NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 1. Trevor’s 2022 NFL Mock Draft, Divisional Round Recap

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers kick off the inaugural episode of NFL Stock Exchange by recapping what was perhaps the greatest weekend of football this century: the 2022 Divisional Round. Next, the duo dive into Trevor's brand new 2022 NFL Mock Draft and go pick by pick through the entire first round as they establish risers, fallers and who your team should be looking to draft. 00:00 - Intro & Welcome 5:00 - Recapping an INSANE Divisional Round 32:38 - Trevor’s 2022 Mock Draft Picks 1-10 49:50 - Trevor’s 2022 Mock Draft Picks 11-20 1:03:18 - Trevor’s 2022 Mock Draft Picks 21-32 1:18:00 - Outro & Previewing Next Episode

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all gotten back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. You get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great.

I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to episode one, the inaugural event, the maiden voyage of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. In this first episode, what we are doing is recapping what was maybe the best divisional

round that we have ever seen in NFL playoff history, plus breaking down a brand new mock draft. All 32 picks of the first round, we're going to tell you who each team selected, why they selected them, the prospects that are up, the prospects that are down, breaking down certain team tendencies, and so much more. I am Trevor Sykema. With me, as always, is my co-host, Connor Rogers. Let's get after it.

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange. I am Trevor Sykema. With me is Connor Rogers. And man man I have been waiting so long to say that Connor this has been such a long time coming launching this podcast you and I get to chop it up on a weekly basis talking NFL football thank you guys so much for listening to episode one man this this is going to be such a blast Connor and we're coming off one of the best divisional weekends ever so I feel like it's going to be a super show of all super shows to start this podcast off. Dude, it's going to be amazing.

I mean, you and I are sitting here and we just finished watching arguably the most exciting NFL playoff game of our lifetime. Lifetime. So the fact that we're recording this like late on Sunday night and we are just wired, We are ready to go. We're so excited to get this thing off the ground, man. I mean, obviously, we've been hyping it up for a while. We've been planning it even longer than the people know.

So I cannot wait to get started, man. Man, this is going to be so much fun. Like I said, for everybody who's tuned in for episode one, thank you so much for rocking with us. We're going to have a lot of fun on this show. You guys are going to have a lot of fun with us. It's going to be a fan-friendly show in everything that we do. have a lot of fun on the show you guys are gonna have a lot of fun with us it's gonna be a fan friendly show and everything that we do i'm just gonna i'm gonna be honest with you guys this is probably gonna be one of the longer episodes that we do

on the show because the intro is gonna be a little bit longer as we are uh giving our greetings to everybody for the first episode we're gonna recap little portions of all of these games that we just saw for the divisional playoff round and then we had to start the show off right. We have a mock draft here for you on this episode. I just released my version 3.0 mock draft for the 2022 NFL draft over at profootballfocus.com. And Connor's going to break it down. He's going to rip up what he likes, what he doesn't like. We're going to talk about stock up, stock down, because of course it is a little stock market theme. So you're going to hear about all that stuff throughout the show there's so many ideas that you and i have had for this show that i feel like we're going to try to get all of them

in like the first two shows it's overwhelming right and then it's like then we'll eventually find where they naturally belong and we'll get into a good rhythm but i'm just excited to get it started man yeah i mean you and i i think like to have fun with the draft right and everybody is a different kind of draft fan but at the end of the day this is entertainment it's fun uh it's more than just scouting and and that's why we want to get the listeners involved in the show and i think we have a lot of creative ways to do that while also you and i are going to chop it up i was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at your mock draft that if you're listening to this right now, you can go check it out on PFF, but you want to stay right here because we're going to go through it. We're going to go through

things that we think are completely on the table. We're going to talk about the biggest risers, and we're going to talk about some players that might be left out and unfortunately might be left out for good reason, along with a lot of different team decisions that are going to set new foundations for them whether it's you know the giants picking twice in the top 10 you have the jets there the eagles picking three times right there's so many variables in this draft that you know teams that might need to look for a quarterback if they can't find a veteran option so this is like the perfect intro for us so everybody knows this draft class i think decently right now but this is the perfect intro for us. Everybody knows this draft class, I think, decently right now.

But this is the perfect starter for you and I, episode number one, and go through the first round before we get deep down the road, you know, maybe a month from now. Yeah, I'm really excited for this. And I'm excited to team up with you to talk about the draft. One, because I know that you have such a great passion for it and you'll be able to match me there because i love the nfl draft as well but there's so much that goes beyond even just knowing players really well and i think you and i take pride in trying to know these players

and their skill sets and where they fit and what kind of pros are going to be as best we can but we also love the process part of this that even goes beyond the players themselves general manager tendencies what coaches are looking for, what schemes they're looking to run, what guys really fit those. And we're going to try to do that as best we can for all 32 NFL's teams. So we really hope that this podcast here is going to be a one-stop shop for all of you guys,

no matter what team that you're a fan of, no matter what you love the most about the draft, draft season, football coverage, and just really covering college football NFL everything with a draft spin and I'm excited to be able to do that because like I said we got so many great ideas we're gonna get to that mock draft but we do have to talk about these games because this is the talk of the town this is the water cooler talk if you will this is what everybody is going to be on Twitter mentioning for the next couple of days we got to start with

Chiefs Bills. You mentioned it. The reason why our blood pressure is so high right now, the reason why we're so jazzed at almost midnight here on the East Coast is because of what we just saw with the Chiefs and the Bills. I want your raw reaction takeaway to that game. What are your immediate thoughts? What do you want to talk about? What are we remembering about this game?

I mean, did it have to stop, right? and it was such a dominant performance from each quarterback Mahomes 26 years old Josh Allen 25 that you basically felt like whoever had the ball last was was going to win the game and Mahomes had 13 seconds at the end of regulation to get them into field goal range on a night where Bucker was not at his best in conditions, Kansas city in January. Listen, that's not going to be fun to kick in. You're right. So, and going back to what you started with Trevor, like everything starts with the NFL draft, right? So people are going to sit here and listen to like, you know, why do I want playoff talk when I can listen to any pod for that one, but everything starts with the draft.

And our conversation is always going to tie back to the draft. You look at where the Bills were, I don't know, five years ago, let's just say pre-Josh Allen, right, or pre-Brandon Bean, and you look at where they are now, where assistant GM Joe Shane just got poached and will be the Giants' next GM. And we're

going to talk, if you like this episode now, listen to tomorrow's show. We're going to get much more into the GMs and coaches. Good chance he takes Brian Dable. Good chance he takes Brian Dable, and we'll get more into that. So now the Bills are a place where everybody wants their front office members and their coaching staff, and they have an absolute alien quarterback. We looked at Mahomes, what, two years ago and said,

Oh, my God, and he is amazing, and he is the best quarterback in the NFL. But we looked at him two years ago and said oh my god and he is amazing and he is the best quarterback in the NFL but we looked at him two years ago and said how is anyone going to even come close to this guy and Josh Allen's development from good drafting good coaching obviously his own hard work just the situation that he's in has now put him on par where he is going haymaker for haymaker with Patrick Mahomes and that was the beauty of this game that it didn't matter you know right whoever had the ball and what defense was on the field is that they were going to keep throwing haymaker after haymaker until the bell rang that's what it came down to and the bell rang unfortunately for the Bills it stinks that someone had to lose honestly well you know what you know what stinks more is that someone had to lose, honestly. Well, you know what? You know what stinks more?

Is that somebody had to lose that way. Out of their control, right? And for our first stock down of this show, of NFL Stock Exchange, as if this stock could get any further down on my list, the NFL's overtime rules, especially in the playoffs, man, I am selling selling selling I will always be selling this rule as it stands today because I think Tony Romo put it perfect as they were signing off the broadcast Josh Allen played perfect football the last two weeks yeah and didn't even get to touch the ball and over like look some people out there are going to say hey defense

that's part of the game too you got to be able to hold up your end of the bargain okay i don't i don't disagree with you there other people will say hey go win it in regulation it's not like the buffalo bill scored a touchdown on every single drive okay i understand that as well but the fairness of the game especially with a magnitude of that where people call that game the super bowl right people on twitter were saying the winner of this game is winning the super bowl and i think they got a pretty strong case for this season though you never know how crazy but you're right but i get it you're right they're arguably the two best teams it's just i can't believe we're here. You know, if you want to, in the regular season,

make sure that games don't run long because of TV contracts and bleeding over into late night games or afternoon games, and you just need things to end to keep things moving for TV contracts, if that's the reason why they do it, okay, fine, whatever. In the playoffs, this should not be the case.

There's no way that game which was game of the year caliber one of the best games that we'll ever watch ended with josh allen not being able to touch the ball and it's a shame it's a damn shame because of what you said what brandon being uh sean mcdermott that entire decision making group in buffalo has done in the draft has done with development has done in free agency and i hate that I have to come on this podcast and even be on the timeline and whatever, and have any resentment at all for the Kansas City Chiefs and how they won that game because it was unbelievable.

