NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 71. Summer Scouting: Top 5 Off-Ball Linebackers for 2023 NFL Draft

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers continue their summer scouting journey with the off-ball linebacker group. The two give you their preseason Top 5 LBs for the 2023 NFL Draft with background info, PFF stats and film notes for each. Plus talk plenty of other linebackers in the class who are just outside their Top 5s going into the season.

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 got 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 the NFL Stock Exchange podcast in this episode jumping right back into summer scouting only a couple positions left today we've got the off-ball linebacker group a lot of different shapes and sizes that off-ball linebacker comes in nowadays defenses

they're trying to keep up with what offenses are doing and because of that they're using defensive guys in all sorts of different ways it is a total chess game and with that there's a ton of different types of linebackers to talk about I know it's going to make a difference for my top five versus Connor's top five is going to be a lot of diversity there. Oh, also, I need to defend myself for the mock draft Monday episode that we did on Monday, because I am heated about that. You know what? Let's just get right to it. I'm Trevor Sigma. That's Connor Rogers. Let's ring Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sikamba. That is Connor Rogers. Coming to you guys from, Connor, what's it been, like two weeks? We pre-recorded the last Monday's episode.

That's right. This is the longest that I feel like I haven't seen you or heard your voice since we started this podcast in January. So it's good to see you on the camera, buddy. It's good to be back. It is really good to be back. The vibes are immaculate. And you know, I didn't want to text you too much. You're on vacation. And it was it did feel like a long time because like Trevor said, we did pre record the last show, which we're gonna get into cause a lot of buzz on Twitter, even when you were out there trying to enjoy the surf, man. Woo, buddy, you got roasted.

Did we start right there before we get into vacation? Look, I need to defend my honor here, okay? We can talk a little bit about the vacation, but okay, guys, you're tuning in this episode because the headline of the episode says Summer Scouting Linebackers. We will get into the class. We will do what we've been doing the entire summer. We don't need an hour and a half for that.

I promise. Confirmed. A little preview. Yeah. We don't need an hour and a half for this linebacker group, so we're going to kind of shoot the shit a little bit. Look, I am here to defend my honor. Whatever's left of it.

If you guys did not listen to, if you're listening to this, and you did not listen to the Monday episode, what Connor and I did is we had a really fun exercise. We did dueling mock draft format. We put together teams, starting 22s, offense and defense, drafting from every round of the 2020 2021 and 2022 nfl draft so once each of us could pick from a certain round then we we couldn't pick from that round again and you had to pick at least one player from that round connor your team is good okay i'm not i'm not gonna sit here and say that your team's

not good but i there is some slander going on for my team i was getting eviscerated in the replies and in the comment section and i'm not standing for it i'm not my team is not that bad you put together a good offense but i countered you and i have a great defense to match it people give me some credit here so that was my take that I was going to not tell you until we went on the show. This just showed me that people don't give a damn about the defense. Because, dude, my defense is cheeks. Cheeks, dude.

You got your secondary. Okay. Look, I'll admit. My wide receivers, not the greatest wide receivers in the world. Okay. We got Kalusha Kier. We got Gabe Davis, we got Bo Melton. Not great. We do have Kyle Pitts, though, which I pleaded with people,

do not overlook Kyle Pitts. And what did you guys do? You let me down. You overlooked Kyle Pitts. Your secondary is Paulson Adebo, Monteric Brown, Dane Jackson, Jordan Fuller, and Michael Carter. Move the safety out of the slot. Kyle Pitts is going off for 13, 245, and three touchdowns on your team.

You're not stopping them. My secondary is A.J. Terrell, Kyler Gordon, Nate Hobbs, Cam Curl, Antoine Winfield Jr. And you're right, Connor. Nobody gave a damn about it because you had Justin Herbert, you had Darnell Moody, you damn about it because you had justin herbert you had darnell moody you had justin jefferson you had jonathan taylor great offense great offense y'all are that's thing people saw the trifecta of herbert taylor and justin jefferson with an elite offensive line in front of them and they were like blow out trevor go back to vacation this your team stinks and i just sat there and laughed it up i

had such a good time i was sitting there with a coffee watching the room i'd refresh the tweet every now and then because i usually get roasted on these things i lose the madden simulators i don't do so well in the youtube comments uh which there's a iconic youtube comment that pointed out apparently i just went three times you got three picks in a row. And we didn't even bat an eye. Like, nobody cared at all. That sums up, folks. We do a draft for every, it's every Sunday we record, usually.

Yeah. But it comes out every Monday in your ears and eyes. I mean, it's going to happen. We are just at the point, man, where, like, there's real football coming back really soon, actually. Unbelievably. call the hall of fame game real football but we got through it which i don't which i don't know i always think i'm excited for the hall of fame game and then i turn it on and i'm like it's so funny that they call it the hall of fame game and then they like make this big spectacle out of you know like like this is the moment that football is back and the hall of

fame game is probably the worst preseason game every single oh it's the worst it's worse than any like xfl it's and i'm not kidding it really is it's worse than any of those games i feel like they should the hall of fame game should be you know like week three or four when most of the starters are playing with people actually care because isn't trevor lawrence like not even playing in the game dude not only is he not playing they're they're starting like their fourth string quarterback starting who's isn't jake lutton why is that sticking in my head all right jagstaff chart right now i'm pretty sure we are already googling absolutely is jake lund yep he is not their starter obviously and i don't think he's their backup cj bethers their backup yeah bethers not playing or as or as mike renner said at one time cj beat hard which is the

the greatest you can say it like that are you right it's spelled exactly like that so exactly like that except we do use uh you know th th together in this language we do to remind people mike was getting a little ahead of himself that's amazing um okay so hall of fame game on the docket everybody's like really fake excited that's okay be fake excited football's coming back you were in hawaii i was looked amazing let's hear it i need people i need people to just look at the camera right now on youtube and if you're listening on audio i'm sorry go on youtube go on youtube this is the tannest i've ever been in my life ever no question about it i'm normally the whitest dude i know and just when

you're in hawaii you're outside it's beautiful the weather is phenomenal it's my first time ever out there so anybody who's ever out there kind of knows what i'm talking about god i was gonna ask you this pre-show and then i'm like no i'm just gonna ask you this on the show are you a sushi guy like do you like poke bowls like this oh so yeah i do like poke bowls i don't like sushi if that makes sense i get like crab okay now i gotta know now i gotta know why because they're basically the same thing no no no i like crab and all that stuff i don't like sushi i love seafood i don't like sushi there's a difference very, well. It freaks me out. I was setting it up. I've tried it, just to confirm. I love sushi.

I love poke bowls. I love all of that. The best poke bowl and the best sushi I've ever had in my life, no cap at all whatsoever. Foodland, which is a grocery store in Hawaii, they do like, instead of like a deli they just do like poke bowls and they just do like fresh fish and fresh sushi and biggest tastiest freshest sushi poke i've ever had in my life and it's like 12 dollars my entire existence was changed i was already trying to

look up property find out how i could finesse my way to do this podcast from Hawaii the second I had my first bite. So if anybody out there, if you guys are sushi, poke bowl lovers, and you haven't been to Hawaii yet, that is the holy grail, my friends, getting it out there for that. I believe you. I mean, yeah, it looked amazing. Do you feel refreshed?

