Kelce smokescreen, or flunked interview?

Originally posted by LieutKaffee:
In my mind Kelce and McDonald are very similar prospects. We paid special attention to Kelce and ignored McDonald completely in pre-draft. Two possibilities right?

1. We liked McDonald all along and were trying to throw people off.
2. We wanted to like Kelce, but the visit didn't go so well, so Harbaalke opted for the similar prospect despite doing less diligence on him.

Two possibilities-wrong.

There have to be more; drafting isn't, we hope, a coin toss.

3. We liked both. The interview with Kelce actually went well. But, in a follow-up with one of Kelce's coaches, the coach admitted that he did have serious doubts about his honesty and self-discipline. We decided that the coach's opinion was critically important.

4. The team did not have any problem with Kelce's character. The interview went well, but at the end of the day the team felt he just did not fit into our scheme as McDonald.

3. The team really liked both players, but McDonald's versatility and work ethic won the day.

Originally posted by LieutKaffee:

Originally posted by AmpLee:

Originally posted by LieutKaffee:

In my mind Kelce and McDonald are very similar prospects. We paid special attention to Kelce and ignored McDonald completely in pre-draft. Two possibilities right?

1. We liked McDonald all along and were trying to throw people off.
2. We wanted to like Kelce, but the visit didn't go so well, so Harbaalke opted for the similar prospect despite doing less diligence on him.

I just started a thread on how a lot of our mid-round picks had limited contact with our team. Without a doubt, we were throwing people off our scent with mid-round talent we coveted. I think it's also possible we didn't like Kelce's interview, which made trading up for the guy we wanted much more important. Furthermore, it's possible the Seahawks wanted McDonald as well since they traded out of the pick we had leapfrogged them for (TE was a position of need for them).

Mike Sando speculated that the Seahawks traded down as if to say "Screw you, Niners, we didn't want anyone in this area anyway." What Sando failed to consider is that they traded down because they didn't want anyone in that area once we took their target. Hard to say what's true. There is also speculation in a Seahawks forum (linked in Niner Talk) that BJ Daniels was a good fit for them. We took him like 3 slots ahead of their back to back comps.

Ha Ha!
$uck it Seachickens!

Originally posted by KegBert:
I think it's a fair assumption that Seattle wanted Vance, they ended up drafting his backup.

I think its entirely possible that Seattle was angling to draft both of them. His backup, Luke Wilson isn't a slouch either, very raw but 6'5", 252, 4.51 40 and a 38 inch vertical is something that you can definitely work with.

Originally posted by buck:

Originally posted by LieutKaffee:

In my mind Kelce and McDonald are very similar prospects. We paid special attention to Kelce and ignored McDonald completely in pre-draft. Two possibilities right?

1. We liked McDonald all along and were trying to throw people off.
2. We wanted to like Kelce, but the visit didn't go so well, so Harbaalke opted for the similar prospect despite doing less diligence on him.

Two possibilities-wrong.

There have to be more; drafting isn't, we hope, a coin toss.

3. We liked both. The interview with Kelce actually went well. But, in a follow-up with one of Kelce's coaches, the coach admitted that he did have serious doubts about his honesty and self-discipline. We decided that the coach's opinion was critically important.

4. The team did not have any problem with Kelce's character. The interview went well, but at the end of the day the team felt he just did not fit into our scheme as McDonald.

3. The team really liked both players, but McDonald's versatility and work ethic won the day.

Possible sabotage by former Bearcat staff member who's coaching staff know how to throw their players under the bus.

Originally posted by AmpLee:

Originally posted by LieutKaffee:

Mike Sando speculated that the Seahawks traded down as if to say "Screw you, Niners, we didn't want anyone in this area anyway." What Sando failed to consider is that they traded down because they didn't want anyone in that area once we took their target. Hard to say what's true. There is also speculation in a Seahawks forum (linked in Niner Talk) that BJ Daniels was a good fit for them. We took him like 3 slots ahead of their back to back comps.

What a homer!

Yeah, they traded down just to tell us, "screw you." I really hope they are basing their decisions off of what we do.

f**king hate Sando foghat ass

Originally posted by robniner:
Possible sabotage by former Bearcat staff member who's coaching staff know how to throw their players under the bus.

Some combination of the above mentioned possibilities, but truth be told, we will never know.

Originally posted by buck:

Originally posted by robniner:

Possible sabotage by former Bearcat staff member who's coaching staff know how to throw their players under the bus.

Some combination of the above mentioned possibilities, but truth be told, we will never know.

Kelce's stock was rising so something went on.

McDonald is a more physical specimen so I'm satisfied with the end product.

I had a feeling as soon as the report came out saying we had serious interest in Travis Kelce that we weren't going to draft him. I said as much in the Travis Kelce thread as soon as the report came out.

It appears we pretended that Kelce was our guy in order to throw other teams off the scent and we really were angling for McDonald all along.

McDonald plays at 267lbs, but still ran a 4.69-- 40 time. An average speed for a TE. His 3 cone drill is 7.08 among top 5 of TE. That's a lineman playing tightend with agility like a TE that's close to 20lbs lighter.

What a freak

Makes me wonder if they will ask him to get closer to 250lbs. I can see this dude lowering his shoulder to destroy Richard Sherman after catching a pass.