NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - 10 Players Making the Leap in 2026 with Brett Kollmann

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Gregg Rosenthal and Brett Kollmann give you their candidates for making the leap in 2026. Find out which pair of tight ends Gregg and Brett think will ascend to the top of their position next season. Can C.J. Stroud make the leap back into the top tier of quarterbacks? Will Omarion Hampton give the Chargers offense a spark with his play next season? Those answers and more! NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Whether you're a first-time player or a grizzled vet chasing another championship, we give you the advantage and the confidence you need to make every move counts. Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to NFL Daily, where we've been making the leap since 2013. You know who's making the leap? leap this year. It's Brett Coleman. I mean, you know, sure, he's making, God knows how much money on that YouTube account in his great podcast. But now he's part of the NFL media family with his NFL pro show. What has happened? Brett Coleman. Welcome to the show. It's less money than you think. I use copyrighted music. So not a whole lot of ad sense on that channel. Stop. You, you know, it's all 32.

And yeah, check Brett Coleman out on his YouTube channel. He's the co-host of the bootleg football podcast too, which is great. But if you have enough to spend money on copyrighted music, that means you're doing well. Plus look at the background for everyone watching on YouTube. I'm spending on it. Oh, okay. I hear you.

Good to know. I try not to get you in trouble. You know that. But yeah, let's go over something I've been doing since 2013. I went to go look. It was actually a written content piece. on NFL.com back in the day called Making the Leap. And I thought Brett, who, yeah, we're welcoming to the NFL media family.

The show he's doing is really great. If you're into football, if you love this show and you're a sicko, you are going to love his show with Trevor Sykima NFL Pro. And this was kind of a sicko exercise I used to do back in the day because I went 40 deep. And I decided just in the interest of naming some guys, Brett, to go see what the list looked like back in 2013. And in the top 10 that year, we had T.Y. Hilton, Josh Gordon, Chandler Jones, Harrison Smith, and Ryan Tannehill. Five, you know, Tannehill maybe shouldn't have been number one overall. And that was not in exact order. But those are some great, some great players to look back on.

Yeah, it was like, what, half decade later? Tannenhill led a team to an AFC championship. So like, you got there. You got there. There were some other names, though. Number two and three on the list are players I barely remember, Bruce Carter of the Cowboys. boys, David Wilson of the Giants, and yeah, there were a lot of misses along the way here. So the exercise, the assignment, and it was partly because I just was really curious what you would say was to come up with four or five guys you think are going to make the leap this season. It can be a guy you never heard of, making a leap up to solid. It could be a solid starter, making his way to superstar. However you wanted to interpret it, I will let you start, Brett. Who do you got?

So I'm going to start with the Bengals defensive line. If you look at what the Bengals D-line looked like last year, I mean, they basically got no pressure from anybody not named Trey Hendrickson. He was the only pass rusher that had like even a half decent, you know, pressure percentage. And really, it was more than half decent. He's Trey Hendrickson. He's great. This year, though, they're not relying on just one guy to be their winner on second and long,

third and long, right? You got Dexter Lawrence who, yes, he is the one guy. But they have more than just him. You bring in Boy Amafay, they drafted Cassius Howell. like they've just they've they've added to their depth so much over the last two off seasons they have a real defensive line rotation for the first time since probably that 2021 group where you know they they brought in like DJ Reader and like they had like a whole platoon of defensive linemen and they were a pretty good defense that year wasn't just you know joe throw

and go balls to Jamar chase so for the first time in a while like they have an actual defense here and i think that's what makes the bengals more dangerous Yeah, I love that. I love that you immediately zag a little bit off the assignment, that you know, that you went for an entire defensive line. It's exactly something that I do myself. And I appreciate that and going big, like with a position group. And I heard Zach Taylor say at the podium just this week of like,

that's where why we feel differently this year more than anything. I'm using like my words there in terms of more than anything. But he said our defensive line depth is just different. And that's part of the confidence. How confident are you, though, that let's get into the depth part of it. Because, yeah, let's assume Dexter Lawrence is Dexter Lawrence. Let's assume Boy Maffei, who's a great piece as part of a good pass rush unit. We know that is who he is.

