NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Division power rankings

Episode Date: March 25, 2015

A room filled with some heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, and Chris Wesseling -- breaks down the strength of each division heading into the 2015 NFL season. Don't miss out as the gang works through the biggest headlines from around the league and Bucky Brooks steps into the studio to discuss how teams would re-do the 2014 NFL Draft.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast was just traded by the Saints. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansis, and I am joined by a room filled with some heroes. Chris Wessling to my left. Greg Rosenthal to my right. What's up, boys? Hey, Dan.

Yeah, y'all. Hump day. Wow. That one isn't over with yet? That's when you know Dan doesn't have any pre-planned chit-chat for the top of the show. Hump Day is back. I got plenty of to chat about. Okay, let's hear it.

First of all, something I'm very excited about, Win West's Toaster, which we've been, you know, teasing and telling you about for a couple weeks now. A little special treat for the listeners. We've never had it as a video segment, but, you know, we met Greg and myself and Wes, met with TD, and we hammered out a way to do. do it on video so win west's toaster which will be on the podcast on thursday we'll also have a video component i'm very excited about that i'm so excited i want to hear an awful sound drop i like this kind of party okay that's good too but i want to hear the win west's toaster sound drop i mean you

think they would at least be able to get the entire final word of that sound drop in we might have to re-record that but that's neither here nor there so look out for that um of course our colleagues mark Sessler, Quiet Storm, and Space Ghost. Connor O'R are flying back from Arizona after attending the NFL annual meetings. We'll get to some of the stuff that happened there in the news. Greg, any comments about Connor and Mark and the work they did? I think they did an outstanding job down there. Great.

Don't you? I mean, you guys should check it out if you're listening to this podcast, what you need to know from the owner's meetings. Mark and Connor worked on that. I mean, a lot of work. Getting up early. Also another opportunity for you because Mark won't be listening. Say a true thought

you have about Mark that you would not share to his face. I don't want to do that. You do that. It seems like if you separate Mark it seems like a losing game. If you separate Mark and me, we are both more productive. Yeah. Something to note. Don't think

it's a mistake that you haven't gotten you're going to the draft. He's not. You know, it's a bunch of, don't think that there's not some strategy here. When there's an oral history of the around the NFL written one day, there will be an entire chapter about the 2014 NFL Combine. Yeah, I kept, yeah, exactly.

I kept West next to me in L.A. for the Combine this year. That wasn't by mistake. It's a veteran move. Very good. So, yes, we got a big show today. We're bringing our friend back by popular demand, Bucky Brooks, back on the show, our draft analyst, and really, you know,

one of the top scoutmen in our building. So we'd like to have him in here. You know, of course, he's been doing some, Damasek shows, which I'm not thrilled about. So maybe we'll touch on that a little. Scoutman. Yeah, we're going to talk to the Scout Man about the Damasek thing. Seems like it has potential to be one of TD's favorite movies someday.

So we will get Bucky on here. We'll also go, as promised, we're going to get into our divisional power rankings, and we're going to tell you where we come down on the divisions as a group. We did a voting process, and I'm sure all the divisions throughout the NFL are waiting eagerly to find out where they fall. in the group, I can't imagine. They wouldn't be all right. Well, NFC East was pissed at us for two years about the 2013. No Christmas cards from the NFC East.

But before we get to any of that, we got to check in with the great gold standard. It's gold standard Wednesday. How are you, buddy? I'm doing great. How are you, Dan? Oh, man, I'm great. Good. I'm really excited to be here.

Why don't we do some news? Let's do it. I like Dan when you said you were really excited to be here. Did that not play? Did that not play? No, it was great. Okay, because I'm excited to be. I like working here.

It's fun. All right, let's get into the news. And yes, the NFL annual meeting is just wrapping up. And there are a ton of news coming out of that event. And I would think, Greg, this could be, things could slow to a trade. from what's coming out of the team for a while now. But for now we got a lot of info, and we'll start with Mike

Zimmer, the Minnesota Vikings Coach, while sitting at his little cute little breakfast table, eating his eggs and drinking his coffee, and orange juice said there were two players that the team has no plans to trade. One is Adrian Peterson, who as we know is sending basically

those things where they write in the sky, the plane that has the cloud, is basically now hiring people to fly over the Vikings' compounds, trade me. That's where we're at with that, but I guess the Vikings are not interested in trading him right now, so that could get ugly. And of course, Corderel Patterson, who a year ago topped our making the leap list. We thought he was the next big time breakout, Percy Harvin-like wide receiver. That didn't happen, but according to Mike Zimmer, Greg, they're not ready to give up on him either.

I was interested. He was more definitive about not trading Corderell Patterson than he was about Adrian Peterson. He said, we have no plans to trade Adrian Peterson. And if you read between the lines of what he said all day, this is what I took the translation. I love Adrian Peterson. I always loved Adrian Peterson. The NFL did us wrong. Some people in my organization maybe kind of did us wrong. If you're really reading between the lines, Adrian Peterson wants to play for me. I hope that happens. I don't know if it's going to happen for sure because of everything else that's going on. That, to me, was what Zimmer was saying. I think that's a very accurate translation by the boss there and the boss it's uh west gunning for that uh pay raise around uh year end review

i'm trying to get back uh to where mark and i can get in cahoots again and then it's stark stark comparison to cordarral patterson where he just you know said no no chance we trade him right i think that i mean that's pretty black and white i guess they're they're willing to write off last season for patterson as a mulligan where nothing really clicked and he was repeatedly um critical by his own coaches for an inability to run routes and it wasn't a complete receiver. They must still think they can fix him and they don't want to trade him for 50 cents on the dollar

when they think he could still be a star. Yeah, I thought about putting Cordarelle Patterson in our trades we'd love to see before the draft. That's up on NFL.com slash news. A lot of fun ones there. But yeah, it didn't seem realistic anymore. Adrian Peterson, on the other hand, is on that list. You had him go into the Cardinals.

I think we would all like to see that. I still don't expect it to happen. And Ian Raffport reported Monday night how they're kind of changing their strategy, it sounds like, to really pushing for more money. So even though they do want to trade, they've made it clear they want to trade, I think they understand they might not get one. All right. Moving on elsewhere in the mess hall, Bill Belichick was sitting in a really nice polo shirt. It was white with stripes, and he was looking really sharp, I thought. Greg's heart was fluttering.

And as you can imagine, Bill only says what Bill wants to say. and he's not going to give reporters, you know, extra meat to chew on just because they flew all the way out to Arizona. This was some fun stuff. I had our team cut this because we had to touch on what Bill Belichick said when asked about losing Dorel Rivas. It's NFL free agency. All right, I made sure to have the Flem move cut too because that was directly a shot at, I don't know, the Jets or we'll get to that. The Jets Patriots relationship. To quote West, that's Belichick's move.

