The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - How much does college production matter for edge prospects?

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

We're likely to see six or seven edge players selected in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Some of them, like Abdul Carter, were wildly productive in college. Others, like Mykel Williams and Shemar Stewart, weren't. That reality naturally leads to this question...how much does college production matter for edge prospects when it comes to their effectiveness at the NFL level? Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Justis Mosqueda from Acme Packing Company dive deep into that question on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.The Athletic's listener survey: theathletic.com/athletic/survey25Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenWith: Justis MosquedaExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Justis on Bluesky: @jumosq.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Justis on X: @JuMosqTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, it's Robert. Just a quick note before we get started on today's podcast. A previous version of this episode mentioned former Ravens outside linebacker J-1 Ferguson, who actually passed away after his second season in the NFL. That was an oversight on our part. We're deeply sorry about it. I appreciate multiple people pointing it out to me on social media today and bringing it to our attention. So again, very sorry about that happening and appreciate everyone letting us know. Thank you very much. Let's get to today's show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert, maze. That's something a little bit different for you guys today. We're going to have plenty of time

over the next month or so to dig into this draft class, prospects by position. We're doing a series of kind of mock drafts, pretty much mock drafts and are on the clock series that we're doing once a week over the next five weeks. I wanted to spend a little bit of time over the next five or so weeks zooming out a little bit and having some bigger picture conversations around just trends or questions about how we evaluate prospects. And one of the guys who is somebody that's being mocked in the top 10 is on Dane's big board inside the top 10 is Shamar Stewart from Texas A&M, who I think is an interesting entry point into a larger discussion about how we project college edge rushers into the NFL. Shamar Stewart is not somebody who has been that productive as a pass

rusher in college. He had two sacks last year at Texas A&M. He had a 12.4% pass rush win rate per PFF, which is a below average mark. If you lined up the top 145,000, you line up the top 145, edge rushers that have been drafted since 2015, that would rank outside of the top 100. And that's where he sits. But because he is such a great athlete, it's kind of easy to talk yourself into what he can be as an NFL player. And somebody who is a friend of the show and was talking about this on social media last week in a way that kind of piqued my interest was Justice Muscatia from Acme Packing Company,

who is a fan of Shamar Stewart. So I wanted to have Justice and Derek on to just have a longer conversation about this idea specifically. How much does productivity matter for college pass rushers as you're projecting them into the NFL? Is there a tipping point? Why are maybe guys not as productive as college pass rushers, but as the game changes as they get to the NFL. Schematically, the stuff they can work on, the coaching, maybe they'll turn into better players. So this got us onto a bunch of different topics. Some guys who weren't as productive in college, but we're great athletes and ended up becoming really good NFL players, somebody like DeNeil Hunter.

guys who are maybe a little bit on the line that you could make an argument for either way, people like Trayvon Walker. And then we also hit on college pass rushers who were extremely productive, but maybe weren't great athletes and how that fits into this discussion. So really enjoyed this chat with Justice and Derek. Let's get to it right now. We're digging into our first big picture draft conversation. We're going to try to do a few of these over the next month or so, not just digging into

this crop of players that we're going to be drafted at the end of April. We're going to touch on those guys as part of these discussions, but kind of zooming out a little bit and talking about how we find players at these positions and where the positions sit overall in the evaluation process. Got a couple guys to help me with this conversation today. First off, it is my co-host here at the Athletic Football Show. It's Derek. How you doing, man?

