Fantasy Football Daily - *Bonus* Fantasy Points Podcast | With Jim Nagy (@JimNagy_SB)

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

On this Bonus episode of The Fantasy Points Podcast, our analytics connaisseur Scott Barrett (ScottBarrettDFB) sits down with decorated NFL scout veteran and 4X Super Bowl champion Jim Nagy (@JimNagy_SB) to discuss all things 2024, rookie class, and Stefon Diggs's recent move to Houston. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Jim, before we dive into the rookies, I wanted to ask you about something that just made headlines in the NFL. I'm wondering if you have any unique insights on this, given your, your, your, scouting front office background. When the news first broke on the Stefan Diggs trade, what were your initial thoughts? And then how are you thinking about it today? Yeah, Scott, thanks for having me back on. I will say my first thought was something's going on in

Buffalo, you know, when I saw what the cap hit that Buffalo supposedly took for that move and you're moving on from a good player that, you know, Josh Allen, you know, needs weapons. And so just tells me there's maybe something going on there. But, and then I thought, man, how the Houston Texans are going to be hard to defend next year with Nico and Stefan and then tank in the slot makes them a really dangerous offense. And it would shoot, Joe Mixin and Damien Pierce. I mean, that's a high octane offense now. But, yeah, my first thought was, you know, something's up in Buffalo. Yeah.

You know, I had the same rate, like maybe they're trying to emulate the Kansas City offense a bit. more. I know Tyree Hill is one of the best players in all football, but he leaves Kansas City wins back to back Super Bowls. Maybe a true wide receiver one isn't as important to the Joe Brady scheme. I don't know.

And then, yeah, Texans are absolutely loaded. I think people underestimate how much Robert Woods and severely banged up Noah Brown played last year. They had four wide receivers and a tight end all between a 63 and a 70

percent route share. So obviously bring in Stefan Diggs. That's a massive upgrade. That's a, you know, potent, one of the top three offenses in football probably immediately. And then you just sort of hinted at something, you know, I don't, I don't know anything about Stefan Diggs personally, but it does seem like there might be a sort of character issue there. We talked about this a lot last year, guys who love football, how important that is when you're building a front office. I'm just curious if there's anything like how do you think a front office will weigh that not not stephan dig specifically but if you have a player who's you know off the charts talented but is sort of a locker room headache maybe is a little selfish more of it you know me first not a team player

how do you think the NFL front offices are valuing that and especially when you're looking at an organization like the bills which seems to have been so close to the super bowl so I just fall short. Yeah, and I don't want to cast any judgments on Stefan. I've never, I've never been around the player and I haven't talked to those guys in Buffalo about it. But this is the second franchise that's moved on from Stefan Diggs, and he's a great player. I mean, he's, you know, top 10, top 15 wide receiver in the league probably still. But, you know, I'll say this about the Houston Texans. I've given Nick Casario a lot of, a lot of credit over the last couple of years. I think what they've done really well in Houston,

and they've stuck to their guns. You know, you listen to a lot of, listen to a lot of GMs, especially around draft time. And they talk about, you know, how important it is to find guys that love football and high-end competitors and all that stuff. Well, then it gets to draft day and all that, all that's out the window when you see a talented guy sliding. And I've given Nick the credit that they've really stuck to their guns.

Nick has really stuck to his guns. They've brought in the right kind of guy. I think that's why you've seen the turnaround that they've made. And I'm sure that they did a lot of work. I'm sure that, you know, they didn't make this move, you know, blindly. And so let's, you know, watch the tape and take Stefan Diggs. I'm sure there was a lot of phone calls made to a lot of different people to make sure that it was going to work. I think they put a lot of faith in D'Amico Ryans and the, you know, what he can do in that locker room to kind of mold things.

And again, going back to Buffalo, I think you're seeing a model now where when you pay a quarterback, 50 plus million dollars and Josh is going to be entering, you know, going to be probably one of the first 60 to $70 million guys. You got to put a lot on that guy. Going back to my experience with the Patriots, I mean, look at the receivers that Tom Brady played with. Now, some really good slots from Troy Brown to West Walker to Julian Edelman, all really good slot players. But really outside, you know, the one guy he had, we had a couple years with Randy when I was there with Randy Moss. Outside of that, I mean, Dion Branch was a good player. David Givens had some really good years for us. I mean, I think there was one playoff run where David scored touchdowns in like seven.

straight playoff games, which I think was an all-time record at the time. I don't know if it's been broken since. But then you looked when those players moved on, were they ever, were they ever better players without Tom? No, Tom made those guys, you know, to a degree. So I think that's, that's what, you know, Josh has to carry a little bit of that now, right? I mean, he's he's making the big money. He's got to make everyone around him better. You know, are they, can they pay a true number one wide receiver? That's probably a place where if you're the Buffalo Bills, you put a little of the onus on Josh. You know what, man, we're not going to be able to pay top dollar. We're going to draft some young guys this year. You're going to have to make it

work. Kalos Shakir. I mean, there's guys in the roster. You're going to have to make better. So I'm guessing that's where Buffalo's head is on this. Like, it's on you now, Josh. Like, you've got to be Superman a little bit. So again, and back to the Texans thing, I'm sure they did their homework before they brought in digs. Yeah, huge tip of the hat to Nick Casario. In Dynasty Leagues, my preferred fantasy strategy is a tank than bank where you're like the worst team in football and then immediately one of the best teams in football the next year. And it seems like that's what they've done. But that's a big question I've had this off season is how much of that is, is Bobby Slowick the next Mike McDaniel or is C.J. Stroud just on the Peyton Manning

spectrum or, you know, more likely, is it just a combination of these two points? and Nico Collins taking the next step. Tank Dell, your guy who really shone out of the senior bowl, living up to the lofty expectations I know you had for. Well, Nico's our guy too now. That's right. That's right. But no, and again, taking nothing away from Bobby Sloak,

I'm sure he's a great coach. But quarterbacks make coaches. They just do. Going back to my first experience in the league, if you look at the tree that Brett Farb created out of Green Bay from all the guys that got head coaching jobs out of Green Bay, John Gruden, Marty Morningwig, Andy Reed, Dick Geron. I mean, that list was long, right?

I mean, Brett created his own tree. Then you go to New England where I was, the Tom Brady coaching tree with all the guy, that Romeo Crennells and Charlie Weiss and Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia. I mean, great quarterbacks make coaching trees. And so I think you've got to give CJ a lot of credit for coming in as a rookie and playing the way he put.

Yeah, yeah, it's funny how so many of those Tom Brady coaches didn't really pan out. You know, Bill Belichick, obviously, an all-time great, but it's really mind-boggling. He's not a head coach right now. He's out of the league. So I wanted to, we'll dive back into the rookies. I think that's what everyone's really most excited about. And I'm going to give you a chance at the end to talk about any player really you want to talk about. But first, a few players I had in mind specifically.

