Fantasy Football Daily - Cedric Tillman, Jack Campbell, Joey Porter Jr. with Fran Duffy | On the Clock! NFL Draft Podcast

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) and Fran Duffy (@EaglesXOs) from @Eagles and the Journey to the Draft Podcast break down Tennessee WR Cedric Tillman, Iowa LB Jack Campbell (a Fran favorite), and Penn State CB Joey Porter Jr.  Interested in playing Best Ball in 2023? There's no better place than Underdog Fantasy. Use our code FANTASYPTS to sign up for a new account at Underdog, and not only will you get a 100% deposit match up to $100... but you'll get a Fantasy Points Standard subscription for only $5! https://www.fantasypoints.com/underdog --- 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. We are back with another episode of On the Clock. I am your host, Brett Whitefield. And today we have a guest from eagles.com. His name is Fran Duffy. Fran, welcome to the show, and thank you so much for joining.

Brett, thanks so much, man. This is going to be fun. I'm excited for this conversation. The people on Twitter, if they don't already follow you, they can find you at EaglesXOS.com. Yeah, Eagles XOs. I host the Journey of the Draft podcast and then an Eagles and like X's Nose podcast, the Eagle Eye and the Sky podcast as well.

Awesome. Do you have written content on Eagles.com as well? Yeah, I'll do, you know, some X's nose breakdowns. We did like some combine preview series. I'm sure I'll be doing some other stuff here before the draft comes in seven weeks, which is crazy to think about that we're just that close to the NFL draft. It is crazy. You were down in Indy last week, correct?

Yeah, I was there from Tuesday until Monday. So it was a long week, but it was fun. It was productive. Honestly, it's one of my favorite trips of the year that I make. if this was my 10th combine, and, you know, I love being on the fields for workouts. I love being able to talk with players during media availability. Obviously, hearing from coaches and GMs is great, but, you know, the entire experience is just so much fun.

It's extremely busy. It's long days, long nights, but it's always a great trip every year. Heck, yeah. I love the trip, too. I didn't make the trip this year, unfortunately. I have just, I have a, you know, 200-player draft guide coming out in the next couple weeks here, and she had too much to do to justify the travel day. So I stayed home.

I enjoy the Senior Bowl week, though, about as much. Have you ever made that trip? Yeah, I've done that. Probably, I should be right about 10 times for that as well. The only times I've missed were for our two Super Bowl trips. That's why I was not down there this year. Just getting ready for the Eagles to take on the Kansas City Chiefs. But, no, I love going down to Mobile as well for a lot of the same reasons.

Being able to see these guys up close, catch up with people all around the league. And the food in both places is nothing to us to get your nose up to either. Yeah, heck yeah. Well, right now, well, let's dive right into it. So usual format, I ask people to come on and give me guys they're higher on than most and then pound the table for some team player fits. Let's jump in with Tennessee wide receiver, Cedrick Tillman. That we've talked a lot on this podcast about his counterpart and Jalen Hyatt. Unfortunately, they didn't really get to play too much together this year. Yeah, but hit me with Cedric Tillman. This is a guy I am also intrigued with, and I think there's some value to be had with him in the draft. Hit me with your thoughts. Yeah, he was my favorite senior receiver coming into this group. And I think overall I'm probably a little bit higher on the group of seniors in this class than most people. I really like Cedric Tillman. I'm really high on Rashid Rice. That's my guy.

Andre Yoshavats from Princeton. I love Xavier Hutchinson from Iowa State. So you can go down the list. All those guys I actually thought about bringing to the table for this segment. But for me, I had to stay true to Cedric Tillman, who, again, I was really, really high on coming into the year. He was the first 1,000-yard receiver at Tennessee as a junior. year since Justin Hunter all the way back in 2012. And so the production was absolutely there a year ago, over 1,000 yards. The injuries really kind of took their toll this year. He was dealing,

I believe it was an ankle injury for the majority of this season. But this is a guy with legitimate size, 6'3, 213 pounds at the combine, just under 33-inch arms, got huge hands. And the big thing that I look at is his usage, right? And obviously, look, in that offense, the way that he was asked to play, all of his routes came to the far right of the formation. but lining up on the perimeter, he saw a lot of press coverage. Faced 58% of his snaps last year came against press. And he was a vertical threat. I mean, 14 yards, average depth of target.

