Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - CBS Sports' Chris Trapasso sets the stage for the QB draft class

Episode Date: February 12, 2022

CBS Sports draft analyst Chris Trapasso joins the show to deep dive into the performance from the Senior Bowl quarterbacks and set the stage on how the QB class shapes up. Why does he have Malik Willis as QB1? What did he like out of Desmond Ridder from the Senior Bowl. Is the class really as weak as it's talked about as being? Plus, Chris guesses the most athletic QBs of all time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folks, before we get into the show, I wanted to tell you that you can save 15% at SodaStick.com by using the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at checkout. That's S-O-T-A-S-T-I-C-K.com for your Minnesota sports-inspired hats, hoodies, shirts. Use the promo code PURPLEINSIDER at SodaStick.com. Oh, folks, how do you know it's draft season? Here's how you know. Welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Chris Trapasso, CBS Sports, is back on the show. Fresh off of watching Senior Bowl tape, grinding out your scouting grade book, Chris, which you've been putting out there. I mean, it is exciting times in our life. Welcome back. And this is our opportunity to announce that you will be doing a weekly show here leading up to the draft. And I'm going to dig up the intro.

We had an intro for you, too, the Chris Trapassi draft show. It's back, baby. Good evening and welcome to the NFL draft. Draft season is here. Come on, come on. There you go. To break down every need. They're not going to pick a quarterback. They need offensive lineman. They need defense. Every pro day. He had a phenomenal

pro day. Explosive, really good in the three cone, the broad jump. And every mock. You could probably tell me if you think the Vikings would actually do it. I can tell you as a draft analyst that they absolutely should. Welcome to the Chris Trapasso Draft Show on Purple Insider. This is a good podcast to listen to leading into the draft. I am so excited to be here, Matt, again. Last year, we kind of just stumbled into it like you were coming on my podcast. I occasionally, when something big was happening, jumped on this podcast. But now we're a little more structured.

We're seasoned veterans doing this together now. And it's draft season. The Senior Bowl is done. I'm super excited for the Super Bowl, just being a lover of the NFL. But I'm really excited to dive fully into the NFL draft and to be on this podcast for such a fascinating off season for the Vikings, defensive turnover, potentially, and all about the quarterbacks.

I'm really looking forward to diving deep with you and maybe not ranting too long, but diving deep with you about everything draft as it pertains to the Vikings over the next couple of months. Oh, we're going to rant. Oh, there will be a rant. There have already been some on the show where I've completely lost my mind

about the weak quarterback draft, which of course is where we're going to start. But if people want to read your work, CBSSports.com and on Twitter at Chris Trapasso, which is trap and then asso. So just in case people are listening for the first time because it's actually been really interesting to see the number of fans who have joined as listeners the show just within the last few weeks which i think is reflective of what you were just saying is that the zimmer and spielman era drained the souls out of many Vikings fans, and they just could not wait to have this thing hit an entire refresh button. So before we get into the quarterbacks and what happened at the Senior Bowl,

I just want to ask your opinion about when you are leading into draft season and you look at a team that is starting anew with a new general manager and a new coach, how difficult is that to figure out what they're going to do? Because by the time we got to this last draft season, I mean, we kind of knew exactly the way the Vikings were going to play it. The only question was, would they actually change course? And they didn't. So we kind of knew the answers to the test before it came.

Now there's so many storylines with this new group and Kwesi Adafo mensa and kevin o'connell that we really don't know how they want to handle the draft yeah i think it makes it a lot more fascinating i i mean there is a school of thought that could say hey like we've seen a rick spielman draft over the last decade or whatever it was we know the exact prototypes of what they like at edge at corner when they like to pick those positions that's fun but i think the draft and you certainly know matt is such a chaotic time the pre-draft process anonymous sources uh the frenzy of the undrafted free agent market that

happens right after the draft um it kind of plays into that if you have a brand new fresh start, new front office, new GM, new head coach, that you go in and say, hey, I have no idea what they're going to do. That makes it a lot more fun. But certainly as a draft analyst, I kind of take it the same way, that I'm not really sure what these new organization or these new front office structures will ultimately do. So you can't have the prototype. You don't know what they're going to do. I think, though, for the Vikings, the fact that they have two younger guys,

likely progressive types that are going to deal with analytics, they're going to look to throw the ball more frequently on first down, has to be refreshing, maybe not just so for the draft, but for fall 2022 and beyond for this Vikings team that was certainly productive, was not a laughingstock of the into like you mentioned was kind of repeating the same thing hoping for the outliers that they had hit on in the past so when it got to the fifth round like hey everybody they're drafting a receiver like uh yeah because they hit on stefan diggs in the fifth round and it was oh the third round here comes the defensive end and what it's patrick jones um who got a little playing time this year.

I don't know that he's going to be a big part of the future, but you know, first year type of guy, but we knew, Oh, look, Janarius Robinson, a tall guy with traits or, you know, it's just that these same sort of things. Uh, is there something though that Cleveland did that you think that quasi Adolfo Mensah would have said, Hey, Andrew Berry and your front office, you guys kind of do it this way. I like that. Let me bring it over. Well, I think it's everything about the analytics side of things for the draft.

