The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Player rankings on the defensive side in the 2024 draft

Episode Date: April 20, 2024

Mike and Randy go over their top 10 defensive players in this year's draft. The guys discuss the reasons why they chose the players they did and how they fit. From there, Randy explains some of the things that go on in a draft room and how teams come up with their clusters of players on their board. And then we wrap things up with the GM notebook.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here from The Athletic, along with my colleague at the Athletic, the GM, Randy Mueller. How you doing, Randy? I'm outstanding, Mike. Looking forward to a little draft talk today. I love this time of year. It kind of gets my juices pumped, and it's easy to get up in the morning.

I love the process that these teams are going through. So it's always something new. Every year presents different dynamics. about it and I love the draft talk. Yeah, no, it really does get to be fun as we kind of can measure and we're going to do that today. We're going to measure what some of the public perceptions are versus maybe

the way Randy sees things going or the way teams might see things going. Next week, just programming note, we would normally record on Friday for our Saturday podcast next week, but with the draft, we're actually going to record on Sunday and we will have our podcast next week.

The football GM will run on Monday after the draft. I think that's perfect because we'll get a little chance to digest it, won't be at the middle of the draft, it won't be obsolete by the time the thing runs, who knows what could happen on the second or third days, we'll be able to kind of take a bigger picture look at the whole draft. So that will be what you can look for next week. As for this week, Randy, big week around here. I didn't even tell you this. Yesterday, my oldest son got engaged. Oh, wow. Yeah, engaged. We got lots of stuff moving up, moving on the family front.

on my birthday. How about that? My birthday was yesterday. So lots of things going on here, beyond the draft. I was going to say, though, Randy, do you get good birthday gifts? I'm going somewhere with this, just trust me. I do. My girls follow closely what dad needs and probably do a better job of taking care of me than I do myself.

So yes, I get very thoughtful and thought through gifts, both at birthday and at Christmas, so I'm very appreciative. Well, and I do think, not to play too much into stereotypes, but I do think that as a general rule, girls probably do a better job picking gifts than the guys. I've got two sons, but I'm going to tell you this. What you get as a gift not only says a lot about the people that give the gift, but unfortunately for me, it says a lot about the gift receiver. And for some reason, almost all the things I receive are in relation to eating.

I mean, what is that? I get, my youngest son gave me three emergency coupons for my favorite type of pizza at any time of the day. I can order it. I can tell, and he'll go pick it up. He has to leave whatever he's doing. He has to go pick it up and deliver it to me at that time. So he could be, you know, he could be doing something important. If I want it now, I got these three coupons.

So right there, they're thinking Sandel just wants, you know, to eat a lot of pizza. My other one gets me a gift certificate to the butcher. My other one gets me a gift certificate to the butcher shop. I mean, everything here is related to just stuffing my face. So I'm getting the message on that as somebody's, you know, sidled up to a few media buffets in his day. Yeah, but you take it to a different level, man. I've seen and have discussed this barbecueing, the way you get into it.

And I can't wait to be the recipient of some of these recipes that you've shared with me over the years. The biggest gift I got was a bunch of family of chipping, and I got one of the new triggers with the Wi-Fi on it. So I've had a vertical smoker with a big glass front. But this thing hooks into your Wi-Fi. And so you don't even have to be home. You can check on the cook, like get the up to the, up to the degree, you know, the latest temperature readings, all this stuff. So I've done, I did a brisket the other day, and I did some ribs yesterday. So if you need those recipes, whatever, we got you covered.

You're going to be cooking from the Barnes & Noble down the street. You'll be grilling some ribs then. Is that it? Yeah, no, I did it yesterday. I was out and about. Like I said, my son got engaged. So there was some stuff, and we went out with him after that. And I was able to kind of, you know, I could shut off the smoker remotely.

It was good. The technology is all good. Yeah, that's what we got going around here. Let's get into the draft. If we're going to do some rankings on defense today, we're going to go through Randy's top 10 players in the draft, which is an article you can look for on the athletic published this week. It's funny, Randy, with some of the player rankings,

we're not going to do necessarily a top five on every position on defense, not because you were trying to get out of doing it, but just because this is a weird draft. You get into the later middle rounds pretty quick on defense in this draft, don't you? Yeah, and I've thought this from day one, but once you dig into the film, I guess what teams have to guard against is creating players based on the needs that they have. And I think you might see that around the league. But yes, there are some really good, don't get me wrong, really good defensive players.

I get it. I have several that I would draft into top 10. But it does thin out fairly quickly. And at certain positions, like you said, maybe for me safety, maybe inside linebacker, maybe even to a point interior defensive line, there is not a long list of people to dive into. Now, there will be players that come out of this pool that fit and operate at a high level in the NFL, but I think you're going to have to do some digging. And for the purpose of our podcast, I just, I don't know if we have time to dig deep into all those positions like NFL scouts and NFL teams would do.

So we're going to kind of stay on their peripheral of a couple of those positions. No doubt. I think that's a smart thing to do, and we'll get to those. Let's just answer this question, though. Randy, right now, week before the draft, what is going on in the draft rooms? Obviously, you spent decades in those draft rooms and you're really dialed in now with what teams are doing currently just through your relationships in the league. Let's talk about that a little bit. Well, I think for the most part, most teams heavy lifting is done. And when I say that,

they've heard from all their scouts, they've heard from their coaches. They have put together really a board by position that rates all the players, that puts certain players, that puts certain players above the line, let's say, for example, that they have graded in the first round and then another batch in the second round, all by position. What teams are doing now is they're trying to come up with a board from maybe one to 150 regardless of position. So it's really the value board, the board that you will draft on. So a lot of teams are doing that. And what happens is you'll you'll put clusters of players up there. Let's say you've got four or five players that are all in a, and I'll just throw this out, a six four, six five type grading category.

well, you've got to separate those players, both within a position and sometimes against other positions. And so I always found, and I think teams still do this, that it's great to kind of commission some group studies, whether it's a coach and a scout or a couple of coaches, or maybe it's a defensive coach paired with an offensive list of players. But just to get different perspectives without any agenda attached, you know, sometimes that's hard to get at this state, even inside NFL buildings because scouts and coaches have taken a position, right? So we know what their position is. So I want some fresh eyes. I want some fresh opinions maybe to break some ties with these clusters of players.

And I think that's what you see around the league. That's what we did forever. And with all the teams that I was with, we put together groups that would kind of filter through these cluster of four or five players and prioritize them so that then we could come back with a clear vision as to how these players fit for us and thus how we would rank them on our one through 150 board. Yeah. So I got two questions off that.

