Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -3/6- Weekend Colts Scouting Combine Wrapup

Episode Date: March 6, 2017

The #Colts have spoken to multiple prospects, including some impressive edge rushers, and may have a shot at additional top 10 talents who could be sliding down #draft boards since they've been at the #Combine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No, I'm not for sale. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I am your host, Matt Dainley, and thank you for joining me again on this Monday, March 6th, and I'm glad to be here with you guys. It was a nice week, a good weekend in Indianapolis for the Scouting Combine. Of course, as you guys know, kind of took a backseat to seriousness for the most part a little bit with the last podcast or whatever.

Just sitting around and was talking with Jake and decided to pull one out. So on the other hand, there was a lot of very serious conversations going on in Indianapolis as we've heard throughout the week. I mean, if you look at the conversations that were a possibility for a three-way trade between Dallas, Washington, and somebody else, I think Denver all for Romo and, or 49ers, I think it was then for Cousins and everything that I'm not sure where that's at or what happened with that. But you know, that's, that's the good thing. and the interesting thing and fun thing about the combine. There's always crazy conversation like that, whether it's substantiated or not, doesn't really make a difference. I mean, the conversations are happening all over the place down there, and you'd be remiss to think otherwise. I mean, anybody is willing to open their ears and their mouth to each other just to see what can happen. I mean, that's a very rare situation where everybody gets to meet in one centralized location.

And basically anybody that one team would want to talk to another would be within, you know, probably about a five-minute walk and they wouldn't even have to go outside. They just follow the convention center hallways from hotel to hotel. So it's a very easy thing for them to do. It's common. And there's a lot of other conversations that go on, of course, as well. I mean, teams are meeting with prospects, a lot of different prospects, some that they, most of which I would assume that they would feel that they can get their hands on potentially in the draft, that they also just, you I would assume that they would feel that they can get their hands on potentially in the draft, that they also just, you know, more or less just want to meet the young man

on a personal note. But also there's some teams that meet with guys that are probably guys that are out of their league that will probably be gone before they would even get to them in the first round. As for one of the cases this year, which was the Colts were talking to Solomon Thomas apparently and had a meeting with him. So that, I mean, that's a guy that I don't see would get to the Colts. It was very interesting watching the combine to see how athletic a lot of these guys were. I thought the defensive line, the defensive guys on Sunday were very interesting. You know, Saturday was really cool with the tight ends and everything and the quarterbacks. Running backs were nice the day before.

It was just overall an interesting week. It always is. It's a great experience for fans, for anybody who's an analyst of any kind or anything, just to get down there and try to meet people and talk football. I mean, it's a great thing. There's lots to eat, lots to drink, and lots of people that want to talk football this week in Indianapolis. So it was a great time. There was a bunch of guys, by the way, that the Colts were talking to. Obviously, Dalvin Cook, the guy who's been mocked in 350 of the 351 mock drafts that have happened thus far. Raekwon McMillan, inside linebacker out of Ohio State. Devon Gottschall, also a defensive lineman. Terrell Basham, an edge from Ohio. I really like

Terrell Basham, by the way. I think you guys, if any of you go to draftbreakdown.com and want to watch a little bit of tape on him, he's got a couple videos up there. There's a few other ones elsewhere, but that's a good place to start. You just kind of get a quick version of what he's like on tape. I think he's somebody that I think the Colts are really hot after. The Colts have definitely talked to him, and I think that's a combined interest for sure. Kareem Hunt, a lot of people are high on him. I think the Colts are too as well. Obi Melifanwu is safety. Marcus May is safety. Damian Mama, a guard. I hope they're not interested in him. Solomon Thomas, like I said, and they've shown interest in Brian Hill. There was an article out that said that they've been showing interest in him. I don't know how real that is or not. I don't think it's a necessity to even worry

about that because there's going to be still, by the time the Colts were to go running back, if they were to go running back in this draft, they're going to do it with several guys still on the board. They want a solid pick of the group. They're not going to be wanting to pick the back end of the draft, in my opinion. I don't think Brian Hill's a bad running back or anything like that, but I just don't see that happening. So now one of the other interesting situations that happened the other night was the dismissal of Reuben Foster from the Combine. Now, when it initially happened, the buzz was kind of that, and I assume when I heard it, I, the, what I had assumed immediately was that maybe whoever was doing his medicals was like torquing on his shoulder or something like that.

