Fantasy Football Daily - Take Talk Ep 40 - Senior Bowl Day 2 recap w/Chris Wecht

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Brett Whitefield (@BGWhitefield) and Chris Wecht (@ChrisWechtFF) recap their observations from Day 2 of the 2023 Senior Bowl. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome into another episode of the Tate Talk podcast live from Mobile, Alabama, at the Senior Bowl. It's Senior Bowl Week. I am with Christopher Wecht, who, traveled down here with the fantasy points team. We just got back from practice literally minutes ago, and we've got some takes for you. Things changed as we predicted they would.

The QBs in general looked much better today. Yeah, and this is pretty much what we expect. Yeah, they get more time practicing with guys. They get more time to just learn the systems that they're going to be playing in and all that stuff. So, yeah, the guys, it's not a shock to see them all look generally better than day one. Yeah. And even, even the guys that were still bad, like, I didn't think Dugan looked much better

today than he did yesterday. No, no. He was definitely better today than he was yesterday. My only real complaint with him was just everything was coming out of his hand late. Yeah. He wasn't really getting through his progressions. And then Chris made a funny note of this because, you know, the word on the street is he's not really a practice player. And I think his skill set agrees with that. You know, not the most

accurate guy. You know, he's a good runner, but that's mostly because of grit and toughness, not because of athleticism. So, like, you need the closest thing to a game environment possible for him to look good. And as we started getting those looks, he did start to look better. When you got into 11th, when there was a real pass rush coming, he did start to perform better. He got the ball out quicker, was making, you know, better reads, stuff like that. So, I went neutral for Duggan to, or Duggan, we're going with Duggan officially. Went neutral Duggan today, but he still was a mixed bag. The guy I really want to talk about that was Jake Hainer from Fresno State.

We were disappointed with what we saw yesterday because we literally just watched film on him before we went to practice. We were pretty juiced about seeing him. And he just kind of let us down. A lot of sloppy mistakes. But man, he was on freaking fire today. Yeah, he's the best QB here. and it's probably not really close. No, it's not close at all.

Which is crazy for, you know, a small school guy. Yeah. You know, we're not talking, this guy is not going to be a starter for some NFL team this year or anything like that. But the guy that is definitely improving his draft stock here far and away more than anybody else. I'm comfortable saying he's probably a day two pick on my board. He's going to score that way for me. His arm talent, he's a small guy. He can freaking slow.

sling it for a smaller guy. And that was evident today. He made, I mean, probably four or five downfield throws in a row that were just on the money, absolute dimes. And he started fueling himself a little bit, started getting out of the pocket, doing some things he likes to do. Yeah. Looks really good on the run. He can throw, you know, running both ways, running against the grain or with the grain. They started designing some rollouts for them, which, you know, really, really helped him.

And my favorite thing to do in these environments, too, is because QB is such a, It's one of the only positions in the league where it's so much more than talent. It's your mental makeup, your leadership skills. The leadership is such a big part of playing the QVee position. So I like to watch those guys in the way to interact with their teammates. And Hainer was kind of taking control today. Like he was pumping up his teammates. He was basically taking control of the offense, kind of running practice for that squad.

So huge up for me just all across the board. Talent, leadership, all that stuff. I was getting giddy watching him out there. What did you think of Clayton Tune? I was pretty not impressed, but... Tune was a guy I was probably most excited about to see here. This guy threw for almost 500 passing attempts in college. You would think he's got plenty of reps under him, but he, man, his accuracy is a huge issue.

And I honestly can't believe it. I mean, he even has one of his receivers here, Nathaniel Dell. It's not like there's, there should be that many issues that they're having. and they're on the same team. And he just can't seem to hit guys over and over and over again. It's really disappointing. I mean, I was excited to see him. Like, he was in a high pass volume offense.

