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

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

We are two weeks away from the NFL draft. Is this a deep draft class this season? Mike and Randy look at how tape reveals character. The guys start off their discussion with the QB class in this year's draft and where they might rank. From there, we go through position groups on the offense and which players can produce effectively in the NFL. 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, along with the GM, Randy Mueller. Hey, Randy, anything going on? I mean, we're only two weeks away from the draft. We better get some rankings here, right? Yeah, I've kind of let us down. I've been so focused on a couple of these pieces that I've written for the athletic

all on free agency that, and I feel bad not jumping into the draft stuff sooner. But here's one of the problems. Our listeners and our readers, are so into it and so sharp that if I don't bring the A part of it, they let me know. So I've got to do, you know, my due diligence as well as I can to keep up with listeners and especially the readers out there because they like nothing more than to jump after me that, hey, you don't know squat, you know? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, this is my draft prep today

because there is so much stuff out there that if you listen to all of it, you'd be spinning and you wouldn't know what to think. And so for me, especially around the draft, previewing the draft, it's a much smaller number of people that I would like to listen to. And you're at the top of the list, Randy, because you've been doing this in a different realm. Then there's not a lot of XGMs out there,

but it's X like the Twitter X, XGM. There's not a lot of XGMs as an former GMs. So I'm riding with you. riding with you and we're going to uncover Randy's rankings on the offensive side of the ball today. We'll do defense next week. So this is podcast number one of two previewing the draft. Like I said today, we will hit offense. We're going to start with quarterbacks because that's where it's at. And Randy's tipped his hand a little bit on quarterbacks, receivers, but we're going to dive in. This is going to be a little bit more in stone. And Randy, I also wanted to just clarify that

this for your and these are film evaluations you are not unless there's some glaring red flag on somebody who's been you know arrested three times or something this is less of hey you've done the work on the character and how he's going to fit with our team and personality and that stuff right this is going to be a little bit more of film right yeah it's another example and we say it all the time here the team's no way more than us so for us to realize figure out hey what they're know what they've spent 12 months with a staff of 25 people trying to collect, we can't keep up with that. So we don't know the medical stuff.

We don't know the character stuff per se. Now, obviously, I've talked to a lot of people and sometimes tape reveals character, too. So there are things that will be evident to us, but nothing like what the NFL teams have done from an investigative standpoint. Hey, does that stuff, let's just say, take your history of drafting players or just seeing draft. Do you think that you'd almost be better off just going by the film, or do you think that other stuff, the personality and those things really should and does influence how you haven't stacked? Or do you just end up kind of overthinking yourself? And sometimes you just

didn't like a guy's personality. It doesn't really even matter. Well, I think it all matters. I think it's all part of building the file on these guys. I do think the intangible stuff really matter. Here's the deal. And it's hard to, I had this discussion with the college coach this year, this week. And I said, we only get six or seven scholarships a year. And we are, our NIL is capped. So we have 53 guys on our team because the comment was, well, you guys go way deeper than we do on the college side. Well, that's because you got 85 scholarships. You've got a lot of room for air. You can swing and miss at 10 of those and still be able to be East Carolina next week. So it's in depth. It's really deep. I think you have to consider all the things you mentioned as

intangibles. Yeah, but I will say this. I do think there is, as part of the whole picture, a spot for a film evaluation. And maybe you have one of your scouts or a cross-checker, or we used to have in the 80s and 90s, like a film grader who sat in the office and that's all they did was look at film. Now that's all you would do is look at tape. And he put us on the players. He would give us a puristic. view of that guy on the football field. And so sometimes the intangibles can overcomplicate it for sure. But I do think you've got to go back to the film.

And I alluded to this earlier, there are a lot of character traits, Mike, that I see that I can identify on film. That's what I'm thinking. There's a correlation without a doubt. That's where I would think I would want to focus unless there's just something really significant off the field, right? Well, yeah. Then, of course, that has to, you know, override if there's going to be major

legal problems or that sort of a thing. We don't know how sometimes, for example, a big part of these evaluations are how a particular player learns the best way he learns because I don't know if people realize how much information these players have to learn and spit out and that changes week to week. So you have to have a plan or an idea of how everybody learns best. And so that's part of it. We don't get any of that on tape per se. you can say, well, if you make some mental mistake here or there, that's great.

But you need to figure out what started his week from a learning standpoint and how much can you teach him per week. And that's something that you can't just get on film. Okay. So before we get to quarterbacks and then after that, we're going to do offensive line and hit some of the other positions. Clearly this is an offensive draft at the top, Randy. You and I talking before the show a little bit, you know, you also talked about kind of just what, your perception is of the strength of this of this draft to to others. Can you expand on that? Because I think usually you've been a glass half full guy and you sort of resist the narratives that,

oh, there's, you know, the complaints. You hear people in the league. Oh, there's just not enough good players or whatever. And you kind of usually roll your eyes at that. Where are you at this year? I'm kind of one of those guys this year. And I would say for 35 years of doing this, Mike, I would hear that every other year about how bad the draft is. And it was usually early in the process. And every year at the end of the process, we were really happy to get the players we did. And for the most part, it is a deeper draft than people realize it is early in the process. Having said that, I don't think this is a deep draft this year. I have not seen or found the players.

I think you get into the third or fourth round and you're already reaching for less than complete players. The goal is to identify a trait or two that some player can hang as half. on that if you draft in the fourth or fifth round, you're going to have to develop those players and those traits more than, say, in a normal draft. And I think a great example of that, and I think the NFL agrees with us. For example, what Ryan Poles has done in Chicago is an example. He's traded away a couple second and third day picks for veteran players, one, because he's going to have a rookie quarterback and he wants some veterans around it. But two, those late picks, like if I had four or five, six round picks and seventh round picks, I don't know how valuable those are this year.

