NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 276. From Day 3 to Top 50: 2025 NFL Draft Stock Watch

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers talk about player who can make the jump from day 3 preseason projections to the top 50. Plus more stock up and new names for 2025 NFL Draft

Welcome to the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. In this episode, we're getting back to the stock watch. Who's up? Who's down? We're bringing new names to the table. Players who could make the jump from day three preseason projections all the way maybe to the top 50. It's gonna be a fun podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama. With me as always is Connor Rogers. Let's ring the bell. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sikama. That is Connor Rogers. Joining you for another Stock Watch Market Update. Whatever you want to call it. We're talking stock up, guys.

We're talking players who can jump from day three to top 50. We're going to give you a lot of new names as well here on this show. Get back to the format that you guys are very used to. Connor, how you doing, my friend? I'm good, man. A lot of new names we've gone through this week. A lot of updates on old names. And when I say old names from summer scouting, not that long ago,

but a ton going on and we're inching closer. I feel like to where we're going to start talking about some real NFL teams in this draft class it's tough after five weeks but man after seven there's going to be some teams that really become a part of the identity of this show so buckle up yes no that's unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at things it makes more structured for us uh it's obviously not great if your nfl teams already think about the NFL draft here in October. But again, this could be your safe haven.

This is your safe place. Welcome to the Attics. But obviously, we'll get into some more team-centric stuff, like you said, over the next couple of weeks. And we'll really be able to dive into a lot of those teams that are really getting into it. You narrowly avoided the Fixing Your Franchise Jets episode. I'm just letting you know. I'm just letting you know i'm just i'm just letting you know the people were already tweeting at us about it and coaching search is gonna be underway

i even had to say to him because so if you're if you're new to the show if you if you kind of came on uh last year during draft season and uh you're still hanging around with us one we really appreciate it too we do a series on this uh on this channel called fix your franchise and we'll normally pick what would you say like five six seven teams yeah we always run out of time because you can only really do like one a week if we have the time to do it and then once december and january comes you and i basically don't live it we're gone from our homes we're on the road for all the giraffe stuff right and it's all scouting nitty-gritty mock drafts big boy so yeah well i think we end up around five to six usually so so what we do is we just take this deep dive into truly fixing the franchise you talk about how they got here potential new coaching staffs new outlooks for the team

draft strategies free agent strategies cap space all that stuff and what we've done in the past is normally if you fire your head coach within the season that is sort of the signal it speaks your franchise time but uh i don't think the jets are there even with them firing robert sala you do you do a million things when it comes to the jets you do sny you do badlands i'm sure you've talked about it a billion times but just like spark notes like outlook for the jets and were you surprised that sala got fired when he did definitely i think you know on sunday after the london loss we started to feel when i say we on on badlands that it could shift this way because not that they were two and

three and it's funny how they've lost the last two they could easily be four and one like you lose on a missed field goal Aaron Rodgers misses a wide open Garrett Wilson but you shouldn't be in that position against the Broncos and you shouldn't miss that throw against the Vikings so that doesn't really check out too much the demeanor of Sala I just don't know what happened to this guy this year I don't know if he's it's it's a totally different human than what he was the first couple years and what he was as a DC and it's obviously really disappointing it just I think this is an all-in year for the Jets and you got to change the they have an energy problem and that starts with the

head coach and everyone's going well it does know, how does it fix the offense? That's not the conversation. The conversation is this is what you could fix right now. And I understand Nathaniel Hackett is not has not been good. I don't know if firing him and promoting Todd Downing is going to change things. The staff that Robert Sala hired, by the way, that's why you're the guy gone when you're the head coach and you built the staff that sucks. Right. Take your fall. It's disappointing, man. But at the end of of the day they needed to pull some kind of lever and this was one of the rare level levers they could pull I'm excited for Jeff Ulbrich

because I think he's not only a really good DC but a guy that players just love and it's a shame that Salah went out like this I don't know why he got so burnt out going into this year but it's clear that not only did he have you know he failed to have any kind of improvement over his time with the Jets he lost what made him the head coach in the first place and that was the pulse of the locker room and everybody bought in and fired up and once that went out the door it kind of became a you know what do you do here situation and shocking after five weeks but not shocking in general is how I would put it. No, I think that's a really good play to encapsulate it.

And also just explaining to people why we're not doing the fixture franchise episode for the Jets like now, because normally also when you fire your head coach, it normally means that you're basically like a top five, top three pick lock. So what you do in the draft is topical to this podcast and also what happens for the other teams because you're going to be picking really high jets are in a situation where they play

monday night football against the bills if they win what are they tied for the first place no no it's just it's it's funny where they're at so right so we're not doing fix your franchise yet it's coming we love doing these episodes so i promise we're not just fix your franchise yet. It's coming. We love doing these episodes. So I promise we're not just like avoiding doing the series. We love doing those, but for the jets, even though they moved on for their head coach, it's not time yet. It's not time yet.

Fix your franchise is at its best. When there's different boxes we check, right? Do you need a head coach? Do you need a GM? Are you picking in the top five? Right. Do you need a quarterback?

And do you have cap space the Jets have built this year to win so while the fix your franchise part of who should their next head coach be like that part's fun but then it's then it's not as fun maybe it'll be fun in November but right now it's not that fun when we're not talking about a top 10 pick a new GM yet so that for those wondering like that's what it'll really come down to. Jacksonville can be a really interesting fix-your-franchise if they blow it up besides Trevor Lawrence.

Carolina already is one because they're going to have a quarterback of the future. We will get there. It's going to be a really good series this year. Yeah, I feel like we're closer to doing fix-your-franchise episodes for the Panthers or the Jags

than we are the Jets at this point in time. But we will get to that eventually. We'll get to that at some point in time. We'll kick that off because we know you guys like that. We appreciate you listening. Stock up, guys. Let's start with the stock up, guys, as we typically do. We watch college football over the last couple of weeks.

And from our summer scouting thoughts up until right now, who is your first guy that you want to bring to the table? Somebody who you think is playing better than what you thought of them during summer scouting. Do you want to recognize here? I'll start with Abdul Carter from Penn State. And this is obviously a bigger name, the biggest name I have on today's show. After that, it's a lot of more, you know, either unknown prospects or mid-tier prospects. I want to start with Carter because I think he had a slow start to the season.

And I did a tape breakdown for him for NBC this week. And what I noticed was the last two games, he's really getting going. And he's starting to learn how to really rush the passer with a varied approach rather than the old, I'm the best athlete on the field. Let's see what happens here. 12 pressures in his last two games, including two sacks and three quarterback hits that was against ucla and illinois against illinois he had the sacks against ucla he had the three quarterback hits i thought he was more consistently disruptive against illinois but against ucla where he had the three quarterback hits they were really big plays like one of them

got them off the field on a third down. And with Carter right now, when I say varied pass rush approach, I saw a two hand swipe. I've seen a lethal spin move. There was one play against Illinois where he's standing up over the guard and he has a blitz, a guy that's going to blitz behind him. And he uses a spin move on the guard and the running back

slides to pick him up. And the blitzer behind him has a freeway to the quarterback and gets the sack. That's like an alley-oop for a pass rusher that you don't get in the stat sheet. And then against UCLA, the third down where he got them off the field, he was standing up over a guard, two-hand swipe, turn to the pocket, hit the quarterback, throw it short of the sticks, get off the field. We know when he rushes wide or with his hand in dirt against a tackle, he gets off the ball and wins with speed and turns into the corner. Like we know he could do that, but when he could stand up in these NASCAR looks or these third and long looks, and you start to shoot gaps and beat guards. Now we're starting to see a lot of different ways we

