NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 93. 2023 NFL Draft Stock Up, Stock Down: Week 5

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers highlight some of the best performances from Week 5 of college football and talk about what they could mean for the 2023 NFL Draft class

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, it is our weekly stock watch, which means Connor and I are bringing five players to the table, each who we think are standing out in college football and the 2023 NFL draft, either in a good way or a bad way.

A lot of positivity on this episode. We're bringing some guys to the table that we have really liked watching over the last couple weeks, done some deep dives into their tape, and like what we have seen even more. I am Trevor Sykema. 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. Connor, wearing a hoodie? Is it hoodie weather officially in New York, my friend? It really is, man. It's been pouring rain this week.

As I've said before, I am up on the top floor of my building and it gets a little drafty in here in a good way. I like it this way. So it felt good to put on the hoodie, the windbreaker today. This is the best time of the year. I'm living with, uh, with Mike Renner. Now my, my co-host for issues football and the lead draft analyst for, for PFF. Look, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know who Mike Renner is. i don't know why i'm explaining him like that but uh mike mike like cranked down the ac a couple of days ago and he's from the midwest like he's from the

wisconsin area so he just like he loves the cold dude i had to put on sweatpants for the first time in the season just to even be in my own apartment so saw the hoodie i still have the ac on is that what you said yeah he like cranks it's october i know well it was you know the high in cincinnati was like mid 70s this week so we haven't fully hit real fall like cold weather yet we're getting pretty crazy we're getting there i'll keep you guys updated you'll see that you'll see the first hoodie so yeah we do have a big stockway and we're not the weather channel we do have a big stock watch today uh for those of you who are listening channel when we want i don't i don't mind doing that this is really piss off the three people that are like talk about football right away tv we got food network we're gonna be the weather channel this

i have a good personal culture question of the day. Maybe we do it at the end, though. Do you want to ask it and then give people time to think about it? Yeah, I'll ask it. You don't even have to react. And then you can answer at the end because I have my stance. Okay. All right.

What is it? This has been a highly requested question of the day. This has been asked of me since we invented question of the day okay by the only other person that lives in this apartment with me is the nightmare before christmas a halloween or christmas movie okay all right i'll give it some thought i want the good people to give it some thought as well we will answer it before we get out of here on this podcast. But in between Connor asking that question and answering the question for us, we got a lot of stock watch updates. You guys listen to this show now on Wednesday.

Glad you guys still found it on a Wednesday. And what Connor and I do is we bring to the table some stock updates that we have seen through college football, either over the last week, the last couple of weeks, whatever it is, some guys that really stood out to us either in a good or bad way that are moving up and down our rankings for the 2023 NFL draft class. I got five guys that I'm bringing to the table. Connor's got five guys that he's bringing to the table. My friend, I will let you kick us off here. Where do you want to start? What player do you want to highlight? And for what reason do you want to highlight them?

All right, let's start with, I think the only player I've put a clip out on Twitter this week, and it's Jaron Hall, the quarterback from BYU. Oh, good, nice. I think we briefly touched on Jaron Hall in this podcast, but we haven't really done the deep dive. He's such a fascinating player. I know he was definitely mentioned

in our quarterback show in the summer. He's an older prospect. I think he turns 25 right about a month before the draft. He was on BYU's baseball team for, I believe, two seasons. So very, very athletic guy. The reason he's on the stock watch is last Thursday, three touchdowns against Utah State. He had three big-time throws in this Thursday game, Trevor.

He now has 10 big-time throws in this Thursday game, Trevor. He now has 10 big-time throws on the season. And to remind those at home, when we use that metric, big-time throws are essentially just throws that get a significant grade in PFF's grading system. So there's something special about that throw. It's more than not what we would call a big boy throw an NFL throw so he's a big time throws machine in a sense Jaron Hall and he can do it on the move he could do it off platform tell me if you've heard this about a BYU quarterback before right it is funny watching Jaron Hall there are you could tell this is a guy that watched Zach Wilson play enough and I'm not saying he's Zach Wilson in any capacity at all he won't be that good of a prospect for me uh in this draft for a lot of different reasons but his ball placement and

touch throwing at all three levels of the field Trevor you can put it up probably with anybody in this draft and I really mean that and I'm not saying he's in the caliber of Stroud and Young he's not a first rounder but when you just talk about the ball placement at all three levels, it's as good as anybody's. And despite the concerns people have over age and all these things, size, injuries, whatever it may be, Jaron Hall is a name that is not going away in this draft at all. He's going to be a riser throughout the year. I know he had plenty of big moments last year where people were prepared to watch him this year. But as the other quarterbacks in the middle of this group falter Jaron Hall's name is going up yeah I look I did a story on Jaron Hall last year and it was my first kind of exposure to him and it

was hey here's this big armed dual threat quarterback who's taking over for Zach Wilson and playing very very well doing it and I think we saw a lot of the flashes last year with Jaron Hall and the big arm in the athleticism. I didn't think that he was consistent enough last year. And I think that that's the conclusion that he came to as well, why he ends up returning to BYU, why he wouldn't just take a jump to the NFL draft. I just don't think the consistency was there from amongst the big plays.