I mean, and people were just saying that they thought he would be annoyed about them. I didn't know if that's what they meant or something else, but my thought initially was that somebody was torquing on his shoulder and he was like, Hey, hey, can you take it easy a little bit? I'm already getting ready to have surgery. You don't need to twist it off or something like that. But apparently it wasn't that. They sent him home because he got into a heated exchange with the hospital worker while he was getting his medical check, but it wasn't for that. It was basically that he was just being an ass and pulled the don't you know who I am

kind of type of thing. And apparently, you know, he had told the medical staff guy that don't touch me, basically I'll bury you. And I think the medical staff apparently said, you know, go ahead, go for it or something like that. So they sent his ass home. I mean, and that's good. They should have, you know, I had made, I had some conversation with Kyle Krabs earlier in the week and I said, you know, I, I hope that teams, you know, drop him not so much off their board, but drop him down their boards so that the Colts can grab him at 15. And he said, I'll wake you up when that happens. So he didn't think there'd be much heed to that. But, you know, I kind of wonder with all of this, first of all, the Colts don't want an idiot on their team and he's not a smart guy. I was talking to Brent Cebleski also yesterday and he made a comment about the tattoo. In fact, he tweeted

that out as well. And the tattoo that Foster had gotten when he committed to Auburn. He got a tattoo on his arm, and then right before the end of commitment, he changed and went to Alabama. Well, he'd since had some sort of a tribute to one of his family members who went to Auburn, added for that tattoo, so it kind of looks like it was meant to be there. But this guy is not a good decision maker, and this makes me wonder if the Colts even have that kind of a guy where it's like, look, if he falls, he's going to have to fall a lot for them to take. I mean, that's a first-round guy. I like him as far as his play. He's a phenomenal football player, but he just, I don't know. This seems just too stupid to me for a first round top 15 pick. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. I think if we're being honest here, inside linebacker in the first round is not a necessity.

So I mean, inside linebacker necessity through the draft? Yes. Inside linebacker at some point in time in the offseason, whether it's draft or free agency? Yes. First round of the draft? No. So, I think that the Colts have a lot of things that they could do. I mean, you saw Tack McKinley, Jonathan Allen, a lot of guys. I don't think Jonathan Allen would be there for the Colts either, but there's a lot of different positional players that will be there in the first round for the Colts. The Colts have the chance to knock their first round absolutely out of the park and probably the first three to four rounds of their draft, to be quite honest with you. And I just don't see them making a flip of the coin type play on a guy like Reuben Foster. Was there a

need for that? In fact, he actually said, hey, ask so-and-so about, which were two of his teammates at Alabama, ask them about the situation and neither one of them would cop to it. So that tells you that the dude's an idiot. I mean, and if he's a great football player in the NFL, that's awesome. But I just don't see the Colts taking such a high risk, that kind of a pick. I mean, maybe that's a silly, maybe there's more to it. Maybe it's a little more in depth. Maybe the medical worker had it out for, who knows. But until the full story gets told, you know, he's uh i think that the colts will probably go elsewhere with that pick i can't see them going that way in the first round but he is asking teams to meet with him at alabama on march 7th so uh this is going to be interesting if we hear something

about the colts traveling alabama here in a few days as to if they have interest in them or in Reuben Foster. But there was a lot of guys this week that had phenomenal combines, especially among the defensive line and are that. I mean, a lot of these guys were so, they have a lot of speed, they have a lot of size. And it was hard to tell. You know, you see a guy running, and, I mean, obviously, Miles Garrett was a phenom and just, you know, about jumped out of the gym and everything else. But, I mean, you had Carl Lawson, who looked really good, I thought.

I thought Malik McDowell looked pretty good. Hassan Reddick, I mean, that guy has absolutely shot up draft charts in the past two months, and he looked phenomenal. There's a guy named Tanzel Smart out of Tulane that a lot of people are liking. I think he was good to average as far as his combine. I don't really know how to take the splits and stuff. It wasn't one of the higher splits amongst the crowd, that's for sure, but he's somebody that people think is a little underrated, I guess. But there was another guy, Jordan Wills, who I've talked about in the past, and he had an absolute phenomenal

combine as well. Now, there's a lot of talk about his tape, about what certain people are seeing. This guy's going to draw diversity between scouts and just draft people in general, people who love to watch the draft in general. But my thinking is, what I saw anyways, I guess I can tell you that, but I did not see him being slow off the ball. Now, here's the thing. When it come to obvious pass situations, he was shot out of a cannon. When it was possible run situations and unknown whether it was to be a pass, maybe a second and long or a third and average, maybe a third and six, something like that, or third and four or something. I mean, there's possibly that he was coming out to set the edge.