When we get into like the Jonathan Allen, Miles Murphy, Shamar Stewart is on their active roster. I thought he was going to maybe put on IR to start the season. Anne Howell, like B.J. Hill. Out of those guys, what is your level of confidence? Who do you like there? Where are your concerns? What do you think about the rest of the group after the top guys? You know, Alan obviously is not the same as what he was, you know, a few years ago in his heyday. But like, I still think he's a more effective, you know, complimentary piece than what they've had in recent years there. like even if he's just let's say

an average league average starting three technique that's still better than what they had so that in itself is an upgrade as far as like the true depth pieces Cassius Howell is a DPR coming off the edge he really is a fun player and it's not just because he's kind of the fast bendy fluid you know

lighter pass rusher than a lot of people tend to fall in love with and they do nothing in the NFL he does have some power to him right and he really weaponizes his natural leverage he is a shorter player like when he gets up and under you and into a tackle's chest, he doesn't look like he packs a punch. He absolutely does.

So I really like Cash's Howell. Do I ever think he's going to be a three-down player? Not necessarily, but if he gives me value on third down or like an obvious passing situation, like second and long, you just get production there. That's something that they haven't really had outside of Trey Hendrickson. You pair that with Maffa,

you pair that with Lawrence. Like they could have all four of those guys on the field on second and nine and that's a problem. And they just are coming from such a bad place that just getting average would be awesome. And you're right, the upside is really high there. I love Cassius Hallis tape.

I've loved to see the reports in Cincinnati that he's had a really strong camp. He looked good in the preseason when he played. So he's like checking a lot of boxes along the way. I'm going to start off with another defensive line player in this case, Walter Nolan of the Cardinals. and he's a guy who just didn't get a lot of snaps as a rookie, but man, those snaps were impressive.

It was like it's under a couple hundred snaps and even less in terms of the pass rush moves. But man, within those snaps, I think he had about 17 pressures. Like his snap per pass rush was incredible. He was the best defensive tackle of all the rookies last year, although they struggled as a group. But there were a couple reps. There's one against Tyler Smith.

and you said, you know, providing a jolt with Cassius Howell, this is a guy, Walter Nolan with heavy hands. I know you're a real football guy, Brett. Like you used to, you like to use phrases like heavy hands. Walter Nolan has heavy hands. And he swipes Tyler Smith and he wins so fast against him and takes down Dak Prescott. It was actually the first pressure of his entire career. And what a way to get going. And there's a lot of reps like that during his rookie season.

and we think a closing speed with cornerbacks, but man, he has closing speed for a defensive tackle because sometimes he's going around the edge like on a stunt or something, and you just do not expect him to get to his target the quarterback as quickly as he does. But it's impressive. You don't want to just scout on only the best plays,

but he had a lot of the best plays in a pretty limited sample size where I think that the ceiling for him is extraordinarily high. I mean, the physical comp, lot of people had for him was Jalen Carter. And Jalen Carter's making, what, 38 million a year now? And for good reason, you know, even coming off a quote-unquote down year because he had

shoulder injuries, like, the Eagles still paid Jalen Carter because, like, we know what he is. And for Nolan to be compared to that kind of physical unicorn, that's about as high of praise as it gets. If he's healthy, I agree with you. I think he's going to be awesome. There was a quote from him this week where he said, I feel like I'm the heart beat of the defense, which is interesting to hear from a second year player, a lot of confidence. And yet, Mike LaFleur, his coach kind of backed it up. He said early after he got hired that

when we faced them, we recognized their defense was just different because they played them once without Walter Nolan and they played them once with it and that they were just a different defense with them. Again, it's a lot to put on such a young player, but I'll fall for the off-season. in stories like that his injury was a wake-up call about how much he loves football, that he got a personal chef. When it serves my interest, Brett, then I'm totally into it. And when the tape matches it, I mean, he plays with the ferocity that I'm just, I'm totally into. So I'm big on the Walter Nolan hype train this year.