This year, it feels like the consistency was there from amongst the big plays this year it feels like the consistency is there you got the completion percentage is well over 70 and that's just raw i don't i don't have the adjusted completion percentage which takes any kind of drops into account as well i don't have that number in front of me but when you have a raw completion percentage above 70 that's a really good baseline and that means that you're getting the ball where it needs to go but he's also pushing the ball down the field right he's not just this dink and dunk game manager kind of a player he's got the big time throws he had 21 last year big time throws that is he's on pace to get kind of that same number this year which you absolutely love to see so hall is somebody who

you mentioned a little bit of an older prospect that's going to go into his scouting report and somebody actually asked us i'm i can't remember it was last week or if it was the week before why does age really matter for a player it was a question that we were asked when we were i can't remember who we were talking about either but they're basically like what does it matter how old hooker i think it might have been hennon hooker of yeah who we were about. They're like, hey, why does it matter how old this prospect is? I think it just matters for development. It matters for have you hit your ceiling already?

It matters for how old are you going to be when you really get to what is an NFL level? You get contracts that come into it, right? Because if you reach your second contract, are you almost going to be 30 years old already? You look at somebody like Drake London, for example, who goes into the NFL 20 years old. Second contract, this kid's not even 25 yet. And sometimes you look at Jaron Hall if he's 25 on draft day. If you exercise the fifth year, let's say he's a first-round pick

because that's kind of what we talk about. I'm not saying he's a first-round pick, but let's just say that. You exercise the fifth-year option, this guy's 30 before you're even giving him his second contract so i think everything goes into it with that respect you want to be able to dominate at a younger age because that just shows how ahead of your class you are how ahead of your age group you are and i do think that playing really well at a young age goes into playing being successful at the the NFL level as well,

especially in those rookie and sophomore seasons that you have at the NFL level. So I think there's a lot of different ways to go about taking age into the equation. But those are the things that I think about when I think about age for like older prospects. Yeah. And it can go a lot of ways,

right? This was a little bit of a conversation with Joe Burrow, who turned 24, I believe, during his rookie season. And a lot of people were, you know, in the mold of guys that were younger when they came out right before him, whether it was Sam Darnold, who was a really young player when he came out. It can just go a lot of different ways, but you have to evaluate the player. There is no doubt that Hooker and Hall are, they are exceptions in a way where they are, they are significantly older prospects. And we are running into this more in the draft world.

As we deal with the COVID eligibility there, there are guys that could be in college for seven years easily. So it's something that you just evaluate in a nutshell where you look at it and go, is there room for this guy to get stronger? Or, or is this what he is? His arm strength of concern is how many games has he played?

Where does he need more game reps despite his age, where we think he can process better and get smarter and work through things faster with more reps. Or as he played, you know, Kenny Pickett was an interesting one. Trevor, look at Kenny Pickett.

Kenny Pickett was in college for a long time. Kenny Pickett was an interesting one, Trevor. Look at Kenny Pickett. Kenny Pickett was in college for a long time. Kenny Pickett was a late breakout. Kenny Pickett turned 24 a month after the draft, right? He was an older quarterback. But to Kenny Pickett's defense, Kenny Pickett did get significantly better by the end of his college career. He was a good processor. He knew where to go with the football.

There was just – he seemed to – I don't want to say got more athletic, but added a mobility element to his game as he got more comfortable with the pocket passing element. So it's a really layered question that's not as simple as you can't draft 25- and 26-year-old quarterbacks. No. It's not that simple, and it never will be. It can't be answered in a tweet.

That's the way I could put it. Sure, right. No, it definitely can't be answered in a tweet. And I think that there's always situations that are different right different teams at different points of a rebuild or exactly what they're going for are probably going to prioritize players with different age in different ways so jaron hall i don't know if he's going to be for everybody in the nfl i when i say that i guess i mean like at the at the top end of the spectrum where you might be drafting him but like the athletic ability i like the big arm that he has dude

that touch pass that you put on twitter was absolutely gorgeous that pass that he had in the end zone and i did i i got a little bit of time to spend with him last year i got to sit down with him for a feature interview he is is awesome. Seems like a really mature guy. He absolutely is. He is that kind of dude who, when you get in a room with, I don't mean to be spitting too many cliches here, but he's just somebody who you go, this dude gets it. Like, this dude gets life.

He gets being a leader. He gets all of that stuff. And that experience is, in Jaron Hall's case, a good thing. He has a lot of life experience underneath him. He understands things. He just has a really good head on his shoulders. And that goes into being a good prospect as well. So I'm glad that you shouted out Jaron Hall.

He's having a really good year. And he's an interesting player because I think people are going to see the highlights. And then there's going to be a lot of different conversations that people have about him. First guy that I want to bring to the table. You know, you brought up blake quorum last week and you said hey shout out trevor he had him on his is uh his summer scouting profile with with rb2 or three i had him as i had him as rb3 in the class right behind sean tucker and b john robinson i gotta give you props for cl for Clark Phillips, the corner from Utah, because I

did not focus on him. I did not watch enough of him during the summer. And you did. You were telling me all about him. Dude, he's fantastic. He has been playing so well over the last couple of weeks, five foot 10, 183 pounds for everybody that doesn't remember the summer scouting episode on him. He's got an 89.7 coverage grade this season 91.0 coverage grade over the last two weeks he has four interceptions over the last two weeks three of which came in this last game it's nuts against oregon state it was he get they target they continue to target clark phillips even after he had two interceptions in the first 12 times they targeted him 12 times 12 times. They targeted him 12 times. 12 times. What? Go to somebody else. Stop.