And we could start at the top with Ricky Purcell, a fantasy points favorite that's Brett Whitefield's wide receiver five in the class based on film. But I personally struggled with his analytics profile. So I would love to know your thoughts on him. And perhaps if there's any important context or nuance that the analytics might be missing. Yeah, Ricky, we've been watching Ricky for at least three years now because I remember first watching the tape when he was at Arizona. state. And one of our former, our former DFO, who's now scouting for the Carolina Panthers, was a big Ricky fan that first year when we started watching this guy. So what I like about him, he can play inside and outside. He's got a really good skill set in the slot in terms of, you know,

being a great rot runner, having separation quickness, being extremely tough. I think everyone's seen that the high, to me, the best catch of 20, 23 college season where he's getting sandwiched between two dudes and he makes the one-headed catch. You can, there's so many takeaways from that one rep on Ricky Pearsall. And then, you know, he runs 4-4-1, 4-4-2 at the combine. He's got speed to play outside. He's got size to play outside. So he's got true flexibility, really dependable hands, tough, good after the catch.

I mean, it's hard to really poke a hole. I honestly feel like, I always feel like some of the junior players, and I'm not saying this because I work at the Senior Bowl. I just feel like you go back in time and look at some of the juniors get overvalued because especially historically, you know, there just wasn't as much information about them. They were kind of new. You know, the league was playing catch up on a lot of those guys. So, I mean, I think Ricky Pearsall, he's not being talked about in the first round. I think he's going to outperform, you know, some of these guys that are going to go in the first round.

I have a hard time poking a hole in his skill set. Yeah. Yeah. Again, Brett has him wide receiver five, which I, I know is like blowing some minds across the fantasy space, but... Shouldn't be. Love it. Absolutely love it.

One knock I would put on him is he ranked worst in the class against press coverage, yards per route run against press coverage. But again, I don't think that matters a ton when you have a guy who's probably best suited for the slot, even if he can play inside and outside, or did you not see that on tape? Well, I'll say this. They don't see a lot of press man coverage in college football. probably didn't see any of it in the Pack 12 when he was out there. He saw it a little bit more in the SEC against the Alabama's and the LSUs of the world, Georgia,

when he played those guys. And again, you're looking at, does he have the physical tools to beat press coverage? Yes, he's got, he's extremely quick off the line. He's got, he's a twitched up dude. He can win with speed off the line. He can win with quickness off the line. He's got a really sturdy body type. He's not going to get muscled.

So when he learns, there's some technique things, release things that he can learn. I just think you go to, I mean, to me, that's a value of the senior bowl. It always has been going back the 25 years I've been coming to the game as a scout. You're seeing these guys against press man coverage for a lot of times the first time. And he didn't have any problem getting off press man when he's down here that week. Yeah, I didn't have this on my list, but I'm now reminded of Malachi Corley, who obviously like an insane player with the ball in his hands at forcing missed tackles, creating yards after the catch.

But he did, he had the highest screen catch rate of what would be any wide receiver ever drafted. So that was my big concern. But then he came down to the Senior Bowl, ran a more developed, more complete route tree. And what? He won American wide receiver of the Senior Bowl practices, right? Do you have any thoughts on Malachi Corley?

Yeah, that awards voted on by the D.Bs. You know, that's voted on the, guys that went up against him. We were trying to cover them all week. So I get that, but you can't hold stuff against a player that they weren't asked to do. I mean, you know, it's like, it's right now with Bo Nix. You know, everyone's, you know, whatever, all the percentage of throws under 10 yards. I mean, they, Corley did what he was asked to do in that offense. I always look like, I was looking at this like this in terms of like route development. A lot of these guys come out and they do lack polish and they, they don't run a full route

tree. So I was looking at a couple of things. Watch them with the ball in their hands and they will show you what kind of a route runner they can become. Because with the ball in their hands, you're going to see stop, start quickness, you're going to see them drop their weight, you're going to see if they have any lateral shake. You know, you're going to see play strength, which, I mean, trust me, at the top of the route, I mean, you, I mean, play strength and substance matters. So obviously we know he's got that. I mean, he's a truck with the ball on his hands. So I don't think he's going to have any route limitations, you know, at least physically.

You know, some guys read things on the fly a little better and make better adjustments and, you know, have more savvy in terms of that. But in terms of like dropping weight, getting in and out of breaks, he's not going to have any problem doing that if you watch this guy with the ball. Yeah, yeah. Bo Nix, you hold that against him. I mean, like I had 45 passing touchdowns, three interceptions, six sacks. That's that's insane. You never see that. Corley just, yeah, of course he gets screens.

He's a monster after the catch. Scott, can I touch on the Bo Nicks thing real quick? Yeah. I think there's a lot of laziness going on right now with the Bo Nix evaluation. Like I get asked all the time, what's the value of NIL and portal and all this from an evaluator standpoint? I think it cleans up the picture. If you didn't go back and watch Bo Nix at Auburn, shame on you. If you're on here bashing Bo Nix for like his analytical profile at Oregon, shame on you for not watching the audience. Because he is two different players. You know, at Auburn, he was playing behind a really weak offensive line. he had to run around and make plays on his own and create.

And you saw some really cool stuff in those three years of Auburn tape of him just being creative, you know, being the type of guy that NFL offenses want right now, guys can get outside, make plays off script, he can do all that. Then he goes to Oregon and he functions within a scheme and plays more from the pocket. So, I mean, he's really shown what he can do over his five years being a starter. So again, I see a lot of snarkiness. in the social space sometimes. And I think the easy thing to do for a couple of these guys,

like this older generation of quarterback, you know, everyone's, it's real easy to see that Bo Nix is 24 years old or Michael Penix is 24 years old. Man, I'll tell you, the NFL doesn't care about it, especially at quarterback. I mean, at running back, yes, do you want to draft a 25-year-old running back? No, you probably don't. But at quarterback, if you can get two contracts out of these guys, so essentially eight to nine years, I mean, if they're 24, you're talking about, a guy playing until he's 33.

If these guys are any good physically because they all take care of their body so much better than they did, you know, 20, 30 years ago, they're playing until they're almost 40 years older, into their 40s if they want to, you know, if they're good enough. So if the guy's a good enough player and you get two contracts out of them as a GM, I mean, that's a great draft pick. Regardless of position, if you sign a guy and he plays out two full contracts, seven, eight, nine years, that's a great pick. So I just love everyone's railing on the age of some of these.

quarterbacks. I'm just telling you, like, in NFL draft rooms, they could give a rip about that stuff, right? That's not even being discussed in NFL draft rooms when it comes to this quarterback class. Yeah, honestly, it might be a good thing for quarterbacks. You look at like the Trey Lances, Sam Darnolds of the world versus the Brock Purdy is a guy with a ton of experience. Where would Jaden and Daniels have been drafted out if he came out as a junior, right? And now look at where he is. And then with Bo Nicks in particular, the guy played five years in college shirt, he had five different offensive coordinators across those five years. And that's the same excuse we've been hearing about Daniel Jones for,

I don't know how many years now. So I'm with you on Nix. Do you have a favorite within that Bo Nix, Michael Pennixed here? Do you know where precisely you think they're going to go on draft day is late round one a possibility? Well, there's excuses and there's reasons. I think having five coordinators in five years is a reason, not an excuse. That's a real thing. When you're juggling,

you ask anyone that's played quarterback, your first year, you're just trying to figure stuff out. I mean, you don't even get settled into an offense until probably your third year. So that's real stuff. And I'm glad you brought that up. He's the last seven years to play in football, even going back to high school,

when he played for his dad, he's at seven different offense, seven different coordinators. So, no, to me, that's real stuff. You got to talk about that stuff. In terms of Pennix and Knicks, I think they're both going in the first round. Again, I'm not saying that because they came here and played in the senior bowl. That's just information that I got when I talk to people on a daily basis.