could use such a freaky athlete in the front seven. So, and by the way, Trevor, it's, it's been a slow start for the edge class. So when this guy is the freakiest one out of all of them from an athletic standpoint, now we're getting pass rush production. Carter stock is going up. I think he's going to be a top 10 pick. Yeah. So I've got him 20th overall on the big board right now. And it was sort of, you know, a little disappointed with how he started out of the gate but there's plenty of context to that with him playing as an edge rusher full-time for the first time in his career because he comes from an off-ball spot and when you and I did summer scouting him and James Pierce Jr. from Tennessee were sort of the guys who were

in the same bucket like these lighter you know longer pass rushers who won with explosiveness, really won with their athleticism. And I preferred Carter to Pierce Jr. because I thought that Carter was less hesitant, I should say, to play with physicality because he's a former linebacker. That's what you do. You hit. And sometimes when you're a pass rusherher it's not always in your dna especially for the speed rushers the lighter guys sometimes they just want to stay as clean as possible and get around the outside edge and when people really get into them and force them to play with power they just don't like it they're not as comfortable right carter's not really like that he just doesn't really know what he's doing as a pass rusher but he isn't afraid to be physical,

even like with a little bit of a lighter weight. And so I do like Carter a lot in that regard. You know, I think I had him in the top 15 and I dropped him down to right about 20. And now over these last two weeks, it's like, okay, now the light's turning on. Now I'm hesitant to kind of put you back in that spot because after the first couple of weeks,

I wasn't really seeing the light come on for you as a pass rusher. I became a little bit hesitant. And to be honest, I've just naturally added more players to the big board. So there are a couple of players who weren't in summer scouting who are now above him that weren't even considered before. So he's been generally in the same spot, but I do like him a lot in that regard. I think he is edge three for me still. Yeah, I have Nick Scowerton above him.

Scorton, excuse me. Still making sure that I know how to say his name correctly. And then I do have LT Overton as well from Alabama, who is an interesting edge rush prospect. I think this is kind of like a little bit of a bonus that I'm bringing him up here. He's big. He's really big.

He's six foot five, like 285 pounds. He's like your three, four defensive end type of a player who can play all sorts of different positions for you on the defensive line. I feel like the Missouri kid from last year that went to Arizona. Oh, Darius Robinson, you mean? Darius Robinson. He's built like him. Kind of. He's more taller, though.

And I just think he's more of a natural pass rusher than Robinson is. Like, Robinson was just, he was really explosive. He gave you great effort. He was dense as hell. You couldn't move this dude in the run game. And Overton's just, I think, a little bit better of a pass rusher. But even with me appreciating a lot of the things that he does, I think he feels like he has a high floor as a prospect.

I'm still sort of figuring out the ceiling myself because I watched him for the first time about a week ago. And so I'm still in the process of sort of figuring it out. But in this, in this edge class, I like him as edge to right off the bat because the explosiveness former five-star dude i mean he to me is a top 20 player in this class right now because of everything that he can bring to the

table on the defensive line so i do like him quite a bit but he wasn't even somebody that i was going to bring up for the show but um there you go three guys a bonus for it but i do like carter for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned and again going back to just the edge class overall it's not super polished it's not like it's got guaranteed guys the absolute love at the very top what he can do and how he could bend finish at the quarterback i think that that's that's pretty special that's stuff that stands out in this class no matter what yeah um you know I guess I'll stick with Penn State. I've got three stock-up guys that I want to get to, and I'll stick with Penn State.

Drew Aller is somebody who is a stock-up player for me, their quarterback. I was a big Drew Aller hater when we went through summer scouting. Well, it wasn't pretty last year. I think it was very different this year. Not against him personally. Sometimes hating can be an art but sometimes it's just calling it like it is it's necessary um no i i thought that aller was way

too inconsistent last year the completion percentage was not what it needed to be but even more important than that the ball placement was not what it needed to be he had a cannon of an arm former five-star passer and we talked about this a little bit when we went over the quarterbacks in summer scouting. I believe I brought this up in that episode, but I've said it before here on the show. The stronger arm that you have, the more accurate you have to be. Because if you're not, it's the more trouble that you can get into. I think a lot of people look at these big arm quarterbacks and they go, well, yeah, just draft the big arm quarterback.

You know, like what's, just draft a big arm quarterback. You know, like what's I mean, it's an obvious and in some ways it is. There's a prerequisite to play quarterback at the NFL level where you have to have a decent amount of arm strength to make it happen. I think the outliers are very few and far between in that regard. And Aller certainly checks the box. Somebody who's got a big enough arm for the NFL level. But when you have a big arm, if you can't control it the way that you need to, you simply get in trouble more often than the quarterbacks that don't have that arm strength. Because the quarterbacks that don't have that type of an arm strength, they know their limitations. So they often do, and they're able to take care of the

football better. Understanding what to do with the football when you don't have those physical limitations, that is much more difficult to do. That is when you don't have those physical limitations, that is much more difficult to do. That is a mental battle that a lot of these five tool quarterbacks, as they say, have to go through and not everybody is able to realize. I almost just said Hackenberg because I feel as though Aller sort of reminded me of Hackenberg sometimes because many moons ago, Hackenberg was sort of the same sort of prospect that Aller was in 2023. Now, I even think that Aller's 2023 was better than Hackenberg's was, so I wanted to certainly give him credit there and say that it wasn't a one-to-one comp there. But 2024, he looks a lot better overall. It's not

perfect, but it's so much more consistent, Connor. Big time throw percentage has gone from 2.9% to 5.5%. Love that. Turnover worthy play percentage. Last year, it was only 1.1% because he wasn't really attempting things that he needed to. He had a lower average depth of target. This year, even with the big time throw almost doubling in percentage, the turnover worthy play rate went from 1.1% to 1.6%. So still relatively low.

Still doing a nice job there. I mentioned that average depth of target. It's up from 8.3% last year to 1.6. So still relatively low, still doing a nice job there. I mentioned that average depth of target. It's up from 8.3 last year to 11.0. So you have really increased that average depth of target. That's big. While keeping the turnover worthy plays down a little bit, that sort of goes into the numbers of big time throw percentage

and turnover worthy play percentage. And then the overall adjusted completion percentage up from 71% last year to over 75%. I think it's 75.5% this season. So he looks more confident. He looks like he has a better understanding of where the ball needs to go and the timing that it needs to go there. And I think just overall, he's got more confidence in the rhythm of when the ball needs to come out, the timing with his wide receivers, and he's got better ball placement because of it. And so now we're seeing more consistent flashes

of, okay, not only do you have the big arm, you are playing the position appropriately with the big arm. And to me, that means a lot from somebody who last year, the big time throw percentage was low. The turnover where he played percentage was low, but it was just too many times when I felt like he was making the wrong read or he wasn't knowing where to go with the ball. This year, it does look much better from him. So Penn State's got a lot of big games still left on their schedule. They're a team that maybe it's college football playoff hopes, obviously. So you get a couple more big games in there. I'd love to see him be able to play well, but wanted to recognize him as a stock-up candidate because as a lot of other guys in the quarterback class haven't exactly played well yeah Aller gives you those tools and is actually trending

