I’m really beginning to take a keen interest in draft scouting. I’m actually most interested in watching/reading the takes of the beat writers, amateur scouts, and ambitious superfans. Everyone is so passionate about “their guy”, and as I’m watching things more closely, I can see why. There are a great number of hours that people are putting into evaluating talent, and that generally leads to a staunch opinion.

At any rate, that’s a topic for another post. This write-up is reserved to share my thoughts on our 2015 draft, so I’ll do my best to stick to that.

To get ready for the draft, as I mentioned, I followed a number of different sources to gather opinions on the prospects. I actually completed a few mock drafts on fanspeak for the first time. That should tell you, I at least understood who was on the board. So here it is, the 2015 Carolina Panthers class:

• Round 1, Pick #25 - Shaq Thompson LB Washington
• Round 2, Pick #41 - Devin Funchess WR Michigan
• Round 4, Pick #102 - Daryl Williams OT Oklahoma
• Round 5, Pick #169 - David Mayo LB Texas St.
• Round 5, Pick #174 - Cameron Artis-Payne Auburn

As I watched the draft unfold, simply put, it wasn’t pretty. I felt our FO was a bit rattled and reacted uncharacteristically to how the chips were falling. I see our FO as very calculated and sure of moves. They are pretty transparent when speaking about the draft, so I was shocked as we traded many high round picks to move up and select players; it’s something they simply said we would not do. The rationale given was that the value that we saw on the board was quickly diminishing, so in order to get our guys it would require moving around. This strategy was enabled because we had 9 draft picks this year giving us the captial to move around. Couple that with the fact that it was unlikely that 9 rookies would make our team, and it all seems to make sense. Right?

Well, maybe so, but I’ll be honest in saying that players/talent aside, this draft seemed rushed and pretty knee-jerk. For example, we all but said - ‘DJ Humphries was going to be our pick, but the Cardinals took him. So, we really like Shaq and we are good with picking him.’ In fairness, I think Shaq will be a fine pick. I think he has the playmaking ability to turn into a great player; particularly working with Luke and TD. But I don’t wanna hear my FO say we got a consolation prize, even if he turns out to be the better player. Similarly, when moving up to pick Funchess (whom we gave up our 2nd and 3rd round picks for), the explanation given was that the guys we had rated highly were quickly being plucked, so we felt we needed to make a move. Wait, what? So my question is, exactly how many players did we feel were of great value in the second round, and I’d follow that up with the question, exactly how many of those players did we watch drop off of the board? Let’s look and see who was taken before we moved up…

• Landon Collins SS Alabama
• Donovan Smith OT Penn St
• Mario Edwards, Jr. DT Florida St.
• TJ Yeldon RB Alabama
• Devin Smith WR Ohio St.
• Preston Smith DE Mississippi St.
• Eddie Goldman DT Florida St.
• Dorial Green-Beckham WR 6’5” Missouri

Of these players, I’d say we probably had strong interest in Collins, Mario Edwards, Devin Smith, Preston Smith, and Eddie Goldman. There is a slight chance that we had interest in Yeldon or Donovan Smith, but virtually no chance we had interest in DGB. So my quesiton is, why not move up sooner and get Devin Smith after seeing 3 of your guys come off of the board if we truly thought that the value wasn’t there? A fair answer could be that we truly wanted Devin Funchess. My goodness I hope that was the case. It sounds like it may be the case considering Gettleman says he had a 1st round grade on Devin. My biggest problem is that we had to give up our 2nd and 3rd round picks to get Funchess. I believe there was a ton of value still on the board, but I’m no GM that’s for sure.

So, as for my opinions on the guys we drafted - I really like each of the picks. I think all 5 can and probably will contribute immediately so that is a plus. The downside is, I don’t think we drafted anyone that will be a star in their first or second year. I’m REALLLLLY hoping to eat my words here, but we’ll see. I’m really not displeased with the guys we’ve brought in, I just believe we had an opportunity to bring in even more talent. Tre McBride was available after we had finished drafting for goodness sakes. :)….now I hope he succeeds considering this is documented. Justin Hardy lasted quite a while as well, and went to a division rival. I think we’ll regret that one later too.

I think having more perspective on the pool of draftees may have lulled me into believing that I have a better take on the actual talent translation than I actually do. I’m ok with that if it’s true, but I still kinda liked the idea of keeping our top 3 picks. In all honesty, I would have sworn that both Hardy and McBride would never last beyond the 4th, so that shows what I know….unless they prove to be awesome :)