I think that Albert Breer, shout out to Albert. I think he had a really good piece on Monday talking about like Pennix's supposed had rise through this process and why coaches are maybe higher on him than scouts, where scouts really picked apart some of the underneath accuracy, whereas the coaches are getting in and saying, okay, what can't I coach? I certainly can't coach that arm strength. I can't coach that toughness. Like there's some things that they think they can work with and clean up

to make him a better underneath more accurate thrower. So I think, I don't think from what I'm here, and I don't think Pennix could go middle of the first, not just like late first somewhere in the first. And again, I think teams in that range when you're talking about, you know, the Raiders, the Saints, the Broncos. I think there's a lot, I mean, Vikings, I think there's a lot of teams that want to come out of this draft with a quarterback.

And I'll say this, just being around Bo Nix, I can't imagine him and Sean Payton sitting down and Sean Payton not falling in love with this guy. I mean, he's like I said, he grew up in a football family. You know, obviously his dad was a great player at Auburn himself, really successful high school coach here in the state of Alabama. You know, in Bo train down here with David Morris and Philip Rivers, who lives down here now. And you just, you can't be around Bo. You feel his intensity, man. He's an intense kid.

Very intense, very competitive. That's why he came here. That's why he threw it with the comments. that's why he threw it the pro day that I mean he didn't hide from anything and I think a guy like Sean Peyton's really going to like that so I don't have any like inside intel that that's who they're going to take but you know again you look at what Bo can do get the ball out of his hand quick read defenses I mean that's all the stuff that made Drew Breeze you know a Hall of Fame quarterback and I'm not saying he's Drew Breeze but he does a lot he has a lot of the same positives to his game

that Drew had so I do I think all six of those guys go in the first round wow yeah I I love that I think you're right. I think Denver really wants a quarterback. I think Bo Nix looks like a great fit there. For the folks at home, you should check out an interview Greg Kassell did with Bo Nix, breaking down his film. The guy is really smart.

Obviously, you can see a son of a legendary high school coach. But we were just talking about age as it relates to the quarterback. I said, I don't really think that matters. Maybe it's like positively predicted, a predictive. But with wide receivers, analytically, it does seem to matter a little bit more. The track record on older late breakouts and one-year wonders really just isn't great. But I wonder if Xavier Leggett might be an exception. He's an all-time freak athlete.

His 20-23 was legitimately terrific, easily top three, top five in the class. But my question to you, Jim, is if he's round one or round two caliber, why do you think it took until his fifth season to break out? He had a lot of playing time earlier in his career, but just basically zero production. Just talking to the guys in Columbia, something clicked in terms of the work ethic, right? And he became like the hardest worker in the entire program.

He was there day in and day out. He set goals for himself that final year. I mean, that maturity piece is a real thing. I mean, some guys just grow up quicker than others. and, you know, he had goals for himself going into that last year, and he just exhausted himself in the offseason, and then it paid dividends. I mean, I always bring up that first game, whatever he had.

He had 167 yards as a junior and then came out in week one and had 178 yards or something crazy like that. So, yeah, it was a true breakout year. And again, I'll be curious. I'd kind of turn this around on you, Scott, like with these players, this isn't this isn't going away these guys are going to stay in college longer nil money is going to keep these guys in school you know outside of maybe the quarterback position most most these positions it behooves these guys to stay in they'll make more money in a lot of cases so is that going to change

the analytic model right like you're just going to see so many more older players coming out of college like what does the age thing do now i mean that's a question i have for you yeah so so why i think this is so predictive is because let's say you have early early breakouts really important let's say you have an 18 year old 19 year old wide receiver dominating against cornerbacks who are 21 22 that's indicative of a surplus level of talent just like if you had a wide it's like all wide receivers the second week of every month you have to have your left hand tied behind your back on half of your routes. And let's say you had a guy who had a ton of yards doing that way more than anyone else. What is that that's indicative of a surplus level of talent. And so when you have a 22,

23 year old wide receiver, who's so dominant, but wasn't earlier, it's just, it's just concerning because, you know, younger cornerbacks, that is a massive advantage. You know, I was like, I felt like I was mid-puberty when I was 19, 20 years old. So it's, just a massive advantage for some of these guys. But I'm so with you. This is what I've been saying because this year's wide receiver class isn't that great analytically. Everyone's saying it's this amazing class. It's so deep. And analytically, it's just harder to make that case. But my caveat everywhere has been, things are different now. Because of the COVID year, for some of these wide receivers, they just totally lost their freshman or sophomore season. It was like three or four

games the school played the entire year. And then NIL, for so long, within the analytics community, it was, you want early declares. And they were using that just as like a proxy for draft capital, where it's like, yeah, you're only going to be an early declare if you're going to get good draft capital. So it was like a sort of double counting of that point. And yeah, you and I talked about this. We're like, Chris Olavé, no, we know why he stayed in school. Devonta Smith, we know why he's seen in school. If you had the round two grades, they decided to stay in school for X, Y, and Z. And now there's a major incentive to stay in school, which is NIL money. So I'm with you. I think the age-adjusted stuff, which was really like one of our most predictive variables,

just really isn't as important or predictive anymore. Well, I think you're hitting on a great point, man. And that's like when I'm, I always think about being part of a front office and when you're trying to, you know, blend the analytics and the scouting side, this is a great example. man because i mean if if if if if Xavier legate doesn't come out great in your analytical models so then the analytics side has to let the scouts know and then the scouts really got to go and like you asked me the question i mean i got surface level answers from you know i didn't dig i didn't i wasn't digging i'm not drafting Xavier leggett right like i knew he was good enough to invite to the senior bowl the talent's obvious it was pretty easy uh but these schools i mean then you then you're you have your

analytics side reach out to this you know your college director and then he tells the southeast area guy like man when you go into Columbia figure this up like what like your question to me why did it take so long that that scout better come in a draft meetings having an answer from multiple sources in that building and and the other thing that's been easier from the scouting side to find that answer you know to get that answer is all the movement on the coaching side you know the volatility and coaching and these guys you know moving everywhere every year you're having more and more coaches that touch these players over their three, four, five years of college than you ever had. I mean, he used to go into a school and the receiver coach had been there for 20 years,

right? So he's the only guy that's ever been in a room with that player. Nowadays, I mean, it's rare where there's not at least two, you know, whether the player transfers or there's a coaching change at that school. I mean, there's two, three, four guys that are, that are been hands-on and been in the room and day-to-day contact with these guys that really, they really do know them. So that's made that part, but that's where analytics and scouting can work hand in hand

is that, you know, analytics can flag some things and give scouts a heads up. Okay, like, let's just not take for granted the fact that, you know, Xavier Leggett looked great this year, but we got to figure out like, and again, scouts still did that, right?