He's a big, strong, athletic dude. I'm all for him coming on the team. I mean, he had a phenomenal day, a 4-5-3 and a 4-5-5 in his 40 and a 1-5-8 10-yard split. I mean, that's pretty crazy, and I really like him. I mean, I don't want to say he's a first-rounder because I don't think he is, but I think he's a second-round guy, and I think that the Colts, I mean, he's a good edge setter, too, and that's the thing. And this dude's like a football player.

He's not a pure edge rusher. He's not a pure edge defender, so to speak, as far as the setting of the edge. But the guy is an all-around football player. He can go inside against guys. He can split double teams. I don't really understand why people were so down on him. I mean, I understand that they understood that he was athletic, but they didn't like a lot of his skills.

I know that I talked to an Eagles guy the other day, and they said that he's not even on their board. But he was absolutely taken back by the guy's phenomenal strength and athletic ability, though. It wasn't because they didn't like the player. He just said he doesn't fit to them. So I thought that was interesting. He was a little more open about that than I assumed. So we know that at least in the first round, which like I said, I don't think he's a first round talent anyways. Anytime the Eagles are ahead of the Colts, there's a pretty

good chance they won't be drafting him. So maybe the Colts will get a slide at him. But Brian Cox, well, he looked like his dad. I mean, big, strong, motoring dude, 6'2", almost 6'3", real big guy, a lot of talent, I think. And I mean, Deshaun Hall, another guy, Miles Garrett's running buddy at Texas A&M. He looked good. Charles Harris looked athletic out of Missouri. There was just a ton of guys. Now, the one that I really liked the most, who I was real interested in, I was interested in Tano Capasano. This dude is from Villanova, 6'7", 289. That's a cut, slim dude. 4'8", 3'4", 9'2", and the 40-1-6-9 split. I mean, he's almost like a thinner version of Carl Lawson. The only difference is they're about five inches different in height.

I thought he was really interesting. Another guy that I really liked that I went back and watched a lot of his tape was Trey Hendrickson out of Florida Atlantic University. I was pretty impressed with his tape. He's kind of similar, and I don't mean player type as far as body type and athleticism and all that stuff as far as Jordan Willis, but he's just a football player. The guy can kill the edge if he gets his first or second move to score, but he just does the dirty work. He's good at going inside. He takes up blockers. He's good at fighting off double teams to get to the running back. He does a pretty good job of setting the edge. I think that he has a little less functional strength, I guess,

at the point of attack than somebody that you want as a pure Sam option in their defense, but he was pretty good. I was impressed with him. Like I said, I said on Twitter that if you're not watching a couple, three different guys in Capacino and Hendrickson were two of them, then you're doing the combine wrong because I hadn't heard of either one of them. I hadn't watched a ton of tape this year, so that's probably my bad, and everybody else is kind of looking at me like I was crazy. But those two guys were interesting to me just by watching them and seeing how well they did at the combine, how they performed,

and the way that they moved through their, you know their, uh, you know, flipping their hips and stuff in, in the different drills and getting over their speed. Uh, they were very technical and it really actually turned me on to watching their tape. So I did, and I was real impressed with Hendrickson. I did not get to watch Capasano's tape, didn't have time, but I was really impressed with Hendrickson. I think that he's a mid round guy. He's at six, four, two 66, strong enough for that, but he's going to have to grow a little bit, uh, one way or another, whether it's improving his functional strength or whether it's just actually gaining some weight so that his strength that he does have, uh, pushes people around a little bit better or something

like that. I was also really impressed with Derek Barnett. I thought that he did a really good job today, guy out of Tennessee. There was so many of those guys. I mean, Barnett ran a 4.88 and a 1.70 split. I mean, that's moving. You know, that's a big boy too, 6'3", 259. These aren't small guys. And I think that he's going to end up being one of the better talents in this edge class. I really do. I know that a lot of people, some people one of the better talents in this edge class. I really do. I know that a lot of people, some people are real high on him. Some are not real down on him, but others kind of just write him off a little bit as a, uh, one of the more, I wouldn't even say average, but low first round guys. I don't think that at all. I think he's a top 15 pick.