Anywhere else. They targeted him 12 times. He gave up six catches, but he also got three interceptions. F around and find out. F around and find out. Clark Phillips even found himself at the back of the end zone for a pick six. Interesting nugget on him. He has started every single game of his college career that he has been on campus.

Every single one going back to 2020. That tells you how much experience he has started every single game of his college career that he has been on campus every single one going back to 2020 that tells you how much experience he has and the best thing that i have to say about him is his instincts that's why that is how you get a true freshman to get on the field right away when they have the instincts to be able to step on the field and understand the position well at a level where you're jumping from high school to college which is tough to do for any position cornerback i would say it is a very difficult one because of how much more organized college offenses are, how much more refined college-wide receivers are.

And Clark Phillips has been able to get it done time and time again, especially this year. Love him in off coverage, man. When you get him in off coverage, and he's shorter, right? He's probably around that like 5'9", 5'10 area, right around 180 pounds. You don't want that size of a corner too high up in press coverage getting hands on these guys too often

so instead you're leaving him in off coverage and he is phenomenal at it he reads the quarterback about as well as anybody the body control is probably my favorite part of him and when i say that i mean the second he needs to put his foot in the ground change direction click and close on the ball he can there is no wasted okay and now i'm gonna put my foot in the ground and now the next foot's there now i'm going to it is all instantaneous it is fluid is explosive that's how you see him break on the ball so much that's how you see him get so many interceptions as an off coverage corner. He can also show that he can be a little bit sticky and man as well.

Once wide receivers kind of get up to where he is, if they close the gap on him, this is just a playmaker, man. This is a playmaking corner and in a cornerback group that isn't super solidified at the top, I can already feel myself leaning on guys who have the kind of instincts that Clark Phillips does. So loved watching his tape over the last couple of weeks. Big time difference maker, big time ball hawk.

Those are the things that you love to see in a potentially top 50 corner in this upcoming class. He's awesome. I had him 37th on my big board. And after these last two weeks, I'm just wondering like, was I high enough? I don't think I was. I really think 37th on my big board. And after these last two weeks, I'm just wondering, like, was I high enough? I don't think I was. I really think he's a first round player. And like you said, Trevor, the thing certain teams won't be able to get over is his size. He's smaller. But I just think that's foolish because his instincts, like you said, make up for that

size where he's always where he needs to be he does everything he tackles he plays the ball in the air he's got ball skills he is a physical player at that size he's got speed I'm really glad that that you dug into him this first month of the college football season and I think it'll be just a matter of time before the public is really really on him for because there hasn't been a corner that's been a pure superstar in this class where it leaves the door open so i mean we're kind of ping-ponging uh players that each other liked over the summer i remember you talking about jacob cowling the wide receiver that transferred to arizona you get some eyes on him yeah i mean he's just you can't miss this guy

when he's on the field the production is is really insane at this point for cowing and what better week than this one where so he transferred from utep and i remember you going over him over the summer you felt like him going from utep to arizona was going to really give him a chance to have a big season numbers wise and it has and and this last week against colorado i mean you're talking about 12 catches for 180 yards, a touchdown. Trevor, 10 of those 12 catches went for a first down and get upfield and make plays out of the slot i mean that's really what you know he and six of those plays were explosive plays essentially 15 plus yard uh uh receptions and you know in this game specifically he was in the slot over 70 percent of the time so cowling yeah he's an undersized skinny receiver but he's explosive he's a good route runner he can catch the ball in the traffic in the middle of the field and he's putting up

huge numbers in this Arizona offense. And the opposition knows it. They just can't stop him. You could see the DBs kind of keying in on him. Their eyes are shading towards him. But they get the ball to him quickly, and he makes things happen. So it's another thing we quietly have not talked about a lot with this draft of the first month of the season.

I think the wide receiver class as a whole has been wildly underwhelming. And Cowling is one of those big time stock up guys. Yeah, at the top, it almost feels a little bit like corner, kind of like what I was just saying. We're used to guys littering the very top of this class and having so many tough decisions. Oh, who's wide receiver one? You know, who am I going to choose

of these phenomenal wide receivers that are all standing out? We're not really at the point where I think we're ready to say that these are incredible wide receiver classes or cornerback classes and with that being the case again you know echoing a lot of what you said there cowling is such a smart player that's what I think no matter where you line him up it seems like he understands the spacing of where he is between the defense how to find that open space how to be that quarterback's best friend to make the throwing window as big as possible. So he's a guy that I think you move all around,

but I think he's really great in the slot too. So I think that you kind of said it there. In a corner class that we're waiting to manifest at the top, or sorry, at a wide receiver class that we're waiting to really- Both of them, both classes. True. We're probably going to lean on these guys who just look like naturals have great instincts understand the position really really well so glad that you shouted out jacob cowling there i gotta talk about chase brown the running

back from illinois leads the country in rushing yards 733 rushing yards okay Okay. Has 421 yards after contact. This dude is an absolute workhorse. 5'11", 205 pounds, junior out of Illinois this year. Tied for fifth in the country with 32 missed tackles forced. Has 25 explosive runs, Connor, which is five better than the next guy. The next closest to second most explosive runs in the country is 20 and this dude's got 25 time and time again he just continues to deliver when illinois leans on him and he's got a massive carry load too it's not like these numbers are skewed where they're putting him

in perfect situations and you know they're only getting him into certain points in the game or whatever it is this dude is making things happen no matter how the game is going, no matter what point of the game it is. I love him as a zone runner. I think he sees the offensive line so well as a zone runner. He understands his aiming points, whether it's the outside hip of the guard, whether it's the outside hip of the tight end, whatever it is, it's inside zone, mid zone, outside zone.