And you got a sense of, okay, this is a big, long physical receiver who's got the ability to attack down the field. He's a long strider. I thought he showed legitimate vertical playmaking ability as a junior. But what I also love about it is that while a lot of those targets are contested, A lot of those targets were, you know, the low success rate, right? Like down the field reps are a little bit harder to be able to come by. 4.4% drop rate over the course of his career. This guy was outstanding at the catch point.

He played through contact extremely, extremely well, Brett. And that's something that I really value, not just like at every position, but especially at wide receiver, you know, being able to beat contact early in the rep, beat contact throughout the route, and then obviously win through contact at the catch point. That's something I was highlighting all season long with AJ Brown and Devante Smith here in Philadelphia with both of those receivers. And they do it in different body types, right? But being able to fight through contact and win, I think is such a really, really important trait for wide receivers.

And I think that Tillman does that as well as anybody in this class. And again, it's just been so, so good at the catch point. That 4.4% drop rate, according to PFF. I'm fairly certain if my memory serves, that's like the best from all the receivers that were at the combine. And so you're talking about a big physical guy with long strides who can attack vertically, who can win through contact and is really good at the catch point. Like, yeah, sign me up for that kind of guy. Heck yeah, I love that.

The hands are definitely special. I think of my, I think Parker Washington may be the only guy with a lower drop rate, or maybe that was just this year. But regardless, Washington wasn't targeted with the same volume, really, as Tillman was over his career. So, yeah, I love Tillman. And the other thing that stands out to me is on top of the hands is the ball skills. I mean, this guy, he gets his body in position to make a catch. If you're even remotely close, I don't care if it's an overthrow, underthrow for it's outside of his frame significantly, he's going to find a way to get to the ball.

He's got the body control to get his feet down. I definitely love it. I guess my only thing that, you know, I wish I could get more of from him was some run after the catchability. Yeah. I feel like he wasn't great in that regard. but the physical tools are there for him to be good. He's got explosive movement skills. Like his linear movement skills are fantastic.

I mean, he really does it. He should be able to develop some run after catch game. He's got the size and the strength. Another underrated thing about him, Fran, that no one is really talking about is there's, and I've hit this on the pot a few times of some of the other bigger receivers is

there is a scarcity of available X receivers in the NFL right now. Free agency, you got like DJ Chark, maybe Alan Robinson via trade, that's it. In the draft, you know, Quentin Johnston, he profiles as an ex, but he plays a lot of gadgety type stuff as well. So I wouldn't even say he's a true X. And then you have A.T. Perry is the other one. I mean, Sector Tillman has a chance to get probably drafted higher than people realize because of the scarcity of big boundary receivers right now. No, I think that's a good point. You know, and you look at some of the other guys, you know, like the Justin Shorter,

like, oh, you wish he moved a little bit better. And the profile is not like super friendly, right, from an analytical standpoint. I think a lot of the models aren't going to paint guys like Justin Shorter in the best life. But I think when you look at, you know, Cedric Tillman, I agree. I think you check a lot of those boxes that you're looking for and your kind of like traditional throwback, X receiver type of profile. You know, and even to your point about the yards after catch, like I think part of that too is just kind of the function of that offense. You know, when you are a vertical threat, like the yards after catch numbers can suffer a little. bit, and you're right. I mean, you look at this year, 2.9 yards after catch per reception is a really

bad number. But it was almost double that a year ago. And so you look at, all right, but maybe the injury had something to do with that. And to your point, he does move pretty well. So it's all right, if he's used it, if he's used in a slightly different way in the NFL, if he does run some more in-breakers and some more shallows, he moved me around into the slot a little bit. You get the ball into his hands a little bit earlier, then maybe you're looking at some better yards after catch numbers. But no, I agree with you that he's probably one of those guys that, you know, one of the few in this class that profiles as a true X receiver. Right on. All right. Another guy you're big on higher on than most is Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell. Now, we have not

