The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Eleven players who can make a leap in the 2024 NFL season, with Trevor Sikkema

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Whether it's good-to-great, average-to-good, great-to-superstar, or some other combination thereof, plenty of players make leaps every NFL season. PFF's Trevor Sikkema joins Robert Mays to highlight the players they think can make the leap on this episode of The Athletic Football Show. The guys also round up some of the big news coming from the first few days of training camp.Host: Robert MaysWith: Trevor SikkemaExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Trevor on X: @TampaBayTre Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Fun show for you guys today. Trevor Sykima from Pro Football Focus and the NFL Draft Exchange podcast is going to be joining us. We're going to talk about some breakout players. It's July 26th, right? It's breakout players time.

So we're going to dig through 10 to 12 guys that we think are just poised to take a jump this year, you know, for one reason or another and from one place to the other. Sometimes this is going to be a guy that was. a rotational piece that he's going to be a fully established starter, a guy that was a starter last year that maybe could potentially step into that above average or star level caliber player as he heads into year two or three. A lot of young players, a lot of players on the ascent, and that obviously makes for a fun, exciting conversation. So looking forward to you guys hearing what we did with Trevor. Let's get to it. Joining us now, the host of NFL Stock Exchange

on Pro Football Focus and somebody that I cannot believe we have not had on this show yet, it's Trevor Sigmata. Trevor, really appreciate you joining us, man. Robert, I'm excited, man. I've listened to the show for a long, long time. And so it's really an honor to be here and to talk about some exciting players here for the 2024 season. So this will be good, man. We're going to talk about some guys that we think could make a jump. And I don't know how to frame this all the time.

Is this a guy that is breaking out from anonymity to merely somebody you know, somebody who's going from good to great? I didn't put any of those shackles on you because I think that it's good. to leave this open-ended. We're just going to talk about 10 players we think can make a jump of some kind. And one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on to do the show is I always like talking to draft heads about this because you've thought about these guys as prospects, you've thought about their trajectory.

You have one foot in who they were in college and one foot in who they are as pros. And I think that gives you the right sort of perspective to do an exercise like this. The fact that you said that is funny because most of the players, on my list are in fact very young players who I'm expecting. That's how it's going to be, right? Like, they probably should be. I think,

I think they're going to sort of take that jump to like, okay, they were, we liked them as draft prospects. They're sort of either coming along in their first and second year, but like this is the year they really established themselves as, I don't want to say like major NFL players, but like guys who belong, contributing guys,

impactful players. So it is funny. You're right. You did not put any of those stipulations on me at all, but I naturally gravitated towards guys who I remember going, man, I like this guy in the draft either last year or the year before. I could really see the light coming on, the path being green, whatever you want to say for them to become a really good NFL player this year. I didn't do this on purpose. All of my guys are second year players. That's probably a cheap way of doing it, but truly all five of the guys that I picked just by accident ended up being second year players.

And I don't think that that's a coincidence. Right. Like you said, it's very, like it's natural. Like, it's very natural that you would do that. And I didn't pick a lot of first round picks from last year's draft. I thought that's, I have one. But I think that'd be the cheapest way to do this exercise. I did a little bit more work than that.

Before we dig into all this, though, this is the first show we've recorded since Training Camp started in real time where we're recording and it's coming out the day after. So I wanted to just kind of take a big net and scoop up some of the news that has trickled out over the last couple days. I think the biggest thing is probably some of the quarterback contract stuff. You know, it does seem like the dolphins and two are a little bit far apart. That's something we'll probably get figured out, you know, here over the next few weeks one way or the other. The Jordan Love thing, though, he's not practicing.

He is at camp. What do you think about the dynamics between the Jordan Love and the Packers right now and how do you ultimately see this probably getting resolved in your mind? Yeah, obviously, like, I think that a long-term contract is going to come at some point, right? I mean, like there's a reason why Green Bay it felt like was ready to move on from what was. the era of the last decade with Aaron Rogers at the helm, and they were very, I don't say very comfortable with him moving on, but they were comfortable kind of going to what was next, and that was Jordan. And so, you know, when you watch him first half of last season, maybe the results weren't exactly what you wanted, but certainly second half of the season,

this dude looked on fire. He looked unstoppable. And so his agents now trying to strike while the iron is high. You see these other quarterbacks around the league who are signing these deals, and it makes sense for Jordan Love's camp to basically be like, hey, if you want to get ahead of the curve here, let's get a bigger deal done. Because, you know, he signed that, I don't even know what to call it, like sort of like a transition deal where it was like, all right, we're going to give you a little more money, but not like the big giant quarterback contract when he was becoming a starter for the first time. So I think it certainly makes sense from Love's perspective. Striking while the iron is hot, having a really strong end of the season last year.

Obviously, the performance in Dallas and the playoffs, it just makes you feel great about things moving forward with that. young offense, those younger pieces, whether it's the tight ends, the wide receivers, things changing within the running back room. It should in theory only get better as time kind of goes on with some of those young guys. So a lot of that makes sense. And then again, I think the timing of saying, hey, you know, these quarterbacks are signing these deals. If you want to get ahead of it, let's get something inked paper here. The dynamics are so interesting because we really haven't seen seen him very long. You know, we've seen him play at a high level for eight games. But I'm sure his people are sitting there saying we have reason to ask for the biggest quarterback contract ever.

If Trevor Lawrence is going to get $55 million based on what we've seen from Trevor Lawrence, I think that we're justified in asking for something like that, even if it's a pretty small sample. And the Packers are probably like, I guess. I mean, that's a lot to give a guy based on that sample size. So I get why they're sticking points on both sides of this. But all the indications are that this is going to get figured out sooner rather than later and that we're going to see Jordan Love at some point.

point before the season starts. So I think this is just a matter of details and a matter of timeline more than anything else. Some of the other contracts that have been handed out over the last couple of days, Tyson Campbell gets a very rich four-year, $76.5 million extension from the Jags $19 million a year, $31.5 million fully guaranteed at signing. It puts him eighth in percentage of the cap a lot to corners with that extension. I don't mind it at all, though. He's 24 years old, I think we've seen him play at a really high level for stretches of his career when he's been healthy. And I was talking to somebody there this week. And this is important, I think, especially with an organization that hasn't really rewarded a lot of its homegrown guys

over the last few regimes. Somebody told me, he's like, he's the type of guy you want to pay. And I think getting ahead of this a little bit, considering what happened with Josh Allen, to me, this is a sign of maturation and growth from the Jaguars organization and the Jaguars front office kind of heading in the right direction a little bit here. Yeah, 100%. No, I agree with you. I think they are sort of setting up their like pillars of the future, if you will. I mean, you've got Josh Allen's deal. You have Trevor Lawrence's deal. And like you mentioned, Tyson Campbell, he's the kind of guy that you want to pay, or at least it sounds like that's the case from all accounts. And I think there are a lot of people that

look at, they look at Jacksonville's contracts, I would say, over the last year. And they're like, what if they want? You know, like, what are you paying for, essentially? But obviously that's something that you would love to do. But at the same time, if you think you have the right bones, if you got the right backbone, if you got the right culture guys, you still want to reward those players because you want to be able to bet on them every single year,

not just essentially during a winning window. So Campbell makes sense because even though he didn't play as good last year, I know he was banged up a little bit. You go to the year before. He was stellar. And you look at that secondary overall, they're going to build that thing around him, Right. I think when you look at the depth depth chart right now, there's not a lot of other pieces that you go, well, it's sort of a sum of its parts. No, it's basically like Campbell. And then they're still trying to find those guys that are really going to be able to step up and man a lot of those starting positions. Not that the guys that are there are terrible. I'm not trying to say that. But he is clearly the star and you want him to be a player who's going to be around for a long time, especially if you believe in kind of the work ethic, the locker room dude that he is. And it seems like they are. So with him, Lawrence and now Joshua,

Hydalen, I mean, it makes sense for them to bring those guys in and make sure they're there for a long time. Yeah, they've moved on from a couple of the more expensive free agents that they had signed early in Trevor's career. So I think that's kind of the transition that you're seeing. Their money is more allotted to these guys who are on homegrown extensions. And with Everett Ingram, like half of a homegrown extension, right? Like he was a young player. They found that a discount. They committed to him.

