Green Light with Chris Long - Ben Solak! NFL Draft Recap, Eagles Draft Haul & Potential of QBs! 18 Game NFL Season, David Tepper & NBA Playoffs & Myrtle Beach

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

NFL Draft recap and analysis with The Ringer's Ben Solak! He joins Chris and Macon to talk about the drafted QBs potential success, teams with the best picks, the Eagles impressive draft and what the 49ers could do at the wide receiver position. Chris and Macon kick things off with a little sports roundup and a review of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. (00:00) - Hello: Galveston, Texas (3:00) - Shoutout to Myrtle Beach (19:03) - NFL Roundup: 18 Game Season, David Tepper & JC Latham's Hug for Roger Goodell (25:20) - NBA Playoff Reactions & Chris' NBA Comp (54:30) - Ben Solak on recaps the NFL Draft, talks the Eagles' Impressive Draft Haul, the Chargers Getting Protection for Herbert, Potential for the QBs, the Falcons Reach & the 49ers Possible WR Trade Want your Green Light Merch so you can look exactly like Chris and the fellas? Hit the website below and get kitted! https://stores.kotisdesign.com/yotehouse/products Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ Send any Talent Search submissions to: [e-mail] Include any video of your talents, takes and bits as well as a little bit about yourself. Love hearing from the Green Light fans. Also, check out our paddling partners at Appomattox River Company to get your canoes, kayaks and paddleboards so you're set to hit the river this summer. https://paddleva.com/ Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light Tube YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgxWFAA-wuB7osdiAJyLOcw Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah, Drake doesn't take a five-yard route and there's a 50-yard route that might be opened down the field. And that's the problem with him is Drake's big game hunter. And it's nice when you get the picture with the eight-point buck, but sometimes you go home empty-handed. And so it's a little bit of the same risk management that we talk about with Caleb. Caleb's more so, you know, getting outside of structure and kind of ignoring the first, the first read of the play. Drake is more listened. Like sometimes you play for second and eight. Sometimes we play to stay on script.

We only have so many third and nine calls, young man. We can't keep getting to this long down and distance, especially if we can't pass protection. for you, which might be an issue in New England. And so for him, it's being more willing to take the underneath stuff right now and not try to win every single game in one or two. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. Hey folks, you want more NFL draft content. Boy, do you get it today.

Ben Solek from the ringer joins Chris and Macon. We'll recap the NFL draft. We'll talk about the best picks, the biggest reaches, what players are going to have an immediate impact, what fits are the best, what teams made out looking like geniuses, what teams might have some work to do. Ben is a wizard at this. He really shows his knowledge. That's the second half of today's show.

We start off with some sporting recap. We hit a couple NFL news stories. We talk NBA. And Chris recaps his boy's trip to Myrtle Beach. An entertaining show for y'all today. Enjoy it. We'll catch it the end of the week. They call me free blowing there.

Got the green line thing. Galveston, Texas. Oh. Hello. Fine beaches in Galveston, Texas. I just love how Chuck is like the only person you can get away with being. I know. The women in San Antonio are fat.

As fuck. And he just keeps coming back to it. So I feel like since Chuck's doing it, if you're not trying to cancel Chuck, I can talk about it too. I'd love to see how fat the women are in Texas. I mean, not in Texas in San Antonio. There must be something different about San Antonio. I think, well, the impetus was his catching a little bit of heat for saying it the first time. He caught heat, but he's not like, listen, if Ryan Rist's,

Rissillo said that, there's going to be pitchforks. Chuck just has a force field around. He can say anything. He first said it years ago and he just keeps saying it. Chuck can say whatever he wants. And I think it should be that way. I think if Ryan Rissillo said that, people would say, who? That's good.

Speaking of San Antonio, that's where Kevin Durant should go next. It's not going to work out. It would be incredible. I also like the O KC reunion. Yeah, yeah. All right, so Galveston, that's where the the pelicans are going, according to Charles Barkley. We're going to talk about the NBA in a little bit.

I also want to say Myrtle Beach. Hello! I finally went to Myrtle Beach. Oh, I didn't know that part of it. I've never been there. Was it you or Rod Carriker that went? It was a little bit of both. Now, I'm a huge eastbound and down fan.

So, you know, the mermaid's big part of TV lore for me. And just imagining, like, why do you know, did they pick Myrtle Beach? Well, it makes perfect sense to me. That place is perfectly fine, but it's just not a place that I'm going again. Yeah. You know what I mean? North Myrtle was our beach week at UVA every year.

I'd imagine if you're younger, it actually works out for you. Yeah, yeah. Spanish Galleon, Speedy, shout out. So I was invited to Myrtle Beach for a guy's trip. And then when I showed up, I knew that we were like playing golf on the trip, but I didn't realize it was a golf trip. When you told me you're going to Myrtle, you were like, I'm going with. I'm like, let me stop you right there.

I know who you're going with. Yeah, all my boys from high school. But like, you know, they're like, we're going to play golf down there. Anyways, we get down there and immediately, like, we go to the golf course and we're going to play 18. I find out. It's just like, man, that's a long fucking time. And then on top of that, like, I couldn't even hit a ball the first, you know,

hole on the golf course or the 18th or the 9 because they were smuggling me like a fucking like a nanny from Honduras, dude. They just, I wasn't allowed to hit the ball. You're not allowed to have six golfers. So they were just like, I had no clubs. I'd pull up to a ball and be like, hey, like, it was me and Anthony. We didn't have any clubs. The other four guys had clubs.

We shared a golf cart. It made no sense. Three carts. Three carts. Four bags. Four bags. And four bags on two of the cards. Then one cart is just me and Anthony driving around like after we'd hit a ball.

And we'd be like, oh, we didn't have a fucking ball. you know it's terrible was there a marshal patrolling there was a guy and we kept it we kept it together of course what time of day this is daytime we don't play day time got you got it okay we were out there on the i was i was i was i was uh i was on the boomers and uh i'll just i tried to keep a log of like what i was going to like i started out i was like i was going to keep score you know like because i was going to bring it back to read i was thinking about Here's my synopsis. Whole one, not allowed to hit.

Ranger didn't think I was golfing. Two, kind of amazing drive. No practice swings was back in. Ten, but I was on in four. And I blame my friend's stupid fucking flat grip putter. You know the flat grip putters are stupid. Okay. I quit on three.

I hit it into a neighborhood twice. And I saw Hawk on hole three. Four, I have cart girl, fireball, Marlboro. So we started smoking cigarettes around hole four. Uh, five, strictly hitting irons now, not hitting the driver anymore. Uh, loving the Texas wedge. Six lost my ball, but got a five. Bo face timed me on seven, so I missed the hole completely.

Um, things got sideways on eight, incredible approach on nine. Uh, right in front of the clubhouse. It was incredible. The approach was incredible. Everybody was watching. Yeah. Except the ranger. It was one of these old golf courses.

You know what I mean? Like everybody knows what I'm talking about. These places that used to be fucking like plantations and they turned them into golf courses and they called the like the club house like mr laney's house he used to look out where instead of golf it was like hey work harder for nothing i think from the second floor window i think plantation would have done all the work for you there well no but that's what it was yeah it's what it was i don't like that you say the quiet part out loud it's a good part about but you he listen so anyways yeah uh we did see a gator on 11 there was like a 15 foot well not a 15 foot

we pulled in and then we got very good close to a 10-footer. You have to be a moron to get eaten by an alligator. Go on. I don't know, actually. I don't know that they can move very fast. Okay. So anyways, we did see some, uh, some, some gators. It was awesome. We went to this bar down there called the Bowery. In there. Yeah. Good bar. Way too well lit, but it was a really good time. Ended up sitting down at a table next to a bunch of Eagles fans accidentally. And I just, I want to shout them out. There was one Eagles fan

that started the conversation. He was a huge fan. He was so nice. The whole group was so nice. Then they found out my friend Kenny is a Cowboys fan. And I wasn't paying attention. He tapped Kenny on the shoulder. And he was like, wait, you're a Cowboys fan? And my friend laughed

because he thought, that's funny, right? It's just a funny thing. We can all laugh about it. And the guy goes, you fucking pussy? and turns around. I'm like, bro, I bought this table shots. I've taken a picture with all of you. He's the Eagles fans, they wear their emotions on their sleeves.

I want to shout those people out. I also want to shout out the guys from the Shenandoah Valley who were sitting right next to us too. We were holding it down. We were holding court, and it was a great weekend. I want to shout out the city of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, which is just okay. Did you have to wake up the next morning and play more a call? Dude, no, I was playing Calladood. Well, okay, so is this a code break?

So my friend brought down a PS2. Okay? And we were playing PS2 at like three, four, five in the morning, eating Speedway pizza, which, by the way, is the worst pizza ever. It's awful. It's worse than Emo's. But Call of Duty on PS2 was a blast. And the only people online on PS2 are like Russians and people in Central America.

like I'm pretty sure I'm playing with like cartel guys and people that are going to get offline and go fight the Ukrainians. I can't believe it still connects. Yeah, well, it does for people in countries that are a couple of years behind us. You know what I mean? Anyways, the point is the second day I said, fuck golf, guys. I'm going to stay home and play Call of Duty. And I did. And it was great.

And I don't think I should be criticized for that because I was on a golf trip, but I wasn't allowed to golf. Yeah. If you want to give me a bag and a scorecard and you're not smuggling me across the border, then I'll play golf two days. So even the second day you were. Dude, I was never going to have an actual spot. It was always going to be like, hey. That's a little, that's a code break on the trip.

On their part, right? Yeah. Easily, yes. Thank you. Should somebody volunteer their spot to you if you didn't get to play the day before? Not at all. Or maybe say, hey, it's a golf trip. Yeah.

From jump. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Actually, the big code break is a PlayStation 2. No, I loved it. It was awesome. It still worked, bro.

It was still amazing. Anyways, let's start with some NFL stuff. We are going to talk about the draft briefly here, but then we're going to have Ben Solac on. The authority. The authority on the NFL draft. Because in real time, I missed some of these picks. Listen, highlighted the draft for me probably.

There were a few things that happened that had none to do with football, right? as it always is in the NFL. Before the draft, I'd heard that Roger Goodell was dealing with a back. He had back surgery. It was kind of up in the air, whether he was going to hug people or not. And then this Latham guy gets picked by the Titans,

and he picks him up like a child. Yeah. Like completely rearranged this guy's back. And I just wonder how Roger's doing today. You know, because I know that. Might have relined it. Oh, he's might have hopped up on painkillers. Yeah.

There had to have been a mandate not to pick him up, I think, since there was only one. He was probably told at some point. Right. And J.C. had such good vibes, high energy. It was okay. Wagtastic.

But if he was mean about a back, I don't know. I kind of like that, though. Honestly, that's what you want out of an offensive lineman. Like, I want to hurt somebody, even if it's a commissioner. Okay. You know what I mean? I also thought he was very well-dressed. And shout out to Bo Allen, who was in Detroit,

interviewing a lot of the players, hanging out at the draft, talking to fans. So check out that conference. then there was a David Tepper thing so evidently there was a restaurant in Charlotte for those of you who are not very online maybe you saw this but there's a restaurant in Charlotte that had a big sign on the restaurant and it's near the stadium and it said let the GM and the coach make the picks this year yep which is fair it's a fair request right it's funny uh so Tepper and I don't know if he was told about the sign or saw the sign and like just in real time was like pulling here he told his guys in black suits like pulling here and there's there's security footage of him walking in in broad daylight talking to the person at the sir at the you know at the what do they call that that that that's the host the host stand he's at the host stand there's three people one of them's a guy he's got a hat on

and he's berating these people presumably and all of a sudden he reaches and takes the guy's fucking hat off yeah like office head like disrespectfully and to me don't like don't do that like unless you're like a gal flirting with a guy like that's a flirty thing to do it's a fight thing to do like when you take it somebody's hat off that you don't know off their head especially if you're big-boiling them in their restaurant look they have no idea it's david tepper at first or maybe maybe one of the guys does because body language is like oh just another customer and then they find out that like look he takes his hat off his head he puts him on the table.

I find out later, this is an Eagles hat. Yep. So look at him. He's like, I didn't put up the sign. I don't know. I like good football teams. Yeah, well, maybe you should not make the picks, sir. Here's what I think should happen before you are a billionaire in this country.

Like the minute you clear $999 million, whatever, all the nines. The minute you creep up into that billion dollar echelon, you should get jumped in like a gang. Like if you're like like like if if you're a Crip or a blood presumably you get beat up by a bunch of guys, right? You get jumped into the gang. Initiation. Billionaires act like gang members, right?

