Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL Draft Prep w/ Matt Miller

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

With the draft a week away, Geoff talks to Matt Miller about all things draft. They discuss the changes in preparation for this draft due to COVID, which of this years QBs they believe in, how different positions are valued on a draft board, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Thursday, April 22nd, and this is Jeff Schwartz of Smartly with me, Jeff Schwartz. Welcome back, everyone. We will continue to hit the draft hard. It's coming up in just a week, and wow, I can't believe it's going to be here already. I'm tired of the oddness that happens the last couple weeks before the draft where we just talk out of our ass. We won't talk out of our ass on this show, I promise you. we just talk out of our ass.

We won't talk out of our ass on this show, I promise you. We're going to have Matt Miller of thedraftscout.com, works for ESPN now, formerly of Bleacher Report. We're going to talk about all things doing with the draft again, just touch on everything before we get to the first round. Again, a week from today, second round, third round on Friday, and then the rest of the draft on Saturday. Very quickly, some housekeeping. I promised you guys the offensive line Grudenkamp show.

It is coming out. It is almost ready to come out. It might be out today when you listen to this. It might be out Friday. I know for sure it's going to be out the week of the draft. I know that for sure. We got a name. We're ready to go.

So be on the lookout on my Twitter, at Jeff Schwartz, for that. And on my Instagram, Jeff Schwartz again. We're going to go. So be on the lookout on my Twitter, at Jeff Schwartz, for that. And on my Instagram, Jeff Schwartz again. We're going to pimp it out. We're going to pump it out. You promise. It's going to be great. I promised you this. It's going to be fabulous.

And you're going to love it. You're going to love it. It's going to go in-depth. X's and O's. We're going to have many different versions, too. We're going to have a version we're going to air on television, a version we're going to air digitally. We're going to have longer versions digitally as well.

So whatever you want, you want the backstory on the players, you want XNOs, it'll all be there. It'll all be there for you guys, and you will truly, truly enjoy it. So look out for that. Again, follow me on social media to get all the details when it finally pops. Again, by the time you hear this, maybe the name will be released, which I know what it will be. I can't obviously share it finally pops. Maybe, again, by the time you hear this, maybe the name will be released, which I know what it will be. I can't obviously share it quite yet.

And you will thoroughly enjoy it. So without further ado, let's get to Matt Miller, talk about the draft, kind of wrap up some loose ends. And lastly, by the way, lastly, next week, we will do a full mock draft. Me, Gabe, Matt, Nick, we're all going to do it. We'll lay out our final draft scenarios,

trades, where we think guys are going to go. We'll nail it all down after listening to, obviously, we had Dane Brugler on and Matt Bowen on and now Matt Miller. All our thoughts together. We'll put them together. We'll have a mock draft for you guys next week. We'll have a draft for reaction as well

that we will have hopefully out Friday night, excuse me, Friday morning after the first round. We'll do all that. So without further ado, here is Matt Miller. Hey, Matt, what's up, buddy? Welcome in. Yeah, man, it's good to finally make this happen. I know you've been super cool handling my insane schedule.

So it's good to be on your podcast for a change. I am glad to have you. I'm really glad that next time we have dinner, it'll be on ESPN's dime this time. So congratulations on the new job. I don't know if the ESPN corporate card system works like the Bleacher Report one did, where now you're telling secrets.

We had a lot of good dinners together over the years. But I like to say, my thing was like, I always learned so much from our dinners. I mean, look at how I'm filling up the front. You and I can see each other, but you know i like to say my thing was like i always learned so much from our dinners just like i mean look at how i'm filling up the like you and i can see each other and i don't fill up the frame like you do i'd never played offensive line man so i learned so much during those very bougie dinners that we would find ourselves in at the super bowl every year the funny part it wasn't even like bougie we would go to just like a regular place and get