I think those are picks. I might use those to maybe get a fourth, you know, package them together or trade them for next year one round higher. You see that happens a lot as well. I probably would look into some of those things because I just, it's hard to manufacture players on any draft, but I think people are going to be manufacturing players maybe in the fourth or fifth round this year. That will be interesting to see if there's a cutoff point in the draft where people are trying to trade up into and do people overpay a little bit to fill a need now because they feel like they're not going to be able to this year. If they're picking 1 20th as opposed to 90th, I'm just making up the number. Whatever.

So, okay, let's get into the quarterbacks, Randy. I've got your top five here in front of me. There are a lot of the names that we've seen near some top fives, but a little bit of a different order. In fact, a little bit of a different order than maybe the last time we talked. So you want me to list them off? I can go through the five. I can list the five. You can.

For our listeners, sure. Okay, so here's the order of the five. Number one, Caleb Williams, no surprise. Number two, J.J. McCarthy, maybe a little bit of a surprise. You were on him early saying he could be even a top five pick in this draft. but I believe before you probably had Jaden Daniels number two. Now Jaden Daniels is three. Number four, Drake, man, number five, Michael Pennix out of Washington.

So what do you see there? Big picture before we go through these guys. Well, big picture for me and what I think differentiates these players is that I think Caleb Williams stands alone. I think he's the best player in a draft. He's a guy that you've gone several years, maybe never see a player like that. He's a difference maker. So I see him clearly a step above.

But for me, regardless of who I rank second or third, there's a fairly significant gap for me to get to that player. So when I would do, like I'm going to do this next week for the athletic and write about it, my top 10 players and why, there probably won't be a quarterback in the two slot or the three slot or even the fourth or fifth slot. That's what I mean by there's a gap. There's some other players that are going to be fit in there for me. Now, we all think quarterbacks are going to go, one, two, three, and I get it. But that's just the nature of that position. Sure, if you needed one, you're not doing a, I need a quarterback. Shoot, if you didn't have one, you might push a guy up a little bit to do that.

But that's what we're talking about. You're talking about the quality of a player. Right. And so the Caleb Williams evaluation for me is easy. I think he can play in any system. The scheme to me really doesn't change my evaluation. I think this is a kid that can operate in the pocket. he can operate by throwing on time and with discipline,

and he can also, as we all see, easily operate outside the pocket. When I watched the film on him, it was just more of the same. I could watch five games or eight games. It wouldn't really matter. He's the same player. I think the two things you have to kind of equate to the next level are, and this is just my opinion, I don't think USC is very good. So I think this guy carried the team.

He carried the franchise. He carried everybody. and for that reason he had to try to make a lot of plays. So there are some errors that he would make, some risks that he would take that I don't think he's even in his DNA to do at the next level. He just needed to do it there to try to make something happen. So I think their defense is bad. And again, this isn't an indictment on anybody.

It's just the facts of who he was playing with and who was around him. So I thought that hurt his production, but it didn't hurt my look into his skills and traits. So how can you tell that that's not just how he plays? And how can you tell that you're putting it more on what's around him and having to? Because some people, maybe he holds the ball too long or tries to do too much, right? Well, a lot of times he's running for his life, Mike. And it happens two seconds into the play. So they can barely slow anybody down sometimes up front.

And so he's in scramble mode often. And therefore, scramble kind of means panic, kind of means desperate to make a play. And so one thing begets another begets another. and there was just a lot of that. Now, when they did protect for him, and when they didn't have third and 18, he could get the ball out from the spot in the pocket that we all know he'll have to do in the NFL. So that's what I mean. And I love watching this kid. I think I may have told you. I went to a game with a good friend of mine, and we saw him play live as well as the film. And my buddy was sitting next to me, and I bet I punched him in the shoulder three or four times. He said, if you can punch me again, I'm going to punch you back. But I was punching him out of what's this kid going to do next, you know? Like I couldn't believe some of the stuff he was, it was like a Houdiniac pulling stuff out of his back pocket, you know. And I enjoyed watching that. So he got me excited. I said wow a lot when I watched him.

Yep. So early on then going to J.J. and McCarthy, too, you've got a big gulf there between Caleb Williams and the next two, I think, which is McCarthy and Daniels at LSU. I think early in the process, you probably had Jaden Daniels too. You've had time to look at McCarthy more. You did say, I think back in December, hey, McCarthy's going to be up there once people really look at him. You now have a slight edge for him in number two. Why? And what else you got?

Well, if somebody held me to the fire, I would probably pick JJ for sure. And I think that we've seen, well, we've just seen how crazy the reactions and in the evaluations have been on social media and everywhere else with regard to these quarterbacks. It's almost been toxic. And I understand that because they're not simple. But in my case with J.J. McCarthy, I think identifying his skills and traits are fairly simple. Where the disconnect comes is the offense that he runs does not produce big numbers. In fact, it doesn't produce a lot in the passing game that he'll be asked to do at the NFL level. But I saw enough throws to where I was okay with projecting what he does and what his skill set is what is seen,

that I could connect enough dots to think this guy is not only going to do it at the next level, I think he could get really good at doing it at the next level. So that nudged him for me a little bit ahead of Jaded Daniels. I think McCarthy makes, and I've said this on the pod, makes more tight window accurate throws than maybe anybody in the league. He can find ways to zip balls in where you'd say, why is he, oh, now I see it. It's almost that Dan Marino-ish tight windows. You're not throwing the people that are wide open like you did in college.

So I see enough of that. But having said that, I think Jaden gives us a little bit more of even a downfield complete picture. His throws downfield a little better than JJ's. He can still run. They can both, in my opinion, beat you from the pocket, which is really the criteria that I cherish the most. An NFL quarterback has to be able to win from the pocket. He can't be a runaround guy and have to make plays on the move all the time because they'll find a way not to rush you. And eventually you're going to have stand in the pocket and make throws.