He reads things so well he's he's very very aware of when the cutback lane is the best option in those zone runs and i think you see a lot of his big chunk gains come when he realizes that's the case he he's just such again i think the theme of this stock watch episode is instincts and football iq because brown is another guy where he has shown me a lot more juice than I thought he was going to have coming into this season I thought okay this might be just a shifty guy he's got good balance got good strength to bounce off the tackles but I don't know if he's got like the home run speed right when he gets into open space what's he's doing with it well this year he's showing us what he could do with it I think he's showing a lot

more juice and confidence in that regard, but he still has that great break tackle ability. Love how he sees the field behind zone runs. I think if you were his own rushing team in the NFL, Chase Brown is somebody who could be a major factor for you in a running back committee. And I say committee not as an insult. I just say it because a lot of teams in the NFL are by committee now. So you get this guy in a good rotation with his own blocking scheme ahead of

him. Reminds me of like a Khalil Herbert, right? From Virginia tech where we watched Khalil Herbert and we went, man, this guy can run behind a zone blocking team. And we've seen him have similar success when put in similar situations in the NFL, just a couple of weeks ago. What do you have like 150 yards for the bears when Montgomery went out? So that's kind of how I see chase Brown right now. If get him in his own scheme man he is just showing he's got so much confidence in how he sees the field i mean nobody's stopped him yet right it's truly

ridiculous he's coming off the thousand yard season but this year i mean he's he could easily run for 2 000 yards that's how insane it is when you look at just like box score production tore up wisconsin tore up virginia uh ran for about 200 against indiana it's just and they lean on him this year i mean he he's gotten to 20 carries in every single game except the first game against wyoming he had 19 so they're just giving him the ball non-stop all right the the one i have next is is back to cincinnati right we did cincinnati last week cincinnati baby you can find a player in the front seven of the cincinnati defense for every week of this show this is one of those trevor we made the joke last week that you go on ultimate and you look at like some of the most ridiculous grades of the week and you're not looking at like harvard or a guy

that had three snaps we insult him over here yeah. We insulting Thor over here? Yeah, throwing shade at Harvard. Long overdue. Not a guy that had three snaps and dominated two of them in garbage time. Ivan Pace. Ivan Pace, the transfer from Miami, Ohio, six feet tall. He's probably closer to about 5'11",

230 pounds. What a strange player. He had a 96.1 pass rush grade uh this week he is obviously built like an off-ball linebacker a modern day linebacker that's six foot 230 they line him up where he just rushes it's not even really blitzing he rushes the a or the b gap all the time at six feet, 230 pounds. And this dude is, he's a pain in the ass. He's relentless. He got the guards in the centers. Don't really have the feet to block him. It's this bizarre mismatch that they've created. And even when teams try to run at him, he's so good at slipping through blocks that he blows up a lot of plays behind the line of scrimmage.

So this is just this week. Three sacks, six more quarterback hits, three other hurries. This man had three sacks. He hit the quarterback nine times in one game, nine times. And he's really an off-ball linebacker. He's not like an edge defender. He's, uh, he, I wrote down, he's a gap blitzing machine that plays with his hair on fire. Massive. He also had a massive tackle for loss against the run in a goal line situation where it was like a four yard

loss. So I don't, this is a player that, and I will, I will continue watching him. I have no idea how to project this to the NFL level. Maybe he's just this total maniac special teams player that's going to run 100 miles down on return teams and knock somebody's head off. And you can put him in as this money backer that's just going to run around and do some good things for you in coverage and blitz because he's such a savvy blitzer.

But what he's doing in the college football world right now is not only hilarious but insanely productive dude he's pass rush win rates 37.1 he's never blocked never blocked what his twitter bio should just be like i've never i've never been blocked i've never been blocked i'm just going through a couple of clips while you were talking and he is this seems like the most annoying player to go against of all time isn't that because he he he look i'm watching the tape right now he looks small like he's clearly smaller than any of the offensive linemen he's going up against and yet he's going like under their arms and like hugging their hip to like bend around the the first play the first uh pressure that i watched just now from the Tulsa game,

he's practically rushing below this offensive guard's knees at the end. Dude, he crawls. He crawls all the time. He will beat somebody but like stumble because it's so weird. And he crawls to the play. Classic crawl technique, Connor. It's like a tarantula on speed is what it's like. Going 100 miles an hour.

