Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Data scientist vs. QB comparables tells an interesting JJ McCarthy story

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Matthew talks with Ben Brown, research data scientist from Sumer Sports about his project to objectively create quarterback comparables. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining the show is Ben Brown, who is the Director of Research and Development for Sumer Sports. As you guys know, we always have an analytic spin on our analysis here leading up to the draft. And Ben put out a very interesting article that caught my eye that was using text mining. And you're going to explain how this exactly works to gather from Dane Brugler's, the beast and his scouting reports, and then draw correlations between this year's draft class and the quarterbacks of the past. So explain this thing in a way that won't make anyone immediately shut off the show because it is fascinating and I want to dive into it. So what's up, Ben? Really colleagues, Tasia and Eric Eager talked to you last week about, you know,

like the analytics round table, Mike Renner, my former colleague at PFF. There's just been like a ton of really great content that you put out. And I think it's really exciting, you know, for me personally, like I am, I don't know if I'm a closet Vikings fan at this point. I kind of wear my emotions on my sleeve a little bit, still more than I should from my Vikings fandom. But like, this is very much you know and i think you'd agree with this like the most anticipated draft we've had in quite some time to be honest with you uh so i can't wait basically so i'm really excited

to talk about it but yeah let's let's talk text analytics so i do think um you know there's a little bit of you know and even going back to your discussion last week with Eric and Tej, like the analytic forward-facing movement is very much trying to push a lot of like be really confident in some of our predictions going from college prospects to the NFL level. So I think like in a lot of ways, we are looking for other areas and avenues and approaches that could potentially provide some sort of predictive nature for us to better project how well these guys are going to transform from the college play that they're in and in certain systems to the nfl level so one thing that i've been doing for the past few seasons i did it at pff i did take the year off last year just because of some you know needs based things specifically with pff that i didn't have time to do it but basically what i've been doing is taking the, you know, you know, the great work of Dane Brugger, I think it's very much the most, you know, available public facing

detail oriented prospect evaluations and write ups that we can actually have. And it has and one reason that it's so beneficial from like an analytic standpoint is we have a ton of historical information and data on it already. We not only have the historical write-ups, you know, going back to 2015 when Dane Brugger first kind of started doing his write-ups, but we also have, you know, those players like somewhat actual performance at the NFL level. So we can do a lot of things with that information. I would say, you know, just from what Dane Brugger puts out, like his, his like grades, as far as like if a player is like a first round draft prospect the first overall draft prospect second overall you

know preferred priority free agent acquisition like that has a ton of value as like an actual metric to use in that college to pro projection but there's also a ton of value in um the approach that i've been using as well, which is basically I'm smushing all of Dane Bugler's write-ups. He has a background, he has a summary, he has a strengths and a weakness. And basically I just have a column for that. I've been going back to 2015 through 2024. And through natural language processing, I can basically remove what are like not key words that are kind of described in that background or that summary information or that wall of text, remove all the like unnecessary words like the thus, the whose, is in like all these other things, even like the name of the

player. And what we can do is kind of get a condensed version of Dane Booger's write-ups. And then we can take that condensed version and we can compare it to prospects of the past and kind of tease out some of these key characteristics and traits that Dane writes about you know things like you know arm arm accuracy or ball velocity and we can see like when those sorts of things happen across multiple prospects um overall draft evaluation that dane bruga does we can see that we can do a similarity analysis to see how similar those particular write-ups are between any two players and then from there we can kind of compare you know this guy was drafted in 2017 what what was his like first three-year type performance at the nfl level and do any of these characteristics kind of carry weight across multiple prospects to

really be, I would say, a somewhat useful proxy for how well this guy is going to perform at the NFL level? So that's very much what this article is doing. Basically takes Dane Brugger's write-ups, condenses it into worthwhile blocks of text, and then from there compares it to every other player that we have in our data set to see just how closely this player's write-up is to this other player. And then from there, we can decide like, you know, is this player going to have a similar or different success based on these, you know, key characteristics that Dane Brugler has identified?