I think when people, when fans hear analytics today, they're thinking of, like we mentioned, passing on first down and what we saw was such a big storyline for this NFL season going forward on fourth down well I think we don't know or it's not out there in the public that much about all the analytics that go into the draft I actually think Matt you do a great job uh letting your listeners know about you know athleticism and percentiles in the uh at a certain position in the three cone drill and what's a good three cone time and and hopefully I can be someone that can provide some of that insight as well.

I think Andrew Barry, his first draft was all about athleticism with Greg Newsome, Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoa. In the second round, Anthony Schwartz was a big play threat at Auburn that they picked in the third round. The wide receiver ran really fast at the Auburn Pro Day. So I'm a big believer in, and it's not just because, you know, I mean, to tie into the Vikings, Danell Hunters, Tafon Diggs. When in doubt, draft the freak.

That's kind of a draft Twitter philosophy. And the analytics will show that most of the elite talents at the NFL level are the guys that were really, really big-time athletes that maybe they had differing careers in college in terms of productivity, maybe with injuries, playing time, positional roles that didn't really fit them. But most of the really good players are the big-time athletes. And Cleveland did get a lot of return from Greg Newsome and Jeremiah Owusu-Koromoa last year, their first two draft picks. And just being analytics and numbers-based and trying to remove as much of the emotion

and the human biases from the draft process is something I try to do. And I think this new GM, having just spent that time with Andrew Barry in Cleveland, will probably see that. If there is going to be this new template that he follows. I mean, we'll certainly see, you know, the, the, the lengths of arms and the 40 time thresholds that he has, but the fact that he's very analytics base is I think the underlying foundation that we'll see for these Vikings drafts in April and into the

future. So don't let me forget. I have a little game for you at the end based on freakish athletes from their combine data. But, you know, you make a really interesting point. You know, I think that one thing we can glean from Cleveland is that they seem to be very aware of what the universe thought of the prospects and they seem to do a great job of getting players who the world ranked higher than where they picked them. And Owusu Koromo is a great example of this, where the data has shown, and our friend Arif Hassan has done some work on this, that the consensus draft boards that he puts together, if you compare them to the guys who are reach draft picks, they're much more likely to bust than the guys who drop,

which it's basically an even play for a normal draft pick in the guy's regular spot. So Owusu Koromoa drops, but that's a good draft pick because that's somebody that a lot of evaluators had as being much higher. But if you take Alex Leatherwood and he was supposed to be more of a second round prospect, but you take him in the middle of the first, you are putting your life in your hands with a reach. So it's kind of like that type of philosophy. Here's another one I think of too, with Owusu Koromoa, he was a guy that was like very versatile, this really intriguing hybrid type of player.

That's a modern type thing. A corner is one of the most valuable positions in the league. So you want to find a shutdown corner. If you draft the same level prospect, but I take a guard and you take a corner, like your corner is likely to be worth more value, wins above replacement, whatever, over a number of years. I think that's the edge that a lot of teams are starting to try to get and starting to catch on with the don't draft running backs. But I think that's an edge there is everybody might have a 40% chance of being a hit, but if your 40% is a corner and my 40% is a guard, you're getting more

out of your 40% than I am. Yeah, that's a great point. And that's something that I certainly bake into my evaluations for CBSSports.com. In my scouting grade book, I have position addition. And I mentioned it last year. And just for the new listeners, it's just a way to not just have skill and talent categories to grade each position, like running backs get zero boost quarterbacks get a huge boost receivers and corners get a big boost offensive tackles get a pretty large boost uh guards not as much so i i think that's a really good point and also with jeremiah obusu cormorant beyond being the uh you know player that fell that everyone's like how is this guy

still available he's a linebacker. There is debate, I think. You could have a different analyst on who would think differently that, oh, linebackers aren't really that important now, but Owusu Koromoa is that coverage linebacker that, to me, is extremely valuable in today's NFL. It's a two-linebacker league today, and if one of your linebackers of those two, when you're a nickel, can cover running backs and tight ends very well and can be an effective blitzer like Owusu-Cormo was,

then I think that's one of the most valuable pieces on defense because that's the player that opposing offenses are trying to get in a mismatch. And if that guy's not someone that's a liability in those areas, that's a huge win. Most defenses that are the top defenses in football have at least one of those good linebackers. I think the Vikings having Eric Hendricks in that role for a long time, and certainly Anthony Barr, that was a huge bonus for that defense. So, yes, I think from his time with the Browns,

look back even to San Francisco, that a lot of the players, when he was the director of football research, were on that NFC title team, were on the team that made the Super Bowl two years ago, to not only pick the guys that fall, but also place a legitimate positional value. If all of these GMs are saying, we're always going with the best player available, regardless of need, well, if that's really true, then you better be picking corners. You better be picking offensive tackles, obviously quarterbacks, the higher value positions.