But maybe not to the degree that they're digging in now because analytics doesn't support a certain grade. That's really how like Brett and I work, Brett Whitefield, to runs Fantasy Points data charting and also did our prospect guide. If I could use any one variable for my model, especially for wide receivers, it would be his film score, his track record is insane. He comped Puka Nakua to Justin Jefferson last year. I called him crazy. But lo and behold,

he was right again. And so really, it's just like, hey, what are your thoughts on this? And he's like, you know, let me dig in and get back to you. And a lot of times he'll come up with, good excuses or sometimes he'll find something new and maybe his evaluation would change a little bit, but it's not, I know, I'm never, you know, analytics over film. If anything, I'm more, films probably more important. But it is good for exactly that reason, raising questions. And with, with Leggett in particular, it's, I'm worried about one year wonders when it's like a good one year. Like, this was a legitimately great one year. He had four times as many receiving yards is the next closer receiver,

ranked fifth best in the power five in yards per route one, fourth best strictly from the perimeter. And then like extenuating circumstances, unfortunately, both of his parents tragically passed away in high school. He played quarterback his entire senior year. So there's a number of factors at play that go into something like this. And really, like you said,

it's just a matter of asking questions. So yeah, Liget, despite this. Yeah, I mean, that's unfathomable, right, to lose both your parents in high school. Can you imagine what that does to a young college kid in a new college town, like trying to figure out, figure it out a new position change? Like, that's kind of, I mean, I can't even fathom it, man. So, again, from a tools perspective, I've posted a couple of videos from Senior Bowl Week. And the great thing is we get some really good on-field, you know, ground level reps of some of the one-on-ones.

And when you see a big dude that's, again, he's a. So whatever he came out, I think at our game, he was 6-0-07, so not even 6-1. If you just, if you didn't know that and just watched the tape last summer, like I didn't know, we didn't have a verified height last summer. I thought Xavier Legget was going to be 6-3, 6-4 because he plays so big on the ball. But when you see those senior bowl reps to watch a guy that big and thick, you know, whatever, he was 227, 228 pounds, like drop his weight at the top of a route and get in and out of stuff.

Like, that's really good stuff, man. that no, then you've got a big guy that can separate and then he plays big at the catch point. And then maybe that, like I talked about Ricky Pearsall, the takeaways from that one-headed catch he had, that one, that one drag route where Leggett took it to the house against Mississippi State and basically, you know, ran through, outran every angle and just torched those dudes on that long touchdown. To me, that was one of the most impressive highlights in this wide receiver class. I mean, all those guys, neighbors, Marvin Harrison. I don't know if Marvin Harrison had a highlight as impressive is that Leggett highlight.

light. So yeah, man, it's back to your point. I mean, I just love where analytics and scouting can meet and, you know, kind of work off each other. I think that that's really cool that you and Brett do that. Yeah. Also, all-time freak athlete. I'm right next to Jamar Chase

in a tier below D.K. Metcalfe and Julio Jones. And again, I think that maturity thing is really important where maybe it's just something clicks and then he puts it all together because I was a dirt bag until maybe mid-20s, so I can't imagine the pressure on some of these kids. And just like in terms of learning, some people, it just works differently. Like I wasn't, especially for me in the fantasy industry, it wasn't like a steady upward

progression. It was like, I stink for a full year. I stink for a full year. And then just randomly one article I wrote about Frank Gore, it all clicked. And I was just a superstar. from then on. So people progress at different paces. And so, yeah, Liget is a guy I like a lot, despite this sort of red flag within his profile. Well, and I, you know, I cross-checked receivers for us in New England for basically my whole time there. I really love watching the receiver position. And the thing that gets overlooked and it's hard for fans, it's really hard for fans. And, you know, people that aren't in the league and have access to these coaches, I've found over the years, like, one of the, you have to be special to be a knucklehead at that position, right?

Like the guys that were, the guys, and I'm not going to name names, but you go back over time, the knuckleheads, they are so talented. If you can stick in that league and be productive, it's the guy, it's the mature guys that get with the, you know, get up to the league are mature enough to like handle their business on a daily basis, get up to speed in the playbook and gain the trust of their, of their veteran quarterback. I got it was hard in new england with tom brady like he didn't have a lot of patience if you showed up out of college and you weren't if you if you didn't you know get on the same page with him and

and we're serious about it like you just leave you behind and uh and again i think you brought up puka's name earlier like that's when i knew puka had a chance to really have a great year last year and that's why i posted a couple things probably in august i was starting to hear from the guys in LA, like, he's been so unbelievable this offseason with Matthew Stafford. Like, Stafford really trusts this guy. And then Cooper Cup has the injury. And it's not another veteran stepping up and fill in Cooper's role for Matthew, like Matthew's first look was to Puka. So for a young guy to gain the trust of a veteran quarterback like Matt Stafford, it tells you, it tells you about the maturity. It tells you about the intelligence. Like, people think these guys

just go out there and line up and run by people. Like, that's not it. Like, you have to have, you know, a good level of intelligence to play to play receiver. And it's just, it's becoming, I'm getting off on a tangent, but the league's become way less patient of a league. I'll say over when I got in 25 years ago, like you would,

you would wait two or three, four years on a guy to wait for it to click. If it's not clicking by year two, teams are just moving on. Like there's just not patience. So, so again, it's hard for the outside world.

Even for me, like we don't, I don't bother the college coaches too much on, you know, really digging deep on some of these guys. but you really find out the guys that the guys that transition quickly at the next level are the guys that have a good head on their shoulders. Aaron Rogers also notoriously difficult or hard on young wide receivers.

And you have to wonder if that's something Joe Douglas is thinking about as he's scouting wide receivers in this draft is, you know, maturity issues with this guy. All right, Aaron's not going to tolerate that. Let's find someone more polished, maybe someone more experienced. So, yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, I mean, look at in Green Bay with Jordan Love last year. Like that whole skill group kind of grew together. Like, would Jayden Reed have had 11 touchdowns last year as a rookie if Aaron

Rodgers were there? No, because he'd probably be sitting behind, you know, Randall Cobb still. Or, you know what I'm saying? So whereas Jordan Love was like, all right, let's go. Let's work with the young guys. I think you do need to have that talk with your quarterback. I'm sure Joe Dees had that conversation with Aaron. I'm like, listen, man, we're going to bring in some young guys.

You're just going to have to make it work. Back to the Josh Allen conversation. Like it's on that quarterback. When you're getting paid like that, man, you got to make, you got to make some people look good. You got to make them look better. We've organically mentioned Puka Nakua, Tankdale, Jaden Reed. We haven't mentioned Rishi Rice, Don Kincaid. What a year for the senior bowl receivers last year.

It looks like the almost, looks like the outperformed the non-sener bowl players who went well ahead of them. Yeah, it was a really good year for those guys. You know, in Rashi, like that's an interesting one, right? Like you could question his maturity right now. And I think some teams did question his maturity last year. And he found a way, he found a way to get on the field enough. And then Pat Mahomes made it happen. You know, like that's, he's Patrick Mahomes.