in the right direction with his play so he has the potential to really leapfrog a lot of quarterbacks that we had ahead of him in summer scouting a great call out by you he's he's earned it this year after you know I think we both came out of summer scouting just disappointed with what we watched of him. When you look at the pedigree and the size and their expectations for him at that program, I'm't know if they're just playing in time slots where I feel like I could always watch. I'm talking about actually watching live broadcasts, but a lot of things have just gotten better where last year, whether it was the long motion, I remember we talked directly about this on the podcast. He was aiming the ball so much when he was uncomfortable rather than throwing it, just constantly aiming it. And didn't you could tell when a guy's uncomfortable throwing things aren't repeatable um and i think that this year a lot of the way he's playing the mechanics are often more repeatable and that has helped his accuracy and like you said trevor the average depth of

target has gone up as well significantly not even just in a small margin. So great call out on Aller and someone that, you know, could be a player in this quarterback class if he continues to play well and opts to leave. We'll see. All right. Who's next? How about James Williams from Nebraska? This is definitely a newer name to the show

because this is a newer name to college football on the scene. James Williams from Nebraskaaska really interesting player wait what position was he he's a defensive end okay all right and i say defensive end not edge or defensive tackle because he's six foot six 250 pounds yeah but you could tell that in a year he's probably going to be 275 so whoa i think so i so the reason why i say that is in 2022 he was playing for iowa um central community college okay he was a juco player okay and then he goes to nebraska in 2023 joins them the summer. He only played four games in 2023, and he had a red shirt. So they've been kind of, you know, what should I say? Really just stashing him, James Williams,

and obviously helping him get bigger, stronger. And I think he was on their scout team plenty. Now 2024 as a red shirt sophomore, he's been called upon and there is some big time production with this dude. Number one, the breakout party was against Rutgers last week. He had two sacks, three quarterback hits and four more hurries. He had a 43% pass rush win rate against Rutgers. Strong, just detonated Rutgers. He spins off blocks a lot. Sometimes he uses a real spin move. Sometimes he just counter spins off blocks, but he's just got crazy length. He also had a 24% pass rush win rate against Colorado. So he's had some big games when it really matters the most. And just the motor is just running hot all the time where I still think he's learning how to play, which isn't shocking coming out of, you know, not that long ago.

He was at a community college. But when you turn on the tape, all the traits are there for this guy to be a legitimate NFL prospect, like legitimate NFL prospect, the size, the length, the fact that the frame can clearly put on more weight, how hard he plays. I know a lot of people listening have probably watched Nebraska this year and notice that front takes over games at times. They are a tough, strong, relentless front. And this is someone who there's about three, two to three games of big time tape this year. I don't know if he declares,

but I wanted to get his name on the radar because he was an absolute force against Rutgers. I love the call out because the Nebraska peeps have been begging us to talk about Nash Hutchmaker and Ty Robinson, who are their two interior defensive linemen who people are talking about for the NFL draft. Both of those guys, redshirt seniors. One's a fifth-year player, one's a sixth-year player.

And I don't want to just sort of gloss over those guys because I did some research on them, and I have their scouting profile ready for me to watch film. They are quite literally the next two guys that I have on my list for the players i'm going to watch so i was kind of saving them a little bit for next week's show maybe that's a good thing because it would have been it would but it would have just been like a nebraska heavy it would have been just like yeah nebraska episode but also now when you turn on the ruckers tape

you're going to be like number 90 is getting these one-on-ones against tackles and it's just like who the hell is that literally i said who the hell is this because like you i needed to watch nebraska tape because this defense is legit legit and big old number 90 just fills the stat sheet the last two weeks because he also had two sacks against purdue and i was like all right let's let's see who the hell this is and i checked checked out his background story, and it's going to play. They use him standing up. They use him with his hand in the dirt. It's a fun watch, man.

All right, so it just means that I've got to get to these Nebraska guys absolutely for sure this week so we can round out the Nebraska defensive line here. All right, before I get to my next guy, best part about football season, guys, it's always checking out the postgame stats, right? Which wide out scored more than two touchdowns? Which quarterbacks threw

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Non-withdrawable Pick 6 credits do expire in six months. Limited time offer. See terms at pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. All right. This one's been a request that's been in our comments for a couple of weeks now, so it feels like it's long overdue. Our inbox is beyond full.

It's flooded. It actually gives me anxiety when I get tweets of like, you assholes still haven't talked about this guy. And it's always in good fun. Nobody's actually ever mad at us. Right. The audience of this show is wildly nice, I must say. Yeah.

But it does make me laugh or also makes me cry when I'm like, oh man, we gotta watch 600 more players and we're out of time. That is the thing is that it's like, we want to get to every single one of these players that you guys are shouting out and when you guys shout it out and when we're able to respond and read the messages and everything i really do i put them on a watch list um you know make sure that they can't fly anywhere in the country their blacklist no i'm kidding watch list just sounded weird so i felt like i i felt like that's what i was saying uh no i'm putting them on the tape watch list obviously i have 214 players right now in the MDS,

and all 214 are players that I have watched. I don't put a player in the MDS unless I have watched them because I feel like it is our duty as analysts, certainly of a big platform like PFF and a very used tool like the Mock Draft Simulator to like these guys and sometimes sometimes i know this is sort of a broader conversation sometimes i know people just wished that we added names to the mock draft simulator like just put them in the mock draft

simulator well the problem is just to let you guys know right now the way that is made the simulator just like the coding every everything with it i can't just put a player in there and give them like a no rank, like an NA and it just goes to the bottom of the list. I can't do that. And so I have to give them a rank. And I we've talked about before, like, okay, well, what if you just add these players and just like, put them at the end, and you can just like put them at the end. To me, the very first thing that I think of when that happens is how much work these players

have put in their entire careers to get to a spot where they're draft eligible and how I sort of as an analyst, and I know that a lot of people listen to PFL, like a lot of players use the mock draft simulator. I know you guys do it obviously, but players agents teams right we have we have deals with all 32 nfl teams like nfl teams use the pff mock draft simulator so i owe it to the work that those players have done throughout their entire careers to get to this point to watch them genuinely before i rank them and put them in the mock draft simulator so that is really well said by you, by the way. It's great context for those that don't understand. Like, it's easy for us to sit here and be like,

oh, well, just throw them in there because I want to draft them. But right. I'll say this not to get us off topic here, but we've actually been so good about being on topic the last two to three shows that it's time to just completely steer off the highway and spin out. When I started interviewing players at the Combine two years ago, shows that it's time to just completely steer off the highway and spin out when i started interviewing players uh at the combine two years ago so the first combine i went to for nbc is the

first time i sat down with them one-on-one and this makes sense it's not their fault most of the time players their family members send them every article they're mentioned in or mock draft or youtube breakdown and you're right. Like you just want to do right by the player because whether, because some people would be like, well, that doesn't affect how the NFL teams look at them. I get that aspect of it, but it is that the draft world is so overwhelming right now in a good way.

There's, this is great that we get to do this, but you're right. It also, there's real people at hand here. So doing it the right way, I just tip my cap to you doing it the right way is, um, not everybody does it that way. So it's good that it's good that you do. And, and as mock draft simulator that a hell of a lot of people use. Right. Right. And that's, and that's obviously the part of it too, is that, um, I know that it carries weight and, and I just want to make sure that i do right by these players by doing that so i don't think we've ever explained that before on this show and we do have people who like you said it's not malicious like people aren't coming after me or pff or whatever they're just saying like hey let like add these names to the simulator because

in all honesty we have the premium stats we have stats for over like i don't i think it's like something like 6 000000 college football players. It's crazy. So some people go, well, why don't you just throw them all into the mock draft simulator? And that is why. That's why because we feel like it would be disingenuous to the players and how hard they've worked to put themselves in a spot to be NFL draft prospects. To do that without genuinely giving them. And again, like if we don't love them for

the nfl that's okay but it's yeah i i want to make sure that we're doing the work to be able to say that and believe it or not you and i are not engineers that might surprise some people yeah that surprises nobody these dumbasses if they couldn't if they didn't have the podcast we can't even get them to work half the time if these dudes didn't have great- They're idiots of the podcast. We can't even get them into work half the time. If these dudes didn't have great hair, they would be bums. They'd be out on the street. Legitimately. And to that I say, you're correct.

