Was having this convo with a friend and curious to the boards thoughts,

With the exploding contracts of so many skill players including guaranteed $$. So many guys sit out games at the slightest injury and aren’t nearly as hard working and gritty as it takes to succeed in the nfl…

Would it be worthwhile to pass over some talent in early rounds of drafts to specifically focus on positions and players who are true football junkies and “lunch pail” types and swing for those better athletes in the mid rounds.

So in theory you end up paying guys big $$ who will still be grinders and the guys you took in the mid rounds are still incentivized to ball out to get their big contract.

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Posted by Mushroom1968

Member since Jun 2023

3523 posts

Posted on 4/21/25 at 4:36 am to Lsujacket66

Pete Werner and Erik McCoy are “lunch pail” guys. They are important also of course, but they aren’t going to be the reason you win SBs. You need talent and in some cases, you need players who are just arrogant and cocky. Go back and look at the 2009 roster, show boaters and cockiness all over the place, and they were talented.

The only player with any juice left, not saying cocky but truly talented is Kamara. Jury is still out on Shaheed and Granderson. That’s not much. Those guys may be able to take it to another level. Fuaga will likely be a stud

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Posted by Mushroom1968

Member since Jun 2023

3523 posts

Posted on 4/21/25 at 4:55 am to Mushroom1968

Fwiw, when Payton left the Saints, there was still a lot of high-caliber talent across the roster. You had "dogs" on every level of defense with Cam Jordan, Demario Davis, (those guys hadn't aged out yet), and Lattimore. Had a legit WR with MT and then a young Kamara. Taysom Hill was still playing at a high level. We knew there was a big weakness at QB but our team with bad QB play, bad Oline play, still felt it could compete.

2009- Bushrod, Nicks, Evans were all dogs on the line, Stinch a lunch pail guy. Brees, Shockey, and Bush all dogs. PT, Colston (although great statistically) really lunch pail guys. Even our fullback Heath Evans was a good player at the position.

Defensively same, all over the place. Dogs- Grant, Will Smith, Hargrove, McCray, some of those not even starters were legit talent. Vilma, Harper and also Mr. Rapey, Porter. And then your lunch pail guys with Greer and Fujita. Randall Gay, lunch pail.

We need to have mostly dogs with "lunch pail" guys filling the gaps. Then, due to the cap, we need some average players in there. Oline needs to be for sure two alphas on there, with the other three, hopefully, two of them being your Erik McCoy-type players.

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Posted by yaboidarrell