He's used to the pressure. And just it's not translating to these practices. I think he might be struggling with some of the same things, Jaron Hall is, but they come from really QB-friendly systems. Sure. Some more spread, air-aid type stuff where they're just giving. the quarterback a lot more clean windows,

and they're trying to now implement what they do into a more pro-style offense. You can tell Jaron Hall is very uncomfortable with everything happening on the field. I think he has talent, but he did disappoint me again for the second day in a row. So I think Tune is basically going through the same thing. The only other real surprise today was Tyson.

How are we saying his name? Bagant. Bagant? Bagant. Yes, I think. Tyson Bagant from Shepard, very small school. The dude has a rocket ship arm.

I could tell yesterday, everything he throws is a fastball. And sure enough, when you looked at the GPS data today, he led in rotations, you know, ball rotations on every throw. He led in hardest throw of the day, average throw velocity. He was number one on all those. And you can tell the ball just jumps off his hand. But he looked pretty comfortable today for a guy coming from such a small school environment. Yeah, if you took the low.

goes off the helmets for me. Right. I would think all of these guys basically played at the same level in college, which is obviously not the case. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he looked more like the Power 5 guy than say Max Duggan did. Sure.

Yeah. I mean, pretty polished in some ways for a guy coming from such a small school. So I have no idea what that means as far as like his outlook. Maybe he gets drafted now. Yeah, maybe. And Malik Cunningham practiced for the first time today. Kind of like the other QB. the first day for the QVs is always kind of iffy.

There was nothing amazing. There was nothing terrible. He had a couple nice seam balls, actually, which I was impressed with. Other than that, pretty uneventful day for him. So let's talk about, since we did quarterbacks, we talked about pass catchers, wide receivers. I had a lot of guys stock up and not many stocked down. Yeah.

Nobody, nobody, yeah, not many guys were actively hurting themselves today. it seems like at all. Yeah. Nathamiel Dell was talking about him straight away. Like, you know, we did stock down on him yesterday strictly because of his measurements. He's making it hard. Yeah. So just for clarity on that, if you did read the article, strictly because of measurements, we did stock down. He looked great in practice yesterday, though.

Guy can ball, though. And he looks great in today. Or he looked great today. I can't. This is really hard for me because I fell in love with Calvin Austin last year. You've seen this trend of like every year there's a guy who's really. ridiculously small, get drafted high. Rondell Moore, Wondell Robinson.

He's right in there with those guys as far as size goes. So, like, nothing should stop him from having that kind of draft capital. Yeah, he's a locked day two, and now it's more, does he go to date in round two or three? Yeah. I think. And I think the best thing we could say at this point is just he's going to be a guy you're going to have to keep your expectations and check with. If you're in your dynasty rookie drafts that he's going in the back of the first round. For fantasy specifically, right?

For fantasy specifically, yeah. You might have to be a little hesitant and say, you know, like really what can this guy do? He can be a good NFL player without being a good fantasy wide receiver. For NFL purposes and team building purposes, I'm all on board with Nathaniel Dell. If I'm looking at it from like, what do I do with my dynasty picks? I don't know that he's ever going to have, he might have a season somewhere in the career where he kind of pops off a little bit. You have to have your expectation. You're not going to be drafting a.

I'm trying to think of some of a guy late round wide receiver, George Pickens, for example, last year. Like, George Pickens could be a legit fantasy wide receiver won one day. Yeah, Alec Pierce's other. Yeah, Alec Pierce. Dell is just probably not going to be that the same way. Juan Dale and Ron Dale more are going to have issues with their careers. You know, all guys are still young and all still have, you know, some upside to them. Yeah, I wrote up in the article yesterday, the only recent real success stories so far, because I

wouldn't call Rondell or Wondell successful yet yet but the only real recent success stories for a guy that size in the NFL Kayla Raymond Isaiah McKenzie yeah there was one other one we came up with two two two to have that well it's like so I mean the you get the you get the picture yeah you get the picture exactly that's none of these guys are leading their team in receiving or receptions or really any they're not leading their team in anything they have roles on their team and they do they can do them well and that's that's their job yep um after a pretty uneventful day i thought tray palmer looked good today you saw that burst and explosiveness yeah he can separate he yeah he might be one of the best separators here and and had with also having

decent size he's not he's not super small and super quick like a guy like dale he um he's got he's a little bit bigger a little bit taller yeah so the way he can separate at his height weight is is very nice to see. Yep. Puka Nakua, unfortunately, did practice today. He was a little banged up. Yeah, we didn't see an exact reason. Yeah.