You're right. All right, the next guy I'm bringing to the table, somebody that we talked about during Summer Scouting, who I did not like. Uh-oh. Who I am now. Quite a fan of. I'm a reformed man. I did not like. Oh, why am now quite a fan? I'm a reformed man.

I'm I'm born. I found Jesus himself. I'll tell you what, I'm finding Jesus with the way the Mets are playing right now. It's brother. I probably just, I probably just jinxed it. As people are listening to this, they probably just lost game four and we're going back to Philly and life is

tough, but I'm finding Jesus. I had no idea where you were going to go with brother. Let me tell you, I found Jesus and I didn't know what the next words were going to be. I don't know if it was going to be like, you know, sports related classic. DJ Giddens running back from Kansas state. Yeah. Really big fan of what he is doing this year specifically.

So DJ Giddens, let me make sure that I got the measurables right for him. So he's a redshirt junior. He's at Kansas State. 6'1", 212 pounds. So that is 86th percentile in height, 46th percentile in weight. But the weight's fine. I mean, anytime you're above 6'2", 15, I mean, you're built well enough to be a running back at the NFL level.

And I think that he was. And going back to his summer scouting, I was trying to remember, why know, why was he so low on this dude? And the strength of the week says, I like a lot of the things that I still saw on tape this year, but the weakness is part of his game. I said that he was, he was way too indecisive. He just didn't know where the correct rushing lane was going to be. He didn't have a good feel for where space was going to be, whether it was behind zone or man gap concepts, whatever. He just really could not find that open space consistently, in my opinion. Now, he still gained a lot of really good statistics. He's got good PFF grades. He had good rushing output. It was over a thousand yards last year. He rushed for

a bunch of yards. It was like an 87.5 rushing grade. And so the grades, the production, the statistics, the efficiency, all those things were there. I just didn't love how he saw the field. I felt like they were more volume based stats than necessarily efficiency stats. This year I watch him and dude, he looks awesome. I mean, he is attacking the line of scrim. I already thought the guy could move pretty well. He was a good one cup player. He had really nice explosiveness whether it was um laterally um or just like side or no um whether it was linearly excuse me or laterally one of the two and i felt like he had really good explosiveness i didn't think he had the best home run speed in the world but if you've listened to this show before i don't really give a about that how often do you have the opportunity to rush for 50 yard touchdowns at the nfl level anyways

i don't care give me a healthy overrated yards per carry average that's why i love blake quorum when he was coming out with giddens last year was that has there was that hesitancy and this year i just i don't really see it nearly as much i mean he is putting his foot in the ground and he is exploding one way or the other and he is often doing it to find wide open spaces where he's creating, where he was creating a ton of yards after contact or after the cut, whatever it is. He, to me, Connor, he is just so much more confident in a player in what he is seeing.

And when you then combine that with the size, the height, the weight, and then you combine that with a really strong high school career, how he was slept on as a recruit. He was a zero-star recruit coming out of high school. He walked on at Kansas State. You love the background. You love how he's gotten into the starting lineup, how he's become their starting running back.

Like, now this is somebody who loved the perseverance, loved the size, speed, athleticism. Now I love how he sees the field. So to me, in this running back class, he is definitely somebody that is moving up the ladder, in my opinion. Good call out. I got to watch him this year because I got to watch him during summer scouting and I shared pretty much the same opinion as you

where he wasn't discussed much on our show. It was just, you know, kind of lost in a very deep group is what the problem was. So I'm excited to see what he's got this year. I'll go with another offensive player, Jaden Higgins, the wide receiver for Iowa State, who we did talk about on Summer Scouting. I'm going back to my rankings from then right now. Item is wide receiver 14 on that show.

And I remember when I watched him, I was like, this guy guy's pretty good considering i don't see any buzz about him well he's carried that pretty good from last year into insanely reliable and good this year he's caught a touchdown now in seven straight games jayden higgins and what you have to love about him is while they play him inside and outside, his size gives him legit perimeter ability. He is a hair under 6'4". He's 215 pounds. It reminds me of the combo you and I used to have about Drake London, where when you see a guy that big, you're like, okay, he's a big jump ball kind of player.

And Higgins is really good in those situations, to be honest with you. You don't catch a touchdown in seven straight games by accident. But at the same time, and he's four for six on contested catches this year, the reason I bring up Drake London, he moves really well. When they play him in the slot, he can get into his release package really quickly when he needs to. He runs different tempos of routes. He's got some buildup speed down the field. So he's not just a tall, stiff outside wide receiver

that needs to win the jump ball. I think he can get open, but he can also win in contested scenarios. He works his way back to the football really well. He knows how to maximize his catch radius. This year right now i mean over 400 yards in five games uh five touchdowns this year he's caught 22 first downs on third down they really look his way i i don't doubt it he can get off press coverage it's easy to become enamored with college wide receivers and overlook sometimes size.

And I don't think this is a small wide receiver class, which is why I'm pretty excited about it. Whether it's McMillan, even Ibuka, Io Manor, like they're bigger wide receivers. But add Jaden Higgins to that mix as well. He's a big outside wide receiver that has shown he can have success getting open from the inside as well. And he, Trevor, he's just the same guy every week. That's what's so impressive about him. The same reliable guy every single week. And prospects that are that reliable in college at this position,

they often carry it over to the NFL, more so than the guys that pop off three times a year for 150 yards. But hey, why did you disappear in these three games against these two good corners? Yeah, I think that we often try to chase ceilings. You know, we try to hit the home runs, really. And sometimes you just need singles and doubles. And I'm not saying that Jaden Higgins cannot give you more than that.

But the fact that he has an extremely high on-base percentage, if you will, to keep the baseball analogies rolling like spot on it's it it it is valuable it's valuable and just you know hand up i i've been guilty of that before where it's like yeah okay like this guy produced a lot and it's like all right well listen to what you're saying you know does he still have traits to do this at the nfl level because if he does, then you do want to trust the tape. I think sometimes we get in these arguments of like, oh, well, are they just like a college football player? Or do they have like NFL level traits? And if they don't necessarily, like, I just looked up my summer scouting report on Higgins.

And, you know, I said, top speed, not really something I think is threatening at all whatsoever for the NFL level. You know, sometimes when he's going up to get contested catches, I felt like he pushed off a lot. It wasn't really just going up and being a brute strength kind of a guy, but you mentioned it, the wiggle for being his size, the route running, the nuance setting guys up. That is why he's able to produce so much. He is creating throwing windows. So is he the greatest athlete out there? No, but he does still consistently produce a touchdown in seven straight games. Even if you're a focal point of a college offense, it's extremely difficult to do. And it just tells you how often they're looking your way.