So all that sounds pretty complicated, but if I put it in simpler terms, imagine that you went to the beast, the Dane Brugler PDF, and you were reading someone's write up and you said, you know what, that kind of reminds me of somebody else and went back to a previous year and you read through it and you said, you know what? A lot of the same things that are said about prospect X were also said about prospect Y. And that's all you're doing doing except for in a much more scientific manner and the i immediately when i opened the article and of course i scrolled through the original write-up that where you explained it all and went right to the uh right to the you know the the comparables of course and i laughed out loud because i had made a snarky comment early in draft season about how J.J. McCarthy was being talked about the same way as Desmond Ritter. And then, of course, right at the top of the list for the most common. It's like so even even intuitively, we understand this, where when you hear what is being said about Drake May, you go, you know what?

That kind of sounds like he doesn't have great footwork and he needs to work on things, but raw tools. And that sounds a little bit like Josh Allen. And you can sort of do that. But the JJ McCarthy one was the most interesting because it received a high score from things that correlated. But also when you looked at the comparables, there weren't a lot of impressive names on the list.

So explain what the takeaway should be from JJ McCarthy, because there's a lot of interesting ways of looking at this too with him. Arif Hassan's consensus board, he's something like 22nd, but on mock drafts, he's often in the top five. And we are talking about him in a lot of ways where it's not about necessarily how good he played football last year. So, so break down him specifically and what you learned from this project. Yeah, definitely. And I, and I would say just to, you know, to reiterate, like you essentially hit the nail on the head. Like we can, in some ways intuitively kind of

do this exercise. The nice thing about the way in which i've approached it is it does it for every single player and it does it in a systematic way where we are kind of very much you know able to able to do that comparison and have an actual defined score for how similar they actually are and i would say specifically with jj mccarthy this might have been in a little in a little bit of a way like a flaw in the system is the fact that like jj mccarthy just had somewhat more similarity to a lot of players than what the than what a typical player would actually have and i think that's why his overall composite score is maybe just a little bit inflated i don't necessarily want it to be taken away that like jj mccarthy is like the number one quarterback prospect or my number one quarterback prospect but i think overall because he had maybe a higher similarity to more players his overall composite

score was kind of increased by that particular way but that was very much something that i you know and and going back to like from an analytics perspective like we're always trying to improve on our approaches that that is very much something like for my takeaway um to improve upon is kind of like the folding in of whether it's approximate value whether it's like a war calculation whether it's some sort of grade that we have derived for these players or maybe it's like you know a particular stat or particular composite of stats that have been known to be successful at that particular position at the n level. Like we can use the similarity score and derive a composite score in a much better fashion. So although like the ordering,

I would say does have JJ McCarthy at the top. I don't think he is kind of like you said, like the top overall quarterback in this particular you know, research type area, but I think he does have some comparables to a lot of players that have had middling success at the nfl level and i think that's another thing that's kind of driving his composite score but to me like there is um there there are characteristics with jj mccarthy that i think dane gruger touches on um you know from like a pocket athleticism standpoint mental makeup

has kind of done things in a pro style spread offense already. Doesn't have a lot of like gimmicky type RPO plays or like the college spread offensive plays where a lot of people are, you know, necessarily going to be dinged from a prospect standpoint. But I think like overall what we're learning is that like at least what I take away from this particular exercise is like your comparison to Desmond Ritter does make a lot of sense. He was, you know, comped. I think the second closest comparison to Bryce Young,

I would say the jury's still out very much on what Bryce Young can provide. But I think there is like a tier of quarterback play that we have developing at the, in the 2024 draft class. And I'm not quite sure that I would have JJ McCarthy as tier one, just based on how the write-ups were transformed to the point where he does have a lot of similarities, but he doesn't have a ton of like top end similarities that I think are going to translate with him

being really successful at the NFL level. Well, and that's the thing is that, yes, there are quarterbacks that don't have those top, top end talents like Jalen Hurts, aside from his running ability. And even Baker Mayfield had a good year. He was on that list as well as someone who correlated in a lot of things to JJ McCarthy. And I guess there's always the question of if you're going to draft him, how much can you put around him? Because Brock Purdy, again, is another example.

