Much was made of the work we did in the portal last winter. What has been the impact of these incomings? We have to look not just at their performance of objectively, but how much better - if at all - they have been compared to the players who would have been on the field had they not transferred in.
From highest to lowest...
TE AJ Barner - A
He has been a Michigan starting caliber, full-feature TE who not only added blocking to his repertroire but has become one of the best blocking TE's in the nation on top of being a perfectly solid receiving TE. Could Matt Hibner have played and been fine? Probably. But he wouldn't have been at this level. Was he worth bringing here? Unqualified YES.
LB Ernest Hausmann - A
"Big Hausmann" has stepped right into a 3-man ILB rotation as a true soph, flashed periodically and been solid generally. It was a coup to get him and he will be a critical player NEXT season when Barrett is gone and Colson may or may not be. Was he worth bringing here? Unqualified YES.
CB Josh Wallace - A-minus
The only reason I don't give Wallace an A yet is that we still don't know if he has the pure athleticism to match up against the better competition we have upcoming. But he has been good to very good against our weak schedule and bought us a needed year of development for an otherwise-young CB room. Was he worth bringing here? YES.
K James Turner - B-plus
Look, when you have a generational player at a position, the next guy almost surely will be some kind of drop-off, and Turner doesn't have Jake Moody's leg. But he has been perfectly fine on the kicks he's supposed to make and has stabilized the role while we give Adam Samaha a year to bed in. Was he worth bringing here? YES.
EDGE Josaiah Stewart - B
Stewart has been part of the 2-deep, but has played fewer snaps than Harrell, McGregor or Moore. He has flashed with 4.5 sacks in 9 games, albeit against weak competition. Maybe there's another level in him, maybe there's not, his current level is still a nice-to-have as a pass rush specialist and makes the team deeper, although I suspect the difference between Stewart and TJ Guy as our 4th EDGE is probably not something that would ever affect the result of a game. Was he worth bringing here? I'm neutral on this.
C Drake Nugent - B
If it weren't for what he has reportedly brought to the team culturally, I would actually grade Nugent lower than this. On pure performance he has been a marked downgrade from Oluwatimi, performing at closer to the level of Andrew Vastardis in 2021. Due to just a lack of mass and brute strength, he gets pushed back a lot, his pass protection has been mediocre, and his ability to get out to the second level hasn't been quite as advertised. He's not "bad" - he's OK. But I'm not convinced he's any better than Greg Crippen or Raheem Anderson would have been - and you'd have benefitted next season from one of those guys playing now. If you make rising players wait, the guy you bring in had better be a substantial upgrade, and he has not been. Was he worth bringing here? NO.
LT Ladarius Henderson - C
Perhaps some recency bias here because he had a dreadful game last night, but that's a real concern with by far the two best pass rushes and overall defenses on our schedule upcoming. Henderson is someone who, if he makes the NFL, will play inside, not outside. I don't think he has been any better than Barnhart was at LT (but he has by and large been a better player than Myles Hinton.) Some of the reports that Henderson could have been a 2nd/3rd round pick in the last draft sounded odd to me; no one who has already graduated and projects to be a top 100 pick goes looking for a grad transfer. And that he didn't even win a starting job here initially makes that speculation seem even more dubious. I'm unconvinced that we're substantially better with Henderson on the field than we would have been with Jones, Persi or Gentry - any of whom could have gained valuable experience for next year in the process. Was he worth bringing here? NO.
RT Myles Hinton - D
The only reason I'm not giving this an F is that there is still one more season for him to salvage this. But he didn't even look very good against the worst segment of our weak schedule. This seemed frivolous at the time we brought him in, just something Harbaugh did because the new NIL setup allowed him to expand the roster and he liked the Hinton family personally. It didn't look necessary in January and it still doesn't. Was he worth bringing here? NO.
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