We have a lot of podcasting to do this next year. This was the last big vacation vacation and now we're, we're hitting the ground running. We're getting right back to it. We're making things happen. Let's get into linebacker summer scouting with that. Let's get right back into football. You guys know the drill.

You know how this goes. Connor and I are going to give you our top five players from this position, the off ball linebacker position which you know funny enough I was telling somebody about the podcast when I was over in Hawaii and I told him oh yeah we're doing summer scouting we're doing off-ball linebackers next and they're like what is an off-ball linebacker and I got to explain to them the difference between being an on-ball linebacker more of an edge rusher an edge defender and an off-ball linebacker which is more of the traditional linebackers that you think that are playing behind those big boys up front,

racking up all the tackles, being in the middle of that defense and all that stuff. So we're going to give you our top fives. We're going to go from five to one. We're going to leave the drama for the end. Connor, it's an interesting class, and I use the word interesting as a polite adjective about this. Now, there's a lot of, I would say like different flavors of linebackers

and i think that this is a natural evolution that we have seen over the last couple of years as defenses have really tried to counter what offenses are doing spreading things out getting four wide receivers five wide receivers on the field going no huddle making things very quick making it difficult to sub you know like and make sure your communication is there if you can keep more of the same players on the field when it comes to your base defense and your nickel defense and there's one guy in particular i know we're going to talk about with that the more advantageous it is for you but in order to have that luxury you have to have unique players these guys who are like these linebackers but

could also cover so coverage is more important than ever for a linebacker and so it all that to say they come in so many different shapes and sizes and i know my guy that i have at number five is going to talk about that right away but i'm curious you're leading it off who is your number five off-ball linebacker in this class during the preseason five was tough this was the one that i struggled with and i decided to go with the player that i think has a lot to gain back this year rather than guys that i thought were solid in the spot and we'll get to all those guys after we do the top five because there's there's a lot that are really all in the same tier but the reason i believe in this guy is number five over them is because of the upside and that's

owen papo from oh nice okay you watched him that's good that's good i did and i watched him last um which was it's almost because of the injury okay let's just i'll do a little run back because i'm trying to act like for most people, this is a blank slate. For Pepo, he's somebody that was a former five-star spark score and just overall testing was unheard of, basically. He's that kind of athlete. And he got the five-star ranking because he's obviously just a really good linebacker recruit. 6'1", 225 pounds.

Unfortunately, was team captain. Like, this is a guy right here. This is a dude that, like, you should know in the SEC, but the reason some people might not know him is because I believe he's coming off of ankle surgery. I know he had a lot of injuries last year. I know there wasn't, I hadn't seen, you know, college football is weird where they talk to coaches in the spring or in the fall and there's not always exact details with injuries, but I believe it was ankle surgery. So he just really didn't play a lot last year.

To be completely transparent here, he's somebody that unfortunately. It says foot surgery from a quick Google, but I mean, like, I don't know. I don't know if they're being like hockey, vague, lower body injury about it, whether it's an ankle or a foot or whatever it was. Yeah, where I narrowed it down to ankle was Jim Nagy on Twitter said something about coming off ankle surgery. And I know Jim was on campus. So I would imagine that's right.

But like you said, and it sounded like he had a couple things going on last year, so you never know if there was a few surgeries or whatever it may be. Either way with him, he's somebody that was highly productive before last year, huge expectations. He's got an incredible amount of speed and explosiveness packed into this frame. And he really, you know, when you look at a 6'1", 225 pound backer, totally muscled up throughout, these guys are, they can play at the NFL these days. Like that's a player that can play in the box where traditionally we were so used to this

position playing around 250. He's somebody that can do a lot of different things for you at that weight because of the speed, whether you want to kick him off the line of scrimmage a little bit, you want to play him in the middle, you want to play him on the weak side. There's a lot of different things for you at that weight because of the speed, whether you want to kick him off the line of scrimmage a little bit, you want to play him in the middle, you want to play him on the weak side. There's a lot of different ways you can use him. In 2020, I mean, he had 93 tackles and four sacks. 2019, he got on the field, he had 49 tackles. He's a very active player, and with that kind of speed, where you think he could be a difference maker is coverage as well.

So it's disappointing that he didn't get to put up big numbers because of the injuries last year, but now he's going to be eligible for the senior bowl process this is a former five star that it's not like he got to campus and it just didn't work out that happens to a lot of top recruits five stars this guy got to campus and was good enough that he was playing right away started boating voted a team captain right sec right he's got hurt and he's he's kind of been in my eyes forgotten about so i like what i saw in 2020 i love the athletic profile i love the team captain profile and i'm betting on him and rooting for him in 2022 yeah injuries are tough for linebackers in the same way that injuries would be tough for running backs, right? It's a position that just takes so much punishment. And if you,

if you guys will turn back the clock to the pre-draft process with N'Kobe Dean, and especially on draft weekend, watching him fall, big reason why is because people talked about, okay, well, there's some underlying shoulder issues. You know, like if you're a linebacker and you've got shoulder issues and shoulder injury, that's it. That's and shoulder injury. That's it. That's what you do. You hit people.

That's your entire – that's how you make your money, if you will. For Papo, the reason why he would really be able to stand out and the reason why he would be one of the top linebackers in this class is because of his athleticism. We've got to see how he recovers from that foot, ankle injury because that's a big part of what's going to certainly allow him to stand out a good friend of mine tom green who covers auburn for al.com i remember talking with him man this must have been three years ago now when papa was just a true freshman and i was asking him i think i was asking him about like Derek Brown and Marlon Davidson

and like that entire like defensive line. And he said to me, he's like, dude, watch out for Papo. Like he is a true freshman and they are already giving him full responsibility. And I'm like, damn, okay, that's a lot of respect to have for Kevin Stee defense uh down there in auburn as the defense coordinator so that he's a guy that i'm really glad that you mentioned i'm excited to see him as well because it felt like i heard about that hype from him as a true freshman and then injury is just they've kind of derailed the last couple of years for him and and i have not really heard much from him and i think a lot of the hype has gone away but this is still a really talented football player. Hope we get a full year out of him for sure.

Okay, five for me. Let me pull up the right Google sheet because we've got like a billion of them. Okay, so this is the one that I hinted at as different linebackers coming in different shapes and sizes these days. Did you watch Troy Brown, the linebacker from Central Michigan who's transferring to

old miss was the 5b okay all right there we go so all right we're kind of like of a similar wavelength and look you picked papo and i think that it's it's i don't want to say like easier as if you're not like going out on a limb picking him but he is more of like the prototypical linebacker right like he has the look brown is not he's about six feet tall maybe six one they list him as six one i have it trevor i have his measurements um like his like his official on the down low measurements yeah so i have him as six one uh i'm actually let me confirm this i just had it open so you can keep talking about him and i'll find it because it this is going to take a second. I do have his measurements.

