Dane Brugler: The Beast -2021 Ed.

[Kellerfox]

Released this morning on the Athletic... I know there are a couple Brugler fans on the board. Has anyone taken a deep dive yet? Any surprises? Adding to my weekend reading list.

Link here

[kccrow]

I'd have to think Brugler wrote and put together a good portion of this months ago and made very minor tweaks up to publication.

I'm not an Athletic subscriber anyhow, but I would put more stock into his day-to-day now than this thing.

[Kellerfox]

Originally Posted by kccrow

I'd have to think Brugler wrote and put together a good portion of this months ago and made very minor tweaks up to publication.

I'm not an Athletic subscriber anyhow, but I would put more stock into his day-to-day now than this thing.

My take: The write ups yes, the rankings no. I follow Dane closely, and can tell you the Rankings in the Beast are significantly changed (30-40%) from his rankings in February and March. I think there was a lot of reslotting that took place based on his “day-to-day” evaluation and ongoing pro day results. To your point though, you don’t write paragraph long write ups on 650 players between March 15th and April 1st... even with an army of interns from the parent corporation.

Now, he and any other evaluator certainly has the rights to continue refining their opinion/rankings all the way up to the draft. Obviously anything he publishes or says between now and then supersedes the Beast, but I do think the report fairly well captures his thinking as of early April and is one of the best comprehensive draft guides out there.

[MahomesMagic]

One of my friends was arguing with Brugler about Fields. Told Dane, after another brutal Fields performance this is not QB2. Dane objected and said you can't jump the gun.

A few weeks later Brugler moved Fields down and my friend messaged him, "Told you. Now you see it too."

He really does put in the work. You have to respect that and these ratings are fluid as we get access to games during the year.

[Kellerfox]

Brugler released a new top 300 today (generally aligns with his rankings in the beast). He ran an article highlighting 9 key prospects where he disagrees with the “consensus ranking” which is the average of more than 50 big boards. I won’t copy & paste the entire article... but a couple prospects that the Chiefs might be considering...

DE - Joe Tryon (53 on consensus board, Brugler has him at #34)
OT - Dillon Radinz (47 on the consensus board, Brugler has him #74)
OT - Walker Little (94 on the consensus board, Brugler has him #59)
OC - Drew Dalman (192 on the consensus board, Brugler has him #106)
CB - Zach McPhearson (246 on the consensus board, Brugler has him #122)

Increasingly, Dalman has been growing on me and I think he could be a good fit for the Chiefs sitting for a few years.

I’ve always been high on Zech as an under rated prospect, I think his versatility could be a good fit for the Chiefs if they wait to address CB until day 3.

[Kellerfox]

Brugler hinted on Twitter that the 2022 Edition comes out Wednesday.

He’s posted less rankings and mocks this year than in years past… I’m thinking he may be trying to emphasize “the Beast” as his primary rankings for the year as opposed to just a big check-in (per Crows comment last year). He hasn’t shared any positional rankings since before the combine. Last year, he was posting new articles for each position every other week.