like a steak it wasn't like with the mastros and yeah it was like with the mastros and just like ate like the the lobster caviar so um well congrats on the espn deal the new website uh fantastic everyone go subscribe you know what interests me to start with is is kind of your process of building out um your prospects list because you already came out with a 2022 prospects list we won't get to that but like so how does the process begin to put together kind of the the prospect list kind of heading into like the 2021 season especially this year was weird because not everyone played this year yeah and so this 2021 and 2022 are really difficult years to do that and so for 2021 the normal process like you said would start about now um maybe the first week

of april because you start to that that conversation starts with your contacts around the league and agents are actually like people always wonder like why do you like why do you hang out with agents they are a great resource of information especially for things like this and so there's a lot of us like trying to like trade information basically like here's my guys that i'm watching and they're like well hey have you heard about this guy and so it's really just like this big network of people that you all try to share information to get that list for next year because i need to have 700 players for each draft class to watch basically and so you really start by okay you talk to scouts that you know because they're usually a year or two ahead you talk to agents that you trust and then you talk to i don't really

i don't really talk to other people in the media as much as i should because i think they'd be a better resource but people can be i don't like protective of their work and i respect that so you don't get a whole lot of like you know me and Mel Kuyper and Todd McShay aren't sitting down comparing notes for next year's class hopefully that does happen it'd be cool as hell but you know and then I have you know I have my assistant uh Mello who's on my podcast with me who he is a huge resource in that because he's more of a college football guy while I'm more of a NFL draft and NFL guy and so what we do is we each make a separate list, and then we cross-check those lists.

And so I think he told me yesterday he has like 50 more players than I do already. So it's like a competition of like who can find more guys. And then you whittle that list down. But it really is everything. I mean you look at All-American teams from last year. You look at – I even go back sometimes look at recruiting classes like who were the five and four star guys because like Davis Mills from Stanford this year he fell off the radar for a couple years but he was the number one quarterback in his class

it was pretty good when he played his films pretty impressive so really you just try to get that master list of names and then you start whittling it down as you said 2021 was difficult just keeping track like the transfer portal has made things really hard to keep track of where guys are at. I know when I put out my first 2021 list, I had so many people be like, that player's not at that school anymore. It's not like laziness on my part. It's really hard to keep track of where all these guys go.

And so 2022 will be very difficult as well because of the transfer portal, because of that super senior eligibility that people got, you know, last year essentially didn't count. And even building out like a final 2021 draft list, the NFL doesn't put out a list of people who are eligible for the draft. It'd be awesome if they did, but they don't. And so I know, you know, in January, when I launched my new website, like I had some guys on there and people were like, Hey, he actually went back to school. And it's, it is it's tough to to keep track of it all especially with a pandemic going on and the NCAA eligibility rules changing so getting that getting that list

right is the hardest part does it always shock you how much the list moves and I'll give you one example from this year well there's two really there's always quarterbacks right quarterbacks go like Joe Burrow shoots up out of nowhere baker mayfield all these guys shoot up out of nowhere but like a gregory rousseau from this year right now he didn't play at miami but if you looked at the list this time last year he was a top five draft pick absolutely now maybe goes in the first round probably not i think um and so like does it always shock you how much players move up and down throughout the year? Because if you enter the year as a top five, you almost have to do nothing like Rousseau didn't play this year to drop so much.

Yeah, it is interesting. And I think the hard part for me, because I try to be so interactive in this industry and that's not a normal thing. that's not a normal thing the hard part for me is the people who will be like let's look at your you know you and i have a running joke that i the day after the draft i put out a mock draft the next year people love that stuff and you're always like where's your 2025 lazy and so the hard thing is the people who will look at that information to use it against you and be like well last year at this time you had gregory russo as a top five pick now he's gonna go in the probably you know 25 to 35 overall. It's like, okay, that information wasn't wrong.