They really do. They stick together. They, you know, they, they affect business however they can. They play dirty. Okay. No disrespect to the bloods of the Crips. All right. We just had Max O'Creme in here, you know.

But the difference is Maxo Creme got jumped in. I presume. David Tepper didn't get jumped in. If he had gotten his ass kicked one time in his life, he wouldn't do stuff like this. He wouldn't be throwing drinks on people. He wouldn't be pulling people's hats off their heads. I say that in this country,

hey, we're not going to be able to do away with the billionaire classes. Way too many people in red hats that seem to like those people. Okay. The billionaires should have to get their asses kicked if they want to be billionaires. If they're going to be billionaires, they should at the very least act respectfully because of that. fear that gets, you know. So I don't know who would jump David Tepper in. Maybe it would be like Michael Bidwell. So it's not going to hurt very much. But I actually think this is, this thing's got

legs. If you're going to be a billionaire in this country, you should get jumped in. The weird part about this at the end is they walk away smiling. I don't know if it's like a sarcastic laugh. Ha ha. Well, and you know what? Here's the thing. We're not giving David Tepper the benefit of the doubt here. I haven't heard anything from these people. Maybe he came in here. He was just joking and he wanted to introduce himself and he does put he shakes his hand and he walks out and that sort of thing we are not given david tepper the benefit of the doubt maybe he just busted their balls and came in and introduced themselves and he was like what's up with this eagle's hat and it's just a bad rich guy habit but once you do some of the things he's done you can't expect to get the benefit of the doubt

correct you're maybe if you know what i'm going to do today i'm going to go make this guy's day maybe he did yep and i don't want to be unfair to him but i would just say i mean like we like an incident ago i wish i thought of this an ass kicking would do these guys good yeah You know what I mean? Anyways, speaking of billionaires and owners in the NFL, he's the type of guy who would really love 18 games, right? Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, Roger Goodell is talking about it again. There comes a point where you're like, okay, they're just going to, they're just going to try to do the thing. They're just going to do it. Like, there's nothing that we as players or fans seem to be able to do. I mean, a lot of the fans are on the side of, Hey, like this 16 seem pretty good.

17's enough, man, you know, like, I think it's just the bottom line. Like, they're always going to chase the next 10%, the next TV deal. They're just going to try to load this thing up. And if you know the NFL geographically from an entertainment standpoint, from a calendar standpoint, because there's some of that's baked into this report that Roger Goodell wants to do the president's day weekend, fucking Super Bowl, which would be Sunday. It'd be a week later. so we're creeping even more into everybody else's shit.

But you get the day off. The people get the day off on the Monday. People get the day off on the Monday, which is nice. So fans might actually like that. But what we're doing is just widening the season. And you're telling me, well, we're not going to play any preseason games. Well, that's going to hurt the players. That's going to hurt a lot of the undrafted players.

We talked about this right before. It's like, guys are going to have less chances of making teams because they're less chances of showing out. You're not going to know who's on your roster. the veteran players might not get as much work. I agree with constricting the preseason. But if I were commissioner, I'd do that and then just do that, right? Like, we're at 17.

Let's just stop here. It's also incongruous with their effort to reduce injuries. We had the most number of quarterbacks start a game ever last season. But we know this. Like, right? It's like, we know this. It's like, this is a wink nod thing where you're like, hey, player safety. it's not player safety they don't care about player safety they care about the bottom line and this is

just them bullying their way through it and i got to say like i it just speaks to the fact that no matter who the nfl shows themselves to be in any given moment they're still the NFL because ultimately the dollar rules the day and that's what they're after after more money more slots i don't know that we're ever going to get too much to the NFL from a consumer standpoint like fans might complain about it and they're going to watch. They're going to be back in the chow line. But I think players eventually are going to break down off of this thing. And do not tell me that preseason is equal to a to a regular season game. Like that doesn't make any sense. I almost didn't say anything about it because it seems so obvious to me. But here we are with Roger Goodell and News again talking about

more football games. Part of the reason football is great is because there's only so many games. How early could it happen? I don't know if that. I don't know if like a timeline's been laid out. But it seems if you were a player, advocate for two by weeks. Because if you want to make the season go to a three game weekend. And they could go to two by week. Yeah. For sure. But, but you can't make this seem like we're going to take something out of this cup and pour in the other cup. It's not a, they're not the same. You know, taking sand out of the preseason hourglass and putting it into the regular season now, it does not equate. Right. You know, so even if you throw two by weeks in there. And I think at some point, the NFL is going to hit a point

of diminishing return where like something's going to go wrong. You're going to get more games and, you know, whether the fans at this point are, they seem indifferent, but eventually they get burned out or the players get burned out or the injuries rise to the point where, you know, a lot of our players or stars are not going to be playing the playoffs. Look what the NBA is dealing with right now. I know it's a totally different league. It's kind of a transition. but like talking about the NBA playoffs dude there was an article in esPN.com I don't know if you read this article about

about some of the metrics on how much guys are playing but like the playoffs right now have been I would say it's been a good playoff it hasn't been great right the quality of the games has been really good like that maverick's game yesterday was amazing Paul George, I step back

you had the Nuggets first first game winner in franchise history in the playoffs like there have been some really great moments but the bottom line is there have been 11 games missed by All Stars so far in this first round alone, right? And stars drive the league, right? And a lot of those stars are about to be eliminated. A lot of the stars are about to be eliminated, you know, whether it's Lillard and Janus or Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant, Bill, LeBron, Kauai.

Now that series is tied, but there's a lot of guys that are missing time. And they look better without him. It's pretty damning. It's pretty damning because like the NBA You talk about load management It's a long season I think most people are fine with that And when you look at it

Players actually miss less games This year than last year Right But the playoff metric is like we're just a game shy Of All Starves missing games last year Like I think you missed 12 games last year We're game shy already in the playoffs And you know

Commissioner Silver He was like hey guys miss less games in the regular season this year but when you look at it where they missed less games they front loaded the rest or they they front loaded the playing and and on the back half of the season teams made a huge effort i think uh i think in october and november was 11 percent missed time by all stars right in march and april 29 percent like that's a problem and i think it's a problem because in crunch time you want to see your best players playing down the stretch like when you get into the play end time and all that stuff and like when people are really

paying attention after football but also when you're not playing players in the second half of the season i'm not an NBA player i don't know how this works but i can tell you like the time you have to be ready to go like the time you have to be ready to perform and fight through soreness and and avoid injury is the playoffs now one as an athlete one way you look at that is like hey you want to rest guys before the big push but another way i'd like look at it as like the NFL season for instance is a huge push it's a couple couple when you don't do training camp sure you can have fresh legs but you're also out of shape and more injuries happen and you think about like if guys are missing a lot of games late in the season it seems obvious that they'd be

more rested but also they could be out of shape and you know like I wonder you as a basketball fan looking at guys missing more games down the stretch do you actually think that helps or do you think that's why we are here, where we are, or do you think it's just an anomaly? So in general, I think that the NBA regular season doesn't matter to fans as much. Like, even a fan of a team is totally cool with a guy resting because it's like, hey, we're going to make the playoffs. It doesn't matter. Right. Two, four, six, whatever. So there's more leeway for like letting players rest and not being upset about that. That being said, I think that you need to ramp up right before the playoffs. Right. Because the playoffs is,

more so than any other sport, a different version of the game. Like the game looks different. The totals are different. It plays different. It's more physical. And you can't just go from not having played to all of a sudden playing the most physical games of the year trying to play 40 minutes. Look at what Embedd's trying to do right now. He's gassed. I mean, guys like Anthony Davis and LeBron James look gassed. Like, you do have to ramp up. I think the nuggets do a really nice job of focusing on the very end of that season and getting their guys lots of time. And Lucas gas. He plays more minutes than anybody in the NBA. So on the other side of it, you're like, well, you don't want that.

Back in the fucking 80s and 90s, one and a half All-Stars missed, one and a half games missed by All-Stars. Back in the 80s. That was in this article. It was crazy to me. Like, you know what I mean? And those guys were playing nonstop. And they were playing for a lot less money. And 82 games.

Number of games hasn't changed. And in the NFL, when they backed off in training camp and there were certain. like things with the new CBA was like, you can't do contact so many days like yada, yada yada. There were always the players who were like super happy that it happened, but you'd always hear coaches talk about well, injury rates are up. Explain that.

And while part of it just could be an anomaly and that sort of thing statistically year and a year out, I also think there is something too, like not callousing your body in that way. You know, like if you've been hitting all training camp and you make it through training camp, there's other ways to get that gas back in the tank as a coach. but if you miss training camp and you haven't calished your body in that way and you're not ready to absorb those blows not to draw a clean parallel but you know you you seem to incur more injuries you haven't parallel is

is pretty clean and like there's this assumption where it's like okay yonis is going to be back so we're good like he hasn't played in three weeks april ninth or even more like it's not yeah yeah no it's crazy and i don't know i'd go through all these injuries and some of them might be acute some of them might be you know they were playing too much in the second half of the season or whatever it might not support the data here but you you look at it and I just know as an athlete sometimes when you take a break or when you delode and then load up like that can cause a problem so the NBA just as an organization needs to figure out you know how to load manage without you know having this issue there's really simple solution what is it play less game I don't know though

does it really change that much if you go to 76 games nobody watches every game it's impossible like i think if you go to i'm not worried about the games like you just get more space between 70 games yeah i mean the reason why they wouldn't want to do that is lost revenue but but so but talking about the 80s and 90s space the games out more because they've been playing 82 games since 1967 i know but if you're going to start comparing like the athletes of yesterday year to today's there's going to be all sorts of, you know, uh, factors. There's going to be speed of the game, the explosiveness of the athletes, the whole thing like teams are running up and down the court nonstop now. Back in the day, it was like half court sets, big guys like, you know, so I just look at things and I say,

it was easy to say, well, those guys were built different. Well, you know, but it was a different league. And I don't know how that that lands, but to me, if it were that easy to say, if it were that easy to say, hey, just play, do what Bill Lambert did. Does it, is that true? Yes, because closing out on three-pointers constantly, there's more running. I guess. More jumping. I will say not to just play contrarian. I love the shot making.

I don't love the game. It doesn't seem like basketball to me. Well, there's been some people that want to fix that. Kirk Goldsbury says he wants to get rid of the corner three because it's bended the game so much. And that's where I see guys just standing. They just, they plan. So what do you do? You just round the three-point line a little bit.

It's been a couple of purposes. One is expanding the width of the court so that the three-point line isn't shorter in the corner. Right. One would be just having the three-point line literally go out of bounds so there is no corner three. Yeah. I just would like to be able to recognize a play every now and again as opposed to ISO, pick and roll. You know, like James Harden, ISO? No, I don't.

Mavericks forcing him right and letting him be done. Well, it's incredible playmaking and shot making. It just doesn't seem like a cohesive. Dude, I really enjoyed that Mavericks game yesterday. It was cool. the fourth. I mean, that was a great game. Besides the fact the Mabs didn't seem to be able to get out of their own way. They missed a bunch of free throws.

They were tired from coming back from 31 points. They were tired. And you could tell they were tired. And like, Kari was awesome. But then there were plays where he'd dribble off his knee and like, they were just sloppy sometimes. That finish he had, though, over three guys when he just finishes of it. I'm not taking anything away from. Levitated. But what I'm saying, like when they really needed a bucket at times,

they get sloppy. And Luca didn't get touches. And then Luca, who we mentioned, is tired. also ended up with five fouls like in the beginning of the fourth quarter and then Hardin started going off they were trying to screen him right next to the ball they were they were constantly trying to pull him right next to the ball so they could screen off him and get him on like Hardin and type of shit and go at him and get him fouled out of the game he had to he had to really he wasn't playing aggressive defensively late in the game and I don't blame him and then their help defense is terrible it was like James Harmon would beat somebody and that fucking forward I don't know what he's good for

you're the NBA fan Gafford or PJ Washington No the white guy Oh um What's his name? Exactly It's not Derek Lively Leba Max C Cleaver Yeah

I'm sure he's a good player But what like what's the strategy there I think I know what the strategy was And I think it was idiotic their strategy was to let James Harden drive only to his right And not help off of anybody force him to make floaters Oh they were worried about the plumbly alley-oop I think so

Right. Like it was a game though for me that was fun. Like as a guy who's who, hey, I know these guys better than new guys. Seeing James Harden go off. Seeing, seeing Kyrie go off. Like there were some guys that to me, Kyrie with some of his mind comp stuff and just the team movement, you kind of lost track of him. And and same thing with Hardin where it's like sometimes people are like he's washed. Sometimes people like, oh, flip a switch. He flipped a switch in the fourth quarter. And. he was definitely good and Kyrie was definitely carrying the Mavs. So that was a fun game. I can imagine Mavs Money Lion would have been a roller coaster. 29, 6 and 4 is what he's averaged in his debut of series with the Mavs. So he's like, he's like a star. It's Uncle Drew out there. There's some speculation that this might be LeBron's last game as a Laker and that the Mavericks could be the perfect place from reunion with Kyrie. That's pretty interesting.