He's got to make, he's got to elevate guys. And he did that with Rashi. So I'm hoping Rashi can can overcome this, what he just got into recently. But, but yeah, it was a good, it was a good class, man. It was a good year for those guys. I think, I think we had seven go in the top hundred last. year, but they were all like day two and day three. I hope a Ricky Pierce all, Alad McConkey can kind of sneak into the end of round one this year. That would be cool. Maybe leg it. But I think we've got,

you know, to me, we've got seven guys that could go in the second round, not just the third round, you know, when you're bringing like the Roman Wilson's and some of these other guys. So again, it's just, college football's cranking out good receivers right now. So, you know, if we're doing our jobs right at the senior bowl and evaluating these guys properly, we will have good, we will have good receivers. I had one last individual question for you. There are two senior bowl tight ends my model loved, but I have one big glaring concern about both of them. I'm not really sure they're actually tight ends. Is Jahim Bell a tight end or is he a tweener or an hback? And is Ben Sinat a tight end or a fullback because he won the low man trophy last year. Yeah. Yeah, both those guys. I mean,

And there's, and I posted something on social about this morning. There's a ton of love and the growing love in the league right now for Senate, Jared Wiley from TCU, um, and Theo Johnson from Penn State. When you look at all three of those guys, I mean, I think Theo was like a 98 RAS, you know, athletic profile. Senate was like a 975 and, and, uh, Wiley was like a 971. So, I mean, high, high, you know, they, they had good weeks in Mobile. They checked that next box at the combo.

So they've had a really good process all three of those guys. Your question on Jehim Bell, I don't know what you call him, man. Like, even for us, you know, I had this talk with Jeheme when he got to Mobile. I'm like, listen, man, you're going to be a Swiss Army knife for us. If we have a running back go down, we're going to put you at running back. If we, you know, if we have a wide out go down, you're going to go playing, you know, really more be a slot receiver for us this week. He's got a really cool skill set.

I wouldn't try to pigeonhole him. I'd try to look at him as just a, you know, offensive weapon, if you will. I mean, he's certainly not a wide tight end. He's, you know, he just doesn't have the size to ever do that or the length to ever do that. But he can be a move blocker and he's tough enough to play fullback. So again, I hope he goes somewhere creative. I just, I just did a pod the other day with one of the guys out in San Francisco and he asked me about, you know, Debo Samuel and what my thoughts were where he came out. Well, I mean, Debo was a great player.

I mean, we didn't know if we were even going to get him that year. You know, he was kind of a round one conversation guy when, you know, when before we got him here. but I will say this. Would Debo be Debo if he didn't end up with Kyle Shanahan? I don't know. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. But he went to a great place. He went to a great place with a creative head coach.

I hope Jeanne Bell goes somewhere similar, where they can use his full skill set. And then Senate talking to teams, yeah, they see a lot of fullback versatility, a lot of move tight end stuff. I've heard some Kyle Hughes check comparisons with Senate. Obviously, an elite tester, whatever, he jumped 40 and a half and 10-8 on the broad,

whatever, he blew it out. And then when you factor in like the makeup of the kid, he's a former walk-on. He was more of a hockey player in high school, which, I mean, hockey players are tough dudes. You know he's a tough guy. To me, my point from like a film tape study perspective is, he wasn't playing with anyone, you know,

NFL caliber players not to diminish the guys at KJ State. But he didn't have like, he didn't have Brian Thomas and Malik neighbors, you know, outside of the perimeter, you know, draw in attention. I mean, if you're if you're game planning for K State, it was to take Senate out of the game. Everyone knows that he and Will Howard were buddies, right? And he still managed, he still figured out a way to be one of the most productive tight ends in college football last year. So, yeah, to me, the versatility, rather than see it as a bad thing, rather than like call them tweeners, which back in the day, like, we used to do that. This guy's kind of a tweener and you kind of cast the guy

aside. I'll give the NFL credit and like the young coaches that have come up in the league over the last 10 years, like they're doing a much better job of using the Jaheem Bells and the Ben Senates than probably 15, 20 years ago, the coaches would have done. Yeah. I'm going to have to make my case for Jehim Bell here. Just in case there's any NFL GMs listening, he has the best single season yards per route run on record, the second best career yards for route run in the class, elite in line from the slot or out wide, best career mistackles force per.

reception or yards after catch per reception of any tight end since at least 2014. And then, yeah, he's one inch shorter than Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, Sam Leporta, has longer arms, bigger hands than I think just about all of them. Really good athlete. If you just like spot him that one inch, like how much of it comes down to that one inch. But I mean, you see it in college too because 2022, he had more rushing yards than receiving yards. So I definitely, I definitely grappled with him, but I just saw a tremendous amount of upside there. And even if he is just a tweener, like imagine if Kyle Shanahan gets his hands on him. He could be really fun for the NFL, maybe not fan. Scott, can you can you text me or email me that? You know, I love promoting our senior bowl guys.

Those are awesome numbers. He was in, I'll say this, man, going back to like last summer when we started watching the 2022 tape, he was an easy senior bowl invite. Like some of these guys, you got to work through the tape. And, you know, they're like fourth, fifth, fifth. sixth round type level players and you know there's like clumps on the board like jeheme bell was a to me a no brainer last if we were to give out you know invites based off junior tape before we get to the senior year jeheme bell was in one so um i'm glad that's really cool stuff i didn't i didn't know any of that yeah that's that's great to hear and then even last year he wasn't really too far off keon coleman or johnny wilson uh in terms of production actually you know what johnny wilson's another good one uh his analytics are

really good. Like, shockingly good. Biggest red flag was separation issues. He had a red flag levels of, uh, contested, uh, target rates in,

in each of the last two years. But outside of that, like analytically, he looks just like a better Kiann Coleman, uh, really great combine. Maybe he's not, um,

that athletic on film, but just like the combine was great. Um, do you have any thoughts on him? Like, should he be a wide receiver? I'm hearing people talk about him converting to tight end. Just any, any thoughts on Johnny Wilson? Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call him a tight end.

Again, it's whatever, however you use him, to me, he's a, he's a mismatch player in a mismatch league. He's a freak now. Like, you can look at the numbers all you want. I don't know what he came at, 65 plus 6, 6, 6, 6,000, whatever he was. I mean, the wingspan, I feel like I've tweeted that out a million times over the last year. I mean, 84 inches, whatever it is. And then you get on it. Like you know what the measurables are. Then you go to, I was at the Florida State, who they play, Votech game this year. And you get up on this guy on the field during pregame and you're like, holy cow. Like this is a huge target, huge human being runs well.

He is a mismatch. Again, there wasn't a lot of balls to go right. You got Trey Benson in the backfield. You got Jehien Bell. You got, you know, Keon Coleman. I mean, there's just, I mean, that offense was legitimate this year. So, again, with Johnny Wilson, I just, I don't care what you call him. He's going to be a hard guy to defend because you can't stick a lineback on him.

He's going to smoke those guys unless you got a linebacker, you know, that runs four-fours, you know, and then you put a safety on him. He's just, I mean, the guys, I mean, we just got done watching Zach Eady and, you know, the kid from Yukon, the 7-2 kid from Yukon. This guy's just going to be able to box out, especially like when he learns to really use his size. I hope he goes somewhere with like a veteran, like a big wide receiver veteran that shows him how to kind of the tricks of the trade.