So now you see, I think pillars is a good word. You see the pillars of what this organization is hopefully going to be moving forward here over the next three or four years. The same goes for Minnesota. You know, Minnesota obviously paid Justin Jefferson. They paid T.J. Hawkinson. And they really paid Christian Darrasaw. Four years up to 113 million. He beats the total number for Pentee Soule.

He beats the AAV for Peney Sewell. A little bit less in guarantees, I think $10 million or so overall in practical guarantees. He had two years left on his deal. And to me, all of this screams is, we just wanted to get this in under the Wharfs wire. We know that Worf's is going to get paid a ridiculous amount of money. And if we think this guy who I think Darisaw is 25, we know he's going to be our left tackle of the future. There's absolutely no reason not to get this done as soon as possible when you take a look at where the market is probably going. And I said this to Alec Lewis on his new podcast, who covers the Vikings for us here at the athletic.

This is the benefit of getting out of the rookie quarterback contract. Right? You can do this. 100%. You can. And the term that they had used to me when I was talking to people there, when they're just thinking about the overall big picture full. philosophy of this, even when Kirk was still there. This is what the Steelers have done, where when they were building around a rookie quarterback contract with Pickett, they pre-spent.

They didn't use that excess money to go out and spend on free agents. They'd already spent on high-value positions. And that's kind of what the Vikings have done, right? You have a left tackle, you have a receiver, you have another pass catcher at tight end. You kind of used it with free agency flexibility for Gernard, but they've really been allowed to spend on the receiver. You have a receiver. You have a receiver. You have a to spend on some of these premium positions now because their quarterback isn't going to be making $45 million against the cap over the next four years. Right, for a long time. No, it's, it's, it's for sure the way that you want to think about it, right? I mean, that's why people say all the time, a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal is the most valuable thing in sports. It's the most

valuable thing in sports because it just changes the entire way that you do team building. I mean, my biggest takeaway with the Dar esau deal is Jason Light and Mike Greenberg down in Tampa might be kicking themselves a little bit because Tristan Worf's is absolutely going to get more than Derisaw. And, you know, if the Vikings were having negotiations with Derisaw's people and Derisaw's people were kind of like coming to the table with some evidence of why he should be paid higher than Penae Sewell and the Vikings themselves couldn't really combat that. Well, then all of a sudden now it makes sense. Yes, get the deal done very quickly. Get it done before Tristan Worf's gets his deal done. because if you already couldn't really fight against whatever logic that they were thrown to the table of justifying why he should be that high paid offensive tackle as much as he was, then yeah, you absolutely want to get it done under the wire before Worf gets his done. I think in Tampa, it's sort of the flip side.

It's seen as a negative because you're going to have to give Tristan Wirf's more money than that, or at least I think most in the NFL would say that he deserves more money than that. So yeah, that was my big takeaway of that one. But you're right. Minnesota now in a position where you weren't exactly. sure how long it was going to take for them to sort of reset with Kirk Cousins elsewhere. And it feels like they're slingshot in it pretty quick. And we'll get to, this won't be the last time that we will talk about the Vikings because the main part of what we're talking about here in this podcast, I'm going to bring somebody up at a very familiar position. So how are you feeling

about the Bucks right now? I know you're a Bucks guy. It's a season that obviously last year was a huge surprise, so much better than anybody could have expected just in terms of how watchable that team was, the end results. Going into this year, like, what's your vibe check and temperature check about how things are looking down there? Honestly, the vibes are great. When I say that, I don't, I don't mean like, okay, it's Super Bowl Tom Brady type of level and expectations. But like you said, for what it was and how much unknown there was going into last season, new offensive coordinator, new quarterback, changes along the offensive line, offensive weapons getting older, changes along defense, defensive guys getting older as well. You just didn't know what this team was going to be

after Tom Brady. Now, you know, some people were predicting the Bucks to win like four games. I thought the core of the roster was too good for that. They were going to be, they were always going to be better than that. But I thought, you know, six, seven wins. It was very realistic for this team. And so they overachieve in a big way. And that when I say overachieve, I don't necessarily mean to take anything away from them. They just played really good ball last year, especially towards the last, I would say, four weeks of the regular season, then heading into the playoffs. Although we could be honest and say that, the team that they played in the first round in the playoffs of Philadelphia Eagles were one of the

worst teams in the NFL at that point in time with how they were playing. I'm willing to ignore that. The game that I'm attaching myself to is that Lions team was rolling by that point. And they gave that Lions team all they could stand in that game. And if I'm trying to build optimism for the Bucks in 2024, that's actually the game that I'm tying myself to. 100%. It's just sort of funny when you look at the last three games Tampa played.

in their total season, playoffs included, was week 18 that they had to win against Carolina in Carolina and they barely won that game. It took an Antoine Winfield Jr. Superman punch at the goal line just for them to really feel comfortable

to win that game to even get into the playoffs. They play a reeling Eagles team, but then you're right. Then they come back to go to Detroit. They almost play like they've got nothing to lose and they give that team a run for their money. So I agree with you. completely. You got to feel good about it. I actually like the connection with Liam Cohen,

their new offensive coordinator, taking over for Dave Canales. He's got some chemistry with Baker Mayfield. I think Cohen is more of an experienced play caller at the college and NFL level. He's got a better grip on what his identity is going to be for the offense. And that was something with Canales that sort of a good and a bad, right? I've talked about Carolina a little bit because people have been asking me about Canales this summer. And you got to understand, like the first 10 weeks of the season last year for the Bucks was basically Canalis just sort of throwing things out there. I mean, they were basically like dead even run versus pass,

right in the middle of the pack when it came to play action percentage. You know, zone versus man blocking scheme run play as they were kind of like in the middle. He was just trying stuff and seeing which what was going to work. And I think that's going to be the case in Carolina. I think they'll be able to hit the ground running a little bit faster in Tampa this year with Cohen who's going to have a little bit more of an identity that he likes to lean on there. So I think this should be excited. Obviously, there's a lot of things that the Falcons could bring you to the table with a potential top five offense in the NFL.

But Tampa is right there to win that division, man. And because of all the familiarity, it's hard for me to not pick them to win it again. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but just as somebody who knows that team really well, are you worried about the corners at all? Like, that's the one spot that I keep coming back to where I'm like, I'm just surprised they didn't do more there. And if I'm looking at one spot on the roster that's kind of giving me pause, I think that's where I continuously land with that team.

No, it's a 100% of concern because even for as much as Jamel Dean has been at times like a PFF darling over the last two or three years, like there's been moments where he's graded out pretty dang high or certainly higher than Carlton Davis. There's a difference between allowing Davis to sort of be that CB1 at times shadow man coverage corner. And now Dean is that guy. And I don't know if he's that caliber of a corner. I just don't. I think he could be a, he's a really good CB2. but now you're putting him in a CB1 role.

You are basically playing Zion McCollum on the outside with no other options. I mean, they're basically like, hey, our season, our secondary season is basically going to run through you because if you're bad, we're going to give up so many points per game. So if Zion plays really well, then I think the secondary could be good. But to your point, that is one of the glaring holes of this roster, no doubt about it. It's so uncertain with Dean moving up to a CB1. one role and then McCollum basically becoming a full-time starter for the first time. And so he's definitely got to get better when it comes to recognition and playing stickier

in coverage and getting his hands on passes even though he is bigger, longer corner. He hasn't been able to do that nearly as much. And then of course, like the slot gig, Christian Izzy and their undrafted free agent played well at times last year. They also draft Tyke Smith, who was a safety slash nickel corner from Georgia. I think those are good additions. Those are young guys playing in the slot against some really good slot receivers in this league.

So yeah, there's no doubt about it. corner is an area of importance, concern, whatever word you want to use here for this buck's team. A couple more camp news items before we get to our breakout guys here. Both Hassan Reddick and CD Lamb holding out, not a surprise. I mean, if I'm Reddick, I understand this. You get traded. You're in the last year of your deal. And he's probably thinking, I have no obligations to this team.

