Chapo was banned a while ago, but my opinions have only been put together recently. I must put a trigger warning at the start of this post, as it involves discussion of both Tara Reade and my own trauma, as my beliefs on the Reade story were intensely intertwined with how I was processing my trauma at the time.
This won't have nearly as many sources as the usual effortpost, because a lot of the concepts in play are pretty straightforward and simple, a lot of them are things I've personally interacted with and implemented, and I'd be linking to a lot of wiki articles. The mechanics of how these concepts were used is the sneaky part, and building understanding of what any people in your life drifting to the extreme are feeling is important.
One source I do wish to share is one of the organizations whose research was used in developing my understanding of intentional social marketing while I was going to college, and while I don't think a lot of people are formally setting out saying "I'm going do social marketing interventions to get my audience/others I interact with online to hate Hillary Clinton and Emmanuel Macron," but I do think they're using a lot of the same principles to relatively powerful effect.
https://www.thensmc.com/content/what-social-marketing-1
https://www.thensmc.com/publications

TWs under this line

Sexual Assault, Emotional Manipulation, Mental Health, Emotional Abuse, Depression

And, without further ado:

Intro

I used to be incredibly hard left, briefly a Stalinist, cooled down to just being a person who screeches online about Nancy Pelosi, eventually realized a bunch of things that we'll get to in this post, and realized market forces are useful if directed properly. I don't actually know where I stand but it's somewhere in this realm (currently calling myself a centrist between neolibs and social dem) and this seems like the best forum to post this, because people should know how the mechanics of this aspect of the lefty propaganda influence machine works.
Anybody who manipulates others in bad faith, playing on their emotional vulnerabilities so they'll buy and push literal misinformation, is an enemy to discourse, and I'm fairly sure the vast majority of people here will agree with this premise.
One of the few things I'm actually qualified to talk a little bit about is social marketing, that is, marketing a product, belief, candidate, behavioral change, etc, vis-a-vis the real or perceived social interactions we have and the opinions we think others have about us. It's interacting with the beliefs we have, interacting with why people do behaviors, what social incentives and disincentives and other barriers they have to doing something. This is not about changing belief, but behavior.
I took three practicums in this shit in college, I fucking love it.
And so it hit me like a truck when I realized I believed that Biden was a literal fascist and rapist (WE'LL FUCKING GET TO THAT PARTICULAR ONE LATER) almost entirely because of the techniques that I had mostly seen utilized to get people to use less water and electricity, to attend a city council meeting, or recycle.

Social Expectations

What were these techniques? The ones I was most interested in were primarily based on establishing social expectations. In the context of recycling, it's things like depicting people who litter as irresponsible and uncaring, encouraging people not to leave the lights on when they leave their house since it looks wasteful and silly to do so.
These influences can be incredibly pervasive while remaining subtle in how they function. If you get the owner of every coffee shop in your town and also the public library and elementary school to have up a poster or sign about some issue, you aren't actually convincing people to do anything by the sign's presence and ability to be read alone.
The purpose of the signs is to show that the owners of the shops care, the members of the community care, the people you interact with care. In short, it gives you this subtle influence of thinking people around you care about it and are willing to say so and encourage others to do so publicly. It is expected that others will push it, encourage it. And then, you feel a little weird if you aren't doing it. Ever smoked a cigarette, drank a beer, hit a joint, that you didn't fully want to but still felt like it'd be socially best to? Ever donated to a charity you know nothing about and felt briefly indecisive on but then you thought of what the sad child in the picture would think and feel if you said "No, you're not worth three dollars?" It happened to you. It does every day, every time an ad plays on how cool a person in it is, every time sometime references a group identity while making a statement.
If you're an unethical propagandist, it can take the form of banning anybody who says a single positive word about Joe Biden from your community, or even anybody who thinks that any of the most hyperbolic critiques are absurd. Harassing people who don't fall in line, who express opinions outside of the explicitly approved list, etc. Again, this doesn't influence the people being shouted down. *It encourages onlookers who agree with the people acting this way to also act this way, to become more extreme." If someone sees that people who disagree get treated like garbage and they start getting hooks in this community, they start needing to believe it.
These methods are most effective on people that are already strongly in favor of something and need reinforcement to go actually do a behavior, OR people who are currently apathetic BUT are in a social context where people care about it and encourage others to do so as well. The effectiveness increases if they're emotionally vulnerable, if they're lonely and detached, if they don't feel super strongly about anything and are looking for meaning, all that. Effectively, people who are more vulnerable to outside influence are more vulnerable to everything that comes with it, and resultantly to the places they spend most of their time.

My Own Experience On Chapo Before I Was Really, Really, REALLY into it

I've never been good at social interaction, have been Very Online since I was 13. I was an autistic trans kid at a conservative rural school with weird body language and loads of sensory issues, I understandably couldn't really interact with most of my peers very well.
In short, at this point in my life I felt like a dejected loser. I browsed a lot of online communities, made a lot of friends, felt better but drifted away from a lot of them from time to time, and in waxing and waning periods of more and less contact, I'd substitute that empty time with content. When Bernie showed up, it became boatloads of lefty content. A bit unclear on my timeline but it was people like Kulinski, Piker, TYT, all of "breadtube" from 2015 to midway through 2020.
This is tbh a bit embarrassing to admit given how I feel about it in retrospect, but...
I posted there fairly obsessively, or I should say browsed. Constantly. It was the first link in my bookmark bar and I clicked it a lot. I loved Chapo. I made a lot of comments far down in threads pulling "dunks" on people who were part far right fascists picking fights but also with a lot of people who were just frustrated with a hundred thousand jackasses larping in unison about their correctness. It was all about being the cool person, getting the approval, acting in a way that made me "good" by the standards set there.It didn't matter what the views I was arguing with were, it just mattered that I was right, and that they were wrong.
The Democratic Primaries were happening. Bernie started to lose. People started being massive doomers about everything. My mental health was in the gutter. I was withdrawing from friends I had in real life, I was a bit agoraphobic, all that.

My Breaking Point: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love their LARP

I will now put another TW and spoiler warning here as it is a description of bad, bad things an ex did that provide context but aren't strictly necessary to understand the post: The Tara Reade story broke. I had recently broken up with an incredibly horrifying ex, just a legit user. Most of my friends are convinced that she was a sociopath. She did deep and fundamentally violating things, both to my mind and body. She abused the fact that we were both trans women who had been abused to make me trust her to handle things. She had broken my ability to process a lot of my preexisting emotional issues without her, and she added a tat to my body that I won't describe here, as it is distinctive enough that you could identify me with it, as well as policing my body and behavior. I was violated a lot of times. That is all that needs to be said on her. Don't tell me if you do this, but dig back in my account to see my breakdown laid out in real time a year ago as I talk about everything happening, as well as some of what happened in my childhood that she took advantage of.
I was traumatized, as a result of what had happened to me, and I was re-traumatized by believing that the presumptive nominee of the Democratic ticket was someone that did things that awful. Chapo banned ANY dissent. If you mentioned anything pro-Biden or establishment or even fucking pro-lesser evil voting to avoid climate apocalypse death, you got banned.
A lot of the initial outrage was around this intercept article:
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/joe-biden-metoo-times-up/
And around the Soundcloud interview you can find by doing a ctrl+F for Katie Halper in that intercept article.
My opinion on the Tara Reade case now is that it's a blatant fabrication. The story changed over and over, every time to change a detail to look worse for Joe Biden or to make the story look credible again once a prior detail was shown to be false. Every witness who isn't personally connected to her denies the revamp of her story that makes it a full on sexual assault accusation. She has constantly and consistently lied for personal gain throughout her life and claimed to respect and admire the efforts of Joe Biden until 2019, changing a story she held stable for decades.
Here's a writeup that sums it up pretty well: https://medium.com/@macarthur.cliff/the-tara-reade-case-eight-things-the-media-wont-tell-you-27d3ca14978
I was depressed, traumatized, etc, and as such, I was incredibly vulnerable to influences. People in my life would get really concerned if I was browsing Chapo at all while I was talking to them because it kept sending me spiralling over my trauma, but I just couldn't stop going for it. Drowning myself in it. I was desperate to perpetually re-open the wound. I was falling away from everything. Friends. Religion. Relationships. My hobbies. My schoolwork. I barely passed my last semester, which was also mid-pandemic. Obsessively online.

My Part In Perpetuating This

After I got really deep in the shit, I got aggressively online. I got into arguments with literally hundreds of people about Joe Biden's rape accusations, across 3 or 4 platforms. I had it pushed into me that everyone who believes Joe isn't a literal monster is evil or ignorant and must be castigated or converted. I don't know how many people I convinced of this position but I do know that it's higher than 0. Than 5, 10. I turned this argument into part of my identity, as part of the way I dealt with and took power back from my abuser, and was treated with praise for doing so by a lot of people! I made compelling personal arguments about not voting out of protest for this man who I thought was as awful as the fucking literal sociopath who was manipulating me for years.
I privately encouraged a few other people to use me as a rhetorical weapon. To say "my friend was assaulted and is personally hurt by the concept that people who claim to support her and people like her will vote for Joe Biden." I had a sobbing breakdown the next time I was alone when my father didn't instantly buy it because "you know what happened to me."
I was making the social context and expectation manifest. By my aggression in establishing the expectation that people hate Joe, by letting others use me as an emblem of it, I was pushing it

Digging Out

This isn't the main point of the post, but I was asked elsewhere about it, so I should include here.
I dug out by improving my mental health, getting in contact with my non-dipshit-extremist-circlejerk supports again, getting back in therapy, doing things to feel self efficacy.
Also I watched a whole lot of Destiny videos and debates about leftism, and had a few people in my personal life talk to me about policy. (Lmao I'm still banned from Destiny's sub for being a former chapo user and they never respond to the unban request)
Watching people actually discuss concepts, especially people I used to look at as respectable or intelligent, and to see them get ripped apart was kind of a wake-up call. A big, big point in me realizing this was his debate with Pxie about the Tara Reade accusations, and how when I slowed down to look at everything I really, really didn't have a good reason to feel as strongly as I did other than other people encouraging me to.
Getting back into other hobbies, into religion, into other things I just enjoy engaging with and that actively improve my life, pulled me back from the edge of becoming just an ideologue.
I've stopped talking to a lot of the people who were my friends then. They were too committed to the bullshit. They were too mean to people who were outsiders, and I was one then. If you start expressing genuine doubt, pulling away, they'll either try to pull you in or kick you out if it's not working. Actually discussing the reality of the situation was a taboo. I don't know if it works for all other people like this but if people try to choose what I can and can't say for me it freaks me out. When I just said the same things they did I didn't notice.

Deplatforming

Another part of how I managed to get out was that one day I woke up and Chapo was just fucking gone. I was unironically weirdly aimless and listless for the next 3 days whenever I had downtime. I wasn't able to do my usual habit of triggering my PTSD by reading shitposts about Biden's evil or fake outrage about nonsense. I literally HAD TO do something else. There wasn't another place quite like Chapo, it had a unique vibe, a unique sense, a unique humor, and without it the aesthetic core of the bullshit I believed in was gone and my attachment to the issues Chapo cared most about slowly started to wane.

Miscellaneous Examples Of Establishing Social Expectations

I'm going to include here a few really obvious examples of people trying to clumsily make it so people think the only opinion it's acceptable to say it there.
Here's a TYT video about Amy Klobuchar where they lie and claim she said the opposite of what she did!
https://www.facebook.com/CenkUygurOfficial/videos/senator-amy-klobucharwhat-are-you-doing/734829663811319/
You see, they claim that anyone that agrees with her opinion is trying to "dumb their way out of helping Americans" and "just suck, just suck."
Her actual claim was that Trump showboating by threatening a veto on the 600 dollar checks when 2k checks weren't on the table was a threat to people because getting 600 dollars sucks less than getting 0 dollars, and getting continued unemployment is more relevant to a LOT of the people most affected by the pandemic.
By forcing the expectation that anyone who agrees with Klobuchar hates you and wants you to suffer, you make it so anyone who agrees with her gets attacked instantly.
https://youtu.be/vOvkPYqdjTE?t=3754
My next (this time timestamped!) example is Bri Joy-Gray debating Sam Seder about "Force the Vote," which I am including because it is content explicitly by and for the left, and Bri, as a former media director, is incredible at bowling people over rhetorically with performative outrage.
She is supposed to be talking to Sam Seder about the merits of forcing a Medicare for All vote by holding up the speakership. They both agree that the fundamental goal is to get a shared policy across. What does she do? She starts denouncing the way that Sam is unwilling to focus on the fight for the right of millions of people to healthcare. They already agree and she is both affecting strong emotion and acting unnecessarily aggressive at him claiming that trying to get your dream policy vote with a contingent of 6 people is probably unwise. She is again an example of creating and pushing an expectation that disagreeing makes you bad, and strongly agreeing makes you good.
The biggest whopper though, came recently. I don't need to give a single link because if you look at a single video on left youtube about stocks from a week ago, everybody I saw on the fucking PLANET but Destiny's stream and here were desperately promoting the working man's retail investment revolt, how it was fighting the man, getting one up on the big guys, and robinhood shutting down trades was just them STEALING IT from us. So I will link you one tweet in particular that epitomizes it.
https://twitter.com/KyleKulinski/status/1355573696119889921?s=20
Robinhood got the billion so it could OPEN UP TRADING AGAIN. Kyle is directly stating the opposite and follows it up by complaining that the critiques of him are pathetically stupid and need to try harder. If someone actually respected him and saw these takes they'd probably end up having some unpleasant kneejerk responses, and push them in casual conversation, pushing the cycle further.

Fin

Deplatforming people who spread misinformation in an inflammatory and manipulative way that actually screws people over generally does at least some good.
I might crash and go to sleep soon, but I will respond to anything when I wake up and for as long as I'm still up, though I can't promise the ability to go in deep on some of the stuff. But being able to identify when the driving force behind a political argument is social influence can be broadly useful to consider in understanding how a lot of beliefs spread.
edit for grammar.