I'm doing good. These are, I think, are going to be fun spots because we're going to do all the, you know, your stock standard vanilla player rankings and digging into all that stuff. So to actually have a space to play in the playground a little bit, I think is a good time. also joining us today the community producer from acme packing company and an old friend of the show it's justice musketa justice how you doing bud i'm doing great this is the the filth i love to roll around so pass rushers let's talk about it i've been waiting for months i watched these guys in like uh december january so i'm excited this all started because you were tweeting about shimar

Stewart last week. And you were talking about how you didn't understand why Shemar Stewart wasn't like a top five pick after you went back and watched him. And we know that Shemar Stewart does not have the type of production you typically want from an edge rusher that's going to be picked in the top 10. Per PFF, if you look at those numbers, he finished with a 12.4% win rate last season, which is not very good and had only two sacks. But he is also an out of this world athlete. He had a 9.99 RAS, which puts him among like the best testers ever at defensive end. And so that brings me to the discussion that I wanted to have with you guys today. When we're projecting edge rushers from college to the NFL, how much should we be weighing

traits and how much should we be weighing production? And kind of using Shamar Stewart as an entry point into that. So, Justice, I just want to let you get started with this. What prompted you to start this conversation about Stewart? Like in your eyes, when you were watching him, why was he a top five to top ten pick in your mind, even with that lack of past rushing production. Yeah, so I started this class when the consensus board looked very different than what it does now.

People were talking about James Pierce is a potential top 10, top five-ish type of guy. You know, people weren't really on guys like Mike Green yet. Nick Skirton was a guy, you know, his teammate actually had A&M, had a lot of draft hype around him and I kept going through and I'm like this this deep edge class that everyone keeps talking about. I'm not really feeling it the same way other people are. And then I've watched Stewart and I was like, well, this is a guy. Why aren't we talking about this guy? Yeah, man. The traits are all there. I mean, we can get into a broader discussion about just the college football pipeline into the NFL right now. The NFL isn't touching these guys until

you know, there's three years removed from high school. And the college game looks a whole lot different than the NFL game. You could look at, like I looked at Tennessee specifically. Tennessee basically had like a hundred true pass attempts last year. That's insane. That's including the postseason. So you're excluding, you know, quick game where past rushers shouldn't be relevant, right? If it's, you know, a three-step drop, really it's a one-step drop out of the gun.

you're catching the ball, you're letting it rip. What's a defensive end supposed to do in that situation, right? Screens, RPO's. Play action, I think, is relevant for the Stewart discussion based off of how they play their scheme because they're playing run first. Like if they see play, if it's a play action play, they're treating it like a run the whole way, where they're just trying to kind of like hold their position. And it's not until it's very clear that the quarterback has the ball that they're actually going after the quarterback.

So you're not getting a lot of true dropback like progression pass at the college level, which is how the NFL makes its money. So I don't think we're doing a great job in terms of developing these guys for what they're going to do at the next level. I think you're going to have to start treating front seven defenders sort of the same way you treat quarterbacks and offensive linemen, where you're like, okay, we're going to have to teach you NFL football. once you come into the league, because that pipeline is doing nothing in terms of getting them ready. I mean, you could look at guys like Mikel Williams, right? He's playing on the interior.

We saw Trayvon Walker be in a bad spot in terms of where he's supposed to play at the next level. You know, he's a double-digit sack guy, pick first overall. If you look at his production, he's damn near at the bottom of any of these draftable players over the past couple years, right? You can look at guys like Abdul Carter, Jalen Walker. I mean, people are talking about Jihad Campbell now as a potential edge rusher. All those guys were offball linebackers last season, right?

So I don't think we're doing anything for the pipeline to get these guys ready. It's almost making production irrelevant in my mind, to be totally honest, because so many of these teams are running these wonky schemes because of the RPO rules at the college level and with the hashes and all that stuff. Just the spacing is way different where that game, you are trying to stop the option in some way form possible, right?

It's either quarterback runs or it's we have to fit the run and then also stop this route. And that's the passing game. It's right. It's not true drop back pass, anything like that. It's we're trying to fit inside zone

while also covering a glance or an out or a nine ball fade, right? Like it's a very different sport than what you're saying on Sundays. The McCle Williams point is a good one. So I'm looking at the rankings right now. I have them for all the top 10 edge rushers on Dane's big board. Shamar Stewart had a 12.4% pass rush win rate according to PFF.