I've been here for two days. I understand what's going on here. I know what time it is. And if you're not going to pay me, there's no reason for me. there's no reason for me to show up when I'm making $14 million this year. And on the lamb front, I can't even imagine how frustrated C.D. Lambs people are. You watch what's happening with the wide receiver market. And I don't know the exact details of what he's asking for.

I'm not sure if those have been reported to the exact level, whether it's slightly less than Jefferson money, whatever. But C.D. Lam was one of the best five to seven offensive players in the NFL last year. Like outside of resetting the wide receiver market in a world where, Justin Jefferson exists. There aren't a lot of price tags that CD Lambs people could be asking for that would cause me to balk right now if I were Dallas, giving what he was last year and what he was to your offense last year and what he is when you consider his stature compared to everybody else that you're potentially throwing the ball to this season.

Hey, Dallas is, I think they're kind of in a panic right now. And it's because they've got CD Lambs contract, which obviously I think is 100% justified. Like, I agree with you. If you're talking about one guy that's like, yeah, it's no brainer. We got to bring CD Lamb back. It's just the amount of money that he's going to command. And then in the future, you have to talk about a potential DAC extension, which the DAC part's a nightmare, right? Because last year in the regular season, DAC played like an MVP. Like, DAC's season last year was incredible throughout the regular season. Unbelievable at getting the ball where it needed to go, on time, how efficient he was, how great that offense was. He was. He was. He

was awesome. Outside of Lamar being Lamar, like that could have legit won MVP last year. And yet you host a playoff game and you look that bad. Not just bad. You didn't like lose the game by a field goal. You look that bad. And that has always sort of been Dax, you know, the narrative around him. And I think that gets overblown, of course. But at this point in time, in Dax career, you need playoff wins. You've got to prove that you are this postseason quarterback who, whether it's showing up against when the lights are brightest or showing up against the best defenses, showing up against the best quarterbacks, if you're going to pay a guy this much, you need him to help you out a lot more than DAC has in the postseason.

So I think they're sort of in a nightmare scenario where this guy is a no-brainer obvious. You give him sort of top of the market, maybe not the most, but like whatever, top of the market money for a quarterback with how he plays in the regular season. And then he just, he doesn't give you, he hasn't given you anything in the postseason. and then of course Michael Parsons deal as well because he's on the fourth year of his contract. That's going to be a monster deal. So we'll see what happens with Lamb. And then real quick, Reddick, I agree with you completely.

Renick didn't really have any reason to sign that deal. He's 30, 31, something like that. He basically has sack numbers of all the guys who get paid $25 million a year and he's getting paid $14. I think he knows this is the last big deal that he is going to sign. but apparently the Jets sort of like had a deal out there for him before they traded for him and he was like no and so they traded for him anyways and they said ah well you know we'll figure it out we'll obviously figure it out let's just get the deal done and now Redix did this spot where he goes I'm why would I risk why would I risk injury for the last big deal that I'm going

to sign I'm not going to do it so I sort of I definitely get it from Assan's perspective it's really the only card he has to play as somebody that's a little bit deeper into his career that gets traded to a new team in the last year of your deal. I mean, we see this all the time. But I can understand him being a little bit weary about just saying, like, yeah, I'll bet on myself and let this roll again. So we'll see what happens there. A lot of stuff to keep an eye on.

Let's get to what we came here to do. Let's run through some of these guys that we think potentially are going to be able to take a jump here in 2024. You are the guest. I'm letting you kick this off. Who is the first guy that you wanted to talk about? Okay. So I obviously haven't seen your list.

So I've got seven hoping that we don't overlap too much, so I got a couple of extra here. Most of them are young guys, but the guy that I wanted to talk about the most is Sam Darnold. I think this could be a big year for Sam Darnold. I think it was one of the most – well, we've talked about it a little bit more now, but I think this is one of the most underrated signings of the entire offseason. It gave the Vikings so much flexibility to go about the draft the way they want. wanted to. They get aggressive with the extra first round pick. They say to themselves, hey, we might be able to move up to three, but even if we can't, we're pretty comfortable being

able to move up a little bit, move up a lot, whatever it is. And no matter who they were getting, it wasn't going to be Caleb Williams at number one. It probably wasn't going to be Drake May, but even if it would have been Drake May, they gave themselves the opportunity to start a quarterback without having to throw whoever their rookie was to the wolves, which I think is a big deal because I as a draft guy, I get asked this question. I'm sure you get asked this question a lot too because it's it's a big question that the answer is not always the same. When do you start a highly drafted rookie quarterback? When do you start? You start them week one. You just make sure you get that experience out there. Do you let him sit for a little bit like we saw with Jordan Love and

Patrick Mahomes? And I think the answer is a little bit different. And I would tell you that the answer is whenever they are confident within themselves to where they can fail, but then not doubt their own abilities, right? You can fail, but it turns into lessons learned. It doesn't turn into, man, can I even play in this league? That's when it gets dangerous. And that's when starting a quarterback too early can be detrimental to their career. By signing Sam Donald and getting met to Sam Donald,

you don't have to do that with whoever the quarterback is. Now we know it's J.J. McCarthy. It's one of the youngest quarterbacks that we had in this class. one of the youngest players that we had in this class. It's important for him to be able to sit. And for Donald specifically, I don't think he was just this holdover. I think that they went to Donald and said,

look, man, we're legitimately going to give you basically the first six weeks guaranteed. And then maybe it's, who knows, maybe it's even the entire first year. You're coming off a pretty good performance of what we saw you in your lone week as a starter in week 18 with the San Francisco 49ers because I looked it up. It was a 74.8 passing grade performance that he had with the 49ers in that one game that he started.

And I think that Kevin O'Connell said to him, here's what we're going to do for you. We're going to give you Justin Jefferson to throw to. We're going to put you behind a good offensive line. We're going to give you a good running game. We are going to give you an opportunity to prove your worth to hit free agency next year and really be able to attempt to go get a starting job somewhere else. And we're going to let you put your best foot forward. And I think that's what's going to happen.

I think we're going to see the best version of Sam Donald that we ever have in the NFL and Kevin O'Connell's system with the Vikings roster around him. And I think that this is going to be a breakout year for. Everything that everyone said going into last year about how intriguing the idea of Sam Donald with the Niners was, just on a football experiment level, a lot of that is still true. Not to the same extent, right? It's not Kyle Shanahan. It's not the Niners skill position players.

But this is still an objectively good place. to play quarterback. We just talked about the Darrysal extension, have Justin Jefferson, we'll see when Hawkinson gets back, and what happens with Jordan Addison. But even in the median range of outcomes with all that stuff,

it is a good collection of players, and you're working with a head coach and a play caller who I think has shown an ability to get the most out of these guys. And I think that's exactly right when you're projecting him moving forward. You just watched it last year with Baker Mayfield. There is a chance that the league can write you off

and with the right season in the right circumstances at the right moment, it can change your trajectory as a starter. And if I'm Donald and his people, I'm eyeing in terms of the best case scenario is him getting to the end of this year, some team sitting there in free agency, whoever you want it to be, whether it's, you know, the Raiders are probably going to be looking for a quarterback next year, the Steelers are going to be looking for a quarterback next year, is there some team that looks at him and says, you know what?

He's worth the Baker contract. He's worth the Gino contract. Like, that's the type of thing we're willing to throw at him based on what he did last year. And I don't know if we're going to get there, but I think this sets him up as well as it possibly could for that to at least be on the table. Yep. I agree with you. I agree with you. It's why, again, I think that he is a breakout guy that I think it's coming. I really do. I like Minnesota's situation for him. It's interesting with Minnesota because I'm, I think you're right. It's always different the answer of when you're supposed to play this guy. What I've usually landed on is,

similar to what you said, when do the reps not become a detriment? When you're not forming scar tissue, you're not developing bad habits. And typically the reason, the way I think about that stuff is it's about supporting cast. I don't want to drop you behind the wrong line. I don't want to put you with the wrong receivers. Minnesota, I don't think either of those are an issue. I think that the reps that J.J. McCarthy gets when he starts getting them will be better than we see with a lot of other first round quarterbacks.