In this post we are going to go through an in-depth analysis of AMD, we are going to take a look at their fundamental value, their DCF, do a little technical analysis and set some price targets for the near future and for the long term
~Very Long Post~ [Do NOT Read if you don't like comprehensive analysis]
Hello everyone! Let’s start by talking a little about AMD, they are one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world, and they operate in multiple segments like Computing, Gaming, Enterprise, Semi-Custom and many more with some of the most important products for the company being microprocessors and GPUs both for personal use like (gaming consoles & PCs) while also offering products for professional use like data centers.
The company was founded more than 50 years ago and have more than 11K employees, with the company overperforming recently as they have seen a more than 80% rise in the last year.
So, guys, let’s go a little through the 4th quarter & yearly results for AMD. The company reported a revenue of $3.24B in the 4th quarter, with a 53% growth since last year, while for the full year they earned almost $10B as they more than doubled they quarterly and full year net income, which resulted in a $1.29 earnings/share for the year.
The company has 2 major income segments in Computing & Graphics which brought in sales of over $6.4B for the year and an operating income of $1.26B and the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment which brought in $3.3B in revenues and almost $400M in operating income. They also provide an additional segment that doesn’t bring in any revenues but which represents costs that can’t be associated with any of the other 2 segments, but also includes stock-based compensations and acquisitions related costs.
Both of these 2 segments have seen huge increases in the past year with operating income doubling for the computing & graphics segment and increasing by almost 50% for the EEC segment.
AMD didn’t have such a big capital expenditure in 2020, with only $294M but this can increase depending on the demand of their products while they also adjusted their income with $312M in depreciation & amortizations. Both of these numbers have increased by 40 to 50% in the past years and will be important in the DCF valuation.
They have also managed to increase the gross profit margin to 45%, up 2% from 2019 as their earnings before interest & tax or EBIT stood at $1.37B.
The company has seen a continued earnings per share growth overall, despite the first 2 quarters of 2020 coming in lower than previous, but that was to be expected as this was impacted by the reduced revenues in Q1 & Q2 before things started to pick up back again, as they finished with a huge increase overall in the 4th quarter.
Their product portfolio has become a great challenge to Intel’s market share and is continuing to evolve, as Intel is still struggling to regain momentum with their products.
AMD announced the world’s best processors for laptop and an enterprise variant that is expected to be available in the first half of 2021.
They have also launched the fastest AMD gaming graphics card ever while also working with big companies like Amazon on their AWS cloud offerings & Microsoft Azure which are planning to use their upcoming 3rd generation EPYC processors.
AMD is also involved in supercomputers which indicates that they are continuing to innovate and develop products that will be in high demand for the foreseeable future
The one big thing that can propel AMD even more in the future is the proposed acquisition or more rather merger with Xilinx , which also beat earnings expectations the other day, with revenues of over $800M for the quarter and a Free Cash Flow of 44% of their revenues. Xilinx has a market cap of over $32B, and the combination of the 2 companies would create synergies. They are targeting an all-stock transaction which will have implications on my projections, but as time has gone, the $35B price tag is only a 10% premium for Xilinx. The one hurdle the companies have to pass is the regulatory procedures. We will have to wait and see if the deal goes through or not, as it’s expected the deal should be finished by the end of the year, with AMD shareholders retaining 74% of the new group shares and Xilinx holding the remaining 26%.
AMD also offered great guidance for 2021 as they expect the strength of their product portfolio to push AMD revenues up 37% over 2020 and also expect their gross margin to increase to 47%, while they expect an effective tax rate for next year of 15%, well belove the 21% US corporate tax rate.
I have made some predictions based on the growth rate of the company, the latest plans announced by them and used some estimates and expectations. So, keep in mind this are only projections and are calculated by myself, this is not an investment advice and you should do your own research and so on…
So, let’s start with the Unleveraged discounted free cash flow projections to see what the current valuation of the company is.
I used their total revenues projections that we will discuss later on in the long-term projection and the net income for 2020 to which I added back the Depreciation & Amortization costs they had in 2020 and got to a $1.68B EBITDA.
For the next years I used 1% increase in EBIT margin which I think they can achieve pretty easy and an increase in capex of 10%/year in order to maintain an increased production capacity while also applying a 15% decrease in their net working capital.
So, for an 8% discount rate, which is pretty much the Average SP500 return, we get a $9.7B Discounted Free Cash Flow by 2025.
Now there are 2 methods of doing the valuation, either the perpetuity method or the EBITDA multiple method, but for both of them we do have to subtract or add the net assets or debt, which in this case stands $5.75B in assets. I personally think a use of the average is better suited for most companies, though some of the companies trade largely on the EBITDA approach and other on the growth approach.
If we use the growth approach, we can see that AMD is pretty fairly valued right now, as this implies a loss of 2%, while on the other hand the EBITDA multiple approach gives us a valuation of over $112, meaning an almost 30% undervaluation of the company. But as I said, I think a use of the average is best, so, my current price target for AMD in 2021 is $98.82, implying a 13.5% return from the last price.
And now let’s move on to a longer-term valuation of the company based on the growth projections I have for AMD.
For my projections I actually just used their full year results and implied different growth rates for each revenue stream. I think we can continue to see 50% growth rate in the EEC segment for 2021 and then implying a gradual slowing of their growth, while for the Computing & Graphics segment I implied a 35% growth, way lower than the over 100% they saw in 2020, also implying a gradual slowdown of the trend by 2025.
I think these growth implications are pretty reasonable giving the high demand the company has seen for their entire product line, especially as gaming revenues have continued to increase, and also taking into account the need for their products in data centers, cloud usage & digital currency mining.
For their cost of sales, I started from the current ones which stand at 80% for the Computing & Graphics segment and implied a 1% improvement each year, while for the EEC segment I started from the 88% expense margin right now and implied a gradual 2% improvement. I also maintained their other expense regarding to the cost of sales to 3% of their total revenues, in-line with the previous years.
This means for 2025 we would get just over $33B in revenues and $26B in expenses, resulting in a gross profit of almost $7B. I also maintained the same capex as in the DCF and also substracted the interest & other expenses for which I implied a 5% annual growth, thus leading us to a $6.28B in earnings before tax.
I maintained their 15% effective tax rate projections and also diluted their shares by 1% each year accounting for some dilution in the stock.
So, for the $5.3B in 2025 revenues after tax and accounting for 1.27B shares, that would mean a $4.21 earnings/share, meaning the stock is trading at 20 times forward price to earnings for 2025.
I like to base my future projections on Forward/PE valuations so, with the current projected PE and depending on what PE you assume for the stock between 25 and 40, the stock can trade between $105 and almost $168.
So, after all these estimates what are my price targets? HERE are my actual price targets
I think the 2025 bear case price we can see AMD trade at is $115 which would imply a return of almost 33% , while my base case and my pretty safe assumption is that AMD will trade at 137$/share by the end of 2025, implying a 57% return on the current price. But my most bullish case would see the company trading at $158, which would imply a return of over 81%. So yeah guys, these are my Overall price targets for 2025, my bear case is an average of the 25 & 30 PE ratio, while the normal case is the average between the 30 and 35 PE’s with the most bullish case valuing the company between a PE of 35-40.
So HERE is the full spreadsheet that I have projected for AMD by 2025, if you do have another opinion or a suggestion please leave a comment down below, I think I have been conservative in most of my projections, but feel free to give your opinion.
I think these are pretty reasonable targets, as the semiconductors industry will keep on booming in the next decade, as the world will need more & more chips that also keep advancing in technology.
The company also has very good financials, with almost $9B in assets vs just $3.1B in total liabilities, which can be easily paid by just the current assets.
And let’s also take a look at what the estimates are from the analysts. We can only see EPS estimates until 2023 of $3.22, which I think is safe to say can grow an additional dollar by 2025, so my projections are pretty in-line with what other experts anticipate.
So, what do I expect in the next couple of days, weeks and months for AMD?
Let’s look at this CHART, the stock just broke below the long-term uptrend but has seen good support at the $86-87 levels, which is where the next support should stand. We saw AMD pushing towards $100 in the beginning of the year, but it hit major resistance once Intel also announced a change in their leadership, as they brought in the WMWare CEO Gelsinger, but it’s very hard to see him turn around Intel in a very short time. Intel will need some years & a lot of capital expenditure to turn things around, if they do manage to do it at all.
AMD hasn’t been overbought since August, and currently has an RSI near 41, which is pretty oversold for a good company, so I expect to see them regaining some momentum in the near-term, but I guess the market is very busy with the current short-squeezes. AMD will se a lot of resistance breaking through the $100 level, not because of something fundamental with the company, but I guess it’s a psychological resistance rather.
And let’s take a quick look at what 24 analysts on Wall Street are saying. They mostly have a buy call on the company with an average price target of $100 and a high price target of $135. So, I think the analyst are pretty spot on with AMD, but my PT are slightly lower as it’s always better to undershoot and overperform rather than the other way around.
So, what would I do? Well, I own AMD stock and I believe it still has plenty of room to grow, so I would start building a position right now and add on any weakness, and I would especially buy more if the stock drops even lower than 80$.
One last thing to mention about AMD is that they also have a very big % of their shares held by institutions, with over 74% of the float being held by big funds like Vanguard & Blackrock which does significantly reduce the sell-off possibilities.
So, this are my projections and my expectations for the company, I think Lisa SU has done a terrific job since becoming the CEO, and has driven AMD to a renewed approach to their business, as the company has been booming in the past 5 years, growing more than twice as much as Nvidia and crushing the SP500 and Intel’s performance.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market! Have a great day and see you next time!

In this post we are going to go through an in-depth analysis of AMD🚀, we are going to take a look at their fundamental value, their DCF, do a little technical analysis and set some price targets for the near future and for the long term
~Very Long Post~
Hello everyone! Let’s start by talking a little about AMD, they are one of the biggest semiconductor companies in the world, and they operate in multiple segments like Computing, Gaming, Enterprise, Semi-Custom and many more with some of the most important products for the company being microprocessors and GPUs both for personal use like (gaming consoles & PCs) while also offering products for professional use like data centers.
The company was founded more than 50 years ago and have more than 11K employees, with the company overperforming recently as they have seen a more than 80% rise in the last year.
So, guys, let’s go a little through the 4th quarter & yearly results for AMD. The company reported a revenue of $3.24B in the 4th quarter, with a 53% growth since last year, while for the full year they earned almost $10B as they more than doubled they quarterly and full year net income, which resulted in a $1.29 earnings/share for the year.
The company has 2 major income segments in Computing & Graphics which brought in sales of over $6.4B for the year and an operating income of $1.26B and the Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment which brought in $3.3B in revenues and almost $400M in operating income. They also provide an additional segment that doesn’t bring in any revenues but which represents costs that can’t be associated with any of the other 2 segments, but also includes stock-based compensations and acquisitions related costs.
Both of these 2 segments have seen huge increases in the past year with operating income doubling for the computing & graphics segment and increasing by almost 50% for the EEC segment.🚀🚀
AMD didn’t have such a big capital expenditure in 2020, with only $294M but this can increase depending on the demand of their products while they also adjusted their income with $312M in depreciation & amortizations. Both of these numbers have increased by 40 to 50% in the past years and will be important in the DCF valuation.
They have also managed to increase the gross profit margin to 45%, up 2% from 2019 as their earnings before interest & tax or EBIT stood at $1.37B.
The company has seen a continued earnings per share growth overall, despite the first 2 quarters of 2020 coming in lower than previous, but that was to be expected as this was impacted by the reduced revenues in Q1 & Q2 before things started to pick up back again, as they finished with a huge increase overall in the 4th quarter.🚀🚀
Their product portfolio has become a great challenge to Intel’s market share and is continuing to evolve, as Intel is still struggling to regain momentum with their products.🚀
AMD announced the world’s best processors for laptop and an enterprise variant that is expected to be available in the first half of 2021.
They have also launched the fastest AMD gaming graphics card ever while also working with big companies like Amazon on their AWS cloud offerings & Microsoft Azure which are planning to use their upcoming 3rd generation EPYC processors.
AMD is also involved in supercomputers which indicates that they are continuing to innovate and develop products that will be in high demand for the foreseeable future🚀
The one big thing that can propel AMD even more in the future is the proposed acquisition or more rather merger with Xilinx 🚀, which also beat earnings expectations the other day, with revenues of over $800M for the quarter and a Free Cash Flow of 44% of their revenues. Xilinx has a market cap of over $32B, and the combination of the 2 companies would create synergies. They are targeting an all-stock transaction which will have implications on my projections, but as time has gone, the $35B price tag is only a 10% premium for Xilinx. The one hurdle the companies have to pass is the regulatory procedures. We will have to wait and see if the deal goes through or not, as it’s expected the deal should be finished by the end of the year, with AMD shareholders retaining 74% of the new group shares and Xilinx holding the remaining 26%.
AMD also offered great guidance for 2021 as they expect the strength of their product portfolio to push AMD revenues up 37% over 2020 and also expect their gross margin to increase to 47%, while they expect an effective tax rate for next year of 15%, well belove the 21% US corporate tax rate.
I have made some predictions based on the growth rate of the company, the latest plans announced by them and used some estimates and expectations. So, keep in mind this are only projections and are calculated by myself, this is not an investment advice and you should do your own research and so on…
So, let’s start with the Unleveraged discounted free cash flow projections to see what the current valuation of the company is.🚀🚀🚀
I used their total revenues projections that we will discuss later on in the long-term projection and the net income for 2020 to which I added back the Depreciation & Amortization costs they had in 2020 and got to a $1.68B EBITDA.
For the next years I used 1% increase in EBIT margin which I think they can achieve pretty easy and an increase in capex of 10%/year in order to maintain an increased production capacity while also applying a 15% decrease in their net working capital.
So, for an 8% discount rate, which is pretty much the Average SP500 return, we get a $9.7B Discounted Free Cash Flow by 2025.
Now there are 2 methods of doing the valuation, either the perpetuity method or the EBITDA multiple method, but for both of them we do have to subtract or add the net assets or debt, which in this case stands $5.75B in assets. I personally think a use of the average is better suited for most companies, though some of the companies trade largely on the EBITDA approach and other on the growth approach.
If we use the growth approach, we can see that AMD is pretty fairly valued right now, as this implies a loss of 2%, while on the other hand the EBITDA multiple approach gives us a valuation of over $112, meaning an almost 30% undervaluation of the company. But as I said, I think a use of the average is best, so, my current price target for AMD in 2021 is $98.82, implying a 13.5% return from the last price.
And now let’s move on to a longer-term valuation of the company based on the growth projections I have for AMD.🚀🚀🚀
For my projections I actually just used their full year results and implied different growth rates for each revenue stream. I think we can continue to see 50% growth rate in the EEC segment for 2021 and then implying a gradual slowing of their growth, while for the Computing & Graphics segment I implied a 35% growth, way lower than the over 100% they saw in 2020, also implying a gradual slowdown of the trend by 2025.
I think these growth implications are pretty reasonable giving the high demand the company has seen for their entire product line, especially as gaming revenues have continued to increase, and also taking into account the need for their products in data centers, cloud usage & digital currency mining.
For their cost of sales, I started from the current ones which stand at 80% for the Computing & Graphics segment and implied a 1% improvement each year, while for the EEC segment I started from the 88% expense margin right now and implied a gradual 2% improvement. I also maintained their other expense regarding to the cost of sales to 3% of their total revenues, in-line with the previous years.
This means for 2025 we would get just over $33B in revenues and $26B in expenses, resulting in a gross profit of almost $7B. I also maintained the same capex as in the DCF and also substracted the interest & other expenses for which I implied a 5% annual growth, thus leading us to a $6.28B in earnings before tax.
I maintained their 15% effective tax rate projections and also diluted their shares by 1% each year accounting for some dilution in the stock.
So, for the $5.3B in 2025 revenues after tax and accounting for 1.27B shares, that would mean a $4.21 earnings/share, meaning the stock is trading at 20 times forward price to earnings for 2025.
I like to base my future projections on Forward/PE valuations so, with the current projected PE and depending on what PE you assume for the stock between 25 and 40, the stock can trade between $105 and almost $168. 🚀🚀🚀
So, after all these estimates what are my price targets? HERE are my actual price targets🚀🚀🚀
I think the 2025 bear case price we can see AMD trade at is $115 which would imply a return of almost 33% , while my base case and my pretty safe assumption is that AMD will trade at 137$/share by the end of 2025, implying a 57% return on the current price. But my most bullish case would see the company trading at $158, which would imply a return of over 81%. So yeah guys, THIS are my Overall price targets for 2025, my bear case is an average of the 25 & 30 PE ratio, while the normal case is the average between the 30 and 35 PE’s with the most bullish case valuing the company between a PE of 35-40.
So HERE is the full spreadsheet that I have projected for AMD by 2025, if you do have another opinion or a suggestion please leave a comment down below, I think I have been conservative in most of my projections, but feel free to give your opinion.
I think these are pretty reasonable targets, as the semiconductors industry will keep on booming in the next decade, as the world will need more & more chips that also keep advancing in technology.
The company also has very good financials, with almost $9B in assets vs just $3.1B in total liabilities, which can be easily paid by just the current assets.
And let’s also take a look at what the estimates are from the analysts. We can only see EPS estimates until 2023 of $3.22, which I think is safe to say can grow an additional dollar by 2025, so my projections are pretty in-line with what other experts anticipate.
So, what do I expect in the next couple of days, weeks and months for AMD?
Let’s look at this CHART, the stock just broke below the long-term uptrend but has seen good support at the $86-87 levels, which is where the next support should stand. We saw AMD pushing towards $100 in the beginning of the year, but it hit major resistance once Intel also announced a change in their leadership, as they brought in the WMWare CEO Gelsinger, but it’s very hard to see him turn around Intel in a very short time. Intel will need some years & a lot of capital expenditure to turn things around, if they do manage to do it at all.
AMD hasn’t been overbought since August, and currently has an RSI near 41, which is pretty oversold for a good company, so I expect to see them regaining some momentum in the near-term, but I guess the market is very busy with the current short-squeezes. AMD will se a lot of resistance breaking through the $100 level, not because of something fundamental with the company, but I guess it’s a psychological resistance rather.
And let’s take a quick look at what 24 analysts on Wall Street are saying. They mostly have a buy call on the company with an average price target of $100 and a high price target of $135. So, I think the analyst are pretty spot on with AMD, but my PT are slightly lower as it’s always better to undershoot and overperform rather than the other way around.
So, what would I do? Well, I own AMD stock and I believe it still has plenty of room to grow, so I would start building a position right now and add on any weakness, and I would especially buy more if the stock drops even lower than 80$.🚀🚀🚀
One last thing to mention about AMD is that they also have a very big % of their shares held by institutions, with over 74% of the float being held by big funds like Vanguard & Blackrock which does significantly reduce the sell-off possibilities.
So, this are my projections and my expectations for the company, I think Lisa SU has done a terrific job since becoming the CEO, and has driven AMD to a renewed approach to their business, as the company has been booming in the past 5 years, growing more than twice as much as Nvidia and crushing the SP500 and Intel’s performance.
Thank you everyone for reading🙏 Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market! Have a great day and see you next time❗