And Trevor, I have to do that because of the overtime rule. I just want you. No, you're spot on. And I'll throw a draft angle at you that I'm going to ask a serious question. You go and watch that game. And I know a lot of people could throw other games as examples, but let's take away what we view as, you know, almost this year's Super Bowl, what we just watched and you watch how that transpired. You watch how the league has constructed the rules and how strict they are with defenders

playing the pass and even guys rushing the passer with how much quarterbacks are protected, you look at all of that right now, right? And say, what is the argument to not draft or use as much of your premium capital, free agency, but mostly the draft on offense? On offense, you look at it and listen, I am a true down to the wire defense and run the ball guy because you got to realize I grew up in New York. I grew up a jets fan where we don't even know what a franchise quarterback

looks like. Right. Okay. So it is like the golden years of my lifetime are, are Oh nine and 10 run the ball and, and play defense. And I sit here today and say, you basically need to be able to score at will in these big time games because the way the

rules are constructed and the way that you're trying to develop young quarterbacks and give them as much help as they can and as great as Mahomes is look at Tyree Kill and Kelsey and what they can do for you and that revamped offensive line they've held up pretty well you look at Josh Allen with Diggs Gabe Davis Knox, Knox, you know, even motor Singletary. It's just, I'm not saying ignore defense. I'm never going to be that kind of guy. But as we get into this mock draft today, there's going to be so many conversations. And I saw it with your picks where there's times where, yeah, you might love a defender on the board, but you might have a quarterback that you need to develop and an offense that, you know, needs to score

points with the big dogs of the NFL. It's also why I think that drafting corners is going to become huge in the NFL and this draft specifically I didn't go super rich on corners in this mock draft and we'll get into that a little bit later in the show but there's a lot of corners to pick in this class and I think you're going to see a ton of teams really jump on them in I'll say back half of the first round maybe early part of the second round range where if you aren't upgrading your your offensive arsenal especially in the passing game you've got to get an almost unlimited amount of guys to be able to cover you've got to gone are the days where okay we've got to we've got to lock down cb1 now we can just have an okay cb2 and our third best corner is going to play nickel for us. No, no, no, no.

Nickel's base. Right. Like the nickel is base. And not only that, you've got to search for a Kenny Moore, a Mike Hilton, a guy who specializes in slot defense, right? And so I think that that goes into a lot of draft angles and what we're going to see there. I don't want to spend too much time on this game,

but I do want to shout out Gabe Davis, Gabriel Davis, UCF wide receiver, late round draft pick, 10 targets receptions 201 yards and four receiving touchdowns in this game an owner of mike hughes's ankles oh my lord in heaven that was former teammate they were teammates in 2017 do you think he said something to him as he blew by? You think he said like, damn, got him again. Got him again. Got you again, Mike. I mean, God. I hope they didn't like each other at UCF, honestly.

Because if they did, it's just sad. It's sad. That's tough. Okay, real quick. Rams, Bucks, Tom Brady not going to the SU championship game. Matthew Stafford. Ooh, Matthew Stafford, a rough second half, but hey, he hit that throw at the end of Cooper Cup what do you what do you think about Matthew Stafford because I am a Stafford I don't I don't I don't want to say defender because I don't know I'm a defender I don't know if that puts me in a category with like weirdos and now

I just now I just like called you a weirdo so like that's kind of that's kind of weird no it is weird it's weird but I have always been somebody who's like Stafford is extremely talented. Detroit was holding him back. And I think that we saw with the Los Angeles Rams, he was definitely not up to that caliber of like a plug and play straight into a Superbowl caliber team. He definitely took his lumps, especially towards the end of the year. I was getting really worried about that,

but I still think this dude is really talented. I still think they can beat the 49ers. I still think they can make it to a Super Bowl. And if they can, anything can happen, I guess. But what do you think about Stafford? I mean, I always worry about the two Bs with him, his body and bonehead decisions, right? Wow, look at that.

The body, man, when you start hearing about back injuries and then you see some of the questionable throws. But to my point of being a defender of the body, man, when you start hearing about back injuries and then you see some of the, you know, questionable throws. But to my point of being a defender of the guy, I think I was a defender in a sense where I wanted to see him in a new situation. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of Lions fans listening to this podcast. And Trevor and I are going to be here for you because you're going to be one of the main teams of the draft. And I'm excited for you. But I also think that and I think a lot of Lions fans will say this, you know, never really had a run game there, right? Yes, he had Calvin Johnson and he had some playmakers over the years,

but never had a true run game. And I think with Stafford, you know, this was his, he was going to get crushed if the Rams were a, you know, a one and done or even really knocked out by the Bucs. He was going to be like, oh, this was the guy sold as he's never gotten a fair shot and he's never gotten them over the hump and you know what man he made the throw when it matters most a wild decision by Todd Bowles on the call to oh brother don't even get me started yeah oh I know dang well about Todd Bowles wild decisions oh yeah you know him very well know dang well. And I like Todd a lot.

I think he's a great defensive mind, and I think that he's going to get a second chance. And I think he's earned that, and I think he probably learned a lot. But that call, number one, it's a perfect throw. But, man, you leave Winfield in a brutal spot against arguably the top three receiver in the NFL right now, Cooper, not arguably. He is the top three receiver.

You know, I look at it, Trevor, and just think that, man, you know what, Stafford, at the end of the day, they're showing that this was the move we needed to make. He's getting us where we need to be. And, you know, Sean McVay, he's kind of showing that in the playoffs now he can get it done. So I look at that game and go, I wasn't shocked. I hate to say that to you with the bucks,

but the Rams, you picked the Rams. Didn't you? When we were talking about Twitter space today, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you picked the Niners.

So I, you know, I was dead wrong about green Bay, but I felt good about the Rams. And I just, I think the bucks were just kind of ran out of bullets in a sense, you know, right?

No, the whole, the offensive line was so beat up. I mean, Donovan Smith was getting exposed. Josh Wells was getting exposed. Them not having Tristan works, in a sense you know right no the whole the offensive line was so beat up i mean donovan smith was getting exposed josh welles was getting exposed them not having tristan werf's i think really messed with their psyche honestly totally line they were all getting whooped and that's the worst game that collectively that offensive lines played all game i know it kind of came down to

that matthew stafford throw at the end but it really should not have been that close you're right rams the rams were actually the better team and i i think that all that happened was god as he often does looked upon tom brady with favor and was like all right I'm gonna try to help you out our time brother right I'm gonna help you out as much as I can here buddy and uh so I I think that that kind of went into it and that's well obviously like I'm kidding but the Bucks were able to get some turnovers capitalize off of it, really tie it up there. At the end, give themselves a drive. And yeah, you know, I said this on Twitter after the game. Todd Bowles, he's done so many fantastic things for that Tampa Bay defense.

And, you know, you mentioned it. He's such a good defensive mind. He really is. And I think that people get really frustrated with Todd Bowles and other coaches of his nature because he is a pressure first coach. He really loves to blitz. That's what Tom, that's what Todd Bowles and other coaches of his nature because he is a pressure first coach he really loves the blitz that's what Tom that's what Todd Bowles do he has these exotic blitz packages he pairs them with really nice coverage on the back end he tries as hard as he can to confuse a lot of quarterbacks and he does really well with that but he lives by the sword

and he dies by the sword and unfortunately when it works everybody really loves it it's suffocating you're shutting out teams you're keeping them from scoring even 20 points and what you mentioned this offensive league but when it doesn't work you get what we saw against the rams where he calls a blitz there's a little miscommunication in there like players said after the game but even if there weren't he's calling a corner blitz with cooper cup as the slot receiver you've got one guy hanging over the top of him in winfield jr and winfield jr at that point is screwed i'm pretty sure the only safety that could really hang with cooper cup in that wide open slot situation one-on-one from that alignment is like derwin james right i mean like those are the those are the only dudes that you

can like fully rely on like i had you know we i was talking with with brett coleman who does a lot of video breakdown stuff on on youtube and he was like ah man you know winfield juniors he's got to play top down a little bit more he's got to like not let it over the top a little bit and i i know what he's saying obviously you're not giving up the bomb there but you got to think about it too if he even gives up the chunk play to cooper cub so you know it just it didn't work out. And I think that people are, they're jumping to conclusions because it's an emotional loss and everything. I ultimately think that Todd Bowles

is probably back in Tampa Bay next year, but hey, maybe they will lose both their coordinators. So congrats to the Rams. Congrats to Matthew Stafford getting a shot at the NFC Championship game. And that's a good segue into just touching on this 49ers Packers game. Boy, when coaches tell you all three phases matter.

Oh, buddy, do they unfortunately mean all three phases matter? Because Packers special teams really blew it for them there. I know that Rodgers and company did not put up the points that they thought they were going to. But it was snowing. It was windy. It was tough conditions. I get that it's at home, but who cares? It's hard to play for everybody.

Good for the 49ers. They stuck it there. They played really well on special teams and crazy enough. Niners are also going to the NFC championship game. I mean, first off, great call by you. You were on Niners money line. And I mean, they, they got it done. It doesn't matter how you get it done.