But I think Minnesota actually believes in the benefit of these guys sitting. And if you think about, I don't know if it's causal necessarily, and I actually think that there is some selection bias when we're talking about Mahomes and Jordan Love because there are plenty of other guys, whether it's Jake Locker or, you know, you can throw out several other names who didn't necessarily benefit the same way from sitting. And I do think that getting out there, getting reps, getting experience, even if it's in perfect circumstances, can be good for these young guys. But it really does feel like some of the stuff coming out from Minnesota and some of the messaging is that they do see. real benefit to sitting that guy down for a while and even up to a year. So if I'm looking at these rookies, I honestly think that JJ is probably the guy I would expect to see the latest into the season because even in New England, if they do feel like Jacoby is the number one guy there for right now, how easy is it to imagine we're in week six? The Patriots are a disaster and they need to do something to change the direction of this and

throwing a guy like Drake May out there is the easiest way to at least make this team watchable and at least throw some red meat to your fan base. Yeah. No, and it's, you know what I think about Minnesota's situation. I think Sam's getting six weeks to be the starter at the very least. That's what I believe. Because when you look at their schedule, they go six weeks. The buy week is week seven.

And then week eight, they play at home against Detroit. So the earliest that you would make the switch to McCarthy, to me, would be going into a buy week and then your first game is at home. Obviously it's the Lions. Like, that's not ideal because they're a Super Bowl caliber type of team. But there's only so much you can control there. So I agree with you. Again, I think that it's six weeks at a minimum. And I think the Vikings, I don't think they lied to Darnold when they probably told them in free agency like, hey man, we want you to play well. Like we're not just bringing you in to, you know, be the guy that will start at the beginning of camp. Like, we want you to be our starting

quarterback for a little bit. This is the plan that we have. And that includes you playing well. So we are going to do everything we can to allow you to play well. Because the longer you play well, the more time we have to get JJ ready and all that. And even if it like you said, if it's a full year, it's a full year. And I think that they'd be okay with that. I think that again, that's hints of the Darasaw contract. They're very healthy. They're very comfortable playing the long term plan here with this rookie contract. So yeah, that's a, that's my first. I got 10 million bucks, man. I mean, that is an uptick on the bridge quarterback deal of one of your bridge quarterback deal.

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My first one here, this is going to be informed by my travels to this point. I was in Arizona for two days earlier this week and really enjoyed my time with the Cardinals and some of the guys on their staff before training camp got going. And the guy I want to throw out is Michael Wilson. This is number two for me. That's great. This is number two for me. Let's go. So here we go.

And I'm sure I think he'd be comfortable with me sharing this. but I was talking to Drew Petting their offensive coordinator about Michael Wilson. And I want to be clear about this from the start. I don't think Michael Wilson is going to be Adam Thielen. But what Drew was telling me is when he was in Minnesota, and they would be going through practices, especially when Teddy was a young quarterback. And consistently, Teddy found himself when they were trying to structure certain plays

being like, you know what, I want Adam on that route. I want Adam on that route. And part of the reason was because Thelan was just one of those guys who was always in the right place at the right time. When you're a quarterback, and especially with the way the roles in that offense in Minnesota were delineated, Stefan was number one. Like, Diggs was the number one option, but he was consistently coming back to Thielen on the backside of certain stuff and is the secondary option on plays because he always knew the depth, timing, everything was going to be on point. It was a very comfortable way for a quarterback to live and a very comfortable piece to have as your number two receiver. And Michael Wilson has shown a lot of those same qualities and a lot of those same capabilities.

the potential number two-ish with Trey McBride within that offense. So I don't think he's going to be a superstar necessarily, but I think this is going to be a guy who was a mid-round pick, who showed some flashes as a rookie, that potentially by the end of this season, we just see as a solid, reliable number two receiver within a good NFL offense. I think that is the track that he is potentially on heading into his second season.

This warms my heart. He was one of my guys in the 2023. NFL draft. Like obviously, so I had him wide receiver six in that class. And, you know, it was behind guys like Zay Flowers and Jastian Smith and Jigba and Josh Downs and Jordan Addison and those kind of players. But Michael Wilson in that like next tier of guys, he was the guy I wanted. And I really started to fall in love with his game when he was at the Senior Bowl because he was really performing well in the one-on-one drill is against all different types of corners. The smaller corners, the quicker corners, the longer corners, the bigger corners, whatever. Michael Wilson, which is getting

open. It was almost if he knew how to attack every type of corner. When you can win with your mind as as much as athleticism, I pay attention to that. So I go, okay, well, why don't I know a ton about Michael Wilson here? We're at the senior ball already. And I go back to it and it's because he had a lot of injuries during his time in Stanford. You know, he had a couple of foot injuries and he had a knee injury or an ankle injury as well. He just, he was hurt a lot during his time at Stanford. But when he was on the field, they emphasized this dude. And that made a lot to me. We've got a statistic at PFF. It's called threat. It's basically wide receiver usage. How often are you getting a target per route you run? And, you know, the major wide receivers and offenses, they're high 20s,

maybe like low 30s, if you're really a big time emphasis player. Michael Wilson had a threat percentage above 20 in every single season that he was at Stanford, including his freshman season, the only one that he didn't was a 19.5%. So it was basically right. there for 20. When this guy was out there on the field, they wanted to get him the football. It's because he knew how to win, again, with his mind as much as athleticism, I think he is in, I think you described it perfectly. Do I think he's going to take Marvin Harrison Jr.'s job as wide receiver won there? No. But in an offense with him and with Tray McBride, and then with Michael Wilson, I think that's a really nice trio wide receivers that you got there in Arizona.

Yeah, I just like the roles. I think that if you want to have Harrison be like that true X, who's really attacking the game outside the numbers. I don't necessarily think that's the only way they'll use him. I think that Harrison on some of those big overrouts that they want to use off play action, the way that I'm envisioning it, there's a play specifically from Kyler's first game back against San Francisco. It's early on in the game. They're running play action, and they have Hollywood on this big overrout and then Wilson

on just like a dig behind it. And you put Harrison on that big overrout and you put Wilson on that dig behind it. I like this. Like I like this version of the Cardinals' offense. I think that his feel for zone coverage, you look at some of the reception, perception numbers, like success against man coverage, but also really good feel for zone coverage for a young player speaking to what you're talking about with winning with his brain just as much as his body, I think that he's going to be a reliable piece for this team.

His last game, in the regular season last year, six for six for 95 yards. Like the guy by the end of last year, I think, had really developed the comfort with the offense and with the quarterback, and now we're potentially seeing both of those guys be able to build on that heading into their second year together. Love it. I love it. All right. So, Wilson was number two for me. So we got him off the board. I'm going to go with Philadelphia Eagles edge rusher, Nolan Smith, as my next guy. I think that Nolan, I think that Nolan Smith is a breakout candidate here because, you know, Phillies had some changes along their defensive line. They lose Hassan Redick. However, they were placing him with Bryce Huff. Although Bryce Huff, very effective in his past rush role with the Jets over the last couple of seasons. Nolan Smith is, in theory, the better run defender. I mean, you go back to his time when he was at Georgia, despite being undersized, I think, for what Georgia normally likes to have with their on-ball players.

This guy was defending in the run really well. 90.6 and 82.4 run defense grades in his last two seasons when he was at Georgia. Now, the run defense grades weren't as great last year, but he wasn't playing a ton of snaps. It was a deep Philly defensive line. I think he now gets the eye. opportunity to stand out on that defensive line because they've got some pass rushers. Like they've got guys like Bryce up. They've got Josh Sweat as well.

Brandon Graham is still on this team with his farewell tour this final season, his 15th season. I believe that Nolan Smith is going to have the ability to be a early down starter for this team. And I think he's got the athleticism to give you some juice and pass rush as well. But his bread and butter has always been how well he defends the run. I think we see those run defense grades shoot up from him this year. I think we have a little bit of a one-two rotation with him and Bryce Huff kind of coming in on past rush situations versus run defense situations. And I think Nolan really starts to maybe even double, maybe even triple that snap count total that he had from last year. He starts to contribute a lot more to this Eagles defensive line.

