Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Lonnie Phelps Goes Pro + How His NFL Decision Affects Kansas Jayhawks Football in 2023

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

Lonnie Phelps is going to the NFL after the defensive end announced his decision to go pro and skip the 2023 season for the Kansas Jayhawks Football team. What it means for KU on the defensive line and at his position, why Jereme Robinson could break out, and what's to expect for Brian Borland and Lance Leipold's defense and next moves ahead.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!LinkedInLinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Post your job for free at Linkedin.com/lockedoncollege Terms and conditions apply.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bonus content of Locked on Jayhawks. Lonnie Phelps declares for the NFL draft. We'll do a little emergency episode of Locked on Jayhawks. You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can hear me as well on Rock Chalk Sports Talk Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 on KLWN in Lawrence. Thanks for making Locked On Jayhawks your first listen every day.

We are free and available wherever you get any of your podcasts. Still normal shows. We're going to have our KU West Virginia preview coming out on tomorrow's show. I'm still going to be out Monday, so we'll recap that game coming up later next week. But wanted to get this out, emergency podcast, some content.

Lonnie Phelps is declaring for the NFL draft. Before we get into it, this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, your bonus content brought to you by BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for sports betting information, stats, news, and analysis. Get the latest odds and trends for every professional and amateur league out there, from pro football to college

bowl season to basketball and soccer. They've got it all at BetOnline.net. If you love sports podcasts, you can find those at BetOnline as well. They're the fastest and easiest way to get your betting information. Head to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more. BetOnline, where the game starts. So Lonnie Phelps going pro. He could have had another season in tow for Kansas next year, which would have been his final season of college football. Had a really strong season for Kansas.

You bring him over from Miami of Ohio, where he was an all-Mac player, gets close to double-digit sacks as a member of the Red Hawks. And the question is, how is a guy going to play up against Big 12 competition? But it was clear from the get-go, he has the three-sack game, four tackles for loss against Tennessee Tech, one of the best performances by an individual defensive player for Kansas all year, albeit against an FCS team. But it was clear right off the bat that this guy was a little bit different. And from that point on, for the final 11 games, the stats don't jump off the page. He was constantly getting tackles for loss. He had, from that point on, four sacks over the final 11 games. So it's not like you look at it and say, well, four sacks over 11 games, that's irreplaceable for Kansas. But when you add in

the context, context right he was playing through a little bit of an injury at one point he's getting double teamed every time how many times did it feel like Lonnie Phelps got held and it wasn't called there were also a couple other times where he could have had a sack like you think to the Arkansas game that he gets there he has a great pass rush but he just can't quite bring down a big mobile quarterback otherwise the sack numbers go up even more. So it was pretty clear that Lonnie Phelps was your best defensive lineman this past season. He was arguably your best overall defensive player.

I know Kobe Bryant was the one who got first team all Big 12. So maybe you'd argue him. If you want to argue him, that's fine. I think Craig Young's really good and had himself a solid season too. But for me, it's Lonnie Phelps or Kobe Bryant is your best defensive player I guess Kenny Logan deserves to be in that conversation too but I think Lonnie Phelps because the position he played to pass rush Kansas didn't really have a lot of other guys to do that was your best player on the defensive side of the ball and to not have that guy taking up those double teams it's going to be hard to overcome for Kansas you're losing your entire starting defensive line now and you

were already losing so much else with the depth and those other starters that losing him to, to go pro early certainly hurts there. Obviously from the Lonnie side of things, you wish him best. I haven't seen him being like a first, second or third round pick, but you know, he's, he's a really good player. He'll have some good tape out there. If it works out well, maybe he's a guy that could be like a mid to late round draft pick and, and have himself a shot in the nfl and you wish him the best and it'd be cool to see up in five years you look up and lonnie phelps is is contributing in the nfl level the same way that we've seen guys like dorrance armstrong or daniel wise who is now a member of the chief's practice

squad so um from from ku's perspective you obviously lose so much we've already seen them add a couple defensive line transfers from Minnesota. We saw Matt Devin Phillips from Colorado State. Those certainly help, but Phillips is an interior guy. You need more help on the outside right now. You lose Malcolm Lee on the outside too. Now there's even more. We had our KU football talk.