And it seems like he has experience doing that when he was in San Francisco and then over the past two seasons with the Browns. Right. So even though the draft is random and we never know how it's going to work out, as every draft proves to you, just go back. Anybody take a look at that 2020 draft and the players who were taken before Justin Jefferson, it's all a lot of random, but, uh, you know, you would still defend the Eagles picking the position they picked, but maybe the problem is they reached to get Jalen Rager as opposed to

Justin Jefferson. Jefferson is the guy who fell. And so you're just trying to increase your odds of getting a super valuable player outside of the quarterback position where it's always, if you hit, like it changes your whole franchise. You're always just trying to increase those odds ever so much or increase the value that you get out of it ever so much. And I think that's going to be interesting to see how K Adolfo Mensah evaluates all of those things. Cause as you mentioned, there's no hard and fast rules. Like do you draft a linebacker? We shouldn't say never, but if you draft Jordan Brooks, like Seattle did, I mean, you're taking your life in your hands because that's just like a run stuffing linebacker in

the first round. That's very clear that even if this guy's great, he just does nothing for you. This, I would even argue that like Quentin Nelson, like what has he been really worth? I mean, round that's very clear that even if this guy's great he just does nothing for you this i would even argue that like quentin nelson like what has he been really worth i mean i i think he's an incredible player an incredible player but what does it mean like what does it mean to be really good at run blocking in the nfl i mean he's he's great but having the best guard what did it really do for you so i don't know that i i mean i would take him on my team i'm not insulting quentin nelson it's just that offensive lines are five-man units so if you have nelson and no one else it means nothing right yeah it's not like a receiver who can kind of do the job himself yeah we could have a whole podcast on this and maybe we will the positional value and

this is not knocking quentin nelson not knocking any other draft analysts, but any big boards you see truly, and this might be like a hot take on the first episode, any big board you see that has a running back inside told last draft season, and I'll just start off this episode with it. 2018 draft class, the Quentin Nelson draft class, all the quarterbacks. I had Saquon Barkley as my number seven overall player. And I remember, I think, writing, this even feels too high. And everyone loves Saquon Barkley. He was the gold standard for running back prospects. He was fast. He was big.

Everything. After that, I filled out and finished building my scouting grade book and was like, I need to have position addition in here. And now running backs are all like 55 for me overall, 62. And they're like Najee Harris and Travis Etienne. I like those prospects. I think Jonathan Taylor to bring it back to the Colts was like the highest I've ever had since then, because, and, and he was like in the forties. And that's even seen kind of high.

So definitely if the Vikings are having to rebuild the defense, certainly quarterback, which we'll talk about a lot. If they are making those early round picks at receiver, at corner, offensive tackle, a specific type of linebacker, like an Eric Kendricks type that is going to be sensational for you in pass coverage, that is definitely an edge for them moving forward. Right, and I just want to be clear. I'm not saying that having great guards won't help you

because we've seen the opposite here. It's just more of weak link systems. So you because we've seen the opposite here yeah it's just more of weak link systems so you can have brian o'neill who's spectacular and have the 27th ranked pass blocking team because the other three or four guys can't pass block and it doesn't mean a whole lot so that should influence the way teams build their offensive lines which is not to spend huge draft capital on one player and your point about the running backs, I mean, Leonard Fournette is what fourth overall Alvin Camara is a third round pick. One has been way better than the other. And that's just like how it goes with that position all the time. So let's talk about the quarterbacks in the senior bowl. Um, I love all of them

equally. They can draft any one of them. It's fine. Uh fine uh this this is actually funny because so often there's huge debates between is this guy better than that guy and is mac jones mobile enough and then some draft analysts loved mac jones some draft analysts said no you can't draft somebody doesn't move around and then you know we also the book's not written on any of these guys after one year mac jones is ahead but justin fields or trey Lance could be better by next year. We really won't know until the end of next year, how this plays out. But you know,

this year there doesn't seem to be like this vicious debate. That's going to play out. It's kind of like every one of these guys, you could see it. And every one of these guys, you could see why it wouldn't be. So what, what did you take from the senior

bowl from watching malik willis kenny pickett sam howell and desmond ritter all right i'll go three main things that i took away number one and this is in no particular order uh number one kenny pickett's arm was like a clear step behind everyone there. And that's even including Bailey Zappi, who's the Western Kentucky guy that threw 62 touchdowns. He'll probably get drafted somewhere on the early third day. He kind of feels like maybe he can be that riser. But when it came to even Desmond Ritter, definitely Sam Howell, and certainly Malik Willis, I was a little bummed.

I was like, man, every Kenny Pickett throw seems just the miles per hour just are not there. In drills, getting it vertical, it just seemed like it took an extra split second to get down there. And I don't like to see any of these quarterbacks just like look clearly bad when all the, you know, the spotlight is on them. That I took away. I took away that Malik Willis, the situation wasn't too big from him. Like I think maybe the fact he started at Auburn, people didn't really assume that. But this was a Liberty quarterback that if you see a weaknesses section of a scouting report for him, it's going to say, you know, he played lesser competition.