• The original author's account was deleted, so unfortunately I can't credit them. Regardless, full credit to them. This post was included in the deletion, so it took a decent amount of digging to find and save. Shoutout to u/adamfixeseverything. Enjoy. -

Hey guys,
I thought I’d post about my thoughts on MMED. First of all, please do your own due diligence and do not fall victim to the pump, hype and euphoria. These are highly speculative investments and have significant risk associated. All that said, there have been many requests for fundamental analysis and MMED projections so I wanted to provide my thoughts.
*All figures in USD (market cap, sales) except for my investment holdings. I purchased MMED.NE shares. Source data available as well, but got messy with all the 10-k filings and links in the table.
Entry Point
First and foremost, I want to address the most commonly raised question on this thread: “Is it too late to buy MMED?” Any investment is subject to the risk / reward paradigm. Those that got in at $0.3 deserve every penny they earned as MMED was by definition a penny stock and one of the most risky investments you could own. Since then, it has grown tremendously due to scientific milestones which have pointed to significant progress in the industry.
The milestones MMED has achieved have DERISKED MMED from a penny stock to a small cap biotech company with a very large drug portfolio and numerous future catalysts. I do not expect to make 10x my investment in a week, nor should you. Is there still tremendous upside even at the current valuation of ~$1.5bn? I strongly believe so and will let my position reinforce that.
I entered this space with an average cost of ~$4.9 CAD, holding 311,206 shares, and a book value of ~1.5MM. Yes you read that correctly. Do I panic every day and check the ticker? No. Does my heart beat thinking of the time I evaporated ~$500,000 in unrealized loss when the stock was at $3.4? No. In fact, I continue to pick up shares at what I believe is a discounted valuation. There will be many that look at $4.9 entry point and think that even I got in at the bottom. It’s all relative.
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OP's Original Investment
I only invested what I could afford to lose and although $1.5MM is a large sum of money, it is not my entire portfolio, nor would it impact my daily life. If I lost it all it would not impact my ability to service my mortgage, pay my bills, impact my other investments, nor prohibit me from doing the things I love. I continue to hold dry powder and monitor my investment on a monthly basis, while continuing to buy following successful milestones.
This is a very long term play that could fundamentally change the way we treat the body’s most important organ. We are just getting started. I have a very strong conviction on the future outcome of this industry and that is the reason I couldn’t be bothered about short term fluctuations. An important question to ask yourself is whether you believe MMED can reach its next scientific milestone. Take things one step at a time and is there a probability the next scientific update will be positive? Emphasis on science, ignoring NASDAQ, candlesticks, and capital structure (for now).
Institutional Capital
I work in finance (albeit project finance / private equity, and don’t value stocks for a living, so don’t consider me an expert here) but already know of a few moderately capitalized asset managers that are now participating in MMED. The recent bought deals are evidence of sophisticated capital flowing into this industry. I personally qualify as an ‘accredited investor’ and am having conversations constantly with folks in my circles who are investing heavily into these stocks. As more institutional capital flows in, the more stable these stocks become. Of course, this is all relative.
Access to liquidity
As with all brand new industries, the capital requirement is immense in order to bring products to market. What drew me into the space was the fact that MMED did raise capital. Biotech stocks do not have cashflow, thus their only path to fund operations is through equity raises. The fact that MMED was able to raise over $237MM CAD since May 2019 is a positive for this company. Yes it is dilutive, and good job for paying attention in finance 101 class, but bootstrapping a biotech company is not possible, nor is servicing debt.
The path to commercialization of will be full of obstacles, however a strong balance sheet with sufficient capital gives MMED the resources to get there. The current valuation has tremendous upside following scientific milestones and future equity raises and dilutions are a good thing, as it will be at an increased valuation.
There are definitely smaller cap companies out there that may double overnight, however for the risk / reward, I do not feel comfortable owning companies that don’t have a large balance sheet, nor a diversified drug portfolio.
Believe in the Science
I do not feel I am in a position to write original content on the efficacy of these drugs. I have done my research and read a fair number of published studies but anything that I write would simply be regurgitating what others have said.
The biggest investors in this space are those with personal experiences with psychedelics because you have first-hand experience of the profound meaning extracted from one treatment. The ability to dissolve your ego enables you to deal with the root cause of so many problems ranging from depression, PTSD and addition, without approaching the problem by numbing symptoms. Herein lies the inherent value of this industry and will simply take time to prove it through trails. I have the conviction to continue to invest because I believe in the science. The data to reinforce this is on its way, and I personally want to invest now, knowing that the likelihood of very significant catalysts are probable.
Forecasts
This of course is the elephant in the room for early investors, later[er] investors and bears alike. Is a $1.5bn market cap pricing in all of the upside already? Is this a $100bn stock? This company has zero revenues, shouldn’t it be worth zero?
The truth is, no one knows. There is tremendous risk with this company. However, I will not be selling unless we see some significant negative scientific outcomes. Again, less emphasis on stock price, NASDAQ, more emphasis on the science. Everything else will follow.
The various ways to value a company (DCF, sales / earnings multiples, liquidation value etc) all have their issues with an early stage company of this nature. Any sort of bottoms up DCF analysis is just guessing because variables such as patient count, dosage, pricing, market share, market penetration, amongst other have far too much variation to come up with a reliable figure. Discount rates and time horizon can favour your outcome depending on how aggressive / conservative you are.
Thus, the way I like to look at this market is a best case scenario for a single drug, based off historical sales data from one company and one drug. This implicitly takes into account patient dosage, competition, market share, market penetration etc, because one drug from one company has already proven its ability to capture such sales data.
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Data
I have broken out annual sales data for various comparable drugs according to MMED’s current pipeline offering. This is the inherent benefit of MMED, is that it has a diverse portfolio covering many underserved issues. Like many of you, I believe MMED’s biggest blockbuster will be Layla, given the problem of Opioid addition plus MMED’s IP rights on 18-MC to corner sales. Suboxone is the current drug on the market due to delayed onset effects ranging from 24-36 hours, compared to someone in withdrawal uses fast acting opioids 3-4 times a day. Suboxone itself however is still addictive and has a long list of negative side effects. Furthermore, it does not correct dopamine dysregulation in patients.
The sales of Suboxone alone are growing at an ~9% CAGR, with sales expected to reach ~$4bn in 2028
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/18/2079779/0/en/Opioid-Use-Disorder-OUD-in-8-Major-Markets-2018-2028-Reformulations-of-Buprenorphine-Will-Drive-Growth.html.
The use case for 18-MC however, does not stop at Opioid addiction, and can be applied to alcohol dependency and smoking dependency among others. This means the TAM for 18-MC could be significantly larger than the existing market captured by Suboxone given its smaller demographics relative to 18-MC. Could Layla exhibit sales greater than Suboxone one day? Who knows. Sticking with comp sales for the analysis for now.
Various anxiety, depression and ADHD medication is also shown in the table to show sales potential of Lucy, Albert and the micro dose programmes.
Is there a possibility of a LSD, 18-MC, or LSD compound or derivative achieving blockbuster drug status? Do you think there is an inherent benefit to a psychedelic compared to an antidepressant sedative with side effects such as nausea, weight gain etc?
Your perceived probability and sales outcomes depends on whether you believe in the science. Those that don’t can easily be skeptical of a $1.5bn market cap many years away from profitability.
Those that do, look at the next half a dozen clinical trial outcomes as very probable and thus have applied a less punitive discount to the stock valuation. I have rationalized my decision to invest at $1.5MM because of my own perceived discount rate and confidence in the next 12 months of positive catalysts.
Valuation Multiples
Now, as many of you know, investors pay a multiple for the future earnings of a company, today. If a drug makes $1bn annually, investors will pay a multiple of future earnings expected over the drugs lifetime, discounted by various factors.
There are various metrics to use here, ranging from Enterprise Value / Sales or various types of earnings metrics. MMED is years away from having a real operating company, anything to sell, or even the corporate infrastructure to get it to market. However, the question has always been, how big do you think this company could get?
This is where things can get tricky. We used peak annual sales in the last section to forecast comparable estimates for MMED revenues. Thus, I believe it is appropriate to use mature, large cap trading multiples instead of early stage bio techs, as our revenue estimates were mature figures with stabilized growth. If we were to use companies / drugs earlier in their lifecycle or clinical phases, the trading multiples would be much higher because the market is buying potential future sales. Can’t have it both ways.
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Chart
All of the chart data in the graph is specific to the pharma industry. However, there are various subsectors to the industry such as Contract Development Manufacturing and Contract Research Organization. MMED would likely have to partner with each of these types of firms to scale its business, better assess market size etc, but wouldn’t trade at similar multiples given a different business model. Same goes for Packaging and Distribution.
The graph also shows S&P average which is a good rule of thumb.
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Other chart
Although the chart gives a good reference point for pharma multiples, I wanted to look at valuation from a more company specific perspective. The chart above shows large cap specialty pharma companies that are publically traded. This will give you an approximate median value of what the market is willing to pay for a company that has a certain amount of sales. As you can see in the green box, industry multiples of EV/EBIITDA or EV/Sales will basically get you to the same place. Median pharma industry EBITDA margins are in the 40% range with EV/Sales at ~4x vs EV/EBITDA of 10x.
Note that the above list of trading comps is stale data, as of Sept ’19. I only want to use public data and have refrained from using Bloomberg, Cap IQ etc. Thus the information I’m posting is merely reposts of info available on Google. As you can see, Allergan is listed in this table as a live trading comp, and has since been acquired by AbbVie. Accordingly, I want to highlight some notable M+A activity:
Amgen acquires Celgne’s plaque psoriasis drug, Otezla $13.4bn: EV / LTM Sales = 7.6x Thermo Fisher acquires Qiagen for $11.5bn: EV / LTM Sales = 7.3x Abbvie acquires Allergan for $84.2bn: EV / LTM Sales = 5.4x Elanco acquires Bayer’s animal health unit for $7.6bn: EV / LTM Sales = 4.5x As you can see, companies are willing to pay a premium in M&A to acquire competitors and drugs, due to synergies, reduction in SG&A etc.
This is a very long winded way of showing that if one of MMED’s compounds hits, and exhibits sales in line with any sort of comparable drug from the table above, this could be a $20-30 billion dollar company (~4bn*5-7x). If several of these drugs reach commercialization, this is potentially a $100 billion dollar company.
Now I agree that these projections are completely outlandish right now. I’m simply doing the exercise you all wanted.
Feel free to guess at your own forecast sales and multiply out enterprise value using the above metrics. Before you rip me apart for the extreme optimism, I understand that I’m using multiples for stable, reputable, large cap pharma. I understand that there is an extreme amount of stigma attached to psychedelics and achieving ubiquity for these treatments is a large uphill battle. There is an enormous amount of work, luck and time from now until sales and this is not to be under estimated.
Do I think MMED is worth $30-$100bn today? No.
Do I think MMED is worth somewhere in between today’s valuation and $30-$100bn?
Depends whether you believe in the science. If you’re reading this, odds are you do. I invested because I believe it too.
So instead, let’s take a lazy man’s approach to valuation and take things one step at a time.
Simpler Approach to Valuation
The exercise above is to show you all the immense potential of MMED’s drug portfolio. Do I think MMED is the next Pfizer, Abbie Vie or Eli Lilly? No. This is not a $500bn dollar company. However, I do genuinely think there is tremendous upside not factored into the pricing for this stock.
Fundamental analysis aside, I think the simplest way to approach valuation is from a catalyst + efficient market hypothesis perspective. Markets are not fully efficient, nor even semi-efficient, but there is some sort of reasoning in believing what the market is willing to pay. The obvious flaws in this are that the market right is riddled with irrational investors and a market of 300m financially illiterate traders isn’t more efficient than an illiquid market of 10 rational ones. As of today’s post there is a discount to the $4.40 price. To me, that’s just more opportunity to continue to scoop up more shares.
I have stayed out of the industry in the early days because truthfully I did not know which stocks to pick. Since then, much smarter people than me have done their diligence and allocated their capital to the companies that they believe are winners. This is part of an efficient market hypothesis.
Sophisticated capital flowed into MMED @ 4.40 / share, with the expectation to make a profit. I also, invested in this company at $4.9/share, with the expectation to make a profit. If we establish this as a baseline, do we believe there will be more positive than negative catalysts in the next year and in the future, such that we will see accretion in the share price? Conversely, if we see negative outcomes in future catalysts, it will cause erosion in the stock valuation. Below are near term events which should have a significant impact on share price:
Project Lucy
Phase 2 readout– Q1 2021 Open IND w/ FDA for Phase 2b – Q3 2021 Project Layla
Phase 2a study– Second half of 2021 Strategic Pharma Partner Potential – Late 2021 Various
Combined MDMA LSD Phase 1 trail – Q1 2021 IV DMT Phase 1 trail – Q1 2021 First ever Phase 2a clinical trial Microdose LSD – Q3 2021 Patent filed for neutralizer technology for LSD to shortestop hallucinogenic effects Game changer for safe, regulated environment for clinical administration Given that Phase 1 studies are focused on safety, what are the odds clinically developed LSD / MDMA fails a safety test?
Given that Phase 2 studies are focused on proof of concept and method, what are the odds the clinically designed process fails the test?
Believe in the science.
Each one of these incremental catalysts derisks MMED, and will bring the valuation closer to ‘blockbuster drug’ status, albeit inches at a time. Just as the bought deal derisked this company for me to participate, achievements in clinical trials will be evidence for more investors to jump in as well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and guess at how large this company can get. Just think of what is the next step and do your own evaluation as to whether achieving it is realistic. Once we get through the above list, there will be more milestones to pass such as Phase 2bs and 3s. If we establish $4.40 as the baseline currently and MMED has a successful outcome in any of the previously listed catalysts, there should be a significant accretion in valuation.
There is a noticeable omission for most of you, in that I’ve left out the NASDAQ up listing, future dilutions and general capital structuring events. To me, a NASDAQ uplisting is irrelevant. This will add liquidity, although probably more volatility, but changes zero fundamentals about the stock. It should however, add more weight to the efficient market hypothesis and erase the discount I believe this stock is trading at. We’ll see some analyst coverage with price targets that will attract more investors, but the fundamentals of the stock do not change.
With respect to stock price, it is impossible to forecast this because the capital structure of this company is completely unknown. IF we can even get to revenue generation, and this becomes a $30-100bn company, how much dilution will there be from now until then to back out a share price? The point is that there is so much runway in share price accretion from now until then, that I’m not bothered with anything finance related for this company. There is potential for 50-70x accretion in the value of this company. The focus needs to be on the science. MMED has raised enough money to get though its next set of obstacles and fund operations, thus insolvency risk has fallen away for now which is really the only important financial point for early stage biotech.
Let’s take things one step at a time, believe in the science and be patient.
Cash position & Expenditures
As you can see below, the quarterly burn payroll burn rate is quite low for MMED relative to its cash position. It’s hard to discern which items under their historical expenditures are one off versus recurring, thus difficult to calculate their exact run rate. However, the huge positive here the low ratio of payroll relative to its cash.
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Data table
Next up we have the projected use of proceeds from their latest raise, net of underwriter expenses. Now that the Over-Allotment has been exercised, MMED has additional capital that it has further allocated to Albert, Lucy, Layla and the Microdose LSD program.
​ Proceeds Table
General takeaway is that MMED is well enough capitalized to get through its next phase of milestones. I will be keeping an eye on news surrounding the Microdose LSD program. Estimates at this stage for Phase 2a are $3-4m and the results of which will inform capital expenditures required for future phases. A positive milestone in Q3 ’21 should be an incredibly positive catalyst for this company.
Proving that you’ve raised capital and have enough cashflow to get to the next step doesn’t guarantee we’ve picked the winner in the industry. It does however give me confidence that MMED will continue to be a going concern for at least the short term and get to a point when new investors can come in at a much higher valuation. This is a real risk for the penny stocks out there without capital or IP, and that is the reason I chose MMED.
Edit: Did some re-formatting to make it easier to read cause it's pretty lengthy and there's a lot of details. Hopefully it helps.
Edit #2: I went back into the trash compacter and salvaged the original data and charts since some people were asking. The resolution may be questionable, so apologies for that, you might have to zoom in.