He's going to use it. The Flem move? I mean, that snort's been... Any huge Patriots fan really considers that snort one of their family members over the last decade. Can I hear it again? He breaks that out 15 times. That's all free agency. So if that's your family member, it's like a perverted uncle.

I'm just saying I've heard that thing 5,000 times. That's kind of what he does. He was angry at someone. He always shows up late to this breakfast, which is, funny. He used to skip it. You remember entirely. Then he shows up late. He skips the photo. I don't think he's happy with the league for a variety of reasons

including the whole cameras on the sideline. Right, which they table that. He's really upset that they won't do that because of the money when the NFL has a lot of money. So anyway, then the reporter's like, obviously if you're a reporter worth your

what, give me something else. Worth your weight and... Worth your salt? Worth your salt. I like that. Worth your weight and gold? Ah, sure, why not? He doubled down. He said, you know, give me a real answer, Bill. It's like that in the NFL. There's players leave teams and go to teams and free agents every year.

Like, that's not a big story. Oh, it's not a big story, Dorel Revis, one of the great cornerbacks ever, leaving to another team in the division. And then a follow-up question. Well, what about the idea of the option? You had a chance to keep him in the building, keep him off the open market, Bill. I don't think about that. It's NFL free agency.

you do what he thinks best for our football team there was a five second pause before that answer I think you nailed it he doesn't say anything he doesn't want to say and he had a message to tell his fans about NFL free agency and it came hours after the compensatory picks were released and revealed that still the best teams in the NFL wait for other teams to overpay their castoffs and then reel in these compensatory picks

and are good every year. You'll see the Ravens, the Packers, the Patriots, the Steelers are always the top of the compensatory. The Jets last year had the most. That didn't quite work out. We had like 14 picks. I'll take Revis over the third round compensatory pick that they may or may not get. No, I think his point was free agency builds. Look at all the teams spending money.

Yeah. They're losing teams. All right. So then in the other news involving the Jets of Patriots, and this went down late Tuesday night. We learned that the Jets have now, after the Patriots filed a tampering charge against the Jets because of Woody Johnson's loose-lipped comments

about wanting to rel back. This is weeks before free agency. Now, the Jets have come back and filed a tampering charge against the Patriots. Yes! And why? Because what Robert Craft said Monday in Arizona when he referenced Revis when he was asked about him,

to me, it seemed like a different situation to everyone. It was a different context, but it's a little tit-for-tat game where the Jets clearly weren't happy that the Patriots targeted them for tampering, so now they're going back at the Patriots and trying to turn it into a big old farce. Wes, your thoughts. And we might have to pull back the curtain on this. I heard Greg was going to unload on me on this segment. What are you talking?

No, I was kidding. Well, to pull back the curtain, yes. Wes is not the, let's just say as a boss, as an editor here at the NFL Media News Group, Wes may have not been the right choice to write the tampering article initially when I saw the rough draft of it. Thankfully, it had not been up on the site yet. You know, some editing had to be done. We decided to just take Wes's old byline off.

Yeah, I had it a little safer. But let's say you weren't too happy with the Jets. And I understand why. The whole thing was, it's silly. And we can call it silly on this podcast, that's for sure. Jets are acting like a spoiled toddler. Oh, come on. What the Patriots did was really no bad.

It was silly on both ends. Maybe sillier by the Jets. I agree. See, I agree with that. The whole thing is stupid, but the Patriots tampering charge to me was over the top. It wasn't necessary. The spirit of what the tampering rule is supposed to be,

I don't think what Woody Johnson did was intentionally tampering with Threlry. So the whole thing was stupid. I agree. And it all goes back. This is all on Eric Mangini's shoulders for starting SpyGate. So that's what's kicked off this Wiley Coyote Roadrunner.

thing where the Jets are always Wiley Coyote. Well, you know what? I think it goes back even further than that. It goes back to Bill Belichick writing on the piece of paper. I resign as the head coach. That's fair. I'll take even a little further back. The poison pill that stole Curtis Martin away from the Patriots and to the Jets.

All right. Those are all fair points. But the difference with the Woody and the Belichick thing is those two principles are still there. And I think that was a big reason. I know it's been reported. That was why Belichick wanted to leave. leave the Jets was the change in ownership to Woody John.

So the whole thing, it's like, I love it, though, a little ride. That's fun. And I think, if I had a guess, I think Woody probably was not happy that after he basically issued a retraction of what he said and then personally called Kraft and still ended up getting the charge levied up against him, I'm sure that didn't sit well in Florin Park. But I don't imagine either team is going to come away with any picks off this. The tampering charges that the Patriots initially filed are pending.

This is all a report, by the way. The NFL refused to comment, you know, NFL Media Insider Ian Rappaport first reported this story. And I am sure this is one of those stories. The NFL would love to just settle between these two teams and make a way. Because at some level, it's kind of embarrassing. Yeah. Moving on, the Denver Broncos, of course, moving forward with Peyton Manning and Gary Kubiak, a new offensive brain trust in Denver.

There has been a lot of talk about how, you know, how will Peyton Manning, operate in an offense, a bootleg-heavy offense, that Kubiak runs. Is he not the right fit for this? Kubiak came out this week and kind of threw some cold water on that. I'd pick Peyton Manning for any offense. I mean, we're going to do what he does best. We're not going to go roll out if that's not something that's a strength of our team. We're going to do what he does best.

I'd pick him any day of the week. Well, this makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Yeah, I think the overarching issue here all along, been nobody is sure how much of it is going to be Kubiak's offense and how much going to be what Peyton Manning has run for 17 years and Kubiak finally came out and said look I'm the one who's going to have to bend my offense to fit Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning's been doing this at the top level of the NFL for for almost two decades now so we're going to play to Peyton Manning's strength so it seems like less of a concern than

there was a month ago. Well this is called a good problem you know yeah you have to meld it's going to be hard for them like Peyton Manning may not be comfortable but you're working with a guy who had a really good season in Peyton Manning overall and you're working with one of the best offensive minds in the league so you know if that's the problem it's like it's not like manning's with some bum and then Kubiak also said Tuesday in Arizona that he has had preliminary talks with Manning about decreasing his reps and meetings practices and training camp this means more of a role for Brock Osweiler at least in non-game situations and this is all done coming off a season where Peyton Manning was the best quarterback in football for eight weeks,

and then he kind of came back down to Earth and wasn't the same guy, so this makes sense as well. It's an acknowledgement that Father Time takes an effect, and that Kubiak was John Elway's offensive coordinator for those two Super Bowls, and said he had to do the same thing with Elway, convince him to take fewer reps, put less stress on your body. And, you know, Peyton Manning, one of the big knocks on him, he has a lot of critics, is that he crumbles in December,

in January because his body's not there. I mean, Kubiak, he doesn't really get enough credit for everything he's done in the league. I was looking this up. I couldn't have done it off the top of my head while we were talking. In 2000, they had the number two offense, scoring and yardage in the league. The quarterbacks that year for the Broncos were Brian Greasy and Gus Ferrat and Mike Anderson's the running back. So if Gary Kuback can make the system work with those guys, he can make. Let me ask you this.

