I hesitate to jump into this discussion but...cantguardjake wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 3:14 pm OCR immediately backpedals stating he did so due to other extenuating circumstances such as draft capital, and would consider Toney based on this (amongst other factors such as workout metrics, which the original poster also mentioned) - thus actually agreeing with original poster he belittled
Aiyuk's extenuating circumstances extended out far further just draft capital. He dominated JUCO and came onto a run first team with an established alpha WR (that was drafted in the 1st round); that's a reasonable explanation for why he was a Senior breakout that didn't involve him needing 3 years to learn how to play football.
I ended up with some Aiyuk, but that's not because of any subjective "tape" measurement or blind faith in draft capital. It was because he had plausible reasons for being a Senior breakout, got 1st round draft capital and was going behind other Senior Breakouts (Mims, Pittman) who also didn't have stellar analytical profiles. I'll admit I also liked his tape and was somewhat buying into Shanahan believing he was a HoF talent; but I'm not a tape guru and Shanahan also loved Dante Pettis so these two things didn't factor in too strongly into my evaluation of him.
Claypool would've been a more accurate counter example. As a very data driven drafter, I fully admit I was wrong about that guy. Senior breakout behind JAG WRs.. Looked stiff at Notre Dame and size/speed athletes with limited college production rarely amount to much in the NFL. If a Chase Claypool clone were to enter the draft again I'd probably still miss on him given that I just don't think the process was wrong with him; he just proved to be an outlier If you can tell me the difference between him and Kevin White, Breshad Perriman, Torrey Smith *insert late breakout, high draft capital size/speed specimen flame out here*; I'm all ears as I'd love to have some confidence in drafting these high ceiling players.