Yeah, we're always going to confirm our priors around here. That's pretty much it. All right. Give me someone else that you think, or a group that you think is going to make the leap this year. Speaking of confirming my prior, so I had Omarian Hampton with an equivalent grade to Ashton Genty in that year's draft class. I loved both of them equally. And Amarian, if you're looking at what he was last year versus what the Chargers run game as a whole was last year, you can see his impact just by making them be not the worst run game in the league. Unfortunately, Ashton Genti, like they were arguably the worst run game in the league wasn't really Ashton's fault. but if you're looking at like average yards before contact per attempt,

the chargers were one of the worst offenses in the NFL last year at that. Their offensive line completely fell apart due to injuries. Alt got hurt. Slater obviously was hurt the entire year. You know, the interior trio, it was just a constant rotation of new guys and none of them were actually that effective. And yet they were still 12th in explosive run rate last year. And Omarian, among all running backs with at least 50 carries,

he was third in terms of mistackle force percentage, about 30%, which is an absurd number. So the fact that they were even a kind of below average run game in totality is just because of how good Amarian. And also Kamani Badal also were in that backfield. The offensive line deserved none of the credit for that. It was all the running backs. And now, okay, Alt is healthy, Slater's healthy-ish, we think.

You lose Biotish, but like they drafted a guy who can play center and slaughter. Hard to believe the guard situation is going to be worse, right? So if the offensive line is at least a little bit better and Hampton is still healthy, I think he could very easily put up like 1,300 plus yards this year. Yeah, he is someone we got a chance to see in person when we went out to their training camp that he had one. He's just crazy to see in person because he had one where he got up the sidelines and just sprinted and just to see that. size moving like that. It reminded me I was lucky enough

to see Derek Henry at field level once and it always stuck with me. He's not Derek Henry, I know, but it's just so rare to see anyone that size move like that, that it's just sick, like looking at this guy in person. My comp for him, and I developed this comp after seeing him at the combine.

Because for some reason, the NFL keeps letting me on the field at the combine. I don't know why, I don't know who I'm tricking to get away with that, but they keep letting me down there. and watching him go through the drills from like 10 feet away. My comp changed from a football player to a different kind of athlete entirely, a ballet dancer.

Because when he steps, I swear to God, Greg, he floats off the ground. I've very rarely ever seen somebody move like him where it's almost like gravity is fighting to keep him on the ground every time he just takes a single step. The last guy that I saw up close and personal that moved like, that was Julio Jones. Like, he's that kind of athlete. He's just ridiculous. That's a great calm just in terms of a guy that is moving in a way that you don't expect to see and really wowes you in person. Now, you're there what? Taking, taking videos. What are you doing on the field at the Combine exactly? Because you got like the high res. What's going on there?

So I was always taking my FX3 down there to do like really cool like slow-mo cinematic shots, but I also have my notebook because the Combine is like a unique opportunity where you can see guys with your own eyes do the same drill back to back to back to back to back and just see how guys move relative to each other and I think it's so valuable you try not to over index on it but also like seeing quarterbacks throw live seeing how the ball looks live because I do think that cameras can kind of play a trick on you a little bit when it comes to like looking at how a ball flies through the air that was actually what kind of changed my opinion on trey lance and brock birdie back in the day is you're watching tray lance on tape you're like oh my god this guy's got a gun for an

arm and you know, Brock Purdy doesn't look like he really has much at all. Then I showed up to Niners training camp. I think this was 22, whatever your Brock Purdy's rookie year was. And just being on the sidelines at that training camp, you're like, oh my God, is Brock Purdy like their best quarterback? And you're just looking at how the ball jumps out of Tray's hands versus Brock. You're like, I think he might be. And that was what really made me believe in Brock was seeing him live in person before that season even started. He was like QB4 on the depth chart at the time. Jimmy was working on a side field.

And then eventually he gets his opportunity because of unfortunate injuries. And he just took it, right? And I harken back to seeing it live. I was like, it kind of makes sense because if I'm seeing it live, the coaches are seeing it live. That's why he made the team and that's why he got the opportunity. It is weird to think that they were in the same training camp together. A couple of them, I think.