Welp, there it is. We're officially out of football until the "kinda combines" and draft. Hopefully by the time camps and preseason comes around, we start to see glimpses of a post(ish?) Covid-19 landscape - both personally and also in the sportsverse.
I've really tried to put in a lot of work through the season adjusting my thoughts on rookies - on the fly - based on adding to the sample. The reactions and style of my methodology has clear strengths and weaknesses. No better were the weaknesses illustrated than overreacting to JT's abysmal stretch midseason. On the flipside, my "I'm worried about Reagor" (quite earlier than most!) and "The Bell signing is going to crush CEH for at least this year" were valid concerns. And I definitely was one of the earlier guys to start hyping Tee Higgins once he showed some signs. That said - my methodology is mostly a barometer of perceived value, and the combination of an extremely talented 2020 Draft Class as well as a Covid-19 impacted year probably made for a very non-typical year as far as Rookie evaluation goes.
Before the season started, I did a mildly popular [Dynasty 2020 Rookie Stock Watch] (and at the request of the community, I did weekly updates, and will continue doing this next year! In case you missed previous weeks, you can find week 1 here, week 2 here, week 3 here, week 4 here, week 5 here, week 6 here, week 7 here. week 8 here, week 9 here, week 10 here, week 11 here, week 12 here, week 13 here, week 14 here, week 15 here, and week 16 here.
As this is my last "risers and fallers" of the 2020 class, my disclaimers are a LITTLE different and I'd encourage you to read them before diving in.

1. I consider where I would now draft this player if we were to redo a 1QB rookie draft NOW, after a full season is in the books. Since higher picks are SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE, having a guy drop from 1.01 to 1.07 is a much bigger value loss than if a guy drops from 2.12 to 4.05. Also baked into my decisions of who is a riser and faller is how I feel the player looks to fit into future dynasty start up rankings. In some cases, a player ranked #1 and a player ranked #4 could feel miles apart on a rookie ranking, but I very well might consider them just as close (3 spots difference) in a full startup as well!
2. When I try to determine if a player has risen or fallen, I like to weigh what some of the perceptions were on that player's upside, and if any of those perceptions appear to no longer be true or at least need to be tempered.
3. We absolutely need to weigh in what the rookie did with the opportunities (or lack thereof) in their opening season. A huge factor in the final valuation of the 2020 rookies is this question: "What will they be worth before the 2021 season?" - and that question is highly impacted by volume and opportunity (and how they did with it!) in year 1.
4. Just because I have someone as a riser or faller doesn't mean I think you should buy/sell them at bad value. It's the same concept as stocks - if you believe in the fundamentals of the company you invested in, you don't sell off yet. 2020 was a WEIRD year. I expect we will have more "2nd year breakouts" than normal as a result. Similarly, after a stock skyrockets is not usually the best time to buy in - you'd want to wait for a brief regression before that. You should **always** make a value play, not merely selling or buying at cost.
5. Like Matthew Berry has said - just because a guy is on my faller list doesn't mean I like them less than a guy on my riser list. This is just my evaluation of their value relative to where it was before this season. These rankings are an attempt to really lock in where I feel the player will rank on a 2021 Startup draft compared to other rookies.

With that out of the way, let's dive in!

Biggest 2020 Season risers:

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1. James Robinson. There really can be no answer other than JRob for the biggest riser of the season. In most drafts, he was not taken in the first 5 rounds. And if he was, it was still a VERY late flyer - and we've heard many stories of him being taken and cut and picked up by someone else. Wherever you have James Robinson now - he was virtually nothing more than "a very deep sleeper blip who might take over in a year when Fournette is gone". Well, that takeover happened, and it happened a year early. Robinson won a lot of people money this year, even as he disappeared by season end - because he still got you to the dance. For that reason, Robinson wins the title as the absolute biggest riser of the year.
2. Antonio Gibson. Depending on when you drafted (I drafted earlyish June) Gibson was a late 2nd/early 3rd. Once news started breaking regarding Guice (still makes me yikes when I type his name!) and Peterson was cut, Gibson climbed charts quickly. His profile was that of an extremely talented back with a TINY sample size running the ball. Now that sample size is a bit bigger, and we like what we see. He has all the makings of a guy who could be an RB1 type for the next few years, and big play potential to break open any touch. We're counting on an uptick in passing game usage in 2021, and crossing our fingers for some improvement at the QB position.
3. Jonathan Taylor. How does JT making the biggest riser list when he was already high to start the year? **Perceived startup value**. At this point, JT is a 1st half of the 1st round guy in tons of Dynasty Startups. That's a huge spike from where he was at the start of the year. You're looking at an RB that in many eyes is worth more than **every single WR playing football right now**. I'm not saying that's the precisely correct valuation for a player I embarrassingly was worried about for a few weeks... but it's where he's valued on a lot of charts now. So take it for what it is - Taylor is the single most valuable piece of the 2020 Draft Class.
4. Justin Jefferson. Similar narrative to Taylor - and you could make the case that I should swap these two guys, considering JT was a top 2 pick and JJeff was around 1.08-1.10. Not going to argue that really. Let's just say JJeff vaulted to the top of the WR class with a record-breaking year and is now the clear-cut 1 of a class where he started as the 3 or 4 on most lists. Heck - Jefferson's explosion has impacted the 2021 class valuations (Chase, anyone?) and has easily put him as a Dynasty Startup top 5 WR type.
5. Tee Higgins. This guy was simply not making it as a 1st round pick in a LOT of 1QB rookie drafts. Now he sits pretty comfortably as WR3 or 4, depending on who you ask. A lot of questions we have about Lamb's 2021 production also echo for Higgins - and we desperately want both to be reunited with their gunslingers as soon as possible. But where fears existed of Higgins being a boom-or-bust player, those fears have been silenced. It's boom.

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Honorable mentions: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the great rookie years of Aiyuk and Claypool - both guys are positioned well to be strong WRs for any roster going forward, and both have upside potential to be even more than the greatness they've already flashed. I'm not sleeping on them. In addition, Herbert had a stellar season and should be looked at as the clear QB1 of the 2020 class.

Biggest 2020 Season fallers:

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1. Ke'Shawn Vaughn. Look! We're talking about Vaughn again! A guy who was going as early as 1.08 in 1QB now would likely not even be a top 3 round pick. He's the inverse James Robinson. Not much else to say. He did put out a few nice plays here and there, but ended the season as effectively the RB4 on the Bucs. That could change in the offseason though, so if you bought stocks in Vaughn, don't cut bait at this point when there's a chance he heads into 2021 as Tampa's RB2.
2. Jalen Reagor. Depending on who you ask, Reagor was being taken as high as WR3 in the 2020 class. Despite his mediocre final season in college, people were sold on his talent and the barren Eagle's WR room. Instead, Reagor battled injuries, terrible QB play, and even when he did play, he was frequently outshined by... Travis Fulgham and Greg Ward. Don't get me wrong, anyone who has watched a bit of Eagles Football (firstly, pity them!) can tell that Reagor is way more talented than JJAW. But it might not be enough. In a year where so many great players were taken, Reagor feels like a fringe WR2 type at best, going forward.
3. Henry Ruggs. Taken as a back-end Rookie 1st, Ruggs flashed early, got hurt, and then totally fell off the map. Lots to be concerned about here as he rarely looked like anything more than an extremely expensive decoy who needs to catch all 3 of his targets per game to have a chance at a fantasy stat line worth starting. His value is a bit sticky because you can't picture the Raiders giving up on their 1st round draft pick. However, we're now left hoping that something changes in his usage and attention in 2021. Hoping for change is not the position you want to be in for a fantasy asset.
4. Clyde Edwards-Helaire. First, I can't knock CEH's strong job in an otherwise abysmal KC performance in the Super Bowl. He was extremely efficient per touch, and was one of the few bright spots in the game. The problem? Despite averaging almost 8 yards a touch, CEH only managed 11 touches. The early sparks he showed fizzled once Bell was eligible to play, as did his snap share and touch share. As of now, his usage simply isn't trending anywhere that would make him a top 6 pick if we were re-drafting the 2020 class. That's a significant drop, and we've gotta have him on the list as a result. I worry that the 2021 KC offense will use him the same way they used him the second half of the 2020 season. If that's the case, he's a low end RB2/very strong flex/RB3.
5. Bryan Edwards. One of 2020's biggest hype darlings found himself barely playing after getting hurt early. A guy who peaked as going nearly in the 1st round would now likely be a middle 3rd if the class was redrafted. Between Edwards and Ruggs, the Raiders managed to be the only team with two players to show up on the list, and having them both be fallers is not an encouraging sign. My gut tells me ONE of them might turn it around, but even that is a coinflip at this point. As I said in my disclaimer - it's possible a non-Covid year will allow some of these guys to be late bloomers.