It requires context, you know, and it's predictive. So that's kind of the hard part with that stuff. Like, it is wild how much it changes, especially this year with, you know, you can have Panay, Sewell, and Rashawn Slater not play, and it doesn't affect their stock. But you have Gregory Russo not play, and it has has hurt his stock and some of that was that you know the pro day wasn't that good i think some of it that hurts him as well as that he opted out and the guys who filled in for him jaylen phillips and quincy roche balled out so you have to be like

how much of that is scheme produced production how much of that is player produced production because i mean as a former offensive lineman you know not all sacks are created equal and so that's where you really have to have the context of scouting to figure out all right is this guy legit or how much of this was just because the situations he was put in let's talk about just the opting out in general because i'm um in contact with with kind of older scouts and i'm part of this group whatever and we hear them talk about it and you know they just they're kind of against it like the old school is like they didn't play they don't love football we saw the backlash to trevor lawrence's comments that were just as simple as like i have a work-life balance it's okay that i have a work-life balance right exactly so so what so what is it about the opt-outs that has some guys, Panay, Rashawn Slater, Jamar Chase, still top 10 guys, but for other guys, it's really dinged them?

Just as far as their physical traits for Sewell and Chase are so good they can ignore it. Exactly. You know, it's that famous line about if Hannibal Lecter ran a 4-4, they'd say he had an eating disorder. You know, it's like if you're good enough, the NFL doesn't care. And it just goes back to that. had an eating disorder you know it's like if you're good enough the nfl doesn't care and it like it just goes back to that like it you know and even like um i wrote about this yesterday i had someone early this week be like hey are you were i had a scout say are you worried about pene sewell's character concerns i was like what character concerns like well yeah you know he's

kind of immature it's like he's 20 20 he's 20 years old and so like my movement right now is to like stop using and i get it we're all like conditioned to use the terminology that's out there my like i'm trying to stop using the term character concerns just like let's define it you know like did the guy punch someone in a bar is he late for class you know what like what is it let's be specific on these things so as far as the opt-outs go you're absolutely absolutely right. There is still like, it's funny in scouting circles. It seems like you're either 25 or you're 55, right? And there aren't as many of the 55 plus guys out there anymore. That's just, the job is hard. There's not that much money in it. People, people wash out pretty quickly. So I think there is still

that group that is very much the, do you love football? And like, man, that's tough. It's really hard for me to sit here, you hopefully on the back end of a global pandemic and say you didn't play football last year you don't love football like we again context is a huge word for me in terms of evaluating you have to understand why you know Caleb Farley from Virginia Tech opts out because he has a family member who I believe is diabetic and severely diabetic. And he was worried about that. Like, remember where we all were over the summer? Like, I understand now, like I live somewhere where people are pretty loose about things, you know, COVID related. But over the summer, this stuff was still very terrifying, you know, and there wasn't the hope inside of a vaccine. And so it's hard for me to sit here remembering how, you know, altered my life was and how protective I was of my parents who were elderly or not elderly.

I don't want my mom to listen to this and kick my ass who are a little bit older, you know. And and so you were so worried about them. It's like if I had opted out of going into work every day and just wanted to do my job from home, no one would have said anything. They're like, yeah, take care of your family. every day and just wanted to do my job from home no one would have said anything they're like yeah take care of your family but because this 20 year old who's playing a sport for free said nah i'm gonna i'm a little worried about my family that means he doesn't love football like i don't i don't get that i think you know it and that is legit you know it is like that i do understand that you have to find out if players love football i have a saying do they love playing football or do they love being a football player?

Because there's status that comes with being a football player, whether it's in college or in the NFL. There's money that comes with it in the NFL. And I think you can actually have some success not truly loving the game but being really good at it. But at some point, you probably will face some adversity, and if you love the game or not will matter. I think what we should be looking for is situations like Isaiah Wilson last year. Coming out of Georgia, he was a young player, and you really didn't hear a whole lot negative about him. But he played four snaps this year for the Titans, and he's not in the NFL right now. So that's the kind of stuff you have to look for.