But I think both of these guys can do that. Now, how they process information is something that we see evidence of on tape. But the other part that's missing from an evaluation like we all do on the outside is we don't necessarily know what he's being told. We don't know what he's being asked to process. NFL teams know that. We won't because we don't get to talk to the coaches. Hey, I was asking him to do this. If we do this, then we're going to do this.

All of those options that he has, we don't get to know that, but NFL teams do. So I didn't have any problem with those three people, but in a real, in a real solid, normal first round, I would think that the J.J. McCarthy's and the Jane Daniels for me would be more middle of the round type talents to pick. Gotcha. We know they're going to get picked up high. But those guys, for me, would fall 12, 13, 14. If this draft included the amount of defensive players that we normally would see. We've talked about that's void this year.

So those guys are even going to get pushed up more. Not only a need-based team will take them, but they don't have a lot of other options. So they're going to get pushed up high. Yep. So then four and five, you see another gulf then after the second tier. So your top tiers clearly, Caleb Williams. And next tier, a little lower, you know, maybe a lot of lower. lot lower, J.J. McCarthy, Jaden Daniels, then a lot lower from that, right, to Drake May and

Michael Pennix. Yeah, I would say the next two quarterbacks, May I put at the bottom of the first round. Penix, I would put a more talented passer of the ball, but probably at the bottom of the first round because he's not as mobile. These players for me had issues that I couldn't solve, part of the math problem that I couldn't get. So I struggled with that. May, for me, I think we've talked about it here on the pod, his accuracy is erratic. Sometimes his decision making for me is erratic. And as we've chuckled about, I understand he's the one guy that's six four, 225 pounds. I get it. But there's some throws that I don't understand that come really from him. With Pennix, and everybody says, well, he ran four, Pennix ran four, five or whatever on his pro day.

Yeah, 38 inch vertical or 36. But he doesn't play like that. You don't see those traits in his game. I'm glad that he can do it, but I couldn't raise his grade because he ran four or five, because that's not part of his repertoire of weapons as a quarterback. Now, he might be the purest passer of the whole bunch because I love to watch him throw, but he's just athletically a different style. I think his throws are made more effective by the schemes. I mean, he probably obviously would be a great fit in Seattle where he's going to have the same offensive, same offense that he ran in college and things like that. So I do think scheme matters

for both Pennix and for May. I think May has some upside, no doubt. Penix, I don't know if there's a lot of upside because he's already pretty polished. But for me, I would make May 4 and Penix 5. Now, with Pennix, though, your number one criteria, you've got to win from the pocket. Is that what he does best? I've been trying to talk you into higher grade on Pennix from every angle every week, just because he seems to check that box. I'm trying to find out what the hole is. He does. He checks that box. Other than athleticism, but you don't usually care about if a guy's, no one's saying, you know, whether Peyton Manning could run well enough. I'm not comparing him to Peyton Manning, but I mean, he could pass the ball.

He definitely can. I think sometimes that his quickness to get the ball out lacks a little bit. The rush gets on you really fast. And I think one of the under the radar traits of these quarterbacks that a lot of people on the street don't know is how quickly they've got to process and get it out. We do drills with these guys when we work them out at pro days. Just how quickly can they get the ball out of their hands? Sometimes we would play a little hot potato game with them, Mike, where you just flip it to them and have them throw it without the threads.

I just want to see him turn to double play, right? I want to have that ball in his hands and turn and fire it even without the threads. I remember doing that with a lot of quarterbacks that we'd work out pre-draft. Oh, yeah. Yeah, just to see if they could get it out quickly and then speed them up in part of the workout. Make them speed up. And it's shocking. When I worked at ESPN, I would go to those John Gruden quarterback camps.

He had footballs with no laces on them. You know, they had to grab the ball. There's no laces. You can't find them, pal. Yeah. You just got to throw that ball. Two other guys I wanted to ask you about. So Bo Nicks, Spencer, Rattler, are guys we hear about it a little bit.

Did you get a chance to look at them? Are they, you know, miles different? Or would you, you don't want to take a chance on one of them at a different point in the draft? I think outside the first round, those guys would be legitimate options for me. Part of the Bo Nix, he's. evaluation for me and it's not really fair is that I saw him play a lot at Auburn. And so you almost have to expunge that from your memory because that was a failure. I mean, he'll be the first to tell you that failed. That didn't work out. Now, different system, different people around

him, different coaching, totally different when he got to Oregon. I think from my standpoint, he's, everybody says, well, he looks like he's ready. He looks like he's ready. I don't know that I see all that of him being quite that ready. With regard to Spencer Radler, inconsistent. in about every fashion. I equate Rattler to almost the Desmond Ritter when he came out of Cincinnati a couple years ago. He shows signs of it. It's just not a body of work that I could stamp because it's kind of been all over the place and it's been really inconsistent. And I think the accuracy that has to be there every Sunday, I haven't seen that yet. So with regard to to Nix, he is throwing to wide open people all the time at Oregon. Their scheme is awesome.

People running free all over the place like recess. That's not going to happen at the NFL level. So you've got to be comfortable enough with him that you can connect those dots into making tight window throws, making some processing, not simple just if this, then this, but reading coverage. A lot of the things that I just wasn't able to differentiate when I watched the tape on Bo Nix. Okay, so we'll shift to offensive line now, and I think these are all tackles in here. For your top five, we have Joe Alt, Tilius Fulonga, Olu Fashanu, third. Fourth, a surprise. Roger Rosengarten, University of Washington, five, J.C. Lathen, we've heard.