How I rank them right now
(in 1QB, but I will include where I would bump the QBs up to in 2QB)
Tier 1, all 3 pretty similar in value for me
01 Jonathan Taylor
02 Justin Jefferson
03 Cam Akers
04 D'Andre Swift
05 Antonio Gibson
Tier 1.5 (not a true break from tier 1, very close in value)
06 JK Dobbins
07 CeeDee Lamb
08 Tee Higgins
09 James Robinson
10 Clyde Edwards-Helaire
Tier 2
11 Brandon Aiyuk
12 Chase Claypool
13 Justin Herbert (1.01 in 2QB/SF)
Tier 3
14 Jerry Jeudy
15 Laviska Shenault
16 AJ Dillon
17 Michael Pittman Jr
18 Denzel Mims
19 Jalen Reagor
Tier 4
20 Darnell Mooney
21 Joe Burrow (1.02-1.05 in 2QB/SF)
22 Tua Tagovailoa (1.03-1.06 in 2QB/SF - but definitely behind Burrow)
23 Henry Ruggs III
24 Gabriel Davis
Tier 5
25 Zach Moss
26 Jalen Hurts (late 1st in 2QB/SF)
27 Bryan Edwards
28 KJ Hamler
29 Lynn Bowden Jr. (but he drops to mid 30's if he loses RB eligibility in 2021... or goes to jail!)
30 Van Jefferson
31 Donovan Peoples-Jones
32 Cole Kmet
Tier 6
33 Devin Duvernay
34 La'Mical Perine
35 Collin Johnson
36 Quintez Cephus
37 Ke'Shawn Vaughn
Tier 7
38 Darrynton Evans
39 Tyler Johnson
40 Harrison Bryant
41 Anthony McFarland Jr
42 Salvon Ahmed
43 Joshua Kelley
44 Deejay Dallas
45 Jordan Love (late 2nd in SF)
46 Antonio Gandy-Golden
47 Albert Okwuegbunam
48 Adam Trautman
Obligatory Kicker Shoutout:
49 Tyler Bass
50 Rodrigo Blankenship
Last words:
Thank you so much for the support and dialogue throughout the year. It's been a joy and blessing to write this and be a distraction from the world while you reply and praise/criticize me shoot-from-the-hip takes. After the NFL draft, I'll be ready to do it all again with the 2021 class. Now to find my way onto a vaccine list...
As always, I'll try to engaged with each and every reply. :)

Listen up reta.....err, I mean memelords. I know we’ve all moved on from the meme era into the weed era (and hopefully people stick around that one due to the fundamentals for a while, but if not....) and soon to be a redux of the vehicle era, but there’s one meme stonk we need to have a real, honest heart-to-heart about (and hey, it even ties into cars): Let’s talk about Blackberry ($BB)

First, let’s get some misconceptions out of the way:

​
Blackberry was never a short squeeze stonk, even though it ended up getting roped in with the other squeezers we were denied squozing because of Wall Street cheating. A lot of people thought it was and that’s simply not the case. Blackberry was, is, and always will be, a phoenix rising from the ashes story, nostalgia peppered with functionality. You know, kind of like how you sometimes go watch some classic porn to beat off to and don’t stop to think about the fact that the actress is now in her 60’s and probably has super saggy tiddies.
Next misconception: It’s not a Boomer mobile phone company. They don’t make phones anymore – phones that are branded with their logos are made by another company that pays licensing for the logo and some of the patents. Blackberry sold all their mobile patents months ago.
Third misconception: No matter how much we ask, they’re never changing their name back to Research in Motion so that we can talk about Rim-jobs. Sorry, just isn’t going to be a thing.
So what are they? It’s simple really: They’re now an enterprise level software security company. When you think about it, it’s not such a big pivot, given that their security encryption in their heyday was so powerful that they ended up having to set up offices in certain nations because it was impossible to crack and ran afoul of certain international laws.

Let’s take a dive into the financials before we get into the story:

At the time of this writing, BB is a 7 billion dollar company with shares trading in the $12.50 range. Even after the meme war collapse, they’re still worth double what they were when the ball dropped in New York City with absolutely nobody watching in person and everybody at home wondering why even Anderson Cooper was using an autotuner. They generate a hair over a quarter billion dollars in revenue each quarter over the last year and in 2020 had a negative EPS of about 32 cents a share as they retooled, though they trimmed that to .23 cents a share for their last quarterly earnings report. They have about a billion dollars in cash on hand and receivables, and they have about half a billion dollars in debt. It’s not a great fiscal outlook there, but it’s certainly manageable for a growth company (which is what they presently are).

Where do they make their money?

Almost half of their revenue is legacy income from selling endpoint management and secure communications licensing. A third of their revenue comes from licensing their patents. Oh, they also own Cylance, for you IT help desk monkeys.
That shit’s pretty boring, not gonna lie. Your wife’s boyfriend might find it interesting, but only because he can use it to laugh at you that you know this shit. But the rest? The rest is where things get interesting. Blackberry Radar is a fleet management solution, and the most interesting thing is....well, for that, we have to go back in time for a moment:

(Wayne’s World flashback/dream noises)….

July 29th, 2017. Las Vegas Nevada. 50,000 of the world’s most feared hackers descend upon Sin City for a weekend of debauchery, drinking, and talking about all the new and interesting ways they found to break shit or in general cause chaos - aka DefCon 25, which was NOT cancelled, contrary to what you might have been told. A young hacker from Wisconsin positively stuns everybody at a panel by revealing how it is that he found he could effectively hack almost every late model vehicle on the road that possessed connected features – from range and while the vehicles are in motion – using.....music theory. It’s an absolutely stunning revelation, something matched only by how terrifying the implications of it are. And all anybody needed was a $300 RF modulation tool. Using this, he found he could take control of every mass produced car on the market except those made by Volkswagen Group and Tesla, and those only because they had randomized frequencies they used. This guy fucked. This process was so dangerous that, for one of the only times in DefCon’s history, they didn’t publish the how-to publicly. Oh, and a team from a then relatively unknown EV company in China called $NIO won the car hacking capture the flag tournament in less dramatic fashion. If you didn't hear about any of this, it's because you were too much of a square to be there. Sucks to be you, chump. Something had to be done.

Enter Blackberry

I’ll spare you all the things that have happened since then, but what you need to know is this: Blackberry came up with a solution to defend against this and a myriad of other problems (not to mention Europoor compliance in the form of ISO 26262) not to mention autonomous security - and their security software suite (QNX) is now on almost every new car rolling off a factory line today. This software is also critical for EV’s, because it controls battery management ECU’s (that’s the shit that makes it so you don’t have to drop 10 grand on a new power plant every 2 years). Or, for those of you with IQ’s of 60: Computer make car gooder.

OK, so that’s cool. But how does this get me TENDIES, man? How much can these guys make?

They’re coy about this and won’t give hard numbers, but there are ways we can estimate what they’re pulling. But to do that, we need to go back in history again, and take a look at a stock nobody cares about

(More Wayne’s World noises)

Enter: Nuance Communications ($NUAN). You’ve probably never heard of these guys, but you and almost everybody you know has used their products at some point. They used to be best known for their Dragon Naturally Speaking software suite, which your grandparents who decided they were too old to figure out how to use a fucking keyboard bought so that they could talk to their computer and send you messages that you hated getting unless it came with a 20 dollar bill, but which they thought you cherished forever. However, at some point around 2010, IBM – whom the Nuance CEO at the time was close friends with the management of, literally just *gave* about 125 patents around voice recognition to Nuance thinking that they were worthless. Nuance took these patents and – for a brief moment – became one of the coolest techs on the planet, because their tech is what made Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s whatever it was called and a billion other voice recognition platforms work. That is, until Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, and everybody else Nuance was dumb enough to trust to let look under the hood of their secret sauce came along and all stole the IP to made their own platforms, leaving Nuance rotting in a hole in the desert. But one of the really cool things Nuance expanded into before they went full retard was they bought a couple of companies around 2013 or so– Tweddle and some other company I can’t be bothered to look up – and got into the connected car space. At one point, Nuance’s Dragon Drive virtual assistant was in every new car made by 9 of the world’s top 10 auto makers.

OK, dude, my wife’s boyfriend is asking me to bring him a beer. Can you speed this along? What does this matter?

It matters because we can look at what $NUAN was getting in licensing for putting their virtual assistant in these vehicles, and use that data to extrapolate an estimate of what $BB is getting for their software. With just their 9 car makers at their back, they were generating over 300 million dollars a year – and that was almost a decade ago, and just for something that would tell you where to pick up your Down’s Syndrome medication. Add a premium for security, include all the auto makers, carry the one, smoke a bowl to help you concentrate, adjust for inflation.....
This is a market worth about...oh, roughly 750 million dollars a year for Blackberry on the conservative side once they actually start charging a market rate for this product. Right now, they’re adopting the same go-to strategy Microsoft has been employing with Azure, which is to basically GIVE it away in order to gain market share and penetration, and then send Fat Tony to collect once the car maker is reliant on it. Plus all the other stuff we already glossed over because it’s boring as shit. Applying the average multiple of earnings for cybersecurity firms out there, their lack of competition in the space, etc. And you come up with a market cap valuation target of....oh, roughly between 45 and 50 billion dollars once they’re firing on all cylinders. And they don’t have to worry about Google or Apple throwing 10,000 engineers at this to make a competing product, because it’s just not worth it to them, so they’re largely gonna get left alone.
Or, by using maths....a share price of somewhere in the neighborhood of $87.50. Give or take 10 bucks. Make it 15 to the downside, just to be safe.

Yeah man! Cool. So I’m in. It’s gonna go to that by like, Friday or something?

An enterprise level cybersecurity company with a sub 10 billion dollar valuation is basically unheard of in this century. But this is not a burn play where you’re gonna get 50% gains every day with no work. It’s a company that’s going to have to melt up to that. It still won’t be to that point this time next year.
BUT....that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a great story. It just means that this isn’t something you do a 0DTE YOLO on and expect to get something out of. And making an Avengers meme about it isn’t going to send it to the moon. This is something you buy and stash in a musty corner of your portfolio so you can tell your Boomer parents that you’re being responsible with your investing and you were just joking about betting your inheritance on weekly FD’s for shitty online dating sites where the women have to talk to your sorry ass first. Oh, and it’ll make the lambo you buy with the money from this safer.
Because I know it matters, here are 69 rockets so you apes understand what all this meant.
.....no, there aren't going to be any rockets. I lied.
Disclosures/Positions: I am long $BB, holding 100,000 shares @ $7.67 average and another 5000 January 2022 5c’s.
​

TL:DR: $87.50

All my love
-Chad Dickens

Here are some highlights of Russell and here are his career stats.
1) WINNING (Part 1): The Celtics were ho-hum right before Russell joined the team, pretty bad right after he retired, and even worse when he missed games during his career, but when he was there they were the most dominant title-winning franchise in sports history, which proves how ludicrous the “He was simply the best player on a loaded team” comment is. DETAILS: a) Boston won 2 total playoff series in the 10 seasons before Russell arrived, and both were short best-of-3 series (‘53, ‘55), b) Boston went 34-48 and missed the playoffs in ‘70 right after winning the title in Russell’s final season, and c) when he missed games during his career, the Celtics were 10-18 (.357), and 18 of those 28 missed games were against teams with losing records, so there was no excuse for a “loaded” squad to be so bad. When Russell missed 3 or more games in a row --meaning his teammates really had to adjust & couldn’t just “get up” for one game without their leader-- the Celtics were a pitiful 1-12. They were horrible without him. There is NO evidence the Celtics were any good when Russell wasn’t on the floor, rather a ton of evidence to the contrary.
2) WINNING (Part 2): It's been commonly reported that Russell was 21-0 in winner-take-all games, but that’s incorrect …. he was 22-0. If Russell's team played even with an opponent throughout a series or got to the same place in a tournament, Russell's team was ALWAYS going to pull it out in the end.

• At USF, his '55 team was 5-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• At USF, his '56 team was 4-0 in the tourney on the way to the title.
  
• In the '56 Olympics, the US squad was 2-0 when it came to the winner-take-all Final 4 for gold after the group stage.
  
• In the NBA, the Celtics were famously 10-0 in Games 7's throughout his career.
  
• In the '66 playoffs, the Celtics won Game 5 in the best-of-5 series with Cincinnati (link).
  

3) WINNING (Part 3): The Celtics didn’t win the title only 2 times during Russell’s 13-year career, and both were (very likely) due to difficulties experienced by Russell.

• In 1958, the Hawks topped Boston 4-2 in the Finals (winning by 2, 3, 2, & 1 points), during which Russell missed 2 games and played at far less than 100% with a horribly sprained ankle when he was available in the series. It’s safe to say Boston would have won that title with a healthy Russell.
  
• In 1967, the aging Celtics, fresh off of 8 straight championships, lost to the loaded and younger Sixers in the ECF. This was the first year Russell was Boston’s player-coach, which is significant since he faced horrendously stressful & over-the-top racism as the first black coach in major US pro sports history. He played so much and so intensely (43.3 min/gm in the playoffs) that he often forgot to sub players which hurt his team. The next season, the Celtics were older & considered “done”, but he added a bench coach to handle subs, and they beat the favored defending champion Sixers in the playoffs, and then won the title. Then the “seriously, they’re done now” 1968-69 Celtics clawed their way into the Finals & beat the loaded West-Wilt-Baylor Lakers 4-3 in Russell’s final season. Two giant asterisks have to go beside the only two championships Boston didn’t win during Russell’s career.
  