Luke could carry the load. That's pretty interesting. He'd fit nicely there. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, listen, the Clippers have shot the lights out in their two wins. He's like 60%, 50% from three. I don't know if they can keep that going. Game five is going to be crazy.

That's going to be huge. It's the biggest game of the season so far. It's huge. Okay. So we've got that series in the West. Like Wolf's Sons, it's over. It's over. And for Kevin Durant in the beginning of the series, like when Ant was,

was talking shit to him. KD's like laughing. Like I'm not saying that's the wrong thing to do, but what I'm saying, it wasn't as funny when he dunked yesterday and knocked into KD and you're like, the series is over. Yeah.

I mean, the joke was funny the first game and a week later, it's like season's over and the suns, and you know this better than me, they're up shit's great. They are fucked. They have no draft capital until 2039. All of their first round picks out,

all first round swaps out, and five second. round picks out. And 200 million next year in cap. Yeah, like they're going to have massive luxury tax. Luxury tax, yeah. But they might not have the same coach. And KD expressed frustration at his role. Like your boy, Jalen Brunson in this playoffs, he's been averaging 29 shots per game. KD. had 16 shots per game in this. Well, he's part of a big three. I don't disagree. I agree. But comparing it like Brunson, like Brunson is the guy? Is he part of a big three? Should Bradley Biel be taking too much, medium three game than kd like in my opinion if you have one of the greatest efficient offensive

players of all time you have to get them the ball and get them the show let me ask you this have we gotten into an era where we're like oh the big three is the way but but we keep trying out these medium threes and the medium three is not as good as just playing team basketball and signing the best players like an evenly distributing your talent no i don't know because beale hasn't been the guy right Biel has not been the guy. And they were building around Booker and, you know, it's like point guard didn't really work. They don't have a point guard.

Well, the blueprint, I think, is right now a big two. Certainly a big one with Yolkitch with Murray. And you got a lot of good players, Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon. I like that model better than chasing a big three. I like the model that Macon just said, I think it's an absolute stud star who's an MVP candidate. Like a 1B who's very good, like Jamal Murray, like Jalen Williams, and then role players who are really freaking good.

Yeah. It could be like if you put Aaron Gordon on a bad team, he's their second best play. Yes. But on the Nuggets, he's content to just get. That's my pro comp. You wanted a pro comp. Aaron Gordon's a lot closer than, than where you said. I said Josh Hart.

I like Josh Hart. Okay. Josh Hart is average. Oh, he was saying you? Yes. I didn't pick up on that. That's disrespectful. He doesn't know football as well as we know football.

You don't know football. but he knows football Wow But like you know That's the type of shit I got to deal with here Josh been the Nick's second best player I understand He's fourth in the league and rebounding

Yeah there's nine again this year This is pretty big delta between player one And player two But I really like Josh Hart Don't get me wrong I walked in here and I was like Hey Josh Hart My kind of guy

And then Matt's like I'll take it a step further He's you And I'm like I ask him I Well I don't get into the whole thing But I like that That's who I What was it Gordon?

Aaron Gordon. Yeah, I think Aaron Gordon's closer. Aaron Gordon had some really good years, like, where he was a, he was kind of a stud, and now he's a role player, and he's a good role player at that. And fourth overall pick at that. Exactly. Aaron Gordon. There we go.

Drew Holiday is still my favorite one, but that might. He's played so well late in his career, it's hard to hang with Drew Holiday. Man, I'm sorry, somebody called you Josh Hart. Is that crazy? Golly Day. Somebody listens to say they're not crazy. It's a compliment to Josh Hart. that's right you and fochre are comps uh i just typed in joshart i like joshart too all right so

and y'all's tonight we'll have the uh sixers trying to hang on down three to one yeah yeah yeah listen the the imbid thing he passed up that jumper late in that game and it was like a 10-foot jumper and then drives and and goes up and just like what's that one? were they down five at that point that was the moment where you were like god they're going to not only lose this series but the narrative is going to be crazy he just scored 50 points a couple days ago i feel bad for the guy sometimes but sometimes i'm like man you got to be better in crunch time and don't say things after the game like oh the nicks took over the stadium i thought this was a sports now bro well it might be his last game yeah where do you think he ends up the nicks that'd be awesome

fucking welcome open arms and say just don't say that shit up here but philly is a sports town those people i've been to a bunch of sixers game they're great games nix fans are crazy course are gonna drive down course are going to drive down take the tube down philly did make an unforgivable error they're down three lowry misses the free throw on purpose i know tips it back maxi wasn't i know i know maxi wasn't ready for maxi wouldn't even ready like in your high school basketball player fucked that up you'd be upset no that was bad that was bad and lowry first time i'd seen him a little bit Looks all right. Yeah, he looks at you.

Okay, so anyways, Brunson. Here's the question I have about Brunson. Why does it feel like we're so resisting to give him star treatment? I think people saw the contract, and they were like, really? He was Lucas understudy. So is it just, is it that? Because I think we have this problem in football too sometimes, where a player starts his career a certain way,

and then we just got that in our head. like, oh yeah, he's just a solid player down in Dallas, so he can't be anything more than that. And that to me is ignoring context and system and what you're being asked to do. I don't think he's like a top five player, but he's a star. Like he was getting paid like a number one

when people had never seen him be a number one. They didn't think it was in there. If they had seen him, they saw him at Villanova when his game was much more limited. Yeah, he's not the most athletic guy out there. I heard somebody say he's the best player on the Knicks. the best Knicks player in 20 years. Now that speaks to how bad the Knicks have been,

but also there's an argument to be made. I mean, it depends if you favor him over Carmelo, but I would say they're one and two, which is kind of a sad statement about that. Carmelo is the best player, right? Carmelo had the best career easily. But Carmel in New York, what are he accomplished? Like, I kind of, I could see somebody making a case for Jalen Brunson

being the most impactful best player all-time record for nix playoff points ahead of bernard king yeah in crunch time he's been great he's been great i love the guy and he responded joel and b he was like man i don't want to say all that about philly fans because i'm i'm an eagles fan and i know what this is all about but um jeremy lenn yeah had the most fun with jeremy lind that was fun jr swish i had a lot of fun with jr swish but it just didn't lead the series like this you know what i think it is. Derek Rose. You know what I think it is? We should be talking about Tibbs, dude. Yeah. Like that team, that team just plays, they're tougher. And every other team would be like, hey, we lost our second best player, Julius Randall, who's probably actually their fourth-best player,

but they've been fine. Could be a Patrick Ewing thing with that. Right. Ewing theory. With, with Randall? Well, I like Randall. Last time they made the finals. Alan Houston played in the 2000s, by the way. It's like Brunson. Oh, for Alan Houston. All right. The last one we probably hit on is the, the, the bucks are toast. You talk about the injuries. Yannis still out. He might play Tuesday.

They play tomorrow. But, uh, I saw something in there. I think they may, they may take it back to Indiana. Are we two, two, two, one, one, one. Are we two, three two? Uh, two, one one. Okay. I don't know.

Well, stick of Bobby Portis in there. No, but here's the thing. And this is a lot of the reason, like, if you're a bucks fan and you're like, ah, we're hurt. Well, the Pacers were beating you all season. You know, like that's just a matchup problem, it seems like, and it doesn't help that you're hurt, but you can't claim we would have had you for sure.

Like, and also, I can remember a couple years ago when the bucks were the beneficiaries of Brooklyn not being healthy. Right. Was it in 21 or 22? 21. Yeah, Brooklyn was like a two seed. So, you know, nobody after that series is like, well, Brooklyn wasn't at full string. Pacers having a great series.

Pacers can make the Eastern Conference Finals. They're fun. They're a lot of fun. Janus is the best player in the game, though. I mean, and another down day. He's not the most fun one to watch. You know? I like watching Anthony Edwards.

Me too. I like a little skill. I know Janus got a lot of skill, but I like watching Josh Wright. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. I do too. It's like looking in the fucking mirror. In the morning, I brush my teeth in front of Josh Hart highlights.

I don't look in the mirror. Oh, fuck. You're going to throw in a Chase Budinger while we're here? Hey, now somebody who's listening is going to argue with me, and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to beat you at the argument. The only thing you're going to be able to claim is sides of the league. Because I asked him earlier, was Josh Hart ever a top five to ten player in his position? You're going to say, you never were.

I'm going to say, you don't watch tape. and there were two, three years there where I could make that argument. I couldn't make that argument the rest of my career. But Josh Hart, was he in that category? And Matt says, well, the league is a lot less players. Josh Hart ever almost an All-Star?

Josh Hart ever not get voted to the All-Star game because of where he played? Career nine points per game for Josh Hart. Yeah, he didn't even average double-ditch. Yeah. Bro? I love Josh Hart. He's like fucking sticks boards.

I hear enough disrespect. man in my in my life man you know those are such casuals to us all that matters is points nine six that's not that's not it that's not it totally but you know it would be like if i were a guy who never had double digits and was only a five six sack of the year guy and did a lot of other stuff too that then that's josh hardy i could see josh hart in josh hart closes out incredibly hard leads the league and pressure so did i i led the league i know but he also wasn't top five in the league in sacks. You just fell into that trap.

No, I know, but the second level of trap is you got to get sacks, too. True. So, you know, fuck. Josh Hart, can Josh Hart set the edge? Josh Hart. Can you put Josh Hart in a three technique? Can you put Chris Long in a three technique? It's not advisable.

Josh Hart more like a Rakeem Nunez Roaches. I like Rakeem. Yeah, I don't do that. You know who Josh Hart is? Roaches. But if I want to pick an end, I'm going to say Josh Hart is like Carl Nasson. Uh-huh. No.

It's not how much money you make. No. It's how much money you keep. How about that? That's why he's in my head, bro. Carl, you read the room, big dog. I don't know. Pretty sage advice if you asked me.

You know, we are entering in the era, though, that sometimes things that are objectively very true can get you in trouble. Yes. And that to me was objectively very true. and anybody that's that mad about it, I'm going to zag. I'm with you. Yeah.

I wouldn't have taken the risk myself. Yeah. But I'm not an accountant. Okay. And then also, there's another thing I want to zag on, and that is the, the Rattler thing.

Yeah. Okay? So for people, there were a lot of people up in arms this weekend about GMs. About the third day quarterback going on the third day. Third day quarterback going on the third day. And a lot of people, were talking about behind the scenes

like brass was talking about hey we kind of have this funny taste in our mouth from Rattler three years ago when he was in high school and decided to be on a TV show and didn't present that well as a guy okay like but now granted he was like 18 right or 17 years old

here's all I'm going to say like let's not bury kids for how they're how they're acting, right? Like there's a way to talk about that. But it's not unfair that somebody might say, hey, that guy two, three years ago, he might have changed a lot, but, eh, I didn't love it. And he's not a top five, top ten pick. It's not like we're talking about Caleb Williams here. It's okay for people to point something like that out. If that's part of the reason that you're staying away, it's not like it was 15 years ago. And it's also not like we're sitting here

on a fall Saturday and saying these guys are kids. Aren't we saying that, at 18-year-old kids, 19-year-old kids, are suddenly adults. That's what we're saying. Treat them like adults. Pay them like adults. People can go off to war at 18, that sort of thing. You have to know that decisions you make after 16 can last. And good NFL scouting departments talk to the high school that the player went to.

So we should stop doing that. We should stop doing that. This is just right made for you. We should stop doing that. Right? How stupid is that? We should stop asking high school coaches. what kind of a guy is or was

because he hadn't seen him a couple years we should stop asking you know people from school principals we should just stop digging into what they were like in high school because it doesn't matter it only matters if it's positive everything matters dude and so I guess the only thing to take away from this

there's a couple things number one society is soft okay selectively soft you know if this kid wanted to sign a trillion dollar NIL deal we'd all be like yeah well he's an adult you know if he did that his freshman year but a few months earlier when he's doing a tv show willingly and putting himself out there he has to realize that you might get judged as an adult for for how you carry yourself he didn't get arrested for doing the show he just didn't get drafted high

and i don't even know if the show was the reason that was the case it was just something that shefter or whoever was decided to talk about rap report or whoever was yeah he decided to talk about it And then people were like, this is a fucking travesty. No, it's not. It's not. And Shane Beamer came out and, of course, defending his guy. And also, he should. He got picked 150th overall.