Follow-up question. Has Mike Shanahan always got? gotten too much credit in Gary Kubiak, not enough. Yeah, I think when you look at their careers, you should give Kubiak a little more. All right. Some other news out of the annual meeting. It looks like finally there might be a tangible change

to the extra point system. This is something that's not official, because there was no vote, but there has been a, quote, lively discussion about potential changes. I'm sure they were super lively. There was dancing in the conference room. This according to Rich McKay, the NFL Competition Committee co-chairman,

some things that were discussed, and you can imagine one of these are going to go through. A team could go for two points from the one and a half-yard line or kick an extra point from the 15. Where's the extra point right now being kicked from? The two. Eliminate the extra point altogether and just place the ball at the two-yard line,

making it a two-point play. Another option narrowing the goalposts. I don't like that one. and then finally a college-type rule in which a defense could score a touchdown on a block kick or interception or fumble return on the two-point conversion. If I had to guess, I think they're going to combine. I think that college part of the rule is going to happen no matter what they do. And that, to me, makes a lot of sense.

Make it a live play. Yeah, make it a live play. The coaches want it to be more like a football play, and it's only going to affect things every once in a while, but it does make it more excited. I think it will be that first proposal where you can go for two from the one-and-a-half or kick the extra point from the 15, which would be, what, about a 32-yard extra point, which is still pretty easy.

I think in the post-production, we should have Gold Standard play lively up yourself by Bob Marley in the background during this whole segment. You heard him Gold Standard. You got it, Wes. All right. By the way, the only thing I'm against is making the extra point harder because I don't want to put more of the football game in the hands of the kickers. To me, it's just too much.

It's not that's not fun. Maybe you want to do that. Maybe that's the way to go. but I just don't like the idea of losing a game because your kickers missing extra points. Do you like the idea of changing the name of the game because there's no more foot involved in ball? I mean, Super Bowls are decided on kicks,

so I don't really see why extra points can't be. You know, I don't know. I don't get that one. Kicks are part of the game. 98-yard drive in dramatic fashion to tie the game and then the guy clanks the 32-yard or off the upright. That's fun. But you're saying you don't want it to come down to kicks,

but seasons come down. On the kicks all the time. Too much is on kickers, is what I'm saying. The Vikings could have won a Super Bowl if not for the real players. The Falcons could have won a Super Bowl if not for their head. The Patriots wouldn't have won their first one. Seahawks season came down to Ricardo Lockett. Hank Basket.

I mean, who knows who's going to change the Super Bowl. I like those guys better. I like those guys better is what I'm saying. You got the kickers. Lock it and Basket. Lock it down. That would be a cool series on Bravo or something. Just lock it and basket.

All right. Bravo to you, Greg. Great idea. I like it. I could already sense Dan's letter grade at the end of this podcast, C-minus. You're locket and basket joke. Knocked it down five points. I have taken to grading each podcast after the fact.

And Greg has been surprised that I'm not giving us A-pluses after every show. I have a good. I think you are a fair grader. Yeah, I've agreed in general with that. Tough but fair. Tough. We had a, I'll even run it back. I think we had an 85 last show, an 86, the one before,

or 91 before that. That's a pretty good grades. Yeah, so. There was a B minus a few weeks ago. We had an 81. There was actually a C, but we won't even get into that. I don't like to talk about the Cs that much. All right, that's what's happening in the news.

Let's talk about a little divisional power rankings. Let's do that. That's something that's fun. It's stupid, but it's fun. Really, there's nothing to it. To the point that we, you know, we put this up on the site, and a lot of people are interactive with it in the comment section, and, you know, it's a buzzy thing.

but what does it all mean? I don't know. What does it mean? It's just fun. Yeah, it's fun to talk about. What's wrong with having fun? People, you know, first of all, we're hitting the off season. We're out of free agency news.

People do take a pride in their division. I don't know what that is because I've done it too. There's something about you want your division, like when they're in the plow. You just want you to, hey, we come from a tough division. That's a good division. People are into that. I've been into it. We represent the North.

That type of stuff. Better than the Lollahy Cup field. It's kind of like with the NCAA tournament. I always was like, oh, man, the Big East really struggled this year. It's like, oh, my friends that don't like the Big East will make fun of it. I don't know why do people care about the conferences. That's a good question. I do, though.

So this is how we did it. And we've done this a few years now because time is just marching on and, you know, time is moving. So we've done this three years. And the way we do it is we each, there's been four of us did it. We have our two Arizona field journalists, Connor and Mark. They were out of the picture. So it was jernos, high-level, high-octane journals. Wes, myself, Greg, and then Kevin Patrick coming at you.

All submitted our top eight in order, starting from the most powerful, greatest division to the worst, stinkiest division. And then we put a point value to it. So let's say, just for the sake of argument or fun, NFC West gets, they're the best division. So one point, and the AFC South is the worst division, eight points. And then you add it all up and you figure it out definitively. Oh, my God, definitively, if you know which divisions are the best. So let's do it. Let's go through it.

So we'll go in a descending order if we start a date. Why not? Or is it ascending? It would be ascending order. And gold standard behind the glass. And sorry for calling you TD so much. You guys look similar, so sometimes I get. It's totally understandable.

It's fine. I get you. Not a bad thing. Do you and TD, like, hang out after work and go over your favorite parts of the podcast? Yeah. We usually, yeah, definitely in person most of the time, sometimes over Skype. It's like made up for beers, be like, I remember that joke West made. This is awesome.

Does TD ever get really drunk and start talking about potentially killing us? All the time. All right, let's start with the eighth and final division. They're bringing up the rear, and it's depressing. It's a total of 31 points, which is easily ahead of anyone else. Not good. Drum roll, please. It's a super long drum roll.

AFC South. The AMC South! I wasn't going to let you win that one. Yeah, just started a little earlier. The drum roll always wins. Yeah. What do they call it again? Tapanty?