No one cares, right? It's right. That's football, right? You don't get bonus points for, you know, you don't get points taken away for winning by special teams. And let's be real. Like, the reality is Aaron Rodgers did not win that game at the end when he could have won that game at the end. So the Niners defense, incredibly well-called game by the Niners defense.

We know what they can do on the ground. We know how much they could take the game out of Jimmy's hands. And the bottom line is Debo Samuel is maybe the most exciting player in the NFL. Stud. Stud, dude. He's so good. He's so fun to watch. I mean, just rare, right? Really the type of guy that you could see the body language with him on the field. He wants the ball. He knows he's going to the body language with him on the field that he wants the ball he knows he's gonna break tackles he's got the second and third gear he's a legitimate

wide receiver but he's also a legitimate running back they just don't make him like Debo and honestly you know everybody wants Christian McCaffrey to kind of be that guy but Debo's build and running style and I know he gets he gets banged up here and there, but even when he comes back in the game, he looks fine. He's made of something completely different. So the Niners, they are to be doing what they're doing with Jimmy at quarterback, and he's struggling. I don't think he's as bad as everyone thinks he is,

but I also think he had a couple wild throws in that game that could have been intercepted. Right. And they just find ways to get it done. Special teams, run game, a defense that is punching above their weight class in this postseason, wildly impressive by everybody involved. It's not that Jimmy can't do it.

It's not that he's, like, incapable of doing it. He just doesn't do it enough. Like, he just can't do it it's not that he's like incapable of doing it he just doesn't do it enough like he just doesn't do it consistently i think that's his issue dude debo samuel were you at the senior bowl that he was at oh yeah where every single day day one day two day three didn't matter he was just putting up hot he was cooking fools one-on-one in seven on seven like in in in full scrimmages. Debo was unstoppable that entire senior bowl. And I remember everybody, every single person coming out of that senior bowl thinking, this dude's the man.

And I actually just looked it up right now. It's not as bad as I thought. How many wide receivers do you think went in front of Debo Samuel off the top of your head in 2019? I'll go quick. I'll say six. Dude, it's two. Wow.

It's only two. Debo was at the beginning of the second round, but we sit here and we think of the 2019 NFL draft class and we think of like A.J. Brown and D.K. Metcalf and Marquise Brown. And we remember Nikhil Harry went in the back. A lot of those guys fell. But the only guys who went ahead of Debo

were actually Marquise Brown and Nikhil Harry. I just looked that up, and I just thought to myself, like, yeah, it's crazy. Wild. This whole draft was drunk at wide receiver. Absolutely hammered. Okay, Debo goes 36 in the second round. Then it's A.J. Brown, Mikko Hardman, J.J. Ortega-Whiteside, R.I.P. Trev, forever liking J.J. Ortega-Whiteside.

Oh, me too, man. Paris Campbell, J.J. Arthaga-Weisside, R.I.P. Trev, forever liking J.J. Arthaga-Weisside. Oh, me too, man. Paris Campbell, Andy Isabella. Andy Isabella, never forget, went two picks ahead of DK Metcalf. Never forget. Let no one ever forget. And then we got Deontay Johnson two picks after that. That was a weird wide receiver draft. Weird.

A wide receiver draft. Absolutely hammered. And then, of course, you know, the Raiders got wide receiver one in that draft. Hunter Rent Pro, pick 149 unbelievable yeah unbelievable and you look at just the niners one last point on them they got to coach devo in mobile that year and oh that's and i remember standing right behind them during a practice where they're working with uh they're probably doing at least seven on sevens, might've transitioned to 11s. And I remember watching Mike McDaniel, who's now a head coaching candidate,

but watching Mike McDaniel at the time and LaFleur was on that staff, who's now the Jets OC. And then of course they have Shani. But I remember that like watching them hands-on with guys like Debo. And it's, you could just tell, I mean, they know how to find skill guys

and they found the absolute gem of that draft. And that is the thing man and that's that is what we will try to do the most on this on this show is that yes you want to get into the nitty-gritty you want to talk about specialization where this guy could be used how you could see him succeeding in the nfl but at the end of the day you cannot miss the forest for the trees you cannot miss the just damn good football players and Devo Samuel absolutely one of those guys uh let's hit on Cincinnati Tennessee before we get to the mock draft Joe freaking Burrow man big dick Joe I just I the dude is unbelievable he takes nine sacks Cincinnati's offensive line looked like they didn't even belong in the playoffs.

They were cones out there. Yeah. Joe Burrow went out there on the road, takes the number one seed out. I get it. Tennessee's not the best one seed we've ever seen. But still, for Cincinnati to be able to gut out that win the way that Burrow and company were able to do, this team believes, man. They believe in each other big time.

They do. And you know what? They got a swaggy quarterback. They got a swaggy kicker. own company were able to do this team believes man they believe in each other big time they do and you know what they got a swaggy quarterback they got a swaggy kicker out there your boy gator great baby evan mcpherson dude i i remember i remember watching evan mcpherson at florida and they would trot him out and they'd be like, Florida's attempting a 52 yard field goal in here. And I'm like in the bad, like I got the game in the background or whatever. And I'm like 52 in college, no way this college kickers make it 52.

And then it'd be like good from 58. And I'm like, Oh, okay. And then he'd do it again. And then he hit from like 55 and then he would consistently hit from 40. And I'm like, who is this dude?

And then after the game, you read the quotes that Joe Burrow says where McPherson came up to him before he kicked it and he went, looks like we're going to the AFC Championship game. Dude, what? That is what I want from my kicker. So, hey, you know what? Kickers often get overlooked in the draft. Evan McPherson, baby.

What if the hold's bad, the snap, even if you're that confident, that is such a wild, wild thing to say for a kicker because, man, if you miss that. But it doesn't matter. He made it. It doesn't matter. He made it. They got the most exciting rookie wide receiver,

maybe the most exciting rookie in football in Jamar Chase. Yes. Like you said, with Burrow, even when things aren't clicking, even a couple of the sacks, honestly, he did hold the ball really long and took bad sacks. He does that spin thing a lot. He's young. He's still learning.

He's so good, we forget that he's still learning or growing to the speed of the game because he only played 10 games as a rookie. Man, the Bengals, you know what? Obviously, it's always easy to root for the new kid on the block. Like every fan that doesn't really have a dog in the fight will probably lean Bengals because it's like, okay, I've seen the Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

But with the Bengals, they're a team that really blew it up in a sense or had to start from scratch in a sense. And they've gotten a lot of things right like they signed trey hendrickson they they took jamar chase instead of an offensive lineman obviously you didn't have to think too much with burrow but he's been a hit they took a lot of fire for keeping zach taylor or hiring sean mcveigh's friend everybody was like oh this guy goes he gets mcveigh's coffee. Like, you can't hire him. Looks pretty good right now. The Bengals, man, they are, no matter who you root for, unless it's a team in that division, then I get it.

The Bengals are very, very easy to like right now because of where they were two years ago and how they are getting it done right now. Yeah, and a big, I guess a big reminder of how much free agency plays into talent acquisition and building your team the right way and so that's that's something that we're also going to emphasize a lot you know of course we're going to be heavy on a lot of the draft prospects and the draft process um by itself but so much of what you do in free agency and the capital that you have how you navigate your cap

space what you do there that goes into you building a successful team and who you are going to draft that's why we're going to study a lot of gm tendencies to hopefully be able to predict mocks better and understand where guys are going to fit more i mean austin gale my colleague over at pff he tweeted this uh earlier on sunday dj reader von bell joe burrow t higgins trey hendrickson joe b awuzie mike hilton bj hill jamar chase all added within the last two years incredible job by duke tobin and everybody else who has a hand in bringing those players in sucks for the tennessee titans but kind of felt like this was coming right like okay derrick yeah he's back but you knew he wasn't gonna be his old derrick henry self and man just watching

julio jones out there he's still a good wide receiver I'm not out here saying that Trevor Sikama could go be a better wide receiver in the NFL than Julio Jones could but I remember watching him on a couple of replays and it's just like he's just not the same guy he's just not Atlanta Julio Jones and at that point you don't really have Derrick Henry the way you need him you don't really have Julio Jones the way you need him you're leaning on A.J. Brown a little too heavy. And it just became too much. And all I'll say is, look, everybody's penciling the Kansas City Chiefs into the Super Bowl. I was at the game in Cincinnati where the Bengals beat the Chiefs

and this momentum for them really began. And let me tell you, man, they don't fear Kansas City at all. There is no fear. And this is going to be one hell of an AFC championship game. I think it's going to be great. I know it's so easy. And I agree that we just watched it with the Bills and the Chiefs. But this is just part two to me.