What was he going to pick 140th? Right. Whatever happens to Spencer Rattler, he's got control of that from here and out. And you know what? I want to say this. If we said this earlier, if they followed us around with a camera when we were 18, 19 years old, I couldn't survive in this generation. Okay?

but I also probably would have opted out of certain things. I'm not saying I would have looked good had you followed me around with the camera. No questions asked. But I was also a high pick and they probably would have said, ah, not as big a deal. And I would have had to live with whatever I did. But you were also savvy enough to not put yourself in a situation where you would look at. Yeah, but also the scenarios are so different.

I can only operate on the choices I'm given. And in 2007, 2008, 2003, 2004, when I'm finishing up high school, I was a different person and the climate was different, right? Like, it was more forgiving. You know, the most embarrassing thing you can find for me back in the day is like probably lifting weights with Jared from Subway who turned out to be a massive creep. I was in there doing squats. He was spotting me for Christ's sake. I lost him in pig, dude. all right so that's embarrassing but i didn't do a lot of stuff because there weren't a lot of stuff

to do nobody was walking around with content ideas there weren't like social media i would have been fucked i'm not saying i wouldn't up but what i am saying is when you're 17 18 and you're an athlete start making decisions like they're going to last 10 years good advice there was a basketball hoop you played pig it was the high school gym and you and you lost i lost to jared he's in he's in he's in the clink right now beating other molesters at pig he's talking about the time he beat me and pig and they think we went behind the school for a subway sandwich so i didn't have any of the problems that spencer raller has i know some people because this is a soft generation are wagging their finger at me right now i still love you i just disagree with you i like the zag

i got a zag good zag so all right we'll see if ben's solac zags how much he's at bags on some of these picks. I know we're zagging on Pennix a little bit, which feels very scary. Yeah, we need some things to go right. Well, we need to shut the fuck up about it. Like, let's agree, this is the last podcast that we go on record. Okay.

We don't hate the pick. Yeah, we can dig up the take from Thursday night, a few years from now. Here's So, like. Hey, y'all, Green Light has official merch, like this hat right here, like the one on my head does dad hat love this hat. I'm not even a dad hat guy, but this thing fits great. This hat right here fits great.

We've got hoodies. We've got... By the way, this hoodie's like super comfy. I mean, it's like soft, plush. It's not the type of hoodie that's going to get stiff with one wash. And the shirts, too, because I'm a big comfort guy, okay? You got like this white shirt here. You got the shirt with the logo, the Abbey Road looking logo, with Dr. Fax.

smoking, presumably a blunt, Kyle carrying Cowboy Reed, making driveling a basketball, which I've never seen him actually do, and me carrying a football. And then you've got the black shirt here too with the logo. So stickers, hit the link in the description in the video, below the video actually, and make sure to tag us on social media showing off your green light merch. It's quality, quality threads here, okay? Wouldn't do it any other way.

All right, we got the right guy. got the right guy on the show. The authority. The authority. Do you have a nickname, Ben? Not really. Everybody The ringer calls me Solac because there were like nine Ben's there before me, but that's about it.

All right. So there's a take that I wanted to talk to you about that somebody just alerted me of when I walked in the door. They were like, do you know Ben Solac thinks that food takes too long? That eating is inefficient. And I just wanted to say I totally agree with you. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate it.

I got remarkably more support for that take than I thought I was going to, honestly, when I filed it. I thought I was going to be just a one man on the island. Though I will say most linemen are not with me on this one. I guess defensive linemen probably I get a better representation with. But Golick was pissed, dude. He was not pleased. I'm sure Golick was mad. I'm just a busy guy.

And I don't like things that are pointless. You know, like to me, lunch is one of the most pointless things of all time. Not eating lunch. Yes. But when somebody says, do you want to do lunch? I'm like, do lunch, what the fuck do you mean? Can't we just meet up and talk? Right.

You know what I mean? I got stuff to get done today. I got chores out there. I got chores in here. Sitting down for lunch for an hour for a salad? What are we talking about? What's a breakfast for you? Make loves this.

What's a breakfast for Ben Solick and how long does it take to prepare? So I'm a big, intimate and fast guy because like I just don't. I don't love the, uh, it takes too long. So I usually am passing on breakfast. That's it when I'm like, if I'm going for it, I love to make like an overnight oats or like an oatmeal. that's and I'll go instant oats to overnight oatmeal and anything in between.

But just give me a quick mush that has the calories that are necessary. Throw some berries on there so it tastes good. Nice and easy. In college I used to eat top ramen raw. That's how committed to your bid I am. Well, also, you would often, it could be kale, it could be spinach,

but you would just buy the fistfuls, put leafy greens into your mouth. That's right. And that makes me, this is the last thing I want to ask Ben about this thing is like half of your media that you post as non-football-related is your garden and your fishing expeditions. That, to me, takes a while.

That's part of the food process. And so it is a little bit contradictory that you rush through breakfast, but you spend all the time out in your garden harvesting. Yeah. So the thing with the gardening and the fishing is that I enjoy the process and the fact that I'm not doing it for the food at the end. It's just for the love of the game. Yeah. Like, it's funny.

my wife is it is she loves to cook and that's that's her that's her thing that's her joy and I try to participate in that as much as I can but the garden works great because like I I like the science of it I like the raising the plants of it and like seeing it grow up from seed it's crazy and it's it's fun to take care of it gets me outside put around with my hands and then the moment the tomato exists on the vine I'm like okay mission accomplished like I'm done like that that's what I wanted to pull off I wanted to grow the zucchini I got the zucchini that's where my wife comes in she's like all right sick what I want it was a zucchini I didn't want to do with dirt and fertilizer and trowels on my hands and knees.

I just want the zucchini. So I hand it off right there and then we're cooking zucchini. If Drake May were a vegetable in your garden. The sweet potato takes a lot of time to grow, takes an investment, but really worth it at the end. I like it Drake May. And I think I like him into England better than a lot of people do. I got faith Drake May.

Do sweet potatoes grow in shitty soil? Because that's my next question. You know, like if you had a garden, if you had three gardens outside and you planted sweet potatoes in Chicago. If you're playing sweet potatoes in D.C., if you're playing sweet potatoes in Foxborough, I feel like the ones in Foxborough right now would have a harder time, you know, turn it into big healthy sweet potatoes that Ben Solac's going to want to chef up. You can, you can grow sweet potato in an average soil.

Potatoes and sweet potatoes are generally pretty good. They just take a long time. Yeah. All right. So I do. Yeah, the soil in New England, I agree. A little worried about that. Well, the soil just got a little bit less friendly to said,

sweet potato because zeke elliott just signed with the cowboys he was their leading receiver in new england last year so i get maybe we'll just start there is like you know how do you project and is it unfair to to i say this every year with with high picks like is it unfair to evaluate drake may jaden daniels and caleb williams the same because they are being dropped into completely different situations you don't see guys walk in to great situations like caleb has and I'm not handicapping Drake May. He's not like my favorite guy in the draft, but I do feel for him walking into that situation, New England.

If you were the Patriots, how would you play this out? Would you start him right away? Would you protect him? What are some things they can do to kind of take care of him early in his career? Yeah, it's a million dollar question, right? You invested in the guy and now how are you going to bring him up? The first thing that I always say is that people learn in different ways, right? everybody wants to sit quarterbacks understandably so but if a guy learns by going out there and making

mistakes which i think is a is a very real thing that you've seen quarterbacks do in the league then you kind of have to let him go out there and understand there are some rookie lumps that you can't take holding the clipboard right there's some bumps in the road that you can't you got to the bullet's got to be live and if that means you'll lose a week seven game to the bills in 2024 it's it's worth it to might beat him in 2025 right and so so it your job is to get the guy into the building and then all right he's qbby two he's behind jacobri he's you're sold the playbook if you like how he's learning back there and you feel good about sitting him for eight weeks, 10 weeks, go for it. But if you feel like, all right, like, it's when we're out there on the practice field that he's,

you know, making a mistake and he comes back to the next time, he doesn't make it again. We need to get him out there and let him make those mistakes early. Let him make them right now. So that way he's not making them down the road. Evaluating him can be challenging in bad contexts. But I always like to remind people, man, the 2021 Jaguars, Urban Meyer, one of the worst managed teams we ever saw, three and 14 first overall pick. Trevor Lawrence was a rookie in that team.

they weren't good terrible team barely won a game but we all watched Trevor and went oh yeah okay okay like that guy's an NFL there right now

people had you know he's the next Andrew Luck expectations and he didn't hit that nor does he hit that over the last few years but you could still watch him even when he was throwing 120 targets to Marvin Jones

and 100 to Lavisca Chenoll and playing behind a patchwork offensive line you can still watch him be like oh yeah I see the NFLer in there like we clearly hit on the guy we know he's good you can have that with Drake May

where it walks out there and like the wide receiver room isn't ready and the offense doesn't work for you and they're losing games but still every week you're watching him going okay they got a guy for sure so there is value of starting a dude even when the the personnel may not be ready for him now if you were to make a case for the the top three quarterbacks selected and it's a hypothetical five years down the line let's finish this sentence with each of their names Caleb Williams let's start with him was not successful because he probably never leveled out the risk and reward, right? Caleb loves to believe that he's got a better play if he just gets outside of the pocket. He's got a better play if he just kind of gets around a rusher. And most of the time, I'm pretty confident the risk is worth a reward with him because the throws that he can make. But it probably he just is a little bit too aggressive, a little bit too willing to get to that second reaction play and just never stays in structure. Yeah. And how about for Jaden Daniels? The frame and the play style. I'm worried about Jaden.

my line on Jaden pre-draft was no one's going to be right on him. Because he's such a polar quarterback. He's like, all right, like if this works, he's going to be undefendable. And if he starts to accumulate injury and he can't run, or if teams are really good at,

you know, getting him off his first one, get him outside of the pocket, this is going to become untenable. It's going to be like, watching Jalen hurts last year when he was hurt. And you're just like, this is not a real offense.

It's not stressing defenses out the way that it needs to. So to me, like injury concern and play style concern. The amount he gets outside of the pocket, takes hits. He's one read and, scramble guy. That's what's going to hurt. And ironically, he kind of reminds me frame from a frame standpoint of RG3. You know, he's a little bit more slender. He's he, you know, he's,

he runs the same way like they're, they're athletic. They can hurt you with their legs. But, you know, and people love to bring up like, you know, Fields 240, Richardson, 245. These guys got hurt. These, these big body types. But I mean, like, you know, Chris. I think the folks don't know, like this is a big people hit little people game. And Jane Daniels is thin, right? It's less about the, the shot that he takes when he's actively a runner and he's trying to, you know, avoid contact to take glancing blows. It's more about the shot that he takes when he breaks the pocket, he scrambling to his right. And he doesn't know that the edge rusher took a long loop and is right behind him. And it's that contact that comes through. He's not protecting himself where he doesn't have

the body armor to take it. That's what worries. And is there anything from Drake's style of play outside of the New England pitfalls from a roster standpoint? Or Joe Milton or should be the guy. Or Joe Milton. Yeah, Drake doesn't take a five-yard wrap. and there's a 50-yard route that might be opened down the field. And that's the problem with him is Drake's big game hunter. And it's nice when you get the picture with the eight-point buck, but sometimes you go home empty-handed. And so it's a little bit of the same risk management that we talk about with Caleb.

Caleb's more so, you know, getting outside of structure and kind of ignoring the first, the first read of the play. Drake is more less than like sometimes you play for second and eight. Sometimes we play to stay on script. We only have so many third and nine calls, young man. We can't keep getting to this long down and distance, especially if we can't pass protect for you, which might be an issue in New England.

And so for him, it's being more willing to take the underneath stuff right now and not try to win every single game in one or two points. I think what also might help Drake May is like when you think about quarterbacks going to your rookie year, who are you going to be practicing against? I mean, that defense is not is not is not anything to sneeze at. Dude, that's like a pro defense. And when you're going to see those guys every day in practice, at least that balances out some of the ineptitude on offense because you're going to be used to dealing with skilled players on the other side of the field. And if Drake in college, both like two years ago when he had the really nice 2022 season and then in 2020, in his little shake year, man, he knew that if he left the field at 2828, he was coming back on the field at 2835. Like defensively, when they went up against any real offenses, they just were not consistently getting stops.