So I've got him listed right around 6'1", 220. So I've seen some people talk about him being like 208, like even that light. So he is a much smaller linebacker. So he is not light. He's 220. That's light. Good.

But he's shorter. He's about six feet's light. Good. But he's shorter. He's about six feet tall. Six feet tall and about an eighth. I thought he was a little closer to six foot than six one. It's all right. He gets to put on the Bumble profile that it's above six foot, so that's all that matters. He's checking that box there, which is good.

So he's a former three-star linebacker from Flint, Michigan. He's currently enrolled at Ole Miss, that box there which is good so he's a former three-star linebacker from flint michigan he's currently enrolled at old miss which has done a great job of adding transfer talent in a transfer portal this offseason he's one of a lot of really good gets for them he was at central michigan the last four years three-time all-conference linebacker at central michigan so he redshirted had a freshman year in which redshirt freshman, which he was kind of like getting things going for him. And then it was just all production from then on now, three-time all-conference selection. And something that also really stands out to me is, was voted a team captain as just a redshirt sophomore, which

you look at linebacker and you think, okay, sort of like the quarterback of the defense, right? Like, like you go, okay, I would like for one of my defensive captains to be my linebacker and you think okay sort of like the quarterback of the defense right like like you go okay I would like for one of my defensive captains to be my linebackers because it's somebody in the middle it's somebody who's setting the tone it's physicality but that's I mean this guy has lived up to that it's certainly in production standpoint when you watch him on the field he's really communicating things really well with the rest of the defense, which is something I definitely look for with linebackers. With him being smaller, he has the obvious strengths to his game. But then he has some added strengths to his game.

Like when I look at a linebacker who played anywhere from 215 to 220, I'm like, all right, you're getting blown off the ball a lot. He really doesn't. And now he's playing in the MAAC. But I watched him against Missouri last year. the mac but i watched him against missouri last year i watched the tape of him against lsu and that was two of his best games i think he finished with 20 tackles and four tackles for loss between those two sec opponents that he played so he gets up

for those bigger opponents too which you really love to see strength and weaknesses of his game i'll just give them to you here packs a punch for a player who is just six foot, 220 pounds at his weight. You would expect him to be a hybrid safety type, but he's not. I mean, this, this guy plays like a true linebacker.

He's just smaller. A lot of really good reps of him, a cover and running backs out of the backfield. That was something that I made sure to note, because whether it's quick routes coming towards the line of scrimmage or the middle of the field, whether it's wheel routes going all the line of scrimmage or the middle of the field, whether it's wheel routes going all the way to the sideline, this guy knows how to cover. He had an elite coverage grade from PFF last year.

I believe it was a 91.7 coverage grade, which is incredible. Almost an elite overall grade as well. Played that really well. Has the speed also disrupt and cover shallow crossers over the middle, which I saw him do a couple times. Most notably against Missouri. I think he should have had a pick six against Missouri on that him do a couple of times, most notably against Missouri. I think he should have had a pick six against Missouri on that. Got a lot of special teams reps to him too.

Loves to do the dirty work. Sometimes you see these smaller linebackers, they know they're not really going to be able to do much when they're going up against head up against blocks. He doesn't care. In that sense, he reminds me of what we saw a little bit from N'Kobe Dean, where N'Kobe Dean was this smaller linebacker who would be like,

all right, split zone, wingbacks coming across the line scrimmage. I'm about to put him on his ass, and somebody else is going to make the tackle on the running back. That's what I see Troy Brown do a lot. So really excited to see him make the jump from Central Michigan up to Ole Miss this upcoming year. Full slate of SEC games. Does that speed still stand out?

Because if it does, that's a place where he can really make a difference, where he can really separate himself in this class. And even at a smaller size, he's going to be alluring because of what he could do there. If he could bring that speed and still stand out in a conference like the SEC. So I like Troy Brown. There's a lot to like about him he's got a lot of great production the size limitations are kind of what you think not just in overall weight like when taking on blocks or heading toward the line of scrimmage the frame as well like he's got shorter arms so like sometimes you'll see him miss a couple of tackles because of that he doesn't have the big long vines to him but

if you can get over the the size he has a ton uh outside of that in his game that you could really appreciate i'm with you i really liked him despite like you said it's just getting over the size gap where um yeah and you're right you know shorter arms absolutely he's just a he's a smaller player playing in a big man's wrestling ring right like he they stick him right in the middle of the field right up on the line of scrimmage a lot where he's going through contact he's constantly forth and you know what you're right i'm glad you highlighted that just because he you know it's kind of this argument i had a lot i feel like for malcolm rodriguez is a guy that comes to mind last year and fell all the way to the sixth round of the lines like a guy can be smaller or shorter and still understand leverage and being physical

in the box and working through blocks not just be a one-trick pony working around them so I thought he had excellent instincts and awareness both as a run defender and in coverage so I liked him a lot I'm glad you had him at number five five. That makes this show that much better that you had him at five because he was somebody I really wanted us to spend some time on. Number four for me, and this is where it starts to get, I think, a little bit more interesting, and this might surprise some people, my number four player, but I went with Justin Jacobs on Iowa.

This is another dude that I think he's going to have a monster breakout year. You saw the glimpses last year. He, you know, maybe he didn't have the same production as his teammate, Jack Campbell, who I'm sure you're going to hear on this show today, but he is somebody that. You're going to hear him very soon, actually. Yeah. With him, with Justin Jacobs,

he's somebody that has great athleticism, great size. He's a bigger linebacker, but bigger in a sense of lengthier, where he's 6'4", he's around 240. He might even be bigger right now. They have a 6'5 and a 6'4 linebacker on that team? Dude, the middle of their field is NFL. And I mean that. It's NFL, the middle of their field is NFL. And I mean that. It's NFL, the middle of their field.

So you watch Iowa together, and these guys just make – they make plays, but they play smart football. They tackle. They are fundamentally sound. And Jacobs, I think, is a guy that as a sophomore, it looked like at times they understand how talented he is and how great he's going to be. But as a sophomore, they said, okay, we're going to give you this role

playing on the outside because we have our guy in the middle. And we want you to not make a mistake, right, where you're setting a hard edge and you're opening up alleys for other guys. And we know you have all this athleticism to blow up plays, but we want you to dial it in first. And now I think this year, and they've talked about this, coaches have been open about this, him playing more freely. This dude should explode.

He should be used like other guys we're going to talk about later on the show as more of a blitzer, as a weapon that can cover in the slot, as a guy that can plug run fits in the a gap or the b gap i i love this dude's tools package and think that number and he's a good tackler they're all good tacklers on that defense but he's a he's a really really good tackler where it's tough to tackle it's setting a hard edge it's running to the sideline it's where i gotta get the angle i gotta come to balance and i gotta play low at 6-4 i gotta play low at 6'4". I got to play low at 6'4", because the guy I'm tackling, I'm probably much taller than.

This dude is the real deal, and there's enough snaps there from last year to see that it's going to be big time in 2022, and he's probably going to declare for the draft, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're talking about him as a second-round pick when all is said and done. Well, I'm talking about his teammate, number four for me, Jack Campbell. Good timing.