You mentioned a third down as well. Those money downs, I think are important as well. And it's, it's somebody who, you know, I brought this up last year and I think there's something to it. Running backs are the position where I sort of think about this the most, but I think for wide receivers, it also means a lot when you score a lot of touchdowns and you're just used to getting in the end zone. I think that mentally means a lot. I agree wholeheartedly. When you don't score a lot of touchdowns, I think that you can get kind of nervous down there you know space is at a premium you know how much touchdowns mean what am i going to do after the

play after i celebrate i'm going to keep the ball like what am i gonna and it's just like you're just you're just not used to it it's just not a second nature thing i like the players that score so many touchdowns they've run out of touchdown celebrations. This is what I do every weekend. I just get in the end zone. To me, I think that there is some value. Not that I place a ton of value on it, but it's one of those things that when you're scouting, you look at little things like that, in my opinion, you go, hmm, all right. And you note that a little bit. It's just a little note. When you're very natural getting into the end zone, I notice stuff like that.

I completely agree. This conversation almost sounds hilarious because at its surface level, we're saying scoring touchdowns is a good thing for a prospect. But what we really mean is at each position, there is an art to scoring. When I watch Higgins, when he's in the red area, he knows how to use his body to win the football before, during, and after the play, right? Like throughout the phase of the route, when the ball is in the air, and how to finish the play. The same thing can be said for running backs. I think it's a really underappreciated skill.

And I see this with Kyle Menungai. This is why I brought this up. Kyle Menungai is really good at this. Sometimes guys just overthink at the goal line rather than punching it in. Sometimes you just have to be like, you know what? You know, there's a reason I lift all these damn weights. I got a one-on-one.

I'm lowering my shoulder and there's nothing stopping me from getting across that goal line. And I think on the flip side, some guys just don't have that. They don't have it. They overthink it all the time. So it is a funny conversation from the surface level, but I think it's a meaningful one. Scoring and the habit of scoring and doing the little things to ensure that you turn a drive into six, not three,

is an underappreciated art in scouting somehow. I would agree. I agree with you. All right, I'm going to get to my next guy. Before I get to that, I got to remind people that this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I got a question for you. As an adult, did you make time to learn new things as often as you would like, or do you feel like that's something you kind of lost earlier in life?

Kids, when you're younger, you're always learning. You're always growing. You're always asking questions. You're always trying to get better. It's very natural. But as adults, sometimes we just lose that part of ourselves. We lose that curiosity. Therapy, it's a great way to reconnect to that sense of wonder and betterment because you're back to school era for yourself. It can come at any age. People who listen to the show know I've been doing therapy for over a year and a half. It was something that originally, you know, I was somebody who I thought, oh, therapy is just, you know, for people who need help with something.

And when I reached out first and foremost, this is something that I needed help with. I needed to talk with somebody about something. I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to kind of navigate something that I was going through. And ever since now, it's just a bi-weekly or bi-monthly check-in for me. I go every other week. And sometimes there's things that I want to bring up, whether it's relationship stuff or stuff with work

or it could be anything. And other times when there aren't things that I really need to deal with or get off my chest, sometimes it's a really good chance to just, hey, sit back and go, wow, look at your life. Look how fortunate you are. And it's really motivating in that regard as well. So I've absolutely loved it. If you think about getting to getting into therapy,

get better help a try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. All you do is fill out just a brief questionnaire. You match with a licensed therapist and you can switch at any time with no additional charge. You rediscover your curiosity with better help and visit betterhelp.com slash NFLSE. Get yourself 10% off today on your first month. That is betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash N-F-L-S-E. So this will be a fun one. The next stock up player that I have, this could be a new name,

but I have another new name that I want to bring to the table. Stock up player, offensive tackle Cameron Williams from Texas. Shout out to Bengal who asked me to put this and many other players into the mock draft simulator, in which I responded to him on Twitter in a way that sounded like I was going after him

and that I hated his guts. And then you responded and said, cook him with three exclamation points to pour gasoline onto the fire. And I felt like a piece of shit about it. That was not my intention i was i was absolutely playing the role of instigator and i knew it and i knew you're one of the nicest people i've ever met and i knew that you were not being malicious towards him but i had to capitalize on

the moment on the moment to not only instigate something but to rally the sex addicts behind me to ratio Bengal. And I sat there for about five minutes wondering what the reply was going to be. And then I was like, yeah, I was going to write cook his ass with exclamation points. But then I simplified it a little bit more. And the addicts did a rally to support. They did.

They did rally. And they rallied in such a manner that I actually deleted my response oh my god did you yes i did because i felt bad about it oh my god i didn't know that and it wasn't even it wasn't even that bad so i dm bengal after that and we're like you got reported we're totally fine obviously like he it was he'll never be back on the podcast yeah we know absolutely not we can't do a mock draft no the second that we bring him on for a mock draft episode, you know, if he'll ever come on again after, you know, I absolutely cooked his ass.

I'm sure that this will come up, but anyways, Bengal was, he was simply asking like, Hey, how can we get these players in the mock draft simulator? And I responded to him. I was like, I basically was like, anytime that you got some players, do you think really need to be in the simulator? DMs are open, little boy. I was just. Oh man, I feel like so.

I feel so bad about that. But I basically said that to him. I was just like, hey, DMs are open. But when I reread it after you said once again to cook him, I realized that it could have not been great. So DM'd about it. We're all good. You know, the rivalry still stands on the podcast,

as we saw from those responses. But anyways, it was all in good fun. Like I said, I DM'd about it, cleared it up, everything. But he likes offensive tackle Cameron Williams from Texas quite a bit. And we have talked a lot about the other offensive tackle, Kelvin Banks Jr. Yes. And I can understand why Bengal likes Cameron Williams quite a bit because he is good. I watched him and I now have him as offensive tackle number three in the class.

He is 6'5", sorry, 335 pounds. I read that he was even bigger. He was like 260, 270. He's lost weight to get into a much more manageable, more athletic, more appropriate 335 to be able to play offensive tackle. He's just a true junior. There's no guarantee that he's going to come out. In fact, again, I could have had him as somebody who was a day three guy to a top 50 guy because going into this year, he wasn't really talked about as a draft prospect. And he's having such a good season and he's putting out such good tape, or at least such high potential tape that you could understand why the NFL would go, okay, give me this guy somewhere in the top 50 and we'll develop it.

We'll make it work out because he's only a true junior. But man, the movement skills for a player who is of his size and with his power are really, really impressive. Obviously, like the size and the arm length kind of speaks for itself with him being 6'5", 335 pounds. I think the arm length is even longer than the 6'5 height that he has because 6'5", actually, it might sound huge, but you know, apparently can host the podcast.

That's only 30th percentile for an offensive tackle at the NFL level. A lot of these guys are even bigger than six foot five, but I think he's got longer arms and a longer wingspan than somebody who has, who is a, who is six foot five. The first step explosiveness is awesome, man. I mean, he can get out of his stance. Now, obviously a note that I have is a little bit of a negative is the feet do still look kind of heavy because he's 335, 340. It's just very natural. But the explosiveness

that he has while carrying that power still stands out. Also love the fact that if he gets his hands inside on you, he ain't letting go. That's some serious grip strength from this dude, which the explosiveness tells me that you have got power in your lower half. The grip strength tells me that you have power in your upper half and that your shoulders, your triceps, your forearms, your chest, you are not letting go. And that's a well-built, strong offensive lineman. So a lot of really, a lot of really good athletic notes from Cameron Williams, who in this offensive tackle class, I think we got the two guys at the top. We have Kelvin Banks Jr., his teammate, and we have Will Campbell.

But then outside of that, we're sort of searching for who the next guys are going to be, who's really going to be able to claim that next spot. Ariante Ursery from Minnesota is somebody who has a shot at being that third offensive tackle off the board, depending on how you view Emory Jones Jr. from LSU, kind of the same way. I like a Josh Simmons from Ohio State, but Cam Williams, again, what he brings to the table, the explosiveness and the power connection that he has is really impressive as a true junior.