And so it's going to be a thing for him to learn how to put that Superman cape up and let another player win the game for him, not necessarily on his own offense, but just on your defense, dude. Like if you can, if you can get us some good field position, just pick up a first down, don't throw an interception. you give that opposing offense 85 yards to go, man. Like our defense can do some work for you. They can keep you in a friendly spot. And Caleb's going to have the same, you know, situation in Chicago with more talent offensively because that defense is going to be tough to practice against

and all that stuff. All right. So let's rip the Band-Aid off. Let's do the Michael Pennix thing because initially when it happened, full disclosure, making it and I were like, I can't hate it. And I know that there are a lot of very smart football people that hate it and they look at things glass half full

and they look at Kirk's contract. and look at some of the other holes. But when I looked at Atlanta last year, I said 10-win team, if DoorDash Desmond Ritter is not their quarterback. I think the roster, especially offensively, is in a better place than most people think. There are pieces defensively that they had to fill, right?

I would say this. You're sitting there at 8. There is a risk that if you pass up on him, there's a reality where they love him more than Bo Nix and they love him more than JJ McCarthy. I know people say JJ would have been the perfect guy to do this with because of age and that sort of thing. But I look at 8 and I say there were a bunch of teams that were passing up on defensive players, right?

And a lot of them might have had needs defensively. I don't think the bridge to this working out is that long. It's just got to work out. If Michael Pennix is a pro quarterback, I think we'll look back at this and say, hey, good move. Do you see any side of that argument? I think the core of the argument, which is that we want to be investing in QB2 is sound. Yes. Right. I think you saw the Jordan Love pick with Aaron Rogers, the Jalen Hertz pick with Carson Wentz, the Lamar Jacks pick with Joe Flack. Over the last five, six years, teams have been more willing to invest in quarterback two earlier. You've also seen over the last couple of years, especially post-COV-COV-concussion protocols, more and more quarterback start a game in a season than ever before, right? There's just more reps for QB2 and QB3. There's more instances in which you need QB2 or QB3. This also goes to expanding, you know, schematic work, right? The Shanahan offense and all these guys. They've made it so much easier to win with quarterback 18, a league-wide, right, with quarterback 20 league-wide.

So if you can find a guy who just is functional at the NFL level, you can actually build a much better offense out of him than you usually could. So the last five, six years, man, really been defined by quarterback two becoming a more valuable position. And the Falcon said, we want to invest in this. So the core of that is good. Eight overall to take QB4, six weeks after $100 million guaranteed to Kirk Cousins is where you lose me. Right? I agree we should be investing in QB2. this feels like leaps and bounds more than we should be.

This feels like really, really pushing the envelope here. Now, you made the point, if Pennix is good, then the penix is good. And that's always the case with the draft. If he ends up being QB2, you know, that's the thing. You get yourself a good player. You get yourself a good player. Make no bones about it. A lot of the value of rookie contract quarterbacks, though, is the fact that they are so

much cheaper than replacement guys. Yeah. And so you're going to get multiple years in which your quarterback room costs dramatically less than the other quarterback rooms with plus starters. Well, if you're dealing with Kirk Cousins' dead cat money and also penics at the eighth overall contract is not Jaylon Hurts with the 53rd contractor, Lamar Jackson with the 32nd or that's still money. That's still money.

That's still money. Yeah. You're not getting as much meat on the bone as the other guys did. Because you drafted the 24 year old by the time he gets to the end of his first contract, he's already going to be in his prime. You're not getting as much meat on the bone as the other guys did. So that's where you lose me is I feel like the core of the philosophy made sense, but the execution here just feels like we went way too far at what is largely a good effort.

Do you think it would be viewed differently at all if we said Kirk Cousins has a two-year contract, which I think is how the Falcons effectively with the decrease in debt money? So I certainly think it can be. Again, you just gave him the deal, and that's what confuses me. If he was worth two years, it would be about $100 million in terms of the guarantees if they cut him after two seasons, he'll make about $100 total. If he was already on that and that was sitting there and that was hanging over your head, but you wanted to invest in QB2,

I'd understand that a little bit more than actively choosing to bring cousins in and then make the selection relative to like bringing in a Jacoby Brissette. Think about the Giants. In 2023, in the spring of 23, 13 months ago, the giant said, we want to give Daniel Jones $160 million over four years. And then 13 months later, they were like, we want to take a quarterback at 6. We don't know if we like this much. They made the investment, but then got another year of data said,

let's move off our mistake fast. The Falcons did it in five weeks. It's the time frame that's really shocking. It makes you wonder privately if Kirk said something in the fact of, I'm going to play two more years and I'm going to raise my kids. Like I want to move back to wherever I live. And, you know, like football has been great to me, but I want to play two more years.

And if they had said something like that, if he had said something like that, he might have unknowingly set the wheels in motion for a replacement. Yeah. But also it would make it a lot more palatable. I think if you knew this is a two-year. year rental for Kirk because another thing is all right i found out today um i believe that will levis is the oldest quarterback in the division in the afc south okay michael pennix has a shot to be the

oldest quarterback in the division when he first takes a start i mean you look at like derrick cars deal you look at uh baker mayfield down in tampa you know bryce young they could be hit all three of those teams could be hitting the reset button in two years and let's say michael pennix has a little jordan love in him i just think there's a universe where this works out and i also think the team's good enough. Yes, this does. I don't know how you quantify it, knock down their chances of being the best they could be over the next two, three years because of the salary and some of the prohibitive stuff there. But I would say it's like a five, five to seven percent decrease, which is major, but you are kicking the can down the road to increase your successes over the long haul,

in my opinion. And I don't mind the long game. That's all I'm saying. And I love when teams are willing to make long time investments. My thing is always, as a a general manager, you better know you're going to be there. I'm not trying to, you know, so, a seat, and let somebody else read the benefits. Terry Fontano is in year four. He has made, he has made four top ten picks Terry Fontano has. Fourth overall, Kyle Pitts, eighth overall, Bejohn Robinson,

eighth overall, Drake, London, eighth overall Michael Pennix. Dude, if this team isn't good, you brought offensibly. There's no team in the league that's this invested in offense right now. With all these picks, all these second contracts and offensive line, this team isn't good. I'm worried that when Pennix has taken those precious steps, and we're seeing that this pick was worth it. There's somebody else sitting in Terry's seat.

You might not get to see it. And, you know, like that's all well and good. But I also would say this, and I said this the other night, like, if you look at what the Atlanta Falcons have done over the past couple years in the first round, they have been on unorthodox, right? And I would say that I don't blame the pits thing on the pick. I blame it on the execution of the pit. I think Bijan's otherworldly talented.

And I think Drake London, everybody thought he was slow. You draft a slow wide receiver. You draft a running back in the top 10. You know, people have shake their heads. these guys before and it's worked out. So I'll just say this. Like, you know, Arthur blank giving him the keys. I saw the argument afterwards. Like with so many things taken out of context nowadays, people just jump at the opportunity to attach context to it. I don't think Arthur is going to be in that room if he doesn't know there's a possibility. They take penics. I think they could have been

arguing about like the sequencing of trading back or trading down. But just Arthur to have the faith in Terry to make that pick, I think says a lot. And we'll see. I mean, Arthur's pretty patient, right? Yeah, I think Atlanta, I think Atlanta's got reasons to be excited, but maybe just a little bit less than the immediacy now because they made this decision. So, all right, that's enough on them. Let's talk about the Eagles, okay, because we got a lot of birds fans here. We knew you with your birds background, but like, I love the Quignan pick. I love a dressing corner. That's a burning building, like put the fire out immediately. I know where he's going to fit.

Where does Cooper DeGine fit in Vicks scheme? Yeah, great question. I think that if they took Cooper to Gene at 22, Coenion doesn't make it bare, and they were comfortable taking DeGine at that spot. They would have said, hey, outside corner two, are going to stick him there. We think he's a corner for sure.

We need the spot. He's great fit there. We know he can play that position. Once you take Quine at 22, you get DeGine at 40, you say, oh, Cooper DeGine can play a lot of spots. Might be a safety for us. You change your tune a little bit and rightfully.

So I remember when Vic Fancio took over the defense in Denver. And at 2019, he signed Kareem Jackson from the Texans, who had played corner his entire time in Houston. And he moved him to safety. And they just said, hey, like you were, you know, that people say it's strong safety. It's not really like box safety. You're having him play over the slot and you're having him, you know, whoever number two ends being tight end.

And he's stepping down into the box very so often, kind of more of the Johnson role. I think that that's what they're going to envision for Dijin early, because that's the way that he more easily gets on the field. Now, they have Chansy Garland. Right. So, yeah. And so you already have a guy that you really like over slots.

Maybe Dijin is your, is your tight end matchup guy. You're going up against a team that runs a big slot. They run a Chris Glewin. You want to go handle that. Michael Pint me, you want to go handle that. Okay, we're going to ask Dijun to take this guy because it's a little bit of a bigger body. So it's unclear.

I think that what you have to decide is when you walk into camp. You kind of give the guy the playbook. And you see, all right, we're going to give you some reps at outside corner. We're going to give you some reps at box safety, right, in a strong safety spot and But pretty quickly, you need to decide what you're going to ask him to do in year one. Because being a rookie is drinking out of the fire hose, right? I mean, it gets a lot of information coming at you. And that big fan is your defense, man, that's a son of a gun, right?

If you, if you are asking a young player to learn three separate roles, right? Okay. Our nickel spot, our corner spot and our safety spot, all in camp, like that, I just think you're not setting him up for early success. And so I think that that get him in there, get him in rookie minicamp, figure out where you want to start him in year one. And then if he ends up just backing up, Reed and Chauncy Gardner Johnson at safety, all year, that's okay. If it ends up being corner three on the outside all year, that's okay. But make sure you onboard them correctly, so you set them up for success down the road. Last year, this time, Eagles draft was an A plus. You look back a year later, how are you grading it?

Jalen Carter at 9, Nolan Smith at 30, Steen Brown, Ringo. Yeah, I mean, like, I still think you have an A draft there. Steen is going to get starting reps this year. I think when they draft them last year, the expectation was not going to play and then step in. We got to see what he is. Nolan Smith was not going to get starting reps. They knew that was going to be a developmental pick. Yeah. They drafted a 239 pound edfisher, right?

You're not expecting him to walk out. I remember, I think he had to play a late game against the Giants. And a run defense man, like Nolan was just trying to survive, right? Body type-wise, he was just going to take a little bit of time. Cindy Brown, this guy is going to compete for starting reps. They had a really loaded roster last year. And so it was understandable to not get early production out of those guys. They had great veterans.

Carter is the interesting one, where, You know, through eight weeks, nine weeks, 10 weeks, Jaylon Carter, best defensive player in the draft, one of the best rookies, dominant force. Then he started to lose gas a little bit. And you had Carter now and Jordan Davis, two Georgia-traffed defensive tackles who've just faded down the stretch for you. And so what you've got to be able to ask is,

can we get 18 weeks, 19 weeks, 20 weeks of production out of these guys? Because Fletch ain't in the building anymore. Chvonne Hargra is in San Francisco, right? Like this is the core now is these two defensive tackles. And if you are going to fade in December at that position, I mean, your entire defense is going to suffer for it. We saw that a little bit last season. So Carter, man, like, I'm still, that kid can play.

Holy smokes. He's so good when he's on. I just want to make sure that he's on for the entire thing. He's incredible. And I think to your point, if your core is the defense of tackle room, you're going to have to justify, you know, the investment in them. And then also, you know, get some production to where you feel like you're unlocking their skill set. I think it's all about the guys behind them, which is why I'm so happy that they went

that direction. because as you saw last year, as the secondary started to fall apart, as the run fits were worse for the backers. Everybody in that back second or sevens really suffered. And I think as a result, those guys inside had to be, you know, asked to do a little bit more than they were supposed to at that stage in their career. So I think if they can put the fire out behind them, you're going to see even better play from those defensive tackles.

We'll all be happy. Okay. Trotter, where's he fit? Because, you know, like really cool story. I'm a second generation NFL guy. I think about like if I'd have gotten draft by the Raiders or something like that. But like he didn't strike me as a top end athlete. And where does he fit?

And then also as a bigger conversation, we've had it on this show before. I think often we look at second generation players and we say, they're going to be athletic, you know, like they're genetics, this, that, and third. If you look down a list of second generation football players, not all of them are more talented or even close to as talented as their dads. So what do you actually get in getting a second generation player? Like, why is that attractive? Right.