Not did a dude opt out because his grandmother's diabetic, but does this dude go to practice? Does he do the little things? Does he show up for weight room? Does he show up for position meetings? I think there are a lot of other ways to find out if an athlete really loves football or not. Why don't you mention the character thing? So obviously Dan Orlovsky,

we've discussed on the podcast before, kind of attacked Justin Fields' character. Not personally himself, but he said, hey, I've been hearing about this. And we all hear this. We all hear things about certain players you mentioned Panay Sewell immature 20 years old I I find it so hard to have those discussions because unless I hear that directly from a coach and even then it's sort of like I don't know if I definitely have bias at times

right but how do you how do you sift through that when you hear like a character concern about this guy or a character concern? I don't even talk about it. I rarely ever mention it. And almost because I feel like they're still in college and they're not getting paid to play football. I feel like I just – I say, wait, how do you decide what character concerns for players are ones you're willing to share? Yeah, that's it. I really respect your approach to that, and I'm a little jealous of it, to be honest. I have really over the last two years,

I try not to bring it up unless I'm directly asked. You know, famously or infamously last year, there was a wide receiver at the University of Minnesota named Tyler Johnson, who folks on Twitter thought was going to be a first round pick. And it's toward the middle to end of the year, people were noticing that i had him ranked

pretty low i had him in the in day three and people online thought he was round one so that's a big discrepancy so people were asking me like why are you so low on him and i said well the feedback i have from from scouts who've gone through there is that there are some character concerns people ask what are they again immaturity maybe a work ethic thing and this is all what i've heard from multiple scouts so that's kind of my rule is anymore. Like I'm not going to bring up something unless I'm asked about it or unless we have to explain why someone is falling in the draft. a very short memory about things. All they remember is you say character concerns. They don't see the follow-up where you were like, here's what they are. And so, you know, like Panay this year, or you hear about Christian Barmore, who's kind of hard to coach, you know, maybe had, and he also had a pretty bad pro day, but those are things you can point to and say,

okay, people within the Alabama staff and scouts are saying, hey, this guy's young. He's kind of hard to coach. Maybe that can change. Or like Micah Parsons, you know, there's the quote-unquote character concerns because he was kind of a knucklehead in high school, got in a little bit of trouble, got three days out of school suspension. He was, you know, kind of picking on hazing someone early in his Penn State career. I don't know that that makes you a bad person. I just think it makes you a kid. You know, and there's a difference.

Like we've seen players who have sexually assaulted people. We've seen players who have domestic violence allegations. And again, it goes back to if you're good enough, people don't talk about it. And it is tough. It is one of those things like it's just unfortunate that you have to talk about it. And there's not a right or or good way to go about it so i've tried to just stay out of it and if people if next thursday there's a player who starts falling in the draft and that's when it is my job to reach out and find out okay why did

this player fall is it injury related is it off field related or i'll remember i will never forget a couple years ago i i texted scout was like why is so-and-so falling down the board? And he replied back, because he's not good at football. I was like, oh, okay. That's very fair. You had him higher. Do you find that your rankings by this time right now, your big board, does it generally line up? Like, do you do a post-draft kind of synopsis and, like, figure out where?

Does it line up pretty well with where nfl teams end up taking the players obviously not one through 300 but you know if you have a fourth round grade on someone they're either in the fourth or fifth round somewhere around there for the most part i think it's honestly a lot harder to get like because in the in day three teams have you know there's wildly different values on people you know and so um that's where it gets a little bit harder like you'll have a round seven on a guy who goes around four and you're like okay well i understand that i think i don't aim for a consensus at all like i do send my my list to some scouts who i really trust and i'm my approach is who am i high and who am i low on that's the

feedback i want like i'm not looking for them to change my mind I'm just trying to understand like what the perception is on players it takes a lot for me to move a player up basically like and you know like it's football we all argue about everything all the time yeah it's like just like in the last two weeks I had someone like convince me I was wrong about a player and they did that by go watch this game and like watch this i was like okay but it can't just be well so and so is going to be a first round pick like for every year there's a pick in the first round that i disagree with last year it was damon arnett here's my number 100 overall player and the raiders took him in the first round so like i'm not going to put him in my top 32 just because he's gonna be a first round pick that's not how it works for me yeah i mean it's it's always fun to to look at and

the raiders seem to be that team every year, right? I mean, Henry Ruggs is overdrafted a little bit. Arnett, Colin Farrell was overdrafted. Cleveland Farrell was overdrafted. I'm sure they'll overdraft someone at some point this year. But let's turn attention to the draft. We know Lawrence is one. Zach Wilson is presumably two.