I don't think he looked like, you know, the defensive backs were moving too fast for him, breaking on the football, anything like that. So that was certainly a plus for him and everything else from Malik Willis was really as I expected. And the third thing was that I really liked the week that Desmond Ritter had, that to me, he kind of is going to be that quarterback in this draft class. Like you mentioned, that you can see it with him, but then you could also be talked out of him, and that he's not going to be the sexiest quarterback prospect. I don't think he's going to rise inside the top 15 or top 10,

but he almost feels like that quarterback that will ultimately land with a pretty stable, good franchise, maybe in the late first or late second. And then in a few years, he's not lighting up the league, but he's on a team that's winning 10 or 11 games. And then maybe down the road, he actually matures and becomes the reason why his team is winning. So that's kind of how I felt about him on film, but I just thought at the Senior Bowl, his mobility,

the arm was up there with Sam Howell close to Malik Willis ahead of Kenny Pickett. The accuracy was good in the game and in practices. So those were the three main takeaways I had just really zeroing in on the quarterbacks in Mobile. Yeah. Ritter had a couple of plays that sort of stuck in my mind one of them was a very NFL play where he ran a bootleg and he had a couple of options kind of the levels type of thing short medium and long and he threw the intermediate route just on time on the money executed perfectly with the footwork the boot whatever there was a guy kind of coming up field at him he stopped in the right spot setting through and you know that's just one play but with the senior bowl you kind of have to take

only a few plays malik willis threw a couple of rockets that were dropped and he ended up with 11 yards but you're like man that football went really fast but ritter looked like the guy who knew what he was doing as a quarterback the most, that was kind of my takeaway. Yeah. And I think that kind of shows on film too. And it speaks to his experience at Cincinnati, how many games he played. And I'm not sure what the number is. I'll certainly have it memorized by at least March,

hopefully definitely by April, but I, you know, multiple years of starting experience played in a lot of big games. I thought his film against Notre Dame when they beat the Irish in South Bend was awesome. Like, they got a big lead. They felt a little comeback. He made good throws down the seam.

He just seemed comfortable. And like you mentioned, just like ready, okay, look, I'm going to get a blitz here. This is going to be a bootleg into it, but I'm ready for it. And he doesn't wow you with his athleticism, not crazy arm talent, but it's all good enough. It's above average. And he took that from multiple years as a starter with the Bearcats and really looked the part calm, cool, and collected at the Senior Bowl.

Now let's talk about the picket thing because here come the draft reports, Chris. Some people came away from that. In Senior Bowl, he went six for six on one drive. One throw was a little bit off that could have been, I think, much more had he led the guy correctly. But all the reports now are, well, watch out for Kenny Pickett as a top draft pick and look i i don't mean to be the person who says watch out for draft misinformation because i

don't want to sound like this is like draft rogan here or something but like it this is something i mean there's the one time where mel kuyper says he'll quit football if Jimmy Clawson is the top draft pick. Not only was he not the top draft pick, he wasn't even a first rounder. And then he was one of the most horrific quarterbacks in the league that we've seen over the last 20 years. Like the reports are always very sketch is what I would say. So when they come out of the senior bowl and I hear Kenny Pickett might be top five, I think that that's possible because of the value of quarterbacks and like it's always worth it. And there was criticisms for other quarterbacks who went top five to like Justin Herbert or was he six? But yeah, six.

But you know what I mean? But this one, this one's a little a little spotty to me with the with the Kenny Pickett love, because it felt to me more like you should come out of the Senior Bowl thinking Willis is the guy who gets taken this high because of his physical skills and not Pickett. So what do you kind of make of that? Yeah, I didn't understand that either, but it was just kind of preparing me, like you're saying, for we're going to see a lot of misinformation.

That's kind of the phrase that we're all using now, right, with Joe Rogan stuff. That it didn't make sense. Like, just to watch the game and see that he didn't have an incompletion, that's not what, based on my experience, what a lot of the GMs, head coaches, directors of college scouting take from that week. It's always the week of practice more so than the game. Because they know there's a lot of moving parts in the game.

It can't blitz. It's gotta be covered two or cover four, whatever. It's more about the practices. And I don't think Kenny Pickett was atrocious. I thought he was pretty good during practice. I don't think he was, Oh shit.

This guy is going to be a top five pick all of a sudden. And for as much as I love the senior bowl, I think the job that Jim Nagy and before him, Phil Savage have done to make this like a premier event that people want to watch, you know, with the media access, finding guys like Kyle Duggar from Lenore Ryan and what the corner from Washita Baptist, Gregory Jr. Like to give those players opportunities is great.

I do, as a draft analyst, and I'm not trying to speak from an ivory tower, but as a draft analyst, to start the process a little bit earlier than most in NFL media, say November, December, I'm starting to watch guys and finalize grades and stuff. And then all of a sudden the senior bowl happens. And then suddenly Perry and Winfrey, the defensive tackle from Oklahoma is like, Oh, he's a first rounder now when his film really is not that good. Like he, he looked like maybe a day, like late day,

two early day three guy. And then all of a sudden three days of practice at the senior bowl and a strong performance in the game, game skyrockets everyone. I know coaches are getting kind of caught up, like coaches that were in the playoffs. They haven't watched anything. They kind of get injected into the scouting process. But, yeah, that's kind of how I felt hearing that Kenny Pickett and seeing that Kenny Pickett report. That it was like, I don't think anyone really took that.