We talked a little bit pre-draft – or pre-draft – pre-show about what – another guy a little bit higher on my ranking. I think we're going to disagree with a little bit here. So I suspect that Campbell's a little bit higher on your rankings. But I think that was a great segue into it because you mentioned the, the, the size of his teammate there, Jack Campbell's listed at six foot five, 245 pounds, and just a little bit of background information for him.

He was a tall, lanky linebacker in high school, man. He weighed just, he was, he was six four six five coming out of high school and going to iowa but he weighed just 210 pounds like this dude was skinny he has put on easily over 30 pounds since he's been at iowa um and in fact you know leading up to him having a starting role for the hawkeyes leading the fbs in tackles last year, 143. I think those are solo tackles. I don't think those are combined tackles. I have to look that up, but 143 tackles in 2021 was the most in the FBS.

First thing that kind of stands out to you with Campbell is that he feels like just a true throwback kind of a linebacker. Like he's a between the tackles guy. He's a true inside linebacker type. He's a guy that can play the mic for you in a 4-3 defense he can also well i mean he can still play the mic for for you in a uh in a 3-4 as well but he can be that kind of commander in chief in the middle that's that's what it feels like he has such a great grasp of what the rest of the defense is doing i feel like that allows him to anticipate really well the length when he is attacking the

line scrimmage or when he's coming off of the edge really you could tell offensive linemen like aren't expecting it from a linebacker you know this is a guy who has defensive end size and length and they're just not expecting it uh as a guy who's coming from the second level to come screaming at him especially when he goes up the middle especially when he's attacking those interior gaps a lot of those interior offensive linemen he gains the reach advantage pretty quickly when they have him going towards the line scrimmage i think he's a really solid player i do some uh some strengths that i found for him uh high floor player very high floor player who understands the position very very well true inside linebacker type who plays great between the tackles great size of 6'5 245 not

just a thumper of a player. I thought he had pretty nice movement skills for a player who was 6'5". Because, you know, sometimes these linebackers, if they're changing direction, you know, they've got to be rolling with chaos, if you will. Like, they've got to be sifting through a lot of motion, a lot of movement along the offensive line, and you've got to be light on your feet,

and you've got to be sometimes changing directions really quickly. When you're 6'5", when you're just bigger of a player we talked about this like with wide receivers it's just not as easy you know a six foot five wide receiver is not going to flip his hips and change direction like a five foot ten wide receiver is you know it's just it's different you've got more of your body mass that you're trying to stop and start and move but i really did think that campbell moved pretty well for a player of his size the weakness in his game and I do it is a little bit of the backhanded compliment where I say yeah he's got a high floor but I do think he has somewhat of a low ceiling because I didn't see that top

tier athleticism in him now I didn't think he was totally exposed like I didn't think he was his liability on the field but when it comes to us projecting these guys to the nfl level the value that i'm getting out of these guys what separates him from being just another linebacker that's kind of coming through the draft that cycle is that athleticism that that's the thing that lets you really stand out when it comes to the sideline to sideline speed what you can do in coverage how much your instincts will really play to your advantage when you know you can get from point a to point b campbell is a good athlete especially for his size didn't see like a great or a major difference making elite kind of an athlete especially i thought in that michigan game in that big 10 championship game i watched that and it felt like a lot of the speed players especially

blake quorum out of the backfield really kind of gave him trouble and he couldn't really cut them off get to the pursuit angles as well as he could throughout the rest of the big 10 schedule so that's kind of what i thought of him he's a high floor player there's a lot to like with him especially if you're just looking for that true inside linebacker presence but i got jack campbell at number four in my rankings i like it i'll get to him in a bit um and i agree with a lot of what you said to be honest with you all right number three for me is Noah Sewell a name that I think a lot of people will be familiar with he is the brother of Panay Sewell and he also plays for Oregon Sewell is a fascinating watch because what I'm about to say about him might come off as

I don't want to come off as criticism more as things to work on for such a young player, because he's only a junior. So the tape you're watching him, him very young player and making young mistakes. The good with him, obviously former five, our other a penance who will, um,

he hits with authority when he makes tackles and he plays a lot. No, so they're like, there's a, there's an energy with this guy that you really, really like. And it's after every big play. And I think it rubs off on teammates around him. And you like that from a linebacker because I think there is something to

playing with some adrenaline, playing with some fire in the middle of the field where maybe with corners, you like them being calm, steady, even keeled. But a linebackerer it's not always like that so he shows good the crazy thing about him Trevor is that I like him when they let him rush that's what I liked about him you felt like I remember when I watched Devin Lloyd last year I was like man when they let him rush and they let him put his hand in the dirt sometimes like he's got legit pass rush tools and I felt that way watching Sewell where when he would just blitz as a stand-up guy straight downhill I thought he

showed really good hands to get off blocks and close on the quarterback there was a couple times where he rushed stand up from the outside more in the mold of an actual pass rusher and it was legit outside speed rush with the ability to turn the corner where like I'm like man this dude's body type and I should have started with that at six foot three 250 pounds he carries weight no surprise there being the brother of Penny Sewell I mean this dude he carries mass in a good way but he he has a really good corner turn on that outside speed rush so when another guy when they let him play freely, he's running around with his hair on fire,

getting out to the quarterback, shutting down things in the flats. Now, when they ask him to just be a boring, traditional Mike linebacker, you could see some of the warts. He missed 18 total tackles last year. That number is too high.

It's, and it's, it's not me pulling up the data and going 18 missed tackles this is a problem it's me seeing that and exploring them he plays high and he comes in high and it's a lot of going over the helmet of guys and he's a big guy it's gonna happen but you just talked about Campbell that's the perfect contrast because Campbell's a totally different player but Campbell is so good at coming to balance and breaking down and making teach tape tackles. Sewell is playing faster than Campbell, but it sometimes costs him to miss tackles. Now, another thing with Sewell that, once again, he's a really young guy.

I think this part of his game is going to really grow. There were a few times, Trevor, and this is the pack, right? This isn't the SEC. This isn't the Big Ten. He's just late. He's in the middle of the field he's diagnosing a run and somebody climbed to him or he didn't get to where he needs to be it's just late and he's a good enough athlete where there's also times where he can make

up for that but sometimes when you don't diagnose and you're not as instinctual it's going to cost you a time so there's a lot to like with seoul's game. There's still a level to unlock that's almost fundamental of the position that if he doesn't unlock that level, kind of takes me back to Kenneth Murray's evaluation a couple years ago. Murray ran around, made these crazy plays, sideline to sideline. He could do all these things where it's like a Ferrari without an engine. But when Murray was in the middle of the field and had to read his keys and do very simple things,

he struggled with that, and it's like, okay, we'll get him there so we can get there and if he does he could be a first round pick that's how talented he is uh so there's a lot to like with him and obviously extremely talented player but there's also some meat on the bone for him as well so i have sewell at two which we're we're skipping over my third guy we we can get yeah i'd like to hear your thoughts back to back on yeah we might as well just get the school school back to back you mentioned i mean it's such a unique size for this linebacker position because six foot three 250 pounds you go whoa okay like that's that's a big linebacker there when i was doing some background information on him first first foremost obviously you mentioned he's Penny Sewell's brother and insanely talented gene pool that that family has there. I think there's more hype for him as a recruit. Yes,

yes, there was five. So he was a five star linebacker from Orem. I believe it's how you say this town, Orem, Utah, brother Penny Sewell. Recruiting profile has Noah Sewell listed at 266. And I found some high school, I don't want to say blogs, like newspaper coverage places saying he was 270. This dude played a backer defensive tackle. And more importantly, running back Noah Sewell played running back in high school at 265 270 that's nuts so if you think

that Noah Sewell is like big now he has cut 15 to 20 pounds off just to get to this point at linebacker I would still actually like to see him cut down a little bit more I'd love for Sewell to be more like 240 250 um he was one of just, I felt like this fact was interesting, one of just two consensus five-star prospects in the state of Utah ever. Haloti Nada was the other one. Pretty good. Just him and Haloti Nada as the consensus five stars, not even his brother, which I thought was a very interesting point there.