I don't know if we'll get him back tomorrow. He's still here, which is a good sign. Sometimes when guys get hurt, they just leave. Yes. So he's still here, which, so maybe he throws the pads back on tomorrow. Rishie Rice. I thought he had a really, really good day, but I didn't go stock up for one reason,

and I wanted to talk to you about this, but I'm starting to see some issues with his play strength. I gave you the one example on that hitch route. He runs a hitch. The release was phenomenal. Great footwork, just like you're accustomed to seeing with him. But he lets his chess plate. He's a smaller guy as is.

He's only 200 pounds. Completely exposes his chest plate on his break and gets just mucked up by the corner, which throws the whole timing of the playoff. And it's like, I had this issue with Romeo Dubs last year. It's like when Dubs didn't hit that clean release, he just got worked at the line of scrimmage. And I'm kind of starting to see that where it's like, man, he really has to get that clean release or there's going to be a problem for right now. It doesn't mean he won't develop in the future, but for right now.

So I think expectations on him slightly tempered. I don't think this is a guy that's going to like magically slide into the first round. No, no, no. I think he's going to be probably a second or early third round pick. He should be a productive player one day, but he's not. John Hansen said it perfectly. There's not a special receiver this year. No, there's no Christian Watson.

It's just a lot of guys that have a chance to be pretty darn good, but no special players. As of right now, obviously guys develop. The one guy who might have the best shot at being special is Jaden Reed. Wow, I didn't actually wasn't the name I thought you were going to say. Really? I thought you were going to say Michael Wilson. Oh, we'll get to him in a second. But the Reed is also a very good works in that, I think, too.

Jada Reed is ticking all the boxes. Good size. He can do it all. ridiculous speed. You've seen the technique and the refined ability. MSU used him as like a deep threat only for the most part. Yeah. And you're seeing he's a lot more than that.

He's also has experienced returning punts. Some NFL team is going to love this guy. Yeah. He's probably going, he's going on day two at some point for sure, I think. Yeah. Assuming combine testing and all that still has to happen and will be very important. Yeah. But he is, so far, he's the fastest player at Senior Bowl.

Yes. He has been the fastest. He hit over 20 miles an hour yesterday. day at practice. I'll, interested to see what, you know, the results of today are.

But, you know, the time, I think he ran just under 21 miles an hour that usually translates to, you know, somewhere like high four threes, which is about what I see on tape. So that's legit.

He's super legit, though. I've been very impressed. He'll definitely end the week higher in my rankings than he came into the week. So, let's talk about two guys from Stanford.

One of them I went stock down. One of them I went stock up. Elijah Higgins is that big, super big framed, the fringe tight end kind of big slot guy. For the second day in a row, he's kind of tripping over himself. He's a little clumsy in and out of his brakes. He looks a little too big for the role. Yeah.

You can't quite move like the other guys can, which I didn't see too much of an issue with on the tape, so I don't know why it's becoming so evident here. This is concerning because it's when guys are getting physical with it. Right. And the whole point of being big is to be able to play through the contact and get physical. And that's when he's having some major footwork issues tripping. I mean, he tripped on his own feet like twice today.

When he gets the ball in his hands and, you know, secure it and everything, then he moves, I think, totally fine. Yeah. It's getting out of his breaks and whatnot. And when he's got contact in particular, he's not winning him like I thought he would. Exactly. Yep. And then on the flip side of that, his counterpart, Michael Wilson, who we gloated about yesterday, I mean, the dude looks awesome. And I don't know where this is coming from, but he's a complete package.

