Bowl Season is upon us and it is about time to start really looking at all the prospects under a microscope from now until April '12. Every year, players that were ranked very high at the start of the year will fall to middle rounds and in some cases even all the way to the bottom, or undrafted in extreme cases. On the flip side of that, some players will come out of nowhere to make a name for themselves in the NFL Draft.

If you are new to the site, for the past two years, I have covered a large portion of the draft material here at Niners Nation; which includes some of the Bowl Games. However, this year, Fooch will be lending a hand as I am getting a bit busier with the site I started up in April of this year (The Hometown Fan). If you are a regular, then you are already familiar with how Niners Nation has run the draft coverage.

In covering the NCAA Bowl Games, it really gives those who missed a good portion of college football this year to zero in at the end of the season for the final games to see who is going to help and hurt their stock.

The idea of this post, is to begin the process.

The past two years, I put together a list of prospects (in general) for folks to get a look at in the 50 in 50 series (2011), and the year prior the 100 in 100 series (2010). This year, once the dust settles from all the bowl games, and leading up to the draft, I will put together something similar to help us get through the offseason counting down to the NFL Draft.

With that said, Kriss Kross and Daddy Mac will make you jump, jump!

Continue reading this post »

I started having a twitter conversation with GrantMP1 late last week after he asked me this question: If the draft were today and the 49ers had re-signed Braylon Edwards, Dashon Goldson, Ahmad Brooks and Carlos Rogers...which positions would you target?

I began sending tweet after tweet with some logic as to why I felt a position group either needed attention or not, and how early I thought we'd have to address each group. Then I realized that sending 35 consecutive tweets of just 140 characters each probably wasn't the most effective way to express my thoughts on the matter.

So instead I thought I'd abuse my position as a glorious (read: unpaid) front-page writer on NN, and mind-dump some draft thoughts here, instead. 

The premise is simple: The draft is TODAY, and we've re-signed the above players (and I add Joshua Morgan to those, as well). Based on what we know right now, what positions would we target and in which rounds? After the jump, my thoughts.

Continue reading this post »

This past week was a fairly busy week for the 49ers as they signed up a whole host of players and got into gear at training camp with the veterans finally getting to take part. Over the last few days we ran a series of posts called Player X: A Team Y Blogger Perspective. The 49ers added a host of free agents last week and I thought it would be helpful to get thoughts on them from their former team's SB Nation blogger.

Jonathan Goodwin
Braylon Edwards
Madieu Williams
Antwan Applewhite
Carlos Rogers
Donte Whitner

Continue reading this post »

Note: The main reason we look at college football on this site is to help the average fan gain knowledge of potential Niners prospects through the course of the season. It also provides a place where people may feel comfortable with already to discuss such topics.

Before free agency, a lot of 49ers fans were quite worried. Particularly in the first couple of days.

However, after the larger named players were officially off the market, the 49ers began making some moves to patch the holes on both sides of the ball.

With all of the movement came a lot of 1-year contracts. This could be something to keep in mind moving forward in the college football season. As the season progresses, problems will emerge at specific positions. If the 49ers want to primarily build through the draft as they claim, it will be important to notice these holes and take note of the players coming up as well.

Throughout the year (as years past), I will be posting Saturday Game Threads so that those who enjoy NCAA Football can continue to come to Niners Nation and talk about the games and prospects.

After the jump, I've provided the Top 25 Rankings, which officially came out the other day. Below, I have previewed some of the top prospects (at certain positions) to keep an eye on moving forward in to the year.

Continue reading this post »

AUTHOR'S NOTE: So the cat's out of the bag. Starting July 1st, I'll be half of a 2-headed monster taking over for Bill Barnwell as Assistant Editor of Football Outsiders. As cool as this is for me personally, I think there's something to be said for the fact that the other half of the monster, Rivers McCown, is also a product of SBN. To me, that's a testament to the overall quality of talent in this little blog network, and I think it's only going to get bigger and better as time goes on.

It's fair to say that I wouldn't have this opportunity with Football Outsiders if David didn't give me the opportunity to write on NN, so infinite thanks to him. It's also fair to say that I wouldn't have acquired many of the qualifications that got me the job with FO if I didn't have you all forcing me to explain the stats more clearly, make my arguments more concisely, and react to comments more stoically. So, thanks to anyone whose read and reacted to any of my posts over the past 3 years.