One, you referred to a difference between a six four and a six five player. What do you mean there? You're not talking about. Well, just in value. And everybody uses different grading scales, right? Yeah, yeah. Everybody's using the grading scale. But it always comes back to the point of how you value that certain player.

And so there's a million different grading scales. But if you, for example, had somebody listed as a 6.4. or 6.5, we're shaving hairs. They are very close. So you might take everyone between, say, 6-4 and 6-6, maybe even higher, and there might be 15 players in that cluster. But we've got to separate and prioritize those. Really, that's all the draft is. It's sequencing of players.

So sequencing takes precedent over anything with regard to depth, with regard to whatever, when you're talking about a pool of players. The main thing is we get them sequenced right. And I've always felt like if we can, let's just say we pick 18. If we can sequence the first 15 players correctly, we're going to get one of those players at 18 because nobody stacks their board the same. We heard Bill Belichick, and I know we're going to talk about him later in the podcast this week on McAfee.

And that's the one thing I heard in that interview that stuck out that hopefully listeners and readers understand is nobody's board is the same. And therefore, nobody's really right or wrong at this stage. and nobody's going to be judged really on where they pick players. I know it's easy for the media to try to pinpoint exactly, well, you overpaid for this or you should have drafted this guy two or three picks later. I got news for you. Not necessarily because you don't know how our board is set up.

And we're going to go with our board, which is totally different than the other 31 other teams. You'll never have two boards the same. So I'm kind of wandering here, but that's really what's at stake, is sequencing the players regardless of position so that we can get, the best players for us. Not necessarily the best players, but the best players for us. You mentioned those, you know, you get agendas too, right?

The coaches may not want to have to deal with this guy because he's harder to develop. The GM might, you know, want this other guy, and the scouts may really like this guy. And so when you get, one of the things I'm interested in is, you know, the ability to sort of solve some of these debates, right? It's probably easier than ever to do that now, right? isn't it just through technology?

Well, technology has improved the process without a doubt, and that's the one thing. And I've probably been out of draft rooms for the last three or four years now, no more than that. And I see nowadays and have had a chance to talk to people and study some of the dynamics that have changed, and technology has changed it. What would have taken us two hours, ten years ago, to break down and study on tape, now it takes you 20 minutes, because through PFF, through true media, through these, these, you know, analytic sites, you can hone in on the exact details that may be coming up in your mind as question marks. So you can, you know, validate your thoughts or not. It might,

numbers might take you somewhere else. What would be an example? Well, let's just say there's, it's easiest for me in regard to defensive backs, because I think defensive backs are one of the hardest positions that most struggle with to develop or to evaluate because you have to see so much tape to get the quantity of critical plays, the key plays. You may watch a defensive back mic that plays corner and you may have to watch four or five games just to see him play the ball five times. And nowadays, you can dial right into the exact contested catch video. You can dial into exactly him playing man to man, not only just man to man, but you can break it down into watching them play press. You can watch them play off. You can watch and play bail, but still playing man to

man. So before we would have to track this stuff down in old style fashion, it would take forever. But I think analytics and IT progress has made my job as an evaluator way easier. And I think there was always a little pushback against it. But I think most teams now absorb that and they'd be crazy not to be using it every day. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Are there any player examples of that you can think of guys that could be, you know, not necessarily a corner. Is there anybody who, who you might want to really take a look at and hone in on who's a mystery in the draft, but you might be able to solve it. Yeah, without a doubt.

I think that's another thing that's going on in NFL buildings right now is these special consideration type settings. And really, it's a story problem that you have to solve and you have some time to do it. But it's easier to do now with the PFF, with the catapult, with the way video is tied to analytics that make it awesome. For example, you can study an inside linebacker who you might view as an outside backer because of his frame. You can find all the plays where he aligns on the edge. You can find all the plays where he actually is used as a pass rusher.

You can find every blitz he has and it can be recalled in a matter of minutes. So yeah, you can solve a lot of these special consideration guys. And just for an example, there's a linebacker at Texas A&M and I'm and I'll just use a in him as an example. He's 6'3s, 230 pounds. Edrin Cooper's his name. I think on most media sites, you'll find him rated anywhere from 35 to 70. But he plays traditionally an inside linebacker. I don't really want a 6-3, 6.3 and a half inside linebacker. Not that you couldn't play in there, Mike, I get it. But longer, skinnier, that's a lot of surface area where those blocks can come at you from both ways, right? You are better serving.

to be on the edge, if you can set the edge against the run. And I view those guys as being potential transition guys into moving out and playing outside linebacker. It's just so easy to commission those kind of studies now. And before, it was a struggle to find that. So I do think this time of year, as part of your answer to your question of what teams are doing, they're doing all kinds of that stuff. They are looking back at players that maybe had a productive year three years ago, but has since failed and you want to know why. I just think you can answer a lot of these individual questions on players now easier than you could ever before. So what do you think? I've just got to ask you. I mean, Edger and Cooper, you're leaning one way to the other?

Do you look at him? I did. And I think he's an outside linebacker. I think he is a, in his case, he's a specialist in that I think he's going to be great on teams. He's long-legged. He's skinny. I think there's a lot of room for physical development. And that's a guy that I would take, you know, third, fourth round, something like that, and project him to be a guy that you can get to the game on Sundays. And we all know that drafting players now is one thing, but you've got to get them to the game on Sundays. And you can only dress, you know, so many players. So you have to have a vision for that, which a lot of teams have to be really specific now when they draft them.

And I do think a guy like that would bring value, even though he's probably going to play a position that he doesn't even play in college. Yep. Okay. Before we get to your top 10 overall, one of the things I do enjoy this time of year is kind of seeing these consensus media big boards, right? And so, like we had one on the athletic that Austin mock did, I think, earlier this month. There's a more recent one from our former colleague, Irifasan, did his. But basically, what I find valuable about it is, okay, this is sort of what, you know, 50 or 75 or whatever people mostly in the media, some of them with backrunn than the NFL and most of them with not, have just,

this is how their rankings would sort of come together. And I love to look at that now and say, okay, Randy Mueller, using your evaluations and then your experience in the league, are there some things that stand out to you that could be, hey, this is a guy that the media seems to have higher or lower or what is interesting to you?

I asked, I asked Raina this before. the show gave him a little bit of time to look through, what takeaways would you have from, you know, the difference between how maybe you see it or the league might see it and kind of the consensus at this point after, you know, months of media rankings? Well, I think it's a great question. I think it's something that NFL teams at some point here,

probably not today or tomorrow, but as we get closer to the draft, we'll consider along at the same time when they consider the mock drafts that are done by everybody that can breathe and walk and chew gum, they'll all be out there and they can study all those things. But yeah, I looked at your list and I would say this. A few things came to mind. One, the media generally is higher on guys who tested well this spring.