Anyone that really matters took that away from the week that he had at the senior bowl i'm not trying i'm not trying to downgrade kenny pickett as a prospect myself because like we're saying a lot of these guys are like him playing and uh i like that he's got a little swag to him uh i like that he i like that how irritated he acted about the hand thing yeah i think that i think that when tom pelissero was interviewing him he thought he was going to be like haha this is so funny right kenny pickett was just like no my hands are fine and it was like okay this guy hates that thing which is cool like i mean you should like you should have that sort of edge

about it um and dane brugler reported that he came out of the interviews strongly, which does not surprise me. Also liked that he has creativity in his game, and I don't just mean the fake slide, but I mean outside the pocket. And there were a lot of times where he was on the move or he needed to kind of figure something out or throw into traffic and find a play there. But the only thing is I watched a couple of his games,

which is surprising. He's one of the few guys that I've watched by now. I've maybe seen Howell one time otherwise. College football is hard to keep up on in the NFL season. But I think he had some receivers, man. I mean, I think you could just lay that ball out there and there were some players. And I know this was a Mac Jones point too,

but that would be my one thing about Pickett is when somebody sort of shows up and emerges and they've got all those receivers. I know Joe Burrow had this happen too, but that's also Joe Burrow. He was number one prospect, clearly. That's the only thing that I hesitate a little bit with Pickett. You mentioned the arm strength, but also the like, did circumstances help him here? Yeah, that's a great point. Jordan Addison, his number one wide receiver, who I believe won the Bolitnikoff Award,

is going to be a first round pick next year. Like he reminds me of like Stefan Diggs. He was like 19 years old and he had like 800 yard games this season. So it certainly helps to have like a legitimate first round wide receiver. His running backs were really good catching the ball out of the backfield as well. But I think you can look at that both ways and say, you know, the Mac Jones Tua thing, where they threw to four first round wide receivers, which is incredible. But then Joe Burrow had Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase, like a ridiculous set of,

or top pair at LSU and to tie in Joe Burrow, I'll get this out of the way. I do think stylistically, Kenny Pickett reminds me a lot of Joe Burrow, because like you mentioned, their games are creative. They're not freaky athletes by any stretch. They get the most out of their athleticism. They have that swag around the field they'll dive for a first down if they need to you're surprised sometimes watching Kenny Pickett that he's able to elude a 260 pound defensive end and still either dive for the first down or find

a receiver down the field I think that happened a lot with Joe Burrow at LSU and certainly has happened in his first two seasons with the Bengals the one one area, though, and it's a big one that I don't think Kenny Pickett really meets the Joe Burrow threshold is accuracy. Like Joe Burrow at LSU pinpoint accuracy. I think Pickett throws with anticipation like Burrow did. That comes from his experience, but the drop the ball in a bucket on almost every deep ball to Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase would certainly help. I didn't see that as frequently with Kenny Pickett. That's not to say his ball placement is bad and that's like an area that he really needs to improve, but how they play is very, very similar. Besides, I just saw more

misses from Kenny Pickett in his breakout season than I saw from Joe Burrow in 2019. Let's talk about Sam Howell. Look, I know he looks like Baker Mayfield, but we need to not do that. Nah, Baker Mayfield. Right. We need to not do that because this is something I got a ton from. And if people could dig it up, it's really interesting, that the Houston Rockets did this massive analysis of their own scouting processes that was just really instructive.

I'll send you the article because it's so interesting. I would love that. Yeah, I would love that. And one of the things that they found was when players look like other players, they tend to, even if their skills are different, the scouts tended to, I mean, we're human. This happens, right? Is you see, and this has been a black quarterbacks have been victimized by this forever where it's like, well, that guy kind of looks like that guy and his skin and his size. And so they must be similar.

Right. And I remember dealing with this with E manual where people would you know tweet me or whatever when ej was coming out or when he was early in his bills career and be like he could be like cam newton you're like no he cannot be like cam newton no he cannot because he's not anywhere games were not no they were not at all the same he's not anywhere near an athlete of cam newton who's one of the great athletes in the history of the NFL. So that was kind of the point, though, is like, oh, a big guy who can kind of run. It must be that thing. And the Vikings are guilty of this with, oh, a tall guy who's lanky, who didn't get sacks.

He must be Daniel Hunter. So I don't think that there's a ton that's similar here. But the one thing that you do see is the guy has an arm like he can really throw the football and i also think that he's strong like there were times where guys were trying to take him down and they couldn't and he just was like he's like a thick boy and uh it was impressive from that element because in the senior bowl the offensive line gets killed every year it's just sad it's like the defensive line kills the offensive line and i thought howell held up really well in that game after the defensive line was just demolishing what he had in front of him.

Yeah, that's a really good point. All those points on Sam Howell. And that not only does he look like Baker Mayfield, I think the fact that he's a little shorter and has a surprisingly good arm like Baker Mayfield, that kind of helped those comparisons in the summer. But certainly watching his film this year, I didn't see Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma whatsoever when I was watching Sam Howell.