Very quickly before we talk about the third pick, Zach Wilson, I don't know, man. I feel like people are going in on this kid. I don't know. I mean, the whole – someone said he reminds them of like Steph Curry shooting threes. I'm like, what are we doing? What are we doing here, guys?

What's your take on Zach Wilson? I do worry. Lower conference, great offensive line, didn't play very talented defenses. All the highlights of him are making these off-schedule throws. That's not really how you win in the NFL. So Zach Wilson, second pick overall. What's your take on him? I am with you 100%.

And I was at the BYU Pro Day. I enjoyed being around Zach. He's confident. He's kind of gritty, which I like. But yeah, you have to worry about. I always say there are unanswerable questions when you are talking about evaluating players. So you can answer some things,

height, weight, arm strength, speed. You can answer that stuff. The unanswerable questions are, why did he improve so much this year? Was it because of the offensive line? Was it because like everything clicked and slowed down for him? Or was it because of COVID, they played a cupcake schedule you know like i'm sorry ut san antonio and like

north alabama aren't putting a lot of guys into the nfl if you go back to 2019 you know washington utah tennessee decent programs he really struggled against them so that's the hard part is figuring out what connected as you mentioned that offensive line does not get enough credit brady christianson's a stud and he played in a lot of clean pockets and as you mentioned most of what he does is off platform and while we all love patrick mahomes he's him and aaron rogers are really the only guys doing it off platform at a high level you know for every patrick mahomes there's a drew lock for every aaron rogers there's a kyler murray you know there's a lot of players who aren't having success with that. So that's the hard part for me.

It's not even about is he mentally tough enough to handle New York. That's a whole different animal. Is he going to be able to process what he's seeing from defenses? And does the YOLO ball stuff work in the NFL? And what's interesting about Pat Mahomes is that I actually can make the argument that he needs to stop doing that so much and get back on schedule. And I think that people always

ask, well, how can someone like that improve? And I think this offseason, the improvement is more on schedule, more in rhythm and offense. Andy Reid and him have got to find a way to bring the short passing game back, get him in more of a rhythm, take away the exposure to hits hits i think at times last year he got flustered by his offensive line but also just didn't take what was there for him easy throws he tried to make home

runs and so the the the yolo ball works well you know within the structure of your offense but if it is when you have tyree kill, it helps a lot. Yeah, and Travis Kelsey, who's always open, and the ability to run. And look, when Eric Fisher and Mitch Schwartz are there, it makes it much easier, too, because you do have time to make that happen when you don't have that time otherwise. And that's not a knock on Patrick at all.

No, but everyone has to work on things. Exactly. Everyone has areas they can improve. And that's his. All right, let's get to number three pick. you have mac jones going third i believe you're one of the first people i believe on this mac jones going to third overall to the niners train i don't know if you have mac jones rated as your third quarterback i don't think you do no but my argument for this is what i don't get is this one thing is that the niners i don't know if they've specifically told you or heard from someone else them leaking this out to me feels odd but nonetheless we'll ignore that but secondly

the argument is this that i hear from people right well kasha hands offense his dad my chance offense has always worked well with average trait quarterbacks it's made them excel right it's taking them from like middle tier to upper tier in the NFL we've seen Cousins have some scenes like that Jimmy G no Matt Ryan though has an elite arm so I kind of want to throw him maybe out of the conversation but he did have his best season with Kyle so therefore he should take the lesser trait quarterback and Mac Jones because it's going to work in this offense well shouldn't it work with a better trait quarterback and Justin Fields or Trey Lance like I don't if it's that quarterback friendly so the Niners trading up to three, giving away draft picks to me.

