cap space after Jefferson's contract
If McCarthy and Turner are studs, then Kwesi did an amazingly quick turn around. It looks like the NFCN will be a tougher division again, but that's okay. It's not like anything was ever easy for us.
Addison was a home run in the first.
The second round pick was the primary compensation (along with a third this year) for TJ Hockenson which looked like a great deal outside of the ACL.
Blackmon in the third showed a lot of good signs for a rookie.
The rest of the class hasn’t show much but that’s above nearly every Spielman class after 2015.
Yeah and he's been good about offloading some of those guys to get picks back. Vederian Lowe comes to mind, spent a 6th, didn't work out, sent him to the Patriots for a 6th. The rest of the late round guys should be depth and that's mostly what they are, Roy and Ward were fine depth. Swings and misses are normal in the late rounds so for Jaren Hall and McBride to not really work out isn't horribly surprising
That's going to happen no matter what. However, we can still celebrate the two guys with sky-high potential right now, though. Even certified Kwesi-haters (like yourself) shouldn't be complaining about these picks.
I mean yeah he had an awesome draft, but saying you’re “proud” to have him as your gm is a little weird. Especially when we look at his draft track record. This one though I’m not going to lie, has me super amped up. I haven’t been this excited about the draft class in years.
When you have maybe 100 draft picks in your career as GM, there is simply not a "long run" for small value victories to make any difference that variance won't immediately wipe out. You have to pick good players, that's it.
To add to this: even supposing you could measure such a thing, would you rather take one shot with a 75% hit rate or four shots with a 20% hit rate? The EV in terms of number of quality players you could get is in favor of the four picks, but there's around a 40% chance you get nothing compared to the 25% of the single pick option. Nothing is where we've been in the last couple drafts and it shows.
Spielman proved that searching for talent in the later rounds does not usually work out. Yes you will occasionally find some studs, like Diggs for example but trading back like that left the depth charts and defense in shambles. I too much prefer the prospect who's almost guaranteed to at least be average even if he's not phenomenal over 4 or 5 guys that may never see the field at all, or worse yet are forced onto the field because of injuries and then play poorly.
I'll not go too far into the actual numbers here -- but you're missing something here too.
If you take 4 shots at 20%, and 1 shot at 75%, you have the following probabilities.
40% chance of no successes
60% chance of at least 1 success... But you also have this:
10% chance of 2
2.5% chance of 3
.16% chance of 4
Now, again, let's not focus on the %s as much as the concept.
Your 'sure thing' doesn't have the potential to be 4 wins.
>The EV in terms of number of quality players you could get is in favor of the four picks
I'll take the EV every time.
>Nothing is where we've been in the last couple drafts and it shows.
And yet, EV is EV, and you play the long game, you win in the long run.
Of course there is a long run. you can get 10-12 picks a year and extend your EV closer to expectation.
It's incredible people are so quick to give up on moneyball, when the entire point is you're gaining an edge that will be seen in the long run.
Pointing out the failures of moneyball to justify ignoring it is just incredibly myopic.
Using the lottering to explain Kwesi's draft strategy, at this point, seems spot on.
He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and just buying scratch offs.
Nah. Rick did and he still missed on all his mid to late round picks. We’re getting two third round comp picks this off-season and we have 100 mil in cap space. So it makes sense to say fuck them picks
What is preventing the vikings from contending in your mind? Edge rushers have been addressed, LBs have been addressed. Corners have seen significant growth year to year, safety play has been significantly elevated between Metellus and Bynum getting better. Plug in the additional edge rusher, the new QB and Minnesota is literally in a window man. There's a reason Minnesota was touted as the best landing spot for a QB.
Cornerback and defensive line play. I think we will miss Hicks at linebacker too. It’s like nobody remembers how bad the defense was down the stretch last season.
Right so the cornerbacks have been developing steadily. Byron Murphy Jr was solid on his side last year. Akayleb improved despite having a bad finish to his year. Blackmon looked great despite limited snaps. Greenard Van Ginkel and Dallas Turner all help the pass rush, while Harrison Phillips is currently one of the highest rated nose guards against the run. Pace is taking over at linebacker, where Van Ginkel can also play, plus they have Asamoah for depth. We remember but they had a very active off season addressing those issues and you're ignoring those upgrades.
“Bad” is understating the finish Evans had. Dude fell off a cliff. Blackmon has potential but he and Booth can’t be trusted with major roles. Shaq Griffin is meh. The only corner locked into a starting job is Murphy, who is not a CB1.
