DeeSpencer

The thing that makes me feel comfortable with Oliver is: - As a prospect he's really raw. Heaps to work on with the body and developing his game But - His production is there. It's not just half a season, it's most of the season, winning the league B+F, playing 2 solid VFL games. The bolter narrative is ridiculous. From those who watch TAC he's been well in the first round calculations for a large part of the year and just kept getting better and better. Then turned up to draft camp looking like an AFL footballer (or an 18 year old one).

I think the comparisons to Cripps - Draft bolter - Great inside - Tall and pale Are a bit lazy. Cripps is amazing at clearances. He's as good as any in the AFL. Oliver is a very good clearance mid at TAC but we don't know much else yet. Cripps is very good at accumulating the ball around the ground through work rate, but that's about all he does away from stoppages. I see agility, skills, marking (Cripps is a good mark due to his size, not for his size) and a burst of speed from Oliver that I rarely see from Cripps. I'm not saying he's as good as Cripps. We will be lucky if that's true. But I think he's much different to Cripps despite the similarities. Maybe a cleaner Dane Swan or a slower Dangerfield. There's a bit of Luke Parker about him and a bit of Robbie Gray.

This might be sacrilege or stupidity but I think he could be better than Jesse under a high ball/pack situation. Jesse is amazing one on one (or even one on two) and working an opponent over in space, plus down right brilliant for a tall for when the ball is on the deck and in contested situations. But he throws himself a bit wildly at pack situations. Weideman seems to have long arms and nice balance in the air. If he basis most of his game on Hogan and develops against men the same way (if not at the same astronomical rate) and is even 3/4's as good as Hogan at most things he'll be a gun. But his pack marking could be even a step above. His set shot routine at this stage is also much better!

Ran 12.4 beep test last week, so he might not be super fit but he is running. Has been running for a while actually.

Highlights video scene by scene: - Strong mark back with the flight - Gathers a clearance against 3, firm handball to the loose man - Positions well for a handball up, snaps a goal quickly under pressure - Marks a kick out 30m from goal, bursts and shimmies through to the middle of the ground, launches inside 50 on a quick breakaway - Clearance - Loose ball get, spots up a man inside 50 - Clearance - Clearance on the move, weave, snap goal - Contested mark - Loose ball get, step, left foot spot up kick - Contested mark inside 50, taking the ball at the highest point - Loose ball get, pause, laughs at opposition, runs round, kicks inside 50 that leads to a goal - Beastly tackle - Clearance - Handball receive, turns, trips, bounces up and handballs to a runner I'm at 2:06 and I've seen enough. Any more and I'll turn in to Osilik

It's an issue. But we are still in the early phase of rebuilding I think. So stack up on ball winners and talls and hard running smart footballers. We can trade or draft for a bit of speed once the base is established.

So pumped we back ourselves with this kid. Not concerned at all about his kicking or speed, he's got enough of both. I'm excited to see him play forward, yet alone move to the midfield.

The good news on those ranking points is they were both trending up and also very consistent after the first 2 rounds when he was presumably getting some match fitness after missing some preseason. That finish to the year is super impressive, as is the off the charts game which I presume was the game he kicked 6.

To be fair if we pass him up for Oliver he's got - the Morrish medal, a good package of skills, decision making, attack etc. Good SC scores. Certainly can kick goals and hit targets. And is undoubtedly a natural footballer.

The Falcons really only have a light grasp on the 2nd NFC wildcard spot and Seattle might be the best of a sorry lot of chasers. I like the Steelers and Chiefs for the AFC wildcard spots but I'd love to see the Bills get a big upset tomorrow and get a wildcard spot.

After an 0-3 start with no confidence against good teams in Green Bay, Arizona and Seattle the Bears have gone 4-3 to now sit 4-6 with all 3 losses (and 2 of the wins) coming by under 3 points and with all 3 games pretty much 1 good play from winning. We had the Vikings on toast, we had the Lions all but done if we had a bit more time and still could've won it in OT and today we had a chance for a 2 point conversion to send it to OT. It's hard to be too angry given last year was a disaster and this year has been pretty competent. Just a shame because there's was a sneaky shot at a wildcard berth if we could get to 5-5.

Does he have the skills and speed to be a Dalhaus? No doubt he can find the ball. Just a worry at that size, especially after we've added Kennedy. Not a lot of room in the team to play JKH, Ben Ken and this kid.