I don't know if it's a recency biased or what, but guys who test off the charts in pro days at the combine seem to be ranked higher. And that's just a general statement. The other thing is these rankings and these consensus that are built outside NFL buildings, they include very little medical information and player makeup information, character information. And we say that all the time. And most people realize that now that every team has their own judge, jury, as to how

they're going to treat this information, whether it's medical or character. But I'll say this. The makeup of these players is usually what determines a giant difference in how they are viewed in pre-draft ratings like this. and what actually happens on draft day. So that was the biggest thing. A couple players jumped out to me, and I'll just give you the reasons not to beat up on a player or credit a guy who doesn't belong. One guy that was rated, I think, as a first round pick in the consensus list that you sent me,

which came from a lot of different areas, Ladd-McConkie, a receiver from Georgia, slot player for me, a little bit of a pigeonhole in there in that maybe not a first and second down split end or flanker maybe has a ceiling in my opinion of being a third receiver maybe he becomes a punt returner but i don't think the value is there for most teams to to see him as a first round pick now i could be shocked because it only takes one team but that's just an example of i see it on a lot of ratings and lists where he's listed in the top 30, top 35 players. Yeah, going to the 49ers late in the first round or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. And maybe that's the case, a really good team with a specific need that matches up to where his value is. But I don't think most teams will value him as much like that because they see him as more of a spot player. So he was one example. If you were to look at corners, for example, and we're going to talk about kind of my list of corners, the number one corner on my list and I'll spill the beans,

is a corner from Clemson, Nate Wiggins, who really is rated down by a lot of people, not quite as high. I can't really put my finger on why, other than there's probably some character or some medical information that most don't know about. But I think that guy could be a top 10 or 12 pick, to be honest with it. His athleticism, and we tend to grade these in the NFL as blue, red, orange. We use these colors to kind of categorize how good of an athlete he is. and I have not seen a guy with the abilities that he has athletically in a while.

So I think from your list, I think he was ranked 25th on your list, and he would be a lot higher for me. It doesn't mean he'll be higher for other people, but for me, he would be a lot higher. Another one for me that is still... What you like at Corner 2, I can remember that. You had Trent McDuffie over Soss Gardner that one year for specific reasons, right? And so you may be looking at different things. corner that could affect where you see Nate Wiggins, right? And a lot of that could be based on scheme as to what we're going to do with him when we get

him, because frankly, that's all I care about. I don't care about anything except what are we going to do with him when we get him as a team. If we're going to play multiple techniques, multiple schemes, multiple coverages, a guy like Trent McDuffie is invaluable because he can do it all. He can play all those techniques. I'm not sure that Nate Wiggins can, but for my example, I think he can play man-to-man and play the ball as good as anybody I've seen. So in a pressure type style of defense, this guy's going to be able to press and run with anybody.

And the reason I really like him is he can make up for a lot of errors on defense. He can make up for a bad call or a bad matchup just because he's 6-1 and can run 4-3. That makes a lot of coaches really good coaches. And so I'd like to have one of those guys in my back pocket. The other couple notes I made off your list, and I don't think these are big differences, but I could clearly make a case for Joe Alt being the second best player in a draft. He's fifth, I think, on that list you sent me. But he's really good.

And I'm not looking for six, eight tackles. Trust me. That does not float my boat. But this guy plays like a six five guy. He can bend. He plays with leverage. He has lateral range. He does not look like a six eight guy on film.

And I could see a team really holding. their breath, hoping that quarterbacks and receivers all get picked early and that he falls in their lap at five, six, something like that. I don't know that that's going to happen, but if I was a team with a bad need left tackle, he might be a guy that's worth going up for besides one of these quarterbacks. So I could see that happening. A couple of guys that I saw down the list that I don't know really what to do with. I think there's a general sense about a safety from Washington State, Jaden Hicks, who I think a lot of boards have, a lot of non-NFL boards have rated really high. Top 75 type player, yeah.

Yeah, yes. Not a first rounder, probably maybe not even the second rounder. But what we've got to view is we've got to have a specific position. Everybody says, oh, he's a jack of all trades. He can do this and you can do that? Well, can he do one thing really good in order for me to draft him in the top three rounds? He's got to have something to hang his hat on. And a player like that who's kind of a Swiss Army,

And they say, is he a box player? Is he a will linebacker? Can he play in the post? I'm not sure about a player like that, and specifically the Washington State kids. So I want to find something I'm going to hang my hat on. So he probably wouldn't be in my top 75 because I don't know how we can cover him or use him. We can't cover him up in third down in sub packages. I'm not sure strength is past coverage for him.

The other thing I saw when looking at your list was this list gets really thin after 100. And we've alluded to that earlier in the podcast. Normally I would have in my draft room 150 names on our board. And we could get everybody we drafted from that list for sure, but we would get the majority of, say, 15 undrafted free agents from that same list of 150. I think teams are going to really struggle to get 100, maybe 120 on that board this year. That's just how thin this draft is. So those were just some of the comments.

made looking at your list. I don't know if that helps us or hurts us, but those are things that come to my mind. Love those takeaways. That'll be really good. We promised to go through Randy's top ten overall. Again, that story is on the athletic. You can just look at Randy's archive of stories in there. These were the top ten players.

I'll let Randy explain his thinking, but these were his top ten in order. Caleb Williams, Joe Alt, Roma Dunsey, Tiles Fulonga, Malik Neighbors, J.J. McCarthy at 6, Jaden Daniels at 7, Marvin Harrison Jr. at 8, Laotu Latu at 9, the pass rusher from UCLA, and Brock Bowers, number 10, tight end from Georgia. So I'll let you kind of explain what you're thinking in putting together the top 10, and what's it out to you? Well, a few things, but first of all, I think players' ability trumps everything. And what he does on the field trumps any other part of your decision making.

But for me, as a team builder, this is where we have to separate our evaluations from valuing and from building a team. And so I had Joe Alt up there at second. I had Romaduzi up there at third. And the main reason for me is one, they're good players. But two, I think these guys are culture makers, culture changers, culture type players to go with their skill set. So I don't think teams often get a chance to draft players that can really change their locker room or really further the cause of their locker room. But these kind of players affect others. Joe Walt's going to affect others.

I've heard his makeup. I've done enough digging to understand how he's made of. And those of you that don't know, it's John Alt's son. John Alt was a great player, a tackle for the chiefs years ago. So this guy comes from obviously great lineage. But I think, and again, I don't love 6-8-touch. tackles. But this guy does some things like a smaller man, and he plays the game a way that I think he affects the other people around him at a position that's hard to do that. Same with Romadozy.