And I think it's a good breakout year for him. I'm so curious to see what it's going to feel like watching that Eagles defense as they try to inject it with a little bit more youth and pop. Because when you watch them at the end of last year, they felt creaky. Like there's no way around that. And if you look at the offseason moves that they made, I think they told you that. They went out and got younger a corner. They have these guys who were early round draftics last year like Nolan Smith,

who were going to be a bigger part of what they do. Even somebody like Devin White. I'm so curious to watch what this team feels like in week one, week two, and just how fast they could potentially feel, how athletic they could potentially feel, how explosive they could potentially feel compared to just how D.O.A. this unit felt by the end of last season. And Nolan Smith to me is one of those guys who could go a long way in making that happen.

Yep. No, I agree with you. They got a lot of Georgia players on that defense now. They got him. They got Jordan Davis. They have Joe and Carter. They have Nikobie Dean. Keely Ringo is still here.

I mean, they got plenty of those guys over there. Hey, back-to-back national championship winning defense. I guess drafting those guys isn't a bad strategy. So, yeah, I agree with you. My next one here, I think you could pick several Green Bay Packers. offensive players and have them apply to this exercise. Devonty Wyatt probably. If you want to throw Lucas Van Ness's name in there, I think you could do that. But the guy I'm going with is Carl Brooks. Rortational defensive tackle, Carl Brooks Brooks for the Green Bay Packers. He was a

six-round pick last year. He's going to go into this season as their third interior player. You can make an argument that it's fourth because T.J. Slayton is really the only bigger body run stuffer that they have. But I really, really was impressed with Carl Brooks. last year. He had 38 pressures as a rookie. If you look at it on a per snap basis with a pass rush productivity, you guys do over at PFF, he was wedged right between Sheldon Rankins and Malik Collins in terms of how often he was affecting the quarterback when he was on the field. And then anecdotally, I went back this morning and was watching some of the divisional round game and he just jumps off the screen to me. He's just one of those guys that is always moving

forward toward the quarterback no matter what happens. There was a back-to-back stretch on, I think, the first or second drive of the game, where he doesn't initially win, but then he just walks the left guard back into the quarterback, because again, it's always moving toward the quarterback, and then on the next play, he wins with like a quick inside move. It's like, all right, well, you're a sixth-round rookie. You're winning with power. You're winning with finesse. You're winning with nuance. And you play the way that I want you to play. And I just think this unit has a chance to be a group that more people are paying attention to by the end of this year. And you could say that's about Wyatt, you could say that's about Kenny Clark, but Brooks is the guy who maybe is a little bit lesser known that I just keep coming back to as somebody who could really embody why this group is a problem up front. And I'm really excited to see what he could potentially do in year two.

It's a good shout out. Brooks was one of the biggest combine snubs in his draft class when he didn't get invited to the combine. I know a lot of people were upset about that with him coming from Bowling Green. They wanted to see how he was able to stack up. And, you know, I think he gets drafted. it a little bit later. One, because not getting invited to the combine, you see sort of how the NFL, or what the NFL thinks of you, if they don't think you're one of those top 300 players, he's got a little bit shorter of measurables, but there's so much to like about how he plays the game. It feels like he understands his body, his strengths, is also his limitations. I think the way that he plays is just very efficient. There's not a lot of like wasted movement with him. What you see is kind of what you get. And I mean that as a compliment with Brooks. So I do agree with you.

I think that he is in line to sort of challenge that defensive rotation. They've got a lot of guys. You know, like you mentioned a handful of them, Van Ness and Devante Wyatt, probably hoping those guys play a lot more this upcoming season. But the way that Green Bay has sort of played defense over the last couple of years, maybe it looks different now that Barry is no longer their defense coordinator. But there's only so many defensive linemen that you can get on the field. And I feel like there's a lot to get excited about with the defensive linemen

and how deep they are in Green Bay. So we'll kind of see how this training camp battle or battles comes out with Green Bay because I agree with you. I think a lot of people were getting excited about Brooks. And maybe he can continue to crack that rotation a lot more than people thought he was going to, like you mentioned, as a six-round pick. If you look at that tree specifically, those guys who come from that Niners world, and I know Jeff Halfey's had a circuitous route after that, but he spent some time in San Francisco and just the way that they want to play.

having those hockey lines of defensive players up front, that's important. Ideally, I wouldn't want my guys playing more than 55, 60% of the snaps because I want them to play with a certain mentality and a certain urgency. And I think that's the best case scenario for them is if we have so many guys that we feel comfortable with that there's nobody who's going to be playing a thousand snaps for us, 950 snaps for us. So I think that this new system based on deployment and also playing. style. I think this type of defense and playing this type of way benefits a guy with Carl Brooks's

skill set. And it's kind of why I'm really interested to see him in this type of defense. And I'm really interested to see a lot of those pieces they have up front in this type of attacking off field. Let's get after the quarterback sort of approach. Yeah, I think that that's a really good call. And I love the way that you put it there, that like hockey shift type of defensive line play. And, you know, if I was a defensive line coach, that's how I would want to do it as well. It's a little different than the offensive trenches because it's not like you can rotate those guys out. You need that continuity. They're going to play a lot of snaps no matter what. But the side of the ball or the side of the trenches, I should say that you can change and get a

bit more depth and keep guys a little bit more fresh is that defensive side. So I like what Green Bay is built and we'll see how often they do make those line shifts, if you will, like you said with the hockey analogy. Who's your next one? All right. I got a couple that I could go with. I think I'm going to go with Joshua Williams, the corner from the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, Kansas City, we all talk about, you know, Trent McDuffie and how fantastic he is. I think he's going to man the CB1 responsibilities for that team. But there was a lot that both he and Ligerius Need were able to kind of handle together last year. Ligerius now no longer on that team.

So I think it's a bump in responsibility from McDuffie, who I think is will absolutely be up to the challenge because I believe that he's one of the best young corners. and even just corners in the game. You can throw the adjective Young out of there. I think he's fantastic. But they do need other players to step up in the secondary. And there's a handful of players who it feels like are in a battle for that next quarterback spot. Nizzie Johnson's one of them, Jalen Watson.

And then Joshua Williams is kind of the other one that I'm really looking at. And Williams is very unique in sort of what he brings to the table. 96th percentile in height, 91st percentile in arm length. So he gives you the length that you absolutely love. 75.2 coverage grade last year. And this is the stat that stood out to me and why I'm excited about him and why I think that if he gets that starting job,

he could really be a breakout player. Eight forced and completions on just 31 targets that were thrown his way. So he's using that length very well. And there's a lot of players who kind of can come through the NFL or the NFL draft where the league really likes how long they are,

how tall they are, because in theory, it allows you to get your hand in there passes and really disrupt the catch point and you get interceptions, get forcing completions, whatever it is. But if you don't have the anticipation, you still aren't going to be able to get your head turn around or your body. You're not going to be able to tell your brain to move your arms to get there in time because it is such a quick game.

Williams already showed that he has that last year. And if you give him more opportunities, I think that this is somebody who, especially with Steve Spagnolo, who is an aggressive defensive. coordinator. He's going to be telling his guys, we want turnovers. Get your hands on the football. The more times we get Patrick Mahomes possessions, the better things happen for this football team. And so with Williams signs of how often he can get his hands on the ball from just what we saw last year, it gives me faith for a big time breakout season if he is able to earn one of those starting jobs outside of camp. I'm really watching how they're going to deploy these guys.

Because the idea of putting Chamari Connor in the slot and letting Trump McDuffie live outside, that's a certain type of defense. And they did that a lot last year. If you look at the way that they deployed their nickel group, especially in the back half of last season, it was a lot of those three safety looks compared to three corner looks. But this is a team that plays a ton of dime as well. And I, Trent McDuffie can live outside. Like Trump McDuffie, like you said, is a high level corner. My question is, do you want him to? Or do you defang some of the things make him special if you move him out of the slot because what he can do is a blitzer, because what he can do with just the level of physicality he plays with somebody who's a little bit undersized. So how the chiefs ultimately want to play on the back end and who fits what role because of that, that's something I'm absolutely going to be watching in a post-legious sneed world. And I don't think it has to be one answer. I think depending on the situation, depending on the team you're playing, depending on the matchups, oh, this is a week where we want a little bit more size in there, so we're going to drop Chamari in there. This is a week where we just think

that Trent is best inside, so we're going to slot him in there. And somebody like Joshua Williams ascending allows you to do that. If you feel good about just being able to pencil somebody in in one of those outside corner spots, that allows you to use Trent as more of like a flexible chess piece to put yourself consistently in the best situation. So obviously Steve Spagnow deserves all the benefit of the doubt for understanding how to do this. But what the final answers are, especially early in the year, this team used personnel on defense as well as any team in football last year in the front and on the back end. So Joshua Williams, it's somebody whose usage and role I'm going to be watching just

because the answers to that for the 2024 version, I think are actually maybe more important without Sneed than they even were last year. people talk about Mahomes and Reed and Kelsey and obviously you should. It's just an unbelievable legendary Hall of Fame type of offensive names that you have there. But Steve Spagnolo still is an underrated part of this back-to-back run that they have, this dynasty that they have, this potential three-peat that the Chiefs have. And I agree with you completely. He deserves the benefit of the doubt in all situations.