spent a single minute talking about him on this pod, so this will be exciting to the listeners. Hit me with Jack Campbell. Yeah, so I studied him for the first time last July. I remember it was a day for training camp. Actually was, I think it was the Eagles open practice at Lincoln Financial Field. So it was a night practice. So I was a turn the day. It was like the mid-morning. And I was like, oh, you know what? I could squeeze in a couple guys from college, some rising seniors that I haven't got a chance to watch yet. So I'll let me put on Jack Campbell. He was third team all, Big Ten last year. And he was a name that was kind of circling around. So I was like, all right, let's plug him in. There was another Iowa line back there, Justin Jacobs, who ended up staying in schooling under the

transfer portal. But let me watch Jack Campbell. Well, this guy. He's over six foot four. He's just under 250 pounds and was a tackle machine last year, 140 stops a year ago. And so you're, you kind of like paint a picture in your head, like big physical Iowa linebacker. And then I start watching them. And, you know, I talk about the play through contact. Jack Hamilton's excellent through contact. He's got a really fast processor. He keys and diagnosis as well as anybody that I've studied these last couple of years. He's a really good tackler. There's not a lot of misses with him on tape. He's got a history He is a core four special team starter, which I love in all positions.

I love guys that show that. You either love the guys that come in and produce right away on offense or defense, or if they don't, like, be a producer on special teams. If there's guys that are blocking your way, that's fine, but go and produce on special teams, and he did that. Touches all areas of the box score. This is a guy that is a stat sheet stuffer. I really value production on defense, and he certainly did that.

I talked about the ability to play through contact, and yeah, part of that is the great size, but I think he's got a really, really good knack, a really good feel for playing through traffic and being able to defeat blocks in a number of different ways. And then when you get to, all right, well, what is he going to do? What can he do in the past game? He's not often used as a blitzer, but very similar to like what T.J. Edwards was coming out of Wisconsin and what T.J. Edwards has been here in Philadelphia.

This guy's got a really good feel for being a middle zone player. His eyes are almost always ahead of the quarterback. He's reading the progression well. He's taking up throwing lanes. had some great interceptions. And last year, and then you fast forward to this year and he had some great ones as well, some great plays in coverage. Is he a guy that you want matched up one-on-one with Christian McCaffrey or Alvin Kamara?

Like, no, but you would say that about 98% of the linebackers in the NFL. I think that Jack Campbell can be a really good starter in the NFL. I think that he compares kind of body type-wise to like what Leighton Van der Esch was coming out, except without some of the medical concerns that LVE had coming out of Boise State. I was very interested to see what he would run because he was a guy that you watch him and he's really fluid. His change of direction is really efficient.

I didn't see any real like athletic hiccups with him on film, but the long speed was like that was the one thing where I'm like, oh, like that will be interested to see what he runs. I don't think he was like a plotter, but it certainly was not like a strength. So he goes to Indy last week and one of the first times I wanted to see. It was on Thursday night or Thursday afternoon. What was the, what was his time going to be? He only ran 465.

That's a below average number. That's not great, but it's not bad either. But then what did he do in the rest of the testing? He went 6-7-4 in the three cone. Outstanding number. 128 inches in the broad, 37 and a half in the vert. Outstanding numbers, especially for 249 pounds. So Jack Campbell, he is a guy that I felt really good about on film coming into the year.

