old55

It seems pretty clear Jamie Elliott used MFC to up his offer at Collingwood last year. It's reasonably common.

Jamie Elliott?

Have you ever been on national television setting role model behaviour for young men?

I think our current inclusions stack up OK against Carlton and St.Kilda so far. Hibberd, Melksham, Lever, May, Preuss, Langdon and Tomlinson. I expect we'll add at least 2 more this year.

I don't think it really changes your good argument

Sidebottom and Daicos.

That's great input @Axis of Bob - just an observation - it looks like the top graph is goals CONCEDED not scored by those teams, if so for example the Port Adelaide tall data is not indicative of Dixon, it's indicative of their undersized defence.

It's the mother of black holes, but they have some promising youth. It's going to be a tough grind at a bad time to be down.

So North should hang on to Ben Brown and finish 15th for the next 3 years rather than 18th and sacrifice the draft pick they'll get for him in the trade, the drop in draft picks they'll experience from finishing marginally higher and the salary cap space they can use to front load their young players with and use in a few years when they are on the up with the rebuild? They do have other mature players to provide leadership through this period like Cunnington, Ziebell, Goldstein and Tarrant so it's not like what MFC did in our previous failed rebuild.

It's a risk I agree but as I have posted elsewhere North are in for a major rebuild and Brown is one of their few assers that will deliver a decent pick. They have other leaders and Brown won't be there when they next contend. It doesn't mean he's cooked. Only Hawthorn's list is in worse shape than North's. Hopefully that encourages Smith to move to greener pastures.

Yeah we're not getting Jeremy Cameron and Zac Williams. But if we got Ben Brown and Isaac Smith and they played at anything like their optimum we would be significantly better than 2020.

Jackson is going to play - let's get that straight. The problem as @Axis of Bob points out is that it's difficult to accommodate B.Brown, Weid, Jackson and Fritsch in the same forward line unless Fritsch can seriously up his defensive work and get over the one arm tackles etc. Weid's agility and ground ball skills are sadly under-rated here but he's not going to lay fwd 50 tackles and neither is Brown on a consistent basis. I think Jackson is different and is likely to instill every type of nightmare opposition defenders fear. Then there's Melksham who is very dangerous and can play a negating role on attacking half-backs but doesn't provide general fwd 50 pressure. We need 7 in the forward 50 rotations: B.Brown, Weid, Jackson, Fritsch, Melksham, Pickett, Spargo? Can all forward 50 pressure be up to Pickett, Spargo and Jackson? If Brown comes then Petty plays back and I do like that. It also gives us depth if someone gets injured in game or for an extended period. It's not easy, I could see an outcome like @DeeSpencer fears that if Brown comes then it's a battle between Weid and Fritsch for a place and we end up playing one at Casey and trading a valuable resource for peanuts at the end of 2021. Advocates either way need to come up with their full forward line 7 for a complete solution.

Maybe right. I might prefer 2021 13 for Brown with 2021 40 back and keep 23 this year. Than 23 for Brown. FWIW both options are valued at ~800 points

North already have 2, 9, 25 and 57 and we have 23, 47, 62 and 63. I'd like to do 23 for Brown but I don't think it will be attractive to them. North will want our 2021 1st. We'd want something back. IMO 57 is pretty worthless to us. I think there's a strong likelihood they'll finish bottom 4 next year - worst case 2nd round is 23, 3rd round is 40. We should expect to finish top 6 next year - worst case 1st round for us is 13. I think it could be 2021 1st (13) for Brown + 2021 3rd (40). I'd like to hang onto 23 this year too because I think there's a chance someone we fancy could fall out of the first round like Robertson and Rivers did this year.

I would be totally fine with us trading our 2021 1st round pick if it brings a quality player that will take us closer to a flag over the next 3 years. We have effectively used 1st rounders in 2019 Jackson and 2020 Pickett.

wow 2 first round picks

McStay is the key contested marking target and Hipwood is the second target.

It's like how most threads in the football forums ultimately turn to a "Goodwin" thread.

North need to go for a hard rebuild so they need to get rid of players that are not a culture fit and/or can give them early picks. They've got Cunnington, Ziebel, Goldstein and Tarrant so they are not lacking mature leaders.

I'm a big Weid fan but I think we need a bridge to 26-27yo #1 KPF Weid.

I agree I would not be getting Mihocek because he wouldn't solve our current problem which is no consistent #1 contested marking target. But I don't agree that's not ultimately Weid. In this I agree with @DeeSpencer. But the problem is at 23yo Weid's body is just not there yet. He does need cover in the meantime, that was meant to be TMac. In the Brown thread I've almost convinced myself it's him.

Which team is contending with a 23yo #1 key forward?

I'm not fixed one way or the other on the Brown trade. I agree with @DeeSpencer that Weid is a #1 forward. But the problem is that his body isn't quite there yet. He was very good in the middle part but dropped off in the last part of 2020 because of this. This was exacerbated because he had minimal support. TMac and Jackson out and Mitch Brown not consistently drawing a tall defender away. Next year we could have a combo of Weid, Petty and Jackson which would cause tall defenders to need to split attention. But again all are immature bodies unless Weid really comes on over summer. Alternatively Ben Brown, Weid and Jackson. With Petty playing back in place of OMac/Tomlinson. There's not any real fwd defensive difference between Weid-Petty and B.Brown-Weid combos. Look at this year's top 4, none of them are going with a 24yo #1 marking forward. Brisbane have targetted Daniher because McStay is not really good enough. I'm leaning towards yes on Ben Brown.

We would if we wanted to spend the 70-80% saving on another player.

I think you've got a warped view. Goodwin is going to recruit to play finals in 2021 because he wants success not to save his job. He will ultimately stand or fall on whether he leads us to flag success. There's no job retention incentive for him, if he ultimately doesn't deliver flag success then he'll have job security as a well paid assistant coach elsewhere. You either believe we're in the flag window in which case recruit accordingly or you don't which means draft. Don't get caught half way between. We've shown balance - we effectively drafted in 2019 and 2020 and brought in Langdon and Tomlinson. IMO it's fine to concentrate on mature players now to fill in the missing elements.