Let's not worry where Brock Purdy was drafted, but focus on the NFL player Brock Purdy. And you can see McCarthy-ish stuff with him where it's not rockets and lasers everywhere or crazy playmaking all the time. It's enough playmaking. It's high intelligence type of football, throw it to the right spot and then scramble when you have to. And you can succeed under the right circumstances. I think what I would take away though, looking at the list of quarterbacks that he comps to is I don't know that trading a bunch of stuff for that

quarterback is the right way to go where I believe that this type of quarterback now throw Desmond Ritter aside we already know that he failed in the NFL but this type of quarterback when we put everyone together is someone that you can succeed with under the right situation and the right coaching and the right teammates and you have Justin Jefferson and you don't have to give him back so that's going to help you just like you have Brandon Iuke and Debo Samuel and everything else. It's okay to copy the model of the NFC teams that have reached the Superbowl with these types of quarterbacks. At the same time, if you're expecting this person to over the next 10 years, give you five to six shots at winning a Superbowl, that's probably not realistic for this type of quarterback. That would be my takeaway is that I kind of, again, intuitively felt this way.

And it brings it together of like, okay, that's exactly what Dane Brugler and scouts are seeing with this player. Yeah. And I think that is exactly correct. To me, in evaluating the text that J.J. McCarthy had from Dane Brugler and the comparisons and similarity scores, I do think a decent mid-to-top-end tier for J.J. McCarthy is in a lot of ways to a tag by Ola. I do think the talent that he has surrounding him,

there is probably still questions of what exactly is he elevating in the Miami Dolphins offense and how effective can he actually be if he didn't have a ton of weapons around him, if he didn't have Mike McDaniel calling plays for him. And I think that if the Vikings do go up and get J.J. McCarthy, those are going to be the same questions that we're asking in year three and year four with J.J. McCarthy. We could have some relative success here. There be you know situations where they're competing for the NFC North championship a divisional championship and like a really strong division with J.J.

McCarthy but for him to actually be the guy to elevate the Vikings to the next level and I think the next level on top of that is you know legitimate Super Bowl contender I don't think anybody has the Miami Dolphins as a legitimate Super Bowl contender I don't think anybody has the Miami Dolphins as a legitimate Super Bowl contender against the Kansas City Chiefs and I think in a lot of ways if that's like close to the top end range of J.J. McCarthy kind of going back to it like giving up three first round picks for the luxury of selecting him at the fourth overall selection like that feels like a situation where things can very much go sideways relatively quickly for the Minnesota Vikings. And we do have to consider that in the NFC in the recent past,

there were maybe two to three quarterbacks that you would even put in the AFC. And that, and that's benefited certain teams. I mean, that's benefited the Los Angeles Rams that look, if Aaron Rogers is knocked out of the playoffs and Tom Brady and his, and both of those guys were in their older ages, then Matthew Stafford's got a chance or Jimmy Garoppolo's got a chance or Brock Purdy or Jalen hurts because there was only one or two real challengers in the AFC seven teams make the playoffs. Six of them will have monster quarterbacks. However, that's going to kind of be the case if we go forward and things play out in certain ways with Caleb Williams, with Bryce Young, if he takes a big step forward in Carolina,

which I think they did a lot of good things this off season to help him and so forth. Then it gets, it gets a little tighter. It gets a little, the bar gets a little higher still to the McCarthy thing. It's with quarterback. It's not a Ricky Bobby. It's not, if you're not first, you're last with quarterback, you can have a certain quarterback at a certain price and compete for a super bowl. And I think we've seen that many times, you know, through the era, since the CBA changed it with the rookie wage scale. Now, Drake may, of course, is the apple of most Vikings fans.