That was 151 among edge rushers in the country last year in the Power 5. McCle Williams was 203 at 11.1%. So he's even further down the list. He's actually last among those top 10 guys. It's actually not Shamar Stewart. So Justice uses the word irrelevant, Derek. And it was kind of one of the questions I wanted to ask here. What is the tipping point here?

Like, what do you need to see from a guy, even if we account for all of the situational stuff and all of the complications that come along with evaluating them? If it's not going to be purely based on production, even from a rate stat perspective, what are we having to look for to find little nuggets that make you feel okay about a guy's ability to bridge that gap when they're going to. game changes in the NFL. I mean, I think first of all, it just kind of depends on like what caliber of prospect you're talking about. Like if we're trying to put the Shamar Stewart's or Mikel Williams like on the caliber of a Nick Bosa, Chase Young, you know, Miles Gary caliber of

thing, the difference, the thing that separates those guys, one, those are obviously elite athletes to Miles Garrett's, Nick Boses and stuff. But those guys also had like 10 plus sack seasons, if not like 30 plus sacks over their career. Like they had they checked both boxes. And so it was like, okay, side unseen, these guys are phenomenal. When you go down one tier, I think it's okay to be missing the production because it's kind of like what Justice is saying. So long as you have all of the athletic tools,

and you don't even necessarily need all of them, but for the most part in the NFL, if you are long enough and you are explosive enough and you have just enough bend, you will probably have enough to get by and anything on top of that is probably a cherry on top. You can be in the Trayvon Walker tier, Aidan Hutchinson tier,

like the Mikel Williams tier, where you can still go top 10, you just might not be that like elite ace hall of fame pass rusher and that's that's fine there's there's not many there's not that many of those guys I'm looking at I what last night I went back through and just looked at 145ish edge rushers from the last 10 or so years that were drafted and just trying to stack up just something like just just like what you do on a Monday evening is just going through and getting this stats for like 140 of these guys but I was just looking at all right if we stacked it all up so your win rate your lot of last year in college where that ranked

nationally and then your final year sacks and then what you did is an NFL pass rusher. The best hit rate are obviously the guy and then the last thing, what was your RAS? Like what was your relative athletic score? So what sort of athlete are you coming into the NFL game? The guys at the top of the list, the guys that end up being the best pass rushers in the NFL are the guys that check every single one of those boxes, right? Like Miles Garrett was an incredibly productive college pass rusher who is also a freak of nature. Josh Hyens Allen is actually at the top.

the best pass rush win rate of any college prospect over this sample. He had 17 sacks his final last year in college, and he's an incredible athlete. Guess what? He is a very good NFL player. Chase Young was at the top of that list. Joey Bosa is high on that list. So like you said, Derek, well, if we're talking about guys getting drafted in the top five, the top three, these are typically the sort of prospects we're talking about.

And Justice, I think especially in this class, if there's an understanding that beyond the top four guys, it all becomes pretty homogenous, then it starts to be easier to talk yourself into the super freaky athletic dudes if all of these are similar bets anyway. And so I think the distribution of talent in this draft makes this even more of an interesting conversation as it relates to these players. Yeah, for sure, because I mean, you already brought up like Mike L, right? So if we're talking about like alternatives at DN, pass rush or whatever you want to call it, right is jelan walker a safe bet at like 240 whatever the heck he is and he's got small arms and

all those things like there james pierce junior has really good production but when you watch him on film he doesn't have like he's fast um i don't know how he's going to win non cleanups at the nfl level right um and and tennessee put him in a really advantage situation, right? He's almost like the opposite of all these other guys where Tennessee, if you motion a tight end, they will flip their entire defense. Like the entire box will, will change. Like it's not like the strong defensive tackle is going to be the strong defensive tackle. The weak defensive tackle is going to be the weak defensive tackle. So when a tight end crosses the center, everyone in the box is crossing the center. It's almost like