I think, you know, Tray Lance was still there, Brock Purdy's second year. It's something that non-49ers fans, even myself, kind of memory hold that, like, at one point, yeah,

Brock Purdy had to beat out Trey Lance with Hampton. Because I've thought a lot about Barrean Hampton. Are you at all, like, worried about his running style? Like, he's not necessarily a guy

that's going to make you miss compared to some of his, you know, brethren at the position. position. And do you worry that he's almost, he invites contact at some point, that could be a problem? I think it kind of depends on where and how that contact happens, right? I think he does need to get a little bit better in terms of not inviting it in no-win situations. He's a young running back. He's eager. I think it's okay. If you have 12 yards, right? You already got the first down. You

12 yards. You're going out of bounds. You don't necessarily need to turn back into the safety. Like, you can just get out of bounds. You got the explosive run. Like, preserve yourself for the next carry. He's, he's very eager. He's very violent running back. I think he can probably preserve himself a little bit more after he's already won. Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. And I'm sure he's been coached on that a little bit. Almost reminds you, yeah, of a quarterback that occasionally just save yourself just a little bit. Let's go, I'll go offensive line next. And I view this exercise, Brett,

since it's happening right before the season, as kind of, we're planting our flag on these guys. Like, I don't want to not mention Armand Membu because I've talked about them at different points a little bit throughout the offseason. Because I want to pick the guys that I think are the most likely to really ascend. And he's,

close to me to already being at an elite level. And the numbers, as much as you can get them for offensive linemen, would back me up. Just their running game, when they ran to his side of the field last year, it was like a yard and a half better going to Membu's side than it was to the left. The numbers can be a little messy there. He did give up sacks. Those numbers weren't incredible. He tended to lose quickly the times that he lost. But overall, if you look up the pressure rate that he gave up as a rookie. It was not high. There were pre-snap penalties. I mean, he looked like a rookie. And yet, if you asked me to just pick one tackle out of the last few draft classes for the next 10 years, I think it's him. I just think he's going to be that guy. And tackles who are going to be great,

often become great pretty quickly if they were that good as a rookie. So Membu is my second pick here for making the late. I mean, he is just an absolute physical freak, right? Size, length, power, fluidity. It's very Tristan Worf's-ish as far as the athletic profile. And in fact, I think if you put their numbers side by side, I bet it's pretty similar. And he moves like Tristan works, quite frankly. The fact that his first game ever as a rookie, it's like, hey, go block T.J. Watt one-on-one. And he did it. He panicked him like four times in that game. That to me was the announcement of like, oh, this guy isn't normal. And he just stayed not normal the entire year. I think he is arguably the best player on the team. Maybe not even arguable. Yeah, I was got to say,

on the Jets, I thought you're, I thought you're about to go. He's like the best tackle already. And maybe I'm cheating a little bit. Part of the making the leap exercise, Brett, at the end of of the year, you want to look good with it. And, uh, Sometimes it's about the guy gaining a greater public, you know, profile and consciousness and acceptance when people like yourself are already kind of recognizing his talents. And yet I do think he had stuff to clean up as a rookie. I mentioned some of them where he did give up sacks.

He did have penalties and everything. But for a guy to come out at that position and show that much upside right away at a position that's so difficult that so often you don't. look like a star right away. Even some of the greats did not look like stars right away. It does feel like, yeah, Armand Membu, I agree with you, is the best player on the Jets. And if Fashinoo can do his thing on the left side, and I don't think he's going to be at that level, but they really have like a couple of building blocks to be their team identity,

to get excited about the Jets for a while with David Bailey on the other side. Were you a Membu or Will Campbell guy going into the draft or both? I was Membu and quite frankly, I got very upset at the Raiders for taking a running back over Membo when they needed a right tackle. And then that running back, who again, very talented running back, had nowhere to go. And it's like, well, if they took the right tackle first, it'd probably be a better running game. But what do I know? Yeah, I love Memboo so much. The question I have for you, because you mentioned, I don't know if there's a young tackle you take for the next 10 years over him.

Him or Joe Alt? where do you stand on that? I'd probably just go remember, which is unfair just because he's not coming off of an injury, but Joe Alt is a great shout-out. Are you a big Joe Alt guy? Joe Alt, to me, I mean, you've been watching football a long time,

just like me. You remember Jake Long, pre-injury, Jake Long? Yeah. That's Joe Alt to me. He's Jake Long. I think if he stays healthy, which has been the issue so far, if he stays healthy,

that to me is like a future Hall of Fame tackle. That's how good he is. And his tape in his second season before he got injured was just outrageously good. Remarkable. He's a good shout out too because it's not that I forgot about him

but you also just think, okay, he's already good and he's coming back from an injury and we're almost taking that for granted with the Chargers and what's happening this season. But my God, to just add him to that line is massive.