There's even more pressure on guys to make that jump headed into this year, whether it's you know a dean miller who's a former juco guy or if it's a davion westmoreland or to marion alexander to make that jump this next season because now you're really going to be called upon to play meaningful time and i was excited for this defensive end duo coming into the year because you could have lonnie phelps and jeremy rob Robinson, someone I'm very high on that could have a breakout year. Over the final, I guess, what would that be, seven or eight games? So from October 1st on, so I think that would be the final nine games,

maybe, actually, with the bowl game. From October 1st on, Phelps had five and a half tackles for loss. Jeremy Robinson had six. And again, there's the context there. Phelps had to deal with a bunch of double teams and dealing with some injury stuff my point in bringing that up isn't to say that jeremy robinson was better than phelps no i just said phelps was like your best defensive player it's to say that you know with with jeremy robinson he had a really good back half of the

season he had a couple sacks against oklah State. He had a big force fumble against Baylor. He was a really good player for you. And so you're still going to have really good players on this defense. Kobe Bryant is a really good corner and he's going to be an upperclassman next year. Craig Young coming back in another year in a system. I'm excited what he can do. Kenny Logan back for another year. You have your top three corners, your top three safeties. You bring back some of your other linebackers, even though you've had questions there to have more experience there are some players you can be excited about but you really need jeremy robinson to have that breakout year as i kind of expect that he can have and that he should have but now the problem is even if jeremy robinson has that breakout year at the

defensive end position you're still like okay but what about the other guy right who's going to be that other guy that fills in i would imagine this is now going to be a position that kansas is going to try to hammer in the transfer portal and try to find because they found lonnie phelps last year try to find that next lonnie phelps for this next season that's going to be a parative imperative for for this team to be successful next year because when you think about next year you bring back so much on the offensive side of the ball this should be a really good offensive team. It just should. As far as the team impact goes for the defense, I'm curious how that's going to affect things.

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And so you just got to try it yourself. Built, get 15% off your order right now using code LOCKEDON15 at Bilt.com that's LOCKEDON15 at Bilt.com so the team impact for Kansas bringing back so much on offense does give you a little bit more leeway for what you can do on the defensive side of the ball here but for Kansas, you do go 6-6, you have a couple close wins in there

to where the defense as much as they struggle at different points this year, and especially at the back end of the season, they still improve by over a touchdown from where they were a season ago. You have to keep that momentum going forward. If you want to take that next step, you want to get back to a bowl game, you want to win even more games, you want to win seven, eight, maybe even nine games. Defense has got to probably improve by another touchdown, and then you need the offense to be just as good if not better than it was this season maybe just as good but with a fully healthy season from jaylen daniels though the news that jason mean could be coming back kind of posted a interesting message on instagram certainly helps you there in case jaylen does get hurt again so with lonnie phelps gone you now have serious questions of will this defense be even just as

good as it was this past season when it wasn't good enough to win more than six games and at the very least now if you can somehow replace that with other players like kobe bryant coming back and other players getting better and some transfers you brought in maybe more depth then maybe you're just as good but is that enough i don't think it is so now the challenge KU is pretty tough and it is on everyone else to get better because you're losing arguably your best player. Again, if you want to argue Kobe Bryant, I'm fine with that. So at that point, your second best player on the defensive side of the ball, that's a lot to make up. That's asking other players to really step up for you. It doesn't mean

they can't do it. They absolutely can. But now that's on them in the off season. And now we'll see what the coaching staff can do. If they bring in another you know impact player on that defensive line because right now that is uh kind of missing from this kansas defense and you do have your worries for everything looks like with all these starters coming back this kansas team should be better i said my expectation for this team is to win seven or more games next season i think that's fair expectation you bring all these starters back. You won six last year. Why would you not be better? But the avenue for them being just the same or being worse and missing out on a bowl game and taking a slight step back is that the defense does not get better.

It regresses a little bit and the offense is maybe just as good, or you have more injuries or teams, the full offseason of tape, figure out the offense just a little bit more, and so you drop down a few more points per game, or you have more turnovers offensively, like you have less fumble luck with all the ones that KU recovered, and then all of a sudden the defense isn't better, it's worse, because you lose a guy like Lonnie Phelps,

and now all of a sudden that's where you are. I'm not saying that's going to happen. That's kind of the doomsday scenario. I still expect this team to be better than they were last year overall, because I do expect improvement from guys and other additions on the Kansas staff, but it just, it made everything a lot harder now that Lonnie Phelps is going to be going pro, but for him individually, good luck moving forward. And you hope that he has a promising NFL career. That's going to do it for this bonus episode of the Locked Jakes. I'm Derek Johnson. You can catch me on Rock Chalk Sports

Talk. Thank you for subscribing to the show. Give us a five-star review if you could or a thumbs up on the youtube page and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts see you for tomorrow's show rku west virginia