But he could be a really cool player if he, you know, kind of matures into that body and his skill set because he's not, he's not, you don't think tight end because he's not a good enough athlete to play receiver. He's a good enough athlete to play receiver, in my opinion.

That's great. Yeah. If only he could donate two inches of height to Jeheme Bell. And then that offense is just, yeah, a wide receiver, everyone's calling it tight end. and a tight end everyone's calling a running back.

All right. My next question is a much broader one. Among the senior bowl players, can you give me just some guys you think maybe one at each position who have, in your opinion, fantasy superstar potential? And then maybe a few players you think the community is sleeping on. Yeah. Quarterback, I hate singling these guys out, man. I knew you're going to ask something like this. At quarterback, if Pennix gets in the right offense with his vertical shot of ability,

I mean, he has the potential to make a ton of explosive plays. So again, quarterback is so dependent, right? We all know that. But if he gets in the right place, in the right offense, I mean, his deep ball accuracy is as good as I can remember. I'm sure I could wreck my brain and try to come up with guys. But it's been a while since I've seen somebody just throw strikes like that. down the field. Running back, I'm trying to go over some of the guys. Man, I heard Cody Schrader

interviewed last night on NFL Network and we're kind of losing track of Cody Schrader a little bit. I'll say this. I haven't seen a back play like that against Georgia's defense or like this, this three or four year run with Kirby Smart's defenses with all these NFL dudes. I mean, what Cody Schrader did against them and I think Tennessee, he was the first back in SEC history to run for 200 and have 100 receipts. receiving double up that way. There was like a four or five game stretch against legit teams, legit defenses where Cody shredded him.

I'm a big great. Kenny McIntosh vibes on him. A guy you and I both liked, but really debt, bad Combine. He has a great story, like insanely productive throughout his high school. But, you know, no one wanted him how to go to outside the FBS.

Truman State. And then sixth and highs their voting. Yes. I mean, our running our running back group, you know, I think Ray Davis is going to be a good back at the next level. You know, Marshawn Lloyd, Michael Wiley. Marshawn Lloyd's my favorite back in the draft. I mean, aside from everything else, senior bowl juniors, I don't care. I mean, Marshaun Lloyd to me, is the most talented back in the Nuff.

He's got legitimate make you miss. The guy can cut on a dime for a bigger back. He's explosive. I don't care. I don't even know what it's testing numbers were. I can't even remember what he did at the combine. Bonn was when you put on the tape, the explosiveness jumps out. To me, he is a true, you know, kind of lead, lead ball carrier type of running back,

you know, number one running back in the league. He's my favorite guy. We touched on the tight ends. I think those three guys could go two, three, four. Wiley, Theo, and Senate. I think all those guys are going to be productive. And then the receivers, again, I have a hard time. I'm finding a hole in Ricky Pearsall's game.

We haven't touched on Ladd McConkey. Again, Roma Dunsey was our number one receiver last summer, going back up the junior tape. We loved Rome. I still love Rome. Ladd was our number two. I think, you know, people just see this white guy and they're like, oh, he's a slot. No, like I knew he was going to run in the high four threes. I mean, one, the Georgia strength staff gave us a little bit of a heads up on that.

But you saw the speed on tape. That was my one knock on Lad when we did him last summer. was he dropped some deep balls. He got deep a bunch two years ago, but he dropped some deep balls. That was really the only knock there. So he's the guy that can play inside, outside. He can get open.

He's a great runner, really crafty. I mean, he made some guys look silly here in Mobile. And then the maturity piece, the intelligence piece that I've talked about, he's all that, whatever, you won the Wharfal trophy. This guy's going to get somewhere next year, and he's going to hit the ground running.

So, Josh, you're putting me on the spot some of these receivers. Some of the guys have really, really good weeks. But yeah, Roman Wilson as well. I'm with you on Ladd-McConkie. Love him. Yeah, Roman's a guy.

You know, we've had, again, it seems like he's had this elevation through the process, which is great. I think Senior Bowl played a part in that. But we've had a day two grade on Roman going back to last year as well. He was an easy guy for us. We could have invited him last summer.

You look at, again, And analytically, I don't know how he profiles because we all know it's the same reasons J.J. McCarthy's getting knocked, right? Like they didn't ask J.J. to do a lot. And therefore, I mean, Roman's numbers and what do you have for? I saw an interview with him, and he had 48 catches and 12 were touchdown. And a lot of them came early. You know, a lot of them came early. Like, Rome, I want to say through the first four or five weeks of the year, I think he had eight of those touchdowns. He was on a really big pace. And then they kind of took the ball, they air out of the ball there in Ann Arbor the last half of the season.

But I've compared Roman to a guy that I was in Seattle with, and that's Tyler Locke. And I say that with all respect to Tyler Lockett, one of my favorite players I've been around. Tyler's really unique in the sense that he's a littler guy that plays big on the ball. Like he can go up and get it. And Roman does the same thing. He's got a big catch radius. He's strong when he goes up for the ball for a smaller guy like Tyler did. I go back to the word substance.

They both have, however you quantify it, measure it. Like, you don't see these guys get muscled off the ball. And they're both explosive. Like Tyler had legit juice. Romans got legit juice. You know, again, whatever he ran, high four threes, low fours, whatever it was. I just think they're really similar players. Again, part of what has made Tyler Lockett an unbelievable NFL player really underappreciated,

my opinion, is the maturity piece, man. This dude is like he's, he's, a cool person away from football, just has his priorities, always has, you know, guy that loves football. I think Roman's wired similarly. So, yeah,

I could see Roman getting somewhere next year. Even if he's a three for somebody, I think he's going to be a factor, whichever team picks him. Tyler Lockett off the field is incredible. He wrote a award-winning book of poetry. He's a successful real estate agent. I don't know how the guy finds the time.

But yeah, character off the charts on him. my last question is going to be a broader one. We can take as much time with this as we need. I know you might be a little behind on non-senior bowl players, but I asked you this question last year. You gave me some great takes. The year before that, you gave me a killer one. I asked you about Traylon Burks,

and he said you didn't think you had a starting grade on him. Brett Whitefield said the exact same thing. That looks to be fairly accurate. But of the non-senior ball players, do you have any favorites? Are there any players where you think the narrative is just totally wrong on? You've really been good at that where you say something that seems controversial to everyone else, but isn't controversial to you and just ends up being right. So any thoughts on some of these non-sener bowl players?

Well, the good thing is they're all senior bowl eligible now. So I've watched all these guys. you know, I didn't have time in the past to spin my wheels on guys. So why would I watch a bunch of junior tape if the guy can't play in the game? Well, now we can get juniors. So I have watched. How are you going to do that next year? Are you going to still give a priority to seniors or just the best players?

Yeah, you know, it's got to be the best players. You know, this was so we just backtrack a little bit. We got it. We had a heads up from the league office in August. We had a phone call with with the guys on Park Avenue. And they, you know, so we knew there was a possibility. the junior thing might happen this year. And listen, like the 32 teams have wanted this for a long time.