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A lot of tension here. I don't know if you count making the leap back, but how about C.J. Stroud? Okay. I think we can, yeah, no, I think that works. I think so, especially if you think he's going to, go to another level even, improve on where he was as a rookie. He very easily could, and I'll tell you why. A lot of it doesn't even really have that much to do with CJ.

It has everything to do with the run game. And this is something that we highlighted on our week one preview of NFL Pro. If you're looking at the Texans called run percentage on first down last year, 54.4%. That was way above league average of roughly 50%. I know it doesn't sound like a big difference. It absolutely is. they love running the ball on first down.

Problem is, they kind of sucked at it. Not even kind of. They really did suck at it. 28.4% of their first down rushes were successful. That was the worst percentage in the league. They led the league in second and long opportunities. And the problem is, in second and long, the Texans went into shotgun. C.J. Stroud is a better quarterback from undercenter than he is in shotgun. Kind of a rarity for a young quarterback, quite honestly.

but when he is under center, especially doing hard play action fakes from under center, there's that structure, there's that rhythm, like he's very much a timing-based quarterback and he thrives in that environment. You put him into shotgun, that kind of happy feet there,

the timing is different. It's kind of more of a loosey-goosey structure, I would say. And that's reflected in the numbers here. As far as yards per attempt, from under center, 8.6, shotgun, 6.9, massive drop-off. EPA per drop-back. damn near tripled under center compared to shotgun.

He is a much better quarterback under center. Had just 16.6% of his dropbacks came on third and long, second highest in the NFL behind only Justin Fields since entering the league. So you give him a half decent running game, which I think they're going to have this year with Dave Montgomery in an improved offensive line. You get him into more second and manageable, where they're going to be under center at twice,

the rate is gun once they get into second manageable compared to second of long. More under center for C.J. Stroud means a better C.J. Stroud, which means a better Texans offense, which means at that point, sky's the limit for that team. I think that he's a totally fair making the leap pick because, look, the rookie year was great for him to come out how he did. And his great, like, if you had taken the 25 best throws of his rookie season, they will, you know, They were just jaw-d-dropping, and he's great throwing the ball down the field. But even that season, somewhat statistically, wasn't that far off from where he was last year, which I think overall was a little bit better season than we remember because of how it finished

and because of the dichotomy you're bringing about. He just wasn't consistent. He was streaky within games. He was streaky with the formations that they're using and just more consistency. And the potential of being a top eight to ten quarter. which just nobody thinks he is. That's more than enough of a leap. The Making the Leap Committee validates it.

We give you a check mark. It's acceptable. But he has to finish like top 10. I think he can do it. Let's stay in the same division. I'm going to go with a tight end. There were a few tight ends I considered. Like can Charlie Kohlar make a week?

You know, like a year five leap. Spicy. Could, you know, Kincaid. We already know Loveland's good. But I actually am going to go. with Brenton Strange, who for so long was known for his blocking. He started to make the leap, I think, last year

when he was healthy. But he's a player for the Jaguars that was great as a blocker, was great to have on the field and really helped them diversify the offense pretty quickly. It was probably a better player than people realized right away. But has just gotten more

consistent. Like, he is a yards after a catch guy. He is a downfield threat at times. At one point, like in the playoff game, they're giving him shovel passes in the red zone to try to like beat someone on the edge one on one. I don't know if that was like the greatest idea. It didn't work against the bills in the play. But it shows you the type of confidence that they have in him as a playmaker is a lot about Liam Cohen being his coach and being able to maximize his skill set. But he's a guy at a position, Brett, which often is a slow burn for guys.

And usually we see it go the other way where they have to figure out the blocking as they go. to be kind of become as fully realized as you want them to be as pros. For Strange, I think it's gone the other way. And I think the Jaguars told us something, Brett. They signed him to a contract extension. Practically, no one noticed in the middle of the summer this year, which could wind up looking like a bargain

because I think they wanted to lock him in before his price got even bigger. He's going to be a really big part of that offense. It's so interesting how that offense kind of transformed around week 11 last year, which coincided with the Jacobi. Myers trade, but also, okay, they found something in Cole Van Lannon. You know, he had an excellent, you know, home stretch.

