Assessing The Falcons Trade

cribbs is the man

@the-gipper said:

This may be a bit premature, but lets look back on the draft day trade with the Falcons from last year. In that trade here is what the teams got:

Falcons: Julio Jones with 6th overall pick

Browns: A. Phil Taylor with #27 B. Greg Little with #59 C. Owen Marecic with #124

#22 This year and #118 this year.

Obviously what the Browns do with the #22 pick will be hypercritical to the success of the trade for the Browns. The #118 is probably a 50/50 proposition (like Marecic is).

My personal assessment: Greg Little may only be slightly the lesser talent that Julio Jones, as least based on last year's production:

Jones: 54 receptions 959 yards, 8 TDs

Little: 61 receptions 709 yds, 2 TDs.

Little took some time to get into the game, and he also was playing in Shurmur's dink and dunk offense, so it is no wonder that his ypc would be less. He is more the possession type receiver rather than the long threat that Jones.

Nevertheless, adding Jones to Phil Taylor, who appears to be capable of a Pro Bowl type career puts the Browns ahead of the game so far....and that is discounting anything contributed by Marecic....and it doesn't take into account what these picks we have coming up may be capable of doing.

So far, so good in my conclusion. Better things yet to come out of this trade.

I loved the trade and still do. But, yes very premature to assess it. Especially considering the highest pick from that trade (#22 from this year) has yet to be picked. Also, while hands down, I think Jones is better than Little, Little also hadnt played in a year, at a position that he only played for one year at UNC (he was recruited as a RB), and was getting throws from Colt who had to learn the WCO on the fly with no offseason. The sky is the limit for Little IMO. This is why I really wouldnt hesitate to trade down this year as well. You can plug soo many holes by trading away one pick. And kind of unlike the NBA draft, you really can find superstars or elite players outside the top 10.

SDBrownsFan

I have a little different view on this one. Prior to the picks we made I thought the return was a great. Getting a Number 1 this season was nice especially considering Atlanta's shakey defense. It turned out to be #22- not bad IMO.

I have mixed reviews on Phil Taylor. He came in as a run stopper, while he made a few plays, he was not up to par with this billing. I thought his pass rushing was a little underestimated. Keep in mind he has some players around him- he plays next to Rubin and Sheard.

Greg Little had every reason to have a bad first season. 1. WRs typically don't do well in their first year. 2. He missed his last season at UNC 3. He was a former RB and was still learning th position when he was drafted 4. He was the #1 WR in our offense and he got that respect from our opponents. If you are down at all on this guy- you don't know football.

Marecic- couldn't figure this one out- I still think Vickers can catch the ball better. Is it too late to try him at LB- his natural college position?

I expect 3 solid starters from this deal- the only way we lose this one is if Jones exceeds Calvin Johnson as the best WR in the NFL. After seeing Falcons football 3 or 4 games last year- like Taylor he had guys taking heat off of him White and Gonzalez and a seasoned QB throwing him the ball. I see him as a middle of the pack #1 WR- half the teams he would be their #1 wideout.

The problem I have with this trade is the sense of security it could give us this season. You don't pull off these deals every year. When your bad you pick high for a reason. I look at Richardson as an elite Top 5 at his position talent. Sooner or later you need 1 or 2 of these type of players. Greater chance at finding them in the Top 10

Hunt Daddy

I'd say right now we are in the lead. Jones definitely put up better numbers than Little did. But like SDBrownsFan said, Little didn't play, he was originally an RB, and he had our crappy offense to work with while being treated as our number 1 receiver. Jones had Roddy White to work with and Gonzalez and both took the heat off of him. Plus he had Matt Ryan. With all of this, they still put up alarmingly similar numbers with TDs being the outlier. A very important outlier I might add. But with the addition of Taylor our DL is 3/4 complete and our entire defense is very close to being complete. This helps out our side a lot. I'd have to say we are in the lead now, and it will come down to who and what we go for at 22 that will make this or break this for us.

cribbs is the man

@sdbrownsfan said:

I have a little different view on this one. Prior to the picks we made I thought the return was a great. Getting a Number 1 this season was nice especially considering Atlanta's shakey defense. It turned out to be #22- not bad IMO.

I have mixed reviews on Phil Taylor. He came in as a run stopper, while he made a few plays, he was not up to par with this billing. I thought his pass rushing was a little underestimated. Keep in mind he has some players around him- he plays next to Rubin and Sheard.

Greg Little had every reason to have a bad first season. 1. WRs typically don't do well in their first year. 2. He missed his last season at UNC 3. He was a former RB and was still learning th position when he was drafted 4. He was the #1 WR in our offense and he got that respect from our opponents. If you are down at all on this guy- you don't know football.

Marecic- couldn't figure this one out- I still think Vickers can catch the ball better. Is it too late to try him at LB- his natural college position?

I expect 3 solid starters from this deal- the only way we lose this one is if Jones exceeds Calvin Johnson as the best WR in the NFL. After seeing Falcons football 3 or 4 games last year- like Taylor he had guys taking heat off of him White and Gonzalez and a seasoned QB throwing him the ball. I see him as a middle of the pack #1 WR- half the teams he would be their #1 wideout.