I mean, we all know living in Seattle, because we hear more of him and about him. We saw the fact that he was in indie after the workouts, the last guy on the field, and they're trying to shut out the lights in the dome, and he won't get doing the three cone because he wants to beat his time from, you know, five minutes before. That kind of stuff, team builders really value. So when we read these mock drafts, when we read these lists of players from others, I think unless you've been in that chair of a team builder, I don't know that you value some of these intangibles like some would that want that on their team.

Hope that makes sense. It does. And I'm not going to, I'm not putting these two players who are, you know, unproven in the NFL in this category. but one of the things that, you know, gets talked about a lot, especially in the NBA, but also in just sports in general, you know, it's the age-old conversation you hear about, well, back in my day, guys worked harder and all that type of stuff, right? And sometimes you just roll your eyes at that and say, you know, every generation said that.

But one of the things that's interesting to me is like in the NBA, the guy's not wanted to play as many games, right? And that's been talked about a lot. And really, though, what I think what stood out to me with what you were saying is, to me, all it takes in the NBA for that to change is the best player on your team or the best player in the league to be a guy who plays all the games no matter what and sets the tone, right? It's not, to me, it's not that everyone's different nowadays. I really think the leaders set the tone on this type of stuff. And so we saw the most extreme case in the NFL, maybe in the NFL history, but certainly in a long time, was Tom Brady, right? He made the whole thing work for New England, the style that Bill

Belichick had and just his mentality fit with that. And really, I think if they had had almost any other quarterback, even if they were just a good quarterback, but a different makeup, I think it would have been harder to have. You know, that makeup of Brady was such a huge part of who they were. So we're not saying Joe, well, Roman didn't see you're going to necessarily do that. But I do think that there's, that's a consideration for me. If you have one guy who's your best player who wants to play all 82 games or wants to stay after practice or is going to hold people accountable.

I think that's a huge benefit for your team. Huge. Well, it definitely rubs off on the others. And I think more so in football than any other sport, you have to have a certain mental toughness to play the game. And nobody's healthy after four or five weeks. Nobody is. So everybody has to fight through a certain amount of mental toughness, which differs

from physical toughness. So I think these guys do bring that to the table and make you better. For example, the best teams I've ever been around are those. that one practice for a purpose and then practice and stay after because they want to get ahead. And so I love the fact that a Romo Dozy, I know what I'm getting. He's likely to stay after practice every day. And guess what? There's peer pressure.

There will be others that stay out. There will be others that get extra work. And now we're talking about a great team. So there is a portion of the team building aspect that factors in intangibles, especially when players are selected on draft day. At least for me as a GM, there would be. Now, that's a different mindset than, say, a scout would have or even a position coach would have because they're more myopic in their view of a worm's eye approach as opposed

to a bird's eye view of we're going to put the best 53 in this locker room we can. And the ones that can affect others are part of the leadership and the fabric of what we're doing here culturally. Yes. Big picture looking at your top 10, I would just say you were, yours is a little higher than the media on J.J. McCarthy, who we've talked about. Latu, who we will talk about when we go through the defensive guys. And then Tiles Fulong of them.

So those were three guys you might be a little higher on than the consensus media. And then we know that you're a little lower than consensus on Drake May. We talked about that last week, if you want to listen to, we've talked about that in the past about Drake May. And then maybe you're to a smaller extent a little bit lower on Olufashanu and Dallas Turner. I don't know though those guys, are they right outside the top 10 for you? Are they real close? Or was there anyone else who was close?

Maybe the corner you were talking about? Yeah, I think the kid from Toledo on the corner front, Quincy, and we'll expand a little bit on our thoughts on him. He's very close to where Wiggins was. I think Dallas Turner is possible, and he'll be the second guy at the edge. I think the thing that separated Fuanga, for me, the tackle at Oregon State was, and those, I don't want to get too deep into the weeds, but the key for me with offensive linemen are two things. They have to have lateral range, especially at tackle, to exist on an island by themselves, but yet have enough sand in their butt to anchor and stop a bull rush. Those two combination things are had by probably less than 20% of the offensive linemen that play in this league. It sounds simplistic, but usually you have one or the other.

When you have both, you're lucky and you have Walter Jones or you have Willie Rove or you have those kind of guys who can dance like a big bear but yet anchor like a gorilla and stop anybody from power rush and that's what I saw in the Oregon State kid. And that's why I have him up there in a top 10. I just think he's a guy that can engage his lower body and therefore play with some power above and beyond his measurables. Most won't have that kid rated, at least where I am, because his arms are a little shorter or they're stuck on some measurement of some testing that was done in the springtime. For me, I'm about what I see on tape, less about what I see in the spring drills and things like that. Do you have any hard rules, though? Like sometimes they say, hey, you know, if you get, you know, if you go outside the norm or a certain trait, you're really lowering your odds. How do you balance that in your mind versus, like you said, the film you think this guy's good?

Do you sometimes take a guy who breaks from your mold of, you know, whatever traits you value? Well, I think you get in trouble when you do. I think there are extremes to that where you have to definitely draw a line in the sand and say if we're under this, then we can't do that, whether it's speed or any type of frame measurement. It's interesting. We had this, when I was in Miami as GM of the Dolphins and Nick Saban was the coach, Nick brought a little bit of an insurance marker to our process that I actually loved and would institute anywhere I am in that, let's say an example of a position, maybe it's a corner who measures five, nine and a half can really run, really good cover guy. But the fact that he didn't check

one or two of those boxes meant that we really couldn't put him above a third round grade. And so we were ensuring against ourselves that we didn't become a team of exceptions. No matter how hard we liked that corner, he was still 5'9, right? And that wasn't going to change. So we could have, we did have the ability to take that alert off at some point late in the process. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember ever doing it, though, because Nick was very disciplined with the way he looked at these players and what he wanted. He did not want short corners.

So that same theory is brought to many positions to where you have a line and it's the line of delineation and we cannot go under it. If we do, that's fine. But that player needs to be available, say, at the top of round three. We're not going to use our first two picks on players like that that have a deficiency that we just can't overcome as a measurement. Yep. Okay. You mentioned Queenie on Mitchell, the Toledo Corner during this discussion. and that's a great segue

because we're going to go into your cornerback rankings. You already mentioned that Nate Wiggins of Clemson is number one for you. He is in the media kind of consensus mucks. He's maybe closer to four or five in some of those. We'll get into him. So you have Nate Wiggins number one. Quinna and Marshall from Toledo number two.