And I think the hesitancy from the league standpoint was that they didn't want an all-star game, senior bowl invite to serve as an incentive for a guy to leave early, right? Like college football has been, you know, kind of the, you know, the, you know, they didn't want to us upset the Apple card. It's been like the fee feeder system to the NFL for years and years and years. So they just, they didn't want to go there. but now, I mean, again, nobody, you know, believes in the power of the senior bowl more than myself, but these guys aren't leaving college football right now to come play in the senior ball.

I mean, we certainly have a lot of players that say it was a goal for them or they've watched the game since they were little kids and they've always wanted to play in it. But that's not going to be the deciding factor. I mean, right now it's these guys, the nice thing about NIL is these guys are making really making smarter football decisions. They're not chasing NFL money, even knowing they might go on drafted because they need to help, you know, know, mom or dad keep the lights on or keep the water running, right? Like, that used to happen a lot. So now, so that's why I think NIA is a good thing. But yeah, with, and then they, they called us that first week in November and we're like, guys, you're going to, you're going to be able to bring juniors now. So what we didn't really have was like recruiting of the junior class.

You know, like we'll, we'll get done with this year's draft and we'll start posting stuff literally the next day that Monday following the draft. We'll start pushing stuff on 20, 25 players. why I encourage everyone to follow us because there's not a lot of unique content for that next draft class. We've been watching this class since January. I mean, the board's already got 300 players on it upstairs. So, so no, back to your question, it's always going to be about bringing the best players. If it's close, you want, you always want to do, you want to, I feel like I work for the 32 GMs. I mean, that's part of, I always, I always tell, I tell the people on Park Avenue, Like I serve two people.

I serve the City of Mobile. We're trying to keep this game strong in the City of Mobile. It's game means a lot to our city. It's got a huge financial impact to our city. So that's very important to me. And then these 32 GMs, that's why we had our, that's why we did everything we did to have our game during COVID. You know, we were the only thing in the draft process that year,

kind of put our necks out on the line during COVID. We had a really good plan. We believed in it. And it worked. But I only did that because I couldn't imagine being a job. GM and going through an entire draft cycle, never being in front of these players, never, never eyeballing these guys and seeing them in person. I think I'm a huge believer in.

You have to see these players. You can't just watch tape, the body type and all that stuff. There's so many things in a lot of evaluation that are critical. But if it's close, like if the league, if it's a four-year starter at Michigan, as opposed to, you know, a breakout guy at the group of five level or something like that, then we'll probably defer if everything being equal, we'll bring that group of five player because, you know, the league's been exposed to the Big Ten guy for a long time. So, but yeah, the goal every year is to bring the best guys. Back to your, back to your original question of guys of, now I'm trying

to wreck my brain fantasy wise on some of these position groups. You can repeat what you said before we started recording. I thought that was a good one, but I don't know if that was off the record. Who was, who were we talking about? We were talking about Romo Dunzee and the Falcons. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think, I think Rome would be a great fit there. The reason I love Rome is he's a bigger guy that's good with the ball on his hand. I mean, that's a transferable skill. I always, again, you're not going to see him run all the routes going back to Corley. Like, you're not going to see that stuff. But I think what these guys do with the ball on her hands are as important. The fact that they put Romo Dunesi back there on puns, similar to Keon Coleman. I know Keon didn't run well. And I think we knew that. Like, that was my pitch to his agent to get him to come to Mobile is like, like, Listen, everyone knows Keon's not going to run well. Like, we knew he was going to be a four-six guy, but he's a good football player.

So send him to Mobile and let him, you know, make, you know, run routes and be a football player for a week. But obviously we didn't get that done with Keon this year. We tried. But no, his draft stock really plummet after the combine. Yeah, I think he could have helped himself by coming here. But again, these guys have to make their choices.

But back to Rome. Yeah, I love the football player. I love the toughness. I mean, the fact that he can return puns, man, his size, I think says a lot. And then, again, through the process, you're looking for little indicators on things. Again, I didn't fight Rome's people when they said they weren't going to send him here

to the senior bowl. And he signed with a group that sends all their guys to the senior ball. But I knew he was going to be a top 10 pick. I'm not, I try not to be an idiot with this stuff, you know. If these guys are going to be a top 10 pick, then that's great. But what I loved about Rome is he goes to the combine. he does everything those other guys marvin harrison leaves malic neighbors leaves roma dunesies out there like running eight short shuttles because he wants to he wants to he had a certain time in his head

that he wanted to hit like to me that that says something about how rome is wired and again i know i know what the washington staff thinks of rome with the set about rome like i i just love the wiring of the guy um here's a name for you i i tweeted about it a little bit ago but like eric all the tight end from Iowa, I think is just kind of flying under a lot of radars. He was injured. Would have loved to have had him here at the Senior Bowl. Last year at this time, Eric All and Theo Johnson from Penn State were our top two graded returning senior tight ends. We love Senate. We love Wiley. We love, you know, a bunch of these guys that we ended up bringing. But Eric All is a guy a year ago. We had a higher grade on Eric All than we had on Luke Schoonmaker at Michigan. Schoonmaker was a good player. We liked him a lot.

You know, and he ended up going late in the second last year to Dallas. I mean, again, we're not right all the time, but we had a higher grade on all two years ago on the same film and the same offense than schoonmaker. So I do like Eric All. That's kind of a name you're not hearing a lot, seeing a lot. And I'm just trying to think of some of these receivers. Like I think Jamari Thrash is a guy from Louisville that, again, don't know how he comes out analytically.

I'll say this about Jamari's Week in Mobile. He looked so good running routes and getting deep on people. and he had some really costly drops that if he makes those plays, they would have been like ooh and ah, like wow type moments in practice where fans would have seen him convert big plays. And hands weren't really an issue on tape for whatever reason. He just had a couple costly drops. Same thing with Tess Walker from North Carolina.

Like just had a tough week with drops. It was what it was. You know, you didn't see that on tape. But I like thrash because he can run routes. The guy can legit get open. He's got juice. He's a cool player that I just, I don't think you're hearing a lot about. And then Rashine Ali.

I did a thread on Rashina Ali a couple weeks ago. You know, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of significant injuries here in the Senior Bowl. Like when I got the job, I went back and I did a long study of injuries at Senior Bowl compared to Combine and more guys got hurt, non-contacted in Indy than they did in the senior bowl, believe it or not. And Rashine had a bad injury here. He popped his bicep in a pass pro drill, which, really sucks for him. I hate it for him. So, you know, I wanted to do a threat on him.

Such a good player on tape. He got a lot of love on calls with the league when we were putting the roster together in November. You know, like fourth roundish love. And that's fourth, fifth round, which in this year's draft class, man, that's going to be the top of this running back class. I think you're going to see that run on some of these guys start in like the third, third round probably, maybe a couple in the second. But Rachine on tape is legit explosive. He's good in the past game. He can get open. He's just, he brings an explosive element that I don't think a lot of these backs in the draft. And, and he's not like a straight line guy. Like Jalen Wright, uh, from Tennessee, we had committed to play in the senior bowl, had to pull out because of an

injury. And I, I like Jalen, but he's got a little straight, straight line element to him. Um, you know, he's got some ankle tightness to his, to his running style. Whereas Roshina Ali can cut on a dime and create on his own. Um, it's hard to find those straight line fast guys that also have enough shiftiness to kind of create on their own. So Rishina Ali would be a name a year from now. If he's carved himself a niche out as a change of pace, third downback for some team, that wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, that's great.