I what did we learn about him through this process? Because we I did start to see some some bigger names on his list of comparables, but also there's some scary names as well, which goes for everyone. But him in particular, I thought had maybe the widest range potentially of comparables. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's where you have to start and end. And I, and I would say just in general, like there's a reason why I wore Carolina blue on this podcast basically, but I will, but I don't want to go too far into the weeds on that sort of thing. But yeah, with Drake May in general, I would say, you know,

he has very much kind of been the apple of my eye, at least when knowing kind of where the Vikings are going to land and what's even possible from a quarterback draft perspective like there is a top end range with Drake May that you know is kind of identified with this exercise and I think part of it is like he does have the arm talent and he does have the willingness to at least try and make every single throw on the football field now has he made every single throw on the football field no are some of that you know in relation to at least what scouts and film evaluators are telling us is because of footwork and maybe not necessarily being set or maybe not necessarily you know having the right framework in which to actually be successful in

trying to make some of those throws i think that's kind of teased out in some of these comparisons as well i think you know even like going back to it like there have been some middle of the road prospects that drake may probably comp somewhat comparably to that at least been you know successful nfl backups and i think you know jacoby brissett is a guy that i think offers at least a a decent like lower to mid-tier outcome for Drake May there's obviously guys that he could end up being a lot worse that are going to be closer to but going back to your comparison I think you know not necessarily from like an arm talent standpoint because I do think Drake May has more arm talent but Brock Purdy is a guy I think fourth overall on Drake May's list that you know if he is in the right situation he might not be asked or feel forced to make as many high-end NFL-type throws like he was trying to make at North Carolina.

And in some ways, when I watch the tape of Drake May, I feel like some of those situations were him pressing in certain situations, but with a better supporting cast around him, like those are, those are things where he's just not going to necessarily feel the need to make every single throw with perfect accuracy all the way downfield in order for his offense to score, because he can rely on some playmakers, you know, in the Minnesota Vikings type offense. But I think overall, like kind of like you said, like his, his range of outcomes is very much, I would say the widest, you knowest of any quarterback in this draft class to me personally. And I think with his text comparisons, we kind of see that play out. There has very much been some hits like CJ Stroud being at the top end of his range. But when you see guys like Sam Howell, who is very much like the Drake made, lowercase scenario. I think those are valid outcomes. And to

me, I do want to pick apart, you know, where Drake May could be successful and where he could not be successful. But I think if what we're learning from an analytics standpoint, like a lot more of whether Drake May is successful or not is going to be based on the situation that he finds himself in. And I think for that reason, that's why I'm probably more bullish on Drake May than a lot of other people going to Minnesota specifically is because I think with the structure around him, like there is less likelihood of him ending up at that bottom end range than what he would be in a place like the New England Patriots, for example.

One of the reasons I love your project is because it really forces you to go, now, wait a minute. Why does this name here? How does this reframe the discussion about Drake May? If Brock Purdy was Drake May's size, he's a first round pick. There's no question whatsoever. Brock Purdy is six feet tall and might weigh 210 pounds. And that's probably the main reason that he wasn't taking, he also probably would have put up better college stats if he was bigger and faster as well. But I can see it in the way that Iowa state said, Brock, go make something happen.

That's our offense. And that was the offense for North Carolina. And he was erratic at times. He made mistakes, but he also had this playmakers mindset, which is the same as Drake May. And that's where, when you think about Brock Purdy, you almost go, oh, he's just like a shorter Jimmy Garoppolo. But that's if you're not watching. If you're watching, he is a playmaker and that's how he thinks of himself he's a baller he runs around he scrambles the nfc championship he's running for you know a 20 20 yard gain in a big moment and stuff and i think you see that baller mentality in drake may that can sometimes result in ridiculously terrible plays and also results

more often than not in something that's really special and hard to recreate. And that's where I like may the best for the Vikings because special is what usually wins. You have to have your quarterback do something special in a big situation, or you're probably only going to get to so far. And then Mahomes beats you in the super bowl. Uh, if, if you're trying to be Jimmy Garoppolo or something so that that I think is a very insightful comparable that I don't want to go through every single quarterback that would take a very long time but give me another one that stuck out to you where you went like oh like that's uh that's very that's very interesting that this particular one said whatever about another comparable.