I think it's going to be awesome. I'm not sleeping on the Bengals at all. I think that line is going to open up way too big. That's a guess by me. I don't really know. But if it opens up by more than a touchdown, which it should not, you got to jump over the, you got to jump on the Bengals. I think they're going to have something to, obviously something to prove more so than just making it to the Super Bowl, but something to prove that like,

we're not going to come in here and get embarrassed, right? It's probably a little bit of, ironically, the Cincinnati attitude versus Alabama. I know it's a, you know, NFL, you shouldn't look at it that way, but listen, I think a lot of people are going to write them off and I think it'll be a really good game. And one more thing on Tennessee before we wrap on the playoffs, the divisional round, which was incredible.

You know, Trevor, I think they ran into the problem of, and Vrabel did such a good job, people almost overlooked this. They were never consistently healthy during any stretch that there was no continuity. It was like, oh, we're down a wide receiver here for a couple weeks.

We're down, and with Julio, you know that's what you're getting. But A.J. Brown missed time. Derrick Henry missed a lot of time. The offensive line had some problems. They were always missing injuries. I'm not, you know, giving Tannehill a pass. He made a lot of mistakes. But they also never got a real flow of continuity

because of their injuries where they can't. I know this is like going to be surprised people. Some people probably don't think this is real. I think they came into the playoffs ice cold. I really do. Yeah, at least for leaning on their stars, they did. Just not a lot of snaps with all of those guys in those positions,

maybe individually at certain points throughout the season, but it's's hard it's hard to be able to come in even if you're you're out there and you're I guess healthy enough to be active you're right it's very hard to get there all right let's get to the mock trap now let's get to the big reason why I think a lot of people have tuned into this podcast and this episode specifically before we get to it though you're gonna hear myself and connor reference a lot of premium stats from pro football focus and now you can get yourself a subscription as well to get all those premium stats for all the conversations that you have with your friends right now you can get 25 off any pff subscription if you use the promo code nflse that's the official abbreviations. I love it.

It sounded so good coming out right there. Just had to say that right in the middle of the, I agree. What do you get with a PFF subscription? Well, you get all of PFS lock article contents, all the premium articles, you get NFL betting dashboards for all the playoffs. You get NFL green line, which is another betting dashboard up to 27 units. This season player prop tools shows the-under for all sorts of games, NFL draft guide, and so much more. You can support the pod using the promo code NFLSE,

and you get $25 off any sub. So an elite, an edge, a college, whatever it is. Also, New Year's here, and because the NFL Stock Exchange listeners, we already know, are the best of all PFF podcast listeners. We want to help you guys create a list of what PFF should build for you. We talked at the top of the show that this is a fan friendly show. You guys are just as much a part of this show as we are. Email us at contact at pff.com. That's contact at pff.com with the answers to these questions.

What PFF features do you love the most right now and then what do you want most from pff what do you want most from pro football focus from this podcast let them know that we we would love to hear from you we want to make this podcast you guys's podcast and as good as it can possibly be uh so tell us which podcast sent you when if you email them so if you're listening to this pod and that kind of motivates you, let them know that NFLSC sent you over there so we can put your ideas into the wishlist for 2022. You ready for some

Mock Draft Madness, Connor? Dude, I'm ready to rock. I can't wait. Let's do this thing. Woo! All right. So we're going to go through this in thirds.

I feel like that's probably the most numerically aesthetic way to do this. We'll break down the top 10, then we'll get into 11 through 20 and then we'll hit 21 through 32 we'll break down a lot of the picks that we like some stock down some stock up some stock downs but that's the order in which we're doing it starting with number one overall remember this is my personal mock draft don't hold i'm like i'm

posting the thing in my twitter bio right now we're like connor rogers is not responsible for any of my opinions now we're a team i will fall on the sword for you let's let's do this that's uh that's some that's some famous last words right there but this is my mock draft that you guys can go read over at pff.com number one overall i have evan neal the offensive tackle from alabama i'll just run through one through ten and then we'll get straight into it fire away two number two i have aiden h Hutchinson, the defensive end from Michigan going to the Detroit Lions. Number three, Houston Texans, a little bit of a curve ball here. I don't have cave on Thibodeau. I have safety Kyle Hamilton from Notre Dame. I know we're going to get into that. I'm sure

New York jets, Connors, New York jets. I got them taken Ikea Kwanu, the NC state offensive tackle at number four, number fivevon Thibodeau. This is where he comes off the board. The pass rusher from Oregon. He goes to the New York Giants at number five. Number six, the Carolina Panthers. Offensive tackle, Charles Cross from Mississippi State. Giants on the board again at number seven.

And I have them taking Tyler Linderbaum, the center from Iowa, number eight. Atlanta Falcons getting Traylon Burks, wide receiver one in this mock draft. The wide receiver from Arkansas this mock draft the wide receiver from Arkansas Denver Broncos I got the first quarterback on the off the board at number nine they take Kenny Pickett the Heisman Trophy finalist from Pittsburgh and then the Jets at number 10 Drake London my man from USC so we get a wide receiver for Zach Wilson there where are we

starting off Connor what are we starting off with here what do you want to talk about number one let's start right there. I mean, let's be real. This is, I'm not going to say totally against the grain, but it's unique in a sense where for how long have we heard either pass rusher at this spot? For so long, KT and then obviously Hutch had a big year and he's moved there.

I look at this Trevor, so I wrote top debates and I have three of them in this top 10. So we'll start with the Jags at one. I'm you you got to help Trevor Lawrence I mean that's really what and I love Hutchinson I love Thibodeau uh they are my number one and number two players I have Thibodeau right over Hutch but it's really 1A 1B I look at the Neal pick there and think yes you got to help Trevor Lawrence it was not good this year things were a big time problem I just did the whole rant at the top of the show offense offense offense offense, offense, build around your quarterback. Now I know he didn't do trades in this spot, but what I'll say is maybe you take Evan Neal number

one. Maybe you call the Texans or the Jets at three or four and say, you want to come up. We're not going to kill you to do it because we think we could still get the tackle we like at three or four. And you can come up and have your pick of the draft. You can have Hutchinson. You take the Michigan boy away from the Lions. I mean, I know that's ice cold, but I'm just saying this is the draft game. So I like it. I like the Neil pick. I wonder, and you never want to get like too, you know, too too risky but i wonder if the jaguars can parlay this a little bit and still get what's at the top of their wish list yeah i think that we're gonna see a lot more variety with number one than what we saw throughout the season because and i say this with with my giants pick at number five with cave

on tibeto going number five overall him going five in this mock draft doesn't necessarily mean that I'm way lower on Kavon Thibodeau and that that like like I don't think he could play or anything like that I say in the blurb that his range is one through five I fully believe that he Kavon Thibodeau could absolutely still go number one overall I also could see a little slide from him to number five from everything that I'm hearing and how much teams really like Aiden Hutchinson how much they like Iki Ikuonu the offensive tackle from NC State how much they like Evan Neal where Kyle Hamilton might go in this draft like all of these things go into the equation which all it takes is

a couple of teams going a little bit of a different way and all of a sudden a guy gets number five and you go wow he slid so far and that's not really the way that it is the fact that we have four different players I would say Evan Neal uh Iki Okwano and then Aiden Hutchinson and Kayvon Thibodeau the fact that all four of those guys could potentially go number one overall means that somebody is going to slide a little bit somebody might even get a little bit lower than the top five and so i think i have landed personally in the camp of go get an offensive lineman for trevor lauren now the jaguars need a lot they need a lot more than just another good offensive line piece but i'm with you i definitely entertain a trade down offer it's not like there's a can't miss,

have to have them chase young Joe burrow, whatever type of caliber prospect that's for sure going number one overall, but I don't know what the market's going to be. Right. Because we looked at it. I just, I feel as though general managers are going to be more different on price than they have been in years past because it's a quote-unquote down year and not for quarterbacks i hate saying that because i don't really think that it is like i think there's a lot of strong guys they're going to be difference makers but it took three first round picks for the 49ers to get up to number three to number three last year you had to give up three first round picks just to get up to number three not even number one so if the jaguars are sitting here at number one and they go okay

number one's for sale who wants to give us three first round picks i don't think anybody in the nfl is going to give them three picks so then then all of a sudden, what's the middle ground? How hard is it to find it? I think we could be, we could be in a situation where either we see less trades than we ever had before, or maybe way more than we ever have before. And I think that's because of the volatility of how big boards are going to be so different this year,

but going back to number one, I think it's got to be offensive tackle. I think Evan Neal is getting slept on. Like. I think Evan Neal is getting slept on. Like, I truly think Evan Neal is getting slept on. I think that we determined that Evan Neal was a good prospect like two years ago. And now we're bored. I just think people are bored.

He's an alien athletically. He's absolutely massive at 6'6", 6'7", 360 pounds. He moves incredibly well. He rarely gives up pressures in the sec like i think this is the dude so that's why i have him going number one and i like it a lot and back to your point of it just not being hot the the phone line for that kind of call you know why does nick casario right now have to show urgency to move from three to one that doesn't why did joe douglas maybe a little different story davis mills baby

the franchise in great hands don't see the urgency there joe douglas has not you know made a big splash i know he went up for avt last year but that was different i don't know he's a guy that likes his picks going on one and then the giants of five with joe shane and new gm no rush so i'm with you that it's not it's not going to be a hot market to move up to one or two this year. I really don't think so. All right. So let's move on from the Jags. Like the pick, love your point about Neil. People are bored with him. He's an absolute franchise player, a franchise tackle. All right. The next one for me, and I'm going to calm them down before they get to your mentions. The Jets fans are going to be like, why didn't you give us KT at four?