Rainie, one of my favorite aspects of when you go into the film room, whether you're looking at a free agent or you're looking at draft, and I'm sure you love this too. You go in looking for one guy and then you find another. So Roger Rosengarten's one of those guys who's ranked a lot lower on a lot of these boards that you see out there for tackles. And some of that could be he's on the right side guy. So we'll get to him in a minute. But let's start from the top here with Joe. And maybe a little perspective too, like you did on the quarterbacks, hey, do you love these guys? Do you like them?

Are they going to be, you know, how high would you normally take them? How high are they going this year? That sort of thing. Give us some perspective on where they fit, you know, not just among each other, but kind of in the big picture of. Offensive lineman, Joe Alt, number one for you. A couple things that strike me. It is a good group of offensive linemen, Mike. I was happy when I got to watch all these guys because I think the quality is there.

Having said that, because the defense is lacking in the draft this year, I think they all are going to get picked in the top 15 or 16, to be honest with you. Now, maybe there's a couple more that I looked at as well that a team might like that flavor more than I did. in general, it is a big, long group. There are tackles 6-7, 6-8. And for me, I'm not looking for 6-8 tackles. I'm just not. I'm looking for 6-5 benders, can engage your lower body, can knock people back. But for a group of tall, which you'd say, well, they play with high pad level, they have a

hard time recovering and went off balance, just because they're taller men, it's a pretty good group for those criteria. I think they can play with pad level. And I was surprised by that. And that part of it made me think that this is a group that's worthy of being picked high in the first round because of that, because they're not stiffer, tall guys who play high and get off balancing and are on the ground. This is a really good group of linemen. And you're right. Joe Alt was the first guy for me. Everybody thinks of a similar Mike McGlinchie, who was also 6'7. And Joe Alt is not Mike McGlinchie. I think he's a, and Michael Vinchy got picked really high. But I think Joe Alt is, well, for one thing, he's six, eight and a half.

He's 320 pounds. He got 34 and a half inch arms. He's a long dude. But he plays like a much smaller guy. He plays, for my money, with better bend, better knock him back, better recovery when off balance. There's not a lot of things for me that Joe Alt doesn't do. I think his style of play is very culturally.

going to be welcome because he plays till the whistle. He plays really hard. He can play either tackle, to be honest with you, they do enough unbalanced stuff at Notre Dame where the left tackle becomes the tight end on the right and vice versa, that he could probably play either side, which is obviously a benefit. But you're talking about a tough guy who can probably improve his strength a little bit. I think he'd be the first to tell you. But when he hits him, they go back. He doesn't have ideal anchor because he's six, eight and a half, but he has anchor enough. I think the guy's a good player, and the thing I like most about him, and this is a hard attitude to develop is he finishes, he's got some nasty in him, but yet this is the guy that can

play with poise as well and patience, and that's a hard combination to find for offensive linemen. And if you can find a tackle that is aggressive like crazy at the right time, but yet is poised enough to sit back and have patience. Those are pretty good traits. So that's why he was my number one guy. Absolutely. Whereas more on an inside guy, you're a little bit more, hey, if the guy's just nasty all

the time, that's fine and aggressive all the time, right? More of a slugger is okay. Yeah, and more of a leading with your head, more of a go-get them as opposed to let them come our way. Yeah, absolutely. Just think about playing defense and basketball. Some guys are really aggressive and they'll go after the offensive player. Some kind of lay back and let them come to them.

There's a combination depending on maybe your opponent or what you're asking him to do that hits my sweet spot with offensive tackles. So, and Joe Alt for you is a top 10 pick in almost any draft. Is that right? 100%. He'll be in my top 10 players in the draft for sure. Okay. So now we go to Oregon State's Elise Fuanga, and he is two for you, which is a little higher than some have him, but he's in the mix on a lot of these ones. Is there a big drop off or no way?

You're going to have him in your top 10 probably too. He's a little bit behind him, but not much. He'll be into top 10. I agree with that. I'm not trying to get you to reveal your whole top 10. I'm just trying to... I don't have it all sorted out, but I know how valuable these tackles are, Mike.

And this kid is a really good player. Another really tall guy, when I say really tall, 6-6-ish, 325, not quite as long of arms as some of these other guys. And for those of the listeners who don't know how important arm length is for tackles, just pretend he's on an island. He's blocking on an island.

And if you have the longer your arm are, the further the path that defensive end has to go around you. So long arms matter. And length, you'll hear that a lot when people talk about tackles. They got to have link. That's why a, you know, a 6-3 player isn't it quite as an ideal fit as a tackle because it's lonely out there on that island. And people can go around that. And chances are his arms aren't going to be as long as a taller guy. And so that stuff matters. The one drawback with Fuonga for me, 15 starts. Not a lot of ball. For example, Joe Alt started 32 games.

Another guy we're going to talk about later started 27. Funga started fewer games, plays right tackle. But here's what he does that I think a lot of these players don't do. He has the ability to dance laterally in pass protection, but sink his butt and defend a bull rush that comes right down his throat. He's the same in the run game. He can engage his lower body on contact, which usually. when you weigh 325 pounds results in you getting movement on the defender. And so that's part of my evaluation as well.

Very athletic and anchor comes down laterally. Whenever he needs to, he can adjust and get to the second level easy. He cuts off pursuit of faster people. Really good combination of agility and anchor for me. He's almost never on the ground. And I thought he was a very consistent past-rocking player with really good technique. his balance. When he punches, there's a punch that jolts defenders, and he just never seemed for me to be out of position. And there's something to be said for that. Even though he lacks a little ideal arm length, but he's for me, and they play him at right tackle. He's such a good athlete. I'm not sure that he couldn't play left tackle as well. So he's my second guy.