I think for the Eagles specifically with Trotter Jr., you get great vibes, which sounds like a joke, but also Elizabeth Iden, right? Trotter's going to have a lot of support from the fan base. Can have a lot of patience from the fan base. They're going to want to see a player like that succeed, which helps a guy at least mentally transition from the college to the pros, right? Now, it also comes to some high expectations, right?

And he's not like a first round pick. So it's not like they're expecting him to be his pops tomorrow. But in general, I do think that like, okay, putting 54 on in the midnight green, getting the big cheers in the preseason, it's going to at least help a guy mentally feel like, all right, like I can go and I can succeed with this team. You know Mr. Lurie, you know how we, like you know some of those guys. It smooths the transition. For the roster, I mean, linebacker play in Philadelphia last year was a travest thing.

There's no two ways around it. So yeah, so Nocobie is back from injury, but you can't really put too many eggs in that basket because he's been banged up now for the last couple seasons. You roll the dice on a Devin White. You roll, you know, okay, he's a highly drafted round one guy who underachieved down the road in Tampa. You roll the dice on a Zach Bonn and Oren Berks. These guys were linebacker threes on their respective teams.

Maybe they can do a little bit more here in Philadelphia. And then you take a trotter in round five. It's a little bit of snap in the pool stick, Joker throwing it out and said, all right, we're going to have tryout. Somebody win a job here, right? I don't think they're going to walk into camp saying any one of these five players is emphatically clearly a starter for us. Like this guy's the green dot.

We know we're starting him and we go. I think early on, the favorite is Nicopi and Devin White. And then after that, you're trying to fill out the roster. I agree with you on Trotter where film-wise, yeah, I've got a six-foot,

230-pound guy who just athletically change a direction. I think it's a little bit linear. It doesn't take on block super great. He feels like a day three pick. He is a day-three pick. Contribute on special teams, right? Be able to fill your role well and be a back-of-linebacker. And when you get in there,

he has to succeed the way he did at Clemsenzo, which is by being wicked smart, right? And a lot of his best pays at Clemson, we're seeing it before it happened and then shooting a gap, beating a block, and being there before the back got there. And so there's a world where that succeeds, but when you're betting on an athlete that's this undersized,

to win at NFL size, you really are betting on like a David Long sort of a guy, right? Where he's like 511, 225, but he's just quick as a whip and he's so smart that he can get away with it. And that's a thin bet to make, right? That doesn't happen every so often. And so they'll have his opportunities.

There's a wide open room, but, you know, they're dice rolling everywhere on linebacker and they're hoping somebody's. Am I correct? in seeing this on this list, like Jim Burrow, Joe Burrough's dad was a defensive back in the NFL? Is that, is that a, is that a, that I did not know. Like, like, I'm looking at D.K. Metcalf, his dad was a guard. Was he a guard in the NFL? Yeah, I knew Metcalf. So this is crazy. It's like, uh, I always say Jackie Slater,

like perfect example. If, if it worked that way, then Matt Slater would be a tackle. You know, kids come in all different shapes and sizes. Me and my brothers are like Russian dolls. You know, we all have different talents. talent levels. And so it's like you try to project these second generation players. If you're going to do it just on athleticism, the game has also changed a lot from generation to generation. So you're comparing the last generation of athletes this generation. Jim Burrow out of Hampton, Virginia went to Nebraska and played for the Green Bay Packers. He's from Hampton? For one season. No way. Jim Burroughs from Hampton. See, how does that get buried, man? There's some really shocking

shocking ones in this thing here. Chris, would you have wanted to be drafted by the Raiders? 2008. I mean, sure. Okay. Yeah, sure. It would have been fine. It would have been a lot better if the Rams had just picked Matt Ryan and I'd ended up in fucking New England or something, slid to six. You know what I mean? All right. So another team that was really hot and heavy on the D.Bs and should have been was the Lions. And I thought they had a really nice draft, big fan of Brad Holmes to trade up. get Arnold. They traded up a couple times. Rake straw. Rake straw, who's, who's just as versatile as his name. He can get in there and he can, he can, he can tackle. He can be a rake. He can be a straw. You can, you can, you can, you can,

you can, you can, you can, uh, you can rake the infield with him. Uh, the guy, the guy, I'll put his hat in there. I really like Ennis rake straw, dude. Number nine on my big board. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. He was a, he fell a little bit, but like, what can you say about Detroit and what they're building here. Yeah. And really the NFC North in general, all drafting well. Like they're all having at least heralded draft class in the immediacy. Yeah, NFC North, I think it's going to be real good this year. And yeah, for Detroit, I think Detroit approached free agency the way you're supposed to,

where you go and say, all right, like, let's plug all of our gaps. So that way, if we have to play a game tomorrow, we'll be okay. They go and get Carlton Davis. Davis is corner one, Cam Sutton's corner two. Like, we're fine. And then Cam Sutton's legal situation. all of a sudden there's no camsign. And so now you walk into the draft with the last thing that you want, which is like a very obvious need.

And everybody's going to know kind of the direction you want to go and the players are going to target. So to be able to trade up and go grab Terry and Arnold, who I think can be week one, starter, corner two, can go out there and play NFL caliber athletes, experienced at Alabama is he got wonderful movement skills for a corner outside the top 20, great. And then to chase that with Ennis Rakeshron to understand,

we can't just draft a rookie and set it and forget it. Oh, because Terry and Arnold will be good. Like, no, it's a rookie, man. Like, you can never be too confident in your drafting, which I know is a funny thing to say about Brad Holmes right now because he's walking around with his chest out. But you have to be willing to say, okay, like, if Arnold doesn't hit, let's go and get ourselves another dart throw in Rake Straw,

who I, dude, Rakeshaw has got short corner syndrome where he's so good, but then he's short. And so he's even better because he's mad. Yeah, he's not. He's short. He's like, everybody's under, undervaluing me because I'm under six foot. So I'm just going to be even better at what I'm good at because I'm mad that people don't think I'm good.

I love Rake Straw. And so, yeah, there's a world where Rake Straw is able to get on the field in the slot. And Brian Branch plays more traditional safety reps. They got some versatility there now, which is nice. This was the right approach for them. And then on day three, Brad Holmes traded a future third round pick to go get it at 6'8 tackle out of Boston, out of British Columbia. Because he just can't now. He's Brad Holmes.

He can do it every once. Well, that seems to, we were talking about like a Milata thing. This guy's people didn't even know he get drafted. This kid from BC Giovanni Manu. he's really raw and not Boston College British Columbia 6-7-350 so healthy yeah and he ran he ran sub sub five I want to say really in the 4-9s yeah and they're talking about they're talking about early playing him at guard before kicking him to tackle which is just stupid imagine him pull it oh my god

these times are insane just since when I ran dude it was like I ran a 4-7-8 and I was like awesome this guy's 350 running a 4-9 like he could catch me You know what I mean? Somebody in my mentions the other day was trying to convince me that they're going to have him return on the new kickoff. And I was like, no, I don't know about that. That'd be sick, though. That'd be sick. If you could see anybody return the new kickoff that's unorthodox and maybe won't return a new kickoff, who would it be?

Milana's definitely up there. Oh, my. It would be so you got to do it like, I don't know enough about rugby to name the plays correctly. So forgive me. But you have to do it where one guy receives it and then he just tosses it. So the return gets it with a full head of steam. He's already moving at velocity. It's like a reverse.

Yeah. My lot of 100%. I would like just, just for the enjoyment. Oh, no question. That'd be a good one. Hey, Ben, thank you for having the courage to say that Washington did not have a great draft.

It seems like, oh, you have a bunch of picks. You have a new GEM. We praise your draft. You got the cool quarterback. Everything's great. Everything's great. I didn't like it, Ben.

I didn't like it one bit. Yeah. And it's weird because they, in free agency, kind of did the whole like, all right, just chuck veterans in every, problem, right? Okay, just get names that we know and that way we're decently functional. And then in the draft, didn't move around too much, right?

There was rumors, oh, they're going to move up aggressively to get like a top tier tackle. Didn't do that. It's kind of stayed and picked. And they're kind of, they're kind of in shotgun mode right now. They're just just trying to get a wide dispersal of options and then they're going to evaluate the roster over the course of the season, which is fine. Ben Sinnet just outside of top 50, like I wouldn't have been rushing to go get tight end two. Luke McCaffrey at 100.

Great bloodlines. Another second generation guy. Why is he? Yeah. But it's, I don't know. Like, I feel like if his name was Luke Wilson,

this guy was going to pick 180. Like in terms of the film, I think McAfrey's carrying a lot of weight for you there. It's like I like Mikey Sainter still. I like Johnny Newton. There's a couple players I like. But in terms of guys that I just wasn't huge on this class, Washington ended up with a few of them.

Obviously, the picket two also is a huge deal, right? Because some of these quarterbacks are going to be good and some of them on it. If you made the wrong picket too, there'd be a lot of screenshots for the next few years. And so I didn't think it was an out-of-the-part class for Adam. I really liked the Michigan corner. I did not realize, especially when he was shutting down Marv, that he's like 5-8 in chain. I know.

It's crazy. Why is that? I don't know. He's taller. Short-corner. Yeah. Speaking of, well, not speaking of anything, I was going to make a different transition. I want to go to Buffalo.

That's an even better transition. Speaking of Buffalo, let's go to Buffalo. I'm going to transition everything on the show now. Speaking of Buffalo, do you think the bills nailed it? Because I don't think there's anybody who had more pressure on them, that Brandon Bean considering the window or lack of window that seems to be open in Buffalo and needing to go get a wide receiver. I thought the body type was important in Keon Coleman.

That's the kid from Florida State. They picked up the beginning of the second. Big guy. And actually, I heard somebody mentioning your show. it reminded them of Colston and the Joe Brady connection of being in New Orleans, having a bigger body guy, right? I think that's cool. I think passing on the speedster worthy, a lot of people look at that and say,

you know, what are you doing? But, you know, waiting your turn and getting this big body kid who can play different areas. And then also he's like catch radius guy. because Josh Allen wants a catch radius guy. I mean, like, he's going to spray the ball a little bit. So what do you think about this pick and how do you think Buffalo did in general? Yeah, I know Xavier Worthy ran the 421, but I can get speed down the street. You know, like there's, there's so many track athletes now at receiver.

And there's diminishing returns too. Like 421 is sick because of the record. But 421 isn't really that much different than 431 in terms of how I'm putting you on the field and what you're doing for me. Right? There's, there are some diminishing returns here. Coleman, now I don't get X receiver body type three level. route running, you know, the catch radius. I don't get that at 33 all the time, right?

And wide receiver tends to be a great position to draft. There's a lot of guys. But in general, this is a great body type to be able to get. The Colston comp is a really good one. I like that a lot. I've been saying Michael Thomas, because again, it's like a bigger body. You're going to use him.

You're going to use him to shorten intermediate. You're going to use him to win in those tight windows and zones kind of underneath. And he can do the downfield stuff. I know Bill's fans really are worried about, oh, he's got a bad contested catch ray. And Josh Allen doesn't like to throw to contest to catch receivers. Because if you remember, a big thing in Allen's early career with the Bills was they were like, oh, Josh Allen's really big, throw a fight on the field. Let's go get Kelvin Benjamin.

And he just never wanted to throw it to him because he likes to see players open. I think that was true of young Josh Allen. Josh has grown boy now, right? He's big professional quarterback. He can throw to a guy who's a little bit covered. I watched some of the interceptions Josh through. Trust me, he will throw to a guy who's covered. Yeah, he's going to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. So I know that Bill's fans worry a little bit about the contested catch stuff, but I think that a lot of Coleman's contested catch stuff in college was a response to the quarterback that was throwing him into coverages that he really shouldn't have been targeted in. You'll see this guy separate. You see this guy run. He runs better out some people are giving him credit for.

And yeah, in a room that had Khalil Shakir and Curtis Samuel, you needed a body of this type. So I love the Coleman pick for them. Colbishop out of Utah has the sort of traits that that start typically in this Shawmickdick, during defense like that for them. Sedge Van Prand Granger, great name, Sedgek Van Prand Granger. who was the center out of, out of Georgia is the sort of guy that they need to kind of protect themselves. Because they lost Mitch Morse this year. And so you get a developmental guy behind it.

It was a good draft for Brandon Bean. The problem is, you know, bills are still what they are. Bill's said they lost a lot of talent. They've been getting older. We've seen enough data at this point to know that if they sneak through the AFC, it's going to be by the skin of their teeth. And so I don't think this was like a, oh, the bills are back draft. I think it was, okay, the bills are trying to survive draft.