I got to watch more Ivan Pace, man. This tape's absolutely hilarious. All right, I'm going to stay in the pass rush family for my next one. But, you know, all pass rushers come in different shapes and sizes, right? We talk about that all the time. We've seen that. I'm going to go to Michigan edge rusher mike morris have you watched any of them he's got dreads he's wearing number 90 they use them all over the defensive line okay senior player six foot six

john harbaugh said after the game that he was six foot seven maybe i'll give him six foot seven but i'll say 6'6", because that's what Michigan State's, and I don't think they're going to shortchange their guy. 6'6", 290 pounds as an edge rusher. Very unique player. Really unique player. Dad was an offensive lineman at Florida State.

I did read that about his background. Leads Michigan right now in sacks with five and pressures with 18 the sacks total would be top 10 in the FBS the pressure total would be top 30 in the FBS so he is making his presence felt especially this past weekend against Iowa he looked damn near unblockable during the final parts of that game when Michigan was really sealing it and putting that bad boy away. It is so interesting how Michigan plays a guy of his size because at six foot six to 90, they've got him as a two point stance rusher. It's like he's an outside linebacker and they align him in a wide nine formation where you know, his rushing path is more of a straight line than it is him having

to go up the arc and bend around the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle. Because as you would expect, when they ask him to do that, when he is a little bit tighter towards the trenches, it's not so easy for a six foot six, 290 pound guy to be able to bend that way. So that's not a strength of his game. but what is a strength of his game is full pun intended strength he really understands how to work speed to power he's got a really nice bull rush there are times when he'll bull rush the offensive tackle and he won't quite know what to do after that so he gets a little bit locked up he can't get off the block a little bit that that that's a little too common that i was watching his tape, but there are times when he will combine a bull rush into a swim move.

You know, right when he gets the offensive tackle back on his heels, I remember a play against Maryland specifically, where he's going up against the left tackle in Maryland, and he's coming on a two-point stance, and he's going from a wide nine alignment. He gets straight up into the chest of the left tackle. He gets him a little bit off balance, and then boom, all six foot six of them just in one fluid motion, straight up into the chest of the left tackle. He gets him a little bit off balance and then boom,

all six foot six of them just in one fluid motion, hits a swim, move back to the inside and he is in a quarterback slap immediately. And that's the stuff that is eye popping for me. He can also hit a nasty push pull when he knows what he's doing and when he, when he plans for it. So I love the speed to power portion of his game. I'd like to see them use him more on the inside.

Yeah. At that size, why not? There were a couple instances where they had him as a three technique defensive tackle, and they're not afraid to do that. So they do it every now and then. And I love his length at that position. It just gives people so much difficulty. And I'll say this too. Michigan does like to do a lot of stunts and twists with their defensive linemen.

He is phenomenal at it because of the strength that he generates when he is bursting off the line of scrimmage, the power that he has moving at that size, getting off out of his stance. And also just because he's so damn big, six foot six to 90. He's just so damn big, whether he's aligned as a defensive tackle or whether he's an end, when they use him as the crashing player for a looper to come behind him, he is extremely effective in taking two of those offensive linemen with him to give the looper a free rushing lane at the quarterback.

So very intriguing player. Somebody that I would be very curious to get your thoughts on if you have time to watch him later this week or at some point this season because he is so uniquely built those are the guys that really intrigue me especially when they have a motor like mike morris does when you are relentless as a pass rusher even if you're a little bit of a tweener, or maybe I shouldn't say tweener, just not in the prototypical measurable size weight of a player, the position that you're aligned in, if you have a relentlessness about you, I can work with you. I can work with that.

I can find a place along the defensive line to where you give my defense value. So Mike Morrisris massive defensive end technically an edge players listen as an edge player but i like him as an overall defensive line because he what he can bring to the table i gotta watch more of michigan's front seven on tape i've been watching they're on obviously it's hard to miss them their broadcast games but watching their tape get a good feel of that defensive line, because I know the number one freak was Mazzy Smith, right? I want to make sure I remembered his last name. I remember it was Mazzy. Yeah, Mazzy Smith. He popped a little bit for me this week. I didn't put him on the stock

watch, but I did see that, you know, just you could see a guy the way that built like that, the way he moves, you catch them on the broadcast like, oh, yeah, there he is. Like we talked about him over the summer. So I need to watch that unit as a whole uh i am sticking with the d-line here this is back-to-back kind of players that get chances to rush this is a familiar one i once in a while especially since you and i each were bringing five to the table today i do want to check back in on a guy that we did talk about over the summer felix anadike uzama the edge from Kansas State had a massive week dude three sacks four more pressures one of the sacks was a strip sack and really how he set that up Trevor spoke to him developing some polish to me the strip sack was actually the last of the three

it was in the fourth quarter with about a little under nine minutes to go. And I mean, we've talked about Felix on this show enough. He's one of the more bendy twitchy rushers in this class that wins with speed and can turn the corner. And he'd been doing enough of that throughout the game. He gets to the fourth quarter and on this strip sack rush, the tackle who's so used to having to cover, you know, that outside shoulder and really maybe over set and he's throwing his hands a little early. Felix just hit him with power, power to the chest and drove his feet into the ground and got his hips and his hamstrings turning right into the quarterback.