But that's one other point from the Senior Bowl was a little surprising with the weigh-ins that Sam Howell and Malik Willis were almost identical. They were just over 6 foot and over 220 pounds. So they're both like built like a power back. And that certainly showed on film with Sam Howell, like you mentioned scrambling a little bit in the design run game. He's not quite the athlete of any of those quarterbacks you were talking about.

I don't think he's going to be a designed run game quarterback, but he can deliver some hits in the open field and he has the body to do it. Ironically, and I was looking while you were talking, I was listening, but I was looking at something. January 19th, I tweeted that Sam Howell does not remind me of Baker Mayfield. He reminds me of a more polished Joshua Dobbs. And I know your listeners probably are like, oh, that's like the third stringer on the Steelers. Go just if your listeners want pretty close to the same scouting report that I have on Sam Howell, go look up Lance Zerline from NFL.com, type in Joshua Dobbs. I think you just type in NFL draft or NFL.com scouting report, very, very similar

players that big arm runner, but not someone that you're going to lean on his legs in an NFL offense. Accuracy is a little bit hit or miss. You'll see some wow throws from the far hash to the deep sideline, like a deep corner route or a long post route that he can really drive the football. And the pocket awareness, pocket presence still needs some work. I mean, Joshua Dobbs has flashed a little bit. The fact that he hasn't played could be maybe more due to circumstance. So that's not like trashing Sam Howell and me saying, hey, he's a QB three in the NFL, but stylistically he's a lot more similar to the former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback than he is to Baker Mayfield, who was like hyper accurate

and didn't really run too much at Oklahoma. They're just not similar players. I think though, Sam Howell feels like that late first round prospect that hopefully, like I mentioned with Desmond Ritter, for him can land on a good team, won't ask him to play right away, and he can develop a little bit more calmness inside the pocket to not drop his eyes as quickly and try to turn into a runner. I think getting one hit from an NFL linebacker, he might learn that quickly that he's not going to be able to run like he did in the ACC. But if we're all about this being an armed talent league and having some athleticism to extend plays,

Sam Howell would certainly tick both those boxes. Yeah, anybody, if you're a runner in college and you go to the NFL, you better be an unbelievable runner to run in the NFL. I mean, you better be Russell Wilson, Lam run in the nfl i mean you better be russell wilson lamar jacks to really run that's different than make plays you know outside of structure and outside of the pocket but the biggest thing for me was baker and it hasn't really translated to the nfl the way that i thought it might uh i was always concerned about his personality that translated but the accuracy at

oklahoma like broke pff system he was so accurate i mean he was just pinpoint on everything his timing his delivery the just the general look of the football but like he's right on the receiver's numbers that's not what you see out of sam howell to me sam howell is like bazooka ball or run is kind of what I saw in a couple of games and then with even with the senior bowl even though I thought he handled it well with the pressure it was a lot of run he would sort of just take off and that's how he scored a touchdown so I mean this is the whole point about this is like this is the different strengths and weaknesses of this class where you don't have someone where you can just say oh well Howell is by far my

favorite because of this because we could talk each in and out, which is going to be a game someday. Talk to each other in and out of every quarterback prospect. Yeah. One thing I just want to say quickly before it leaves my mind, and that happens a lot, especially when we're talking. I will say when it comes tying this back to Mac Jones and Tua, the talent that you have around a quarterback. I was recently on Dave Damoschek's podcast. I said something along these lines that when you draft a quarterback, and this was pertinent, and I'm glad that I'm getting this out in the first episode. When you draft a quarterback and the Vikings certainly could be in the market, to me, if that quarterback is a bust or not, is more on the team than the be in the market. To me, if that quarterback is a bust or not,

is more on the team than the quarterback in most situations. We've had Blaine Gabbert going in the first round that had no business doing that. But in general, I think the NFL as a whole, scouting departments collectively do a good job identifying, all right, these are the three maybe first rounders. the quarterbacks that that don't work out are in bad situations that everyone understands that what i'll say with sam howell is we got a glimpse of what he can do in an offense with a good offensive line good running backs and two receivers who can get open two nfl caliber receivers and Daz Newsome and Dimey Brown so the fact that he was doing that as a sophomore at like 20 and 19 or 20 years old I think that will be something that will

allow teams to talk themselves into Sam Howell because you know he loses all the talent the offensive line's not as good he had one decent receiver Josh Downss. But beyond that, they understood. I think that's why he's still on the first-round radar is that, oh, he didn't really have a lot around him. If you draft Sam Howell and you give him a similar offense to what he had in terms of relative to the competition this past season at North Carolina, oh, yeah, he's going to play like he did this past season, and you're going to be without a job if you're the GM.