they re-huddle up and break out again. And they did that so that, you know, he could get and you know those wide alignments just be like a run and chase player not having to deal with side ends all those things so it's not surprising that you know his production was super high i just don't know necessarily how it translates to the NFL level and even though you know hey you see you know hey he ran a 4 4 right but then you could look at his jumps and you're like wait is this an explosive athlete or is he just fast and are those two different things and does that match with the film um yeah i i i think after probably Carter, it's an open conversation, whether Stewart's, you know, the next guy up, honestly. Just sit on this a little bit, Derek, but I wanted to just lay it out a little bit more

for people because I went back and watching Mike Green today. And you watch just how often those guys are in like almost four-point stances when dealing with tight ends. And we just don't really see that at the NFL level. So, again, it's defending the option stuff. But in your mind, Derek, as you're watching college defense events, why is this something structurally we see in college that we just don't really see in the NFL? and how do you try to square those things?

Like them playing where they're like four-eye, like tight to the tackle. Like it's just a matter of the spacing because if you do that, you can theoretically allow this guy to like play two bodies at once or play two gaps at once in run defense on the line of scrimmage. And then you can have more bodies at linebacker, more fast bodies at linebacker. And then you can like play three safety stuff where you have a little bit more range to like put a roof on everything, make sure we have bodies to get to the perimeter. And we're just hoping we muddy shit up.

in the run game. And also, too, like, kind of like Justice mentioned earlier, a lot of what you're defending is RPO. So you kind of need those immediate bodies, like more in the second level than you do at the first level to make sure you're taking away those. Like, if you are a college teams, a lot of them are deciding we're going to have more bodies

either at safety or at the second level. So we can just take away the pass and we'll just pray that we stop them for five-yard runs instead of allowing them to actually have a true option where they can beat us both ways. I think that's a lot of it. I want to talk about some recent history with guys that maybe weren't quite as productive as college pass rushers and how that plays into a conversation about somebody like Shamar Stewart. Because Trayvon Walker is the best example of this, right?

He had a similar RAS to what Stewart had coming out of Georgia and worse rate stats. He had a 7.4% win rate, his final year at Georgia per PFF. And I think an important question to answer here. And Justice, you allude to this a little bit in that thread and that conversation that you were having on Twitter is what do we make of Trayvon Walker at this. stage of his career. Because if you think that Trayvon Walker is a good, useful NFL player, he was drafted in over one overall, then it's easier to talk yourself into somebody like Shemar Stewart. But I think there are a lot of people who are going to look at the production we've seen from Trayvon Walker so far and think, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this

is the number one overall pick, especially because Aidan Hutchinson was taking one pick after him and was on his way to being the defensive player of the year last year. So as you look at Trayvon Walker's career to this point. Last year he had a 12.1% win rate, which was 49th among edges with at least 20% of snaps, but he also had double-digit sacks. So as you're thinking holistically about the type of player he is, and whether that sort of bet is worth it at the top of the draft, Justice,

where do you land? Yeah, so the thing that's tough with Walker is his cornerbacks were so bad, and they played so much man coverage last year. Those guys were getting bombed, like Ronald Darby was just getting, smoked pretty consistently that I still think that it's a really good sign that that guy, you know, got double-digit sacks and back-to-back seasons. I know, you know, personally, like, we're dealing with it in Packersland right now with conversations about like, wait, is Gary actually a hit of a draft pick or is this not a hit or of a draft pick? Like,

would they turn in the Gary pick again? Like, these are kind of ongoing questions. I mean, this is kind of my point where I was talking about like quarterbacks right like you don't really see like this weird like uh wishy-washy idea of whether you know a guy is a hit or a bust

unless it's a quarterback and now we're getting to that edge rusher where it's like okay this guy was taken first overall he's gotten double digit sacks at the past two years but is that enough it's like I don't know so yeah I mean I think I think that's a success because when you're looking at these numbers and the numbers are saying

