Notes from David Blackburn
JSN - Really good player, outperformed Wilson and Olave in 2021. Sees some Cooper Kupp and Amonra St. Brown in him. Can he play outside is the question? Guys with his skillset can dominate the league.
Flowers - "pure electricity". Can play outside even though that wouldn't be expected for his size. In the past small guys weren't coveted, now the game is about space and pace. He plays big and physical and his dog mentality is what separates him.
Addison - Best route runner in the draft. Everything is effortless. Excellent hands, productive. Benefited from great QB play at Pitt and USC.
JPJ and Deonte Banks - Both really good players. Similarities are they can both play man. JPJ has length and long speed. Banks is twitchy and a muscled up guy. He's also a little more versatile. JPJ is an eraser though.
Emmanuel Forbes - Mad numbers of pick six's. If you do it in college, you're gonna do it in the league. Forbes has those Marcus Peters like instincts. Mature dude with a good demeanor.
There are similarities in the 2023 vs 2019 class for WR in terms of the depth. Good players in the second and third round. There are a lot of guys we're excited about. From the first round all the way to the end there are guys with traits that we know can come in and contribute. Very unique class with small shifty guys, big X high pointers, speedsters etc. In any range we'll be able to take a really good guy.
The draft is imperfect. We've been struck by injuries, its been really bad. We were a really hot offense the first month. Losing Bateman was really tough. There are flavors of guys, there are scheme fits, QB fits. It's not all about testing numbers. Lots of guys with good tape and finding the right fit have really great careers.
We've been good at drafting CB because we don't treat them differently than the defense as a whole. We take guys who are big, long, physical, have that edge to them. Marlon had everything we wanted. Had 2 years of starting experience, at a big program, had tape against big time WRs.
Jaylon Duncan - Athletic OT with all the tools you want. Has starting LT ability.
Jakorian Bennett - Speedy, plays fast, tough, scrappy, super smart, can play anywhere in the secondary. We love that for the way we play our defense. Dominated senior bowl, plays ST. Got everything we're looking for.
Rakim Jarrett - Physical, fast, good hands, has a lot of confidence. Won't be overwhelmed at the next level, wouldn't be surprised if he can carve at a role for himself early from whoever drafts him.
Deep QB class because of our scheme change, what we're going to ask our QB to do. Roman limited us to zone read guys. We needed speed and athleticism. Now its way more wide open. Find guys who can come in and play. Day 3 has a lot of good guys. Guys who are smart and have thrown for a lot of yards.
Wouldn't be surprised if we make more than 5 picks, but our team is ready to win. So we could pick five really quality guys and be good to go. We have had multiple classes where we went with only 5 or 6 picks and they were really strong classes.
February is when we set the board. You do a lot of back and forth and standing on the table then and in April meetings. Coaches come in with fresh sets of eyes later. Harbs does a great job of bringing up other points of view. We're in a good rhythm and the heavy lifting has been done.
Pepe was a Blackburn guy. We had a lot of guys who did well in our last rookie class. Hamilton had some rough patches and end has looked like the guy you'd expect him too. Linderbaum fought through injury and is pancaking guys on MNF. Guys who had some adversity are already back in the building working.
