NFL Draft/Actual NHL Playoff Thread

I had expected the story of the first round of the draft to be Jon Gruden’s hilarious ineptitude. And yet Dave Gettleman really stepped up:

Let’s start with the Jones pick, which is the single biggest story to emerge from the draft’s opening round. Jones isn’t the first flawed QB prospect to be taken in the top 10, and he certainly won’t be the last. But the difference between Jones and a player like Buffalo’s Josh Allen, who went no. 7 overall last April despite scouts’ voicing some major concerns about his game, is that Allen had elite physical traits. If the Bills’ rationale was faulty, it was at least understandable how the team could look at someone with Allen’s blend of arm strength, athleticism, and occasional wow throws and decide that its coaching staff could mold him into a quality NFL quarterback.

Jones has a prototypical frame for an NFL QB (6-foot-5, 220 pounds) and impressive mobility for a player his size, but that’s essentially where the Allen comparison ends. At Duke, Jones showed accuracy on intermediate throws and attempts to the underneath areas of the field, but nothing else made him seem worthy of a top-10 pick. Murray and Haskins closed out the last college football season ranked second and fourth in passer rating among qualifying quarterbacks; Jones was 66th. Yet a year after passing on Sam Darnold in favor of running back Saquon Barkley with the no. 2 overall pick, Gettleman anointed Jones as the heir apparent to Manning.

Gettleman claimed that Jones’s MVP performance in the Senior Bowl ultimately sold him on the passer, telling reporters that after three series he “was in full-bloom love.” It’s always good when a few drives in an all-star game outweigh the 36 starts a quarterback has made in his college career. Gettleman also suggested that Jones could sit behind Manning for as many as three years. Even by recent Giants standards, that seems like a cruel joke.

And as nutty as picking a low-upside development project with the #6 pick is, it’s even crazier in the context of the rest of the Giants offseason. Say what you will about tanking, at least it’s an ethos. Gettleman has whipsawed seemingly at random between win-now luxury items (keeping Eli, overpaying for Golden Tate’s golden years, spending a mid-first round pick on a run stopper) and dumping important pieces (including one of the league’s best wideouts) for picks. Most of these moves are bad individually but even worse collectively.

To transition to our other subject, my favorite part is Gettleman “falling in love” with Jones based on three series. Jonathan Willis has pointed out that the Oilers’ contempt for analytics was a major reason why they’ve parlayed a generational prospect added to multiple top-3 picks into a bad team. Which is true, but not having a serious analytics department at this late date is as much symptom as cause. (It’s not like you need cutting-edge statistical analysis to see that trading an elite forward for a decent second-pairing defenseman with no offensive upside is a terrible idea, after all.) An organization that far behind the curve is unlikely to do anything well. Get a load of this justification for the second-worst move of Chiarelli’s world-historically incompetent tenure, trading a first-round pick in a stacked draft for a bust the Islanders were already desperate to get rid of:

The risks of scouting / player evaluation via qualitative buzz words and adjectives https://t.co/iO0w2OEJ1V— Kent Wilson (@Kent_Wilson) January 24, 2019

I would give Chiarelli at least a half-pass if his scouting staff was saying “look, we’ve watched him carefully in the AHL, and here are detailed reasons why his apparently mediocre performance is better than it looks.” But when your scout’s logic is “well, I haven’t seen him play at all this year, but, uh, he’s tall and played junior hockey here and he JUST WINS BABY” this shouldn’t compel you to do anything but say “you’re fired.” One nice thing is how many remaining teams in the offseason have been beneficiaries of this kind of move.

Hurricanes over Islanders The Oilers for the last decade have basically been an experiment in what would happen if you let the dumbest regular caller to a local sports talk show run a team. Basically every logical fallacy regularly embraced by idiots — blaming a disappointing team’s performance on its best players, preferring HEAVY HOCKEY, prioritizing vague character cliches over skill, etc. One of these fallacies is dumping players based on tiny postseason samples, and of course the Oilers turned Jordan Eberle into a player they waived because Eberle has a cold streak in the playoffs. With the help of the star the Oilers traded for a mediocre AHL defenseman, Eberle, natch, was the Islanders’ leading scorer in the first round, almost as if judging players based on small postseason samples is incredibly dumb. The team the Isles are facing has done a lot right too. At the midway point, the Hamilton trade looked like a win for both teams, but while Hamilton is an established elite defenseman who has continued to be, both Lindholm and Hanafin really struggled in the second half (Colorado picked on the latter mercilessly in the first round.) The latter are both young enough that the trade could still work out OK for Calgary, but Carolina easily got the best player in the deal and he had a terrific year. And then really putting them over the top was taking advantage of a frustrated Wild team trading Nino Niederreiter in the midst of a shooting percentage slump in exchange for the rights to a 2019 Charlotte Bobcats playoff ticket package. I like both of these teams but think the ‘Canes are deeper, and they were arguably the best even-strength possession team in the league.

BRUINS OVER BLUE JACKETS One commenter presciently pointed out in the opening round thread that Tampa was a good-but-not-great possession team that relied heavily on an outstanding PP and goaltending. That doesn’t make them “lucky” per se, but the latter two factors are a little more variable, and combined with the Jackets having a lot more front-line talent than your typical WC2 their win was a major upset but probably not quite as much of one as a lot of people (including me) thought. The Bruins weren’t as dominant a possession team as usual either, although that may be misleading because they can lean on their killer top unit more in the playoffs. I pick the Bruins, but as Game 1 reflects Columbus won’t be an easy out.

BLUES OVER STARS Well, in St. Louis’s case I think we’ve resolved the “body of work” vs. “recent outcomes” question — the Berube Blues have been flat-out outstanding, and they have a really strong chance to make the finals without Scotty Bowman for the first time. One thing to add is that the Oilers’s spectacular failures have taken some heat of the Sabres, but the O’Reilly trade was incredibly bad for them (and good for St. Louis); what a wonderful two-way player he is. The Stars aren’t as good, although as they’ve already shown as upset formulas go “great goaltender and one top line” is one of the better ones.

AVALANCHE OVER SHARKS When outlining upset scenarios for the first round, I thought the Avs would need MacKinnon’s unit to go hog wild and for Mike Smith to shit the bed. The former certainly happened but the second didn’t, which is a good sign for Colorado. Smith actually played very well; the Flames just got flat-out caved in after Game 1. The addition of Mekar in Game 3 was also a difference maker; amazingly, for the last three games he was the best defenseman on the ice including the presumptive Norris Trophy winner. All that said, I don’t want to overreact to one impressive series; if healthy the Sharks still have the best 18-man roster in the conference, and I won’t be surprised if they win everything. But their goaltending is still a serious problem and it doesn’t look like Pavelski will be ready to go in Game 1, and I suspect the result might be one more round for MacKinnon’s well-deserved coming-out party.