I think they also look at Josh Allen and think like, hey, what did he not do in that playoff game he did everything you know digs catch that ball they make that field goal like they probably end up playing in the in in the super bowl um i think he's that good i think they know he's that good and i think you look at it at you know not to say he's my homes so you look at kansas city it wasn't like kansas city was throwing to a lot a lot of people last year and patrick moham so you know they can get by if you've got a truly generational quarterback which i think josh allen is you can get by throwing to some guys and you know curtis samuel i feel like that's the devil that joe Brady again knows, right?

So it, they can, they can work it out, but they're going to have to play good defense, which is what concerns me. Anyways, talking about a team that added a nice piece on defense in Jared Verst and his teammate Fisk, the Rams, I think, I like what they did because I think what Verst does is what Murphy doesn't do. Murphy does not win a ton of rushes. I'm talking about just winning, like, I think he's a better athlete than a at this stage in his career, but I think eventually, and he was very productive last year,

but a lot of it is he can really run and he can close windows and all that stuff. This verse guy is a rolling ball of butcher knives. Like, that's his style of play. And I think pairing two guys that have different styles of play can be very fruitful for the, for the L.A. Rams. And they saw the need to go get somebody early to fortify pass rush. Gosh, if you're the Rams, how glad are you the union, make that Brian Burns trade a couple years ago? you know yeah right sending the farm yeah so so you end up with with with verse and you end up with

murphy and a young core and you go out and get a running back uh which a lot of people would say well why you you liked your kid from nether dame last year well he was hurt for a couple weeks and they looked left-handed without him you know everything goes to the run game for them you talk about a value in qb two value of running back too i don't know about at that place in the draft but Blake Corum they add him to the backfield. I thought they had a nice draft. And for the first time in a long time, I feel like Lesney did not trade or or move around in the first round. So this was very unorthodox draft for them. Yeah, but you can only, you can only not scratch the edge for so long. They moved up 13 spots for Fisk. It's like, all right, I won't move up in round one,

but you better know in round two. I'm getting mine. Yeah, I like the heavy investment in the defensive line, right? I think that no team in the league knows better that Aaron Donald, not just dominating on his own, but making life easier, so much easier for everybody else when he's just on the field. Once we lose that force multiplier, we know Kobe Turner's good. Kobe probably ain't going to look that as good when he's not playing next to 99 anymore. That's just the reality of 99's gravity. And so being able to say, all right, with like, you know, understanding that we still like some of our guys, we're going to spend a first round pick at edge and a second round pick a defensive tackle and we're really going to make sure that we are prepared as best we can be for the post

Aaron Donald World is smart. This was the one spot this defensive line where the Rams couldn't invest in free agency. They made multiple moves along the offensive line. They felt, I think, pretty good about the wide receiver room, Pooka and Cooper Cup. I'm sure they thought about adding more guys there, two to add well to Marcus Robinson. But you know what? We'll stick with what we got. And then in the secondary is where they brought in Trudevius White.

They brought in Darius Williams and they brought in Camperl, right? They brought in all their veterans there. And they said, okay, the veterans are on the secondary. The young guys are going on the defensive line. And so they're hoping. They're hoping that Darius Williams can reach the level of play that he had when he was last year. They're hoping Tradavius White can stay healthy. And if they miss on that and they have to have the young guys again, like this secondary was really, really green last season.

And they survived, you know, they hung in there. They might need to readdress it next season. But this was the one spot defensive line where they really couldn't add anybody in March. And so in April, it makes sense to double-ed. And to qualify, I think I said Murphy. I can't get Byron Murphy out of my head. it's such a great fucking fit fit up in seattle and i want to talk about the next but barron young's the guy i'm talking about the edge guy i just don't think he yeah i don't think he wins a lot of

rushes but i think he's got great physical tools and i think you know some more time in the system he'll be a lot better but but to add guys with different styles of play is really good okay i think out of all the defensive guys the first two guys that got picked really had as good a fits as anybody lot to and murphy talk to me about those two selections and how you you see them fitting in those respective defenses. Yeah. So a lot to at 15 of the Colts, I love. Good clip of Chris Ballard with the nice hair, Chris Ballard, right?

Yeah, what's up with that? Draft Day. I did. I was like, who is this guy? I did not know who it was at first. He's also not wearing, he was wearing just like a button down. He wasn't wearing team gear. And I was like, this could be anyone.

I've never met this man before. It's Chris Ballard. It looks like Jesse Clemens. Yeah. Yeah. There's a great clip of him. in the war room where after they take Latu, he just turns to the scouts.

He's like, we've got the best Russian in the drive. And yeah, and they picked for the first defensive player, so he better, but he is, right? Latu, if you took the medical questions out of it, I think you would have been clearly edge one

the entire process in terms of the hands, in terms of the effort, and using the length, getting around, you know, softening that outside corner so you can bend around it. Like, he used all that in a bag of chips. Latu's a high impact player.

And that's what they needed at edge rusher. Because last year, the Colts were top five in team sets. Right. It was unbelievable. They had like not great corner play. There's a Gus Bradley defense. Like, where did this come from? And it's because Quitty Pay has eight sacks.

And DeO Adi Yangbo was eight sacks. And Samson, Ebukon was eight sacks. And DeForest Buccner, like, Taekwon Lewis, they just had so many good, like, B tier guys who were just producing and contributing. And it was like, you know, everybody, all hands on deck, all hands in the kitchen. It was, it was a community effort. So if you're going to add an ad rusher to that, there's no real, you don't need to add a guy at 80, no.

80 overall. Like, he's, he's just not going to really break that rotation. You already have the rotation. You need to add the star piece. You need to add the crown jewel. And that's Latu. Latu is the potential to be a double digit sack guy. To be the guy who draws the double teams.

And he allows everybody to keep filling their role. So Lothi Lothi to the Colts. I also think Lato, even if he ends up an 8 to 10 sack guy, he's going to affect things around him so much. You know, like where Quidipay is going to fall into eight sacks. He's the beneficiary, right? And with all due respect to the guy, I think you put it like their B tier, which is very good rushers in the NFL. But you need them. But I mean, this guy, even if his production output isn't more than a quitty pay or like immediately, he's going to win rushes and force people off the spot because he's a, he's a contact hitter.

And I mean that like as a, as a, you know, a compliment. Yeah. Because, you know, there's a lot of guys. And I talked about this last show that they go for home runs the whole game. They, two, three moves. This guy is going to have a different move. Whatever set you give him. And he's going to get people off the spot and he's going to win a high percentage of his rushes.

So I really like that. And I like the Murphy fit to me is awesome because of, you know, I think of Matabike and I think of the way that he was used in that defense. I can't wait to watch. Yeah, Murphy, man. I'll never forget turn on Texas film to watch Tavondra sweat because he was the name, right? A big nose tack on Texas. The entire time, like, who is this cat?

Next to what are we talking about? And then Murphy ends up being that round one player. Yeah, if you're going to, if you're going to invest in a Leonard Williams, right? And you're going to say, okay, we want this to be a piece for us. Then you also want another defensive tackle who has some versatility to him. You need a guy who, okay, okay, we're lining them up with the three tech and this will be good and whatever. But when we want to bump Leonard's around, then we need to be able to bump the other guy around. We have to be able to kind of mix and match here.

And the fact that Murphy can really play tackle to tackle and succeed is so weirdly good against the run for a player of his size. He can just sit down and anchor against a double team, like a 320 pounder. Where are you getting this from? He has such weird, good strength when he's anchoring against the run. It's a force multiplier again. It helps you maximize Leonard Williams. And you get that good play. the defensive line and all of a sudden, it's a little easier for Boy A Mafay. It's a little bit easier for

Derek O'Soo and these other young edge rushers that you're trying to get to work. And so that's, it feels like the Seahawks have invested a lot in defensive line lately. So it's like, why I spent a top 16 pick at defensive tackle? Because this might be the guy who completes the set. This might be the guy who lets everybody else be maximized in their roles and all of a sudden lift off on the Seattle defensive line. Love the pick. I agree. I agree. You know, that that drop target changes when you invest in the guys inside. And I think, you know, those two guys outside they have are speed guys. And so it really helps. I want to talk about the, the, the, uh, the, uh, the Chargers draft because speaking of the Chargers, speaking of the Chargers, let's go to Buffalo. I, I, um,

I don't, I don't know that all it's the best guy in the draft. I think he's safe. Um, but I think there might be more talented guys. Having said that picking up McConkey in the second, I, I feel like it's okay that they didn't go receiver early because they, they don't feel like the Delta's that big, right? And, you know, I remember a couple years ago, the Cincinnati example of, are we going to take Penae Soule? Are we going to take Jemar Chase? They take Jamar Chase.

Everybody's like, see, you don't have to take a tackle first. Well, you also can. And I think it's an individual case-by-case basis, whether it works out or not. I think Ladd-McConkie, his paint job affected where he was drafted. Now, I think, I think they're, had they picked up Ladd-Macomki, Conky in the middle of the first. Everybody's like, you got your receiver. I think they can end up having their receiver and a tackle coming out of this thing.

And I actually like their draft. They also drafted a guy from Michigan. And your Colson? Yeah, Colson. And the, what, in the third? In the third. And then two seventh round flyers on receivers, which I love. Yeah.

You guys figure it out. Figure it out. The most competitive people in the draft, like those people are, those receivers are crazy. Like, you know, they're playing for their lives. out there. So if you got a guy out there that you pick in the seventh round, he's going to be very, very motivated. So I actually like the draft. Yeah. And the Sewell Chase theorem is always so funny to me because both like the lions and the Bengals are thrilled with the guys that they got. And then they also both like, you know, the lines found their Amon Ross St. Brown and the, the,

the Bengals went and signed their Orlando Brown and like, listen, like, there's a lot of them ways to skin a cat in the league. And you got to go, when you draft, you have to go for the guys you're going to fit your culture and fit your approach. And I think in this draft specifically, it was correct for the Chargers to believe that they were more likely to be successful going tackle one, wide receiver two and getting a guy in the second round than going wide receiver one and tackle two

and getting a guy a tackle in the second round. Just the speed with which the tackles went off the board. And then wide receiver, it's always a very deep class because there's so many body types, there's so many roles and there's so many athletes and college teams can actually like pass the football now. They couldn't do this 20 years. So now these wide receivers are actually developing seven on seven football.

They had so many more reps. that just there's just such a bounty of wide receivers available in round two and round three. And I think in most drafts. And so to me, it feels appropriate to take the tackle top 10 and take the wide receiver in the second round. Ladd, I think has a good fit with Justin Herbert too because Ladd's such a timing guy, such a separation guy, gets where he's supposed to be, when he's supposed to be there, catches everything. And there's nothing Herbert loves more than just feeding that guy and throwing that guy,

beating the zone defenders and being on time with everything. So the McConkey pick makes sense to me. Alt is interesting, right? started at right tackle at Notre Dame moved to the left and I was going to move back to the right to leave Roshan Slater on the left. I agree with you, there's a safety to him. I think that you said lad, you know, the patent job effect where he was drafted. I think the shirt affected where Joe was in Notre Dame.

And we sure like those gold caps. But the other thing with all that's weird is that he also like was a high school tight end. Like he recently, you know, sized up to be an office of tackle. So you can argue there's, there's development. There's meat on the bone. And I would hear that too. And so it was such.

a talented tackle class in the top 10, top 15, that whoever took the first tackle, I was always going to be like, I don't know. There's some other guys. It is a very difficult tackle class to parse. All right. You mentioned all being the first. The eighth was Tyler Guyton at 29. Then there was a cliff to 55. I really like Guyton. All right. So what are the chances that he can become one of those top four of those eight? Did he belong in the top eight before the Cliff. Dallas at 24, goes to 29, and also picks up 73, which turns into Cooper Beebe. But I've heard, you know, Dallas was the come on do something. Super Beebe, not related to Don Beebe. I think it's too early to tell. All right.

Yeah. Tyler, I, Guy in, I struggled with Guyton, Chris. I think you have enough sand his pants. I thought he was a little bit light on Stultz. I struggle with power. I'm not saying I would have taken him high, but I like him. Yeah. He's an NFL player. He's going to play a long time. Maybe. He could be gone next year. I won't even revisit it. I was Brian Edwards. I'm still waiting. All right.

So how do you consume the draft, Ben? Because we had good vibes watching the draft and then muscle memory took to Twitter. I'm still going micro. Like hold on like four times. And then the four times I went to Twitter I see Jordan Schultz tipping a pick and then Ben Solac commenting about a pick. Did you, were you, did Roger Goodell tell you the pick before you knew it at any point? on Thursday. Roger tells me a couple weeks out. It doesn't matter.