Because as soon as they see KT available, they're freaking out. KT with Salah across from Carl Lawson, this dream, who knows? But I'm going to hold them off from you because I love KT. And personally, it would be hard for me not to take him there. But I think number four at the end of the day as well, is the same argument for Lawrence with Zach Wilson. You need to help Zach Wilson. It wasn't good enough this year.

And you watch Iki Ikuonu. I mean, he is just destroying dudes on film. It's a different, it's a Pop Warner level look where it looks like a high schooler playing against, not even the JV, it looks like against the Modified. I mean, that's what Icky's out there doing. So I look at this pick for the Jets, and I think he's totally worth the top five pick.

Let me make that clear with that quantum. If anybody's not there yet, I'm telling you right now, he's worth the top five pick. And the Jets situation where we don't know what the deal is going to be with Mekhi Becton. George Fant has one year left on his deal to play left tackle for you, and Morgan Moses is a free agent already. So that's a lot of risk you're looking at down the road at your tackle position.

A bona fide stud is staring you at the face at four, and this is a Joe Douglas guy. He likes the nasty run blockers in a run-heavy scheme. They want to run the ball. That's what they want to do, and then take their shots down the field with Zach Wilson. So I put this in the doc, not to be selfish and talk about the Jets, but to explain why this is a really smart pick.

Even with Thibodeau on the board, it's not crazy. I want to make that clear. Yeah, and I think that, honestly, a lot of went into this pick. One, I think it's more of a toss-up than people are giving it credit for. Again, it's not a guarantee that if Th than people are giving it credit for again like it's not a guarantee that if tibidone makes it to they'd run to the table they'd run to the table now this is another spot where if they pick tibidone it'd be like okay great like cool he's gonna be good with solid right that's fantastic obviously carl lawson on one side came on tibidone

on the other that's fantastic but i also believe you have a better chance of upgrading the offensive line the way you want to especially an offensive tackle in the draft whereas you can get pretty good edge play like the jets have is it is it a top five cap number going into this offseason and guys like and i mean like i know these are older guys but like von miller chandler jones blais campbell Jadavion Clowney, Hassan Redick. Zedarius is going to be released at age 29. Right, Zedarius. And so it is much more common that teams, for whatever reason,

whether they're at an awkward time in their winning window, whether the contract's just not worth it, it is much more possible that you are going to be able to get your hands on an edge rusher from somewhere around the league, whether in free agency or the waiver wire, then it will be you getting an offensive lineman who's of the caliber of Iki Okwano. So honestly, that's why, again,

nothing against Kayvon Thibodeau. That's why I think protecting Zach Wilson, priority number one, you got to be able to do it. And that's kind of how I feel for a lot of a lot of teams now i'm not saying don't draft edge rushers draft edge rushers when they're really good but especially in the jets case and i think this could be a case around the league at times you might have an you might have the ability to go out and get one if you have cap space whereas it really doesn't happen at offensive line with really good offensive linemen you're you're all over it they're not going to be able to go out and buy this caliber offensive lineman where the edge presence is still there in the free agency class and the free agency class dwindles as we get closer to that opening day um so i think i think the thought process is spot on there number seven another debate i think that'll be discussed is

when is it too early let's talk about it to take tylerinderbaum? And you took him at seven for the New York Giants. And I think this is exactly what Joe Shane is going to do with the Giants. I'm not necessarily saying take Linderbaum, but the thought process of I need to get better in the trenches and I need to do it right now. It doesn't matter if we don't know if Daniel Jones is going to be my guy. I'm not attached to him, but I can go out there for another year and see how it goes.

You got KT. Yeah, I'm with you. You got KT at five. And now you go offensive trenches at seven with Linderbaum, who five years from now, if he ends up being the best player from this draft, nobody would be surprised. So for the Giants, you need foundational pieces you cannot miss.

And they're going to take the long bills approach to getting it right on the offensive line for whatever young quarterback is there down the stretch. Seven is not too early to take Linderbaum. I don't care that he's a center. I think he'll be a top three center in the league in two years. I promise everybody listening, we're going to disagree at some point on this podcast. We're going to disagree plenty going back and forth with prospects. But prospects but you really did i mean like you took my argument right out of my mouth because joe shane he's got plenty of time he's a brand new gm he's about to hire whatever

coach he wants we think that it's probably going to be one of those assistants that he has in buffalo right now and that is exactly how i looked at this situation cave on tibidofa basically number five actually it's not even just number five. Number five and number seven, draft whatever trench player is best on your board. Whether that's Kayvon Thibodeau, whether that's Evan Neal, whether that's Ike Ikuonu,

whether that's Aiden Hutchinson, or number seven, whether it's George Karloftis, whether it's Tyler Linderbaum, it doesn't matter. Whoever you think is going to be the best player from the trenches you draft them at both those spots that's exactly what the new york giants need to do i think tyler linderbaum you nailed it if we look back at this draft two years from now three years from now five years from now ten years from now i hate when people do that when they go like oh he's gonna be the best player for a decade shut up like no so so few things are

guaranteed for a decade i hate that so much but yeah it's dangerous game if you if you say that about tyra linderbaum that he's gonna be the best player from this draft you're right nobody would be surprised nobody dude just stood he's one of the cleanest prospects i've ever graded right now it's just like okay he's you plug him and play him in for i mean mean, you, you think to have a fantastic NFL career. So that was my whole approach. And I just want to say, I said this in an article, you guys can go read it at pff.com in the full mock draft, Joe Shane with the bills. Look what they have done over the last three drafts, emphasize trenches, defensive lineman

or offensive lineman with all five of their first or second round picks since 2019. That is what they were building that's how they have the team right now that just had the game of the year against the Kansas City Chiefs put him right there as one of the best rosters in the NFL he's going to take that mentality and if that's Tyler Linderbaum at number seven he ain't going to be like oh yeah but he's a center he's going to pick the right guy he's going to pick a good player and I think that's uh that's going to be Tyler Linderbaum. All right.

You want me to disagree with you. I was going to move on to the second part. At 10 for the Jets, I would take Garrett Wilson. You took Drake London. We're going to have a long conversation about wide receivers on this show eventually. I just wanted to get one disagreement in there to kick things off. I don't have to say anymore. Drake London slander will not stand on this podcast. Jets fans love him.

So you're in good shape. They love him. I like Wilson. I like that he's a little bit more clean of a separator. I know that's like the cliche thing with London right now. We're going to do the wide receiver class because they're going to dictate a lot of this first round. But I wanted to get my one disc screaming in there

before we move on to 11 plus picks. All right, all right, all right. Well, I got an ad read before we get to 11 through 20. We're going to get to 11 through 20 and then break down 21 through 32, getting to all 32 picks of this mock draft here. But I just want to say, Connor, I'm very glad that this is a video podcast

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Get 20% off and free shipping with the promo code PFF at manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping over at manscape.com use the promo code pff join cuban and shoot your arrow with manscape on this valentine's day how to do connor uh you knocked it out of the park honestly i i love uh i'll sneak in a quick ad read story i love the surprise ad reads that intro line was perfect it reminded me of one of the only good one i ever wrote back in the day was for a certain product uh you wrote ads right oh yeah i wrote that was one of your that was one of

your old gigs writing it oh oh yeah i wrote the broncos and browns got a chub this year and now you can too jeez all right onto the mock draft we're gonna that's the only good one i ever wrote i don't think it got approved i don't think how did it not how did it not had it had draft angle it had a product angle i don't know i mean bradley chubbs on one team nick chubbs on the other come on it's right there right there let's get back let's get back to the mock draft before we get uh we get too out of control here at number 11 now this is the official draft order that i'm going off of obviously as the season is coming to an end so these are all locked in their position at number 11 washington football team the washington team to be renamed later in this

process they got quarterback matt corral from old miss there at number 11. So I have Corral as QB2 going in the top 12. Number 12, Minnesota Vikings. I have cornerback Derek Stingley from LSU. A little bit of a slide there, but we might get into that. 13, Cleveland Browns. This is where Garrett Wilson, Connor's guy, comes off the board. Wide receiver from Ohio State. Baker Mayfield getting another offensive weapon there.

14, Baltimore Ravens. They get edge rusher George Karloftis from Purdue. Love that connection right there. 15 for the Philadelphia Eagles. This is when we start to get weird for the people of Philadelphia. And by weird, I mean your team's about to get a hell of a lot better. 15, this is the pick from the Miami Dolphins. They got edge rusher David Ojabo from Michigan.

16 right after that, the Eagles, this is the pick from the Colts. Linebacker Devin Lloyd from Utah. 17 Los Angeles Chargers. The massive man Jordan Davis from Georgia. The defensive tackle there. 18 New Orleans Saints. They go wide receiver George Pickens from Georgia. Yes, going 18 overall here.