So I think that's the one kind of fascinating thing about Sam Howell is that early in his career, when he was playing with 22 and 23 year olds, he was super duper productive. And if you draft him, that's the type of environment you need to put him in. And the Vikings can with anyone that they draft is giving them Justin Jefferson. It's just a cheat code. I mean, this is like, it's a cheat code that kirk cousins has had when we analyze his play and i'll see people say i mean how are you going to replace a guy who puts up numbers like that

i'm like case keenum put up numbers with stefan diggs and adam thielen case keenum so did sam bradford they all they all had their best years ever. All these guys with these receivers. This can be done. It's not like nobody could ever step in and play this way. I saved the best for last. You know why? Because the podcast data says people listen to the whole show. So I don't have to pick number one first and just get it over with. YouTube is different.

People watch like four minutes of an eight-minute video and go do something else. Anyway, Malik Willis, he is your QB one spoiler. Now, Mike Renner of PFF, who, you know, made this comparison on the PFF draft guide. Cordell Stewart. Tell me that you love it because I love it. I just love that he used Cordell Stewart. I mean, this was our game from last year was comparing the quarterbacks to the nineties guys. And, uh, tell me, tell me what you think of that and why he's your QB one. I, I love the nineties comparison. First off,

obviously, I mean, looking back, like Cordell Stewart was playing in the complete wrong era. I mean, I remember slash, I can't say I was like analyzing football at that point. I think I was like in elementary school, middle school, when he was like kind of taking over the league for what, like a year or two, and then was a serviceable player for the Steelers. I think Willis, from what I remember from Cordell Stewart, obviously, I think Willis is further ahead of where Cordell Stewart was as a passer and where we collectively believe that every raw and athletic quarterback is like watching Malik Willis's film. And I feel like I,

I have good perspective on this because of just witnessing what's happened with Josh Allen, watching him at Liberty face a team that has similar talent to Liberty, I did not see any issues with accuracy. I saw him throwing rockets in between the numbers over and over again, intermediate, down the field. There was one interception, I want to say it was against Middle Tennessee State, that was underthrown. Besides that, and this is not watching highlights obviously every deep

ball in stride big time throw big time throw I think he led PFF in big time throws at the college level this past season and it kind of felt like Josh Allen but now I'm starting to see like oh he you know other scouting reports he's that raw and athletic unpolished you know inaccurate passer you got to get I don't really think he has this innate problem guiding the football to its targets I think maybe Cordell Stewart to just kind of tie it back to that was not really that advanced as a passer and that's why they wanted to use him in a variety of ways with that bill or with those Bill Cowher teams but I I think certainly Malik Willis will have to learn how to read coverages a little bit better, understand that it's fine to just get rid of the football

into the flat instead of holding onto it, holding onto it, and maybe making a play with your legs. And that's certainly something that Josh Allen had to kind of dial back once he got to the NFL. He was always trying to make a big play through a lot of those hero ball interceptions early, took a lot of sacks. But the one thing I will say to kind of wrap this is that taking a ton of sacks as a young quarterback, especially one who is athletic, is not super uncommon,

and I don't think it is a gigantic red flag. Deshaun Watson, go look at his first couple seasons with the Houston Texans. An insane amount of sacks. Joe Burrow took the most sacks in the NFL this year. Josh Allen took a ton of sacks. I bet if you go back over the last five or so years, as we've seen this proliferation of young athletic quarterbacks enter the league and succeed, they're taking a lot of sacks. It's kind of like in basketball where they say like, what, like young point guards turn the ball over a lot earlier in their careers like that just happens so I think the one thing that I'm not agreeing with on Malik

Willis so far is that he is not accurate with the football and I think any of your listeners could go watch the film and they would come away with a similar takeaway and I think he does need to get rid of the ball a little bit more quicker than he did at Liberty but the tools man are just especially Vikings fans after years of Kirk Cousins the tools are just on a complete another level arm talent arm strength and certainly his ability to scramble and be useful in the design run game. The similarity that I see with Cordell Stewart is that everything was a Nolan Ryan fastball. And the same thing goes for Malikos.

Just like winding up and letting loose. You're like, whoa, you don't need to show off the cannon every single time. Some stats, though, from the PFF guide here. Pressure to sack rate, which means how often he gets pressured and then it turns into a sack was very good he was 10th uh in the nation third and big time throw percentages is where they have them in this and 19th yeah 19th in deep yards so and then of course always the guys who are more athletic take longer to throw the ball russell wilson had this problem as well try to make plays you getacks. Sometimes there's one yard sacks

that you get dinged for. Like these, like you said, these things happen. Or if you're Russell Wilson, you start running backwards and lose 30 yards on one play. And like that really, that really looks bad. But you know, I think that it's great detail. If I were to rank them right now, and I will tell you this, Chris, I know very little, like this is the scratching the surface. I mean, the senior bowl is my first look. We didn't talk about matt corral but we'll have plenty of time to do that uh we're just kind of focusing on the senior bowl guys uh i would have willis at the top with you then corral next pick it after that and then ritter and howell that's how i've got them right now this can change i haven't sat down to watch them because of coaching change and GM change and everything

else. That's how I have them right now. How does that compare to you? Very similar. I have Malik Willis at one, Kenny Pickett at two, Desmond Ritter at three, Matt Corral at four, and Sam Howell at five. And that's- Okay, so I have Corral a lot higher than you.