Timpani. Timpani. I like that. All right, here we go. Timpity. AFC South is the worst division. I'm looking at our ballots. I had them seventh,

and then the rest of you guys had them eighth. So I guess since I'm the only one that didn't have them last, I'll just say the only reason I don't have them last, is Andrew Luck, and I think the Colts are the best out of those eight teams on those two South divisions. So to me, it just nudged them up a little bit. Again, this is all arbitrary, but that's what got them seventh place. But, Wes, you tell me why the NFC South is worse than every other division in football. Well, I think all of us had a big gap between the six divisions up top and then the two South.

The two South divisions. I would disagree with that. I think the NFC South is right with the divisions above it. But carry on. So the reason why I ranked the AFC below the NFC is the NFC has franchise quarterbacks. For the most part, three of the four teams, and the AFC has one franchise quarterback, Andrew Luck, and the AFC South has the Titans. Well, and they have the Jaguars and the Titans in the same division.

Those are two of the three worst teams in the NFL last year. I mean, you could throw the bucks in there, I guess. But if you look at point differential, those are two of the three worst. And I don't think Houston is a true nine and seven team. I think they could fall back to the patch up. They have one of the easiest schedules. It wouldn't surprise me at all if none of these teams win more than six or seven games other than the Colts. You're not buying in on a Jacksonville march towards mediocrity, are you?

Yeah, they could double their wins to six. People were even more excited about them last year, and they were terrible. Maybe they'll get the year-after effect. But the Colts are, it's amazing if you look at the Colts record under Pagano against the rest of the division. Basically, they keep winning the division just because, I mean, they keep having these good records because they're in the AFC South, but they have been very average against everyone else. And if you look at the NFC South, who's our seventh place team, 25 points, everyone else had them seventh and I, or seventh and I had them eighth, you know, the Panthers, you know, they're the Panthers, middle league team, did win a playoff game. The Saints are a hard team to figure out. usually they would have been

this division would be higher if the Saints are who they were but we don't know what to make of them the Bucks are a team to me to watch out for they're probably not going to be as bad next year especially if they hit on Winston and a lot of people seem to think Winston's a player watch out like

watch out like you don't want to watch their I don't know like I'm not going to be watching them I don't know well like West said the difference between 1 and 6 and 7 and 8 not good so let's just move to 6 and, you know, a lot of people are excited. Everyone's like, oh, what's in the top six?

And I'll tell you, the AFC West, number six, with 23 points. Actually, not too far behind. You didn't even get to the end of the drum roll. I don't know what happened there. It's a timing thing. I'm really bad at the timpany. It's not a strength of mine. You've got to give it like three or four seconds.

This is the world's longest timpany drum roll. It's like 20 seconds. No one needs that suspense. Okay. Well, we're going to work on this future shows. but just do the best you can. You're doing your best. Thanks.

The AFC West. And if you look at the AFC West, Greg Rosenthal, the Broncos have been perpetually great with Peyton Manning in the regular season. And then you have some middling teams, and then you have the Raiders, of course. I see the Raiders, of course, is one of the worst few teams in the league.

And you have the Broncos, who I think are taking a step back. And I just see the Chargers and the Chiefs as middling teams. The Chiefs seem like that team that if they play perfect, they're going to win nine games. So not a lot of upside,

not a lot of big-time talent. That surprised me. You have the NFC East higher than the FAC West, and basically the NFC East is filled with four Chiefs. You called the Chiefs a House of Cards in the newsroom we were talking about this.

The NFC East, the entire division is a House of Cards. The Eagles, who knows if they have a quarterback or not. The Cowboys just lost their identity without DeMarco Murray. The Giants needed O'Dell Beckham to save all of their jobs. Tie goes to the division

with the Raiders going in the basement. All right, you just hit me in my soft spot there. Anything else to say about the AFC West? I mean, the Chargers, they were I feel like they're going to be better. Yeah, this isn't a bad division. Not terrible. I mean, they can win 10 games. That wouldn't be stunning.

Honestly, Wes has convinced me that I should have gone NFC's ahead of it. I think that could that probably was the right move. Yeah, I would think so. And now I'm just killing time because I know this is such a long drum roll. It's really nice to win.

Oh, the NFC East is number five. I keep waiting for a symbol or something. I don't know. There's something missing over there. It's pure timpony. I wouldn't dream of mixing it with anything else. Symphony madness. The NFC East, this to me is a compelling division.

I love, Greg, you know I love the NFC East. I love any of the East teams. I think of my grandfather sitting on his brown couch, drinking root beer, watching the Giants and Cowboys. That's what I think about the NFC. And, you know, the Cowboys are 12 and 4, and I don't imagine they're going to win 12 games again. Chip Kelly, you know, he's a genius.

So you would think they'll be a competitive team at the very least. I think the Giants can be better next year, and the Redskins, I think, will still be bad. So I see this three teams in the 9-21-win range potentially, and to me, that's a pretty good division. And the Redskins might not be that bad. The Redskins will be bad. This is in 1989.

The NFC East is living on whatever they accomplished three decades ago. They were a solid division last year. Dallas was a legit top five NFL team. Philly was a 10-win team. The Giants were probably the best six-win team in the league, which is not too exciting. I'm just saying they could have been an eight-win team. They weren't really...

I don't look at them and think they're a six-win type of team. So it's a division where at least the lows aren't as bad as these other divisions we talked about. I agree. And it's exciting. Number four. Moving up, the chart. The AOC East is the number four team

This is obviously the division That's really probably been in the headlines More than any division Because of all the moves The Patriots, of course, are the defending Super Bowl champions Win 12 games every year So you know they're going to be good The Jets stole Rivas from the

From the Pats And got Brandon Marshall And Antonio Carmardi made some moves They're going to be better The Dolphins, of course, got Sue They got Kenny Stills, They got Jordan Cameron. They should be better.

And the bills, we've talked about the bills for a couple of weeks about all the moves they're making and how exciting they have the potential to be if they get some decent quarterback play. It's a pretty good division potentially. This is the highest the AFC East has ever been on our all-important division power reggae. Big honor for them, three years.

Three, four years? I think we might have missed last year. I don't know. Maybe. But, yeah, this is a good division. It's going to be fun. No, it's going to be fun. I mean, the rivalries, the stories.

If you're into narratives like our friend Dave Damasek, this is the division for you. I mean, Jets, Spills, Jets, Patriots, Patriots, but no matter how you mix it up, Mike Tannenbaum in Miami has another level. I mean, it's like the most incestuous division. Yeah, that sounds like a nightmare. Why is that?

Just play the game. I don't care about the Nets. The teams are interesting, though. The teams are interesting now. Oh, they bore the heck out of me. What? Wait, let's slow down here. You love the Patriots.