He's big, he's strong, he's physical, he's fast, he's quick. He looks really refined, technically speaking. If we don't get another practice from Pooka and Nakula, I think there's a good chance he'll be my favorite wide receiver leaving here. Yeah. Just, just, he's doing it all. And coaches are going to love him for a couple reasons. Three notes I had today. Well, yesterday and today.

First one, we mentioned it yesterday, but when we rolled up at practice yesterday, we were there 30 minutes early. Wilson was out on the field, only receiver out there working by himself doing agility drills and footwork drills and technique drills. By himself, no one around. There's no coaches out there watching him.

I'm sure they heard about it, though. It speaks to his work ethic. and you see it pop, you know, you see that he's getting better. Two, today, in the 11-11, he had a couple of catches on scramble drills. So he's doing the small, intangible type things well. And to add to that, the third point is, in the run-blocking drills, he was freaking baptizing people. Yes.

He was getting after it, just absolutely driving guys back. Love to see that. He's a guy that clearly understands this is his job interview and is just doing and every little thing you can, which time and again from all the, from any draft analyst or whatever, they'll tell you the biggest thing that these guys can do and stuff with these kinds of events is just do all the little things.

NFL coaches love it and he's, he's doing it all. Especially for a guy like him who's presumably buried in this draft class. Right, right. As of right now. Like this is a chance for him to really shine and climb that ladder a little bit. So majorly impressed with him.

like I'm so impressed with him. I'm actually confused on what to do because what we're seeing is it really matching the tape and you don't want to go overboard with how you change expectations for a guy. Yeah, he probably had the catch of the day and falling it back at the back of the end line in the zone. Just died draped all over him, caught it two feet in bounds. It was great. Yep. Stud.

All right. Let's get the tight ends out of the way. Not a lot changed from yesterday. I was impressed with the same dudes I was impressed with. and I was disappointed with the same dudes I was disappointed with. So really not a lot of change. Musgrave just looks like a beast to me. His fluidness for a guy's size,

we noted it yesterday, but it's worth noting again today. And where it really popped today was him tracking deep balls. Yeah, he had a great catch near the sideline. Yeah, over the shoulder, just looked really comfortable doing it. And you don't see that with tight ends that are that big. He's 265 pounds.

I mean, it just looks like it fits. So I was impressed with him. Will Mallory, you see the athleticism. Yeah, you see it. He had one bad drop today on a hitchh route that there was no reason. It hit him right in the hands. The defender wasn't right on top of him. Other than that, though, he just continues to move very fluidly for, you know, a bigger guy.

Yep. Yeah, just continues to probably look like this, the second best tight end here after Musgrave. And no reason to think otherwise at this point. Yep. The other one I wanted to note was Willis. He's listed as a fullback here, but he's playing all tight end. And he looks fast, looks athletic. Yeah, he definitely can play tight end. Yeah, definitely can play tight end.

It'd be interesting to see if that utility kind of, if that does him well in the draft, or if that hurts him because he hasn't really played true tight end, like a ton of reps of that. But maybe some old school team that still carries a fullback might look at this like, hey, I can knock off two roster spots with one guy. Right. My backup tight end for now plus fullback and then kind of develop him into something more maybe. Right.

But he looks good. It looks like he could be a weapon in the past game for somebody. Yeah. Oklahoma has done that too with their guys over the years. Calcutera kind of played that weird, awkward fullback role. The dude that got drafted last year, too. What was his name? He was here at the senior bowl.

as a fullback Hendershot? No. No that he went to Iowa. Yeah. I can't remember his name, but anyways. Andrews also played some weird alignments

when he was at Oklahoma, Mark Andrews. So it's not that uncommon for these Oklahoma guys to do lots of things. Do you have any other notes on the Titans? Davis Allen looked good again. He had a nice catchover the middle. We had to go out for it. It came down.

But yeah, everything else was status quo with the tight ends. Do you see any Jake Ferguson, Davis-Aland? He's a little bigger, though. Ferguson's not as big as him, is he? I think they're roughly the same, like, 240-ish? Maybe I don't remember.