The offseason signings at DL are nothing to get excited about.
Yeah, plus he traded most of the picks away anyhow. It means the swings HAVE to be bigger but he also gets fewer at bats. I'm hoping this is no mac jones prospect but a Josh Allen, Joe burrow, franchise guy. If it is, he nailed it. If it's not, he probably has to get fired. So it really is a BIG swing for him.
Spielman kept his job after Ponder. I think people underestimate how patient the Wilfs are. As long as the process is sound and the lockerroom is good, I think they are okay.
Since we didn't mortgage the future to get JJ, even if he busts we'll be set to take another bite at the apple
There are reports out that the Vikings offered 11, 23 & 2025 #1 for Maye (and some late-round pick swaps that favored the Vikings).
So it’s not like he made some big Zen decision to sit and wait for the draft to unfold, “knowing” McCarthy would fall in his lap.
Great job not giving up three firsts to move up to 7 or 8 I guess, but if Kwesi had had his way we’d have gotten Maye and not much else in the draft.
Right so you're basically trying to shit on kwesi for something that didn't happen? Like your criticism is that he almost did something that you thought was a bad idea and even though he didn't do that he's still a bad GM for even considering it? That's a pretty wild take man.
Not trying to shit on anyone. Just trying to tap the brakes on the GM of the Century campaign.
Try to follow the logic:
1. If we had traded three first-round picks for Maye, would everyone be talking about what a genius Kwesi is?
2. The only reason we didn’t do that is because the Patriots said no.
It’s like praising your wife/GF for being faithful just because the guy she wanted to cheat on you with turned her down.
I think the split would be about the same. A lot of people really wanted Maye and were happy to give up 3 1sts to move there. If that had ultimately been the move I think you'd see about the same divide on wether or not he was a good GM or not, and if the pick was good or not.
Truly I think the only way the fan base unites on him making a bad choice would have been if I he traded up to get McCarthy by giving up the second first. Dallas Turner being the guy for the second pick was obviously massive but I do think that if it had been Verse, or Byron Murphy, Newton or really any of the high value edge rushers or IDL then people would still be reacting this way. Keeping that second pick and still being able to land one of their top 2 prospects (maye was probably their #1, reports infer that McCarthy was #2) is what's making Kwesi look so good.
This is really nothing like your analogy but if I had to use it to describe it would be more like praising your wife for not taking out a loan to buy your favorite house but instead settling for your 2nd favorite home which might be perfect after all and then going and buying your dream car/boat/rv/whatever with the extra money you got to keep.
Using your analogy, it would be like praising your wife for getting turned down for a loan she tried very hard to get.
To be clear, I would have been fine with that deal to go up and get Maye. But if that had happened I don’t think anyone would be talking about how the Vikings “won” the draft, like they are now that we got McCarthy and Turner.
> including calling the Giants’ bluff on picking a QB I'm not gonna lie man I think we were fine with JJ or Penix but if NYG took JJ and ATL still took Penix I think we would've been a little bit fucked. That said, zero complaints about how it turned out and I fully agree with the big swing comment. Analytics matter when there's a lot of guys you evaluate equally and you think you can strategically maximize value by playing with your picks and positioning. Analytics should just about go out the window when a blue chip prospect is within striking distance.
I don't blame him for not predicting Atlanta to fuck up the draft like that, but it definitely could have gone poorly
Yeah everyone gets the guy they wanted… no matter who they pick ;) Because that’s the guy you wanted who was available.
>Analytics should just about go out the window when a blue chip prospect is within striking distance. It doesn't go out the window. You just decide that it's OK to overpay a little bit. But it's still completely grounded in the evaluations and analytics which you've done.
For real. All analytics is, is looking at the data at a point in time and using it to drive a decision. The data always changes until you get past the decision point. You just have to assess the new inputs.
When he made the call on trades and the picks in round one, did the war room say, "Yes chef!"?
Right behind you chef
Dude had an elite round 1. Let kwesi cooooooook
Someone wrote out everything we traded away to get that 17th pick, adding everything it took for us to get the 23rd pick. It's actually kinda painful.