As for my future with NN, as David alluded to yesterday, I won't be posting articles nearly as often as I have since 2008. However, the good news is that I will be posting stuff from time to time. Even better news is that the articles I do post will necessarily be shorter than the dissertation-length content I'm known for in these parts. And, of course, I'll be reading NN daily, and joining the comment threads frequently; so yeah, I'll be around plenty. Oh, and also, it's a free internet, so there's nothing stopping us from interacting on FO or my brand-spanking-new Twitter account (@FO_DTuccitto). OK, enough about me, let's talk about draft busts...really quickly I might add. I've got about 20 years-worth of DVOA data to pore over in the next 6 days.

The NFL Network has their Top 100 Players of 2011, as well as a multitude of miscellaneous Top 10 lists - most of which have some Niner-related phenomenon ranked #1. Here at NN, David put together his Top 10 list of SF draft busts (since 1990) according to his own mind. Today, I'm going to use the expected approximate value framework that I introduced a couple of months ago to give you my list of the worst 10 Niner picks (since 1990) according to the statistics. I'm not calling this a "Top 10 busts" list because it turns out that, from 1990-2006, the 49ers only drafted 8 busts according to my statistical criteria (i.e., 1st- or 2nd-rounder who returned 50% or less of SF's pick investment). Being a numerologist, 8 just doesn't give me the good vibes that 10 does; hence, this "Worst 10" list.

After the jump, the Niners' worst 10 draft picks from 1990-2006... 

Continue reading this post »

Last week the NFL announced that the 2011 Supplemental Draft would go forward despite the continuing lockout. This year's draft promises to have some nice amount of talent in it, especially with the current situation at Ohio State. May of their top tier players are going to be suspended for, at least five games, maybe more. So, some will opt to enter the supplemental draft instead.

It is possible because of the situation of current college players that this could be the strongest supplemental draft in history. Some of the players, as you will see below, would be top 2012 NFL Draft prospects. So, do the 49ers get involved in this draft for only the second time in their history? 

After the jump I will look at a few players that may enter the 2011 Supplemental Draft. Keep in mind that these are simply projections of players I think may enter the draft. 

Continue reading this post »

In the weeks leading up to the NFL Draft, I provided a rundown of my view of the top ten 49ers draft busts and successes since 1990. There was plenty of disagreement over my choices so I thought we could come up with a ranking of busts based on a community vote. We'll use the same voting system we use for our Community Big Board, so you'll vote from a pool of 25 players, going one through five, six through ten, etc. I'm thinking we'll go either top ten or top twenty.

We're doing this now because after that Florida Danny will put together his own look at draft busts based on a more statistical approach. It could be interesting to see how the two results compare given our perceptions of certain players.

For now I've posted the top ten list I came up with after the jump. I'd like to use this post to come up with a pool of players. Given popular demand I'll include Alex Smith in the poll and let people vote as they will. For now though, please provide any additional names (players drafted since 1990) you can think of that you'd qualify as a bust. Doesn't have to be a guy you view as the top bust, but sufficiently likely to get some votes. I'll get the poll going tomorrow once we come up with some more names.

Continue reading this post »

Well, we've reached the end of my series on grading the 2006 NFL Draft. If you haven't read the previous installments, here's what I covered in Parts 1-4:

1. A detailed description of my objective method for evaluating draft picks and draft classes
2. Overall Value Above Expectation (VAE) and Return on Investment (ROI) ratings
3. VAE and ROI ratings for the first 2 rounds only, and a list of the busts
4. VAE and ROI ratings for Rounds 3-7, and a list of the diamonds in the rough

As the title of this post suggests, today I'm going to be focusing on how well the 49ers' did with their 9 picks according to VAE and ROI. But before I do, here's a table recapping all of the objective grades I gave out this week for the 2006 NFL draft:

Based on the Niners' grades, we can conclude that they had an average draft overall, doing much better with their last 7 picks than with their first 2.

Now, let's turn to the individual picks, which I'm going to countdown from what I think was their worst pick to what I think was their best pick. For this countdown, rather than just ranking them according to any single VAE or ROI stat,  I'm going to take a holistic view, and combine the objective ratings with a little bit of my subjective opinions. To be sure, the objective ratings will take precedence. However, I feel like there are a couple of places where the ratings don't adequately reflect the actual value the 49ers got from the player. Furthermore, there's one player in particular who needs to be bumped up on the list because he began showing his value only recently (hmmm...wonder who that might be). But, of course, feel free to disagree in the comments section if you wish.

After the jump, it's the final countdown...

Continue reading this post »