The way they move, like, I just remember, I was having flashbacks watching Allen today, like, because Ferguson was here a year ago, and I was like, this guy just reminds me of Ferguson. Really fluid in space. Not, like, a freak athlete, but... Not flashy. But, yeah, not a freak athlete,

but athletic enough to be a problem. Right. I don't know. I was getting glimpses of Ferguson watching him today. All right, running backs. The bad news of the day is Rochon Johnson is out for the week. He broke his hand yesterday at the beginning of practice. He played right through.

Yeah, stuck it out, finish the practice, but he's shutting it down, unfortunately. He'll be fine for draft time and everything. Nothing major. I think I heard. Six-week recovery? Six-week recovery, but he can still do most of the drills at the combine. which is most important for him right um who most impressed you today at running back uh probably tajy spears yeah he was my second favorite guy after rochon coming into this and now i think he's

has a good chance just to kind of run away with that lead dog running back from the senior bowl uh he's yeah he he he is tough to get hands on once he's in space he he's quick he's elusive um he He looks a decent size. He's not, we're hoping that, you know, it'll be, it'll be interesting to see what his upside can be playing at 204 if he actually stays it that way once he gets to the NFL level. It's just, it's not the best size for a three-down back or anything, but he is, he's the most explosive of the bunch. Chase Brown's probably very close, though. But Spears has- I would say Brown has a beat with long speed.

Spears, though, his suddenness is. ridiculous. Brown would beat him in a 40-yard dash, but Spears can make those one or two extra cuts that Brown doesn't really seem to have in his arsenal at the moment. Yep.

So yeah, Spears is probably my favorite. Pass protection is going to be something that he's going to have to work on. He had one really bad route where he basically just got run over. It looked, I'm not kidding, identical to the Zeke play from the Cowboys' last thing where he just gets run over. Yeah, completely pancakeed. Yeah, just like back

butt on the ground. Yeah, but he came back and had a couple more decent reps, at least for a back of his size anyway. To be fair, too, the way they did pass-pro today was not traditional running back alignments. They were basically setting it up, like they were flexed out into like a wing position or a tight-end position, and they were chipping. Almost like a foot apart from the defender, which is not normally how a running back. So it was legit, almost like a true pass-pro drill, like an offensive lineman would take,

but you're asking a running back to do it. Now, you don't expect the guy to get cremated, but, I mean, you know, it is a tough, you're putting those guys in a tough position. And not many of them did well, to be fair. So, like Eric Gray got murdered and passed. Yeah, he had a bad, bad day after a strong day yesterday. Yeah, loved what I saw yesterday and today. Like, yesterday we were talking about how this, all this might be the three-down, quintessential three-down guy who's kind of plug and play in the NFL. And then, I don't know, I think some teams might be a little scared to put him in Paschrow after it.

happened today. This is why you don't overreact to a couple of practices. Yes, exactly. So, yeah, we'll see what he does. Yeah. On the flip side, Kenny McIntosh looked awesome in Passpro, other than one rep. Yeah, for the most part, which he should. He, you know, he played in Georgia.

Yeah. He's a smaller guy, so you wouldn't assume. No, yeah. So size-wise, yeah, he's not going to be. Those quick feet help him, though. Yeah, allows him to mirror and stay in front of guys. He's not, it's not like he's not seen stuff like this, though. Yes.

this should be stuff that he is at least knows how to utilize his weight and what he can and can't do and at least put himself in position to be okay especially coming from a pro-style offense at college too yeah not a lot has changed for him it would be now if he looked bad that would be very very bad because it means you know all right when you can't do it here you know that's that's probably not good you should be have a little bit more experience than some of these guys yeah um Evan hall didn't look as good as I would have liked in past protection especially considering his passing work. He also had a drop or two,

which his passing work was something I thought he'd have a leg up on on some of the guys here. And it hasn't. Day one was pretty good. Day two was not, though, and he's really going to need to shine in areas like that for him to be any kind of relevant fantasy option for a running back and even like a major part of an offense one day.

