Man the absolutes are why I can't listen to RGR anymore.
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Same with Rocky Magana on Veach Season.

He'll pick some pretty obvious take then rail against it for several minutes, like anyone is arguing with him: "Oh I'm sorry. I guess the rest of the league didn't get the memo. But Travis Kelce is still good at football. Deal with it, NFL."
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ROCKY is awful
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I agree with Duncan. I quite like Kollman explaining the xs and os, but man he's an awful evaluator, and it's not just the Chiefs. He might be the only person worse at evaluating WRs than me.

Also agree with DJ re "steals" often not being. I'm pretty excited about Wiley because we'll use him better than most other teams. But I think draft steals normally are the result of one of two things. There's character concerns and one team says "f*** it" and gets lucky, or teams pass on a guy because they've been used in a certain way and teams don't trust they can do anything else. Maybe Kelce is the former and Kittle the latter.
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I think the very last straw for draft analysts for me was the McDuffee pick.

When the Chiefs took McDuffee and I saw a 'draft grades' where the Chiefs got the 2nd worst grade in the entire 1st round because "He's not a Spags cornerback" I just gave up.

Yeah, that's right, Spags had nothing to do with the pick.

"I don't believe he works for Spags...even though Spags does. And as such, I'm going to grade this pick based on my preconceived notions of what the Chiefs should've wanted vs. what they ACTUALLY wanted..."

It was just the dumbest fucking thing I've seen from those guys and I said so in real time.

I quit on those clowns right then and there. Their entire grade is dependent on you doing what they expected you to do. And if you don't, they'll tell you that you don't understand what you look for in a player....

Huh? "You ordered Steak but you actually like chicken, therefore your dinner choice is just dumb..."

Fuck off.
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3) Health. The Trey Smith scenario.

As for Wiley - I think you got it exactly right in that the vast majority of 'steals' are simply a guy who fits the scheme and gets coached into it.

In the end, draft 'steals' are almost always health risks that work out or scheme fit guys. There are very few times that one team (and fewer times that some asshole with a Podcast) simply identifies a talent on the 3rd day that every single other team in the NFL missed through several rounds.
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Meant to add that but yep, kinda roll it into the character bracket but you're right they're different. The similarity is that for character and injury/illness it's people not accepting what their eyes are telling them I guess, that X player IS a lunatic or injury prone. In the case of Kittle it's teams believing their eyes over their imagination "I've only seen X block, I haven't seen them receive so I'll assume they can't".
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Kollman knows as much about the draft as Matt Miller, "The Draft Scout".
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Yeah - I'll call Kittle a clear scouting win. Among the few.

I mean the 49ers immediately incorporated him into the passing game. They absolutely saw something the rest of the league didn't.

Let's also remember, though, that they took CJ Beathard in the 3rd, Joe Williams in the 4th and Trent Taylor in the 5th before Kittle. Even THEY didn't see this.

Sometimes it's blind dumb luck. There were clearly teams that needed TEs who could've easily snagged him while they were putting their hopes in Joe Williams at RB. If they thought he was going to be 1/2 the player he's been, they take him in the 3rd. They didn't.

Oh, and they took Solomon Thomas at 3rd overall when they needed a QB and let Mahomes slide to us in that same draft. So I'm not gonna act like they've unlocked the secrets of the draft. They haven't.

They're okay at it. Most teams are only okay at it. And with Kittle they get some credit for seeing more than most, but they also got pretty damn lucky.
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Yep. That's the thing with a steal I guess. It's largely luck. Most teams are making plenty more f*** ups than they are drafting Kittles. Including the 49ers.
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Kollman doesn't watch as much tape as you'd think, a lot of what he says are just hot takes. I watched his podcast on the 49ers and he had all sorts of takes about Purdy in the playoffs that don't fit with what the people who actually broke down the film say.
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Same could even be said for the draft steal that Chiefsplanet and Chiefs fans in general love to obsess about: DK Metcalf.

He's been awesome for the Seahawks, but the critiques that caused him to drop (stiffness, inability to run most routes effectively) are legit. He's just been in a situation where it hasn't mattered, and his ability to be dynamic on slants, posts, and flys has shined.
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Which is why I've never barbecued the Chiefs for passing on him.

Now I will get at them a bit for passing an McLaurin because Scary Terry DOES fit everything we needed here. Though ultimately he'd have occupied a lot of the same space as Sammy at that time.

The Chiefs didn't 'miss' on that pick - they were targeting a very specific trait due to a very bizarre set of circumstances.

Mecole Hardman is a Chief because Brooke Pryor is a reckless and unprofessional shitweasel. That's it.

But/for all that, I still don't think Metcalf is a Chief for the very reasons you stated. But maybe McLaurin is...
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I think several Posts hit it on the head. Steals are a manner of luck. Things like character, scheme, and health often facto in . But often it’s just a matter of pure luck.

I was going to give a list of examples, but it’s so long and they are so obvious and it’s too much work. But if you look through Wikipedia annual draft reports and see who has made pro bowl, not surprisingly most of them are in round one or round two. But almost every year there are a number that come in round three and later.
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It comes down to what Belicheck said before he got too into himself.

Paraphrasing but "draft guys for what they can do and are good at, ask them to do that while you develop them to do things they can't".
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