The offensive line off the top of my head went from like bottom five in pressure rate allowed to top 12 or 14 in pressure rate allowed in the back half of the year. So offensive line kind of fixed itself. You know, Jacoby made a big impact. Parker Washington emerged. And while, you know, they, they wish they got more from BTJ last year. And while it was unfortunate that Travis Under got injured. The Jags offense in the home stretch

compared to the Jags offense at the start of the year were two entirely different entities. And I think they learned a lot of lessons from that. I agree. I do think they are going to feature Brenton Strange. I don't think they're going to feature Travis Hunter as a receiver as much as people think because they need him more at corner. And also because they have guys like Brenton Strange, because they have guys like Parker and Jacoby and like BTJ still exists, by the way.

Right. So if I'm giving snaps to Travis Hunter and trying to keep him healthy for a 17, game regular season and potentially a 21 game total season if they go all the way. I'm not going to waste, quote unquote, waste snaps of his valuable precious snaps at receiver when I really need him at corner when we have a bunch of other guys that can get me explosives like Brent and Strange. Yeah, there was a game against the Colts late in the season where it's yards after catch.

It plays down the field. He missed a chunk of games in the middle. the season. I don't think they were the same offense without him. So every team is kind of looking for that type of tight end that is just going to be able to hide what you're doing offensively. And I think he is one of those guys. All right, you are up now with your fourth making the lead pick. I also chose a tight end. And again, kind of being loose with the definition here, because some people think you might already have Colston Loveland with the Bears.

No, I think that's, I think that can work. What you have to do, though, is now you have to go very strong because he still has to make the leap from where he was last season. So you have to go like full takesman, best tight end in the league, or at least... 2011 Jimmy Graham numbers.

Maybe second, like I'll accept second team all pro. Like for him to make the leap, it has to be to about that level. I think he is going to be the quasi-bears number one. Okay. This year. And people got real hype on Luther Burden.

And that's fair. Luther Burton, I thought it was a really, had a really strong rookie campaign. Obviously, Romadunze is still there. As far as who the most uncoverable game-changing weapon on the Bears is, it's Colston Loveland. And remember, he started out last season playing through injury. It took him a while to like really become himself. And when you have a true wide tight end, which he is, like he'll get after it in the run game a little bit,

that can also absolutely abuse man coverage the way that Colston Loveland does. That's why three of his last four games, It was six for 94 in a touchdown. 10 for 91 and a touchdown. 8 for 137. Like he's just absolutely sensational as far as being a receiving threat. And he can block. I think he is going to be not even one of the four best tight ends.

I think he's going to be one of the two best tight ends in football this year. Sure. Give him a second team all pro nod. I think he's also the most important, quote unquote, skill position player for the Bears. I think you can survive with their receiving court if either Rome or Luther go down. I don't think you can survive without Colston Loveland

with how important he is to them. That's a great way to think about it. How would Ben Johnson feel if he lost one of each of those players? I think if he lost Loveland, he's not talking about... He's not trying to talk about breaking the scoring record.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And because they're a high-profile team, he'll have a chance for everyone to see how great he is. You know, it's going to be tough to dislodge, Trey McBride, you know, George Kittle at some point is going to be back if he's fully going, but I think Loveland can be that valuable for him. And rookie tight ends have been better lately,

but that's another position that there can be a real significant year-two leap. I'm going with someone that, would it be a year-four leap for Jailix Hunt? they haven't signed Jailix Hunt long term, which is unlike Howie Roseman. What year is Jailac's on? I should know this coming in. I think you're right.

I think you're four. Right, because he was a rookie in that Super Bowl. No, this is only year three. That makes more sense. Because Howie is going to sign Jailch's hunt to a long-term extension in this upcoming off-season. And they're going to try to get a good deal out of it.

You know, he's like, not a first or second-round pick, but to me, they've already made their choice, him versus Nolan Smith, because he's sort of made it for him. I'll never forget that performance in the Super Bowl, where he got a lot of pressures. But even if you look at last year's playoff game, he had five pressures against the 49ers. And there's a snap. I mean, this is a guy from Houston Christian that just where he just pushes Trent Williams back into the lap of Brock Purdy. And that's incredible strength for a guy who's listed at 248 pounds. So in terms of QB hit rate last season,

there was only a handful of players in the entire NFL that were better than Jalix Hunt. So again, a guy who maybe doesn't get the national recognition, he started to make that leap already. But those guys were Miles Garrett, Zach Allen, Byron Young, Nick Benito, and then it's Jalick's Hunt. And this is multiplied, Brett,

by just hearing from the Patriots reporters who are at the joint practice, and then especially from the Eagles reporters that have been at practice every day, that Jalick Sunt has just dominated to the point where they're like, should we be a little worried about Lane Johnson or like that doesn't make sense to us,

but either way, Jalick Hunt has just been completely dominant and like practice wrecking in terms of how he's looked this season, which makes a lot of sense to me, just because that's how he's played and he's entering his third season, and this is a team that knows how to develop their linemen. I mean, he is,