So if he continues to play at a very high level, Texas, they're going to continue to play a lot of really good opponents. Georgia is still on their schedule, obviously an SEC championship game. If they make it to that point, we think this is going to be a college football playoff team with them being the number one team in the country. He's going to have plenty of tests at the end of the year to be able to say, yeah, I'm ready for the NFL or not. But even from what I've already seen, I'm very intrigued and off potential alone could take him in the first round. I know some people like him already better than banks right now,

which is going to be a really interesting conversation, man, to have two tackles like that. It's interesting how many teams in the country have two good tackle prospects right now. Like they come in bunches at this moment. So I'm glad you got eyes on him and mentioned him on the show because I know a lot of people have been asking, you know,

what about the other Texas tackle? Right? Yeah. I'm not there with him being better than Kelvin Banks Jr. Yet. Like there's still some penalties that Williams needs to clean up with him being a first time full-time starter out there and him just being younger as a prospect there.

Like the punch timing is, is sometimes not what it needs to be. Like there were a handful of reps that I was watching him and, you know, as an offensive lineman, you're supposed to keep the hands up. You don't want to swing the hands back to then, you know,

come up and make contact with somebody because when you swing your hands back, not only does that take more time away from you to be able to get up and into your opponent the way that you want to, it totally exposes your chest. So there are a couple of times when I was watching Williams and he's swinging his arms back to get as much power as he can, but before he can get his arms up and out and extended, the other person, the edge rusher realizes, okay, you're giving me the chest. All right. And then he immediately gets his hands up in there. And

then when you're punching the player, you're punching the player, like right at your side, instead of fully being able to extend. And so that's something, the punch timing, the penalties, you know, those kinds of things need to get cleaned up still, but a lot of potential there. Don't love them above Kelvin Banks Jr. at this point in time, but I can understand the potential for him. Yeah. Banks is still my top tackle top tackle, so we'll kind of see how this one plays out the rest of the year. Should we go new name or day three to top 50? Let's go day three to top 50, and then we'll round it out with the new name. How about Jacory Brooks, the wide receiver at Louisville now? Okay. Via Alabama, six for eight on contested catches this season.'s already caught six touchdowns he's got 12

explosive plays jacory brooks i believe he's a former five star i know yeah he was yeah it was at alabama he was a bit like it was a big deal i know recruiting rankings can be because there's three different outlets everybody uses now but i would consider him a legitimate five star when he got to alabama brooks has put it together at louisville this just happens sometimes with guys with five star backgrounds that don't ever have massive success at their program they commit to initially and then they transfer and all that talent kind of it just comes together so with brooks right now i mean we know he's got the size right he's got a

six foot three frame he can climb the ladder i talked about the contested catches six for eight plus tracking and spacing though on the perimeter is what i'm seeing right now from him and he's just somebody in this louisville offense that just looks so confident because they're feeding him which is something we were talking about off the air. Trevor is that because when we sat down, full transparency, pull the curtain back. I said to Trevor, I was like, I feel like you've talked about Corey Brooks before. Why is why can't I think of when this was? You were like, yeah, I talked about him almost two years ago. Right. When he was supposed to explode at Alabama. Right. Right. And now he's transferred. You know, he had six hundred seventy four yards in 2022. that was his career high by a large large margin

this year already he's got almost 500 yards he's averaging about 20 yards per catch he's just consistently fed in this Louisville offense and you want to go back to the consistency we talked about at this position you looked at last week against SMU two touchdowns over 120 yards before that against Notre Dame two touchdowns over 120 yards. Before that, against Notre Dame, two touchdowns over 70 yards. Before that, against Georgia Tech, a touchdown over 120 yards. And then even before that, he had games over 80 yards. So I don't know if it's just that he is getting the ball consistently and it's unlocking comfort and bringing out consistency in his game. But when you are six foot three, you got good enough speed. You have plus tracking.

You could play on the outside and you find the football and you know how to go up and get the football when you need it. It feels like Brooks is finally the guy that once upon a time in the recruiting rankings, we expected him to be. Yeah, look, I love it because I was first watching Ja'Cory Brooks, like I said, two years ago when he was first draft eligible, or at least he was first blowing up for Alabama. I can't remember if he's a true senior or if he's a redshirt senior, but yeah, this is somebody who I think NFL draft circles have been talking about quite a bit. I've seen somebody message me about him to watch him again. And I've even caught a couple of, I haven't watched a ton of Louisville football

just to be honest with you guys but I have seen some of the highlights of them just watching college football on the broadcast on Saturdays and I've seen a couple of plays where they're like oh and there's Ja'Cory Brooks touchdown I was like okay do I gotta watch Ja'Cory Brooks now because he went to obviously

goes to a new place gets more opportunity with Louisville and you just love to see it so I'm glad that you uh that you brought him up there that when you watch him just look at he needs so little time to see the ball to adjust and what we like to call in scouting is late hands but i don't even think it's late hands with him all the time because when you throw late hands the defensive back then that the dbs that like to and most of them have to do this react to the receiver can't make a play on the ball because if you're reacting to the hands and the hands are late well they're catching the ball and you're like oh i'm too late with brooks there's times where he turns around or he makes an adjustment in a millisecond that's what's so impressive to me because I know the guy's athletically gifted.

He's got good size, but he needs such a little time frame to actually look back to the ball to secure it. And it's made DBs, even that can run with him at times, really struggle to cover him. I will watch that with that in mind. And I think that that is a good call out by you of something that's a very

underrated part of playing the wide receiver position is being able to have those late hands and not give anything away as DBs are watching you. They might have their back to the ball. They're always looking for clues. So I think that that's a good, that's a good shout out there. And I, you know,

that, that is an art. Like sometimes it can be a little bit of luck, but it's also, Hey, this is what you're taught to do with the NFL. So maybe he's just doing it in an nfl level i can't wait to watch him it'll be fun um my day three to top 50 player boston college edge rusher donovan as a roku okay this is somebody who uh i saw eric galco of the east west shrine bowl tweet about him because he's a senior at boston college so he's eligible for the all-star events.

I saw Jim Nagy from the Senior Bowl tweet about him as well. And when they did, I saw a couple comments from the addicts as well who were like, you got to watch this guy. I was like, all right, okay. We got Galco, we got Jim tweeting about him. We now got the people who were messaging us that they got to watch him. I was like, I got to watch him. All-star games, assemble!

Basically at this point. it's almost season season. Boston College, senior, 6'2", 247 pounds. So small for an edge rusher, right? 10th percentile in height, 9th percentile in weight. So you got to sort of understand what you're getting here. Three-star linebacker in the 2021 recruiting class. So he's a true senior. Played in 10 games as a true freshman in 2021, 12 games in 2022.

And then he started all 13 games last year. He started to come on in the second half of last season and play really well. And I can understand why he wouldn't have come out after last year's season in last year's class because he wasn't quite there yet. This is a true, he was a day three guy going into the season and now the production that he is having and how well he is playing, it makes sense why he is considered a fantastic player. The first step, very nice, explosive, but not only explosive, smooth.

Like he's taking the first step right into exactly what he wants to do. And I think that's really where I want to base the conversation with Ezraku, is you've got some of these smaller edge rush prospects in this class. R. Mason Thomas, Abdul Carter, James Pierce Jr. There are a couple of other players who are like that. Ezeraku's got a more polished pass rush bag and knows what to do in so many situations and is so much more technically sound than all of them. I was tempted to put Ezeraku ahead of Abdul Carter. I put him above James Pierce jr. Because I think he knows how to play the position better than James Pierce jr. Does.