T.J. Tampa, Iowa State, number three. Koolade McKinstree, one of the great names ever here, number four. and then Terry and Arnold. So we got Nate Wiggins, Quinn and Mitchell, T.J. Tampa, Kool-Aid McKinstree, and Terry and Arnold from Alabama. A couple Alabama guys there. At the end, we talked a little bit about Wiggins.

Let's big picture it, Randy. What are you looking for in a corner? And then how does that relate to the order you came out with? Well, a lot of that was really designed by Nick Sabin in my time with him and my thoughts on that changed. I've been around a lot of coaches in my life. I've never been around one who was better with defense. defensive backs is from coaching him to evaluate him. So I felt lucky to have a couple of years with

Nick. And so my outlook definitely includes some of these things. Nate Wiggins for one. I want to get that from you though, Randy. So how did he change your view on corners? Because before you were with Nick, you drafted Sean Springs really high. Maybe you'd take him anyway. But how did your outlook change on corners from Nick before we get into this? I think people would like to hear that. Well, the biggest thing was with size and frame. And another believer in that system is Pete Carroll at Seattle in that we see the kind of corners that Pete likes. A longer corner can definitely change angles on how the ball comes into receivers and can make more plays. I never really thought length was that important. Now, yeah, you mentioned Sean Springs. He

would work in any scheme, doesn't matter. But for example, years before that in Seattle, we used a first round pick to draft the little kid from Southern Illinois, Terry Taylor, who was five foot nine and a half. And that's what I was alluding to earlier. That really does doesn't really float the boat of some of those defensive coaches whose scheme wants link the corner, wants the ability to play the ball differently. And so those are some of the things. I think in Nick's case, he would love Nate Wiggins, the kid from Clemson. Not only does he run 4-3, he can play all kinds of technique. Now, he's raw. I'll give you that. He doesn't do everything at a proficient level, but he's very capable of playing all techniques. I don't know that I've seen a guy,

and I mentioned this earlier, that can jump out of a break and close on a ball like he does, especially one that's six foot one. The things I loved about him, and I'll just throw some numbers at you, he was only targeted 45 times. He gave up 19 receptions all year long. That is outstanding numbers. Eight of those were for first downs. He gave up eight first down receptions all year long at Clemson. That's crazy, right? And the film backs it up. And you see him play press. There's almost a hundred snaps of him playing press. There's just a lot of rare cover skills with this guy that I think at times he gets bored because of the receivers that he plays. But I love the fact that he has shown me all the skill sets needed at the next level. Yeah, he's going to have to be

more disciplined. Yeah, he's a little wrong. He's going to have to improve his technique. But I didn't find anybody else on this list of corners that had the, the, the, the, blue athleticism that were really top traits, had length, had ability to play the ball. I think he's pretty complete for a college kid. Yeah. Yep. Quinia Mitchell, your view seems to align with consensus on that. You are, let me ask you that.

How many of these guys could you see taken in the first round or top half of the first round? Is it just a couple? Well, I could see Wiggins. I could see Mitchell. I think there's a couple Alabama guys that could go, I think, late. first round, both Terry on Arnold, who I ranked behind Kool-Aid McKinstree, who you mentioned. I know this. If I'm getting a corner from Alabama, and let's just talk about Arnold and McKinstry,

who may end up being late first type guys, definitely second rounders, if you ask me, they've been coached up. They know how to play the position. The other thing they have is thick skin, and that is a criteria that I look at as corners because they're going to get beat at the NFL level. That's a fact. And they might get beat down because of it. These guys won't that you get from Alabama because I know they've been coached at the highest level.

They've been, I want to say yelled at, but they've been coached hard. They understand the dynamics that come with screwing up, but they can come back from that. They aren't going to let getting beat on one plate, put them in the tank for the rest of the game. So I see that both in McKinstree and in Arnold. So both really good players. And T.J. Tampa, the kid from Iowa State, another guy that's, you know, 6-1, 190 pounds, doesn't run. like Wiggins runs, but again, with that length, he can put his foot in the ground and still close on things. A very steady player at times, I think Ken gets slossy a little bit casual,

but I liked his makeup, and that's why I had him in the top five. He only gave up five plays all year long. I'm talking about T.J. Tampa from Iowa State. Only gave up five plays or 15 yards or longer the whole season. And he played a lot more press. So there's a lot of dynamics to consider here. Why do you have Tampa above McKinstree and Arnold? Because I think that most people wouldn't, but some way, some way. I like the six one. I like the length that he gave. I think he's an easy mover. I had a little, a little bit of doubt, one on McKinstree, just from the standpoint of his suddenness and on Arnold, not quite as smooth as any of those top guys, including Tampa. So I like those guys, but I like Tampa better. I just thought he was a smoother mover.

Cooper de Gene, Iowa is not on yours. He's on some others up there. Did you come close? He's a little bit of a bigger corner. I think he's 2.10. What did you think about him? Was he close to making your rankings? Here's the issue I have with him, and I'm sure he's going to be a good player wherever they play him. But the first thing out of anybody's mouth that studies him that I have flavor for is they're not sure what to do with him. And my history tells me, Mike, that if we start with that, is he a safety, is he a corner, is he a nickel guy? What is he? I don't know. I'm going back to what is he really. Everybody thinks that's versatility.

I sometimes don't see the versatility. I want to know what he can do for sure. So the reason he's not is I see these five guys that I listed all being solid corners, no doubt about position, they fit perfectly. I don't know where Cooper fits sometimes if he's a safety, if he's a corner. I'm not going to take a chance on a player like that unless I have a clear vision as to what he is for us. And I didn't have that same clear vision when I studied him as I did with these five guys we just talked about. And why not just his coverage? isn't, he's not as in coverage?

Not either, not as polished, not as adept at playing the same competition for one thing with him. I just didn't know really what to do with him in a lot of ways. So I think he might end up being a safety at the end of the day. I know some teams that have enlisted at safety. So just the indecision that I know some teams have gave me a little bit reason to pause. Yep. Okay. Safety is we don't have ranking.

but I think there's someone who you've got a little note here in the margin on. Who is that? Well, the safety that I kind of like that kind of came and let me find my notes here. I love it. If you guys see, Randy, he's got, he's a mad professor here. He's got his glasses on. He's got glasses on. He's got papers around.

There's a whiteboard behind him. I mean, you know, you can hear the papers rustling. I love it. Well, I apologize. But the guy you're referring to is Caleb Bullock from USC. 6 to 190 pounds, for me, a true free safety style. I think he, because he runs the best of all these guys, he's the most athletic for me.