You mentioned the missed tackles, and I think that's something that certainly he's got to get better at he's been starting at such a young age that of course you mentioned and i'm glad you put the context to it when you start as an underclassman especially as a freshman and a sophomore especially as a true freshman and a true sophomore you're gonna have things on tape that is just you're you don't have the awareness to be better at yet you have not seen it the experience isn't there now when when Noah Sewell gets done with this next year hopefully fully healthy it's another fully healthy year under his bell then all of a sudden this dude's got three levels of starting experience and he's going to be at a

young age so that that all plays really, really well into his profile. If he can kind of figure it out, take that next step with anticipation and recognition, I think that that's really important. But really unique player, man. I mean, just from the size profile, you mentioned what he could be as a pass rusher. Almost had an elite pass rush grade all of last season.

I believe it was an 88.9. Maybe that is, maybe we do, maybe PFF might actually have an 88 as an elite categorized pass rush grade for a off-ball linebacker i feel like that that would make sense if that would be the case but did you see his win rate like how no what's the win rate so his his pass rush yeah win rate was 31.2 that is nuts now. Now, you know, when I saw that number, I'm like, is he just like free blitzing? Like where

they're setting up the blitz that he's the free rusher? Right. But no, there's plenty of times where he's blocked, but he's winning. Holy cow. There's a part of me, Trevor, that walked away watching him and go, man, he could be a really good linebacker in the NFL. Then there's the part of me that's like like can he just be an edge pass rusher honestly i didn't

even think about him in that box certainly with the weight the power well i'm and and if you if he weighed more in high school you know that he could do it oh easily maybe that's look maybe that's that's maybe that's it maybe that's what we got to do. It's tricky because, like, I know you're getting into it. He's your number two. He's my number three. He's a good off-ball linebacker that makes explosive plays. He is.

He is. He is. The weaknesses I have in his game is would love to see how he moves at 240, 245. I really would. Oh, if he had Rocket. That's the first line that I have there. I want another year of experience with Noah Sewell, and i'd love to see him at 240 245 because i think that he has the strength naturally he's just a very strong dude yeah you still hold up and still be effective and especially when you

are crashing him through the middle and the a gaps that guy's still gonna be a force at 240 245 he's not gonna be hitting interior offensive lineman the way that some other linebackers would be at 240 he's going to be stronger he's going to be more dense he's going to be put a hurting on him when he hits the the point of attack and yet he's going to be lighter on his feet he's going to be having even better sideline to sideline pursuit he's going to be able to cover i thought that he was when it came to coverage it felt like that was the biggest area in which he knew what to do he just didn't quite see it like like when he needed to he was a split second late i feel like on coverage more than anything else but you saw his eyes going exactly where they needed to be it was just a little bit late it was more reactionary than it was anticipatory so that's a that's a big part of being young and getting better and if he takes

that next step i'd love to see him at a lighter weight i don't think we're gonna see it though i think he's just gonna be a 250 pound linebacker so he's just gonna be a guy he had a really good year and i think they're like okay this is who you are we're we're not gonna risk changing that right and right and he's and he's the best player on that defense right now. So they're just going to kind of let him be. They're going to let him be what he needs to be. Who's your number two? You read your number two, and then I'll read my number three.

We're going a little bit out of order, but I feel like that was better for the conversation. Two for me was the guy you went over in Jack Campbell. Okay, you do. If you ask me the question, who do I think will end up being the better pre-draft prospect after this season and testing and everything, I'd say Noah Sewell. Noah Sewell would be number two.

And I do go back and forth. We both do this. We go back and forth on, like, this guy is a projection guy, like Popo. And Justin Jacobs is even more projecting. He's got to play more. I didn't do that with Sewell over Campbell, just to assume he's going to take those steps, because I wanted to give Campbell a little love

for the player that he already is. And you kind of highlighted all those things, and I totally agree with your points of he's not a high-ceiling guy. I don't think he's going to run very well, honestly, on the track. I don't think he's gonna be this crazy tester do i think he'll be adequate or on field speed baby because it's more comfortable with the cleats it's all here it is it's real it's very real this guy sees everything before it happens

have you ever five you ever ran a 40 like for you know just like as a media guy like they'll be like oh like what are you gonna run the 40 have you ever run 40 before i mean i don't time it but i've run a 40 i've run sprints yes okay so i this is like to your jack that would be a fun bit one day which what us running yes i mean yeah we could for sure uh we might be ugly for me at this point oh god brother 30 year old legs oh boy not good so when i did this for tdn like a couple years ago we had like a little briefly remember this we had like a fun little combine and getting down in that like stance to just like do a sprint feels like so like awkward and weird and i had i in all i think it ran like a 5-2 and i'm like i'm not like five too slow like i don't think that's fast but like 5-2 is not 5-2 is you

don't realize 5-2 is fast like for an average adult i've ran a 5-2 and i was like okay i'm way faster than that and i i think back to if i played so i played soccer a lot growing up soccer was my main sport that I played in high school. And I'm thinking to myself, like, if you were to time me just on a soccer field, like even, even just like flat footed, Hey, ball gets hit over your head. You're starting from zero. You're going to sprint for the ball as fast as you can. I guarantee I'm running faster when I'm on that soccer field than I am on that track. So that could be Jack Campbell. Jack Campbell could end up testing worse than you think that he's going to. And you go, man, he's not that bad of an athlete on tape.

And I'm just agreeing with you 100%. That can be real for guys. You can have more comfort speed when the helmet's on, when the pads are on, when the cleats are on, than you do at the combine or wherever you're running a 40 i totally agree because the start is everything and i'm with you that i think that's what i would struggle with like to counter what you said about soccer i played lacrosse and i was a midfielder if you just time me doing a full field clear just running i will be a lot faster than getting into a stance, listening to the gun or the laser, and starting up.