I think he's a very, uh, he's good in just about every aspect of his game. He gets upfield quick, really hot off the snap, and I think that he's going to end up being a guy that might be there for the Colts. He's going to be right in that 10 to 20 range, I think, maybe even just like 10 to 16, maybe even a little bit earlier, 8 to 16, somewhere around there, but I think that's a guy that the Colts could possibly land. And I think that if they do get the chance, they definitely need to kick the tires on that because that is probably one of the better edge rushers in this class. I think that Carl Lawson is going to be one of the guys as well that the Colts might have a shot at in round two. I don't necessarily think he will. The dude is just uber athletic, but he's got some injury history and stuff like that. And that will all come with time. And it just kind of

depends on how that turns out. But the Colts are going to have a ton of room to operate in this draft, especially in the first few rounds. Personally, with what I was hearing from the people about the offensive line and that type of stuff, I mean, I've talked about it a couple times on here, but just to touch on it real briefly, I think that that might lead to the Colts finding a trade-down situation, maybe in the second or third round. If they can get a trade down for just a few spots, pick up another pick in this draft, I think that would be the perfect situation for them. I think that's a situation where they could find themselves in the ideal spot to grab that offensive lineman that

they're looking at in the mid rounds and still be able to pick reasonably close to where they were already in whatever round they decide to do it. With around two months to go, or just under two months to go, until the NFL draft, I am so excited to see how Ballard approaches this. And I think that once we see it, it's going to be very interesting. Just looking at all these players, looking at all their skill sets, looking at how many good cornerbacks there are going to be. I'm real excited to watch those guys today and to see what the DBs do, because I think that there's been so many impressive talents already so far. Just seeing a little bit of tape off of these guys and then seeing how athletic they are, this might go down as one of the best drafts in 10 years total. I mean, I'm talking when they look at this draft five years from now, it'll be interesting to see what the redraft would be just because of how much

talent's in it. But I think what they'll end up seeing is that a lot of these guys in the first and second rounds were massively successful in their first few years. And I think that that's a reasonable thought. You know, I mean, Taco Charlton out of Michigan, he's a guy that people are low on, yet he's a really good player. I think that when you look at guys like Chris Wormley, who the Colts have been interested in as well, you look at that kind of a guy. I mean, the talent is all over the place in this draft, and the Colts have some expectations to live up to. I mean, when you get into a draft like this, you simply can't blow it. We simply have one of the best new general managers, at least on paper,

that we could hope for in getting a replacement for one of the people who was one of the most loathed in Indianapolis history. So this is going to be an exciting time. If you guys have any questions about this or anything else, please shoot me a line at LockedOnColtsPod at gmail.com. I'd be interested to see what you guys are curious about. It's going to be a phenomenal draft. I'm excited to watch see what you guys are curious about. It's going to be a phenomenal draft. I'm excited to watch the last day of the combine. And I'm interested to see what kind of

storylines come out because we are dead set to hit free agency in about 72 hours. And it's going to be wild, folks, because people are going to be positioning themselves to get themselves one of these guys in the earlier portion of the draft. And you're going to see all kinds of stuff. Whether we see how much we see from the Colts or not is kind of left to be determined. But that's what we're hoping for, right? I mean, regardless of how effective of a move it is, we all want to see the Colts doing something because that's what we want them to do. And that's interesting. And that's what drives the water cooler talk. And that's what keeps us excited in the off season.

So, uh, I'm looking forward to it. I hope you guys are too. As always, please subscribe to the show. Uh, hit me up with a rating and a review on iTunes. I appreciate that. And if you guys have anything you want to get at me on Twitter, I'm at mdanley underscore NFL and the show is at me on Twitter, I'm at mdainley underscore NFL. And the show is at Locked On Colts. And as always, I'd just like to thank you guys for your listenership, reaching out. I love the comments and everything else. I appreciate everything that

you guys are doing. Please tell a friend, share it with a friend, get more people on this Colts train because it's about to rev up pretty quick. We got free agency coming, then the draft, and then before you know it, training camp will be here, and it'll seem like the offseason, which has a solid month and a half of dead time with nothing interesting coming out of the league, it'll seem like the season is here before we know it. So stay on board with me, and I'll talk to you guys all tomorrow right here on Locked on Colts.

You are Locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.