And Joshua Williams, if he is somebody who can shorten it certainly, prove himself in camp. It only makes you more flexible on what you can do with, yeah, guys like Trent McDuffie and the safeties and how you deploy them, whether there's two safety, three safeties, one safety. Having an outside corner that you really trust helps you a lot in that regard. My next one here is somebody that's been on any breakout list I've seen this entire off season, but I had to do it because I went back and watched two Steelers game from back half of last year. I'm like, this guy's a monster.

It's Keanu Benton, who they drafted in the second round last year. And I went back and watched the Seattle game for the, we did a series of shows this offseason about just the lingering questions we had about every team in the league that maybe didn't get answered by the end of the 2023 season. With the Steelers, it was, okay, what is this roster outside a quarterback? Like, what is the actual level of quality? And I credit Stephen Ruiz from bringing that question to the table. And so I went back and watched them on both sides of the ball.

And watching Benton, I was like, this guy is going to be an absolute beast. And Mike Tom and alluded to it. a little bit, I think early on in camp, said something about him a couple days ago where he thinks there's a chance he can be dominant sooner rather than later. I think that's potentially coming. He didn't get that many opportunities as a pass rusher last year. Keanu Benton played 74 snaps on third down last season. 53 third down pass rush snaps.

He had six pressures on those 53 plays. I want him to get more of those opportunities heading into year two. I think he will. Like Larry Ogun Joby played two and a half times that many snaps as a pass rusher on third down. I think the best version of the Steelers defense this season involves more Benton in that spot and less Ogun Joby. And I think that based on what he showed on tape last year, power explosion, everything that you want to see, I think he's well suited for that uptick and roll. And it makes sense that it wasn't really, let's hit the ground running with Benton as a pass rusher because we really didn't see him as a

pass rush option, I will even say, until his final year when he was at Wisconsin. He was a consistent starter for them in the years prior, but in his own words, he was basically just focused on, I need to defend the run, I need to not give up the line scrimmage, I need to anchor as well as it possibly can for his first two years as starter. And then it wasn't until that final year, I remember watching an interview of him and everybody says this, but I watched an interview of him going into his final season at Wisconsin. and he said the thing that he worked on the most is I feel comfortable in who I am as a run defender right now. Now I'm actually for the first time trying to devote my time to being a better pass rusher.

And you saw some of that extra juice from him at times at Wisconsin. Then you also saw it at the Senior Bowl. I think that that showed up very well there. So it makes sense of the first year with him in Pittsburgh. He kind of is going back to his roots a little bit and he's saying, okay, okay, this is why they drafted me. Let me defend the run. Let me make my name defending the run. But you mentioned when they let him pen his ears back, he looked pretty good.

And I thought that when the Steelers drafted him, I was like, it is a perfect situation. Obviously, Mike Tomlin, I think is a great coach for any young defensive player. But get next to play next to Game Hayward as well. I mean, that's a dream come true to get to play next to a player like this who has an unbelievable success rate over a very, very long NFL career, the work ethic, how you take care of your body, how you marry up being a pass threshold with a good run defender, especially in this deal. scheme, which he has been in for many, many years. So I agree with you completely. It's sort of one of the more obvious ones, but it would almost feel disingenuous to have this list

without Keanu Bent being on here, especially when we're talking about second year guys that are taking a jump. Just the way he jumped off when I was rewatching them. It's just like, you can't not bet on what this guy could potentially be because the flashes are so, so exciting. And I remember three, four, my God, no, it feels like 20 years ago now. But watching the Steelers defensive front when it was Hayward, Watt, and Stefan Tewitt, there was a real cool synergy between the way that Hayward and Tewitt played. Because Hayward is, you could set your watch to Cam Hayward, right?

Like, he's doing the exact right thing every single time. He's such a reliable presence, both in terms of assignment and what he is for that defense. Tewitt was a wild horse. I mean, there was no way to understand when he was going to backdoor something, when he was going to try to. and make a play. And I actually think that's a beautiful little marriage of mindsets and skill sets within a defensive line. And it feels like they've been missing that a little bit since Tewitt moved on. And I think that Ben can potentially provide that sort of like chaos factor to what this group feels like in a way we haven't really seen since Stefan Tewitt retired. And you combine that

with what they have going on the edge. And suddenly it's easy to get very, very excited about what this whole group can look like again, even more than we have over the last couple years when they've been pretty fucking good. Yeah. It felt like a steal of a draft pick. I gave the Steelers an A during that draft in Keanu Benton, getting him where they did is a huge reason why. So I think that he is. He's going to be a major player for them.

I think he's going to be a big time breakout player. So I agree. What's your next one? All right. I'm going to go with Bengals running back Chase Brown here. You are speaking my language, man. I love this so much. As an owner of so many Chase Brown dynasty stocks,

I'm so, so happy about this. So Chase Brown is somebody who I think could be in for a big time breakout year because of not only who he is, but also the situation. I'll talk about the situation first. You move on from Joe Mixon, long time starting running back for them, somebody who had a ton of volume for the Bengals, whether that was as a rusher or as a receiver. So you bring in, you got Zach Moss to kind of be that number one running back.

You assume that veteran number one running back to handle the early down work. But for as much as you might have faith in what Zach Moss can be as a rusher, Zach Moss has not been a receiver, really at any point in his career. He has never had a receiving grade in a single season above 58.0. Like they just, they don't use them a lot. He doesn't give you a lot of return on investment. Chase Brown gave you that last year. For as much as he didn't take a lot of Mixins carries,

he didn't get a ton of opportunities last year because he only played 90 snaps last year. He still had an 84.8 grade as a receiver out of the backfield from week 13 on, so the second half of the season. So when he got healthy because he missed some time due to a hamstring injury, comes back, they really utilize him as a receiver. I think at the very least, Chase Brown is going to get on the field

as a receiver on this team and it's a Bengals offense it's very used to getting the ball in the hands of a running back in the passing game because we've seen it so often with Joe Mixing in the past. Now, you've got to remember this too. Who Chase Brown is and his former production when he was at Illinois also goes into him

getting more carries, more looks, more things in the offense because this was a high 80 or 90th percentile athlete in 40-yard dash, vertical jump, broad jump, and even like bench press. So he's a smaller dude, but he's a super explosive player. And I thought that was really funny because when I watched Chase Brown, who was the number three rusher in the FBS in his final year when he was at Illinois, the thing I actually liked the most about him wasn't necessarily his breakout speed. It was just like contact balance.

It was how pissed off he ran. So I was very high. on him going into the draft because I was like, whoa, whoa, I didn't even think he'd be that good of an athlete that we saw at the combine. So you give me this extremely determined runner who loves to get yards after contact, you throw in that athletic potential, and now we've seen him get some work as a receiver in the Bengal system last year. I don't know how much he's going to eat into Zach Moss's carries, but I think there is certainly a world where at the very least Chase Brown feels like they're receiving back to start.

And then if Zach Moss isn't necessarily giving them the ceiling that they want from the running back position, there is reason to believe whether it's statistically, stylistically, or athletically, that Chase Brown could be more than whatever Zach Moss is bringing to the table. So I think we can be in for a big way to do it. I think that's a perfect way to frame it because one of the reasons that I was so invested in Chase Brown heading into last year is the Bengals running game, specifically in 2022, was mindlessly efficient. I mean, if you look at rushing success rate, every efficiency metric associated with their running game, they're getting four or five yards to carry every time they run the ball.