It doesn't feel like Mac Jones. Why would they take Mac Jones over these other two quarterbacks? It doesn't make sense. I can't sit here and defend it to you because it doesn't make sense to me either. He's my number 27 overall player. He's my fifth quarterback. So if they draft him at three, that would be a huge discrepancy. And I feel bad because I don't want to be that person who's like, Mac Jones is bad. He's my fifth quarterback. So if they draft him at three, that would be a huge discrepancy.

And I feel bad because I don't want to be that person who's like, Mac Jones is bad. Mac Jones is actually good. He's a good player. He really is. He's very, very smart. He processes the field really well. He's very accurate.

All he's done is win. But I'm with you. If your scheme's that good that you can make average quarterbacks good and good quarterbacks great, why not roll the dice on someone who brings more of a run element to your offense? Someone like – I mean I love Justin Fields. I really do. And I know he has flaws as well. So does Trey Lance. But their flaws can be fixable.

Like their ceiling is exceptionally high. I feel like Mac Jones is at his ceiling. Like smart guys can get a little bit smarter. The game can slow down a little bit more. But you're still like, his arm is what it is, and it's not great. So, like, there are limitations to what he'll be able to do. And I think his ceiling is probably like Kirk Cousins minus the turnovers, which is pretty good.

Yeah. I don't think it's worth three first-round picks, but it's pretty good. So that is the hard part, Jeff. And I think that's why so many people are talking about it constantly is because we all have a hard time wrapping our heads around the idea that, that they traded up this high to draft a quarterback who is not valued thereby. I don't know anyone who has him ranked inside their top five overall

players. Boom. And there it is. Wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. That's cool. But with my wireless, I get unlimited for just $30. Impressive. But does yours have 5G included? Of course. And my wireless saves me $400 a year.

That's because you all have Xfinity Mobile with your internet. It's wireless so good, it keeps one-upping itself. $30 per line per month. Taxes and fees extra. Compares pricing of top carriers. Xfinity internet required. Reduced speeds after 20 gigabits of usage per line most reliable based on root metrics uls report results vary non-endorsement something you mentioned it's very important to discuss here when we say a player shouldn't be taken at third it does not mean they suck and you mentioned that it's very important but guys there's a value assigned to every draft pick right so if you're

the third pick overall there's a certain attachment to that pick of value if you're the 20th pick overall there's an attachment to that that as well so we're saying a guy like mac jones would be reasonable to go 15 that's kind of where we think his value is not three add in the two first round picks niners traded away and that's where you end up with this kind of idea of he maybe not the third pick overall but maybe the 15th but it doesn doesn't mean we think Matt Jones sucks. I think Matt Jones could be good in the NFL. Is he going to win a Super Bowl? It would seem unlikely.

Maybe he goes somewhere. Maybe the Patriots end up trading up to four and taking Matt Jones if the Niners take Lance or Fields. The most fun in the draft as of right now, scenario-wise, is the Falcons at four. Yes. Right? They can do many things. It depends on how they feel about Matt Ryan. What do you think they should do at number four?

I think they should draft Kyle Pitts, and they should do it about three seconds after they come on the clock. Matt Ryan's 35, almost 36. They play in a dome. It's not like he's out in Chicago just getting his ass kicked by the weather. And he's been relatively healthy. I know there was the little back thing. Was that last year you know like he's he's much better than people think i agree had a good career right yeah he's had a very good career like trust me as a lifelong niners fan you would take that all day every day right and so yeah i think you just take

kyle pitts that's the answer to most questions for me in the top 10 like what should this team do is kyle pitts available you know it's like the flow chart thing like should you do this the first drop down from the should you do this for me is is kyle pitts available if the answer is yes draft kyle pitts if not then you have to figure something else out but man he's just he's crazy good and i don't know how defenses are going to deal with him i know everybody's like bracket coverage okay cool you're assigning two defenders to a tight end um I'm gonna tear you apart underneath with if you do that all day every day so have fun with it I'm I'm with you there I mean the matchup nightmare uh and people afloat the Niners taking him just to screw with teams I mean

that would be obviously you can't trade two first round picks for pits maybe you can that would be, obviously, you can't trade two first-round picks for Pitts. Maybe you can. It would be better to trade two first-round picks for Matt Jones. Fair enough. What surprises do you think that we have in store? We'll be a week away by the time this airs for the draft. It feels like everyone wants to trade down after the Falcons, which trading down is never a bad thing, except the Bengals. The Bengals are staying at five, I believe. Is that really what we're going to see?