He came back and won the Buccas Award, first team All-American, Big Ten defensive player of the year this season. Once again, first team all conference. So came in with an outstanding. senior season, then goes to the combine, checks in really, really big at six, four and a half, just under 250 pounds, and tests really well, feel really, really good about Jack Campbell at this stage in the process. Yeah, I love all that. I love that you acknowledge the deficiencies, but you also point out the strengths. I mean, when I watch him, his ability to play downhill and with physicality is attractive. He's kind of a throwback in some regards. He'll stick his face

in a fan as a term. I like to throw around. But yeah, I mean, amazing size. The thing I'm interested to see is if somebody, you know, like Bill Belichick decides to draft him and put him as one of these hybrid guys because he, athletically speaking and physically speaking, he checks all of the boxes he's looking for and those types of players. I would hate to see him in that role, to be honest. I think he's too, his instincts are just too good to waste him as a line of scrimmage type player there. I do think he's a Mike, even though he's a little big. He does have that limited range in coverage, but in the right fit, you know, you're playing what, man, 20 to 30% of the time. I mean, it's really not that big of a deal.

If he's on a team that plays mostly his own, you know, you mentioned the Eagles, you know, a team that runs a similar scheme to that would be perfect for him. Buffalo is a team I would love him on if they decide to move on from Tremaine Edmins because of salary purposes. But regardless, I do really like Jack Campbell. the athleticism is attractive, despite the interesting 40 there. Do you have a team fit you like? You mentioned the Eagles, but other than the Eagles, you have a team fit you like for him?

For Campbell. You know, I haven't necessarily thought about it. I think that at the end of the day, we're probably talking about a player, especially after the way he tested. It would not shock me if he was in, you know, kind of in the meat of round two. I don't know that he's going to make it into round one.

But I think at the end of the day, when you're looking at Campbell, I think you mentioned it that you probably prefer a zone-heavy scheme, and most teams the NFL now are predominantly zone-heavy. But honestly, I think he's kind of scheme agnostic. Because I think when you're talking about Mike backers in the NFL, even if you are a team that plays a lot of man coverage, like, yeah, there are versions of man where you're not necessarily asking the linebacker

to be one-on-one with the dynamic running back in the middle of the field. And he also has the size and movement to be able to contend with tight ends as well. So I don't know if he's going to be like a shutdown tight-end guy. but I do think that he's got some of those chops to be able to play in coverage that way as well. So I do think he's probably scheme agnostic in that he could fit for a number of different teams. Right on. All right. Let's get to the last guy I asked you to bring to the table, and that was a team player fit.

And when you mentioned this guy, of course, I got excited. A good chunk of my listeners are Detroit Lions fans. A good chunk of the things I talk about, it just happened to be Detroit Lions related, because of, you know, natural instincts there. So there's a running joke, Fran, that every guy that gets brought up on the podcast, I kind of picture them in what they would look like on the Lions. It's kind of a running joke. But you actually came to the table with a Lions fit.

And that's Penn State Corner, Joey Porter, Jr. This is a guy I love. Let's see how much we're in agreeance here. Well, look, I think at the end of the day, you know, the Detroit Lions, they are certainly looking for another corner opposite. of Jeffrey Akuta, who had a really good sophomore season. Amani Oroauree is a free agent, another former Penn State Corner, ironically enough. I think they're just looking for better play opposite of Akuta.

And so clearly, you know, they're going to be in that corner mix, a very popular pick for them right now in mock drafts. I know that Dane Bruegler, you just dropped another one over at the athletic. Christian Gonzalez, at number six overall, is a fit that people have pegged. Now, if they decide to go quarterback or line of scrimmage, you know, whatever else they could potentially do at number six, I do think an interesting player to keep in mind for them would be Joey Porter Jr. From Penn State.

Now, he is a really, really good-looking kid, you know, six two and a half, outstanding length, 34-inch arms, just under 81-inch wingspan. Absolutely looks the part. And I think when you look at the way that the Lions play, you know, they were top five in the NFL last year, depending on the service you look at in terms of press coverage. You look at Penn State, the way that they played last year. they were 57% press coverage.