The problem is they were getting four or five yards to carry every single time they ran the ball. They had no explosive plays in the running game whatsoever when it's mixing in P-Rine. And Chase Brown gives you that element potentially. So is this team who's going to face the same? way they have over the last few years. Tona shell coverage. Their teams are going to dare you to move the ball efficiently underneath because they're afraid of what your receivers can do, beating them over the top. How are you going to find explosive plays in that world? And I think that Chase Brown specifically has a skill set, both as a rusher and a receiver,

that allows them to find more of those. And I think that, like you said, he was hurt early in the season. So you have a rookie coming in that obviously past production concerns are always going to be there for young players, but now he's missing time. So now you have a full off season. I'm with you. I think that Zach Moss as just a stable, reliable option where we can have him eat some carries, there's benefit to that. But I think that they're going to be looking for more pop from that position over the course of his season than just what Zach Moss gives them. And I think that goes beyond just catching passes. We saw them dial up screens for him last year.

I have to assume that's going to be a healthy part of the offense again because those are just potentials for explosives. But I do think that that has a chance to extend into the run game because he's just giving you a dynamic that not only Zach Moss does it, but yet you really haven't had over the last several seasons as you've tried to find more avenues to explosive plays. Yeah, that was the big criticism of mixing, right? I mean, it was somebody who you could lean on in basically every way that you wanted from the running back position and he was efficient for you, but it was, you put it

perfectly, it was four and a half yards per carry, which is good, but then it was only four and a half yards per carry. Like, there was not a big ceiling with mixing like there sometimes is with these other backs. And I wonder if they, yeah, lean towards a little bit more of that potential with Chase. If Chase Brown and Zemir White end up hitting, I'll be the happiest person in America all fall. If they don't, then you're not going to want to hear from me. So I had a sixth round rotational defensive tackle on this list. Let's go with that former top 10 pick because I'm going to make things easy on myself. I'm going with Peter Skoronsky.

Part of the reason I wanted to talk about Skoranski, again, this feels easy, right? We're talking about top 10. I guess he was the 11th pick in the draft. So we're talking about top 12 picks. Yeah, they should probably take a step forward in their second year. But I don't think people realize how much Skoranski struggled for stretches of last season. He came into the year. he had an appendectomy early in the season.

And talk about what Chase Brown on the hamstring, if you're a young player and you miss time, it is so hard to overcome that. Everything that you're dealing with, with your mental workload as a rookie, anything that detracts from that is going to put you behind the eight ball. And that's how it felt with Skoronsky

and in part because it's a position switch. He's going from left tackle inside. And you could just see the game happening for him, especially as a run blocker, a little bit faster than he wanted it to last year. And there were just inconsistencies because of how much he was trying to juggle while also coming back from injury, losing some play strength, a bunch of different things.

So now you're heading into year two. You have J.C. Latham, who all, that was the seventh overall pick I was thinking about. You have J.C. Latham now next to you. They sign Lloyd Cushenberry. And you have Bill Callahan coming in. I just think that some of the flashes we saw from him, I expect those to be more of the expectation rather than the exception as we head into year two. And I just wanted to check my work.

And I asked somebody there yesterday, I was like, my right to feel good about where Skoronsky is potentially headed and where the arrow is pointed. And he's like, yeah. I was like, all right. I expect it as much. But just wanted to make sure that I'm doing my due diligence here. So I really do think that there is a chance Skoronski goes from somebody who had some flashes as a rookie to, a really high caliber guard in this league by the end of his second year. Look, I completely agree with you.

He was a top five player for me in that draft class. And obviously he struggled a little bit as a rookie, but all rookies typically do in the trenches specifically. When I used to live back in Tampa, I used to do a podcast with Ian Beckles, who was former offensive guard at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And he knew that I was a draft guy. So, you know, I would talk up these young guys.

I would talk up these rookies or whatever. And he had to stop me one time when we were recording podcasts. And he was like, Trevor, let me tell you, rookies suck. And he's just like, that's like the way that he said it. He was basically like they suck until they don't essentially. And that first year, they're just going to be better. They're rookies.

They're trying to figure it out. And so for Skronsky, you look at his PFF grades, run blocking, past blocking grades. I think we're right around the mid low 60s. But you go back to his time at Northwestern. The three years that he was a starting player for them, high 80s, even 90s in basically every single category. So this is a dude who has ton of consistency playing it at a very high level.

He was able to play left tackle for them. Now, obviously, he kicks in a guard. That was going to be an adjustment for them anyways. But I agree with you completely. He's extremely talented. He's going to emerge as one of the best young guards in the game. I fully believe that. Yeah, and just as we see a lot of teams transition to really valuing those interior players

in a way that I don't think we've ever seen before, you know, on both sides of the ball. And if you're going to live in a world and even a division where you have to deal with DeForest Buckner, the guys that they have in Tennessee right now, you're on a team with Jeffrey Simmons. That's where the league is. We've gotten to a place where you're going to be seeing one of those dynamic interior rushers more often than you're not over the course of your schedule. And somebody that has the pass blocking chops of a Peter Skoransky, I think, we're going to value those guys more, we're going to notice those guys more than we probably have in a long, long time.

So excited to see what he does in year two. Who's your next one? This is five, right? I think this is my last one. Yeah, yeah. Darnold. You could throw out a couple more names after we wrap up. All right.

Okay, okay. I think that's the spirit of the exercise. I'll go with this guy and then I got one more that I probably just shout out. So it's topical because we brought up Hassan Reddick a little bit earlier in the show. I think Will MacDonald is a guy who's in for a major breakout year. And even independent of Hassan Reddick situation, certainly if Reddick ends up holding out, like if he's like, I'm not playing under this contract. I'm not risking injury. If he obviously goes into the season, it becomes paramount.

for Will McDonald to take a step forward because there's no Bryce Huff. Now they obviously wouldn't have a son Redick who they wanted to replace him with. The Jets like to have that sort of designated pass rush and they like to be deep on their defensive line anyways. So when you look at Redick or sorry, when you look at McDonald and statistics last year as a rookie, only played 183 snaps, but 15.2% passers win percentage. Still, in the limited amount of snaps that he was able to play, which I like that as a baseline for you as a rookie as just a rotational player. you go back to his time at Iowa State, 26 sacks in his final three seasons, and he got five sacks in 2022 while he was playing this weird like four-eye position where like they didn't even,

I mean, they were having this like skinny long pass rusher play four-eye for them. And it's like, what are we doing here? So it's like adjacent to the Will Anderson experience in Alabama. He was obviously very good in that role, but it's just like, man, you could be so much more than this. Just let him. And he had, he had double-digit sacks in the two seasons prior. and I think it was because they were letting him play as a stand-up outside linebacker as like a three-four edge. And then his senior season, they kick him inside, I think out of necessity.

He still ends up getting five sacks and getting the Iowa State career record for most sacks in a career. But still, man, I think he was playing out of position when he was at Iowa State. I think the Jets drafted him in the first round because they said, no, no, no, no. He's a lot closer to the sophomore and junior season tapes than he was that senior season tape when he was playing way out of position. It was a deep jets rotation last year as one of the best defensive lines in the NFL. And now, again, I think he was going to have a step up in opportunities anyways. And with Redick not there, we could see some pretty damn impressive like training camp clips, some preseason clips, whatever, of him going into the season.

Because I think they'll actually put him in a position to succeed. You can see that passers win percentage get up a little bit higher. They can kind of treat him like they did Bryce Huff, where they're putting him really good positions to succeed. And so I'm excited about year two for Will McDonald there. I really appreciate this annual Jets tradition that we have now of them just rolling out a brand new first round pass rush around the dolly still in the packaging. We're doing this every year now. Like it was with Jermaine Johnson last year. And the Eagles are doing this.

It's just like, oh, yeah, here's the first round defensive lineman that we still haven't opened yet. Merry Christmas. Like you guys forgot about this guy. And the Jets are just going to do that every year in perpetuity, I think. For them next year, it's the offense a tackle. Next year it's going to be, all right, here we go. Here's Olo Fushan who we forget about him, but he's just, we're rolling him off the line now. And I think that Eagles have proven this.

