What's the chances of Dee Milliner falling to Buccaneers?

[michael89156]

2013 NFL Mock Draft: Dee Milliner falling to Buccaneers?



By Sander Philipse on Jan 28, 12:31p




Kevin C. Cox



Will Dee Milliner fall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? If so, he's a likely slam-dunk selection.


The Tampa Bay Buccaneers want to desperately upgrade their cornerback position this offseason, but they'll have trouble doing so in the first round of the draft. Dee Milliner is the only cornerback easily worth a mid first-round pick, as the Bucs hold the 13th overall pick. But Milliner is likely to be gone by the time the Bucs get around to making their selection, which would leave them selecting either Johnathan Banks or Xavier Rhodes. Neither Banks nor Rhodes may be the best player on the board, and the team may be better off selecting a better overall player eschewing the cornerback position for another position.

It seems Mocking the Draft has found the right answer, though: they simply have Dee Milliner falling to number 13. The Alabama product would be a great addition to what was a very weak secondary last season. Here's what Dan Kadar had to say about the selection:
 

13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Dee Milliner, CB, Alabama
 
Milliner is the best cornerback in the draft and no one is arguing it. He has good size and is physical in all areas of the game. Tampa Bay finally needs to go after a great cornerback early in the draft. It's conceivable that they double up on the position this year.


How did that fall happen in this scenario? It featured two quarterbacks in the top 12, but I would assume a few more are likely to be selected in that range. We saw three top 12 quarterbacks last season, and four the season before that. Although this isn't a stellar quarterback draft, it isn't bad per se: it just doesn't have the standout players like Andrew Luck and Cam Newton. But it does have plenty of quarterbacks who compare with Blaine Gabbert, Ryan Tannehill and Christian Ponder.

The other feature is an abundance of lineman on both offense and defense. All ten of the non-quarterbacks selected in this mock draft before the Bucs make their pick are offensive or defensive linemen. That trend actually continues throughout the first round as a deep and high-quality group of linemen on both sides of the ball appears to take over the draft. Will the Bucs take advantage by getting a quality cornerback at a bit of a discount -- or will they dip into the pool of linemen themselves?




http://www.bucsnation.com/2013/1/28/3924948/2013-nfl-mock-draft-dee-milliner-buccaneers

[Hate]

will be curious to see if a meaningless win to end the season causes us to miss out on him

[Detrimental]

Gotta hope the Lions pass on him. Which they probably will for a DE and then gotta worry about Miami taking him too. We'll see how FA pans out but I'm not too concerned if we don't get him. Banks can be just as good.

[mgchat76]

If he makes it to 10 it wouldn't surprise me to see the Bucs jump ahead of Miami.  That is especially true if they end up losing Sean Smith (hopefully to us).  I personally wouldn't make that trade, but I'm not a GM.

[TBChucky]

If he doesn't fall I'm really not sweating it. There seems to be better value in the 2nd. Plus we could use help in the trenches on both sides.

[TampaBucks05]

Yep

[captainjimbo]

will be curious to see if a meaningless win to end the season causes us to miss out on him

A meaningless win against the Falcons?  Really!  I don't think so.  Anyway what are we supposed to do, throw the game?

[DEBUCSOWN]

will be curious to see if a meaningless win to end the season causes us to miss out on him

Agreed.

[watson]

will be curious to see if a meaningless win to end the season causes us to miss out on him

A definiite possibility.  But, I'm starting to think in a different direction for the draft versus taking a CB in the first.  I like what I'm hearing about and what I saw of the big DT from Georgia, Jenkins.  Here is a synopsis of his Senior Bowl week of practice:

The 6-foot-3, 359-pounder had a phenomenal week at practice. Jenkins wasn't known as a pass-rusher at Georgia, but he used the Senior Bowl to demonstrate the potential to collapse the pocket.

Jenkins dominated the one-on-one sessions. The guards and centers were virtually incapable of keeping him out of the backfield. The massive tackle was destroying linemen with his bull rushes.

Jenkins also displayed surprising explosion. He has a good get-off and fires into blockers often to gain leverage.