You like the Pats. The bills, there's a lot of, there's a chance for them being an exciting team. You like everybody hanging on Rex Ryan's every word and they don't have a quarterback. I do like Rex Ryan, but I don't like that every press conference results in, like, pressure to do 12 posts for ATNFL. You shouldn't let that shade this discussion. Because the rest of the country thinks, I don't know. The media thinks Rex Ryan's more interesting than fans do. What about their roster, though?

This is a much better roster. Again, they don't have a quarterback. Jets are interesting. They don't have a quarterback. Dolphins? I don't... This is the way I analyze football. If I want to watch your team, they're interesting to me.

I don't want to watch teams without quarterbacks. I never really took you for a guy that doesn't care about defense. Yeah, it's a bit of a simplistic football view for a deeply nuanced football man. You just want, like, hey, I want some quarterbacks to throw the football far. What's a team that's been really fun to watch without a good quarterback? I thought the bills last year were fun. I liked watching the bills. I like that defense.

I don't know. There's some defense. I banged my head against my computer like four times watching Kyle Orton in December. See, I enjoy. I, you know, I'd have a not-so-secret love affair with Orton. Is it more likely if the Bills win 10 games or five games? Ten. I think that's pretty easy.

What about the Dolphins? I think they're all more likely to win 10 than five. Including the Jets? You know, if the pats come down a little bit, just a little bit, we might actually have a division race. See, I see all three of these teams as 8 and 8 or 9 and 7. Yeah. there should be a race all right

well then we move into the top three here's the race this really gets real number three the NFC North which just barely missed out on the silver medal we got it down by the way now

it's great it's all it's all down to you that's great time and coach everything's clicking the NFC North with nine points nine total points just behind the second place team this is a division of course that has the Green Bay Packers in it,

who still, to me, were the best team in the NFL last year before Aaron Rogers got hurt. You had the Lions that won 11 and 5 got back to the playoffs, but of course no longer have Domiton Sue. The Vikings, who have a very promising young quarterback, so who knows what's going on with them. And then the Bears, who are probably the worst team in the division, but even the Bears, you can talk yourself into the Bears

having a competitive season, right, Wes? I tried to, because I like the Bears as a franchise. I've always liked them. midwest team they hit you i mean what's what's not the like about that talk about living in the past they play on grass not in the dome you know yeah that's what i think of with the bears but you know you got to punish them for j cutler no it's a good the vikings are a frisky fun third place type of team you got rogers as your anchor the lions are the one team that's a little worrisome and that's why i didn't put them as the number two division i felt so much better i felt so much better about

the lines going into last season i i can't get excited about them without sue even though not as good I think Sue is great. This division, number three this year for us, could take a big tumble next year of a couple of things fall apart. The Lions have one of their crash to Earth seasons, which seems to happen every other year. If maybe Teddy Bridgewater doesn't develop the way we think he will, and if the Bears are Bearsy with Jay Cutler,

the Packers could walk away of this division by Thanksgiving. I think the recipe is the Bears can sink lower, and then they're suddenly among the worst teams in the NFL. That wouldn't totally shock me. I think they'll be better. Oh, my God. Number two. Oh, my God.

I wish people could see me conduct in this. It's like whiplash. Our number two team, the AFC North. Ah! All right. So the Steelers, of course, the defending champion, the Bengals, Wes's former Paramour, 10-5-1 last year, another playoff berth.

And the Ravens who also made the playoffs. So you had three playoff teams last year. Even the Brownies were at one point, 7 and 4. seven and nine, of course, and are having an offseason that probably doesn't get anybody, including Mark Sessler, excited. However, there's a lot of talent in this division you expect at least three of these teams to be once again flirting with 10 wins, at least. Great division.

Yeah, I picked a second because I like, I enjoy watching this when they play each other in this division, and I just like that there's really no weak sisters. I don't think the Browns are that bad of a team. Is it a weak sisters? I don't know. Is that a phrase? Yeah, that's a phrase. I think it's sexist.

That's a phrase. It's just a fun division to watch. They can't be weak brothers. The Ravens and the Steelers have kind of transitioned into these pass-first gunnet teams, and that's actually more fun. I've got nothing fresh to add. Greg said it all. Well, there you go.

Finally. I mean, the process of elimination tells you who it is, but maybe you weren't paying attention. Which I can totally understand. The number one team, the NFC West. Or division. The NFC West! Wow, this is huge.

Wait, give us a celebration song. I mean, you're the best division in the damn world. Of all the celebration songs. This was not a no-brainer pick for me at all. I actually ranked all 32 teams. The Seahawks were first, and the Cardinals were in the top seven, too. Oh, West did more work on this than I didn't. But the Rams in 49ers were both 25 or below for me.

What? Whoa. Really? Yeah. You think the 49ers are now a bottom seven team? Well, the Rams go seven and nine every year, and I think the 49ers have a worse roster than the Rams. Okay, but let's look at the Rams, though.

I mean, I know we say this every year, but with a better quarterback there, right? Yeah, I'm not falling for the banana and the tailpipe, Dan. All right. Nick Falls is that banana? The Rams are that banana. That mausoleum they play in is that banana, and that offense that never does anything. that banana. We got to get closer to the season, see how it plays out. But there is

the L.A. factor in terms of how is it going to start affecting some of these teams? Because remember Bill Belichick, I mean, in that Cleveland 95 special or whatever's talking about? I mean, he said that's the hardest thing he's ever had to go through. Once he knew that the Browns were moving, that was basically that team was dunzo. What if the Rams have a feeling like they're moving? I know I'm getting ahead. So the Rams players all found out they had a move from St. Louis to beautiful Los Angeles. I think they'd be celebrating in the locker room with that mausoleum at the Edward James

almost old. All right. That's fair. I've been to St. Louis. I've been to St. Louis. Very nice city. But there was a whole other element to the whole Cleveland 95 thing about what that team meant to the community. And, you know, that was a very ugly, ugly moment for the NFL and for the Browns in Cleveland. Yeah, this is the top division, but it is on a down swing.

I put it number one because I disagree with Wes. I think all of these teams are about average or better. I think the bottom of those teams are more right in the middle, middle of the pack for the NFL, and the cards could be pretty interesting. I think I don't think I would put the Niners in a bottom seven level of a team at this point, but I think a seven and nine season, I could see. You'd be surprised once you start writing out the teams.

You're going to have your bottom four or five who are pretty easy, but in 25 to 26 range, you could stick. But Seattle's number one to me. Seattle's going to be number one each off season. I guess, until for a while. And who knows, if Adrian Peterson ends up landing in Arizona, that's a big-time one-two punch at top of that division. And I don't know, I'm going to fall for the trick, Wes.

I'm totally in agreement with what you're saying. I probably am going to end up putting the Rams in the playoffs when we make our predictions later this summer. With Nick Folze? I got a bit of a Cessler. That's all that they're going to actually finally get over the hump and be a playoff team. But, you know, I've been wrong before.