It's not the worst way to think about your resources. I think ultimately you're going to be happy with the way that your team is built if that's how you're consistently drafting. For Jets fans, I'm sure it was frustrating last year to have that one next to Will McDonald's name and not really see him do much. but having those guys consistently come out of the woodwork, ultimately, I think it leads to more benefits than drawbacks in the long term. Yeah, obviously, if you're going to stockpile some of those first round resources for a little bit of time and in the future, you would want to do so in the trenches. Or at quarterback, obviously, we've seen teams, you know, cash in on being able to do that.

But it's more difficult to do that at QB because there's no chance that they're playing if the starter in front of them is playing well, whereas, you know, guys like, McDonald, guys like Foshanoo, right? Like guys could theoretically get hurt or they could be in a rotation and you can see a little bit more for them before they become first time starters. But if you're going to do it, I think that is the way to do it. Like you mentioned with the Jets, with the Eagles, how those teams are building teams. My last one here, I don't know if this necessarily counts because you could make an

argument that he took a jump or broke out last year, considering you finished 14th and yards per route run. I alluded to this a little bit on the show we did with Dave Helmet earlier this week. I think Tank Dell is like a special football player. And I know that there are concerns. And obviously got hurt last year. I mean, the guy's way, the guy weighs 165 pounds.

Like there is absolutely a barrier to him being a consistent, effective outside NFL receiver with that body type. We really haven't seen it before. And he's a different type of player than Deshaun Jackson was. Like that's the name that everyone's going to throw out for undersized. outside the numbers guys. Sean Jackson was a vertical receiver. What I think makes Tank Dell so, so scary is his ability to throttle down on those

vertical routes with C.J. Stroud, there's just like such a beautiful marriage and synchronicity between the way that both of those guys play. And I think that you see Stroud's preference for him, too. So if I'm going to be as bullish as I am on C.J. Stroud, I think that Tank Dell has enough of that special stuff that's unique that fits with the way that Stroud plays where I think that those two guys together over the next three, four years, even with some of the size concerns, I really do feel like we could see something special between them, even in a crowded receiver room.

Right. When we think about small receivers, we think about the vertical guys, right? We think about the Deshaun Jackson's, the Santana Mosses. There are these like slender, smaller wide receivers and we just think that they're vertical guys. So a lot of times when you get these smaller players like a tank Dell, we just think, oh, oh, like it's the speed. He's going to be a vertical guy. You are 100% correct. Tank Dell's calling card is actually change the direction. And we saw that at the senior ball. He's just cooking people because somehow stopping on a dime is quite literally

one foot in the ground and he turns around. Like that's it. Full speed, one foot in the ground turns and like the ball is right there. And even some of, even corners who have. have some of the best stop and start ability. It's going to take them like three chops to the feet to stop. And for Tankdale, it takes one. And it's like that, that is it when, when I was watching him in person at the senior bowl, you could not help but go, okay, this guy doesn't just have good change of direction.

This is essentially some of the best body control I've ever seen. And so any time that that's the case, you got a chance to make it. And if he could stay healthy for a full season, I agree with you. I think that his numbers are going to be great, even in a crowd of receiver room. So it's a good call out. That skill set specifically with Stroud, because the ball comes out on time, if he's going to have that little window of separation on virtually any single route he runs, he has the sort of quarterback who is perfectly built to consistently take advantage of that because of the way that Stroud plays the position. That's what I'm talking about where there's just like, there's something to. The combination between those two guys, they're just a match made in football heaven stylistically to me in a bunch of different ways.

And that's why I'm so excited to continue to see this grow. Do you have one more guy? The other guy that I want to shout out is rookie, Taron Tracy Jr. They're running back out of Purdue who ended up being a fourth round pick for the Giants. I thought he was going to get drafted a little bit higher in the draft just because he's a really athletic player. he played wide receiver at Iowa for four years, really couldn't consistently crack their passing attack. He was able to get into the lineup,

but he just wasn't on an episode. Does anyone really play wide receiver at Iowa though? You know, and I think that's sort of another conversation that might take another hour-long podcast for us to get into. But, you know, obviously he played wide receiver there. He didn't really have the numbers or the tape to have like an NFL future. There was a coach who, I think he was with early in his time at Iowa, who went somewhere else and then he was going to Purdue.

And when Tracy put his name in the portal, this coach was like, hey, I've always thought you could be a better running back. And Tracy was like, I don't know, man, if I switched to running back,

it's my last year of eligibility. And if I'm not good at running back, I have no NFL shot. Like, no one will give me a shot if I go to running back and it's not good. And this is my first year ever playing running back. But he trusts the coach. He goes to running back,

plays very well, earned an elite 90.6 Russian grade last year Purdue. And he's got, and he uniquely has that wide receiver background to him. And he also is pretty dang good at Russian of football. It's not a crowded room in New York. They've got Devin Singletary, who is familiar with Brian Daibold, but I don't think that Devin Singletary has got like a chokehold on that RB1 spot. They've got Eric Gray, who I like, but he has not been able to really break out in like an ascended position here yet in his career. And then is Tyrone Tracy. And from all accounts that I have read in early parts of Giants training camp,

Tracy's going to take some first team reps. Like, he's going to have the opportunity to get that job. So I think Tracy could be a breakout candidate as a rookie this year. So I wanted to shout him out there. I love that. I'm excited to see that because again, it's just, we know what Devin Singletary is. And Devin Singletary is one of those guys that he's going to eat a lot of carries. He's going to be, you know, a pretty efficient back in a run game that's not the Houston Texans run game from last year. I think that's a very important thing. to acknowledge. But Tracy just adds something different. It's a different dynamic. It's not dissimilar to what we were saying about Chase Brown. And when you can really bring that level of

pop to an offense and a Giants offense that desperately needs it. And you can tell they're trying to seek that out, right? Neighbors, Theo Johnson, Tracy, like, they understand where they were deficient last year. But because of that, I think that he has a real path to have an early role for all of the reasons that you said. All right, man. That's a lot of guys to get excited about as we sit here on the eve of the season. So I sincerely appreciate you joining us. I know you're a busy man. Where can people read, listen to, check out all the stuff that you're working on right now? Sure. Yeah. The main thing I got going right now is the NFL Stock Exchange show, which is myself and Connor Rogers. We cover the NFL draft 365 all year round. Right now we're doing summer scouting.

So we're getting you guys ready for the potential 2025 NFL draft class. You know, for a lot of people, it's less of the draft class and more of like, hey, for an NFL lens, who should I be watching in college football? Sure. Or, you know, when I'm playing, you know, CFB 25, you know, who is the gay? If I'm getting burned by somebody and I go, this is absolute horseshit, I'd be like, oh, okay, never mind. Trevor talked about him as an NFL draft guy, so maybe it's not as bad.

So that's, we got our YouTube channel over there. Obviously, if your listeners are checking that out, make sure that you check out this wonderful show beforehand. But we'd love to hang out with you and talk some NFL draft. And then everything else, basically pff.com. Go get a PFF subscription. read all the premium grades, all the fantasy tools, all the good stuff. Just an incredible combination of hair on that NFL Stock Exchange show.

The best pairing of heads of hair in NFL media by far with you and Connor Rogers. So I encourage you guys go check that out. Trevor and Connor do fantastic work. For now, that's all we've got on this show. We will be back on Tuesday with some really exciting news. I think that Tuesday is kind of officially to kick off to. what I were saying is the 2024 season on the athletic football show, the fifth year of the athletic football show, which is wild to think about. Belor had to correct me. I said it was the

fourth year on my outro on the last show that we did. It's like, no, man, this is actually your fifth year, which is a sign that I'm just getting old as shit. So very, very excited about what we have coming on Tuesday and the news that we're going to be able to share. Really looking forward to it. I'm going to continue my training camp travels here over the next few days, still in L.A. You know, spent some time with the Raiders, the Cowboys, and kind of stick on the West Coast for a few more days before taking what is going to be a disgusting red-eye flight from Seattle to Washington, D.C. But it's a fun time of year, excited to spend it with you guys, and very excited for what we got coming on Tuesday.

So please be sure to check it out, and we'll talk to you guys soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.