Yeah, I think only, don't you have Corral? I had Corral too. I had Corral too. Oh, I had Corral too. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I'm a little bit in,

I found that I'm a little bit lower on Matt Corral than the consensus. But the one thing I can say too, is that in tying back the, we all understand that the team situation matters. I guess I've kind of tried to envision it like backwards, like to use like a trendy phrase, reverse engineer how these quarterbacks can ultimately play. I'm trying to envision, all right, let's use the Vikings for an example. Which one of these quarterbacks could be the highest level producer in this Vikings offense. Like picture them, hey, we drafted the right offensive line.

We have the superstar receiver. We get other weapons. Who would be the best player and produce at the highest rate at the quarterback spot? And to me, that's Malik Willis. And that's really true for any of these quarterbacks in this draft class. That was kind of part. I mean, that certainly is not in his scouting report because that's all about traits but that's just how i i see because of

the traits that he has i think if you do build it the right way through your front office and through free agency in the draft he can give you more than any of the other quarterbacks in this draft class okay here's the game to finish it off. So you're familiar with, of course, relative athletic scores, brilliant website that combines combined data to create a percentile athlete, which I guess the NFL missed that Justin Jefferson was a 97th percentile athlete when they were worried about his burst or whatever. Anyway so we mentioned cordell stewart he is fifth since this data started being gathered in 1987 from relative athletic scores can you name the four quarterbacks who have higher athletic scores all time than cordell stewart and all right it's nobody crazy i mean i here's how i searched this is that they made at least

one pro bowl so like there's other guys who are complete sure yeah but like so guys who made at least one pro bowl that would be ahead of cordell so so you're telling me there's four guys that made at least one pro bowl that were ahead of cordell stewart since not in since 1986 when this started in athletic scores and i'll tell you this also there's only one guy that goes way back okay okay out of the four this is great i love yeah i love trivia and i love the draft i love draft trivia then um i'm gonna say cam newton is one of them correct because he had a freaky combine and he was massive he's number one all time. Yep. Wow. Number one all time. Is RG3?

Correct. Yes. Because I remember he ran like 4-4-3, and he had, I don't know what he jumped, but I remember him having a crazy combine. So there's two more and one. Okay. When you say way back, are we talking like 87? Or are we talking?

We're talking 87. Yes. But you can get this guy because he was in the NFL forever. Randall Cunningham oh that's a good pick but it's not randall cunningham he was too far back for this day oh too far back yeah yeah yeah okay you here's okay you wouldn't think of this guy as an amazing athlete because of your age because when this guy was playing and you would have seen him he was like 40 played for every team super oh oh super big but really tall amazing hair great name played forever played for a bunch of different teams jets drafted by the bucks that's a great that's a great guess but no drafted by the bucks was

horrendous with the bucks eventually shows up Eventually shows up with the Jets. Is really good. Played for Dallas. Parcells loved him. Wait a minute. Are you Vinny Testaverde? Vinny Testaverde. Yes.

Wait a minute. There must have been something going on with that combine. Vinny Testaverde. Well, I think how you described it. Because Vinny Testaverde was a statue when I watched him play. Yeah. He had torn his Achilles like seven times by the time you got to him. Back in the day. Testaverde was a statue when i watched him play yeah he had torn his achilles like seven times by the time you got back in the day test the bird he was a freak test i did not know that um okay so then the one

last one is more recent uh it is more recent but it was before 2000 and um you are we have talked about this guy on the show because of his connection to the purple. Just think of the best Viking athlete quarterback. Dante Culpepper? That's right. Dante Culpepper. Wow. Amazing. I'm surprised we got all of that fast. Other guys that show up. Now, part of this with Vinny Testaverde might also be like height and weight.

It is. Yeah, that's factored in, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big part of this with vinny testaverti might also be like height and weight like it you know it is yeah that's factored in right yeah oh yeah that's a big part of it so like neil o'donnell shows up on this he was not an athletic quarterback necessarily at all but he shows up as like he's being huge so does alvis gerback but other guys andrew luck's got to be up there too andrew luck yep correct he is uh very close to cordell stewart uh which tells you exactly why you should look at the black and white of this and not the black and white, because Andrew Luck is an incredible athlete, almost close to Cordell Stewart. But Tyrod Taylor, Justin Herbert, here's one that totally shocked me. Matt Castle is a 95th percentile athlete on here. So crazy stuff in

this world. Yeah. Wild wild um great great debut here for draft season chris every week you will be here at chris trapasso on twitter and uh i can't wait for this man this is about to be really fun we we need to next episode drafts him like it's got it it's got a really good go let's do it pedal to the i think we should do one i think we should just do like a quick one like either at the beginning or end of like every, cause stuff's going to happen. Like his Kirk Cousins is going to get cut, traded,

resigned. Are they going to, you know, let's do that. Let's make a part of every episode. Cause I know the listeners love it and you love doing them. Like you do them like every night, right?

Yes. Yes, I do. So thanks Chris. And I'm looking forward to this draft season, man. All right. Thanks Matt.