In the team scrimmage, Jenkins was a big load who did well at plugging up running lanes and eating up blockers. There was some debate about Jenkins being a first-round pick entering the Senior Bowl, but he showed that he is worthy of a first-round pick

One thing I've heard from coach after coach is that pressure coming up the middle at the QB causes them more problems than does the ends crashing in.  And I think back to when Sapp was with the Bucs and all the havoc he caused coming up the middle.  Pairing Jenkins with his ability to push 2 blockers back into the QB and McCoy and his quick get off and inside push and the comfort level of Brees, Ryan, etc might not be nearly as high as it has been the last few years.

What would make this even better....IMO...is they could probably trade down a couple of spots and still get him.

[Benchwarmer#1]

Gotta hope the Lions pass on him. Which they probably will for a DE and then gotta worry about Miami taking him too. We'll see how FA pans out but I'm not too concerned if we don't get him. Banks can be just as good.

+1

Also. if it were me making the calls I would use the first to see about getting Revis, then jump back into the first  and get Banks with the 2nd and Talib fourth if that worked out.

Having a duo like that would be a huge improvement to the defense.

Milliner is alright, but he's really not going to be as productive as either Revis or Banks imo. He's not Peterson level even imo.

[Ft Myers Buc Fan]

If he doesn't fall I'm really not sweating it. There seems to be better value in the 2nd. Plus we could use help in the trenches on both sides.

Agreed.  Millner is not that much better than the other CBs rated 2-5.  He is not an "elite" guy.  If he falls to us and we covet him, great.  However, I dont think there is any chance we trade up for him and there will be a lot of talented players sitting there at #13 that can help us if we dont find a way to trade down

[BucNY]

will be curious to see if a meaningless win to end the season causes us to miss out on him

It may have been a meaningless win to the fans, not to me, but not to the players. They worked very hard all year and were very close but no cigar on many occasions. I think it was a really nice moral to end the season on a win against a very good team that was trying to beat us in a place where they were unbeaten all year.

Besides if we really need to get Milliner, the new rookie wage scale has made it very reasonable to move up and grab our guy. Remember we have an extra 4th from Talib that could help us do that very thing.

[NotDeadYet]

    Getting a stud DT with a good bull rush will FORCE offenses to double team him, leaving McCoy singled. That in turn allows our DE's to get more sacks off the edge. W/o that push up the middle, opposing QBs easily step up to escape our rushing DE's. When the QB can't step up into his pocket to escape our DE's, he's got a major problem...
    Getting a 'stud' CB only improves us marginally, as he can only cover ONE receiver. Getting a stud DT improves our whole defense. Would rather see us take CBs in the 2nd and/or 3rd, even the 4th.

[BucD]

We can only hope.  The guy is the only player that really has me excited there.

But we may be hoping for nothing.  We all know that when/if Dom likes a guy, and is HIS GUY, he isn't afraid to make a move to go and get his guy.

I love the whole draft process and FA, but I hate how far away it is...

[Booker Reese]

    Getting a stud DT with a good bull rush will FORCE offenses to double team him, leaving McCoy singled. That in turn allows our DE's to get more sacks off the edge. W/o that push up the middle, opposing QBs easily step up to escape our rushing DE's. When the QB can't step up into his pocket to escape our DE's, he's got a major problem...
    Getting a 'stud' CB only improves us marginally, as he can only cover ONE receiver. Getting a stud DT improves our whole defense. Would rather see us take CBs in the 2nd and/or 3rd, even the 4th.

I don't disagree with the benefits of a good DTs, but I think you've got it all wrong in terms of what CBs can do. A "stud" CB allows you to move the coverage around to help weaker links (a freak like Revis, or once greats like Champ and Aso are even more valuable).

I'll give you a good example, and it doesn't even include a "stud" CB.  According to Football Outsiders the reason why Talib was an important piece for them was because even though he hasn't played all that well, they could stick him on the #2 WR and leave him without much help. That allowed them to move McCourty to S, and it allowed them to shade coverage to match up with #1s.