A lot of teams trading down and maybe the Broncos and Panthers and Washington training up for quarterback I think I understand right now it's the time of year where everyone has to put out the x team wants to trade down I'm sure they all do because everyone wants that hall of future draft capital especially with it's been very well reported by people like Kaylin Kaler that this year's draft class is very small and there's just difficulties of evaluating this year so i think everybody wants more picks next year when the class is gonna be bigger and you can actually be on campus evaluating players but like it takes someone wanting to trade up for you to trade down and i think that's what people have to remember is like the giants want to trade down okay cool who wants the 11th pick the quarterbacks

are going to be gone the tackles are going to be gone. The tackles are going to be gone. There are no edge rushers. So why would you want to trade up to 11? You know, so I think that's the thing right now that everybody has to remember and like pump the brakes on is, yes, your team probably would like to trade down. But why? Why would someone want to trade up? And I think, as you mentioned, after the quarterbacks are gone, after those five quarterbacks are gone, there's not a whole lot to trade up for this year.

You know, especially with Devontae Smith being basically a high school freshman at 166 pounds. There's just not that other player that you want to move up the board for. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting draft. There's a lot of depth, but after maybe the top four or five guys, teams aren't trading up for those guys. The story broke this week, I guess, the Steelers maybe taking a running back at 24.

Where do you stand on the idea of running back value in the draft and where they should go? Yeah, I'm okay with drafting a running back in the back half of round one because you're a playoff team at that point. You're probably just trying to plug a hole to get over the top. We saw Kansas City do it last year with Clyde. So I'm okay with it. I'm just against second contracts for running backs.

Like if you want to draft a running back in the first round, I picked 24 overall. You have five years of a very inexpensive, very crucial part of your offense, especially if they can catch the football like Najee Harris can from Alabama. I think that could be smart team building. The key is after five years and maybe one year under the franchise tag, you have to let them walk.

You can't look at, okay, this guy's been in the league six or seven years. Now let's give him a second contract that's $15 million a year. I don't think that's very smart team building. And I don't know that there's an example of it working. You know, even like Ezekiel Elliott hasn't really been the same guy on his second contract. Christian McCaffrey gets a second contract, boom, out for the year. So it's just, it's hard for me to justify paying someone such a large percentage of the salary cap when you can probably get that job done with two players who would cost less.

Or I think if you're good at evaluating talent and drafting, you can just recycle that player every five to six years. You know, teams are not meant to be together for 10 years. You really should be recycling your team every four years. And so I think the running back position should be a part of that. So if I ever, you know, get that call to jump from ESPN to running a team, which probably won't happen, I'm too controversial, but I mean, that would be my strategy is, hey,

we're going to draft a good running back and he's going to be here for five to six years. Then we're going to move on and get another one. And I think the receiver position should be viewed the same way outside of, you know, Larry Fitzgerald and Julio Jones, wide receiver value to me is just crazy. Like Jamar chase is really good. I understand drafting him early. There's just not a lot of hits at first round wide receivers.

I think that's the position where we like the Tennessee Titans, they get AJ Brown on the second round, great value. And he's inexpensive for four years. He's a great player. And then, you know, you're not upside down on your value with him. Let's end with this. A couple guys you think might sneak in the first round that might surprise. The two names I've heard most, Davis Mills out of Stanford

and Joe Tryon from Washington. I do think Brady Christensen could maybe sneak in there for the Chiefs at 31. Who are a couple guys you that might that might be called Thursday that might be surprises for for the casual fan Andy Reid drafting a BYU offensive tackle will be the most Andy Reid thing ever so I like that one I feel like that I feel like

Chiefs fans keep thinking tackle feels like the position they have to draft and maybe you overdraft yeah that spot you know you just you need that guy right I don't hate it and yeah and it feels like at 31 you know the top you know the top three tackles are gone avt is gone he plays guard in the nfl anyways i think it's like who's leatherwood's probably a guard right in the nfl like who's who's and christiansen's athletic numbers i mean walker little feels like another mitch schwartz like my brother. So that might be it. But that's still early at 31.