Dynasty players definitely need to take notice because he is not priced at all, like a round four or round five running back. Also, 100% agree on Eric All. That's one of my guys. Analytics really like him. So happy to hear that. last question then i'll let you go i promise i'm going to read off some names to you and their projected draft capital and if just anything jumps out to you i'd love to hear it whether

you're you're not seeing it or you're really seeing it uh that's kela williams the 101 drake may the 102 two marvin harrison 103 jaden daniels 104 malik neighbors 105 j jay mccarthy 10th Anything jumped in mind there? No, I mean, I'll say this. The quarterback, the quarterback thing, I think there is, I don't think Caleb's the consensus number one guy in the league. And we had, you know, we've got a former GM on our staff this year who's a good quarterback evaluator.

I know he's got a different guy as number one guy. I tweeted this out a couple weeks ago. I was with a GM at the LSU Pro Day and he'd been at Caleb's. He'd been at JJ's at that point. Drake's was the next day, and Penix's was the next day. But he'd been to JJ's and he'd been to Caleb's. And I said, ranked those three, just pro days now. Not saying the player, but like physical talent, pro days show physical talent.

He ranked it J.J. Jaden and then came. So I think there's a little more debate going on there than maybe out in the outside world. No, I still do think he's going to Chicago. I think we can stop the debates on where I think we know where he's going to go. internally here, in terms of our staff, we did a, we did a project here in-house. And we had neighbors as our number one receiver over. And there was some debate. It wasn't everybody.

But as a staff, I think we were more on neighbors than Marvin Harrison, Jr. Although Marvin Harrison is a great prospect. But no, all those kind of makes sense. And I'll say this about JJ. I watched a lot of Michigan games because it's where I went to school. So if I am home on a weekend and can catch a game, it will be a Michigan game. And we did roam in and we had, you know, we had like four,

we had A.J. Barner, we had Lederis Henderson, Trevor Keegan. Like we had a bunch. So I watched a lot of Michigan offensive tape. So I felt I was familiar with JJ's game and a skill set. But I didn't really take a deep dive until a few days ago. And again, a lot of people think there's like this late push. And you see a lot of snarky people on social media, like really pushing back against the J.J. McCarthy love.

there's a lot there to like. I'll say that. I mean, I started off with the Michigan State game, big rivalry game, wanted to see how he'd play. I mean, decision making stays out of bad plays. He's got a whip for an arm. I mean, he really has good arm strength, in my opinion. He can throw on the move accurately. Critical situations, red zone, third down. And again, a lot of people say, well, they didn't put a lot on him. I think it's sometimes it's harder to play quarterback when the ball when it's not on you every throw when you're not throwing 40 or 50 times a game and and you know you're handing the ball off series after series and then they need you on a critical third and 12 and you can you know drop a diamond on a you know a corner route like he he has

some really cool stuff I don't think this is like a manufacturer oh my god the league's crazy for buying into j jay mccarthy and he he does have charisma I'm I know he's doing a good job in these interviews just hearing that from team so um I would say that for for j jay Jay, I think he's a really talented guy. Well, that is music to my ears. I have never rooted for a player like I am rooting for J.J. McCarthy because we are getting a lot of heat for having him ranked as the QB1 in the draft guide. And Brett Whitefield put that out February. He called and he's like, I've watched every single snap from every single quarterback.

And I hate to say it, but it's just the facts that J.J. McCarthy is my QB1. I told him, first thing you do, bet him to be drafted, first overall, second overall, third overall. So that would be great if that happens. But, yeah, if he doesn't pan out at the next level, fantasy points is going to get a ton of heat for that. But, yeah, really, really relieved to hear you seem pretty high on him as well. Yeah, no, he's a really talented guy. Again, we tried to get him in the Senior Bowl, but, you know, he played a ton of football. And we lost Mikey St. Restrill was another guy off that Michigan team, a really, really good nickel corner.

because they played so deep. But, you know, that was me with Justin Herbert a few years ago. You know, I mean, people were, I mean, I was, I mean, I was railing against people that are jumping on Justin Herbert and saying he couldn't play. And they weren't taking, like, the totality of that Oregon thing. I mean, again, you got to look at a lot of these positions, quarterback is a dependent position, wide receiver is a dependent position. That's why it's hard for me sometimes with the, some of the analytical models.

Like, how do you account for that? How do you account that, you know, Oregon's offensive line that year, going into that year was so hyped, right? And like Pena Sewell's a great player. Everyone knew that. He's become a great player. But the rest of the line ended up being late round draft picks and free agents. Like he wasn't playing behind a great line.

He didn't have a single NFL skill player on his offense. And he still took his team to the Big 12th, yeah, the Pac-12 championship. And he still took it. They won the Pac-12 and he took his team to the Rose Bowl. And people were railing against the guy that year. So I guess I feel Brett on this one. that was that was justin was my guy a few years ago so if he's been on the jj train from the get

go then then uh that's that's awesome good for him the listeners are to kill me if i don't follow up on this uh what what is your tiebreaker between uh malik neighbors and marvin harrison harrison junior what was it that really uh had you separate them run after catch um run after catch again to me that's a that's such a trans rule skill set um and i told the the young guys in the office the one guy I can remember scouting that became a great run after catch guy and player at the next level that wasn't that in college was larry fitzgerald he did he did not do anything that's probably too strong he was not a good run after catch guy at pit he was an unbelievable 50 50 ball guy which he wasn't a pros i mean he could go up and get it with anybody as timing his strength

with the ball in the air his hand strength uh to secure the ball on contact like that's he was unbelievable I forget whose quarterback was. Tyler Palco, one of those guys. I mean, they were just, you know, they were just throwing it up to him, and he would go get it. But I remember being in meetings, and he didn't run a lot of routes. He wasn't great at the top of a route. He was kind of this big speed-building guy that would just get down the field and go up and make,

kind of like what Elshon Jeffrey was as a pro is what Larry was as a college player. And then give Larry a ton of credit. Smart guy, mature guy, worked at his craft. He became a really good route runner. and then because he was such a skilled catcher, like that allowed him to become a good run after catch guy because you watch Larry's tape and you slow it down. He's one of those guys that could look away, you know,

and peak and see where defenders were and he was going to catch the football regardless. So those guys that are that naturally skilled with their hands, like usually become good run after catch guys because they can get their head around and they can, you know, kind of see what's coming. But other than that, outside of Larry, I have a really hard time coming up with guys that weren't good with the ball of their hands in college and suddenly became that guy as a pro.

And that's, we just see neighbors better with the ball on his hands. Love it. Jim, thank you so much for coming on. I told you before the show started, this is always the show I look forward to most every year. You always deliver. Thanks for your time. Yeah, man. Well, let's do it more than once a year then.

But Scott, thanks for having me on. It's always fun. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate you guys. That was awesome. That was so good. Thank you. Yeah, I should.

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