Yep. Third, Olufashanu Penn State, also in that realm. Yep. Left tackle for Penn State, taller guy, a little bit of longer arms, less consistent for me as a pass blocker than the Oregon State kid is, but can pull, can lead, can move really good with athleticism. I felt like the difference was for me, and it's just like that defenders got off Olu's blocks a little quicker than they did Alt or Fuanga. They were able to dispose of him sometimes sooner than I would have liked. In other words, This guy had good position on contact, but didn't always stay connected and seemed like people kind of got off him. Not as heavy-handed.

When I say heavy hands, when these big guys get their mitts on a defender, they can control where that defender's going for the most part. The Penn State kid, for me, a little less able to control. Some of that strength, but sometimes it's just the heaviness of those hands, if that makes any sense. But he was my third guy. Absolutely. So now you're a little bit of a surprise one.

Roger Rosengarten from Washington. There's another offensive lineman from Washington who's on a lot of these top fives. Not in yours. Roger is. Let's go through your process there because I bet you you didn't go there looking for Roger. No, I didn't. I went there to look for the left tackle who everybody is high on and I am too. I'm not sure.

Troy Foton. Yeah. I'm not sure at the end of the day he ends up being an NFL tackle. He may have to shift into guard. you know, he's a six three and a half guy, a little, a little different build than ideally you'd like it tackle. But yeah, I went there with the idea of looking at Troy and the guy who really impressed me with Roger, in fact that he's six, five and a half, he has long arms, he runs 494 at 310 pounds or whatever he weighed. He was for me a pass blocking machine

of consistency that is hard to do at the NFL level. But his technique, was as consistent and as pure as I saw any of these guys. He understands how to play. But the thing, and I mentioned this earlier, the thing he does really good is his poise to allow players to frantically be trying all kinds of moves and tricks and games on him. Didn't bother him a bit. He just hung in there and sorted it out.

I think he's a smart football player. And he has balance. He has some pop in his punch as well that kind of just took me back. And maybe I just wasn't expecting it from him. But I think, not for everybody, but I think there's a chance this guy gets picked at the end of the first round, maybe the top of the second round. That's how good I think he is, dependent on how they feel about some of these other tackles. So he, for me, was my fourth, I guess ends up being fourth tackle, fourth line. Is he a right side guy only?

Or is he, do you, could he go to the other side? Or what do you think? Does it matter? It's such a technician. I'll mention him in comparison with the guy you might know Pete Kendall, who we drafted in the first round out of Boston College, what, mid-90s or late 90s in Seattle. This guy and Pete played tackle at BC could probably play any of the five positions. I think this is the kind of guy that gave me comfort Roger in that he might be able to play

any of the five positions and get you through at least that drive. Now, I'm not selling him as a guard or a center or anything like that, but I have no doubt he could go to the other side because he's such a technician. He understands how to set. He understands his own maybe weaknesses, and he plays to that. He takes that away from the defender. So I was really fired up when I watched him for all those reasons. Good one to have on our radar.

Then J.C. Latham for you is number five. And we've seen him in various places on these things, a little bit higher, probably a little bit higher on most. Yeah. And I see why. I mean, this is a big man. This is almost 6'6. He's almost 350 pounds. His arms are over 35 inches long.

He's got 27 starts in the SEC at Alabama, so I get it. Big old hands. He's got 11-inch hands. Oh, yeah, they're giant. And you can tell when he latches on, it's over. The difference he'll have is that he's going to be blocking elite edge rushers in the NFL every Sunday, and he might not be able to get his hands on him because if he does, he'll win. But if you can't get his hands on him, it's going to be a struggle for him.

So that to me was the only thing where I questioned. He is a physically imposing dude now. On contact, he knocks people back, strong, just not for my money as good laterally on an island to pass protect as these other guys. Yeah, enough to be a little concerned taking him too high. Yes. And I'm not sure that he won't be a great guard. He could probably do fine at tackle, but I think his makeup might make him a better eye. option for teams at guard. But here's the problem, Mike. These teams are all looking for

tackles. They struggle finding tackles. So he might just be too good to ever move inside. But if you were building a dream offensive line, you would probably move this guy into guard. Yep. Very interesting. I have wide receivers down next, Randy, and you have, we have discussed them before, I believe last week even we talked a little bit about what order you would have for the three that everyone knows are going to be near the very top of the draft. I will recap the top five now for you. Romadunzee Washington is number one for you. Malik Neighbors, LSU is number two for you. Marvin Harrison Jr. Ohio State is number three. Adon A. Mitchell is number four for you and Brian Thomas is number five. So do you see a big gap between

the top three and those others? Are they all going to go in the first round? And then we can talk a little bit about why the order? I do think they'll all go in the first round. I think those top three will probably all go into top 10. It is a group of really good receivers. I mean, if you have a need for this, I think the reason they're going to go off the board again, quicker than they would in most years,

is just because the lack of blue chip players at other positions. But I like all three of these guys. And for my liking, the reason I settled on a dooze is he's kind of a combination of all the above, right? This kid is a really good catcher of the ball. And everybody's going to say, oh, no kidding. He's a receiver. Way to go out on the limb, ready.

This guy catches every kind of a throw. He uses his hands and his ball skills really good. He is light on his feet for a big man. You know, he's almost 6'3. And he can put his foot in the ground and separate. The criteria I use for these guys in receivers are they've got to be able to separate from coverage and they've got to be able to catch when they're covered. Those are the two flaws that if you don't have those two abilities, I don't think you'll play successfully at the NFL level.

So I think Aduzzi does that. And here's another thing that affected me. I probably know too much about this kid's makeup and his character. And I would say normally that doesn't enter into as much. But with this kid, I have no doubts that he's going to be a really good player. He wants it. He's driven. He can get away from coverage.

He can run by coverage. and he can catch when he's covered. Great competitor. I just had no doubts about him. So that's why I listed him. Again, he's a combination of Marvin Harrison and Malik Neighbors, in my opinion, and that's why I put him one. Second for me was Malik Neighbors, the LSU Kid.