And alongside Jonathan Grodard were the reason that they were comfortable letting walk my last guy of making leave. And that's Jailin Phillips. The other, other, other Eagles Edge. Okay. Kind of compounding everything together. It's good. That's professional podcasting. It's almost like you've done this step for a segue.

Let's go. So you think Jalen Phillips can get better? Like another level he has to reach. Yeah, I think we're going to look back at that 2025 Eagles Edge room. And we'd be like, wow, they had all those guys together in the same room. Because I think Hunt, I agree with you about Hunt. I think he's going to take a step forward this year. And I think Phillips, like he was their most effective edge rusher last year as far as like down to down.

Like how often are you disrupting the quarterback? He was their honestly not even their best edge. He was their best pass rusher last year, largely because Jalen Carter was injured. But still, best most productive pass rusher in a down-by-down basis for are you getting pressure? The problem was, wasn't really. converting those pressures into sacks. Only had five on the year, had three with Miami, had two with the Eagles.

But to me, he was well worth the investment for when they traded for him to try to just make a run because they felt they needed to add to their edge room in the short term. And I think that he paid off for them. And also he got paid by Carolina for a reason. And there was no way the Eagles were going to match that deal. They felt they felt that they could get a comp pick back for him. And when you kind of math it all together, of like, okay, we're going to a comp pick for him, trading for Jonathan Grinard,

we have Hunt coming up. Like, it was a brilliant stretch of work by Holly Roseman. But the secondary part of that to me is that Jalen Phillips was worth the contract the Panthers gave him. And if he could just convert more of those pressures into sacks, which I think he will, because going back to his younger days in Miami, as well as in college, he was very good at turning pressures into sacks. If he can just be like an average pass rusher as far as that conversion rate,

he'll be a 9 to 11 sack guy, which to me is absolutely worth that kind of money. And also I think he would be more recognized as one of the better, still young-ish, he's 27, edge rushers in the league. I'm glad you pointed out his age there because he just turned 27 this off season. And he's been in the NFL a while.

And I like thinking about him because you think, okay, he just got this money. And obviously he had a good comeback. season last year. But what he hasn't really had at the NFL level is like a couple years straight of full health. So this is a guy coming off a torn Achilles followed up by a torn ACL. And then he did what he did last year. This is a fully healthy offseason. And we've never really gotten to see maybe the very peak of what Phillips can do. He was getting there as a second year pro. He was awesome that season for the Dolphins. And every.

Everyone kind of expected him to be maybe a defensive player of the year type of candidate the next year. And that basically is when all these injuries started to happen. And you're absolutely right. I think it's a good situation. I don't love, you know, that there's not a great edge rusher opposite him. But he does have Derek Brown next to him helping out, drawn. Yeah. I think the plan was him and Scorton together.

That Scorton got injured. You know, it just, it was unfortunate. I thought the Panthers, you know, a month ago, we're going to have a really cool young edge group and it just kind of evaporated a little bit. But Jalen's still good. There is another level where he could reach and everyone will be calling that front office very smart for that contract, even though they got too much heat for it. I thought, I agree with you.

My last pick, let's go with Trey Tucker. You know, are you a Trey Tucker guy? Are you part of Trey Tucker Island here? This is a little bit more about like fantasy and opportunity. but I do believe in him as a player as well. I am Trey Tucker neutral. I don't not believe, but I'm willing to hear the argument. There, well, first of all, you can't teach that speed.

It's crazy. But I think they're going to work a lot of the offense around him just because they don't have other options. Obviously, it's Bowers first. It's the running game. But if you saw how they were using Tucker in the preseason a little bit and a little bit what I've heard in practice. I think they really believe in him as their key wide receiver.

