When the Browns traded back into the first round in the 2007 Draft to take Brady Quinn, after having secured Joe Thomas with the third pick, waves of euphoric optimism cascaded over me. This was it, I thought, after 8 seasons of futility, dysfunction, and false hope, the Browns have finally turned the corner. They…
It’s time to extrapolate the artistry of pass rushing, now that we have a foundation in place which explains the fundamentals of rushing the quarterback. The NFL really values the positions that can win one-on-one matchups in the trenches while applying pressure to the signal caller. This is one reason why pass rushers have been…
Trust the process. Sports franchises have been captivated by these three simple words that originated out of the then hapless, yet hopeful, Philadelphia 76ers organization in 2015. The Sixers’ mantra is somewhat of a euphemism for tanking – which can be defined as the stripping down of a franchise’s present assets to acquire future assets…
In the Building Blocks series, writers from Inside the Pylon will discuss the current roster of those teams on the outside looking in of playoff contention in 2017. In a roundtable format, the writers will talk about what players currently look like keepers for the long term, with the potential for being key contributors to…
The 2017 NFL trade deadline was surprisingly full of excitement this season. There were many high impact trades affecting teams both trying to win now and those preparing for the long term. However, I want to mainly focus on the quarterback movement, or almost quarterback movement in the case of A.J. McCarron, and how we…
Like DeShone Kizer. Don’t like DeShone Kizer. I don’t care. At this point, after what has transpired this season in Cleveland, it doesn’t matter. And in reality, it shouldn’t have mattered in the first place. What was the goal of this season? To win or develop young talent? Let me explain. The Cleveland Browns were…
Evaluating Cam Robinson led to a wide variety of opinions on how good he was currently and how much better he could be in the future. It led some prominent media analysts to compare him to Ereck Flowers, or dismiss his chances of playing offensive tackle altogether, and project him inside to guard. Studying Robinson’s…
The Cleveland Browns made the right decision staying with Myles Garrett and not taking Mitchell Trubisky. In the end, I believe the Trubisky hype was all media-driven and that the Browns were locked in the entire time, which is what I maintained throughout the process. Cleveland allowing teams to come up around them for Deshaun…
Cleveland Browns – Myles Garrett and Gregg Williams Myles Garrett is a unique player, but like other analysts showed in clip after clip, he does not give full effort on every play, similar to other defensive players in this draft class. Lack of effort will not fly with Gregg Williams. Garrett talks about love for the…
Cleveland Browns – Myles Garrett, EDGE, Texas A&M – The Browns jumped at a unique skill set and physical gifts for a premium position. When paired with defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and positional coach Clyde Simmons, there is room to expand on what Garrett showed on his college tape. San Francisco 49ers – Jamal Adams, S,…
With no inside knowledge to the Browns’ plans, my hypothesis was that last season, the first for the current front office and coaching staff, was about establishing a foundation – a group of players with high football IQ and character, with mostly successful college careers, who may not ever be high-ceiling starters but would definitely…
Click here for a full explanation of methodology and categories used in the chart above. About the class: Marshon Lattimore: #2 In the context of rankings, “#2” is usually associated with being the runner-up, the second best, or the first loser. For Marshon Lattimore, #2 means his overall ranking in this class from me. In…
What initially started as simply putting my passion for analyzing and studying college football and the NFL Draft into tandem with Excel and Word documents 15 years ago has now evolved into an evaluation process I enter into every year. The process begins during the college football season and concludes about two weeks before the…
Click here for a full explanation of methodology and categories used in the chart above. King of the Class For most of Myles Garrett’s career at Texas A&M he was crowned as the future #1 pick in this draft – a level of expectation bestowed upon few that even fewer ever live to up. Just…
We are 31 days away from the 2017 NFL Draft. Despite being so close, the final picture of what the first round looks like is still as muddied as it was a month ago, it’s just muddied in different ways now. We know Myles Garrett is going #1 and we know little else for certainty.…
So, that was surprising. In what was billed as an elite class of edge rushers who might test off the charts across the board, several of the high profile pass rushers had underwhelming combine performances, while a few lesser-knowns stole the show. That is, outside of Myles Garrett and Solomon Thomas, who both had epic…