Nobody's more sudden. Nobody is better in space. Nobody is going to make more big plays than him because of his electrifying speed. I mean, he is explosive. A couple of things that worried me a little about. him are mainly the fact that incidental contact downfield sometimes throws him off his route sometimes that bothers him you know what sometimes some weights to have him less than 200 six feet tall a little smaller than these two guys because there is a lot of contact now the rules have

tried to take all the contact out but there's a lot of incidental contact downfield for these receivers and sometimes they can get jammed up a little bit or or not even pressed but just have to fight through contact downfield. And I felt like with neighbors, that may have been an issue, just fighting through contact. Now, we had the same questions the year Joey Galloway came out. And even Ted Ginn, two guys I drafted. We felt like as a staff that we needed to keep those guys on the move to keep them from being pressed and to keep people from contacting them in their routes, at least that first 10 or 15

yards of their route. So those are things that staffs can do, that schemes can do that can help. But it's one of the reasons I like Rome the best is that I don't think anybody can jam him. And I don't think anybody can, there's no incidental contact that's going to keep him from money in the correct route. So I love neighbor's speed. Neighbors is one of those kids that he fits in there with the Galloways, with the Teggins, with those guys that have to be defended differently because of their speed. And he'll do that.

And for that reason, he's going to be a top 10 pick. Yeah, absolutely. And you love the differentiating speed usually. And you love, that's why you love neighbors. you do have him high, but just the ability to not get knocked off course is a little bit of a differentiator for you. And then Marvin Harrison, Jr., you've got third. And then a big, a little bit of a gap there, right?

Yeah, no doubt. I think Marvin Harrison, and I'll say this, I understand if anybody had these guys rank different, I don't, I don't, I wouldn't have a problem with it. All three of these guys in migrating scale are less than a tenth different. So we're splitting hairs, Mike. It's not it. Just a couple quick things on Marvin Harrison that made me come to the conclusion that he might be the third guy for me. And I understand most guys have him number one.

But the ability to not quite separate like a doozy does when he puts his foot in the ground to get away from defenders. I thought a doozy did that better. The other thing was when Marvin Harrison was pressed, he struggled. And some of that's technique. And so I know he'll come out of it. He struggled to get off press coverage clean. And so that bothered me just a tad bit about it. Now, you say, well, you probably mad at him because he didn't run, didn't work out.

I'm not mad at him that he didn't. But like we said on the podcast last week, he's a guy that I think the risk he took by not doing that was that everybody else viewed him like he views himself. I would have loved to see him work out because I want to see that separation. Had he proved to me that he had that, I might have these guys rated different. But I think they're all three going to be really good pros. they're all three going to get picked in the top ten. And that's the interesting component of it. There's no dispute on where Marvin Harrison ranks.

I mean, he's going to be super high. But if you have three guys really, really close, some of those little tiny things could just, you know, toggle the order for you a little bit differently. Not saying the other guy's bad. Just, hey, you know what? I have one less question on this guy. Let's do it.

And I don't really have a question on any of them, but there's just a little bit of doubt that I think he could have removed. And I'm not just going to drink the Kool-Lay. because every media source had this guy picked as a generational receiver for the last five years. You know, I'm just not ready to do that. His name sounds familiar, Randy. His name sounds familiar. Did he have a guy that's, I don't know if there's someone else with that name and played.

Maybe there's Marvin Harrison Senior we should look into. See if he had a few catches. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so then Mitchell's four for you. Brian Thomas, anything standout about those guys? Well, Donnie Mitchell, the Texas kid, production isn't the same as these other guys, but this is a guy that can put his foot in the ground

and eat up a cushion really fast. And I love that about it. I think he's a guy that you're going to be able to affect defenses, how they align, how many safeties they can bring down, how they press, if they do press this kid, because you can't get too aggressive with him because if you miss a press, he's gone. This guy's not going to go dig out a safety and go block him,

But he is 6-2, 205 pounds, but the time speed that I've seen is in the mid-4-3s. He can really separate. And the other thing he can do is track long balls. So for me, I think this kid's best years are in front of him. Texas wasn't a great passing team per se from concept standpoint. So I think he's going to be a really good pro. He was four. Brian Thomas is five for me.

I think these guys are going to get picked in the first round. The Brian Thomas kid, I mean, led me to say early in the process that Jane Dan is just thrown to two NFL receivers and maybe the two better than he'll even play with at the NFL level in Neighbors and Thomas because Thomas is really good. Thomas is almost 6-3. I think of him. If people want to know who Brian Thomas reminds him of, think of Nico Collins, the kid from Houston, Texas. A little bit like that. A little more polished Nico Collins coming out because he can run just a little inconsistent sometimes catching, a little inconsistent in traffic because he's a big body, but the good side is he's always findable because he is six foot three.

He's got really good body control. He runs good routes. Just maybe not as sudden when he puts his foot in the ground as a couple of these other guys we've talked about. So I put him fifth. Yes. Okay. One other guy, Ladd-McConkie, and that are somewhat familiar name there. And not quite as big as some of the other guys, but ran a really good time.

Was he close to be in the mix for you? Or do you like, don't like what? I like him. I don't know that I saw special. Sometimes when you put these lists together, at least I do, and you come up with guys that, you know, top 15 picks, it's how rare their traits are that get them there for me because I've got a big perspective, right? A lot of years of doing these guys. I find Lad McConkey's more than these other guys. And I'm not disputing. He's a good player. He is. But I think those traits sometimes are findable and I didn't really see special when I saw him. Now, he may get picked in the first round two. I get it. I think he'll be a good pro just a matter of when you're going to drink that flavor of Kool-Aid. Yeah, absolutely didn't see quite as much differentiating talent to go wow. Yes, yes.