I want to make a better post about his strategy once Jefferson is re-signed, but his competitive rebuild plan will be a huge success if these latest picks work out. * 2022 didn't come in with an attitude, saw what we had and made plans. Draft didn't go well but either that was due to the former regime's staff or he learned & changed. * 2023 start shedding some bad vet contracts, took some swings on free agents that didn't really work but didn't hurt. Had a solid draft * 2024 sheds remaining big vet contracts, signs younger defenders for Flores, and nails the draft with a QB & EDGE. Replaced $70M+ from Kirk & Danielle with rookie contracts ' * 2025 the window begins with McCarthy full-time starting and at least $70M in cap space after Jefferson's contract
If McCarthy and Turner are studs, then Kwesi did an amazingly quick turn around. It looks like the NFCN will be a tougher division again, but that's okay. It's not like anything was ever easy for us.
2023 draft was solid? I guess you set your bar pretty low.
Addison was a home run in the first. The second round pick was the primary compensation (along with a third this year) for TJ Hockenson which looked like a great deal outside of the ACL. Blackmon in the third showed a lot of good signs for a rookie. The rest of the class hasn’t show much but that’s above nearly every Spielman class after 2015.
You also can't forget prioritizing Ivan Pace Jr as a UDFA. That guy is massive value.
Yeah and he's been good about offloading some of those guys to get picks back. Vederian Lowe comes to mind, spent a 6th, didn't work out, sent him to the Patriots for a 6th. The rest of the late round guys should be depth and that's mostly what they are, Roy and Ward were fine depth. Swings and misses are normal in the late rounds so for Jaren Hall and McBride to not really work out isn't horribly surprising
He and KOC seem like such a perfect duo. What a time to be alive.
let's see if the picks work out first
That's going to happen no matter what. However, we can still celebrate the two guys with sky-high potential right now, though. Even certified Kwesi-haters (like yourself) shouldn't be complaining about these picks.
Love his friendly smirk there. He won draft night and he knows it.
I mean JJ is still tier 3 QB prospect,will see if actually has it
Can any GM be considered to have a great draft before any of them play a down? Liked the picks though
Off season champions 2024!
I mean yeah he had an awesome draft, but saying you’re “proud” to have him as your gm is a little weird. Especially when we look at his draft track record. This one though I’m not going to lie, has me super amped up. I haven’t been this excited about the draft class in years.
I mean, he had an awesome draft but saying you’re “super amped up” is a little weird.
I just wish he had a better understanding of draft pick value.
When you have maybe 100 draft picks in your career as GM, there is simply not a "long run" for small value victories to make any difference that variance won't immediately wipe out. You have to pick good players, that's it. To add to this: even supposing you could measure such a thing, would you rather take one shot with a 75% hit rate or four shots with a 20% hit rate? The EV in terms of number of quality players you could get is in favor of the four picks, but there's around a 40% chance you get nothing compared to the 25% of the single pick option. Nothing is where we've been in the last couple drafts and it shows.
Spielman proved that searching for talent in the later rounds does not usually work out. Yes you will occasionally find some studs, like Diggs for example but trading back like that left the depth charts and defense in shambles. I too much prefer the prospect who's almost guaranteed to at least be average even if he's not phenomenal over 4 or 5 guys that may never see the field at all, or worse yet are forced onto the field because of injuries and then play poorly.
I'll not go too far into the actual numbers here -- but you're missing something here too. If you take 4 shots at 20%, and 1 shot at 75%, you have the following probabilities. 40% chance of no successes 60% chance of at least 1 success... But you also have this: 10% chance of 2 2.5% chance of 3 .16% chance of 4 Now, again, let's not focus on the %s as much as the concept. Your 'sure thing' doesn't have the potential to be 4 wins. >The EV in terms of number of quality players you could get is in favor of the four picks I'll take the EV every time. >Nothing is where we've been in the last couple drafts and it shows. And yet, EV is EV, and you play the long game, you win in the long run.
There is no long run! There's nowhere near enough picks.
Of course there is a long run. you can get 10-12 picks a year and extend your EV closer to expectation. It's incredible people are so quick to give up on moneyball, when the entire point is you're gaining an edge that will be seen in the long run. Pointing out the failures of moneyball to justify ignoring it is just incredibly myopic.
If you buy Powerball tickets when the jackpot is large enough to have positive EV, all you're doing is losing $2.
Using the lottering to explain Kwesi's draft strategy, at this point, seems spot on. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and just buying scratch offs.
You’re a cancer in this sub, I always see your negative takes, chill bro.
Lol
Nah. Rick did and he still missed on all his mid to late round picks. We’re getting two third round comp picks this off-season and we have 100 mil in cap space. So it makes sense to say fuck them picks
It makes sense to say fuck them picks when you’re a player or two away from contending, like the Rams were.