I would need coaching for at least a month to do that and match my actual full build-up speed. So I agree, and that's a real thing for prospects, like learning to start. I've gone down to different training facilities before, and you poke around, you ask trainers what are you working with it so many will just tell you we're working on a start for the 40. like this dude is on a lifting routine he's on a diet routine he's fast he could jump he can catch the ball he could

do this we just we go out here onto the track and we work on the start for the 40. it kind of annoys me a little bit how I don't want to say it's not a football thing but there is a part of it that's not a football thing and if there's so so much invested into it as a football thing what if you know what we should redo the whole combine to where you are running a 40 out of the stance that you play in yeah and just gps it right so like yeah and and like wide receivers they're just doing like a regular like a wide receiver stance where you're standing upright and like you're trying to like get offline scrimmage and like that's the speed that matters to you who cares if you can't get in a track stance if you're a pass rusher

okay you're getting down you're getting down a little bit lower but like then you're exploding out of your pass rush stance and like that's what actually matters if you're running back i don't know you could do like the full eat the feet are even hands on the knees like boom okay like now you're getting out of your stance now you're running into it i think i think in our lifetime we need we need an evolved combine we need to change the game evolve that's what humans are all about whoever comes up with it is going to make a lot of money because they're going to distribute all the tech to the nfl which will pay millions and billions of dollars for it um and teams are doing they're behind the scenes teams

are doing this they're using more college gps tracking they're using more stuff like that but in our lifetime we are going to see changes to how testing is evaluated. I wonder if – because you're right. Like the technology exists. Like we see this all the time, right? Like the guys are wearing the chest straps like miles per hour and like NFL Next Gen Stats has this on all these guys every single week. Like that's a better measurement of athleticism

than a lot of the things that we have at the Combine. Like not to say that the Combine is useless. It's just there are those little awkward things where you go like okay that's a major reason why somebody might suck at this drill and it doesn't actually have anything to do with football i wonder if they're apprehensive to change it just because we have what 30 years of data doing the same exact thing oh and if you and if you change it then all of a sudden it's like okay you have no barometer like okay this guy ran this and people are like uh was that fast i don't know no league in the world meets the criterion of the this is just always how we've done it we have grown men out with stopwatches all the time true like as a guy that dabbles in a little

baseball coverage that's tech the tech for baseball right now and that's a sport that's been behind for way too long but the tech for baseball right now is unbelievable and i'm not saying football isn't but football because it's everything's broadcasted right like with baseball you don't see a guy throwing and then checking the spin rate tracker and all these things. Like football, we watch the 40 on TV, and it's covered, and it does excellent ratings.

And we watch guys. You and I stand next to each other and watch guys bench press. Like, it's just how we've always done things. It's true. Somebody will break that barrier of like, okay, this is more important it's that's coming but we're just not there yet i need somebody to in the next mailbag episode that

we have ask connor and i to come up with a brand like a new combine like just straight from just straight from scratch like the best ways to evaluate certain position groups because that would be a fun thing to do a little bit of research on and go back and forth to do it it's it's a great content idea and listen dude we built an expansion franchise we can make a new combine this is like a cakewalk back to jack campbell sorry no no no no we're good and you talked a lot about him so i'm gonna be brief permanent team captainent team captain, sound, instinctual, responsible player, consistent ability to stack, shed, and fire into the ball carrier. Long speed will probably be a little bit of a concern with him pre-draft

or tested speed. This dude is just – I honestly think he might have been able to declare, I don't know, a lot of Iowa guys do stay very often, so it's not shocking. And him and Justin Jacobs are going to be pretty special in the middle of the field together in the Big Ten. Maybe some of it was that. But when you watch his game, you go, oh, it's very, not niche,

he's a little role specific at the next level. I think he'd be an early down player I think he'd be a goal line player but and number one who you and I are going to talk about is the exact opposite and that'll that'll kind of paint the whole picture here of the way the NFL is going but Jack Campbell's a little throwback and you and I obviously really really liked where his game is today if the draft was today. So before we get to number one, my number three guy is Alabama linebacker, Henry Toto.

He is not in your top five. He was somebody who, when we were just chit-chatting a little bit pre-draft, we saw a little bit different. Well, maybe we see the same. I might just not be as hard on him about the negatives, because I think that everybody kind of sees some of the same negatives in Henry Toto. as hard on him about the negatives because i think that everybody kind of sees some of the same negatives in uh in henry toto six foot two 228 pounds i believe is what he is listed at four star linebacker from concord california started his career at tennessee but transferred uh well

i believe when jeremy pruitt got fired and uh josh heupel is in there now i think that's when the transition started got into saban's defense and I think he started for two years at Tennessee before he got over to Saban's defense. And I always love reading what Saban has to say about players, specifically linebackers, because if you're in the middle of a Saban defense, kind of what we talked about earlier in the podcast, it is a little bit by default that quarterback of the defense kind of feel where you kind of have to know everybody's role, right?

And it always helps. back of the defense kind of feel where you kind of have to know everybody's role right and it always helps i feel like you can always see when players know the roles of those around them when they're not only watching film of what they should be doing they're also watching film on what the safety might be doing behind them or what the defensive line front is doing in front of them to better understand and better anticipate where things are going. I think that Toto is a really nice athlete. When he sees things correctly, he can really fly. When he puts his foot in the ground, I think the acceleration is really good.

I think it is definitely pro caliber. When he's coming off the edge, when he's coming up the middle, he's a really good delayed blitzer. I think that he disguises his delayed blitzes really well and he's got the athleticism to get home not every linebacker has that combination of ability i think that henry toto does the biggest issue for me with him is going back to what i just said the recognition and anticipation i just think isn't there for him as consistently as it needs to be. Sometimes it is.

Sometimes you can tell when he reads something, when he knows where a play might be going pre-snap, and his footwork is exactly where it needs to be, and he can really put his foot in the ground and either get into the backfield or get to the sideline or whatever it is, he's got some really nice plays. The problem is that there's just a handful of snaps i watched from him over a couple of games where it's almost like he was thinking too much and he was forgetting about the other stuff like his feet would go

completely flat like right at the snap and he would see where a play is going and he would boom he'd go like right towards where the ball was going but i'm like man if you if you were a little bit lighter on your feet if you anticipated that a little bit better it could have been a major difference making play instead of just a typical linebacker cleaning it up making the tackle getting a gang tackle in there with him so i those are the strengths and weaknesses that i saw with him and in a class that really didn't have a ton of standout, yes, absolutely, this guy's a top 50 player in this class. Toe-toe's athleticism, as well as the praise in which Nick Saban had for him,

just a few months into the team, talking about the leader that he was, how he already grasped the defense really well, how he was already a great communicator of a very tough, complex defense, although he was coming from Jeremy Pruitt, so it wasn't no slouch of a defense he was already a great communicator of a very tough complex defense although he's coming from jeremy pruitt so it wasn't no slouch of a defense he was coming from but for nick saban to have that praise for a first year player first time starter of his defense i think that that means a lot so just want to see some better recognition honestly keep stay light

on the feet stay on the toes you've got the athleticism to be a difference maker lets you see a little bit more anticipation from him uh and that was kind of how I saw him I like it all right obviously a guy that we're gonna watch um a ton of being the middle of Alabama's defense this year and we saw a lot of last year I'm glad he decided to go back to school because I think he will look more comfortable this year I think he has a chance to really elevate his stock I thought he would have been a late day three afterthought in last year's draft and I think in this class that you and I were pretty transparent isn't overflowing with linebacker talent right now he can really really improve see eye to eye on this number one after a different, you know,

a little bit different opinion of the linebackers behind him. But Trenton Simpson from Clemson was a pretty different watch than most of these guys. Yes. And, you know, it was kind of my thought was after watching him was,

man, when you look at Clemson, Miles Murphy and Brian Bruzzi. Dude, that class is nuts. Their front seven is banana land with these three. That 2020 class, I went and I looked it up, because when I saw that Trenton Simpson was the number one rated outside linebacker in 2020 i was like that's that's multiple players now clemson had the number one player at quarterback defensive tackle edge rusher outside linebacker and the number one player overall yeah Yeah. In that 2020 class. That is nuts.