I think my vision with him is that if he can't play free safety, he might be one of these corners that we talked about because of his length. I loved his makeup. I think he's a kind of kid that you have a couple different swings at. I struggle with safeties when they run 4-6, 4-6-5. It is hard to cover in the NFL if your top speed is 465. The Kalyn Bullock Kid at SC runs 4.5. I like him.

The other bucket, to use your term, that I would throw some of these safeties in, is as a nickel guy. There is a guy that I like in the nickel category from Georgia, J. Vaughn Bullard, kind of a tighter athlete, but plays in and around the ball lot, can play as what Nick would call a star position. as your third corner. So I think there's some value there. I think the versatility that those two guys show at the safety position would rank them near the top for me. Yeah, absolutely. So I was looking at those, you know, kind of composite rankings at the safety position, Tyler Nubin, Minnesota, Javon Buller, Georgia, Jaden Hicks. We talked about Washington State, Kaelin Bollock, USC, and Cole Bishop, Utah. So within that, there's some different designations, right? You

could be a nickel. You could be a true safety. Whatever. They're not all exactly the same, of those guys you kind of liked Bullock, and you weren't as sure on Hicks as much because you weren't sure what the role was. Yeah, I just, we didn't have the vision as to how we were going to get him on the field. You mentioned Kinchins and Nubin. I think those guys are good players, but in my opinion, we're a little more challenged athletically, and that happens in coverage when they get strung out. I don't know that at 465, which is what they both ran this spring. Oh, Cameron Kitchens from Miami. That's the guy you're talking about, yeah. Yep, and the other kid from Minnesota, Nubin.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. That's good. The edge rushers, wow, this should be an interesting one because as you wrote in your top 10, I mean, and people know that's obviously you get somebody who can rush the passer. That's a huge priority in the draft. But in this draft, there's just not as many good defensive players, it seems like. Do you see anyone special out of these past rushers? And go ahead and give us your top few guys there. Yeah, I do. And I listed Latu, the kid from UCLA in my top 10. Yeah, I think he's 15 sacks, great get-off, natural bend around a corner. Compare him to a, you know, Brian Burns, somebody that can be moved around like that at the NFL level, even at Daniel Hunter a little bit. I see that these teams move them around. I think Latu is one of those guys. He is easily for me a, game-changing type rusher. And we saw what those players were paid. We saw what Brian Burns was paid. The big elephant in the room with Latu is the medical stuff, how he will come. I think he had a neck fusion that's pretty much public knowledge now. So there may be some teams that shy away from that. But on the field, ability-wise, you're looking at a guy, six-five, he's 260 pounds. And the reason I had him at the top of the list compared to a Dallas Turner who comes from Alabama and

obviously he can rush the passer as well. Turner's a little more lean, a little less impactful, setting the edge against the run, and I think Latu can do that. Litu, for my money, I mean, you could even make a comparison to a Derek Thomas, who's Hall of Fame type athletic athlete. That's what I saw when I saw Litu rushing the passer. I mean, this guy can bend like no other. He can squeeze the pocket. He has a full array of pass rush moves in his two. a box. And that's really the thing that separated him from the rest of this crew for me. But I had Dallas Turner second. I had Chop Robinson from Penn State who is relentless, right? Great going forward. Probably less versatile than these other two guys, but I had him as the third guy. Those

three guys all for me were really good. And then a fourth guy for me is Jared Verse from Florida State who has really quick get off, uses his hands well, slightly more ankle stiff than these other two guys, but strong plays the run good. And I put value on these edge rushers that, as you know, can still play the run, set the edge, get off a block. And that's a hard combination to find as well. Ankle stiff. I like that term. So what does that mean just to bend around the edge? Just flexion. I think you get it not only in rushers, but you get it really with any player. And that's why they have these certain drills where it looks simplistic when you see it. If you're watching it on the internet or something, they'll have an offensive lineman, put his hand

straight out and squat down, you want to see how, what kind of flexion he has. I think you can obviously see it on tape the more you watch of these kids, but ankle-stiff players, ankle-stiff athletes don't change direction as well. They tend to lose balance a little well, easily, just things like that, that you and I would both be ankle-stiff. Trust me, I can tell you right now. We don't have that kind of flesh. You're not doing some Cossack squats every morning to get your reflection going. That was a big vernacular used in Nick Saban's Day in Miami was ankle stiffness and to the point where we would laugh about it all the time and call each other very ankle stiff. But it's a legitimate criteria.

And so really, we may just do a top four here because that's it, right? It's a pretty big drop to the next person, isn't it? Well, there's definitely a drop. I like this kid from Washington, Brayland Trice. It's also an edge rusher. He doesn't run like the other guys, but he uses hands. he uses a lot of really different rush techniques that I think are good. I think there are always guys down the line in this group as well that I think will jump out depending on fit.

So I'm not discouraged by what I saw from the edge rusher position. A lot of these names have to be fit with the exact scheme that these teams are running. But you're going to see rushers that, you know, guys that can rush the passer get probably overdrafted as much as any position because they're just hard to Yep. Defensive tackle, you had a couple of guys circled here. Johnny Newton, Illinois, Byron Murphy, Texas. Those are names we've definitely heard, you know, there's probably being the top couple guys in the media ones as well. Anything stand out? Any comps on those guys? And then is there anything beyond that you liked? Well, I think the two guys you mentioned are pretty much consensus across the board going to be first round picks. Murphy from Texas, Newton from Illinois. For me, that, The downside of those guys is, and they're both really good players, they're both athletic. Byron Murphy from Texas is probably the number one interior guy on most teams board, but he's six foot tall. He doesn't weigh 300 pounds.

So that would make me a little leery just from the standpoint of these, you know, big offensive linemen are going to lean on that. And that could wear down a little bit, not that he didn't have big guys blocking him in college, but I get it. And if Chuck Darby's listening to us, you know, no offense. offense on the height. He's one of my favorite players to watch anyway back in the day. Continue. I get it. And Johnny Newton is not giant either. He's six, one and a half. But I think he's very athletic. And both these guys compensate for their lack of height. So they're going to play. But we're talking about top players in the draft. And in a normal year, you would, you would always kind of prop up the five techniques. The guys who are six four, six five that weigh

275 pounds. Those would be the defensive lineman that would get picked first. There aren't any of those guys this year, or at least you've got to dig deep for them. So I think because of the lack of quality at this position, normally a Byron Murphy or Johnny Newton might be late first round picks. They're going to get picked sooner because there's not a lot of options. The big kid that I was going to talk about a little bit is Devondre Sweat, the other defensive lineman from Texas, who does rate on a lot of media lists, a lot of consensus lists. This is the big kid that weighs 360 pounds. Teams really value intangibles.