We all. All right, it's time to welcome back into the round-the-n-nifference. studio here. The great man. The great one. He is a draft expert. He knows his stuff in the NFL because he used to play in the NFL. And now he's a media analyst with us.

He is the great. Bucky Brooks. Shiboy. I like that. I like that. I like the surround sound. Bucky and Jay Z doing it together. Whose laugh was that just now?

I don't know. Jay Z is all the same, I guess. Right? So here we are, Bucky. We're getting close. We're starting to now. We're out of the combine. It's deep in the rearview mirror.

The annual meetings are wrapped up now. And we have the draft up next on the calendar. But as we know right now, Bucky Brooks, we're going to get into your draft do-over, which a lot of buzz over in that round-infeldon. Greg has got some things to share. He's all pumped up about it. So we want to talk about your draft do-over of last year's draft.

But first, we want to check in with you about what you're here. hearing right now. You were actually on the phone right before you came in the studio. You've been talking with people. Yeah, I've been on the road. Obviously, I was doing the pro-day circuit. So, like, that is a great opportunity for me to get around guys and kind of see not only what they think about the prospects that we're watching, but just hear conversations. And I was at Michigan State, Trey Wayne's, his workout, had a chance to hang around some of the staff from the Pittsburgh Steelers, some of the guys from the Buffalo Bills. I thought it was interesting about Pittsburgh talking about

finding guys that were their kind of guys. Hard-nosed, gritty guys, guys that cared about football kind of more than anything else. They kind of want to get back to Bing that bully on the block that so many of us kind of envisioned the stillers being. And it's not any different than things that they've done, but they're right now in the middle of a crossroads because obviously they're still continuing to flip their defense. They believe their offense is going to be lights out. And I agree with them on that part, but they're still trying to figure out what to do with a cornerback, what to do with the pass rushers,

how to get back to kind of be in Blitzburg and, you know, kind of stilker and all the other stuff. What else will be hearing, Bucky, whispers? You know, I think, obviously, when you look at the moves that the Buffalo Bills have made, they made it kind of seem like it's fantasy football that you just go out and get whoever you want and whatever you want and rebuild that offense.

Looking at that offense, I believe that offense is primed and ready to go in terms of this skill position, They have everything that you can want. Running back, LaShawn McCoy, underrated signing, and Jerome Felton allowing them to be a one-back or two-back team outside, bringing in Percy Harvin to go with Charles Clay. So now you have two players in the middle of the field that can command attention. Sammy Wack as in Robert Woods are two of the, I think, a very intriguing young one-two punch.

And so when you look at the problems they can present to the defense, you really have to figure out how do we want to play the Buffalo Bills? Do you want to do an eight-man front of stop Shady McCoy? How do you account for Percy Harvin? How do you deal with Charles Clay? And really, the explosive playmaker in Sammy Watkins, they have all of that. And I know the biggest thing that people throw back

because on Twitter they were like the quarterback. They don't have a quarterback. They don't have an elite quarterback. I just point to the success that not what Rex had with Sanchez, but Greg Roman, when they took over the San Francisco 49ers, people doubted whether Alex Smith could be a guy that could lead a team to a high level of performance. They did that.

Colin Kaepernick, having watched him at practice, there were serious concerns about could he ever be a starting quarterback, he comes in and takes them right to the Super Bowl. I just believe in their ability to cater the offense to fit the skills of the quarterback where he can just drive the bus and have success as opposed to being the guy that's the focal point of the option. So what you're saying is basically any old mid-level to low-level starter like Matt Castle can jump right in there and look rather good and win me a sandwich

because we're going to have a proposition here. Castle versus Darren McFadden. and who has a better season. Forget E.J. Manuel, he's not going to get the job. Wait, how do we calculate this? Castle versus McFadden. We're going to have a versus McFadden. Who is hanging on McFadden?

Wes! Yo, McFadden? If they don't draft another running back, I think he'll have success behind that. We're going to have a offensive line. I know I'm not going for Matt Castle. An esteemed panel of judges, Mark Sessler, Dan Hazardis, and Ali Bunn Puri going to judge. I think I'm more inclined to go if Matt Castle wins the job. inclined to go with him just because if you look at his track record when you're surrounded by

weapons in New England he lit it up when you're surrounded by playmaking lit it up they won 11 games right but if he plays at that level I mean it's not fantasy football I'm not saying that he's going to throw for 4,000 yards I'm saying that they're going to win a ton of games the key that you have to understand unless you're one of the four you talk about one of the four elite quarterbacks in the game everyone else has to play complimentary football meaning that all the pieces of the puzzle have to work in unison. The defense, the running game, the quarterback not making mistakes. All of those things have to work for them to win.

So unless you're Aaron Rogers or Peyton, well, not even Peyton Manning anymore, Tom Brady, you typically can't win without the weapons on the outside to make you look better. I would say that Matt Castle steps into a situation where literally all he has to do is be a good decision maker and that offense will score points on this on. The defense is good enough to be a top two defense with Rex. Ryan taking over. If he doesn't screw it up, they're going to win

10 or 11 games. What happens, though? Two-time pro-home. What happens, Bucky? See if he can beat out Tyrod Taylor before we put him in the I was going to say, we got Tyrod Taylor in the building there. You got E.J. Manuel. Does it have to be?

Is Matt Castle the only guy that can make them a playoff team? Or can one of those other guys potentially step in via injury or performance and do something? No, I think either one of those guys can do it. I think the thing that you have to understand with Rex, like E.J. Manuel, a lot of people kind of lob, this doesn't matter, but I think he's only played 12 games. It's not enough for a young quarterback to make the evaluation on the young quarterback

whether he can or can't do it. They're not going to ask the quarterback to win games solely on the strength of their right arm. They're going to ask him, don't turn the ball over, make the plays that are there to be made, and trust your weapons to make it happen. Right now, I think you could say that they may have as many explosive weapons as any other team in the National Football League, from Shady to Sammy Watkins to Percy Harvin, Charles Clay being a guy that can control the middle. They just have to get the ball into the hands of the playmakers.

To Marcel Darius and Jerry Hughes, those guys are explosive weapons too. I mean, everyone thinks weapons on offense. They got weapons on both sides. And that's why I would never expect Matt Cousel to be a guy that rings up a lot of 300. Matt Coussel, E.J. Maniton Tarots hit the ring up 300-yard games. I think looking at the blueprint when San Francisco was winning very early in his tenure, 200 yards is kind of the barometer. If they get to 200 yards, that's a pretty good day for the quarterback playing the way that they're going to play. If you dare them to pass the ball, I think the quarterback will have more opportunities.