I know we're going to talk about that a little bit. Then back to Philly at number 19. This is their original pick. I have them taking Trent McDuffffie the cornerback from washington really like him a lot and then pittsburgh to round things out another quarterback selection started with a quarterback at number 11 ending with a quarterback here at number 20 for pittsburgh sam howell from unc where are we starting here in these uh in this mid-round it's time to ring the bell it's a little stock up action here we're starting we're starting with george pickens this is this is stock mock uh stock

up mock for george pickens right here trevor you uh you get the reward the award of i have not seen george pickens in the first round of a mock draft yet and i think you are ahead of the curve i think if he's healthy which we would assume he is right now i I think he'll test great. I think teams will love the film they do have of him on the field, and they can project his ceiling a little bit more to go, what would he look like in an NFL offense? He's got speed. He's very physical. He loves to block.

I think there is going to be, it's hard to, a player that's been so hyped as him, you know, recruit college of all that to say, oh, people are going to learn about him. But it's wild to me that he hasn't even been in conversation of this draft class yet. So I loved this. I loved the fit. I thought the Saints should have taken a receiver last year. I thought they were going to be on guys like, you know, Elijah Moore at the end of round one,

that kind of range there. And they didn't. They opted to go pass rusher. So there's all kinds of buzz about Sean Payton maybe getting out of town. Who knows? That's a conversation for another day. Man, this one's fun. This one is, he's a disruptor, right?

This is what I view as a mock disruptor. And I had to get him in the stock up here. I think that people are just gonna love to see this kind of love for this guy yeah george pickens was my wide receiver one uh going into the season or at least like that's what it would have been had he not torn his acl back in march during spring practice and i think that was the big unknown with him but when you look at his freshman and sophomore years i mean this was a unanimous five-star prospect coming to Georgia that made George's cheeks passing attack actually worth a damn. And it was just because they were throwing the ball up to George Pickens and he was making things happen.

And it's not like it was gimmicky stuff either. It was vertical stuff deep down the field where he was making diving catches, one-handed catches. He was a back shoulder monster. He was a toe tap guy at the sidelines. You mentioned the ferocity, the ferociousness that he has for blocking. He's got so much strength and speed in his games. He's six foot three, 210 pounds, right?

He's got the size. He's got everything, man. And if that ACL checks out, obviously he was able to play towards the end of the season for the national championship run though. If all of that health checks out, I think he's going to test really well. He's got the great tape already at a very young age as a true freshman and sophomore as a starter.

And so, man, I think this guy checks so many boxes. I'm sure interviews are going to be huge for him because interviews are going to be a big part of what separates this really talented wide receiver class. It's going to be a lot of like like does the team fall in love with you there's going to be a lot of guys to like are you going to be a difference maker kind of when it gets to those one-on-ones or group interviews or whatever it is and if george pickett's to do that man he's checking all the rest of the boxes so yeah this is my wide receiver one going into the season pre injury and so i think that now that he's back and healthy now he's showing he's good to go put him right back in there for the first round, man. He's right in this conversation.

It feels like he might have a DK process, right? Where a lot of people aren't going to know what to do with him. There's an unpredictable nature to him, but you know that you have this combination of size, straight line speed, jam-packed with talent, and maybe you're unlocking something else at the next level if you have a vertical passing attack that you want him a part of. So he would be on my top five list of most fascinating prospects to watch throughout this process to me, because it's like

he's become this forgotten man when, like you said, over summer, there was all the reason in the world to go, hey, not over summer, but we'll say a year ago, right? And you look at what he did as a freshman. It's all right there. So the second thing that stands out for me in this part, what are the Pittsburgh Steelers going to do at quarterback this offseason? Yeah, go ahead. You know, you have Howell there.

I had them taking Howell in the last mock I did for Bleacher Report a couple weeks ago, so we see eye-to-eye on that, and it was not well-received, Trevor, I'll tell you that. It's a video mock. We have live comments in the app. Fans did not like it. They didn't think Howell was a first-rounder.

They didn't like this, didn't like that, and that's okay. I could take disagreement. Pickett was gone. Steelers fans, the pick connection, they want Pickett. I don't see him making it to 20. So what I'll propose to you, say they strike out on the, you know, the big dream scenarios, Aaron Rodgers, even Russell Wilson, these veterans. Do you throw Derek Carr in there?

Why would the Raiders? And he's always on the market. The Raiders moving him, to me, is just like... I mean, they'd be pretty wild. If they did that, then they are... Obviously, Rich Versace is no longer there if they're moving on from Derek Carr. Yeah, yeah, good point.

They got rid of Mike Mayock, obviously. The only way that I see this possible is, does Harbaugh come in, basically get his gm of like whoever he wants for gm and he just wants like a clean slate like he like he's like let's move car for picks let me just do whatever i can like maybe maybe he thinks they can get russell wilson or something so i don't know i that's i i thought about because i thought about aaron rogers i thought about russell wilson i was like no i don't think either of them are going to Pittsburgh. But I was like, Derek Carr could go to Pittsburgh.

Yeah. Well, number one, I would love him there. And also, I think my diabolical take of today's show is Derek Carr was better than Russell Wilson this year. And there's a lot of variables that go into that. And I'm not like a big Derek card like stan or anything like that i'm just saying it's like it yeah it's pretty embarrassing right now are you about to call about are you about to call on the most valuable football player of all time on twitter like his brother oh of all time of all so i look at it like this with the raiders they're getting a new gm right and so say we'll say a scenario. Say Ed Dodds gets that job. Why start your pressure cooker clock early? You get the job and you trade Derek Carr. Then all the eyes are on you. But if you let Derek Carr play out this year,

you fail with Derek Carr, everyone's like, okay, we're going to try something different. That's a good take. You're not starting the pressure cooker a little too early. So that's where I stand with that. To the Steelers, say they miss on the veteran options, and say, going back to the beginning of this segment, is it cheap to come up this year in terms of wide lens view of typical drafts?

Do you go up for Pickett or Corral? Do you believe that we have Claypool, Najee, obviously Johnson. You have pieces there that a Pickett, who is a high floor, low ceiling quarterback, can come in and get us going the right way. Or do you say, we'll sit back, you have Howell, Malik Willis. We'll take someone that's more of a dart. I don't, they're in a weird spot, Trevor. It's almost not great that they made the playoffs with Ben this year, in a way.

Is Colbert retiring before or after the draft? Do you know? I think his contract takes, I thought it takes him through the draft, but he could technically just retire when he wants. Retire. That's something to keep an eye on. Hold on. I'm looking it up here.

Colbert's contract runs through the 2022 NFL draft, and he intends to honor it. So he's going to do the extremely hella weird thing that I think is awful where you have a GM draft for a team that they're absolutely not even going to manage, which I think is super weird. The Jets did that with Mike McKagnon when they were like oh yeah you could draft you could draft and then we're firing you and it's like what what so it makes no sense i always think it's very weird obviously like there's way more respect for like what kevin colbert has done for the steelers and it's they consider this they consider this obviously like a like a good thing that he's

sticking around for the 2022 NFL draft. I always just think it's weird because this goes into it, right? Are you giving Kevin Colbert the keys to trade future draft picks to move up to go get Kenny Pickett, right? Like this, this goes into the, this goes into the equation because when I look at this, Kevin Colbert traded up for a linebacker. He traded up from 20 to 10 to go get Devin Bush not too long ago, right? What's stopping them from moving from this exact spot, number 20, to go up to somewhere around number 10

to make sure they go get Kenny Pickett? Not much, right? If they did it for a linebacker for Devin Bush, they would certainly do it for a quarterback. But do they sign off on Colbert being able to do that? I don't know. I don't know. So I'll say the one

way they can make this work if they and they should do this because these guys are very qualified. If after Colbert, there's a plan in place to elevate an internal guy and they have a very qualified one in Brandon Hunt, who's their top pro scout, they really can handle everything. And they also have Omar Khan khan there who's a executive that he does a little bit of everything if there's an internal plan in place like when the ravens went from ozzy to da costa da costa was always there waiting to take that job so when they took lamar it was like okay no we're all in agreeing on this and i'm not saying this is a guarantee to do this this to me is what they need to do to execute what you're

saying in a functional way. You go from Colbert, who has a great relationship, a close relationship with someone like Hunt, who's come to their system, and Khan. One of those two get elevated, and you work together for the future of the franchise. Not the McKagnon.