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, going into it a little bit more, and maybe I'll just give my framework for evaluation because I'm with you in the fact that J.J. McCarthy bore a ton of assets to move up to pick four is a hard no for me. But if J.J. McCarthy falls to the 11th overall selection like that's a spot where i'm pretty ecstatic in now if he doesn't fall there and they go with a guy like michael pennix or bo nicks i'm very much less inclined to actually be all that successful with that pick because a guy that i've been i would say somewhat higher on throughout the entire draft

process and i think showed out relatively well from a comp standpoint in this text comparison was spencer radler and i should probably get some laughs from you i should probably get some laughs from anybody in suggesting that but like his most closest you know comparison was you know perennial number one overall selection trevor lawrence big arm you know can at least extend plays outside of the pocket but keeps his eyes focused downfield isn't the threat of a runner anywhere close to the imagination of a guy like drake may i would say even but has an ability to in some ways navigate pressure and keep his eyes downfield i think a closer comparison and better answer is maybe like another you know first overall selection and jamis winston i think spencer rather does have the capability to kind of have that deep passing profile that Jameis Winston kind of made a living on.

And I think in a lot of ways for where he's going to be drafted at in comparison to guys like Bo Nix and Michael Penix, he at least has very much a much lower floor, but he does have this ceiling type outcome that I think is at least somewhat intriguing for a team like the Minnesota Vikings who not only have hopes of you know competing for the NFC North division but kind of like you said like they want to be the team that can win in a down NFC and I think maybe in the right scenario with the right supporting cast in the right system Spencer Rattler is a guy that could put up you know a number of high-quality plays to the point where you kind of are back to this explosive play-type offense at the Minnesota Vikings.

At least when I was growing up, was very much known for, and I think his comparables, at least some of them, kind of speak to an upside case that could be really intriguing for Vikings fans, I would say. Sam Howell people are celebrating. I'm sorry, not Sam Howell. I mean Spencer Rattler. Spencer R howell people are celebrating i'm sorry not sam how i mean uh spencer rattler spencer rattler people are celebrating because uh there have been every

live chat that i do there's one spencer rattler person always like you know i think and my feeling on spencer rattler is that yeah i mean in the middle round he's your best bet uh would i be even surprised if he went in the second and bo nicks went in the third i would not based on their actual talents and the fact that arm talent and throwing the football the way spencer rattler does is very hard to replace i mean even at the combine uh senior bowl like he was i think senior bowl uh he but he just so clearly throws the football extremely well it's just that when the guy has essentially no real history of success in college football, it's much harder to sell me on, oh, yeah, this should be the Vikings guy.

For somebody else, if you have a quarterback situation where you're two years away from potentially changing your quarterback, yes, you should do that. But the Vikings are not in that situation. They need to make someone their guy, and they need to do it right away. And the reason that Sam Howell came out of my head was because I think of Spencer Rattler and Howell. Similarly, they're not very big. They throw the football extremely well, and they're going to be, if they play, they're going to be all over the place. And maybe sometimes it's good and sometimes it's quite bad, which is what happened with Sam Howell last year.

So I want to ask you about betting markets, because this comes up all the time with betting markets where people will be like, oh, the market says that this guy is about to go number one. And so, you know, everyone scrambles as if that's some sort of sourced information, which I think we know at this point that it's not, but what can we learn from what the betting markets say about the Minnesota Vikings, who the betting markets expect them to draft? What are the favorites? What can we act? Cause I see that all over the place and I've never really found it to tell me something exactly. So you, you tell me though, because you study it much more than I do. Definitely. I think to me, like the biggest,

the, the biggest indicator of what the Vikings can do. Obviously if they stay at pick 11, like it's heavily influenced by what happened from the first 10 picks. But I think to me, the fact that JJ McCarthy has moved so heavily in, in, in a closer range to Marvin Harrison jr.

At the number four overall selection. I think you see this across markets, basically. The gap has definitely been narrowed, and I do think Marvin Harrison Jr. now, like, his under 4.5 draft position number has greatly shifted from, like, a minus 400 price to now it's only, like, minus 180, minus 170, I think, at Circa right now. Like, there is very heavy, at least, betting mark-mint steam to the fact that the Arizona Cardinals are going to trade out of that pick. And it does just seem like, in general, the Vikings are very much the most likely team to go up to number three and go up to number four i personally think that like the the the the