And when he got there, it was just one swipe with his left hand while he was engaged with his right hand. It was a pro play to me. Guys at the college level, there's always guys that have big sack numbers or can pop on pass rush grades, and they win one way or they win two ways or they do this and that. That was, to me, a guy that understands the flow of the game and what he needs to do in the fourth quarter to win

compared to what he was doing to set him up in the first half of the game. So I really wanted to get Felix on this show because I thought that was super, super impressive. I like him a lot, man. You know, when we go back to summer scouting, he's just got such a great strength profile to him. I mean, if he gets his hands on you, it's like vice grips, it feels like.

He just controls which way you're going to be moving. If it's a run defense snap, you're not going to really be getting any ground on him or you're certainly not going to be abusing him too much from where he's trying to plant himself and you know when it comes to the pass rushing i love to hear that it's kind of taking its next step that he is understanding how to use that strength in his game even more i think he's got some good explosiveness and explosiveness and i think that he's got some bend to him too a lot more bend than you would think for a player of his size.

He's that true 4-3 defensive end. I have a comp in mind, but I'm not going to say it yet. I'm not going to do it. Nope. It's a little too early. Maybe we'll get there in a month or so when he solidifies himself. All the goods. Too early.

You guys are just going to have to listen for the takes and the comps as this podcast goes on. Hey, if you're listening to us on an Apple device and you don't have the PFF app, now would be a great time to get it. Head over to the App Store. You get all the great fantasy football advice, the betting dashboard, the football analysis,

basically everything that you love about PFF.com right in the palm of your hand. If you have an Apple device, go check it out. PFF or Pro Football Focus in the app store, you'll be able to find it right there. Then I want to also give a shout out to our friends over at Mojo. I'm going to give you guys a hypothetical. What if you could have invested in Tom Brady's stock as a rookie? Okay? Your investment would be worth over 4,000% today. Now it's not a what if, but more of a who is next.

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and you can buy and sell instantly, anytime, all year long. So if the guy that you got money in has a major big time throw and throws a touchdown and you want to cash out on it, you can literally do that if you've got Mojo. Mojo is live in New Jersey right now, so download the Mojo app in the App Store today. Start turning playmakers into moneymakers for you. Must be 21 or older to use Mojo.

And located in New Jersey, shout out Connor, to make these trades. If you've got a gambling problem, help us available at 1-800-GAMBLER. Visit Mojo.com for more info on it. And also see if they're going to be opening up another state soon. We'll see. Come over to one. If they stay in Jersey, you know. Come over to one.

That's all I'm saying. I want to throw some money at some players. Let's make some legislation happen. I'll write to the congressman. We are the stock boys. Between the symbol teams, the mojo players. You name it, we trade it. It's true.

That's the slogan of this podcast. Oh, come on, man. You can't be giving away slogans like that for free. I know. Should have got it copyrighted first. Oh, man. You name it, we... Eh.

You name it, we trade it? It's stolen. And there it is. It's already gone. It's gone. Two guys. Two more guys that I wanted to talk about here on today's show i'll go one and then we'll ping pong back and forth kendra miller the running back from tcu is

somebody who really stood out to me this past weekend wanted to get a couple of guys who really stood out to me recently junior running back for tcu six feet tall 220 pounds is what he is listed at 0.39 missed tackles force per attempt that's the average that he has which is a top 15 number in college football for backs that have at least 40 carries so this guy is making people miss consistently he's also got 11 explosive runs on the season last week against oklahoma and tcu's trouncing of oklahoma i should say 13 carries 136 yards and two touchdowns brother if you go if you go for this guy's ankles let me tell you you're gonna be going again you're gonna be going home with a nice bag of air like that's how that's how it's coming you're you you are going to be watching the rest of that play from

your stomach as you look up on the jumbotron while he continues to run love the footwork love the awareness if you go anywhere low on him it just seems like he's got such great instincts for when to lift the legs when to stop when to do a little cut back move when to put a one the foot in the ground to have a one cut he just made it he feels so in control and he breaks tackles and he forces missed tackles with great lower body agility i don't think he's the the the fastest home run hitter that we're going to find in this running back class, but he's shifty. He is so shifty. Oklahoma found that out the hard way. They had one massive run against him because offensive line, part of the C is right in front of him. He goes up, I believe it's the B gap. He is one-on-one with the safety in the open

field, and he does a little shimmy with his shoulders and then he puts his foot in the ground and that safety had no chance that ends up being a massive run for him it was the biggest run of the day but i kind of wanted to shout him out just because i haven't seen too much of him only saw what i saw live this past weekend went and watched the tape back on the all 22 and i was just really impressed with the shiftiness and the control the agility that he had so gotta take it gotta make sure that I've got him on my radar, wanted to put him on you guys' radar as well. TCU's got a good one and, and Kendra Miller.

So he was a lot of fun to watch live and a lot of fun to watch back on tape. I love it. It's tough shoes to fill with him replacing Zach Evans. So we, another guy we haven't really checked in on right on this show, but man man it's dude have you have you seen old miss's other running back that's with zach evans well i know

they've had a split share because evans doesn't get the ball he had nine carries last week the guy's name is quinshawn judkins which is just an unbelievable running back name. It sounds like a law office. It does. Quinshaw. Better called Judkins. All right. He's fantastic, though.