But look, I think those guys, Pierce jr. And Carter are more athletic than as a Raku, but he knows how to win at playing edge rusher better than those other guys do. He's got a variety of different moves right now. He loves that swim and arm over movement. When I said that he is smooth and explosive out of his first step, sometimes he's using that arm over move as like a primary move. Some guys use it as more of a counter, but he can use it as a primary. So he is very comfortable attacking the outside shoulder, but also using a swim move to get into the inside shoulder as well. You already see a little cross chop from him. He knows how to execute that very well. He's got a

nice rip move. Everything sort of finishes with a rip. You know, I watched, this is what I loved about Liatu Latu last year, is Latu would hit a variety of different moves. He could give you a club move. He could give you a two-handed swipe. He could give you a club move. He could give you a two-handed swipe. He could give you that cross chop. He'd give you a long arm or he could just simply give you a little push pull move. Everything ended with a rip. It was something I was getting to your shoulder. And then the second I got to your shoulder, it was this move plus a rip because the second I got even with your shoulder, boom, my inside arm was coming up. I am not giving you the opportunity to stick with me and get your hands on me. I'm getting around

the outside shoulder. That is what as a rock who does, and he does it really well. And it allows him to stay clean and him as a lighter edge rusher, it still allows him to win at a high level because of that. That was sort of the thing with Latu. Latu wasn't smaller of a player. He was like 6'5", 265 pounds. He wasn't smaller as an edge rusher, but Latu wasn't exactly the greatest athlete. So he needed to stay clean to win as much as he did one-on-one on the edge.

Esraku's not the biggest dude in the world, so he needs to stay clean as much as possible. And you could tell he put in the work this off season to be one of the best at it that I've seen so far this college football season. I'll also say this. He's a much better run defender than you think for a player who's six foot two, 247 pounds. And that's because he uses that natural leverage very, very well. He knows that it's important and paramount for him to get his hands inside and to extend those hands to be able to hold the point of attack. And even, you know, of course he can do the whole like run defense by attack thing,

where just getting into the backfield is sort of your way of being a good run defender. But to me, he, in an edge rush class that has a lot of incomplete players. He is one of the most complete right now. And it's easy to love what he brings to the table. And I think that's going to be important in this guy. I mean, Jack Sawyer, Nick Scorton, a little bit, you know, some of LT Overton, but I think that there's still some unpapped potential there. And there's still some ups and downs. Like those guys, I guess, have high floors and you kind of know what you're getting,

especially with guys like Sawyer like he's sort of this complete edge rush player and a lot of people like him because of the floor that he brings as Raku sort of the same way Sawyer is in my opinion Sawyer's best as that type of an edge player for a 4-3 even front team as Raku is that player for a three, four outside linebacker type of a type of a role. So he's just somebody who's film I've really enjoyed. I think he presents a really high floor and he's just so good at the position already as a senior that I think he's going to have success at the NFL level. I was watching some of his pressures when you were going over him initially. I number one, i think he has pretty long arms for

his size he does longer than six foot two would indicate yes that was the first thing when i saw him standing up i'm like well that's a good sign because he's not very tall as you indicated but he he has long arms and the cross chop is just beautiful it's it's a work of art so a really good call out by you for a guy that's been highly, highly productive. And in a weird edge class, he knows how to rush the passer with refinement. Despite being 6'2", 245, he has had run defense grades above 80 in each of the last three seasons. And then this year is his highest as a pass rusher 86.9 pass rush grade and he has an above 17 pass or swim percentage so he is again he is the

most complete outside linebacker edge rusher i think that we have in this draft so far and i can rely upon who he is as a player quite often because he's got the resume to back it up now i love it really good mention on this show in a just a big riser i mean a really big riser all right i got i got one more name and it's our new name to watch yep it's funny calling curtis rourke the quarterback of Indiana, a new name because there is a large piece of the pie of our audience that has been asking for this one. And rightly so. Rourke, Indiana has been one of the biggest stories, in my opinion, in college football this year. They hire Signetti and they haven't lost. So that's good. They're top 20 team in the country, Indiana.

All Kurt Cignetti does is wins, right? It's really crazy. And it's always tough when you go to a basketball school as a football coach and you try to, you know, inspire confidence in the program. Yeah, that's what Kentucky thought with Mark Stoops and then Mark Stoops outlasted Cal. Exactly.

So, yeah, you're right. Things can change. You can definitely change in terms of what kind of school you are. But, man, I mean, he won a ton at James Madison. He brought a lot of that staff with him to Indiana. And Rourke, right now, is playing nearly flawless football at quarterback. And that doesn't mean he's a round one quarterback prospect, right? Let's just be fair here.

But 14 touchdowns, two picks, eight big time throws. I like the touch and bucket throwing. This guy has a real off speed pitch. I mean, he just floats the ball. He has no fear of floating the ball in right in the bucket in any scenario, but he can do it because he throws with such touch and precision that it's not a dangerous way to play for him. He understands when he could float the ball in. He also has a real, real ability to throw players open whole throw to an area of the field. The guy is nowhere

near, but that guy knows he knows where that guy is going to go get the football. And it puts the coverage in such a panicked situation. So, and he plays with confidence also off play action. He's averaging, he's completing almost 84% of his passes and averaging over 12 yards per attempt. Like when Indiana is running play action, it's a masterclass from Rourke in this offense. That's drawn up really, really well. So Curtis Rourke, people have been asking about him. I don't see this round one arm or these crazy traits.

He's somebody that I believe he turns 24 this month. So he's an older prospect. He's obviously played a lot of football because he was in the Mac and playing at a really high level in the Mac for a while. I love that Indiana went into the portal and got him after such a successful career at Ohio, but he is the perfect point guard for this offense right now. And I think that the best way I can explain it is think of how Jake Browning

comes in when Joe Burrow gets hurt, and it's still a professional offense. You're not looking around and going, my God, they can't get a fucking first down. And I know it's not exciting, but when Jake Browning came in, it felt like they could still function as an offense. You just lose your special ability. I think Rourke is an NFL prospect. Seems like the type of backup that he can come in. He knows exactly what to do.

He understands exactly what he can't do physically, but where he can win the game mentally and efficiently. And that's what I've seen him leading this undefeated Indiana team right now, just perfectly executing the offense at hand. And when he has to make a touch throw or he has to lead a wide receiver in a difficult spot he's been able to do it well said I gotta turn over the football doesn't turn over like just doesn't turn over the ball I have I I've gotten a couple of messages about Rourke that uh need to get him in the mock

draft simulator so he is somebody who is also very high on the watch list that will be on that very very soon all right I got one more guy. It's an exciting player, one that was part of the biggest upset that we'll see in college football this season. And he was a big part of that. And I think he's an NFL draft prospect that people should be talking about. Before we get to that, if you're hiring for a small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. You got to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help you find those right professionals for your team, fast and free. PFF, do a ton of

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That is LinkedIn.com slash stock to post your job for free. Terms and conditions do apply. Okay. So, in case you were under a rock, Vanderbilt defeated the great Alabama last week. Trolling of the century, too, with the Nick Saban video board. Just wild. It was what college football is all about that's right every

part of it the upset saving saying that every place in the sec is difficult except for except for vanderbilt diego pavia as their quarterback the interview after the game by uh you know the one and only elissa lang uh the shout out elissassa. You won't do it because you're being a good person. You don't want to make the show all about your fiance, but holy smokes. What an effort from Alyssa. The Gruden grinder of the week. Just chasing the man down

and getting the interview of the season right now. I'll shout her out because she deserves it, but on Alyssa's show on A-Season Network called Out of pocket she had diego on there earlier this year and so she had already sort of learned about you know like who diego was and how just he's awesome like the family like the 70 family members coming to the game and everything and so she got to know diego a little bit a a couple of weeks ago honestly and you, as the game was unfolding,

and, you know, she told me this afterwards, and she told, yeah, I think people on social media this as well. She wanted to make sure that the world heard from Diego Pavia after this game. And she's like, I have to do whatever it takes to get him in front of this microphone to make sure that he can tell his emotions and everything that just because she's like the world deserved it he deserved it and um so for her giving us that uh true treat a true treat and like ashen genti running through the waves of people wild depressive determined eight-man box you know can't stop. Josh and G&T, my fiance. That's what they all say.

