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We Learned Some Things About Ziegler



This is Ziegler's second draft. We definitely learned some things.


Ziegler is always looking to trade. More up than down, which is a little surprising to me because the Patriot way is the same as the Seattle way. Work your way down and accumulate picks.

My two thoughts on this are as follows:

1. The 12 picks he had were specifically accumulated for this purpose -to move up when some tier of coveted players looked like they could be gone by waiting.

2. Ziegler feels real pressure to be successful this year and couldn't wait and see if the player board fell like he wanted it to.

If pressed to bet, I'd choose option one. No great rationale for picking it other than it's what literally happened -12 picks became 9 by working up.


Ziegler is going to place a premium on kids who are smart and show a true work ethic. He mentioned in an interview that these kids are "low maintenance".

Translation: The kids we're bringing to LV are going to learn the playbook, be sponges, gym rats, team players and maybe above all professionals. Put another way: They won't end up gambling, toting guns, driving with under the influence, won't bitch about their role, or need a nanny. Carter was absolutely skipped over by him for this reason all by itself, IMHO.

He's also going to do what a good number of NFL teams do and this is select guys who have un-coachable traits, even if the player doesn't have the most productive stat sheet. Tre Tucker going before Scott was a real surprise because Scott is also fast and a better WR. But Tucker has more quickness and acceleration even as he has less developed catching skills. It also helped that Patrick Graham got a front row seat to both. No doubt this helped to turn the tide to Tucker. Ziegler also noted in an interview that he loved that Tucker was a former champion wrestler. It's a tough sport, but more importantly it points to something that makes many players great pros -they were successful at more than football. There's real research showing that athletes who play multiple sports tend to excel more than others when they finally commits to one professionally. How many times have we heard commentators note that so-so is great at WR because he was a former basketball star? I've digressed.

Ringo getting ignored by him several times is even more revealing. He picked Bennett when Ringo was there for the taking showing he had no intention of taking the more decorated and favored to be selected Ringo. Ringo's combine numbers were better than Bennet's and he finished as CB #10 to Bennett's CB #17. But Bennett's desire to play the game and remain focused on football was never in question -Ringo's had been. Ringo's demeanor is aloof, according to some and he's been known to show up to camp in Georgia out of shape. (I can't help but think of Carter again, who was out of shape for the combine. Why do this with millions on the line?) These behaviors are red flag for any coach, obviously. They're black flags to Ziegler. The other item I suspect made Ziegler skip RIngo is that many see him as scheme dependent. He's going to be a sideline coverage CB mainly. The Patriot way is to avoid clear schemes week to week and be tailored to the opponent they're to play. This means most players cannot be that specialized. Bennett is psychically twitchy and tough enough to be moved around more than Ringo.

Ziegler has also repeated the word versatility with player selections. If all things are equal on a guy they've graded at the same spot but one has more versatility, they're going with the Swiss Army knife. This is a Patriot play. They love, love, love players who can move all over. It's part of Belichick's great success because he could literally change either side of the line's playbook any given week depending on the opponent knowing players can be moved out of their normal spots from time to time to confuse the opposition.

Eyes on matters. Ziegler mentioned reviewing tape over and over like all teams do but the senior bowl and combine did a lot to tip the scales in favor of drafting someone. A player has to check off a ton of other boxes if he's to overcome below average performances in either venue from what I've seen. Few escape a bad combine performance on draft day. Again, Patrick Graham was a coach at the Senior Bowl competition and that was noted by him and Ziegler as reasons for drafting some of the players they did. "They stood out against their peers" was noted a few times. Honestly, I may actually try to watch the senior bowl just for this inside info myself to know better who we're drafting in 2024 and beyond.

Ziegler and company will work on needs via the rookie draft... to some degree. I suspect they're more value oriented selectors than needs drafters. Ziegler noted in an interview that basically he's aware of the holes on D and those could be addressed by the draft or by who's out there as FAs. (This was his post Day 1 interview where some reporters asked if he planned to go heavy with D the next few days.) He used the word value pick when they nabbed Mayer as the most evident example of all.

I know we've been torched over the years by Raider picks that fell out of the expected realm of names but this time it doesn't seem unreasoned.

Before the Bills were good, they were mocked when owners and management asked their fans to trust the process. They had a longer term plan they wanted to follow and weren't going to deviate from it. No one brings it up in Buffalo anymore.

Ziegler and McDaniels come from a veritable lineage of winning. I'm going to trust their process for at least a couple of seasons before I pretend I know better.

BTW: I run two complex fantasy leagues where owners are asked in the off-season to guess which rookies their favorite NFL team will draft in RNDs 2-7. (We don't use RND 1 because sometimes the pick is too obvious.) Everyone makes one pick in each round 2-7, no matter how many picks their NFL team has, and they see if they can get them right. Last year, I correctly called Brittain with the 7th pick. This year I correctly got O'Connell in the 4th and Silvera in the 7th.

What can I say, I live in NE and have had to read, see and hear too much about the Patriot way. You begin to think like them.


Go Raiders.



ADDITIONAL INFO: I found an article that seems to be a good match to this post. It's a reporter's account of his brief time inside the Raiders coaches room while the draft unfolded. One of the most illuminating aspects to it is that even with billions of dollars involved in the sport no one knows how the draft will unfold no matter how much they try to plan it. Kinda scary and also kinda awesome because it should be unknowable. Anyway, enjoy: https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2023/05/01/nfl-draft-2023-raiders-texans-cj-stroud-peter-king-fmia/