Trayvon Walker is the worst pass rusher we have ever seen go on the first round from a metric standpoint and then he's still getting double-digit sacks I think that's proof of concept. All right, before we move on, let's take one quick break. Where do you land on this, Derek? Is Trayvon Walker a good or bad draft pick

for the Jacksonville Jaguars? Because the fact that you could answer it either way is a fascinating discussion. I think you could probably make a case both ways. Yeah, so I actually think I want to say quickly what Justice just said about like it's proof of concept that you could take a player who was that unproductive and have him, even if he's technically overperforming in terms of sacks relative to like his pass rush win rate and pressure stuff, it's still pretty impressive that he's been able to do it. He's also a fantastic run defender. So I would say the only reason you would say I think it's not a success is like Aidan Hutchinson has just been better and he was he went like right after. He's staring at you right there. The pick right after. That's the tough one. to think about it. But like if you just look at like if you got this player at number one overall, I think I'm more happy with it than not.

Like sure, if you look at other number one overall picks, like he's not quite Miles Garrett. He's not like quite in that tier. But I think for him to be like what can be a pro bowl level player for you, even if theoretically with the first overall pick, you should be able to strive for more. I think he's been more than fine. Like I think he's a pretty good player.

All right. So let's play this out then, Justice. let's say you are the Carolina Panthers. You draft Shamar Stewart with the eighth overall pick. The first three years of his career are exactly the same production was as Trayvon Walker's first three years. Are you happy if you are Dan Morgan in the front office of the Carolina Panthers? I think you're okay with it. I'm almost certain that there will be a bust or two within that range that you will say like,

you know, Trayvon Walker would have been a better, you know, a better, choice than those guys. The thing with Stewart, I genuinely believe that he has a higher upside than those guys. Stuart is a guy who consistently, you can look at like the PFF grades on like his rundowns, right?

His rookie or his freshman year, he had like a 30-something grade as a run defender. Then it got up to 60. And then this past year it's something like an 88 or something like that. He's been very good in that aspect. He's got length. When he's in true pass rushing,

opportunities he does have bent like there's plenty of tape especially against that uh against arkansas where they just kind of like turned him loose a little bit he's bending at that size at you know six five 260 whatever that he is i don't i don't buy that a and m listing of him at at two 90 or whatever it was going into the combine i can't believe that they did that um but he has true bend at that size he doesn't show it often but if you're digging through the tape you can find those cliffs and you're like, that's what Robert Quinn looks like, right? Or what he looked like in his peak. And I think those are the moments that you say like, okay, he can probably figure it out as

a pass rusher if we just like fix his hands, right? And that's the least important thing. Can you do that though? I think that becomes the biggest question. Well, so is there enough time on task? It probably becomes a question of how a guy is wired as well, right? because in a building, you're not going to be able to have enough time and focus time to be able to fix the guy to that degree. So it's always a rich text here when we're talking about why guys succeed and why guys fail.

If this guy wants to improve that kind of stuff and when he becomes a full-time athlete, he's able to spend time on his own in the offseason working on that kind of stuff. You do think that you can take a big enough leap in those areas specifically where those can be learned skills. and it's not so innate that it's not something a guy can improve dramatically if he spends time focusing on it. So, again, I'm coming this from Packersland, right? So when Mike Smith was the outside linebackers coach for the Packers, he developed Rishon Gary, who was in a very similar position as, you know, former five-star recruit, kind of not playing the most ideal role in his defensive scheme. not super productive coming into football.

And, you know, Gary ended up signing a mega deal because he ended up learning how to use his hands under Mike Smith. Mike Smith was also a guy who developed Zerias Smith from a situational interior pass rusher into a guy who is contending for a defensive player of the year. But then you get Jason Revervich in Green Bay, who they've now canned. And he wasn't able to get really anything out of LVN.