He got the script. Drops the first couple of, yeah, it's in an email. He just sends it. No, I, I, the nice thing is I used to be, like when I was doing draft coverage, that was what I did before I did the ringer. It was like, all you're on a set, like you're, you know, you're covering all seven rounds. So now the draft for me is I love kicking my feet up. I put ESPN on. I've had a network on the other screen. I'll be scrolling Twitter. If I'm getting a, if I see a pick on Twitter, it doesn't break my heart. Oh, dang it. Like, oh, I saw it was announced crazy. And if I'm, you know, Twitter and I'm doing something else. I'm writing upgrades or whatever and I'm seeing picks as they come.

That's fun for me too. The draft is it's so it's so much nicer to just be watching it as a Twitter and live stream the other night. There's those real live stream like five people are like, where's the live stream? I'm like, sorry, dude. Yeah, it turns out filling four hours of the first round with only 32 picks is extremely tough.

It's a hard thing to do, man. And everyone's watching ESPN anyway. Then forget about it. I want to ask you about two trades and then let you out of here, but like, or possible trades. It's the Trey Hendricksson thing. You know, he's talking about, hey, I'd like to be traded. And I might retire, which to me is like,

eh, it's not really not helping the negotiation for yourself there. But I think Trey would be really useful for a number of teams. Do you think something gets done? And then also the same franchise going with Mims. What does that say? Because they have two tackles. They won't have them forever. But this kid, big developmental piece, how are they going to use them early?

they're going to play him inside? Is he just depth? Are they going to, it's just one of these things where they know he's not ready because he's raw, but eventually he's going to be a stud? Yeah. So, Trey Hendrickson, I wonder how many NFL fans know that Trey Henderson's had at least 13 sacks in three the last four years. Nobody, dude. And I'll be the first to say when they game that deal out of New Orleans, I was like,

you are outside of your Melons. What are we talking about? And Trey Henderson, me, me my words. He's such a, he's such a good player doing what he does well, winning with that first step now like this is this is reliable and so long as that explosiveness stays he's going to stay a double-digit sack guy now i understand why i'm trying to get out of cincinn why he's trying to get more money from cincinnati is not ready for a post ray hendrickson world i would be stunned if they moved right sam hubbard having the injury issues on the other side of defensive end they drafted joseph

in the third round a few years ago to be ready to replace henderson he's not there they drafted the Miles Mercy in the first round last year to replace Dr. Kenderson. He's not there. Like they are bereft for edge play. Leaders gone inside. Yeah, he is not. I don't see him getting out of Cincinnati at all. So that's a tricky one to track.

Amerius Mims, firstly, love me in Ameriis Mims. I just give me a six-futty behemoth who can run. Oh, goodness gracious. And at Cincinnati, they really like those big tackles, right? They got Orlando Brown on the left and Trent Brown on the right now. They are supersized. The Trent Brown contract is a one-year deal. They are saying they wanted to walk into the draft with, okay, if we don't get a tackle,

we at least have a guy who can handle this for us for a year. I think they view Brown as a one-year rental, and there's also health concerns with Trump Brown. So Mims, to me, I think they will onboard them at tackle. Obviously, you played right at Georgia, but not a ton of experience. I'm sure they'll give them some reps at left as well in camp. And then you're prepared for injury to either Orlando or Trent. And I certainly think Mims is who they plan to be their 25 starter at right tackle. And honestly, I think that's the right approach.

Like this line for them, the amount of injuries that Joe Burrow has had, I know like Cincinnati, man, you want to go and add to that pass rush. You want to go and prepare for the T. Higgins departure. And they did that last year with some of their picks, but you really need to make sure you protect Joe because Joe's getting banged up at this point early in his career. That's that's the golden goose. If Joe's career ends early because he's losing athleticism or he's going to hurt too much, it's ballgame. So investing in the line to me makes sense. Yeah, and also investing in big bodies because I think Joe can step up.

He can navigate the pocket. But one thing he can't do is deal with and nobody can with some 360 pound guys fucking cleats on his toes. which is how he got hurt last year, trying to throw the ball. Orlando got bowled into him. And, you know, his hand lands on, I forget who it was.

I think it was Jonathan Grenard. It landed on Orlando because Granard bowled him back into Joe. And I just think, was it, was it clowny? Was it the Ravens? I can never remember.

He got hurt in the Texans game. Yeah. He got hurt in the Texas game. He came out in the Ravens game. But when he got hurt first, you know, we kind of had this disapprored thing going on. We had the photos of him coming off the play.

Yeah. Right. with the cast. So I went back through that game and it was like early in the game. Orlando got bowled back into him. Right. Yeah. Use that.

Bruder. And I was like, man, they need to figure out a way. I mean, I know Orlando's real big and everything, but they got to anchor because that's the one thing he can't deal with. And nobody can. It's like he's got to be able to set his feet and climb the pocket. And, you know, the one place you can't get beat is through you. And so I think it's a good move for them. And I love your thinking like onboard him.

Okay. And then the last one is I use. you going to get moved like does the ricky persel uh piercell uh pick the kid from florida he's from florida yeah yeah uh does that indicate something or does it not uh i definitely think it indicates that they are ready for the post i yuk world even if they don't have one year left on the deal right and and uh behind him you have Ronnie bell and you know john jennings but jennings only has one year left on the deal and so i think that they knew they needed to be prepared for some of the post i yuk worlds i think if i yuk was to be moved it was more likely to happen in the last

few days before the draft and into round one. There were a lot of reports that they were calling a lot in round one talking about a Debo move, talking about an IUC move. The fact that it didn't happen to me means it's now unlikely to happen. Man, brand I you cost about $28 million last week. And then Amunra Saint-Brown signed for 30 and A.J. Brown signed for 32. I say, brand-a-hek doesn't cost $28 million anymore. No, that's the issue, right?

Yeah, if they if they couldn't get close on an extension before the draft to make IUC happy to keep them in San Francisco and make the money right, I'm not sure. sure how they get it done afterwards. They really would have to give a lot of ground. And so to me, I expect I yuk to be a nineer in 24. Does he show up to camp? Show up in week one. We'll find out. But I expect him to play. And then I think after that, you're looking at the potential for a free agency and Piercewell stepping into those shoes. If you were John Lynch-Macon and Ben and say there was a way to trade one of the two players, Debo or Iuke, who you trade? Keep Ayuk. I'm keeping Iyuk. I want to keep Debo. It's tough.

I'll tell you why it's tough. I do think Debo is more integral to that offense. in terms of the role that he fills than IUC is. But in terms of, right, health and age and long-term availability. Yeah, you have to be more worried. Exactly. Debo, like, and that role inherently is a physical role, right? You're handing him the ball. You are giving him shots after shots.

And Rappaport had a report about this earlier this week where he said, like, they view him Debo as a bigger key to the offense, is more integral to the offense. And that's true, but that doesn't mean less replaceable. he's kind of the sort of role that you have to be willing to have a guy in the hopper for. The fact that at 32, excuse me, at 31, they had Xavier Legate, right? I fucking love him. I'm just like everybody else. I just want to hear of talk. I love him so much. Right. So you have, you have that, that thick body tight, that guy who can run with the football and maybe be a Diva replacement. And you have a Pierceall who's more of a smooth or outrunner separator. The fact that they went for a pierceal indicates to me that they kind of view Diba as more of the unmovable piece.

So I get that. I really do. Couldn't they look at Legat and say, hey, age and injury and that sort of thing or whatever it was. They didn't like him. Yeah, like they just might not have liked him. If I was the Niners and I could wave a magic wand, I'd have traded Debo, gotten everything I could form paid Iuk and gone out and got Cordero Patterson and say, hey, you do what Debo did. I don't care if you're a poor man's debo. Just do it because that's what you need.

You need that it's really Debo is explosive, but it's the threat of a Debo. and I'm not just talking about the explosives. I'm talking about the threat of having that wrinkle in your offense to occupy eyes. They might not be the same amount of big plays that Debo might get you, but you got to find somebody to play that role eventually. Because you play your whole season and Brock Purdy gets used to running one kind of offense. And then if Debo's dinged for the wild card, you could lose a wild card game. If Debo's ding for the divisional round, you could lose the division around game.

So to me, it's like you do set yourself up for a wild card. risk. Yeah. And you're really, and you're trying, what you're doing is you're trying to win a game on Tuesday, right, by saying, hey, like, we have this sucker. We'll put in the backfield, well, Jets shoot you've been touching. So now you have to be prepared for all of these constraint plays and all these parts of the playbook that just if you're not ready for them, we'll just beat you on screens. That's exactly right. Screw you. So I have to spend a ton of time dealing with this. And that just puts you on the back foot defensively. If you lose a deba, and that's where, like, with Corderole Patterson, you say, okay, like, you know, fit him into the role.

There's, there's, there's, there's really good loss of there. That guy can still kill you. Yeah. Then you watch Debo on like an 18-yard dig, like adjust to a football four feet behind and make a cash in place. You go, oh, shoot, that's right. He can also do that. That stuff's cool. That stuff's cool. But maybe the kid from Florida can do it.

We'll see. Hey, Ben, quick two-parter. Yes, sir. To get you out of here, try to stay with me. It appears that you've been standing for the entirety of this interview. Are you seeing any health benefits from standing? And two, what are you drinking from that Mason jar? Yeah.

I'm progressing yeah the health benefits I'm becoming more and more like macfee every day it's great I love it I'm gonna start wearing all black that that Baker wide receiver just he's standing in there in the yeah yeah I um no I like the standing desk I got um I got like ankle problems and such and so I'm supposed to to stand a lot more and pay attention to it and so I always use podcasts a good opportunity you see I've been to extraction this whole time I'm always like you know trying to fiddle around with a little bit I like the standing desk I feel like I get I get more energy when I'm standing I'd be energetic on the pod yeah yeah exactly you've got good great energy. Sometimes when I listen to him, like, man, he's really fucking excited.

But maybe poor ankle flexion. Yeah, it might have poor ankle flexion. Yeah. Listen, I would not clear medical rechecks at the combine, right? They flag me for sure. And then, yeah, dude, it's ice coffee season. We got the first, like, sunny, warm weather up here in Michigan last couple of weeks. So now every morning, I'm on my white girl grind. All right. Yeah. With, what do you like it with all the fictions? I got, it's oat milk. I'll be honest. Yeah. It's white girl special. Sure. Ben Z, absolutely. Yeah, I don't drink regular milk. Come on, no. All right. Well, I appreciate the time, Ben.

I'm happy for you. You get to sit around for a little bit and not doing it. Well, I got our first kids coming in a couple of weeks. No, I'm not going to be sitting around too much. Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll be off paternity leave. So it's off, but it's not really off, is it? Was it plural? I heard plural. No, I think he was saying my first kids coming in a couple weeks.

Oh, apostrophe. Yeah, apostrophy. Apostrid. Sorry for that. Where a girl. We're having a girl, which I'm real excited about. Nice. All right. And if you could, if you could, your future daughter, if she becomes a football fan, who do you want her favorite player to be?

Oh, that's great question. I think, so I grew up in Eagles fan. I grew up on like Trotter, but I also grew up on, on Brian Dawkins. Brian Westbrook, those are my guys. So if she's, she's an eagle fan and we get like, oh, dude, if Quinn and Mitchell is like Alito Shepard or Sheldon Brown, nah, ah, dude, I remember watching those guys in mid-2000s. That was, yeah. Sheldon Brown killed Stephen Jackson.

They filled my first NFL game. I'll never forget seeing Stephen Jackson. I've told the story before. Like Ben, it's like you watch this guy all camp and he's just obliterating people. And nobody wants to get in his way in our very first game. We're down 30 at the link. And Sheldon Brown just decapitates him.

And he's not even a star. He's like just a good player. I'm like, this is the NFL. Shout on Sheldon Brown. I'll never forget that Brown hit on Jackson and then dock on Algy Crumpler. No, no, in what I know now. Like I would not have celebrated that hit maybe as much as I did.

But when I was seven or whatever, I saw that hit. I was like, this is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life. It's just detonate on tight ends like Brian Dawkins. And then, you know, physically I was not able to achieve that unfortunately. But still, man. There's still hope. We could develop him. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Solac, you can catch him on the ring at the ringer. You can catch him on the Philly Special podcast and there's a frequent guest on the Bill Simmons podcast. And I know Bill's probably very happy like Drake May. So, Ben, appreciate the time. And we'll see you, we'll see you soon. Yeah, appreciate your fellas. Thank you.