The problem I have with this trade is the sense of security it could give us this season. You don't pull off these deals every year. When your bad you pick high for a reason. I look at Richardson as an elite Top 5 at his position talent. Sooner or later you need 1 or 2 of these type of players. Greater chance at finding them in the Top 10

While I love Sheard and Rubin, I am not going to confuse either with an elite, consistent Pro-Bowl player at this point. It's not like Taylor was hidden by immense talent around him, lets be honest. Also I think a full year of NFL strength and conditioning should help his energy improve a lot.

Unsympathetic

I'll take Taylor+Martin for 5 years each over the often-injured Julio Jones every day of the week.

Marecic is gravy..

Harry Buffalo

@sdbrownsfan said:

I have a little different view on this one. Prior to the picks we made I thought the return was a great. Getting a Number 1 this season was nice especially considering Atlanta's shakey defense. It turned out to be #22- not bad IMO.

I have mixed reviews on Phil Taylor. He came in as a run stopper, while he made a few plays, he was not up to par with this billing. I thought his pass rushing was a little underestimated. Keep in mind he has some players around him- he plays next to Rubin and Sheard.

Greg Little had every reason to have a bad first season. 1. WRs typically don't do well in their first year. 2. He missed his last season at UNC 3. He was a former RB and was still learning th position when he was drafted 4. He was the #1 WR in our offense and he got that respect from our opponents. If you are down at all on this guy- you don't know football.

Marecic- couldn't figure this one out- I still think Vickers can catch the ball better. Is it too late to try him at LB- his natural college position?

I expect 3 solid starters from this deal- the only way we lose this one is if Jones exceeds Calvin Johnson as the best WR in the NFL. After seeing Falcons football 3 or 4 games last year- like Taylor he had guys taking heat off of him White and Gonzalez and a seasoned QB throwing him the ball. I see him as a middle of the pack #1 WR- half the teams he would be their #1 wideout.

The problem I have with this trade is the sense of security it could give us this season. You don't pull off these deals every year. When your bad you pick high for a reason. I look at Richardson as an elite Top 5 at his position talent. Sooner or later you need 1 or 2 of these type of players. Greater chance at finding them in the Top 10

Considering that Vickers literally can't catch anything, including a job right now, does that mean Marecic makes zero catches?

@cribbs-is-the-man said:

While I love Sheard and Rubin, I am not going to confuse either with an elite, consistent Pro-Bowl player at this point. It's not like Taylor was hidden by immense talent around him, lets be honest. Also I think a full year of NFL strength and conditioning should help his energy improve a lot.

Taylor was by far the best DT taken last year. He had about 3 poor games in the middle of the season, but he was great in the home stretch. I agree though, he was a much better pass rusher than I thought we were getting and an offseason for him and Sheard will do them both wonders. Rubin is a pro bowl talent in my opinion and has gotten snubbed the past two seasons just because he plays for the Browns.

DawginIT

The Browns need to get a guy like Mike Martin from Michigan, Derek Wolfe from Cincy, or Jaye Howard from Florida in the middle to later rounds. Big bodies with good talent to give Taylor/Rubin breathers. Hopefully Taylor will drop some weight this off season and with some breaks from one of these guys he will be a stud. With another talent across from him Hill/Wright/Reuben etc Greg Little can be a force. I also expect Marecic to be the most improved player on the team from last year.

PoeticG

Didn't Vickers sign with the Cowboys?

Harry Buffalo

@dawginit said:

The Browns need to get a guy like Mike Martin from Michigan, Derek Wolfe from Cincy, or Jaye Howard from Florida in the middle to later rounds. Big bodies with good talent to give Taylor/Rubin breathers. Hopefully Taylor will drop some weight this off season and with some breaks from one of these guys he will be a stud. With another talent across from him Hill/Wright/Reuben etc Greg Little can be a force. I also expect Marecic to be the most improved player on the team from last year.

They don't want Taylor to lose any weight. When he got into camp after the lockout they were actually worried that he might have continued to lose weight and dropped into the 320 area. They want him around 330. Rubin is already playing at 310, they don't want 2 DT that size. Taylor pulls his weight off anyway. Good agility and speed for a guy his size.

cambridgeho

@harry-buffalo said:

They don't want Taylor to lose any weight. When he got into camp after the lockout they were actually worried that he might have continued to lose weight and dropped into the 320 area. They want him around 330. Rubin is already playing at 310, they don't want 2 DT that size. Taylor pulls his weight off anyway. Good agility and speed for a guy his size.

What the hell do you feed a 330lb professional athlete? That is just insanely huge.

Harry Buffalo

Taylor has done a great job losing/maintaining weight ever since the end of his junior year at Baylor. I'm sure he eats his 1 gram card and 1-2 gram protein per pound of weight which is around what most people eat to maintain weight and add muscle. To put into perspective thats about 2 1/2 pounds of chicken a day to meet your protein count. Plus I know from reading articles last year that he gets most of his fat from healthy sources such as Salmon and nuts.

hx214

@poeticg said:

Didn't Vickers sign with the Cowboys?