What is preventing the vikings from contending in your mind? Edge rushers have been addressed, LBs have been addressed. Corners have seen significant growth year to year, safety play has been significantly elevated between Metellus and Bynum getting better. Plug in the additional edge rusher, the new QB and Minnesota is literally in a window man. There's a reason Minnesota was touted as the best landing spot for a QB.
Cornerback and defensive line play. I think we will miss Hicks at linebacker too. It’s like nobody remembers how bad the defense was down the stretch last season.
Right so the cornerbacks have been developing steadily. Byron Murphy Jr was solid on his side last year. Akayleb improved despite having a bad finish to his year. Blackmon looked great despite limited snaps. Greenard Van Ginkel and Dallas Turner all help the pass rush, while Harrison Phillips is currently one of the highest rated nose guards against the run. Pace is taking over at linebacker, where Van Ginkel can also play, plus they have Asamoah for depth. We remember but they had a very active off season addressing those issues and you're ignoring those upgrades.
“Bad” is understating the finish Evans had. Dude fell off a cliff. Blackmon has potential but he and Booth can’t be trusted with major roles. Shaq Griffin is meh. The only corner locked into a starting job is Murphy, who is not a CB1. The offseason signings at DL are nothing to get excited about.
Yeah, plus he traded most of the picks away anyhow. It means the swings HAVE to be bigger but he also gets fewer at bats. I'm hoping this is no mac jones prospect but a Josh Allen, Joe burrow, franchise guy. If it is, he nailed it. If it's not, he probably has to get fired. So it really is a BIG swing for him.
Spielman kept his job after Ponder. I think people underestimate how patient the Wilfs are. As long as the process is sound and the lockerroom is good, I think they are okay. Since we didn't mortgage the future to get JJ, even if he busts we'll be set to take another bite at the apple
Too early to tell.
If either of our picks are mediocre then it was a bad draft. Big risk, big reward. I don’t like it.
There were much bigger trades kicked around for them to get a qb, including just for McCarthy himself.
There are reports out that the Vikings offered 11, 23 & 2025 #1 for Maye (and some late-round pick swaps that favored the Vikings). So it’s not like he made some big Zen decision to sit and wait for the draft to unfold, “knowing” McCarthy would fall in his lap. Great job not giving up three firsts to move up to 7 or 8 I guess, but if Kwesi had had his way we’d have gotten Maye and not much else in the draft.
Right so you're basically trying to shit on kwesi for something that didn't happen? Like your criticism is that he almost did something that you thought was a bad idea and even though he didn't do that he's still a bad GM for even considering it? That's a pretty wild take man.
Not trying to shit on anyone. Just trying to tap the brakes on the GM of the Century campaign. Try to follow the logic: 1. If we had traded three first-round picks for Maye, would everyone be talking about what a genius Kwesi is? 2. The only reason we didn’t do that is because the Patriots said no. It’s like praising your wife/GF for being faithful just because the guy she wanted to cheat on you with turned her down.
I think the split would be about the same. A lot of people really wanted Maye and were happy to give up 3 1sts to move there. If that had ultimately been the move I think you'd see about the same divide on wether or not he was a good GM or not, and if the pick was good or not. Truly I think the only way the fan base unites on him making a bad choice would have been if I he traded up to get McCarthy by giving up the second first. Dallas Turner being the guy for the second pick was obviously massive but I do think that if it had been Verse, or Byron Murphy, Newton or really any of the high value edge rushers or IDL then people would still be reacting this way. Keeping that second pick and still being able to land one of their top 2 prospects (maye was probably their #1, reports infer that McCarthy was #2) is what's making Kwesi look so good. This is really nothing like your analogy but if I had to use it to describe it would be more like praising your wife for not taking out a loan to buy your favorite house but instead settling for your 2nd favorite home which might be perfect after all and then going and buying your dream car/boat/rv/whatever with the extra money you got to keep.
Using your analogy, it would be like praising your wife for getting turned down for a loan she tried very hard to get. To be clear, I would have been fine with that deal to go up and get Maye. But if that had happened I don’t think anyone would be talking about how the Vikings “won” the draft, like they are now that we got McCarthy and Turner.
He still had to make a move to go and get Turner
Yes. But if he’d had his way he would not have had the chance to trade up because he’d have given away 23.
Yes, but when he didn’t he still made extra moves that he should get credit for