inflection point of like the first round or the first round kind of even just like starts at the third overall pick it does seem like even if we don't know who the commanders are going to select at their quarterback at number two like the what the patriots do based on based off the commander's selection is going to drive the rest of the first round. And I think if quarterbacks go in the first three selections and it is the Patriots making that selection, that is very much the market is then going to be telling us that J.J. McCarthy to the Vikings at pick four makes probably the second most sense outside of the Arizona Cardinals

just taking Marvin Harrison Jr. Obviously, there's a pretty big projection to be made to actually assume that a trade happens and that you also know the player that's going to be picked given that trade. But I think given where the betting market is currently not only been but where it's trending right now, the odds of a move up to number four or number three, I think are actually in some ways being more priced into the betting market. And kind of like you said, like that's not necessarily a reflection of it going to happen, but I do think these markets move off of, you know, betting insiders or betting people knowing at least some sort of information and kind of moving it in that direction because of that information. So I think to me, like, although it's definitely got to be most likely that the

Vikings stay at pick 11, I do think there is quite a bit of possibility. And this team is only building to the point where they are probably going to move up and move up at, you know, what costs to actually go and get their quarterback selection that they want. So what do you think the odds are? Cause I've been trying this take out with everybody who comes on the show and listeners already know what I'm going to tell you is McCarthy at 11, that if the Vikings can't get up to three and take Drake may, which I still feel like is going to happen. I don't know. That's just, that's just what it feels like. But if that's not the case, McCarthy at 11, how do we feel about the chances of him actually getting there and I and I'll add

this in even if the Vikings had to move up to 10 with the Jets or if they had to move up to seven with Tennessee that he drops even just a little farther than we think the Vikings would have to go in order to get it yeah so I would very much and i don't want to commit to just jj mccarthy in this discussion because i do actually in some ways maybe believe a little bit of the rumors that they're that the commanders that two aren't at least completely out on jj mccarthy right now or at least haven't settled in completely to jayden daniels at the number two overall selection but i firmly believe that if the new england patriots stay at the third overall selection but i firmly believe that if the new england patriots stay at the third overall selection that we will see um one of the four quarterbacks i'm not confident in what one that

actually is to me like to me there's like more happening with the jade and daniel situation with washington than what we're really understanding right now that could be the fact that they've already locked into him or that could be the fact that they are completely out on him but i think that there's at least a case where you know one of jj mccarthy jayden daniels or drake may slips past you know pick four because the cardinals do make a lot of sense to stay there if the chargers don't you know if the chargers are also kind of locked into bleak neighbors like we could see a little bit of a domino effect and i would not be surprised at all if we're sitting at like you know, if the Chargers are also kind of locked into bleak neighbors, like we could see a little bit of a domino effect. And I would not be surprised at all if we're sitting at like, you know,

pick eight, pick nine. And one of those four quarterbacks is not off the board. I think getting all the way to pick 11 is really the difficult ask. Like, I think, I think the Vikings have to go up to pick, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the relationship is like with the Atlanta Falcons right now, giving the, you know, the latest, you know i don't know i don't know what the relationship is like with the atlanta falcons right now giving the you know the latest uh you know information we're getting from the league and and those sorts of uh um things with like the whole kurt cousins pre-agency thing but i think

getting up to pick eight pick nine like that's what they have to do because i do think they'll probably you know very likely to get jumped and have somebody go and get um you know that fourth quarterback dropping at the 10th overall selection. So I would say it's probably like less than a 5% chance that one of the four quarterbacks will be available at pick 11. But I think we're trending closer to, you know, like almost like a 25% expectation that one of those guys could be at least available at like pick six, seven or eight or eight okay so if that does happen then i have hit quite the home run on this uh that that does qualify as a blazing hot take

then if you feel like it's that unlikely and i understand where you're coming from it's just when i go back to the last you know couple of drafts where there were a bunch of quarterbacks there's always one and sometimes even two that just dropped farther than anybody ever thought. I mean, that would be like the Mac Jones thing where, Oh, he's going to go third overall. And then he ends up in the middle of the first round. And when I think about the consensus board where they have McCarthy, could I really see him going that high? Because a lot of NFL teams do it the same way we've talked about the Vikings is they put values on things. Is this guy actually worth going all the way up? And the other part