And it makes you wonder, like, if it all comes together this year, Bruzzy's health is really the number one thing. Obviously, the quarterback situation as well. Simpson, I looked more closely to how I looked at Murphy. Murphy was my favorite of the three Clemson defenders but Simpson was much closer to him in terms of how much I liked him than Bruzzy who I had as the third defensive lineman interior defensive lineman in this draft so I mean let's get right into it 6'3 230 junior linebacker uh son of a decorated U.S. Army Ranger

that served 17 overseas tours. Crazy. There is a very cool embedded video on his player page for Clemson, I believe it was from Twitter, of his dad saying how proud he is of him that he got to live his football dream. His dad obviously making an ultimate sacrifice a sergeant in the U.S. Army Rangers 17 overseas tours uh so that moment with his him and his dad on the field was number couldn't have a better way to start watching a prospect where I was like

I love this guy and I really hope you know he I hope I love his film as much as I love, obviously, the character. And I did. Used both as an off-ball linebacker and edge pass rusher. Has clear short area burst and explosiveness where it goes back to when you turn on the coach's tape and you turn on the end zone view and somebody looks different. And mind you, he's looking different movement-wise while playing with, like Trevor just said, all these number one recruits. So this dude is different in that sense. He makes plays from the backside pretty routinely. That's how fast he is, how explosive he is, where he will make backside tackles a lot.

Closing speed with range to shut down the outside run game and the flats in coverage. When he sees it, he blows up the play and he he sees it more than sewell that was that was the gap difference here and you're going to hear these guys talked about together a lot because they're both juniors and they're both former big-time recruits and they've already played as underclassmen and they played very well um downhill speed is a weapon on stunts and twists it's clemson d clemson's defense we've talked about this a million times that's what they do right downhill speed's a weapon on stunts and twists. It's Clemson's defense. We've talked about this a million times.

That's what they do. Downhill speed's a weapon on those, or as a stand-up rusher, blitzer. Trevor, he's the classic case of a guy that, in this modern NFL, you can kick him outside. He can play as a big slot defender. He can blitz from there. He's so fast that quarterbacks don't see him.

He can survive in the middle because he's tough and feisty, and he can get downhill, and he can work through the trash and work through all that traffic. I'm not saying he's the perfect player, but I thought he was, far and away, the best linebacker prospect in this draft. It reminds you a lot of Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoa, right? That kind of...

That's it. I didn't think of that, but that's it. That linebacker slash... Brent Warner is another one. There's a couple guys like this in the league right now that are used. They're linebackers, but they're not like, hey, you're a Mike, you're calling everything, and you just sit in the middle of the field. And so that's the main talking point that I had about Trenton Simpson.

So, so Brent Venables, who is now the head coach at Oklahoma was the longtime defense coordinator for Clemson when they were really going through their runs and, and winning national championships and all that. He won. He's, he's one of the most brilliant defensive minds in the game, what he's able to do with these players and how he's able to use their talents in so many different unique ways for the last handful of years he has really morphed his

third linebacker position to kind of what i was talking about at the beginning of the podcast defenses are trying to counter what offenses are doing with no huddle with the speed of their offense and with how much they could spread you out with five receivers four receivers all that kind of stuff plus you throw in the fact that these tight ends now can be on the line scrimmage and then you can motion them outside and they're they're just big slot wide receivers you've got to have defensive chess pieces to be able to match them brent venables has a position on his defense it's this sam linebacker nickel defender hybrid and um dorian o'daniel ran it for a little bit a couple years ago isaiah simmons you know was was running this role but i think

trent simpson runs this better than isaiah simmons did i think he has a better grasp of this position especially because i think trent simpson is a better pure linebacker than Isaiah Simmons. Isaiah Simmons almost felt like this like supersized, oversized safety that they were like, OK, well, you're so big. We're going to have you obviously play some linebacker. And he just didn't really thrive there. Simpson, I feel like, does really well with the physicality around the trenches. But then he also is comfortable playing that slot defender role. So there are times snap to snap. You could have him playing on the line of scrimmage coming off of the

backside or even on the strong side, one snap. And then you could have him a couple of yards off the line of scrimmage carrying a slot defender as a man coverage player, the next. And I think that that is so rare. And I think that for all of the great athletes that Brent Venables has had at Clemson, Trenton Simpson feels like one of the best at this exact role. This position has kind of been,

I don't want to say that it's new because it's definitely not new because there's plenty of high school and college coordinators who have been running things like this forever. But Saban, when he was kind of perfecting it for his defense, I think he calls this player like a money, a money defender, a money backer. Yep. The star, the star position as well. Make it Fitzpatrick played a lot of the star position,

even though he was a little bit more safety than he was linebacker. Nick Saban put it like this. I put this quote in here. When you talk to players, you can say, look, these are the linebackers on the team. They're all going to play the money position these are the dbs on the team they're all going to learn how to play the money position because when it comes to the assignments of the defense that position is the same it's just that if they go four wide then a linebacker can't be in there

to cover it so you put a db in there and if they go a little bit heavier, then you want to play the more linebacker position. It is rare, and I have this as the first line that I have in Simpson's scouting report, is extremely rare to find a player who can be used as a full-time nickel-slash-Sam defender the way that Simpson can. Typically for the assignments, those are two positions that can't coexist in the same body type.

But Simpson has the speed and athleticism of a safety and the pursuit ability, the strength, the durability, the physicality to play as an outside linebacker. He's pretty special. I really do think that. And this position requires a lot of discipline. It requires a lot of snaps on your belt so this next year for Simpson as a junior is going to be really really important just like it

was for Sewell like we just chatted about I think that a big weakness of his is he can get over aggressive in his play style that can get him in trouble into trouble at times sometimes he's a little bit too aggressive when he's taking pursuit angles and an area that I definitely noticed he was too over aggressive with is when making contact in the contact window when he's playing as a zone slot defender he will try to redirect a slot player but it's almost like he'll load up like the like he'll load the arms back as if to like really bump the wide receiver off of his route the wide receiver will see this and they will simply step right around him and then sims is just like he's just like

it's swinging in air and or just like over aggressive and then all of a sudden okay now you're out of position in your zone now you're not able to carry that guy the way that you need to if he's going a little bit further down the field so over aggressiveness i think he needs to fix that a little bit but i'm just really excited to see what his role is going to be obviously with Venables not there is it going to be more of that same thing is it going to play a little bit more of a traditional linebacker role what's going to happen with Simpson such a unique football player that look we've seen the Isaiah Simmons of the league we've seen the Jeremiah Uso Cuomo's go to the league and

defensive coordinators kind of have to figure it out a little bit right like sometimes you have gms to go all right we're drafting this guy because he's extremely talented you guys figure it out from there and it's not always that easy so very curious to see what he plays this upcoming year but overall really special player rare combination of side speed athleticism strength all that absolutely the guy that i thought of as you were mentioning all the college defenses that use this kind of position this is a little bit throwback but um you know you obviously watched plenty of bucks football under todd bowles when bowles was with the card. He had a player that some people might remember by the name of Daryl Washington, who was only in the NFL for four years, not because of talent.