He's not draft eligible, so I would have brought him up on this show already if he was, but he's not. Do people ever text you, you like are you watching nobody text me yeah i'm lucky you uh we get it you're popular geez yeah not a good way uh people text you like about and i'm not like this happens all the time and i hate to be mean about it but i just have to always be honest people like what about like this guy and i'm like honestly i'll like i'll watch him in the games but if he's not trapped eligible i'm not giving you like a scouting report like it's just like there's there's only so much brain capacity for a draft class like let's do 2023 right right and then we'll get there

yeah so no i'm just saying i'm the same way that was my like jerk moment of the show but it's just it's so oh man it's tough i am like everybody else where when there is an electric sophomore or freshman who's going off. You get excited. I will watch these guys live and I will get excited, no doubt about it. Tweet about it. Scream. I don't start the scouting report until they are draft eligible.

I would always give you my treetops thoughts on those guys if they're going off. But yeah, like Brock Bowers, right? What am I going to say about Brock Bowers? Yeah, drafted in the top 10 this year, actually. those guys if they're going off but uh yeah like brock bowers right what am i gonna pretty good right what am i gonna say about brock bowers yeah i drafted in the top 10 this year actually but uh that's about all i got yeah brock bowers actually good all right my last player on the stock watch here i got through four right yeah yeah i think this is five for you okay i know how to count uh stephan blaylock fifth year redshirt senior at UCLA,

former four-star, a little bit of just an iron man in the amount of games this dude has played for UCLA. 2019, 12-game starter. 2020, seven-game starter. Don't forget that's the COVID year. 2021, 12-game starter. He's back in 2022 as a starter. So I believe he's started almost 40 consecutive games at this point for the

bruins which in itself is a remarkable feat for anybody that uh he should be really proud of but more importantly he's making plays trevor he he picked off uh michael pennix this week on a play that you really couldn't see it on the broadcast but uh on the all 22 he peeled off another player in coverage to come down and get that interception and that is one of quietly one of the hardest plays in football when you're focused on your assignment but you have that you know cyclops eye that's looking at somebody else and you have the acceleration to come downhill and not disrupt the receiver or break up the pass, but catch it and run it, you know, that that's a dude that the experience matters. Once again,

he started almost 40 consecutive games and it just goes to show you the instincts and awareness and the smarts and coverage on the back end. So, uh, you know, he's somebody that I'm excited to see during the process as well. It's he That's obviously in a pretty impressive college career in its own right, but he's playing at a higher level, a significantly higher level than he has in the past, where this is an example of a fifth-year player that's doing himself a lot of favors in this safety class. And we haven't talked a ton about this safety class this year, but Blalock is absolutely on the radar. The theme of this podcast, clearly, instincts, instincts, instincts. We are suckers this week for these guys that make you look natural.

It's what translates, man. It translates. It's what I've learned the most over the years of doing this. You know, I always, not always, because I've fallen away from it. You know, you fall in love with the speed and the 40 times and all that stuff matters but guys that play with a different one step ahead on the field in pads that carries over and if they are they meet basic athletic thresholds while being plus instinct players it really makes them look like plus players in the athletic threshold on the field because they are always one step ahead.

You know, it is, it is funny because I, I, I see one of the guys at the very tippy top of this class. Similarly, like that, that's kind of like how I see Bryce young,

Bryce young doesn't have man, the most ideal measurable, right? He breaking news. Bryce young is short. He is under six feet tall. Yeah, no, I can guarantee. I mean, I can absolutely guarantee you he short he is skinny under six feet tall yeah no i can guarantee i mean i can absolutely guarantee you he's going to be under six feet tall and he is skinny there's not a lot of there's not a lot of meat on those bones and intangibly he's not gonna he's not

gonna he's like well i'm sorry i should say measurably he's not going to do it for you intangibly how many how many better football players would you say are in college football aim not many look at what he's been able to do both last year and this year when alabama needs him most when he's back is against the wall when the situation is the most dire when the pressure is again which is is on him delivers time and time and time and time and time again he is a natural football player he just gets the game he just understands it it's fun to watch his legs bail him out of situations that his mental can't and vice versa his mental bail him out of situations that he can't run away from and that that to me is special it's really special i've bryce's you know i went into

this uh season with cj as my top quarterback i haven't changed that yet but i've been wildly impressed with bryce watching him as a prospect this year in terms of his floor and i know it's hard to say that about an undersized quarterback it's dangerous to say he has a high floor but with how smart he is yep i really find myself falling in love with his floor he makes the difficult parts of this game look way too easy way too easy and i think that there's there's something to be said about that last guy that i'm going to bring to the table uh nick eckhart actually sent this to me on instagram dante seafist the wide receiver from ken state he's like hey you got to get eyes on him i was like hey you know what if i got some extra time i will and i'm bringing

to the table here he is related to quintes cefas oh is he come on i don't know now i'm curious i will find out why you speaks the words i didn't even think of that until i said the name out loud but you know what you got to be right redshirt junior Jr., 6'1", 185 pounds. This is a high usage player. He's over 30% in the wide receiver usage, the threat category, as we call it. 30.1 is his official percentage there. You know, it's funny. He plays about 24% of his snaps in the slot.

I kind of think that that's where he is destined to play in the NFL. They use him as an outside receiver a lot, but I don't think he's the best stretcher of the field vertically. So when it comes to stacking these guys and getting even with them and threatening at a vertical plane, I don't think he's going to be that big of a threat because I don't see him as that big of a threat in college. And the game, of course, only gets faster when you get to the pros.