4) WINNING (Part 4): Russell went to college at the University of San Francisco which had just suffered through 3 straight losing seasons before he joined the varsity team. He lead an unranked USF team to 2 consecutive NCAA titles during his junior and senior seasons, going 57-1 along the way, and he could have won a title all 3 seasons he played at USF if not for losing teammate K.C. Jones one game into their sophomore season; they smashed the #17 team 51-33 in game 1 with Jones who was hospitalized that night with a burst appendix, but Russell still lead them to a 14-7 record before going on to those 2 titles. Even at the college level, he could lead players who weren’t supposed to win to the ultimate heights; it wasn’t just in Boston. Also, he was the leading scorer, rebounder, and defender on the 1956 gold medal winning US Olympic team, which had an average margin of victory of +53, the highest ever (’92 Dream Team was +44).
5) CLUTCH: I already mentioned how dominant Russell’s teams were when it was all on the line, but I’ll add that his list of clutch games, series, and moments is ridiculously long, plus his ppg, rpg, and apg averages all rose in the playoffs. I’ll simply point out that he had the greatest Game 7 performance of all-time in the 1962 Finals, scoring 30 points & grabbing 40 rebounds to win the title in a super-tight Game 7. If you didn’t know, the NBA Finals MVP award is officially called the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP Award.
6) INTELLIGENCE: Part of what made Russell so unbelievable in big games and moments was that his IQ and level of manipulating opponents is unparalleled historically. On defense, he’d often intentionally “just miss” blocking a particular star player’s shots earlier in a contest, but late in the game when the opponent was lulled into thinking they could get a certain shot off over Russell that night, he’d extend the extra inch and come up with clutch blocks & defensive plays they weren't expecting. I’ve never heard of another player doing stuff like this. The stories about his IQ are legendary & numerous; here are some clips about his hoops IQ. At least watch the 3rd one on that list ("Some more mindgames") to see a short interview with him talking about manipulation of a star opponent in a way I’ve never heard another player articulate; he truly was thinking on a whole different level to create advantages for his team.
7) VERSATILITY: Bill Russell was so versatile on the floor because he trained and played all 5 positions on offense. The only other players in history who could maybe do this are Maurice Stokes and Giannis Antetokounmpo, but Russell’s results were quite different, plus immediate & sustained. His value to the Celtics’ offense is WAY underrated, especially on the fast break where he arguably had a bigger influence than Steve Nash did for the Suns’ fast break due to how well he could start, run, and finish it.
8) PASSING & OFFENSIVE INFLUENCE: Speaking of his versatility on the fast break, Bill Russell was a great passer, both in the half-court & full-court, and put up insane assist numbers for a center, especially in the playoffs (averaged >5 apg in the playoffs during 7 different seasons, far more times than any other center).
John Havlicek, in his 1977 autobiography, said the following about Russell's effect on Boston's offense when specifically discussing their first post-Russell season ('70):

"You couldn't begin to count the ways we missed [him]. People think about him in terms of defense and rebounding, but he had been the key to our offense. He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with. That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders, and myself. None of us were one on one players ... Russell made us better offensive players. His ability as a passer, pick-setter, and general surmiser of offense has always been over-looked.”

I’ll add that Bill Russell finished 4th in MVP voting with an 18% vote share in 1969, his final season (‘69 MVP voting). I believe this is the best MVP finish by any player in their final season.
9) MORE ABOUT HIS OFFENSE: Fans often knock Russell for not being a high scorer. He played on a team that spread around the scoring, so very few Celtics ever had big scoring numbers, and he often had the best FG% on the team. Russell was top-5 in FG% in the league 4 times, while more recent dominant-scoring centers Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, and Patrick Ewing all did it once. Russell understood what individual sacrifices to make and how to improve his teammates so they collectively would be winners, which is why he won the 1962 MVP (voting) over Wilt Chamberlain (his epic 50 ppg & 26 rpg season) and Oscar Robertson (his epic triple-double season). By the way, Russell holds the record for the most consecutive MVP awards (3), most consecutive top-2 MVP finishes (6), and has the 2nd most MVP’s of all-time (5). It was clear that Russell’s approach was far more valuable to his team’s success than that of other superstars with monster stats.
10) DEFENSIVE IMPACT: There is no hyperbole in saying Russell was unquestionably the most impactful defensive player ever. The Celtics consistently & regularly had the #1 defense in the NBA throughout his career, yet they were FAR worse before he joined the team, and they immediately dropped in the ‘70 season right after he retired. Here are Boston’s annual rankings in Defensive Rating, starting in the ‘54 season: 8, 8, 6, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 8 (the highlighted parts represent Russell’s career). He had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the entire team’s defense to a degree we’ve never seen from any other player.
11) ATHLETICISM: Watching film of Russell, it’s clear he was extremely fast and active, elite even by today’s standards. He also possessed Olympic-level leaping ability (7th ranked high jumper in the world in 1956). For the record, he was measured as 6-ft-9-and-⅝ without shoes, taller than both Dwight Howard and Alonzo Mourning. This incredible athleticism is what allowed his defense to be a cross between Tim Duncan & Kevin Garnett, covering everything everywhere with phenomenal explosiveness, plus impeccable timing & decision-making.
12) LEADERSHIP: Bill Russell had the best combination of elite on-court impact on team synergy plus elite locker-room unity & positivity. Very few guys are even in the discussion of having this type of elite combo: Tim Duncan, Jerry West, Larry Bird …. not many more, especially when you also consider a player’s impact on his team’s defensive synergy.

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

I added in projected compensatory picks from OTC and the compensatory picks from the new minority candidate development rule. Not sure how those are supposed to be structured in, so I simply used the OTC ones first in the order, but took off the last 3 estimated compensatory picks to ensure it remained at a simple 32 compensatory picks added. So apologies to the Cowboys, Bears, and Steelers. You might have been robbed of a pick but I don't know the specifics of how all those will be factored in. If someone knows the actual way those will set-up, that'd be useful information. Going to provide commentary on rounds 1-3 then maybe the occasional commentary after that if I really like a fit.
Also, there's a chance that I missed someone announcing they were returning to school or not. Just let me know if so.

Pre-Draft Trades

Using the terms suggested from a SB Nation article, so yell at them if you hate it: CAR sends: QB Teddy Bridgewater, 2021, 2022, 2023 first-round picks, 2021, 2022 second-round picks HOU sends: QB Deshaun Watson
The Panthers have drafted relatively well the last 2-3 years, as they have several younger pieces they can continue building around. Thus, a major package to land QB Deshaun Watson should be something they explore. For Houston, a king's ransom for a disgruntled star who really wants out.
An NFC championship contender adds a big piece to their offense: GB sends: 2021 second-round pick, 2022 fifth-round pick DAL sends: WR Michael Gallup, 2021 seventh-round pick
The Packers add some extra firepower on offense by adding Gallup. With Rodgers window coming to a close, the Packers take a chance that an established veteran like Gallup will do more for them than a very late second-round pick. Dallas has Amari Cooper and now CeeDee Lamb at WR, making Gallup expendable if they get a good offer for him.
An NFC playoff team makes a splash at the quarterback position: WAS sends: 2021 fourth-round pick, 2022 seventh-round pick JAC sends: QB Gardner Minshew
While the Redskins did not land Stafford, they could still find a solid upgrade at the QB position by bringing in Gardner Minshew. I love how he fits in Scott Turner's offense, and think this would be a decent enough price to pay to give them some stability at the position.

First Round

(1) Jacksonville Jaguars - QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson - I'd imagine even though it's the only pick that never changes, Jaguars fans aren't bored of seeing this. Lawrence is a special player and their best bet at turning things around in a hurry.
(2) New York Jets - QB Zach Wilson, BYU - There still could be a small chance that the Jets stick with Sam Darnold, but we're going to go ahead and give Darnold a fresh-start somewhere else (trade to be revealed later). I have Fields a smidge higher than Zach Wilson, but could easily see him being the selection here. I think Wilson's a better fit, however, for LaFleur's Shanahan style offense. Either way, a talented QB for the Jets and head coach Robert Saleh (great f***ing hire btw Jets fans).
(3) Miami Dolphins (via HOU) - OT Penei Sewell, Oregon - With the Panthers giving up a haul for Deshaun Watson, the Dolphins may not have a lot of options to trade out of this spot. Thus, they stick tight and land an elite pass protector for QB Tua Tagovailoa.
(4) Atlanta Falcons - QB Justin Fields, Ohio State - Personally, I love the idea of Fields coming back home to Georgia to sit behind Matt Ryan for a season. The Falcons, and new head coach Arthur Smith, would be wise to take a QB while they're in a natural position to snag one. Ryan will start 2021 for sure due to his contract, but if things go well, they could make a Mahomes like transition to Fields into 2022.
(5) Cincinnati Bengals - OT Rashawn Slater, Northwestern - There a lot of buzz that Slater could be above Sewell in the mind of many NFL executives. Either way, it's a strong pick for the Bengals and Joe Burrow to land a top offensive tackle.
TRADE! The Patriots send their 2021 1st (1.15) along with a 2021 3rd (3.98) and a 2022 1st to the Eagles to move up to their selection at 6.
(6) New England Patriots (via PHI) - QB Trey Lance, North Dakota State - The Patriots need to make a significant investment in the QB position, as neither Cam Newton nor Jarrett Sitdham looked like the answer for them in 2020. Here they make a splash trade to move up and grab Lance, a player with immense physical talent. Ideally they'd land a veteran QB like Ryan Fitzpatrick to start in 2021 while they let Lance develop.
(7) Detroit Lions - WR Devonta Smith, Alabama - One thing lost in the Stafford-Goff trade is Detroit essentially nuking its cap space by bringing in Goff's $28 million deal. Now $11 million over the estimated cap, the Lions do not seem likely to retain WR Kenny Golladay at this point. They need a replacement for Goff to throw to while they determine if he'll be around longer than 2021.
(8) Houston Texans (via CAR) - CB Caleb Farley, Virginia Tech - Without a QB available here, the Texans play it patient, letting newly acquired Teddy Bridgewater run the show in 2021. They instead my personal top choice at corner this year, Virginia Tech's Caleb Farley. For a defense that needs to get turned around, he represents an excellent building block for them.
TRADE! The Miami Dolphins get aggressive here, sending their second first-round pick (1.18), a 2021 3rd (3.82) and a 2022 2nd round pick, and swap 2nds with Denver to move up here.
(9) Miami Dolphins (via DEN) - WR Ja'Marr Chase, LSU - The Dolphins go land a premier wide receiver target for QB Tua Tagovailoa to throw to. Chase and Smith will be widely debated for the top wide receiver honors in this draft class. Miami would likely be elated to add either one of them.
(10) Dallas Cowboys - CB Patrick Surtain II, Alabama - Surtain may not be my top cornerback, but the Cowboys should have no hesitation adding him here at tenth overall, especially considering the dire state of their defense.
(11) New York Giants - EDGE Kwity Paye, Michigan - Paye is an exceptional athletic talent. Much like fellow Wolverine Rashan Gary coming out of Ann Arbor, he's still got plenty of room to grow into an elite rusher. He was dominant in the first few games for the Wolverines in an otherwise rough 2020 season for Harbaugh and co.
(12) San Francisco 49ers - CB Jaycee Horn, South Carolina - I have top-15 grades on all three of the corners listed so far, so this remains excellent value in my opinion for the 49ers. They're likely going to lose a handful of cornerbacks to free agency this year, so landing a premier rookie to develop into a stud for DeMeco Ryans defense is a priority.
(13) Los Angeles Chargers - OT Christian Darrisaw, Virginia Tech - An excellent group of tackles in this year's draft class is a big benefit for the Chargers, as they're able to land a premier prospect like Darrisaw. He'll fit well in new offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi's offense in his second-go as a play-caller.
(14) Minnesota Vikings - T/G Alijah Vera-Tucker, USC - Vera-Tucker has the flexibility to play tackle or move inside to guard. The Vikings have a similar player in Ezra Cleveland, which should give them the ability to move some guys around and find the ideal pairing here.
(15) Philadelphia Eagles - EDGE Gregory Rousseau, Miami - The Eagles probably have some positional needs above this, but it'd be a mistake to go for a worse player at a lesser player, thus the selection of Rousseau. He's an elite athlete and was incredibly disruptive for the Hurricanes in 2019. With Brandon Graham getting up there in age, and Vinny Curry set to hit free agency, this selection goes best player available with the near future in mind.
(16) Arizona Cardinals - TE Kyle Pitts, Florida - The Cardinals could use a monsterous pass catcher like Pitts to pair with DeAndre Hopkins. With some strong flashes from QB Kyler Murray in 2020, adding one more weapon could provide the breakthrough the Cardinals need to make it into the playoffs.
TRADE! The Steelers make a move up, sending a 1st (1.24), their third (3.88) and a 2022 fifth to move up and make the selection here instead of the Raiders.
(17) Pittsburgh Steelers - OT Samuel Cosmi, Texas - Jumping ahead of a couple of OT-needy teams in the WFT and the Bears, Pittsburgh gets its future franchise pass protector. Cosmi's film shows a highly athletic tackle who has gotten better each season in Austin. Put in a strong program under Mike Tomlin, I think Cosmi can thrive as a future All-Pro.
(18) Denver Broncos (via MIA) - LB Micah Parsons, Penn State - The Broncos land an absolute steal here with Parsons, an elite blend of size and speed at the LB position. Additionally, his versatility should be a weapon for Vic Fangio to deploy, as he's capable of filling multiple roles on any defense.
(19) Washington Football Team - WR Jaylen Waddle, Alabama - I think a bigger wide receiver would work a bit better, but Scott Turner's creativity in building an offense around mostly role/gadget players like Logan Thomas and Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic gives me confidence he can make it work with an elite talent like Waddle.
(20) Chicago Bears - G Wyatt Davis, Ohio State - The Bears could probably go for a tackle a little bit more than a guard, but beggars cannot be choosers this late into the first-round. They land an elite interior lineman to immediately give a boost to their offensive line.
(21) Indianapolis Colts - QB Mac Jones, Alabama - Philip Rivers retired, Jacoby Brissett is a free agent, and Jacob Eason wasn't active for a single game. Add it all together and it looks like the Colts are in need of a QB like Jones. A decisive passer with a good deep ball, he'll be a nice addition for Frank Reich to mentor.
(22) Tennessee Titans - EDGE Jaelan Phillips, Miami - The Titans pass rusher was miserable this past season. Injecting some youth and athleticism into the equation could help Mike Vrabel get his defense back on track. Phillips was excellent for the Hurricanes in 2020.
(23) New York Jets (via SEA) - OT Alex Leatherwood, Alabama - The Jets add another big body here to pair on the other side of LT Mekhi Becton. With those two in town, new QB Zach Wilson should feel quite comfortable in the pocket.
(24) Las Vegas Raiders (via PIT) - DT Christian Barmore, Alabama - The sixth Crimson Tide player selected, Barmore was dominant the second half of the season in Tuscaloosa. He'd fill a big need on Ken Whisenhu...I mean, Gus Bradley's defense here in Vegas.
(25) Jacksonville Jaguars (via LAR) - WR Kadarius Toney, Florida - The Jaguars give Trevor Lawrence an explosive weapon to throw to. Toney lit up the SEC this season and was very impressive at the Senior Bowl. He'd join former Florida head coach Urban Meyer a short drive away.
(26) Cleveland Browns - DT Daviyon Nixon, Iowa - The Browns drafting this late with their own selection is a sign of how far they've come in recent years. They now have the ability to sit back and take the best player on the board in Nixon, a dominant pass rusher who came on strong in Big Ten play this year.
(27) Baltimore Ravens - WR Rashod Bateman, Minnesota - I believe I've had this pick in the last mock I did as well, but it makes way too much sense. The Ravens need a top option at wide receiver and Bateman's a crafty player who fits their offense well.
(28) New Orleans Saints - CB Aaron Robinson, UCF - Robinson is a very underrated corner in this draft, and I really think he'll have a shot to land in the first-round. A quick player who always ends up in the right position, he'd be an excellent addition to the Saints defense.
(29) Green Bay Packers - LB Nick Bolton, Missouri - The Packers need some fresh blood at the second level, and Bolton's an absolute missile who flies all over the field. Bolton would fit really well in the middle of their defense, especially if the Packers hire a 3-4 zone blitz genius like Jim Leonhard as their new coordinator.
(30) Buffalo Bills - EDGE Azeez Ojulari, Georgia - A debate here between Ojulari and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, but ultimately think the depth at LB is a bit better in this class then pass rusher. So, Ojulari joins Sean McDermott's defense in Buffalo.
(31) Kansas City Chiefs - iOL Creed Humphrey, Oklahoma - The Chiefs need to add a starting caliber player to the interior of their offense line, and if Humphrey slides to them in the first-round, that'd be excellent value for them.
(32) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - RB Najee Harris, Alabama - Congratulations Bucs fans and the Brady bandwagon! Now, don't get too caught up on the position, the best way to maintain your dominance is to continue adding elite pieces, and Harris is a potential star at the RB position. Excellent in-between the tackles as well as in the passing game.