I took Jakai Polite. Have fun. Yeah, I think what you are saying makes total sense and if that is the case one that's a great way to do it that's how you want to do it and whoever is going to be the gm whether it's somebody who's currently in the building right now or somebody that they're going to hire afterwards they should still hire that person like asap so they're learning with right like learning with Colbert and they're there the whole time and the Steelers generally do things right they they generally run a really great organization so it's probably going to be something like that

Seaworths fans not fans of how okay I get it yeah I guess but like they could be in there at 20 I think it's kind of a pipe dream like even in the worst quarterback classes what did ej manual went what 16 13 like something like that like ej like even in that terrible quarterback class guys are going well somebody's going before 20 so if they want kenny pickett and i think that kenny pickett when you look at this group whatever you think of it he's going to be near the top they would have to move up to go get him so steelers fans if you don't like Sam Howell okay it's fine but you got to understand why I'm making this pick why I have quarterback here because they're they are addressing it some way shape or form because right now as of right now with me making this mock Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins are the

only guys on the roster okay well then I'm drafting a quarterback. So they figure it out between now and then, or, you know, maybe it's Sam Al. Maybe they like Sam Al. Who knows? I think Sam... You ready for what's going to happen with Sam? Well, what do you mean? Right now he's like, no one cares about him.

Then we're going to hit, I don't know, say mid to late February. Some of the big names in the draft will cycle back to the 2020 Sam Howell film and be like, when Sam Howell was playing with NFL talent, he was really, really good. They will. And then everyone's going to like him at the combine, and then we're going to land right here.

Sam Howell, middle late first round. That's why I'm kind of doing this. Because ultimately, I think that Sam Howell is a back half of the first round quarterback. I think that's where he is going. I think so too. So that's kind of where I am there. Let's round it out.

I'll announce the 21 through 32 picks here with the order as it stands going into championship playoff week. So number 21, the Patriots are picking number 21. I have them taking N'Kobe Dean, the linebacker from Georgia. I say this in the little blurb that you can read over at PFF. I think N'Kobe Dean should probably go a lot higher than this.

I think I look at N'Kobe Dean somewhat similarly to how you described Debo Samuel. Just draft the good football player, right? Like just go get the good football player and obviously dean is still going in the first round here so debo didn't even go in the first round in his draft but i think there's a chance dean could go a lot higher than this i just don't know what the nfl is ultimately going to think of his size so that's why i have him at 21 but patriots notably don't give a damn about uh that they just try to draft good football players

number 22 las vegas raiders jameson williamsison Williams from Alabama. This is the Henry Ruggs replacement. Even with the ACL tear, this is the guy that they've got to target. Cardinals at number 23. They're scheduled to maybe lose Chandler Jones, maybe Marcus Golden, all those guys there. I've got them taking edge rusher, Drake Jackson from USC, who I think is very slept on in this class. I really do. 24, Dallas Cowboys, offensive lineman, Ken green from texas a&m he's inside out guy could play guard could play tackle 25 buffalo bills cornerback andrew booth from clemson ton of skill and andrew booth you put him on one side for davis white on the other those safeties on the back end that's a good combo right there that makes one of the best past events in the nfl

even better tennessee titans bernard raymond the offensive tackle from central michigan i really like bernard yeah he's good player he is a fantastic player i think trevor penning is getting a lot of the like small school hype and trevor penning i think is is good as well i like raymond more than trevor penning actually and i think that there's too many people talking about penning and just not enough people talking about raymond but i didn't mean to make that negative and i actually kind of did so that's bad on me. This time is coming. It is, it is. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, number 27, cornerback Roger McCreary. They've got Carlton Davis, Jamel Dean, Sean Murphy, Bunting,

all up in unrestricted free agency over the next two years, so wouldn't be bad to get ahead of the curve there. Green Bay Packers, this could go any way at number 28. Who knows what their offseason is going to hold. I have them taking Penn State wide receiver Jahan Dotson right now. 29, Cincinnati Bengals. Did you think it was going to be anything else? No, it's going to be offensive lineman, Max Mitchell, the offensive tackle from Louisiana,

who I also really like. 30, Miami Dolphins. This is where I have Northern Iowa's offensive tackle, Trevor Penning, coming off the board. Going to get to watch him at the Senior Bowl. Very excited about that. Detroit Lions at number 31, because they're picking where the Rams are.

I've got them taking Penn State safety Jaquan Brisker and then 32 Kansas City Chiefs to round it out. Cornerback Ahmad Sauce Gardner from Cincinnati. All right. Lots to digest here. Big fall for Sauce, who's definitely my top corner. And I think that'd be a home run for the Chiefs. Then I look at...

You have Sauce to CB1? Sauce is my top corner. But I get why, like, Stingley's the all-ceiling guy, so I get why, like, you have the Vikings taking him early. I think somebody will take that big home run swing on Stingley, despite his question marks. The stock-up

guy from this group on the stock mock spectrum has to be Max Mitchell. This is a big time jump for Max Mitchell in here. He is a really, really impressive player considering that he gets really no spotlight coming out of Louisiana. I liked in the mock that you highlighted, he's got length. He's a little bit on the leaner side, but he's very athletic. It feels like with NFL coaching, he's somebody you can develop into a legitimate lockdown tackle kind of player. And the Bengals need that. And they want their offensive line, of course, to be athletic with the type of scheme that they have. So yeah, I think if you're going between him or Penning to me, it's a toss up. Obviously, I'm with you that, you know, Raymond's a lot of fun.

And he's fun for the Titans there. He's got a little nasty into this game. He does, yes. Got a little nasty, you know, that European temper or something over there. I don't know what it is, but he's fun to watch. Austria, yeah. So, dots into the Packers. If they run it back one more year,

if they can figure out the money with Rodgers and Devontae, and put their dots into the mix that's a ton of fun so let's look at we went through Mitchell who's the big riser here the stock down guy for me that I take out of this and I like that you did this because he's not in at least my top three quarterbacks we'll see probably top five we'll see Desmond Ritter man I just yeah serious accuracy concerns for me and he's played a lot of football where it's not the accuracy concerns where you're like oh he's a one-year starter like this is going to correct itself over time I for me it's a long-term worry. I think a lot of throws sail on him in key moments, especially on key downs. I just look at Ritter, and I think that some people go,

oh, well, he's big, he's athletic, he's got a good arm. And I go, yeah, but he's not a great athlete. He's a good one. He's not a great thrower. He's a good one, And he's not consistently accurate. So if you're not a great athlete, like Lamar, for instance, and this is a bad spectrum

because he's an outlier, but this is my thing with, I'm going to look at Malik. Malik's got his flaws, right? Malik Willis. But I think Malik is such a special runner and has a cannon that maybe those things can supplement while he's trying to fix his flaws

and with Ritter I don't see an element of his game that is going to always give him a shot while the other things like accuracy are failing him and that's why I'm glad that you did not have a team use a first round pick on him yeah he's a day two guy I'm definitely lower on Ritter than I think a lot of other people are and I do I think he is a day two quarterback I think he's a quarterback that you are happy taking a chance on probably the beginning part of day two but it's hard for me to justify a round one pick on him even though he has the size he has the arm he has the little bit of mobility that you like in a quarterback it's not like he's a statue back there he i just i worry about the accuracy man i really do and it's it's you can look at some of the numbers and you can say over the last two years like hey he's completed like

66 64 of his passes over the last two years he has and it's better than the 50s that he was working with when he was first a starter but they're just still so there there's too many throws in his tape where you go you've got to make that right we talked to the top of the show about the san francisco 49ers and what did we talk about about jimmy garoppolo we talked about how it's not that he doesn't have the ability to make throws it's that he doesn't make them enough when is it going to go wrong right and and that is unfortunately the way that i view desmond ritter right now and i hate doing that but if that's going to be the case i can't draft that guy number one unless he just becomes a true assassin between the ears and hey maybe he will that is still in the cards for him

because i know he's smart he goes through progressions really well he sees the defense pre and post snap pretty well now as a senior quarterback and so all of that you like what he is doing from a mental standpoint, but just that natural touch and accuracy feels like it's still not there for him. And it's really, really, really hard to get better at that. We don't see a lot of quarterbacks being accurate in college and then get a lot more accurate in the NFL.

We really don't, especially if you go situation for situation. So- And don't say, people do not say Josh Allen because he's one of the biggest outliers right history of the draft right that is that you watch you watch the game against kc chiefs and you see why josh allen should you you really just should never compare anybody to josh allen ever you really should because he's just he's he's super human it would so that but

i will say like the leap in accuracy still matters because of what he was able to do with coaching so I think that that you maybe take parts of that but I agree with you I'm not about to sit here and be like well Josh Allen did it why can't Desmond Ritter I'm not gonna we do that for everyone every quarterback can go in the first round that's big and strong and can move a little bit so that's why I'm kind of that's why i'm still very much reserved on uh on desmond ritter um anybody else a stock down guy two past rushers that you didn't have in this mock that i've seen a lot of hype for everywhere that i am very unsure about right now de marvin leal oh yeah and trayvon walker and i look at those guys and there's flashes of them especially when they kick them in where they can win with a bit of speed and power inside but they're built kind

of like edge defenders but they're they don't play like twitched up edge defenders they play more like bowls right they play like you know kind of like a reckless strength guy so I look at it and with Liao there's there are issues for him against the run you watch him against Alabama and there's legitimate issues against the run I don't have that concern as much with Walker I think there are two guys for me that if you draft them you better have a legitimate projection plan for them do you you think that they are a guy that's going to play five tech on your early downs and then can kick into three or even shade nose on your third and longs, your passing downs?