That was one of the best marks in the Big Ten. And so schematically, I think there's plenty of things to look at and say, yeah, like Joey Porter, Jr. would be a fit. I think when you look at the Detroit Lions, the way that they have put together their team and the way they put together, even their coaching staff, a lot of NFL bloodlines, former players that became coaches. There's a lot of that synergy there. And even if you look on that staff, you know, Antoine Randall L, wide receiver previously

with Pittsburgh Steelers, he knows Joey Porter, senior quite well, right? So there's some of that that is certainly there. And I think when you look at Joey Porter Jr., hell, even they got, who did they just hire? They just hired a new assistant coach, their new D-Line coach, John Scott, where we see the last couple of years, Penn State. Right. So to me, I'm always big into like looking at the breadcrumbs. You know, this is a very prevalent in free agency where it's like, okay, when a guy hits the market, teams are looking for familiarity and players are looking for familiarity. And I think that you'll see a lot of that in the draft process as well is that, you know, coaches, scouts,

they're much more liable to pound the table for guys that they feel comfortable with. Maybe they knew them growing up. Maybe they're, you know, there's just a little bit more extra. Because we know that this is not a, it is an imperfect science. This is a very tough business projecting humans out. It's humans evaluating humans. And so, you know, there's definitely a lot of chance in this. And so anything you can do to kind of ease your concern a little bit, you're going to try and

lean towards that way. And I think when you look at Joey Porter Jr., even from a profile standpoint, the way that Detroit has gone about, like, kind of building this team over the last couple of years under this new regime with Brad Holmes as the GM, you know, with Dan Campbell as the head coach. They're not big into like the guys that test extremely well. They value play speed over time speed. That's important for Joey Porter Jr. They trend younger.

Six of their seven picks. Just late last year, we're younger players. And I think that that carried through even to last year. They trend bigger schools, right? So toughness and intangibles matter. I talk about the bloodlines. They value priority positions early in the draft. Again, you just kind of like go through and look at the way that they built their team,

the guys that they draft in the first round, second round, third round. And there's a lot of just breadcrowns that points are like, yeah, like Joey Porter Jr. is the kind of player that would fit schematically from a profile standpoint, from a human like person to person standpoint. There's just a lot of things that I think would make a lot of sense for that pick for them late in the first round. Yeah, all those points are excellent. especially about, you know, the connections to the player himself with, whether it's staff members or, you know, things of that nature. I do, there's three things that stick out in Porter's game that just immediately make me think he's a scheme fit.

You mentioned the press stuff. The lions don't, not only do they press a ton, they press with like zero blitzes a ton. And they leave their corners on an island. They absolutely need a guy with that experience. And Porter is super physical to line of scrimmage. you mentioned the arm length. He is literally made for that scheme. So I think that's a check.

Brad Holmes, Dan Campbell, Aaron Glenn, they've all talked recently in interviews about how they need more ball production on defense. They need more turnovers. They need more force incompletions. Joey Porter brings that to the table. I mean, he's an absolute, I don't know if ball hawk is the right term, but he uses that length incredibly well. He does generate a ton of ball production.

So they'd be adding another guy. of the mix to go with Kirby Joseph and Jeff who like to get their hands on the football. And then the last one is watching this guy defend the run, he's a culture fit. Like Dan, Dan loves this, his ability to deconstruct blocks on the edge, playing the run and come up and be physical in the run game. He's not a liability there. He's actually an asset. That's going to be a huge win for Aaron Glenn in that defense.

I think all signs, you've actually convinced me that they're drafting him. So how about that? Well, look, if they take Christian Gonzalez at six, this all probably go. out the window, right? Yeah. And to your point, the one stat I will look at from, from PFF often with corners. Honestly, I struggle with coverage analytics, right? Like completion rate against and things like that because of like man's own coverage

schemes and, you know, was this guy, was this really a catch of this guy lit up, that kind of thing? But certainly when it comes to like ball production, like forced incompletion rate and forced incompletions, Joey Porter Jr., he had a forced incompletion rate last year of 38.2% that's higher than any corner that PFF has evaluated in their final year in college when they've been drafted. So the previous high was 30.4%. It's 38.2 for Joey Porter Jr. So look, he's only had one pick. If this is right, I've got him written down for one pick in the last couple of years.