So I don't really see him being a full-time outside wide receiver, but I do like the short area quickness. I like the route running savviness that he has. And I think that he's got reliable hands. All of those things, to me, translate to a guy who could be a potential starting slot wide receiver in the NFL. I think athleticism pending, we'll see kind of how he tests out. But there's a lot of reliability to his game.

He can make those throwing windows bigger with good separation how he sets corners up you can see he knows and understands secondary leverage against him whether it's inside or outside leverage and he knows how to attack that he knows how to angle getting out of his uh getting out of his stance getting into his stem to really put corners in a difficult situation where he could go either way he sets himself up for two-way goes can fake can put a foot in the ground can move the other direction boom he's creating separation for him for himself even without having top tier athleticism so savvy route runner i like him he's playing a little bit

too much on the outside i think he's going to play much more in the slot in the nfl but there is a skill set there is a slot receiver that um that i that i do like different spellings so no relation oh it's like when it happens to me when i i spell my name rogers without a d in my last name right and people love to be like oh rogers like aaron or this person or that person i'm like not even close but so i did that to somebody else for once in my life. It felt very evil in a good way. But no, no relation. I did like your scouting report, a player that I have to watch more of

because obviously the numbers speak for themselves. And that is our stock watch. There it is. It was a beefy one. That was beefy. 10 players. I think eight of them were not ever on the show. Maybe seven.

Seven of them never on the show. That's true. I mean, pretty good. We're building quite the database here. And that's my favorite part is every time you text me, your players, and obviously as I go through this process throughout the week, adding the new names into the database and what man we got to figure out a day to redo the it's we're not close because we just made it a month ago but to update the big board we do we do need to do that coming up

because unfortunately you you do have your moments of you know i was just looking the other day and when i say the other day i mean today like jalen catalan was a top 50 player for us and come on man that's what's like that's the part of this process that stinks but on the other end of it somebody has to step into that uh step into that spot and and you know guys like tyler van dyke and like players fall it just it happens throughout this process you become so accustomed to it so we'll get there we will get there what was the question of the day before we get out of here is the nightmare before christmas a halloween or christmas movie all right so now that we're at the end of the podcast and everybody's already listened to it in high anticipation for our

answers i can tell you i've never seen this movie i cannot believe that knowing you the way i know you never seen this i was for like certain that you have seen this movie it's a classic number one i look everybody 1993 so everybody everybody talks about it it's it is a wildly talked about movie you would really like it that's the thing like you would really enjoy it yeah you would um is it a christmas movie or a halloween movie so i found out that i am in the unique minority that thinks it's a christmas movie with halloween themes um my relentless girlfriend has told me i'm wrong for about six months. And then I Googled it, and there's a lot of these big galaxy brain articles explaining why it's a Halloween movie. So I'm learning that I am, it appeared that I've been owned.

I'm curious what the listeners think, and how many of our listeners have seen it. Since you haven't, and you need to find out. I've got it. I've got to be, I've got to be one of very few people who has never, I don't know. It's old. 93 is old. We're old now.

Like we are coming out 2000. It's not elf, which is on TV all the time. Okay. So if I'm watching it for the, for the first time, then I need to watch it the week of Halloween. Is that what I need to do?

Yeah. Is it a Halloween movie? Well, apparently. Apparently I'm wrong. Or do I need to save it for Christmas? Or should I watch it? All right, I'm going to watch it before Halloween, and then I'm going to watch it before Christmas,

and I'm going to tell you whether I felt more spooky or whether I felt more Christmassy after each time that I watched it. Well, I'll tell you right now, you're going to feel a lot more spooky. It's not like a feel-good holiday joy movie at all, in any sense. It's a scary-ish movie, but it has a good twist on Christmas. So that was my question of the day

that had to be brought in. I know I'm going to get just devoured in the comments, which is typically a tradition for me whether it's you know i said something wrong about the commanders or do whatever it could be you know week to week in the comments is always i enjoy it i love it it's a blast our comment section is actually very fun no that's look that's uh i don't i just don't watch movies so then i can never have bad movie opinions you know i just that's a smart way to live yeah i'm just i'm just gonna continue to play the game just gonna continue to stay alive as long as i possibly can and i do that by watching as little movies as possible so don't go outside

and you can never fail no yeah of course not yeah right right right do we even have a teaser for the end of the week show or are we leaving this as a big surprise no we should leave it as a big surprise because i have i agree i have a couple of ideas that I'm thinking about that I have yet to propose to you because I thought of them recently this morning. So we're going to say that you just got to tune in to the next episode, whatever it is. But like Connor said earlier, Thursday podcast,

we're getting a little bit more creative. We were doing some weekly previews in the NFL, but we wanted to do more creative stuff. We missed doing the stuff that we were doing in the summer, like the franchise expansion and the massive redrafts and all that stuff. So we're going to dedicate Thursday to being that kind of a show. Remember, it's not live anymore. We're not doing it live on Thursdays.

We're recording them on Wednesdays to be published on Thursday. So you guys will get it right away Thursday. So if you're looking to listen to it before Thursday night football or before the weekend, you could do that whenever you want. But as for the topic, you guys just have to tune in and find out. I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers. Thank you so much for listening to the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. We'll see you guys tomorrow.