The draft guy hasn't played in two years. Right. So who are a couple guys you think that sneak up in that first round? People are like, oh, how'd that guy go so high? Yeah, I like your picks there a lot. I'll say Levi Onwuzirike, the defensive lineman from Washington. I think he'll go first round. I feel pretty good about that one.

Really? Yeah, I think he will. It's a bad deal. He set out this year too, right? He did. He did. Yeah, I think that'll go first round. I feel pretty good about that one. Really? Yeah, I think he will. It's a bad year. He set out this year, too, right? He did. He did. Yeah, I think that probably helped. And Joe Tryon.

Both guys set out. And we were like, what are they doing? Washington's going to be terrible is what we were saying. Another one, I don't know if – I don't think – I'm trying to think of people who aren't common. I'll say Pat Freermuth, the tight end from Penn State, also goes – if he doesn't go round one, he'll go 33. Okay. Okay. Okay. Interesting.

Yeah. I try not to be like Jermaine Davis from Kentucky. It's like, yeah, everyone knows that. You know, he's not a household name. Like, he'll be a first-round pick, you know. So, try to stay away from the maybe obvious ones. What are you doing on draft night? Are you going to be with ESPN's coverage or you have your own thing going?

I'll be in Cleveland. My job this year is the new guy is to do a lot of the day, day of stuff, you know, so get up sports center, NFL live. And then night of the draft, I think I will probably be chilling in my hotel room,

just blasting pics on Twitter and, and trying to, you know, I, it's been since 2010 was the last time I watched the NFL draft, like watched it on television. So I'm kind of excited about that. I'm a little sad about it too. Like it's a little weird, but, um, when you're asked to do like, Hey, all day throughout the draft, you want to be on sports center and get up and

NFL live. Like you don't say no to that. You'd be an idiot, right? As someone who dreamed of this as a child, like, hey, do you want to be on ESPN all day of the draft? Yes, I want to do that. So night of the draft, I don't know exactly yet what I'll be doing. Something. Are you going to tip picks?

No, I can't anymore. Ah. I know. Can't go to Matt's Twitter and't haven't hit pics anymore right company company policy just a big you're a big dog now man right big dog on the bleacher report coverage i used to be like two picks ahead of the of the stream on tv and some people loved it some people hated it but i know our producers i don't care loved it yeah i mean yeah it is hard when you're doing like i'm doing a draft show for fox it is hard

when you're doing it kind of live and you're looking at twitter and you're like three picks behind you're like all right you know what's happening i have to act surprised that this weird thing just happened yep exactly so i'll probably be on twitter just like analyzing the picks or telling people kind of what i'm hearing things like that would be my my best guess unless you know i mean that i keep telling like, I'm in the bullpen. You know, somebody gets the sniffles, call me up. I'll be ready to go. Fantastic.

All right, Matt, I know you have to run. Thank you for coming on today at NFL DraftScout, thedraftscout.com. And now ESPN. Really appreciate it, buddy. Go have fun at ESPN today. Thanks, man. Appreciate you. Talk soon.

Thank you, Matt, for coming on. That was fabulous, as usual. Matt is just the best. I've known him for a long time now and works his butt off, man. Appreciate you. Talk soon. Thank you, Matt, for coming on. That was fabulous as usual. Matt is just the best I've known him for a long time now and works his butt off, man. He's one of the best in the industry as getting sources and figuring out where teams and what teams are going to do in the draft.

Please rate, review, subscribe. Really appreciate getting the feedback on this. It helps, obviously, the podcast. Just be a better podcast. Always appreciate any feedback and we'll talk to you guys next week. Take care, everyone.