But this guy knows how to get his hands on the football. There's no question. He really knows how to disrupt the catch point. He uses that length to his advantage. Yes, yes he does. All right, awesome. So before we let you go, Fran, any, I know you were just in Indy. I want to talk about this a little bit at the beginning, but it feels best to do it now.

Any standouts there that you weren't expecting or I think people get a little carried away with moving their boards around a ton. Like you should have, if you watch the tape, you should have seen what you saw at the combine. But sometimes guys do surprise still and you have to make adjustments. Anybody that you want to know outside of the obvious like Anthony Richardson blowing it up, which obviously should have been expected. but sure to me like um you know i'm big into not just like oh like what did this guy run on the 40 or what did this guy's three cone look like but uh i really want to see it carry over to the position drills and so uh if you go and listen to the you know the journey to draft podcast every single night out there we did a full recap um where you know i caught up with dain brueger from the

athletic and we did like all right here are the six guys that you know blew out the testing they did an outstanding job from just a pure testing standpoint here are six players from every day but then every single day, myself and Gabriella Di Giovanni, who was my co-host for the week, we just did a deep breakdown into, okay, well, who are the guys that did well in ball drills? And so, like, a great example would be Kishan Boutte from LSU, who, you know, the 40 time wasn't like great, you know, the testing numbers were just okay. But I thought he had an outstanding workout, right? So you kind of have to, like, juxtapose those two things.

You know, a clash of Kanzi from Pitt, like, yeah, right, a blistering 40, you know, DJ Turner for Michigan, the corner, ran an outstanding 40. Well, neither guy did position workout. So it's like, all right, to me, like, I want to look at some other guys that did a great job where, yeah, like, they ran well, and they jumped out of the gym. But, like, did that carry over? Because there were other guys where it's like, they tested great. You know, like, Jalen Hyatt from Tennessee, like ran great. And then he comes over in like the position workout, but wasn't as good.

And so, you know, to me, like, I look at, you know, Andre Yotivas from Princeton had a really, really strong workout. I was really impressed with him. You know, DiMario Douglas from Liberty. I thought he had the wide receiver, undersized kind of return man, slot receiver type, had an outstanding workout. He was really, really impressive. And, you know, I hadn't done a ton of work on him. So being able to see that up close and have that be my first exposure was really, really good.

Kenny McIntosh, the running back from Georgia, he had like a near flawless workout. I thought the running back overall was really, really good in the bag drills and in past catching drills. Bejohn and Kenny McIntosh, to me, were like, one A and one B. I thought they were really, really good in everything that they were asked to do from a drill point, a drill standpoint. You go to the corners, Trevis Hodges Tomlinson was awesome. Brian Branch, Clark Phillips were awesome. So to me, like, while it's great to be able to see the 40s, honestly, when I'm in there watching drills, I don't even watch the 40s. I'm like getting work done, like on my laptop and getting that stuff done. I'll get the numbers on that later. But as soon as like the ball drill start, that's where I get excited. And I want to watch and see who are the guys that do best in those. drills. Functional athleticism and refined skill sets. That's honestly what you're looking for when you're scouting. So big time stuff there. I like that you mentioned Kenny McIntosh because I was going through a wide range of emotions during his his workout because I wrote him up a couple weeks ago and things I were put in his profile was, you know, elite burst and good top end speed. Then he runs a bad 40 with a with a very

mediocre 10 split. I was like, oh my gosh, you're killing me, Kenny. And then he goes out and tears up the on field stuff and I was back on board. I was like, all right, I'm back. Let's do this. So, yeah, that's a great call there. Well, listen, Fran, it's been a pleasure having you. Listeners, you can find him at, and Twitter at Eagles XOs. He is the host of Journey to the Draft Podcast.

You can also catch his work at Philadelphia Eagles.com. Thank you so much for listening. And again, Fran, thank you so much for joining the pod. Yeah, Brett, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Awesome. We are out. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points Podcast.

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