For him, we have a couple more positions here, running back in tight ends. With the tight ends, when we get to them, we'll do running backs first. But when we get to the tight ends, I don't think we're going to run through a ranking necessarily the top five. But Brock Bowers is somebody of great interest there. And we can talk about, obviously, Randy's given him opinions before on why it's dangerous to take tight ends early. We'll see if he's a little bit of an exception. But with the running backs, Randy, what stood out to you there? Do you think any of these guys are going to, you know, go very high?

And do you have a top couple of those guys? Yeah. I do. I love looking at running backs because style differs. Schemes, make their skill set more accentuated sometimes than others. I'll say this in general. I didn't see any Bijon Robinson's in this group. I can tell you that.

And so that's a special back that probably brings more to the table because he gives you production outside your scheme and above and beyond how the plays are blocked. The other things that differentiate backs for me at the NFL level are passing game numbers, passing game acunem, passing game, blocking, all that stuff kind of separates. And these college backs, for whatever reason, don't get tested a lot in that regard. And in the pros, they will have to pick up blitzers and they will be a part of the passing game.

So those things are probably more things that you have to project than that you see when you watch the tape. I'm not going to value their production as much because they just don't do it. I'm looking at my notes. One kid had 16 catches. One kid had 11 catches. One kid had 22 catches. You know, that's not a lot of catches in 13 games, right? So that's kind of hard to find.

The guys who I think kind of differentiated himself for me are Trey Benson from Florida State. I really liked him. 215 pounds, not concerned much about height. When I look at a back, I want to know that he's 215 plus because he's going to have to break some arm tackles. Benson runs 4-4. Jalen Wright from Tennessee. another guy over 210 pounds runs 439. These guys for me, as the game becomes more of a spread game,

they are more one-back type oriented guys. In comparison, a guy like Blake Corum at Michigan, who we all know ran Jim Harbaugh's offense, he had tons of carries, tons of, tons of production at 5-7-and-a-half, 205 pounds, he's not going to get those kind of volume carries that made him so good in the NFL anymore. Shoot, we're seeing Eddie George phased out a lot of times now and he's 6, 3, 250, but you know what I mean? The volume, a lot of these backs need volume. They need 25 carries to be good, but not these smaller, not these fast guys like

Tray Benson at Florida State or Jalen Wright at Tennessee. These guys are very similar for me in that they can flat out run by people. They have niftiness to make people miss. Plays that get spread out, these backs can run through bigger spaces as long as their vision allows them to find the right hole. They don't have to make a whole bunch of people miss. They're more slashing type guys than evasive type runners, if that makes sense. But Jalen Wright, especially for me, if you forced me to pick a back right now, his north-south acceleration was scary good. The guys who jumped to the front of line for me are guys like Devon A-Chane, who we talked about last year that went to Miami. He was on list last year. Yeah, he was high list for you. Yeah, he was very high.

He liked him. And these are the same kind of traits I see with these guys, the Benson kid at Florida State right at Tennessee. So for all these other positions, just for people listening, Randy had given me the one through five. I don't have it on the running backs on my screen. So would you put Jaylen right number one? I would. I'd put him one for me. I'd put Tray Benson from Florida State two. I struggled with Blake Corum a little bit just because he's a smaller guy. guy. He's very productive, but probably would be down the list for me. There was another guy on my list, Jonathan Brooks, who I know people are high on from Texas, six foot, 205 pounds, just didn't play with any power or speed that I think he's going to play with at the next level. And some people think he's going to be a second round pick as well. So I did probably... You weren't as high on him, Brooks then? No, I wasn't. I think you're going to have to be able to run and make big plays. I didn't see that out of him. So I didn't. I didn't dig deep.

I'm sure if I looked at 20 running backs, I might be able to find a third or fourth in there. But I just didn't have time to do that. No, but that's also indicative of the – what you're basically saying is there's no running back in this draft that you're going to promote for the first round. And even among those ones that you would start looking at earlier in the draft, a couple of the guys that maybe some people have higher, whether it's Jonathan Brooks or Blake Corm, are not doing it for you. They're not the ones that are going to do it for you that early. but if there were a couple guys that you might grab after the first round Jaylen Wright of Tennessee and Trey Benson of Florida State would be too which I think is helpful for folks who've been looking at these lists for the last

several weeks and they see maybe they might see Brooks and Corm above them but for you it's for the reasons you gave it would be more Wright and Benson and then you know I'd have to really dive in to find more that I would like at a different part in the draft and that's fine we don't we're not going to spend bunch of time on running backs if there just aren't that many to see. And I feel a little bit the same about tight ends, right? I mean, I think we have to talk about Brock Bowers. Yes. For sure here. But what did you see? And when on him, obviously he's number one, I would imagine for you. But you also probably didn't look at 25 of these guys in detail

because there's quite a bit of a falloff, right? No, I think there is. And there'll be a Sam Leporter or two that people pick in that second or third round, I get it. I think in Brock Bowers case, he's going to benefit this year. Normally, and you mentioned that tight ends are somewhat taboo to take early, he's going to benefit because the lack of blue chip guys at other positions, I think are going to push him into the maybe top dozen in the draft. Normally, I would say, we're not going to consider a tight end until late first, early second. And year after year, it seemed like the best tight ends went about the same time that centers did. which was late first, early second, whether you're, you know, Todd Heap or I remember these top,

even Tony Gonzalez, you know, went later on in the first round. So that's really the philosophy is that these tight ends really that are going high now are really receivers. That's what they are. They are big slot receivers. We saw it last year with Donald Kincaid going to Buffalo. He was for me by far the best most athletic matchup issue. I think Bowers will be one of those. He's going to be an athletic matchup problem on third downs and in the red zone.