Yep, about 10 mins after the texans dropped him and before they could resign him like the wanted to. Lay off Harry though, when he was hillis-iz-boss he hinted many times he didn't like vickers so I doubt the name change changed his opinion.

BadNewsBrowns

I think you could make a solid argument for either side. In my opinion Jones is a much better receiver than Little.

If we had taken Jones you could argue based on his stats alone that he would of been much more helpful to our offense. Of course this is pure speculation, but if you compare their complete statistics and and judge them on those alone there is no comparison,Jones is hands down much better in every aspect.

In terms of value, sure we got over on Atlanta - especially if we hit with their pick this year,and they'd better. We can only hope that Little and Taylor continue to improve and stay healthy.

Harry Buffalo

@hx214 said:

Yep, about 10 mins after the texans dropped him and before they could resign him like the wanted to. Lay off Harry though, when he was hillis-iz-boss he hinted many times he didn't like vickers so I doubt the name change changed his opinion.

It's not that I hate Vickers it just pisses me off that people are literally calling for Marecic to be cut after one rookie season just because everyone sucked Vickers dick. He is a good blocker but that is all he is and our offense calls for more. Is Marecic going to be the guy? I don't know but I'm not going to call for a replacement after one season of work.

choco

cause if those same standards were used for vickers his rookie season, he wouldn't have made the team the next year. he was terrible his rookie season, and later blossomed. but this is a new cleveland....produce your first year or gtfo.

The Gipper

@badnewsbrowns said:

I think you could make a solid argument for either side. In my opinion Jones is a much better receiver than Little.

If we had taken Jones you could argue based on his stats alone that he would of been much more helpful to our offense. Of course this is pure speculation, but if you compare their complete statistics and and judge them on those alone there is no comparison,Jones is hands down much better in every aspect.

You have no clue what Jones would have done in the "Murmur" offense. He may have had worse stats than Little. And Jones didn't do better in every aspect. Little had more catches than Jones. Little is more of the big, solid possession receiver and Jones is not. To me, they both accomplished what it was that they were meant to accomplish...and therefore I judge them fairly evenly.

In terms of value, sure we got over on Atlanta - especially if we hit with their pick this year,and they'd better. We can only hope that Little and Taylor continue to improve and stay healthy.

If we were to turn that #22 pick into say, Kendell Wright, it might be argued by some evaluators that Wright is the equivalent of Jones as a field stretcher.

The Gipper

OK, there is a question for those of you who may be more adept at talent evaluation than I am:

Compare/contrast Julio Jones to Kendell Wright.

Harry Buffalo

@the-gipper said:

OK, there is a question for those of you who may be more adept at talent evaluation than I am:

Compare/contrast Julio Jones to Kendell Wright.

Jones: Obviously taller and more physical, has better range and straight line speed.

Wright: More explosive off the line with his legs. Greater hands, acceleration, and quickness. Healthier and not injured as often.

On par: I think both have the same route running ability.

BadNewsBrowns

"You have no clue what Jones would have done in the "Murmur" offense. He may have had worse stats than Little. And Jones didn't do better in every aspect. Little had more catches than Jones. Little is more of the big, solid possession receiver and Jones is not. To me, they both accomplished what it was that they were meant to accomplish...and therefore I judge them fairly evenly."

Well that is the obvious rebuttal. And it's true I have no idea what Jones would have done in our offense.

But neither do you,no one does,like I said it's all pure speculation.

Jones may have opened things up and gave Hillis the breathing room to stay healthy and run for another 1000 yards and made McCoy look like a more competent QB.

As far as the stats go Little was our #1 option Jones was the #3 in Atlanta. Jones had more yards,more touchdowns,more YAC, 5+ more YPC,less drops and less balls thrown his way.

I'm just not sold on Wright. If we don't take Richardson I wouldn't be surprised if we went RB at 22 then draft Reuben Randle at 37.

Harry Buffalo

@badnewsbrowns said:

"You have no clue what Jones would have done in the "Murmur" offense. He may have had worse stats than Little. And Jones didn't do better in every aspect. Little had more catches than Jones. Little is more of the big, solid possession receiver and Jones is not. To me, they both accomplished what it was that they were meant to accomplish...and therefore I judge them fairly evenly."

Well that is the obvious rebuttal. And it's true I have no idea what Jones would have done in our offense.

But neither do you,no one does,like I said it's all pure speculation.

Jones may have opened things up and gave Hillis the breathing room to stay healthy and run for another 1000 yards and made McCoy look like a more competent QB.

As far as the stats go Little was our #1 option Jones was the #3 in Atlanta. Jones had more yards,more touchdowns,more YAC, 5+ more YPC,less drops and less balls thrown his way.

I'm just not sold on Wright. If we don't take Richardson I wouldn't be surprised if we went RB at 22 then draft Reuben Randle at 37.

I'm far less sure on Randle than I am Wright. If we take a WR at #37 I would prefer it to be Sanu. Randle looks more and more like a taller Robo to me. Sanu is built and runs a 4.45 and like Little is a past RB who used power to punish CB.