For sure. I'm getting nitpicky with Holt, but one thing I didn't like that I saw today was, I know he has potential to be a really good route runner as a running back. And you see it sometimes in practice with the reps. But there's other times where he's so indecisive. He gets up to that option point and he chops his feet for it seems like an eternity. It throws the timing off on the throw.

The defender can usually start to read him like a book when that happens. He's not being decisive. He's not using leverage well. Like I said, I'm being a little nitpicky, but I know he can be better than that. He's going to have to be if he wants to get on the field early in the NFL. Chase Brown probably the best route of the day of the running backs on a wheel route, just like yards between him and the – Smoke the defender.

Yeah. Ball went way over his head, though. Yeah. Too bad. Yes. Cool. Any closing thoughts? I want to mention we – I don't even know if we talked about him yesterday,

but what do you think of Xavier Hutch? I was – dude, I was just going to say we need to talk about Hutch. Because he was probably one of the bigger names coming into this. Definitely production-wise, one of the bigger names coming into this from Ohio, Iowa State, where he was their guy. They used to getting 15 targets a game. I was not impressed with the tape. I thought he was more a function of being force-fed the ball than he was of earning all the work that he got.

He's had pretty good two practices now, though. Yeah, I thought he looked really good today. And in fact, like, I was starting to develop this mindset of, hey, I think he might be just a bigger slot type receiver. Kind of like a Tyler Boyd. Boyd's big for a slot. He's like 6-2 or something. Hutch is close to that. But, man, he's shown me a little speed this week.

And the GPS confirms that. He's been the second fastest player here. And they've been using him on the outside as the X. And he's getting pressed and he's getting off press. things I didn't really think he was super competent with. But his production speaks for itself. He started for three years at Iowa State over 3,000 yards as a receiver and 15 total touchdowns.

Like he's Purdy's guy too. There's a lot of good tape of him and Purdy. You're not going to see it here because they don't tackle or anything. But like I've seen a lot of talk this week about what kind of yak ability he has. And I didn't think I really saw a ton of it on tape. And I would love to see it. I've seen it here, but you're not going to see that kind of stuff here. They're pretty much catching and getting two-hand touch, and, you know, that's the end of the play.

And he, I wouldn't say he's been getting a ton of separation necessarily, but he's making, he's putting himself in good positions to catch the ball when it's down to him. Well, the nature in which they're lining them up as an X against a lot of press, he's not going to get a lot of separation unless it's a super deep route. So he's been using leverage really well, though. Yeah. He's been walling guys off, using. using his body.

You know, things you just don't see, especially in the big 12 lot with a lot of soft coverages they play. So I was definitely impressed with that. Let's, to wrap it up, let's talk Don Tavian Wicks. He didn't have any drops today. No.

And he separated well yesterday. Today, kind of separated well again today. This has been a, I think I said it to you at the practice. It seems like a lot of the guys we were worried about are playing, not necessarily amazing, but playing better than expected. Yeah. Like, it's almost like, it's almost going to get hard to say, you know, this guy was better than this guy.

Or we know this guy should be at the bottom. Even, even Grant DeBue from Charlotte has made, had some good reps where he's getting separation. Yeah. A lot of the, a lot of the, you know, what we thought was bottom tier of receivers are playing, playing pretty well and having, having some success in these one-on-one matchups. Yeah, some of the causes. like one-on-ones are impossible for defenders. Yes. Yes.

But no, it probably circles back to, you know, what you said earlier, just no one's necessarily looking special. Yeah. So it's really creating this clumping group of all the receivers look fine or good with a couple standouts. Yeah, that's fair. All right. I think that covers it.

Yep. We will be back either tomorrow or early Friday. Not sure yet because of our flight situation tomorrow. we will be attending practice tomorrow, but I don't know that we'll be able to actually record the podcast before we have to fly out. So if it doesn't come out tomorrow, we will have another pod for you Friday morning,

kind of recapping our final thoughts from the three days of practice. All right, that's going to do it. Thank you so much for listening to Take Talk. We will be back tomorrow. And I am Brett Whitefield. This is my host. Co-host, Christopher We are out.

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