of it is too, that they look at it. Like if we draft a first round quarterback, it is a target on our back. Even though you and I know, Hey, just draft quarterback philosophically. It just makes sense. Just take a swing at it. But O'Connell has made this very clear. That's not something they're going to do. So that's not something Sean Payton's going to do. And that's not something that the Raiders are going to do either. These teams will wait until they have the right person at the right price. So that's where I'm thinking that if they're looking at McCarthy the way we're looking

at McCarthy, is that worth that big trade, that three firsts? Which is also what I wanted to ask you about your opinion, because I asked Eric Eager and Tej Seth, what's too much? And neither one of them gave a truly definitive answer. So that's now on you. They have passed the buck to you to give a truly definitive answer on what is too much. I mean, let's go through it. What's too much for Jaden Daniels. What's too much for Drake May. What's too much for JJ McCarthy

in a trade up because I think it might be three different answers. Yeah. I actually, you know, for, for me personally, I would also have it as three different answers. I do think, you know, at least the reports that we're hearing out of, you know, Vikings camp, like they've've identified a couple guys that they like. So I do very much think what the commanders do at two and what New England actually wants to do at three are very much the scenarios that we very much need to resolve. But kind of going back to it, I think New England is less likely to take a quarterback at three and is more likely to trade out than what even the betting market has an expectation for right now.

I think because of that, your case or scenario of one of those four quarterbacks falling could easily happen i think my problem with that is like that scenario requires one of those one of these teams that we kind of described to be quarterback needy actually going up to three and making that sort of selection because that's going to that's going to be the thing that kind of makes um that that quarterback slide but i do think if the patriots stay at three and take a quarterback i'm really hard pressed to see um a quarterback fall the the fourth quarterback kind of fall out of the top 10 in that specific scenario um so i'll start with that but like to me if the vikings are on or the patriots are on the clock at three and drake may is still available i think the starting ask and i've said this before is you know obviously pick 11 pick 23 i do think you

know first round pick next year probably you know from a value standpoint mid first round pick i think that's very much the starting point and to be honest with you i don't think the vikings get a deal done without at least starting at that scenario but i also think they're probably going to have to throw in you know this year's year's this year's third, I would say. I think like pick, what is it like one, one, I don't have it in front of me right now, but it's like, so they don't, they don't have a third this year. Yeah.

I think it might be one Oh something. One Oh eight. One Oh one. And then I thought they had like one 20 or something. I should have, I thought it had in front of me, but I think they'll have to do something there. And then maybe there's like a pick swap scenario that the patriots do you know for like you know like a fifth round swap or something but to me they're not getting this deal up to three done without the three first round picks and probably some sort of you know filler type

draft pick i would say after that um and to be honest with you if drake may is on the board i would be relatively comfortable see i would say like 11 23 next year's first and it's 129 was the one that i was kind of thinking of um but but but like i i i don't want to say and i know that's a lot and i know it's probably too much, but I think if you are locked in with, you know, with Kevin O'Connell believing in Drake May, they've kind of, I would say in a lot of ways indicated that move already in, in some of the, the, the personnel or like not the personnel, but like the coaching type situations that they've done as well.

Like they are kind of gearing up to make this sort of splash. And I think, you know, if it's, if it takes an additional fourth round pick at that point, like, I think that's, you know, I think that's kind of table stakes and they should just probably make it happen. So I'm going 11-23 next year's first, 129 as kind of like the offer that I would really want to see actually make this happen. And a bouquet of flowers, according to Kevin O'Connell. Last question for you.

Which one of these teams, I'll give you three and then a wildcard option if you want, is to you the biggest maybe or most difficult to figure out, to pin down what they're going to do? Would it be Washington, the New York giants, Denver, the Raiders, or is there some other one that you could think of? So Washington giants, Denver, the Raiders, those would be in my top four wildcard teams that could do just about anything. Uh, who would you have as the most, Hey, they could, they could shock us all here. Yeah. I i mean at least and i know i've said this a few times on this podcast but i am like very very heavily like interested in