And do you think that they have enough pass rush juice and can be relied on against the run on early downs to do that? As a first-round pick, it's a different conversation when you're in rounds two and three. So I like that you didn't just force those guys into the draft because right now it's just hard to have a clear-cut home for guys like that because maybe what if they come into the combine trevor and they're 290 like and i'm not saying that's going to happen but then it's like okay i'm starting to see more of a picture here or i'm going to go down to you know 255 like i look at rashaun gary remember r Gary was coming out of Michigan yeah and it was like is he a D tackle he looks good at D tackle at times should he slim

down and be a true edge now Green Bay is a stand-up edge rusher you know that you can move around but he's a true stand-up edge rusher and this year he really hit it really all came together for him those guys are really tough to project at the next level yeah I you know leal i think is somebody who we read those way too early mock drafts with him and we just assumed that he was going to go in the first round and the more that i've watched of him the more that i think that leal is a good player but i'm not so sure he's a great player unfortunately i get a lot of Solomon Thomas kind of vibes with Leal. And not exactly like one for one in a relationship, but almost that same situation where Solomon Thomas clearly, and I fell for this hard.

This was a big time scouting lesson for me. Solomon Thomas was. He was six foot three, 275 pounds when he played at Stanford. He was strong for the college level. And they would put him at three tech and he'd blow, he would, he would one gap penetrate blow by interior offensive lineman so fast and get into the backfield. You were like, this dude is Aaron freaking Donald. Like this guy is going to be the next Aaron Donald.

He's going to be the next in line of smaller interior guys. And he got into the NFL and one, he was way too late to play three tech. I mean, like there's no way you, there's no way they could have kept them inside and you didn't have the bend and flexibility and burst to be able to play five tech. So all of a sudden,

you just said to my question with both Liao and Walker, right. And, and, and I think I like Walker a little bit more than than yes than Liao because I at least know where I can get Walker on the field Walker is a dense mother effer man like like he will that dude hits you he hits you at the point of attack he has rare size athleticism strength just natural it looks like if you if you as an offensive lineman run into

Trayvon Walker it looks like it's gonna hurt man like that's just something that I wouldn't want to do now he does not know what he's doing as a pass rusher he is a he is purely a run defender he doesn't have moves he's not super quick to disengage and get to the backfield now like on those on those times where it's like super third and long very obvious like hey just get into the backfield he could do it and sometimes he does it really quickly and that's the flashes that you love but those instances where you want those pass rush instincts to just boom show up do something he doesn't have that he's not a pass rusher and so i can get trayvon walker on the field as a run defender get him some pass rush reps have him as a rotational guy

start him as a base end if you want on early downs to start the game i can i can i can see a good projection there leal i don't know because leal is listed at 64290 which is significantly bigger than what solomon thomas was but if and college sites have do this sometimes like if he's over inflating the numbers if leal is something like 6-3-2-85 now we're basically talking solomon thomas and if leal is a little bit bigger like if he's 6-3-300 okay then i i don't i don't you're not really winning with size as much as i want you to do on the interior and that's a little bit too big for me to put it five tech all the time he leologist unfortunately gives me these solomon thomas vibes if i i don't know exactly what i'm going to do with him to make him worth a first round pick for me i'm not saying he's trash i'm

not saying he's a bad player no i'm saying i think that both of these guys to me day two players right now i would draft walker before i drafted leo yeah and And I think Walker will go in the first round when it's all said and done. And I think that he, I don't know, you know, it's like you said, there's a certain thing with Walker where you do know what you're getting because of the power he possesses. But I think Lee Al and we're not going to get on the show and just trash and pile on players. But I think with Lee Al there's, there's big miss potential. If you, you don't do your homework and just from what I've watched of him and it's enough, there's, there's big miss potential. If you, you don't do your homework and just from what I've watched of him and it's enough, there's,

there's definitely some things that scare me. So that's what I, I like when people go, you know, a little off the grid on the mocks. And those are the two things that I saw from you to round out this mock that were off the grid while Max Mitchell was in. And then the rest,

you know, we're going to get deeper into that. It lines up like if bowls is back with Tampa, McCreary is classic bowls corner. They're going to need corners. Dawson's the guy we've been yelling at green Bay to draft for five years. No surprise there. Tennessee's going to go down the road with linemen and the Cowboys with

Kenyon green. I love that fit. Green's going to be a really good interior player at the next level. So man, this is fun. It gets fun that we get to do this, man, that like we're going to go through these mocks. I'll bring some to the table and we'll throw things the other way. You're going to jump in at things you like, things you question. And of course, we want the

feedback from everyone else, what they like, what they don't like, what they would change. Because like we said, we're going to get everybody involved with the show and we're going to have a really good time with it. Yep. Yep. There is. there is my first round mock draft that we're doing here on the show. We're going to be doing a lot of other fun mock draft formats for everybody that listened to locked on and stick to football. There's going to be episodes on Mondays where Connor and I are going to be doing live mock drafts where we'll probably alternate some picks and do some mock drafts that way. We'll even do some dueling mock drafts for both of us are picking for every team kind of in a rapid fire like that of course we'll be able to

go over our official mock drafts that we put out on bleach report and at pro football focus and then we're going to be having plenty of other episodes where we break down these prospects by positions some rankings what they do well talk about guys that maybe aren't first rounders but they're really going to round out the mid and later rounds of this draft. Maybe get some, some draft gems in there. We would love to hear from you. So make sure you're following us on Twitter at Tampa Bay.

Trey is my handle at Connor J Rogers. I get that right. Right. I got nailed it. Nailed it. Thank you. Is Connor's handle tweet at us. Any of the,

the opinions that you guys have on my mock draft on guys that you're watching that you really like, even if we didn't talk about it on the show, we love talking prospects. We love opinions that you guys have on my mock draft on guys that you're watching that you really like even if we didn't talk about it on the show we love talking prospects we love hearing from you guys we're gonna set up some sort of mailbag system i'm not calling a fan friday we that was locked on nfl drafts thing and if we come up with a different alliteration fine but we're gonna do something right that's good that that is going to be a segment at some point if you guys missed the the ig live that we did we kind of came up with a segment on the spot where it was like uh either either the browns draft jared wilson or

we riot or like something like that we want to we want to come up with a segment that's really fun like that and we're gonna have a ton of those throughout this podcast. But if you guys haven't gone over to iTunes yet, we would really, really appreciate the go give us a review. Hopefully a five star review. If you like this podcast, you like myself, you like Connor. Trying to get the numbers up there, trying to grow the podcast as best we can. I think that's probably how we're going to do our main mailbag, at least to start. We're probably going to have you guys ask questions as iTunes reviews.

So we're probably going to end up doing that. Maybe not for this week. Maybe we'll do the first one next week after we kind of get our feet wet there. But, um, oh, and for everybody who's listening to this podcast, wherever you get your favorite podcasts, we're also doing it on YouTube. So Connor and I have our video cameras on. We, we, we've been recording this whole thing. You guys can see our faces, our reactions, our hand animations, how much we talk with our hands when explaining these prospects and breaking down the games and everything like that. So you can see all that over at PFF's YouTube as well.

Connor, did I miss anything before we get out of here? No, I think you nailed it. It's the one time of the week or three times a week that I'll put on a real shirt and we're ready to go. I'll dress like an adult again since we don't go anywhere anymore. I'm excited to see just like how lazy we get with the video portion. Who's going to wear the first hat? That's what I'm wondering.

Which one of us is going to wear a hat first? I mean, listen, there's going to, I was thinking that you and I will establish a hat day. Like maybe it's towards the end of the week show because you know, the deal putting the work in the hair. I mean, it's it's going to happen a lot, but there's going to be a hat day. There's going to be hoodie days. It's going to happen. I mean, it's just the way that it goes.

We're going to be together at times. The senior bowl can't wait for that. So excited for that, man. Yeah, I would say the last thing, you know, if you like today, we're back on tomorrow and it's going to be very heavy on coaching search, GM search and hires, how that affects the draft, how that changes the draft, how that might change your team. So, you know, we did the mock today and we really dove into prospects that are projected for the first round. Tomorrow's will be very heavy focused on front office coaching and team identity

team building and then we'll see where show three brings us on thursday so man it's it's great that we get we get to do so many shows it leaves the door wide open yep no uh we we are we're leaving we're leaving thursday's a little bit open right now we're probably going to structure it at some point we'll have some sort of theme but as of right now we're kind of leaving it open for nfl news as it breaks connor did a good job teasing it right there tomorrow's episode we are running through all the coaching vacancies the gm vacancies obviously we've got movements already with carolina panthers hiring their offensive coordinator ben mcadoo slick back ben he's back ben baby we've also got joe shane the Giants. And so we're going to break all that down.

We're going to talk about a lot of the coaching candidates, how that is going to change the NFL draft. Appreciate you guys listening to episode one. We will be back tomorrow as we will be three times a week, every week leading you up to the 2022 NFL draft. Thanks guys for watching the nfl stock exchange Bye.