And the speed is truly special. It's just rare to see anyone make really fast cornerbacks look that slow. But he's not just a straight line guy. He's a little tougher than you think. He's a little bit better of a route runner than you think. He's a little more versatile. I'm not saying he's like Tyree Kill or anything like that, But I do think he's a guy that you can build more of the plane out of this year

and make him a higher volume type of player, a plus 1,000 yard receiving type of player. And when you get better players on the roster, you're still giving Trey Tucker a long-term contract as like a solid two, three, whatever it's going to be. And maybe he doesn't reach the heights that he reaches this year, where maybe he goes for 11, 1,200 yards possibly. I do think he's that good of a player.

and I do think he's that much better than the other wide receivers that they have and I think they recognize that. We'll see. It's a little bit of a gamble here going trade Tucker, but I think he's a really good player. Let me ask you this question. Let's say Kirk plays 12 games or Kirk plays four games.

How does that affect the stat line? Hmm. I'm not prepared for that. I almost think Mendoza, you know, it's going to... I think Mendoza will be better for him. Right. Take more shots to him. Now, I think,

Tray Tucker, it's not just, it's not all deep shots. I think they're going to use him on run after catch and get him involved on, on like the slants that Kirk likes to throw. But I agree. My initial instinct is like, I want more Mendoza, but that's just me in general. More Mendoza. It's going to be more fun. I'm going to be beating that drum pretty early, I think, on Mendoza.

Because I was actually kind of impressed, not even kind of. I was impressed with him in the preseason. Yeah. They were more under center heavy with him than I thought they would be. like they very much were like we're throwing you into the fire you need to be ready for this we're not changing our offense for you like you need to to get reps of doing this obviously a couple hiccups here and there but he was doing like under center non-play action dropbacks like a traditional five-step drop straight out of 2007 I don't know if he's ever done that before and and he was like

ripping an in-cut you know behind a linebacker and I was like it looks like he can do it folks so what are we really waiting for here? I'd rather he gets some of those rookie lumps out of the way. I think he's going to be one of those quarterbacks that benefits more from playing than sitting. But what do I know? I agree, and I think they were throwing him into the deep end because he showed them in practice

that he was ready to let's really see what this is going to look like. Let's not try to manufacture some good numbers by protecting him as a rookie. Let's test drive this as much as we can because he might be a little closer to playing than we expected, and we might want to see if we're ready to use him week four, week five. I tend to agree with really everything you said there

and think it will be a little earlier in the season. Plus, after, if they start out real bad, by the way, like, you're going to hear. Yeah, I actually think like your cousins is a little bit better than people think at this point in season, at this point in his career, because I think he was significantly better year two removed from that Achilles than he was the first year back, but he's still just a bridge guy that doesn't want to get hurt. And you're talking about a big dude in Fernando Mendoza that earned that number one overall pick. Brett Coleman, one of our big draft picks here at NFL Media.

Of course, he's got the YouTube page, check it out at Brett Coleman. It's all 32. He's got the bootleg podcast. And then, yeah, most importantly, you know, for our interests, He's part of the team. So I hope to have you on later in the season. Brett, and in the meantime, everyone check out NFL Pro. Twice a week.

When is it? Mondays, Fridays? Yeah, Mondays and Fridays. So we record our kind of like reaction to the games on Sunday nights. By the way, you and I are going to be competing for studio space that for Sunday. So I hope you're ready to fight. And then our Friday shows go live kind of previewing the next slate of weekends games every week. Eric just jumped into my ears.

He's like, surprise. And I was like, uh-oh, what is happening on Sundays. My producer was like, yeah, we're going to have to record it like 8 p.m. Well, we'll, uh, we'll do it out. We'll figure it out. We're going to do what's best for the entire team. That was a lot of fun to do. We will be back one more time this week on the NFL Daily feet.

It's going to be our final predictions. It's been teasing it. Myself, Patrick Claibon, is back in the studio, Jordan. Rod Rieg. We'll be back here as well. We'll go through all the divisions, all the big awards, and yes, our Super Bowl winners. We'll see you Friday. The entire draft room groans because you just took the guy they wanted. There's no better feeling than crushing your fantasy football league. I'm JJ Zachary Eisen, host of the award-winning late-round podcast. Before your draft, our players to target and players to avoid episodes tell you exactly who to circle and who to cross-off.

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