He had a substance abuse policy suspension for four games. I think he might have had a second one, and then I know he did have an arrest and was never back in the league. But there was this run of two years where, I mean, he had a year under Bowles where he was second team all pro in this position where he had an interception, four passes broken up, two forced fumbles, nine sacks, 134 tackles. He just did everything. He did everything.

Where it was Bowles was like, okay, you are our money backer, and you are going to run around and make a million plays. We're going to blitz you from the overhang. We're going to have you cover. We're going to have you do everything. And, you know, Darrell Washington is a bit of a throwback name at this point because it's been about 10 years. But when I watched Simpson, I was like, oh, man,

an NFL defensive coordinator is going to look at this guy and think I can ask him to do just about it. And here's the difference. We get so many guys that everybody looks at that play safety. Simmons is an example, right? Kyle Hamilton's an example. These guys that play safety and everyone's like, man, I'd love to move him in the box and play him as a linebacker. I think it's more impactful when a guy that is actually a linebacker can do some slot safety things instead. Sure. Because you're not sacrificing anything in the box. And this game so often is won and lost or attacked and defended by a numbers game in the box that you never want to give up a number in the box and it's still an it's still an inside out thing you know yeah whether you're

harping on what you're doing in coverage or not like the the anatomy of the play still begins in the middle it still begins where the ball is you you have to check those boxes first and foremost now you know some teams get extreme with um you know like guarantee like for example like what the chargers did last year where the chargers were kind of like okay we're going to focus on what we're doing on on the back end of things so much so that we are making it now too easy for team we are inviting teams to run but we are all of a sudden now making it too easy right for teams to run and there's the balance that you got to find there but i i think i agree with you because it's almost like you know the saying where a coach will go i'd rather have to hone a guy in than try to get

something out of him then try to like make him something that he's showing he's i'd rather have to bring a guy down i'd rather have to hone him in i'd rather him be it'd be have too much energy and i gotta reel it in then him not have enough energy him not have enough physicality and me try to get that out of him that's almost kind of what we're talking about here where if you look at this sam nickel package defender hybrid position you would certainly rather than play linebacker first because one they're probably going to have more size more meat on the bone if you will they're going to be bigger but also you're not going to have to force them to get more physical right I think that was kind of a thing with Isaiah Simmons is like yeah he was a

great athlete but I think Cardinals especially in in that first year, we're trying to get him to be more physical where it needed that physical presence in his game before they could really branch out and do other things. Jeremiah was a Coromoa never was really shy of being physical. That's why I really liked him as a prospect for this kind of hybrid role. And I think the same thing of Simpson, he's a linebacker first. That's kind of this also hybrid defensive back defender, but he brings you that physicality first and foremost which i think is really important that's it and obviously you and

i really liked him we're excited to watch him i think the if you can't tell from three episodes of scouting defensive positions we've done edge pass rush interior d line and linebacker the clemson defense is a big part of the equation of the 2023 nfl draft folks yes yes it is they've got they've got some damn good players who could be uh who could definitely be dictating uh this upcoming draft there we go that is the preseason off-ball linebacker scouting summer scouting top fives from uh from connor and i is there anybody else you want to give a shout out to i know some people like ventro miller from florida i've watched ventro miller a lot over the last couple of years physical linebacker i just don't know if he's got the athleticism to really survive in the league i think that he's got a day three pick at this point he's also been around i think

he's like six or seventh year i thought he was gonna be in the draft two years ago right like i was sure of it he could have been a couple names um I'm glad that you mentioned Troy Brown. Dorian Williams from Tulane is an interesting guy. Packs a punch, for sure. So does Bumper Poole from Arkansas. Incredible name. Linebacker named Bumper. Bumper Poole.

He is a true bumper the thumper. I mean, that's what he is. He really is a thumping middle linebacker i think that was it that it wasn't a class that i you know found myself going like when we watched the receivers i was like man can i i want to get through like 20 this class i was like nah if some really break out this year but overall i felt pretty comfortable with the the 10 or so that we've gone through. Who else do I have on my list?

I had Bumper Pool on the list. I had Williams on the list, Miller. Justin Flo from Oregon is interesting because I think he was the number one linebacker in the 2020 class. Sounds right. I think he was the number one inside linebacker, but he has not played a lot. He's had injuries, and so there's not a ton to judge for him another guy though when you watch sewell

you watch him right like that's that's the nice thing i think we only had the fresno game last year that was like the only game that he played yeah so we gotta see we gotta see a lot more justin flow demarvion overshown is a linebacker slash again like nickel defender hybrid who plays dude texas there were so many of those guys that i was like should i save him for the strong safeties like i didn't even know what to do i'm definitely gonna watch overshown for the safeties i didn't get that i didn't i didn't have the time to watch him but i knew i had him in my back pocket and i could probably watch him for the safety so i'm perfect we we finesse the game like no other oh you got to do it you got to play the game you got to play the summer scouting game that's what it's all about what

do we got what do we got next week uh monday kick things off monday we're gonna give the people a teaser i haven't looked at our schedule now that we're back on vacation i think we actually we got a couple ideas maybe we don't give it away oh i no i don't want to give it away because i don't know i'm like juggling between two or three really good ones that i want to make sure that we get in here before the summer is like fully over and we start getting into pre-season games and training games i would say we're going to be talking about pre-season football real soon which is vital to this show because it's all the rookies playing all the time huge monday mornings are going to be like dynamite it's going to be so great we got summer scouting cornerbacks next week safeties is the week after and then uh the following week after we finish up safeties we're going to have a big mailbag so

you guys can ask us any kind of like scouting questions, guys that you have watched throughout the summer that you might want to hear us talk about. So we'll have a mailbag episode. Then we'll do top 50 prospects for the show going into the season. And then the week after that, we will have our very first 2023 mock draft. Man, it is all coming together. It's the month of August. Football is here.

Maybe not the Hall of Fame game when I say football is here. But like preseason football is actually going to be decent. We've got the training camp clips flowing. It's going to be exciting stuff. So prepare for the Jake Lutton experience, folks. CJ, CJ beat hard.

I don't know if he's going to play. CJ beat hard is too good to play in the Hall of Fame game. What an absolute travesty. All right, that's Connor Rodgers. I'm Trevor Sikama. We will see you guys on Monday. This has been the NFL Soccer Shame Podcast. Thank you.