So a good team might justify taking him sooner than a team who's just building their roster out yet. So I don't see any weaknesses. And you liked Dalton Kincaid a lot. I remember coming out. He was our number one guy. Yeah, no doubt. I liked him a lot. And he proved to be, I think, worthy of where they picked him.

Really good player. I think Bowers will go there as well. I haven't seen anybody else that just jumps off and says, hey, we got to make room for him in the first round. at this point. But I think the tight-in position, and I don't want to sound like I'm banging the tight-ins down, is that they are a big receiver. And a lot of teams and a lot of philosophies when you say, like, I see that the jets are rumored to, are tied to Bowers all the time. I'm thinking, if they have him on the field, would they be better served with a fast receiver as the third or fourth guy? And that's the decision you have to make when you pick a

tight-in like this. It is about match-up. So your offense matters and what position you're going to put him in on third down or red zone. There's a lot of teams that would just rather have a third receiver that can really fly because that's who you're going to line him up against is defensive backs. Now, obviously, a tight-in can catch better as contested. He sometimes is more easily identified because he's taller, he's bigger, you know, confused state behind the linebackers. They're just easy to locate a big tight-in. So there's reasons to it.

But NFL teams' philosophies vary. depending on who you ask and what offense they're running. So do you love Bowers? Do you think he's special compared to other great kindness? I think he's a no-brainer. I mean, I could talk about him for 10 minutes, but I think he's a no-brainer. He will be, if your offense wants a match-up guy like that, I get it. I mean, we all see what George Kittle does.

We all see what Kelsey does. We all see what Kincaid can do, what LaPorta did last year for Detroit. These guys do it. And he's another one like that. in the line of that kind of skill set. You've said before, tight ends tough to take too early because it's hard for coordinators to scheme them, really. They all say they're gonna.

That's the one differentiating factor that I think Brock puts himself into another category. But yes, I've been told by a lot of offensive coaches how they want this tight end or that tight end. And it always comes down to they say, we'll get him open, we'll get him open. That lasts about three weeks. And then they're going back to worrying about other things.

And if we don't scheme this guy open, he's not part of our passing game. So I think the one differentiating factor is these tight ends that are playing at the NFL level and being very productive have to get open beyond the scheme. They have to be able to separate. They have to be able to beat coverage themselves one on one, not get open just based on the scheme because that won't happen week in and week out. Coaches have too much else on their mind, too many other things scheme-wise that they want to do, then figure out 10 plays for this tight-in this week to get him. open. Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is a good run through. You said next week you're going to write top 10 players in the draft, who they would be for you. I am for our readers online, yes.

For the athletic, we'll do that. And then we'll come back on the podcast next week and go through some of the defensive players, which, I mean, that's going to be interesting, Randy, if there just aren't that many that are up that high. So we'll see. Maybe a short show. I don't know. Well, we may talk about other stuff, but we may not. We'll see how it goes. He'll get a chance to dig into those guys a little bit more and kind of sharpen that up for them. Typically, Randy, we would have a GM notebook or some other stuff in the show, but I really wanted to just hone in on these rankings. We've been kind of talking about them, and I think this is a good sort of look as we head into the weekend.

You're going to watch the Masters at all this weekend, Randy? I am. I have it on every chance I can. I love it. And I will definitely be watching. I'm glad the weather didn't factor in any more than it did on Thursday. Yep, I'll be watching that. I went to my first Seattle Cracken game this last week.

Hadn't done that before. Very cool. Really fun. Took my oldest son to that. I'm going to a minor league baseball game on Sunday. How about that? Tacoma Rainier's here locally. Look at you.

You're jumping in. I find myself too much of the calendar goes by, and I realize I haven't taken any vacation time. So I took Monday through Thursday. I'm back for this morning. But I took these last four days while everyone else is obsessing about the draft. And it was great to do some of those types of things and just, you know, smell the outdoors a little bit, right, and just get out of the office a little bit.

And so that has been wonderful. The Cracken game was a great experience. I really was impressed. Not only, they had great food there, too. Are you a stadium? Are you a stadium food guy? Do you, will you spend on it? Are you more like, I ain't going to, are you more like, you know, sneak in the sandwiches to the game?

I'm usually, I'd rather have maybe a formal dinner. after or before. But I look at it. Like a baseball game's different. Hey, you know what I did? I'll take it in. We had my wife's spaghetti and meatballs before. Then my son and I went and crushed the salmon sandwich there, which was amazing.

And we crushed the Bowered pizza there. We crushed pizza too. So we had about three dinners on that night. It was fairly impressive. It's a couple of skinny guys going for a night out. I get it. Yeah. It was really great.

So, yeah, I'll definitely do some ballpark fare on Sunday. I love to go to a. baseball game. What's your favorite game sport to go to as a fan? I like hockey. I don't think hockey translate on TV, and I'm a hockey fan. I think you talk about it. I love that you're such a fan of all these things. WNBA, I mean, Masters, you love it all.

I like it. I really like the Rangers. And so I don't miss many San Francisco Giant games or New York Ranger hockey games. But I love hockey in person. It doesn't do it justice on TV. So if I had the choice, I've often said, I would buy season tickets to a hockey team if I could because that is the one sport I really want to see in person. Yeah, it was great. I've been to a couple before, but not very many. So it was really good to see.

So anyway, we probably, we don't want to bore people too much with what we're doing this weekend, but I thought that was kind of a fun thing. I'm interested in what you're doing. So we'll be back with another show next week. You can find Randy's top 10 players next week. You can find Randy on X at Randy Mueller underscore. You can find me there at Sando NFL. I'm back from this little mini.

a few days off on Monday. Looking forward to that. In the meantime, hope everybody gets a little sunshine. Everybody can watch a little golf if you want to. Enjoy some other sports, whatever you want to do, your family. Randy's got you covered on the draft. We'll talk to you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show's

Football GM podcast.