Second Round

(33) Jacksonville Jaguars - S Trevon Moehrig, TCU - I almost thought about Moehrig with their second first-round pick, but ultimately he still lands in Jacksonville.
(34) New York Jets - RB Travis Etienne, Clemson - The Jets have the cap space to add a veteran WR like Allen Robinson or Kenny Golladay, so use the draft to add a stellar running back.
(35) Atlanta Falcons - CB Erik Stokes, Georgia - Another Georgia player sticking around, as Stokes gives them an excellent option to develop alongside Terrell.
(36) Denver Broncos (via MIA) - CB Greg Newsome II, Northwestern - A rising star at the cornerback position, Newsome fits well into Fangio's defense.
(37) Philadelphia Eagles - WR Amon-Ra St. Brown, USC - After adding an edge rusher earlier, the Eagles add a top wideout in the Trojan's star.
(38) Cincinnati Bengals - G Deonte Brown, Alabama - The Bengals, after trading for another starting guard earlier, continue to overhaul their line.
(39) Houston Texans (via CAR) - EDGE Joseph Ossai, Texas - The Texans add some pass rushing help on the edge of their front seven with Ossai.
(40) Miami Dolphins (via DEN) - OLB Zaven Collins, Tulsa - Collins is an ideal fit for Brian Flores, as he can lineup in a handful of different spots, similar to some of the linebackers he's worked with in Miami and New England.
(41) Detroit Lions - LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Notre Dame - The Lions add a rangy linebacker who can give them some much needed at the position.
(42) New York Giants - G Trey Smith, Tennessee - The Giants get an upgrade along the offensive with a powerful guard like Smith.
(43) San Francisco 49ers - DT Levi Onwuzurike, Washington - The 49ers add an elite defensive tackle to pair with Javon Kinlaw on the inside.
(44) Dallas Cowboys - OT Dillon Radunz, North Dakota State - The Cowboys went defense earlier, but add a talented offensive lineman to restock the trenches here.
(45) Jacksonville Jaguars - TE Pat Freiermuth, Penn State - If Freiermuth falls to the Jags here that'd be an absolute steal. A high-caliber tight end who can do everything needed at the position.
(46) New England Patriots - WR Terrace Marshall Jr., LSU - The Patriots, even if they add a QB, still need more weapons at WR. Marshall is an excellent one.
(47) Los Angeles Chargers - CB Ifeatu Melifonwu, Syracuse - The Chargers give new head coach Brandon Staley an elite athlete to mold into a dominant cornerback for them.
(48) Las Vegas Raiders - EDGE Joe Tryon, Washington - The Raiders bring in another talent piece of Washington 2019 defensive line. He's got a high motor along with immense upside.
TRADE! The Colts hop in front of the Dolphins to land their guy. They send a 2022 3rd round pick along with their second (2.54) here to the Cardinals in exchange for this selection and a 2022 7th round pick.
(49) Indianapolis Colts (via ARI) - EDGE Carlos Basham, Wake Forest - I think Basham could definitely go higher than this, but if he's available in the second, the Colts should jump up to land him.
(50) Miami Dolphins - S Jevon Holland, Oregon - The Dolphins add a playmaking safety to join their defense. Holland was an excellent leader on defense for the Ducks.
(51) Washington Football Team - OT Teven Jenkins, Oklahoma State - Washington has gotten serviceable production from a pair of aging OT's in Moses and Lucas. They add a developmental tackle to replace them soon enough.
(52) Chicago Bears - WR Nico Collins, Michigan - The Bears could see star WR Allen Robinson walk in free agency. Adding a deep threat like Collins to pair with Mooney would be fun.
(53) Tennessee Titans - OT Jalen Mayfield, Michigan - Another Wolverine in the second round here, Mayfield would give the Titans a strong Michigan-based tackle duo with Taylor Lewan's return.
(54) Arizona Cardinals (via IND) - iOL Landon Dickerson, Alabama - A tough, hard-nosed player on the interior, Dickerson can play a handful of spots, making him a versatile addition to the Cardinals line.
(55) Pittsburgh Steelers - RB Javonte Williams, North Carolina - The Steelers add a stud running back to help revive their run game.
(56) Seattle Seahawks - EDGE Jayson Oweh, Penn State - The Seahawks could use some pass rush. Oweh's a bit raw, but can develop into a useful piece for Pete Carroll.
(57) Los Angeles Rams - LB Chazz Surratt, North Carolina - The Rams add an athletic player at the second-level to keep their defense playing elite football. With the addition of QB Matthew Stafford, the Rams could be serious contenders for the NFC title in 2021.
(58) Baltimore Ravens - EDGE Quincy Roche, Miami - Adding Roche as a rush end in Martindale's 3-4 defense would be an excellent move as Baltimore seems unlikely to retain both Yannick Ngakoue and Matt Judon.
(59) Cleveland Browns - S Richie Grant, UCF - For a school most associate with high-powered offense, the UCF secondary is loaded, and Grant would make a fine addition for the Browns.
TRADE! The Saints send 2.60 and a 2022 third to the Jets in exchange for QB Sam Darnold.
(60) New York Jets (via NO) - WR Elijah Moore, Ole Miss - He seems to be trending higher than this, but either way, the Jets substitute a backup QB for an explosive wide receiver for Zach Wilson.
(61) Buffalo Bills - OT Spencer Brown, Northern Iowa - The Bills run game needs a boost on the offensive line, and Brown's monstrous frame gives a lot of weight to that.
(62) Dallas Cowboys (via GB) - DT Jay Tufele, USC - After adding offensive line earlier in the second, the Cowboys go back to restocking their defense with talent.
(63) Kansas City Chiefs - WR D'Wayne Eskridge, Western Michigan - The Chiefs likely lose WR Sammy Watkins, but find an explosive piece here to replace him.
(64) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - EDGE Hamilcar Rashed Jr., Oregon State - Rashed has a lot of physical traits that bolster his potential. Letting Todd Bowles develop him would be ideal.

Third Round

(65) Jacksonville Jaguars - EDGE Patrick Jones II, Pittsburgh - Urban Meyer and Jags add a defensive end with a high motor to develop along with Josh Allen and K'Lavon Chaisson.
(66) New York Jets - CB Keith Taylor Jr., Washington - A long, versatile defensive back, Taylor reminds me a good deal of 49ers CB Richard Sherman in his playstyle.
(67) Houston Texans - S Talanoa Hufanga, USC - The Texans continue to overhaul their defense here, bringing in Hufanga to play a handful of roles in their backfield.
(68) Atlanta Falcons - RB Michael Carter, North Carolina - Excellent value for the Falcons here, whether or not they bring back RB Todd Gurley who played on a 1-year deal in 2020.
(69) Cincinnati Bengals - CB Paulson Adebo, Stanford - The Bengals give their defense some reinforcements with the selection of an experienced corner like Adebo.
(70) Philadelphia Eagles - LB Jabrill Cox, LSU - The Eagles add a great athlete to the second-level of their defense. Cox has shown a lot of potential as a modern backer.
(71) Denver Broncos - EDGE Janarius Robinson, Florida State - With Von Miller in a bit of hot water at the moment, Denver make want to add a pass rusher to develop just in case.
(72) Detroit Lions - S Andre Cisco, Syracuse - Detroit's safety play was poor last year. Adding a high potential player like Cisco could be a good move for the rebuilding Lions.
(73) Carolina Panthers - TE Hunter Long, Boston College - Welcome to the board, Carolina! After making a splash trade for QB Deshaun Watson, the Panthers give him another weapon at tight end. Long impressed during the Senior Bowl.
(74) Washington Football Team - LB Cameron McGrone, Michigan - McGrone has some inconsistency to his play, but offers a lot of upside for someone who can straighten him out.
(75) Dallas Cowboys - EDGE Victor Dimukeje, Duke - The Cowboys take a chance on Dimukeje here to help get after opposing QB's more frequently.
(76) New York Giants - WR Rondale Moore, Purdue - I'd anticipate Golden Tate being a cap cut, and if so, Moore would be an explosive slot weapon to replace him.
(77) New England Patriots - PICK FORFEITED
(78) Los Angeles Chargers - EDGE Dayo Odeyingbo, Vanderbilt - A craft, versatile edge rusher, he'd project as an OLB in Staley defense with the Chargers.
(79) Minnesota Vikings - DT Alim McNeill, North Carolina State - The Vikings add an explosive 3-technique to help get their defense turned around in a hurry.
(80) Arizona Cardinals - CB Shaun Wade, Ohio State - Wade was overhyped early on, but would fit well in the Cardinals defense, developing as a future replacement for Patrick Peterson.
(81) Las Vegas Raiders - S Richard Lecounte, Georgia - The Raiders add an experienced safety on the back end who can help them slow down divisional offenses led by Mahomes and Herbert.
(82) Denver Broncos - OT Liam Eichenberg, Notre Dame - The Broncos stop a bit of a slide here for Eichenberg. He has the ability to play RT or on the inside for Denver.
(83) Washington Football Team - S Joshuah Bledsoe, Missouri - An underrated player at the position, Bledsoe has a ton of versatility and would fit very well reinforcing Washington's already stellar defense.
(84) Chicago Bears - QB Kyle Trask, Florida - The Bears don't ignore the QB position entirely, as they take a later-than-expected flier on Trask. He was very good for Florida.
(85) Indianapolis Colts - CB Elijah Molden, Washington - Not the biggest need on the Colts roster, but they should have the cap to plug holes in free agency and pick better players, like Molden, here.
(86) Tennessee Titans - WR Dyami Brown, North Carolina - The Titans do have a stud WR in A.J. Brown, but with Corey Davis likely landing big money elsewhere, adding another player here is important.
(87) New York Jets (via SEA) - EDGE Payton Turner, Houston - A versatile pass rusher who can fit either a 4-3 or 3-4. Whatever system Saleh installs, Turner should find a home quickly.
(88) Las Vegas Raiders (via PIT) - LB Dylan Moses, Alabama - Once considered a potential top-10 pick, Moses has fallen off a bit, but the Raiders take a chance on him nonetheless.
(89) Detroit Lions (via LAR) - WR Tylan Wallace, Oklahoma State - Detroit should probably consider hitting the wide receiver position multiple times in the draft. The cabinet is empty there.
(90) Cleveland Browns - LB Ventrell Miller, Florida - The Browns linebackers are a major weak spot. If Cleveland wants to contend for the division, adding some speed there in Miller would help.
(91) Minnesota Vikings (via BAL) - S Paris Ford, Pittsburgh - With S Anthony Harris likely headed elsewhere in free agency, the Vikings take a chance on the hard-hitting ford as a replacement.
(92) Cleveland Browns - EDGE Rashad Weaver, Pittsburgh - Back-to-back selections of Pitt Panthers here, Rashad is an excellent pass rusher to add into the mix.
(93) Green Bay Packers - DT Tommy Togiai, Ohio State - The Packers add some beef to the inside of their defense, hoping to solidify a shaky group outside of DT Kenny Clark.
(94) Buffalo Bills - iOL Josh Myers, Ohio State - The Bills grab a starting caliber lineman here in Myers, who should help bolster the interior of their offensive line and give a boost to their run game.
(95) Kansas City Chiefs - OT Jackson Carmen, Clemson - The Chiefs need another offensive tackle to throw into the mix, as neither Eric Fisher nor Mitchell Schwartz figure to be around for too much longer.
(96) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - DT Marvin Wilson, Florida State - While Wilson didn't dominant as many expected him to in 2020, perhaps slotting him alongside Vita Vea will free up mismatches for him.
Compensatory Selections
(97) Los Angeles Chargers - G Quinn Meinerz, Wisconsin-Whitewater - Meinrez blew up the Senior Bowl, and could easily land as a top-100 prospect after that showing. LAC is a good fit here.
(98) Philadelphia Eagles - TE Brevin Jordan, Miami - With Zach Ertz and Philadelphia likely parting ways soon enough, Jordan gives the Eagles a gadget replacement in the passing game.
(99) Dallas Cowboys - CB Asante Samuel Jr., Florida State - Another corner for Dallas as they really could use two strong selections to help rebuild the position. Samuel excels in the slot.
(100) New Orleans Saints - WR Amari Rodgers, Clemson - The Saints add the best player on the board here for me, an exceptional wide out who will pair well with Michael Thomas.
(101) Tennessee Titans - DT Marlon Tuipulotu, USC - The Titans add another body to their defensive front, in hopes that Marlon and Simmons can become a dominant duo inside.
(102) Los Angeles Rams - WR Josh Imatorbhebhe, Illinois - One of the most underrated wide outs in the class, due to the lack of offensive savvy around him. Imatorbhebhe reminds me of Kenny Golladay, so pairing him with new Rams QB Matthew Stafford out to be fun.
(103) Minnesota Vikings - EDGE Jordan Smith, UAB - A long, toolsy pass rusher to develop into a sidekick for Danielle Hunter is the pick here for Mike Zimmer and co.
(104) San Francisco 49ers - OT Walker Little, Stanford - I'm certain the 49ers will bring back LT Trent Williams, but how much longer does he really have? Meanwhile, Little can play guard before taking over at left tackle soon enough.
(105) Los Angeles Rams - EDGE Shaka Toney, Penn State - Toney has good burst off the edge and with OLB Leonard Floyd headed towards the market, the Rams could stand to add some pass rushers.
(106) New Orleans Saints - RB Trey Sermon, Ohio State - With a cap crunch, paying $4 million for Latavius Murray may be a luxury the Saints cannot afford. Cutting him and drafting Sermon can offset that.