But the fact that Shady McCoy is in the backfield, it challenges the way that you have to play defense because you can't line up and double cover everybody. You load the box, you have one-on-one, and they have scary playmakers on the outside. They have a lot of options. I just think the quarterback has to be a good decision-maker. They remind me of the great Lovie Smith-era Bears teams when they had Brian Locker and Lance Briggs and Mike Brown and then you have Devin Hester

the best special team's weapon in league and they wasted a Super Bowl window because they had Craig Crenzel Chad Hutchinson Well, hold on that. They went to the Super Bowl with that team. They didn't win a Super Bowl. If we're judging everything on Super Bowl wins,

that would mean that the 90s Buffalo Bills were irrelevant even though they dominated the league for four years at the NEC. That doesn't mean that. I'm just saying like you have to be able to get to the dance to be dancing. And I think for them, they have the opportunity to do it. I totally agree with everything you said there.

I just think that Bears team could have been to four Super Bowls if they had quarterback play. And this Bill's team, to me, is not good enough because of the quarterback play. All right, gentlemen. So that is a good talk there. But let's get into now something. Like I said, a lot of buzz, a lot of heat. Bucky Brooks's smiling mug is next to the byline.

2014 NFL draft due over and I found this very interesting read first of all there are nine teams according to Bucky that if they had a chance to do it over how things shake out in Bucky's mind that they would make the same pick I bet you do go year by year that's probably not always the case

but right off the top of the list is the one that jumps out at me you have the Texans they do not keep Jadavian Clowny in this vortex this time vortex they go but Teddy Bridgewater, who, of course, was the number 32 overall pick in May's draft last year. Tell me why, Bucky, tell us why, in the audience, why Teddy Bridgewater is the number one pick in your mind in a do-over scenario.

You should have been the number one pick last year. He was the best quarterback coming out of college. Anyone who watched the tape understood that he was the most pro-ready. He was the most polish of all the prospects at the position, yet we allowed the clouding of a pro-day workout to kind of torpedo his stock. anyone who watched him play at Minnesota saw him continue to get better and better as the season went on. The Houston, Texas went through four quarterbacks.

If they just had a steady presence at the position, they probably would have gone to the playoffs. And I think if you're Bill O'Brien and you look back and you understand that you've got minimal contributions from Jadavia and Clowney, if at all, Teddy Bridgewater comes and solves the biggest need. They continue to go. They probably went 10, 11 games and going to the playoffs.

But they left a pretty good player on the board there. I know Wes is fired up about this. What pretty good play. Number two, there's one no-brainer Hall of Famer from this class, and it's O'Dell Beckham. No, no-brainer Hall of Famer. If he's going to. No, after one year, we're putting O'Dell Beckham Jr. in the Hall of Fame. It's not going to do any good for.

Oh, my gosh, one year. It's not going to do any good for us to put him into Hall of Fame after everyone already knows about it. We're analysts. We're supposed to tell you what he had to. If he stays healthy, it's happening. If he stays healthy, O'Dell Beckham is no-brainer Hall of Fame. Well, you could put his year, his 12 games there with any. anyone that we've ever seen come into the league.

Don Hudson, Jerry Rice? Outstanding. Outstanding production on a losing team. And he saved Tom Coughlin's job, security line. Outstanding production on a losing team. Understand this. But understand, understand this. Victor Cruz comes back.

His production is skewed. Because Victor Cruz, if you look at what Victor Cruz is doing very early in the year, he was wearing people out running the slam from the slot position. You now have two guys who can make a ton of plays. I expect Odell to continue to be the guy that's the number one receiver, but I think you'll see more diversity from that offense, a little more balanced, those guys that continue to roll. I loved Odell Beckham Jr. coming out.

I'm not ready to annoy him a Hall of Famer. I think he's special. I felt that the stuff that we talked about with Sammy Watkins and some of the other receivers where we act like there was a huge divide, I didn't believe that. I just believe that we saw O'Dell Beckham Jr. have an opportunity to show people that he can make plays. One point, you say, you know, Cruz will change the situation,

but he's not coming back from a hamstring strain. I mean, it's kind of like a very serious knee injury. Yeah, but, I mean, like, ACL injuries. Like, people come back from ACL. It wasn't an ACL, though. It was the Patella Tenda. Yeah. He will be fine coming back from that.

I think he will continue to be a guy that is very effective. I think modern medicine does wonders. He will come back and be a very, very effective play in the slot once he gets comfortable. But having two of those guys, plus Ruben Randall, they didn't have a full compliment or receivers. Another year with McAdoo's system, I think they'll continue to make a ton of plays. I think they do build around O'Dell Beckham Jr. I don't know if he'll continue to play at the level that he played at because now everyone has studied what O'Dell Beckham does.

Will he be able to counter what defensive coordinators do to slow him down and minimize his effect? I wanted to talk about this because we're so focused in on this year's draft. Sometimes people, they stop scouting the guys that are actually in the league and we were so used to talking to this whole crop. I thought the redraft was fascinating. First of all, this was a great draft. We went into it last year saying it was a great draft, and it was a great draft.

I mean, if you look at this first round and your do-over, it's a lot of big-time players, and we've got to give credit to guys like you. You know, DJ had Bridgewater number one at quarterback the old time. A guy Josh Norris, who I like a lot at Rotowulf, he had him number one overall on his list, and that's looking pretty good. But there were some curious decisions here. I think I'm a little surprised that, for instance, Greg Rob. Getting hot under the collar over here for me, personally.

Greg Robinson. Greg Robinson goes to the Rams again, this time at 13, but that still seems a little high. I was interested to see Eric Ebron still going fairly early in this draft after really a lost rookie season. Yeah, but part of that lost rookie season may have been the complexity of the system that he was thrust into, slowed down his ability to make place. No, I think when Joe Lombardi comes in and tried to put a lot of the New Orleans Saints stuff in with Detroit lines, I think that offense underachieve based on the personnel that they have. from Reggie Bush to Matthew Stafford to Calvin Johnson and the other players that they had,

they didn't light it up like a team with that kind of personnel and talent should. I believe now year two, most rookies or most players make the biggest jump from year one to year two. I think Ebron would be more comfortable. I think you'll finally see him allow his talents to kind of show through as opposed to thinking and kind of playing a step slower than he normally would play. Do the Jags really take Bortles again at three? Do you think they're a little worried? I mean, I think they're sold on them.

I wasn't necessarily sold on him being a franchise quarterback early in his career. I felt like he was more of a developmental prospect. However, they threw him on the field. They feel good about his progress. I believe he will always be a guy that's kind of a high turnover magnet just because of the way he plays the game. But if surrounded by playmakers, and I think they do have a young developing cast of pass catchers that are going to be good.