Denver Brockos - no Jeffery for the Bears and does anyone expect Cutler to keep his great form going against the number 1 defense? Plus the Broncos run game will work better with Brocko. Green Bay - enough is enough. Forget the other 21 players on the field at any one time. Rodgers v Teddy Bridgewater for the division lead. He has to find a way. Would help if Eddie Lacy stopped eating and played though. KC Chiefs - I like what Andy Reid is cooking, and so does he.

The AFC South is the new NFC South which was the new NFC West. Maybe a terrible division isn't so bad, because it means in a couple of years you might have a very competitive division. The scary thought is Houston winning the division despite being the only team who hasn't spent a top 3 pick on a QB in the last few or so years.

If we do recruit Parish I can see him spending a lot of time at half back rotating in spurts on to a wing. He'll build strength and stamina in time to play wing/midfield permanently but without a stand out factor it might take a while. Just having another natural run and carry player with good skills will help the team a lot, it's just more about how good he can become and whether he's worth the early investment.

Imagine if Petracca has convinced his old school and team mate to tank the beep test and we were in on it. Wouldn't that be something. Come to pick 7 Sam.

If the draft goes: 3 - Parish, 4 - Oliver, 5 - Francis, 6 - Milera and we've ruled out Weid - injuries and Curnow - character then we might have to draft outside that range! And that group of 6 seems to conform just a little too perfectly with a lot of the medias phantom drafts. If the MFC were holding on to an outside the box choice I don't think they'd let it leak to a supporter group.

The Vic Country stuff is irrelevant. He clearly wasn't the same player when carrying a bit of weight, battling OP and building fitness in the first half of the year. Look at these stats: http://www.foxsportspulse.com/team_info.cgi?action=PSTATS&pID=197829314&client=1-118-10450-339768-20320221&ocompID=339768 Second half of the year he's hitting the scoreboard regularly, taking more marks, drastically increasing his kick to handball ratio. And after his 2 game stint in the VFL he reels off 3 best on grounds and then two 2nd best on grounds to finish the season. I'm not saying I know the answers on whether he's the right pick or not but the Vic Country stuff doesn't bother me at all.

The interesting thing to me is that the club doctors and physio's would each have their own opinions but really the only people fully qualified to account for the risk would be specialist ankle surgeons. You'd think the one who did Weideman's surgery would issue a favourable prognosis, but I wonder how the 18 clubs assess it. Do they each hire their preferred surgeon? Do a group of them share the same advice from one surgeon whilst others use another? Or do they almost all end up with the same level of risk and then make a decision based on that. I'm thinking our history with Trengove would probably have us on the conservative side with Wedieman, especially for pick 3.

Is it the same footage as on the afl draft machine?Because if not you should watch it. Sometimes he uses his physical size and hardness, but most of the highlights are his smarts and athleticism. He might not have the same ability on his left foot or amazing tackling but his highlights show more class than Brayshaw's did last year, and I wouldn't mind 2 Brayshaw's!

His handballing seems a bit funny but his kicking is quite fluent. But where I see class is the way he moves in traffic, the way he knows who is around him and in his marking. In his AFL highlights video there's some clever tap ons, some really smart gathers, especially the way he gathers and changes direction and a bit of cheek as well. That's his class. I think the combination of a big strong clearance winner with decent skills who also has the agility and vision to move in to open space and buy time is a pretty special package and why he's rated top 10.

Interesting that Bailey Rice did even worse with a 12.2 beep. I don't have a lot of faith that every beep test is created equal. If it's hot, if the distance isn't measure perfectly, if it's slippery then you might get a lesser result. 8.69 agility sounds pretty good for a big man coming off ankle surgery. That's a promising result to counter the average speed and poor beep.

3.21 20m sprint 12.4 beep. Not great numbers. But considering his injuries and size not the end of the world either. I don't think those numbers would prevent you from drafting him. But they aren't impressive.

New England (confident) Carolina (reasonably confident but they are due a loss, they aren't amazing) Dallas (not confident at all but the 3rd tips a disaster)

She chose 5 players at the start of 2007 to write a book on. 2 - Cotchin 9 - McEvoy 11 - Veszpremi 12 - Rioli 13 - Ebert Now I'm sure they were all pretty highly rated at the start of the season, but that's not bad going. Whether she's using her own eye or collating the knowledge of others doesn't bother me. If her top 30 is a group think of the collective knowledge of a bunch of recruiters then maybe it's more reliable than any one persons opinion. One of the weaknesses of the draft is that players go ahead of the order if 1 club has a massive opinion of them.