Fourth Round

Just a reminder, but almost half of all fourth-round selections (46%) are no longer on the roster after two years in their career, so don't take these picks too seriously, as this is also where teams start to diverge from needs a bit more and go best available. The aim is rotational players who might be contributors by their 3rd year with the franchise. If you have a significant need, fill it in free agency, not the day three of the draft. If you're banking on your team to find a starter here at a key position, you're already kind of screwed. Really I'm less focused on needs as opposed to getting good value here. Am trying to avoid doubling up on prospects, but sometimes teams actually do that.
(107) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Tyler Shelvin, LSU (108) New York Jets - G David Moore, Grambling State (109) Atlanta Falcons - S Hamsah Nasirildeen, Florida State (110) Houston Texans - QB Jaime Newman, Georgia - The Texans don't draft a QB in the first, but do take a chance on Newman's upside to develop behind Bridgewater.
(111) Cleveland Browns - WR Seth Williams, Auburn (112) Cincinnati Bengals - S Jamien Sherwood, Auburn (113) Detroit Lions - EDGE Ronnie Perkins, Oklahoma (114) Carolina Panthers - LB Baron Browning, Ohio State (115) Denver Broncos - RB Jermar Jefferson, Oregon State - With Lindsay hitting the market, maybe the Broncos don't bring him back and Jefferson as a change of pace back behind Gordon instead.
(116) Dallas Cowboys - TE Tommy Tremble, Notre Dame (117) New York Giants - RB Rhamondre Stevenson, Oklahoma - An excellent backup for Saquon Barkley if the Giants don't re-sign Wayne Gallman. (118) San Francisco 49ers - S James Wiggins, Cincinnati (119) Los Angeles Chargers - RB Demetric Falcon, UCLA (120) Minnesota Vikings - WR Dazz Newsome, North Carolina
(121) New England Patriots - WR Whop Philyor, Indiana (122) Las Vegas Raiders - G Sadarius Hutcherson, South Carolina (123) Houston Texans - WR Marlon Williams, UCF (124) Miami Dolphins - DT Jaylen Twyman, Pittsburgh (125) Jacksonville Jaguars - CB Israel Mukuamu, South Carolina - The Jags had a good year out of Sidney Jones, but still could use an intriguing developmental option like Mukuamu behind him.
(126) Minnesota Vikings - LB Pete Werner, Ohio State (127) Tennessee Titans - G Ben Cleveland, Georgia (128) Indianapolis Colts - WR Jaelon Darden, North Texas (129) Pittsburgh Steelers - CB Kary Vincent Jr., LSU - The Steelers get some excellent value here, as I think Vincent is one of the top slot corners in the draft. Could easily replace Hilton. (130) Seattle Seahawks - CB Shakur Brown, Michigan State
(131) Jacksonville Jaguars - LB Monty Rice, Georgia (132) Baltimore Ravens - iOL Trey Hill, Georgia (133) Cleveland Browns - TE Cary Angeline, North Carolina State (134) New Orleans Saints - EDGE Tarron Jackson, Coastal Carolina - With Trey Hendrickson likely departing and Marcus Davenport still yet to hit double-digit sacks, the Saints may look to add another piece to develop here. (135) Minnesota Vikings - RB Khalil Herbert, Virginia Tech
(136) Green Bay Packers - OT James Hudson, Cincinnati (137) Kansas City Chiefs - LB Anthony Hines III, Texas A&M - A quick linebacker, he'd fit nicely into the Chiefs defense alongside Willie Gay and others. (138) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - QB Davis Mills, Stanford (139) New England Patriots - EDGE Adetokunbo Ogundeji, Notre Dame (140) Dallas Cowboys - S Ar'Darius Washington, TCU
(141) Los Angeles Rams - TE Tre McKitty, Georgia (142) Pittsburgh Steelers - DT Darius Stills, West Virginia (143) Green Bay Packers - RB Kylin Hill, Mississippi State - With Aaron Jones hitting the market, the Packers may look for another back to add to their rotation. Hill would be a great addition. (144) Kansas City Chiefs - CB Roger McCreary, Auburn (145) New England Patriots - OT Cordell Volson, North Dakota State

Fifth Round

(146) Jacksonville Jaguars - OT Brady Christensen, BYU (147) New York Jets - DL Brenton Cox, Florida (148) Houston Texans - EDGE Jonathan Cooper, Ohio State (149) Atlanta Falcons - EDGE Kingsley Enagbare, South Carolina - PFF actually lists Enagbare as a top-100 player on their latest big board, which, if accurate, would be tremendous value. (150) Cincinnati Bengals - WR Anthony Schwartz, Auburn
(151) Philadelphia Eagles - CB Robert Rochell, Central Arkansas - Big fan of Rochell's a potential starter down the road. Would fit well with Marcus Gannon calling the defense. (152) Carolina Panthers - G Kendrick Green, Illinois (153) Denver Broncos - QB Kellen Mond, Texas A&M (154) Detroit Lions - CB Kelvin Joseph, Kentucky (155) New York Jets - S Caden Sterns, Texas
(156) San Francisco 49ers - CB Camryn Bynum, California (157) Philadelphia Eagles - OT Adrian Ealy, Oklahoma (158) Minnesota Vikings - CB Rodarius Williams, Oklahoma State (159) New England Patriots - DT Milton Williams, Louisiana Tech (160) Los Angeles Chargers - WR Simi Fehoko, Stanford
(161) Arizona Cardinals - RB Chuba Hubbard, Oklahoma State - He'd be an excellent fit in the Cardinals backfield, especially if Kenyan Drake does not return. (162) Buffalo Bills - CB Tay Gowan, UCF (163) Las Vegas Raiders - QB Feleipe Franks, Arkansas (164) Washington Football Team - WR Jonathan Adams Jr., Arkansas State (165) Chicago Bears - CB D.J. Daniel, Georgia
(166) Indianapolis Colts - OT Brendan Jaimes, Nebraska (167) Tennessee Titans - OLB Charles Snowden, Virginia (168) Seattle Seahawks - OT Dan Moore Jr., Texas A&M (169) Baltimore Ravens - QB Sam Ehlinger, Texas - Unless the Ravens are certain that Trace McSorley is their backup QB, they may want to look at adding Ehlinger behind Lamar. (170) Cleveland Browns - LB Tony Fields II, West Virginia
(171) Jacksonville Jaguars - WR Tamorrion Terry, Florida State (172) Minnesota Vikings - QB Ian Book, Notre Dame (173) San Francisco 49ers - iOL Drake Jackson, Kentucky (174) Green Bay Packers - CB Ambry Thomas, Michigan (175) Buffalo Bills - S Reed Blankenship, Middle Tennessee State
(176) Kansas City Chiefs - EDGE Malcolm Koonce, Buffalo (177) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - LB Garrett Wallow, Texas Christian (178) Green Bay Packers - S Tyree Gillespie, Missouri (179) Atlanta Falcons - C James Empey, BYU - The Falcons find themselves a quality interior lineman who could use a year to develop before getting in the mix to replace Alex Mack down the road. (180) Dallas Cowboys - WR Josh Palmer, Tennessee
(181) Baltimore Ravens - S Qwynterrio Cole, Alcorn State (182) San Francisco 49ers - WR Marquez Stevenson, Houston (183) Kansas City Chiefs - RB Pooka Williams, Kansas

Sixth Round

(184) Tennessee Titans - QB Shane Buechele, Texas (185) New York Jets - LB Paddy Fisher, Northwestern (186) Atlanta Falcons - G Aaron Banks, Notre Dame - Love the value here for the Falcons, and if they do have to cut James Carpenter, Banks could be a useful piece. (187) Houston Texans - iOL Jack Anderson, Texas Tech (188) Philadelphia Eagles - S JaCoby Stevens, LSU (189) Cincinnati Bengals - DT Khryis Tonga, BYU (190) Denver Broncos - DT Bobby Brown III, Texas A&M
(191) Dallas Cowboys - G Josh Sills, Oklahoma State (192) Carolina Panthers - DT Carlo Kemp, Michigan (193) San Francisco 49ers - EDGE Daelin Hayes - The 49ers showed a good deal of interest in Hayes at the Senior Bowl per reports. He'd be a nice depth option on the edge. (194) New England Patriots - CB Benjamin St.-Juste, Minnesota (195) New York Giants - CB Thomas Graham Jr., Oregon
(196) New England Patriots - G Tristen Hoge, BYU (197) Los Angeles Chargers - S Eric Burrell, Wisconsin (198) Minnesota Vikings - OT Alex Himmelman, Illinois State (199) Las Vegas Raiders - PICK FORFEITED (200) New York Giants - LB K.J. Britt, Auburn
(201) Houston Texans - DL Cameron Sample, Tulane (202) Las Vegas Raiders - WR Austin Watkins, UAB (203) Chicago Bears - OT Bryce Matthews, Ole Miss (204) Los Angeles Chargers - WR Isaiah McKoy, Kent State (205) Indianapolis Colts - WR Damon Hazelton, Missouri - This stretch of wide receivers looks like solid value, especially Hazelton in Reich's offense.
(206) Miami Dolphins - TE Kenny Yeboah, Ole Miss - Yeboah got to work with Miami's coaching staff at the Senior Bowl, so I'd imagine they have a good feel for his use. (207) Seattle Seahawks - DT Mustafa Johnson, Colorado (208) Los Angeles Rams - OT Robert Hainsey, Notre Dame (209) Baltimore Ravens - G Robert Jones, Middle Tennessee State (210) Cleveland Browns - CB Trill Williams, Syracuse
(211) Houston Texans - RB Jaret Patterson, Buffalo (212) Buffalo Bills - RB Elijah Mitchell, Louisiana (213) Green Bay Packers - WR Cade Johnson, South Dakota State (214) Pittsburgh Steelers - C Jimmy Morrissey, Pittsburgh (215) Tennessee Titans - S Aashari Crosswell, Arizona State
(216) Atlanta Falcons - LB Derrick Barnes, Purdue (217) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - TE Quintin Morris, Bowling Green (218) Atlanta Falcons - OT Greg Eiland, Mississippi State (219) Philadelphia Eagles - RB Javian Hawkins, Louisville (220) Chicago Bears - EDGE Chris Rumph Jr., Duke
(221) Green Bay Packers - DE William King-Bradley, Baylor (222) Chicago Bears - S Shawn Davis, Florida (223) Minnesota Vikings - G Ben Brown, Ole Miss (224) Philadelphia Eagles - LB Grant Stuard, Houston

Seventh Round

(225) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Malik Herring, Georgia (226) San Francisco 49ers - TE Noah Gray, Duke (227) Houston Texans - CB Tre Brown, Oklahoma (228) Chicago Bears - LB Justin Hilliard, Ohio State (229) Cincinnati Bengals - EDGE Elerson Smith, Northern Iowa (230) Philadelphia Eagles - WR Ben Skowronek, Northwestern
(231) Cincinnati Bengals - DT TaQuon Graham, Texas (232) Buffalo Bills - S Divine Deablo, Virginia Tech (233) Denver Broncos - S Damar Hamlin, Pittsburgh (234) Green Bay Packers - LB Riley Cole, South Alabama (235) Denver Broncos - WR Cornell Powell, Clemson
(236) San Francisco 49ers - WR Frank Darby, Arizona State (237) Los Angeles Chargers - DB Darrin Hall, San Diego State (238) Minnesota Vikings - WR Trevon Grimes, Florida (239) New England Patriots - DE Wyatt Hubert, Kansas State (240) Arizona Cardinals - OT Jaylon Moore, Western Michigan
(241) Washington Football Team - G Jake Curhan, California (242) Pittsburgh Steelers - CB Bryan Mills, North Carolina Central (243) Washington Football Team - RB Chris Evans, Michigan (244) Las Vegas Raiders - CB Mark Webb, Georgia (245) Indianapolis Colts - RB Larry Roundtree, Missouri
(246) Jacksonville Jaguars - DT Forrest Merrill, Arkansas State (247) New York Jets - WR Tre Walker, (248) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - EDGE Joshua Kaindoh, Florida State (249) Los Angeles Rams - CB Bryce Thompson, Tennessee (250) Cleveland Browns - QB Brady White, Memphis
(251) Denver Broncos - EDGE Patrick Johnson, Tulane (252) New Orleans Saints - PICK FORFEITED (253) Green Bay Packers - DT Jack Heflin, Northern Illinois (254) Cleveland Browns - CB Nahshon Wright, Oregon State (255) Kansas City Chiefs - DT Kobie Whiteside, Missouri (256) Tampa Bay Buccaneers - WR Desmond Fitzpatrick, Louisville
You'll notice there are no special teams listed...mostly because I don't have a clue who needs a K/P/LS. That actually might be something useful to mention if you're team really needs someone.
Feel free to comment...I won't really be looking at them until next week, as I've spent too much time putting this together and now I need a break from this website. Just don't be a d*** is all I ask. It's shockingly hard for some people when it comes to internet mock drafts. Did this for fun, hope you had fun reading it.