what the new england patriots do because i do think they could go a number of ways to me like they probably have one of the worst rosters in football and very much are looking like at a multi-year rebuild and if they do go quarterback at third overall i just don't think that guy is going to be all that set up for long-term success so i would be somewhat surprised of that but they are i would say very much kind of holding the keys to the rest of the first round and if they want to get out of that selection they very much can so i think overall they're the team that has the widest distribution for what they're potentially able to do i think personally like denver sees this as a multi-year rebuild and will probably go, you know, BPA basically at their selection,

you know, right after the Vikings at pick 12. To me, the Raiders, for some reason, always think that they at least have some say in the AFC West. So they're the team that I think could maybe go most off the cuff in the mid part of the first round and potentially try and pull off a trade to kind of like maximize you know one more year a couple more years of this Devante Adams deal and the and the core pieces that they have in place so if it's not the Patriots I'd very much go with the Raiders as kind of that answer for a team that is very much kind of up in the air as far as what the expectation should be for them on draft day I guess what I was

thinking is the team that's the craziest the team that is the the person the person in the fantasy draft that takes a Kyle use check in the first round he's like what the heck is going on here with this guy I mean is that is that the Giants who suddenly come in with some huge offer for number three? Is that Washington taking J.J. McCarthy at number two? Because Washington, what I don't get about Washington is if they are so locked into Jaden Daniels, then what the hell was all that stuff with the other quarterbacks? I mean, I would be up for a free round of Topgolf. I love going to Topgolf.

And if they want to sponsor this show, I would enjoy that too. But, you know, why? Like, why would you, if you're locked in, it's no secret who's going number one. So you don't need to pretend like you're having some crazy cockamamie quarterback competition here. I mean, what was this like real life for quarterbacks where they're just, you know, videotaping them in the room and having to vote each other off the island?

What are you guys doing with that? I mean, I think, yeah, I think it's a character evaluation process or something, basically. But I'm with you. Like, until I heard that specific report last week, like I was locked into J&B as being number two. And now I very much kind of like what I said earlier, like there is very much at least something brewing underneath the surface with washington and whether that's jj mccarthy going to two or it's something else entirely it just doesn't seem like they're set on jade and daniels and for some reason they at least feel the need to be signaling that whether it's because they do want a godfather type offer to move out of two but i feel like if jj if jayden daniels was

like very much the favorite within their building like we wouldn't be hearing any of these sorts of reports because all it's going to do is really piss off jayden daniels at this point and in some ways you know with his agent you know subtly tweeting certain things like that has already happened uh so to me that's even more smoke to the fire that washington either doesn't have any idea what they're doing at number two doesn't want to do Jaden Daniels, or is trying to trade out and get something elseots to kind of be that team that goes completely off the rails in the first round but i am looking at you know some teams that maybe have um you know a little bit of a turnover in their in their front office sort of area to indicate that they're moving in a completely different direction um but i do think you know in going back to it it does probably have to be one

of these teams in the 20s that are going to select somebody, and I wouldn't put it past even a team like Buffalo, you know, kind of not going the wide receiver position and having like a, you know, a WTF moment at pick 28 and kind of pissing off a lot of people because they didn't go wide receiver with that selection is another, I think, scenario for a really weird or perplexing first-round decision from a team.

With the number two overall pick, Washington selects Spencer Rattler. There we go. They read a text mining article from Ben Brown of Sumer Sports. We got Jameis Flamess, Winston comps. You got to go with it. But if that happens, we're going immediately to Topgolf. That's all I can say, Matt. Oh, hell yeah.

Let's go. Let's go. Well, we will definitely, you and I, get together for a Minnesota Lynx game this year. You have an open invite to always join me for Lynx basketball, WNBA blown up this year. So you and I will do that again for sure. But also you as a Minnesotan, I sure will really enjoy watching this draft seeing how it plays out because you've seen many years of middling quarterback play or somebody else's quarterback showing up here so uh an interesting moment for you a lifelong i'll just call you viking follower

for yourself so at ben underscore r underscore Brown on Twitter. Bad decisions were made when we all started Twitters, I guess, back in the day and your underscores are yours, but your work is absolutely fantastic, Ben. So great to have you on man. Great breakdown.

And we will definitely do it again soon. Yep. Thanks, Matt. Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure. That was good. I was sweating up.