And this is a kid that has struggled with his weight. I think there's some issues there where he just keeps getting bigger and bigger. That's going to mean more to NFL teams than it's going to for outside the lines, evaluators and mock drafters, things like that. Again, height, weight, that really matters at this position. And you've got to have a vision that goes outside tradition. numbers to see value with this group this year. Yes.

Okay. You mentioned outside the lines. We kind of need to bring back at the outside the line show that was on ESPN for this Kraft-Belcheck stuff that's going on. I don't know what round it is in this fight, Randy, but I definitely wanted to address this before we got into the GM notebook and wrapped up the show for this week. It just doesn't seem to end, does it? Yeah, it's kind of sad to be honest with you because I'm not sure.

Yeah, I'm not sure what Robert Crafts. thinking is, I don't know what to believe. I do know this. There seems to be a pretty good narrative as a vendetta against Bill Belichick, and I get it. I think we all on the football side view him as a special coach. What happened with him in the Atlanta interview process, I'm really not going to comment on it. I do know this, that the combatants that are involved, including Rich McKay on the Atlanta side, have a certain reputation as well. And I understand how Belichick might not fit for some of those teams. I look at his personality, the way he leads teams, what he did in New England as being more positive for sure the negative. I think everybody wants to feel good about

their own job that are in NFL buildings right now. And sometimes big personalities like a bill might make them feel awkward or a little uncomfortable. I mean, I felt that with Nick in our years together in Miami, he may make me people uncomfortable, but I've said this on the podcast a million times. He made me so much better at my job that if I could handle that, I guarantee you, Bill Belichick would have made Terry Fontno or Ryan Pace or anybody who allowed to have an open mind, he would have made them better. It seems to me like this has become a Rich McCabe versus Bill Belichick scrap in this whole process. I don't know how you feel about it. Well, that's how we saw it when it happened, but to me, big picture.

30,000 feet. This is kind of what I see. And we're talking about this big ESPN story, by the way, by Seth Wickersham, Don Van Nata, and Jeremy Fowler. So we want to credit that. They had a big piece on ESPN.com about, you know, about how the Belichick didn't get the Atlanta job and what real craft might have had in that. So the way I see this is, I think Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, kind of took aim at Belichick a little bit selfishly through that dynasty documentary that came out, the 10-part thing. And it was. really an in-house league production that he handed it over to Ron Howard and that group. And they really focused on, I thought, a lot of the controversies, less on the team building and some of

the great stuff that Bill Belichick did over the years and more on, you know, SpyGate and some of these, you know, the Aaron Hernandez thing, which, hey, that's all part of the story. But they really, to me, heightened the negative and made Belichick not look as good. And you could sort of tell this thing was filmed, this dynasty series was filmed during Belichick's final season. Obviously, the owner of the team, Kraft, you know, made people contribute to it. And so it was an awkward sort of a deal that I think most people correctly perceived as self-serving for Kraft and at Belichick's expense. Now I see this ESPN piece is a little bit of, okay, Belichick is not going to stand for this and let his legacy be tarnished in any way. he's going to take aim at Kraft a little bit.

And so out comes this piece, which is very well sourced, people close to Belichick, people close to Robert Kraft, basically saying that, you know, hey, Kraft played a role as a close confident of Arthur Blank, owner of the Falcons, in, you know, kind of derailing the candidacy of Belichick in Atlanta, which I don't, like I said, we can debate whether, you know, Rich McKay didn't want it to happen. There's a lot of people who didn't want it to have it to happen. But the bottom line to me is it's Kraft and Belichick going back and forth, but I feel like Kraft kind of started it.

You could say Belichick started a little by complaining or making it sound like they didn't always have money to spend. I think that was a little bit of his initial salvo. But usually somebody like Robert Kraft, to me, is above this sort of a thing. The owner is usually in this stuff for the really long game, Randy. They don't care too much about how stuff's perceived because they're going to own the team over a long period of time. But here's what I see with Kraft. He's 82. He came close, but hasn't quite gotten in the Hall of Fame.

I think he's super heightened into his legacy right now as he's sort of, you know, look, like I said, he's 82. He's in the final chapter. Wines down. Yep. Winding down. And I think he's doing some things he, the savvy, long-term businessman that he is wouldn't do. I think he's indulging in some of the human nature that we all have.

We all have pride. We all care what people think about us. You can say you don't, but you do. But this stuff just strikes me as below craft for most of his tenure. But now it's different because he's sort of letting the personal feelings come into play as he assesses his own legacy. Right. No, I think that's a great take, and I think you're probably right. I don't know. I'd be interested to know, did Kraft make the call to Blank, or did Blank make the call to Kraft? You know, I think that would matter on how I saw it as well.

What a statement put out by Stacey James, the behind the scenes, usually PR director for the Patriots, put out this statement through SPN. Robert steadfastly denies saying anything negative to Arthur Blank about Bill Belichick after Robert and Bill mutually agreed to part ways. In fact, Robert advocated for Bill to get the job. Then my favorite part, again, Stacey James, PR director, it would not surprise me to learn that owners sometimes lament to those close to them when their teams are struggling. But Robert Kraft never questioned Bill's character or trust when talking with Arthur Blank. Trust is important to Robert. He wouldn't have employed Coach Belichick for the past 24.

years if you ever questioned his trust. Very specific wording there that basically to me says, yeah, he said some things about Belichick-Craft did, but it wasn't specifically during the phase of talking to blank when he was going to get the job. And who knows what he told him at a different time. So again, kind of weird stuff. Sad, like we said, I think it's still sad for me that it has to come to this. I think people do guard their desks. People want credit for certain things. And I agree with you. Probably crafts spot in the big picture, whether it's Hall of Fame, whether it's winding down a career. I think these things become more important. Legacy becomes a narrative. I think those were all probably part of this for sure.

But his legacy is going to be great. He's going to be in the Hall of Fame. He doesn't need to do this stuff. This stuff to me tarnishes it to be in the middle of it. I agree. If all his comment was, was Bill Belichick was the greatest coach in the history of the league, and I was honored and privileged to work with him. I mean, that's all you got to say. Really, to me, stay above it all. Only say the best stuff about Bill. Because everybody benefits from that.

And then you don't look like you're self-serving, which I think he's come off that way to me, just looking at this thing from 30,000 feet. GM Notebook, Randy, what do you got? Well, just a couple notes. And like yourself, I happen to do some radio and things around the country during the week. I've been asked this a couple times.