Okay, so the new player that I want to bring to the table, it's not Diego Pavia, but it is his tight end, Eli Stowers, who has just such an interesting story that I love. So he's his tight end. He's his go-to connection. And when you watch his Vanderbilt offense, you go, man, these two have such a great connection. I wonder where that comes from. Well, I'm about to tell you where that comes from. So Eli Stowers, he's at Vanderbilt, obviously.

He's a redshirt senior, but he didn't start at Vanderbilt. He was actually a four-star quarterback recruit. He was a dual threat quarterback in the 2021 recruiting class. He was a two-sport athlete in high school, football, and also track. He won the Texas 6A state championship in the high jump to tell you how incredible of an athlete this dude is. And Bruce Feldman had him number 61 on the freaks list this year with a 42 and a half inch vertical jump and almost an 11 foot broad jump so this dude's explosive as hell coming out of school he committed to Texas A&M as a quarterback spent two years at Texas A&M played just five games didn't really play ended up transferring to New Mexico State

where as a quarterback he battled against Diego Pavia and Pavia ended up winning the job at New Mexico State. And then after he won the job, Stowers transferred over to playing tight end. And so he started to play tight end when he was there. And then when Pavia ended up transferring in 2020, 2024 to Vanderbilt, Stowers followed him to Vanderbilt as well to, you know, be his main receiver, be his tight end. And the connection that we have seen between those two has been fantastic. Now, when you watch him outside of a story that's really cool to follow, this dude, he's got some juice as a vertical receiving tight end. Six foot four, 235 pounds. So you don't want to play him in line a ton, but he can line up on the line of scrimmage. He's got the competitiveness in him to be a decent blocker, at least hold his own,

try to hold his own, give you everything he's got on the line of scrimmage. But a lot of times he'll be off as a wingback kind of a player, somebody who you can do pre-snap motion with, somebody who can get into the slot, play as an X receiver, huge catch radius. That explosiveness from those jump scores and that track background absolutely shows up in how fast he gets up to his top speed and how well he can accelerate go up for those jump balls he's an excellent trick play guy because of the quarterback background there was a trick play i cannot remember which team they ran it against but he is coming across the line of scrimmage pre-snap motion they hike it to him throw it backwards

obviously so he could still throw he loads up boom 30 yards in the bucket in the end zone and it's just sort of a thing to keep in your back pocket of like hey this guy was a quarterback so you can do a lot of trick play stuff with him now of course like when it comes to the nuances of everything punch timing is a blocker nuance with route running like all that kinds of stuff he's just not quite there yet he still needs a little bit of football to him. He's going to be a little bit of an older prospect because he is a redshirt senior. But Connor, to me, this is absolutely somebody that I'd think about early parts of day three. Perhaps we're talking about him a lot higher than that as well because of the athletic ability that he brings to the table

and for how little he has been playing the tight end position over the last two years specifically. So Eli Stowers, I know everybody's talking about Diego Pavia in Vanderbilt's massive upset over Alabama, but Stowers was a big reason for that and a draft prospect in his own right. Awesome call out by you. That's what you want to look for at this position in this era, I think, is guys that, sure, you're going to have your Tyler Warren's the world, right? Where it's like, this is what a tight, is guys that, sure, you're going to have your Tyler Warren's the world, right? Where it's like, this is what a tight end looks like. Ironically, Tyler Warren, though, also played quarterback in high school. But this is what a tight end looks like, and it's going to translate to the NFL. But you also want this position, want to take some chances, look for

guys that there's untapped potential, or they're on a trajectory where it's going to take a little longer, but I'd rather bet on him than the guy with the way lower ceiling, but that has an okay floor. So that's definitely a fun one. All right. Those are the stock up. Wait, do you have a stock down player? I didn't have one this week.

No, no stock down. Okay. I'll say real quickly, I wanted to be careful with this one because he came into the game hurt, so you just wonder. I thought it was not his best from Will Johnson against Washington, I wanted to be careful with this one because he came into the game hurt, so you just wonder. I thought it was not his best from Will Johnson against Washington, which is so rare to see him vulnerable. But I know it was also a close call of him even playing in the game.

So that's why I was like, I don't call it stock down because if a guy's banged up and has a not great night when we're so used to the greatness, I don't want to. I'm not moving him on my board. But it's something to keep an eye on the rest of the season i would say right right i've been a little bit disappointed with luther burton from missouri sort of along the same light but he had a really good game against a and m this past weekend so maybe it was just a slow start to the season but you know we had him like top three prospect and and he was very very high on the on the uh overall big board and the wide receiver rankings it's been a quiet year from him he just hasn't looked he hasn't looked like that same player i agree that he had last

year i'm not sure well i don't know if he's playing hurt or what i guess maybe maybe we'll find out a little bit more about it but tetra mcmillan i feel like is is highlights every single week and it's just like even even within the mundane from him, the mundane of Tetsuro McMillan is still NFL special. And I thought we would get that more from Burden this year, and we just haven't quite seen it. So I don't know if it's an official stock down, but something worth monitoring at the very top of this receiver class. But let us know what you guys thought of some of these new players

that we have discussed here. And as always, the comment section is a great place to get some other player names out there as well. Some rechecks, whether it's summer scouting guys that you want us to watch again, who are playing really well this year, or new names that we have not brought to the show yet. Hit us up, youtube.com backslash at NFL Stock Exchange.

That is the best way to get into the show. And let us, of course, know your comments and some of the players that we talked about here today. If you're audio only, at Tampa Bay Trey, at Connor J. Rogers. That's the way to hit us up on Instagram and Twitter Connor anything else before we get out of here no like you said the top of the show it'll be fun to get into some fixing teams series that's where we really get to the nitty-gritty of breaking down franchises and trying to figure out what's best for their future

we're just rolling on players man it's crazy if we do we do one of these shows per week it feels like we bring at least 10 guys to the table every week yeah doing some quick math that's 40 newish or updates on prospects a month we're going to be in really good shape once the season ends the us and the addicts honestly the people who are listening to the show you guys are going to be ready for draft season earlier than you ever have been before as are we were really excited about it like i said at the top of the show or in the middle of the show actually get yourself a pff plus subscription get the fully unlocked mock draft simulator um i'm gonna be i'm working with the editing team to get the strength and the weaknesses and the player comps i know i missed out on those last year but i've been going along as i have been rating all these players i've been

putting a player comp in there so we'll get all that good stuff um into the mock draft simulator very very soon and you can have that full unlocked experience with a pff plus subscription i'm trevor All these players have been putting a player comp in there. So we'll get all that good stuff into the mock draft simulator very, very soon. And you can have that full unlocked experience with a PFF plus subscription. I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers. Thank you guys so much for watching and listening to the NFL stock exchange podcast.

We'll see you guys next week. Thank you.