Alan Robinson, Marquise Lee, Alan Hearns. I think those guys eventually would be good enough to be a very productive player. they still need to find an answer in the running game. But if they can run it and alleviate the pressure on him to carry that offense, I think he'll be fine in Jacksonville. It's sometimes these draft redoes make my head hurt. So you have the Bengals of 24, their do-over pick is Jeremy Hill, who they took in the second round in real life.

Their actual pick, Darkwees-Denard, does that mean he just, there's like a rip in the time space continuum? He's just there's spinning clocks and equals MC squared around him and he's just floating away forever? How does this work exactly, Bucky? Help me. Well, with Jeremy Hill, I think anyone who watched Jeremy Hill make an impact on that offense would probably view him as a first-round talent. I believe he was the best running back in the draft.

I believe he went to a situation that was perfect for him because Hugh Jackson understood what he could be. He also had inside intel having worked for Cam Cameron. He knew that Jeremy Hill understood how to play the game in a pro-style system. That success was real. I think they were replicated. Maybe they would take him higher. Don't evade the question.

Timespace continuum. Um, dark res denard is a guy that will be a good player. He didn't play, but like, understand and talking to people there, sometimes coaches are tied to veterans because they're scared of the mistake factor. I'll rather depend on a veteran because I know he knows the system rather than put the young guy out there to allow him to gain the experience to eventually maybe be a better player. And so I felt like in Cincinnati, they leaned on the vets,

Pac-Man, Terrence Newman, rather than throwing the young guys out there, Drake or Patrick, Terrence Newman, went Drake or Patrick and Dark West because they put the young guys out there, let them go through their mistakes. They can't have success. Leon Hall was another guy.

Leon Hall can't play at a high level anymore. They need to play the young guy so they can have the experience. Marvin Lewis called Darkwez the best young quarterback he's ever been around. And then he never played him. And he says been around some great cornerbacks from the old Ravens days?

And I think he saw it. You just couldn't get, for whatever reason, they wouldn't put the young guys on the field. Craig Kirkpatrick finally got on the field later in the year, played pretty well. They end up benching Terrence Newman in critical moments down the stretch so they can play the young guys. If they played the young guys early, I think we would have saw more contributions and better play from that defense.

I like that the Browns, they still have the 22 pick here because that's what they took. In the end, they traded up for Johnny Mansell. But if they had just done what for once, all the fans really wanted them to do, and everyone was complaining after the draft, how could you not take a wide receiver early? Really, they would have been so much better off if they took a wide receiver early and did the conventional thing because you could not have missed in the first round at wide receiver, and they could have taken Kelvin Benjamin. That was who you gave to him.

Get him in there, get Johnny Mandel out. I'm not giving a hard time to the Browns. Like, after the first day of the draft, everybody said they were the big winner. They filled a major knee to a cornerback. They thought, and then they went all in trying to change the identity of a losing franchise. The only thing that I would say about the Browns and their philosophy when it comes to the court to wide receivers what first round receivers played in the Super Bowl so in their mind when they were building the team they were trying to build a team that wasn't necessarily quarterback

centric they wanted to have a bunch of solid players in key areas so they could do it so because of that they thought about Larry Fitzgerald and San Antonio Holmes you know going back and forth in the Super Bowl I just watched that one but but this one Seattle you know and New England yeah who is the number one receiver there who is the pro bowl receiver that you worry about Yeah, Rob Grankowski is a guy, but on the outside, they're playing with undrafted and later-round picks. No one that really sizzles anyone in terms of a draft pick. And talking to Ray Farmer in the past, he talked about that.

Percy Harvin wasn't. Well, I'm just saying he was on that game, and they gave up a lot of picks. I'm just saying they gave up a lot of picks. Last year with Chop Chop and Doug Baldwin and was... Chop Chop, Chris, Richard's the guy who came from Foot Locker, like Julian Ellumman and Danny Emondola. None of those guys were prized possessions as draftics, yet they went to the Super Bowl.

And thinking about building your team, you're saying that there are multiple ways to build it. They believe that you could do it without expending big money or big draft cash on Y receiver. We'll see if it comes to fruit. I highly recommend you check out Bucky's work on NFL.com, including this draft do-over. And Bucky is one of those guys that you should be plugged in on right now

because the guy does his work and he has a lot of interesting takes and he's a big fan of Teddy Bridgewater. Yeah, unless you're Zach Martin, then don't read this because the poor guy gets to be an all-pro as a rookie. He can't even move up over 16 in the draft. No love for it. He's just such a perfect fit. And I do wonder if sometimes because you play beside such talented players

if some of your deficiencies are masked, we'll see if Zach Martin continues to be a guy. All right, thank you very much for stopping by, Bucky. And, you know, we heard you were on the Damashek show again. That's right. It's a powerblower by Damashak. Dave Damashic. I mean, I'm a podcast for agents, so I'm kind of out there floated.

I'm kind of taking visits. I'm trying to determine, trying to see what's going on. After a while, though, you know, these free agents, they might start annoying the teams. You've got to make a decision, you know. Calling his Michael Grabtree? Well, I'm just saying, well, I would like to see myself as more of a Derell Revis. I want to play the game. Right.

So each year you go and make sure. Well, when you go on Dave's show, it's like Revis signing with the Jets instead of the Pats. You know, let's make the right call. Let's make the right A good comparison call. All right, that's it. Bucky, thank you for stopping by. I'm sure we'll definitely have you on again.

Thanks, I've locked you up with the right deal. Appreciate it. We will be back on Thursday with, or Friday. We'll be back on Friday. And of course, Win West's toaster will be back with a big, big, big stakes. West trying to get his crown back. He always got his crown, but he wants to make sure

everybody understands who. Chris Wessling is, which is pure champion at the top of his game. Well, he wants to end his losing streak. I've lost one time. He's got his crown, but he's, well, when they show the standings in the paper, and it says streak, and he's lost

one game in a row. What does it say? It says L1. You're on a losing streak. I think that's a bastardization of the word streak, which always involved more than one game in history until newspapers got. I don't know why this whole storyline always to me goes back to Rocky 5, and

And everybody called Tommy Gunn, he's a paper champion. They're calling you a paper champion right now. Well, it doesn't really, I don't think Mike Tyson is really worried about trash talk from Buster Douglas 20 years later. Very good. So that is tomorrow. That is the big, big event. And, of course, like we said, it will be on NFL now or we'll have video of it at the very least for you guys to watch later, maybe next week. So thank you for listening, as always.

We'll have Mark Sessler back on Thursday to join us. But for now, I'm signing off for the mailman and the boss. and the great gold standard behind the glass. Until next time.