So I thought it might be kind of interesting just to talk it through. With the Patriots picking third, kind of what is their mindset? We've heard Elliot Wolf talk in the last couple days a little bit publicly about how they're open for business and what he may or may not be thinking. Here's my thinking on them because everybody thinks they're going to draft a quarterback. And they might. But when they're sitting there at three, it has to be the right quarterback. It has to be a guy they feel really good about. And if they're like most NFL teams, they're not going to have five quarterbacks that they feel great about.

They might only have two that they feel good about because that's the way I would view it. And so I could see other teams viewing it the same way. You've heard me say four, Mike, on the podcast, whenever he talks about all these quarterbacks available in a particular NFL draft, and maybe there's two and a half for me, you know. And so maybe they feel like that. So he has to keep every door open, every option open. let's just say for example he doesn't like Drake May so he can't do anything because Caleb is one and they say Jaden Daniels might be two so if he's at three he's got to have a deal worked out

to beg out of there for somebody who wants to come up with May now that may not be his feelings I'm just saying that's an example of him having to play every card and every road he has to explore all options and that's why you hear these guys say certain things at the microphone in a press conference, they just don't know yet because you won't know how they feel about any particular player. Yep. So if there's a team that loves Drake May way more than they do, you know, then come on in, right? Yeah. He'll make the deal and they'll move down. Again, we know what the narrative is and has been from the media standpoint as to how we think that certain people feel about players. The NFL teams, they're not going to share how they feel about players.

They're not going to share that with anybody. They'd be crazy. to you. So sometimes I feel like I'm sticking up for NFL teams, but the NFL teams aren't going to share anything with anybody. If they do, they should be fired. So we don't know. I kind of like the way Washington has done it, to be honest with you. Washington hasn't shared anything with anybody. Certain people think they're leaning toward Jaden Daniels, but I sure haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe that. So you're crazy to let your thoughts out. I know I never, in my 30-some years of the league, would ever let my thoughts be known to anybody, including media people that I was really close with. I just can't do that.

You never told John Clayton? Never told John Clayton? No, I never told John anything ever. So I just don't, I love John, but I never would share that with him. So it's just part of the business that you've got to run as a GM and as the guy who pulls the trigger to keep everything on the table and juggling a lot of deals until you get on the clock. You may not know what's going to happen for you. Yeah. The other question I get asked, so this would be item number two in the notebook, is do the Vikings have to get a quarterback or is it a failure in this year's draft? And a little bit of the same type of approach for me, we said and were proved to be right that they could sign Sam Donald. And even though it's a one-year deal, they felt like that gives them an upper hand on anything they had going last year.

I think they feel like they can equal what they did last year with Sam Donald as their country. quarterback, if not move ahead. So I think that's the key for me to tell me that they are not going to make a bad deal. They don't have to have a quarterback. I know they've made a trade already and everybody said, well, they wouldn't have done that if they didn't want to go up with the quarterback, maybe, but we don't know again which quarterbacks they like either. So the windows of opportunity to move up will present themselves as we drop down on Thursday in round one. Maybe that option will be there or not. I know this for sure, knowing the participants in the Vikings office, they're not going to make a bad deal. They're not going to overpay to go up for a quarterback

just because they need a quarterback. Sometimes fans, sometimes listeners, they get in the desperate mode of saying, we got to do this, we got to do that. Not really. They have some other options. And so I don't think they're desperate to get a quarterback in this draft. Maybe you are super tight with Kwayzey as the GM there, but he doesn't have a long GM track worker. I know he's putting out publicly the idea that, hey, we like exactly what you said, we're not going to stretch for anything, but how do you, Kevin O'Connell doesn't have 15 years of history of doing this. What are basing that on that they wouldn't, they might be less likely than some teams to make a desperate move? Because they have Sam Darnold and they feel really good about him. They're paying him

10 million on a one-year deal. Now that, there may be people listening that just laugh at that. In NFL service, there's a lot of people that think Sam Darnold has some tread life left in him and hasn't been in an ideal position to this point. Yes, yes. I could definitely see that. So here's the deal. If they do move up and take a quarterback wherever, you know, I think they'll win the press conference.

I think they'll get the good draft grades. It'll go up that they executed their plan. They got their quarterback, but that may or may not be the best thing to do based on who that quarterback is, based on that they have Darnold and what you think of him and based on who else they could have gotten in that spot. So I think that will be very interesting.

They're going to be judged on whether they're going to be judged on what did they get a quarterback out of this? You got one finger up there. What do you got? I totally agree with you. And this happened to me one year in Miami when everybody thought we needed a quarterback and we picked ninth, I believe, and I didn't love any of the quarterbacks. Now, we could have picked Brady Quinn at nine and we would have won the press conference. Everybody would a lot of this. You'd have got hugs, high fives, everything for doing that. I went the other route and you can say if it's right or wrong. I don't care. We ended up drafting Ted Ginn, who played a long time. But I didn't want to draft a quarterback that I didn't love. Back in those days, we had to pay a lot of money

for these top 10 picks, and that was on my mind as well. So you're not going to ever, in my opinion, win the press conference and win the long range goal. You may have a hard decision to make because everybody's going to want you to draft a quarterback and move up to get one. I don't think they necessarily have to do that, and that would be understanding. So that's interesting. So you took Ted Ginn ninth that year, then you waited. You did take a quarterback, but it was like 40th overall. John Beck was there and you're not, you're just sort of almost taking a developmental player at that point.

Did you love him or did that just sort of scratch the itch and let you have a guy, you know? We liked him a lot. We were all in, had a consensus on John. I had been to see him. We'd gone to work him out. We kind of felt like he would be a developmental guy that in another year or two, he'd be, he was our next best option.

It obviously wasn't a great year to be needing a quarterback. Yeah. And so we didn't do it. But I knew I was going to get killed at the press conference. I knew we were going to get ridiculed by everybody in the world because we passed on Brady Quinn. Now, I still think we made the right decision. Brady Quinn got drafted later in the first round by Cleveland.

He played a long time, good guy, decent quarterback, not worked out as an NFL starter. So I think we made the right decision. But I got killed probably more for that pick than any other pick I made in all my years in the league. Yeah, absolutely. played forever, got a ton of passes. So that's the way it goes. Yeah, you got to stick to your principles and try to make the right moves and not give

into that, even though, like you said, you could win the press conference. So I think we won the podcast today, Randy. You got anything else? You want to throw in there? No, I'm good. I think we got into the weeds a little bit. We gave some 30,000 feet views, and hopefully our listeners will come back again. Obviously, the reminder is that we're going to be next Monday after the draft.

So you can find us then. and we'll talk to you then. In the meantime, you can find Randy's work. You can find my work on The Athletic. You can also find us on X at Sando NFL at Randy Mueller underscore at you, figure out which one is which. And we'll talk to you then after the draft. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.