So I do think that it comes down to coach. to a certain extent and you should probably take a realistic look at your coaching staff and be like okay if our defensive line coach doesn't like shamar stewart we should just like not even have him on the draft board then right because if he if he doesn't want to coach samar stewer he's not the guy to maximize shamar stewart so let's not even go down that road but if the guy's super excited and he has at least some sort of a track record on developing some of these guys i i do think that there's just tremendous upside because the feet are something that you really can't teach like the get off that shamar stewart has where he's jumping off the ball immediately and there's it's not it didn't happen

once it didn't happen twice there's a dozen plays where he's at the mesh point when they're handing off the ball you can't teach that but what i can do is i can teach him hey you know if a guy's locking out his arms on your bull rush like you got to like knock it down right try to hit it at the elbow get rid of those hands and get after the quarterback and maybe you know with more opportunities to actually rush the passer um that will develop and i again i don't think that it has to even do go in the off season i think some coaches have a good track record of this stuff but you definitely it definitely puts pressure on the coaching staff for sure when you make a selection like this because if it doesn't pan out right people are going to be pointing fingers and the thing i would say to that point you know how with

quarterbacks. We always talk about like, okay, if we're going to treat quarterbacks like this, where we got to teach in the NFL game, okay, then draft guys tools, draft guys with tools who can run around, make some plays on their own while they're trying to figure this out, all that stuff. I think the defensive end, like pass rush or equivalent to that is like to be a good run defender and to just be violent so they want you on the field for as many downs as possible. And I think guys like Shamar Stewart, Trayvon Walker, Mikel Williams, like they check that box. And so even if it takes a couple years of development, okay, well, you know you're going to want them on the field all the time,

just because of the way they play and the way they can defend the run. It's not like you're only putting them out there for pass rush downs where they just get a little bit fewer limited reps and stuff like that. I guess the better question to ask you, Justice, wouldn't have been if the Panthers would be happy if they got Trayvon Walker's production at 8. It's what if Shamar Stewart gets drafted to Chicago at 10, how will you feel? Man, I, the way Chicago has been building up the trenches,

this offseason is hurting me because I think they're doing a great job of it. And I was really hoping you guys would just be like, you know, just the cycle of just, just one more receiver. Just one more receiver, I swear. Let's just burn a lot of assets on receivers. That was way more fun than when you guys were trying to get good on the offensive and defensive line. Let's talk about some other guys who maybe it's not quite as murky as the Trayvon

Walker conversation. and other guys who have been a little bit more clean and how we evaluate their careers and what sort of college pass rushers they were when it comes to productivity. Derek, the best example of this, the famous example, and I almost worry that if you're chasing this,

you're chasing such an exception that you're going to be disappointed. Daniel Hunter had a 5.1% pass rush win rate per PFF his final year in college. And looking up the numbers for those 145-ish guys, he was dead last in that sample. And now I think you can make a very serious argument that, I don't know, what is he?

One of the five most talented pass rushers in the entire NFL. Would you say that's fair? Yeah, probably, especially like in terms of the guys who are just pure get off, like straight up get to the quarterback. Like, he is, he's one of the best. And like, I think what's fascinating about Hunter. But he also has like weird nuance to his game. The fact that he had no talent in that area and now has like one of the deepest bags.

And it's not even like, there's some guys we joke about this. It's kind of like the route running videos on social media where it's like none of this actually matters. like the Claven Chase-on videos where he's like playing, like doing karate moves. Like who gives a shit about that? But for Hunter, it's all these ways where his body just moves in all these gumbie-ish ways that are so hard to deal with, where it actually is something where he's very naturally talented at getting past people and getting to the quarterback in a way that would be very difficult to teach. And I think very difficult for other guys to emulate.

But the fact that that guy was the least productive college pass rusher of anybody in this sample, it's very, very difficult for me to square those two things in my mind. Well, I have like a half-bake idea where when he was at LSU, they just didn't let him rush the pastor. Like that was just not how they ran their defense. They were like, we're going to mush rush. We're going to close the pocket, almost like those old like Belichick defenses like eight years ago or whatever. They did a lot of that. So there's almost like a half-bake theory where Hunter being the athlete he is gets to the NFL. And they're like, oh, no, you can go get the quarterback. He's like, really? And he just like unlocked all these 800 different ways to go about it.

just like started tapping into whatever he could he wanted. I'll ask you the same. That's a good thing to hit on then, Derek. What do you think is the story or the lesson to be learned from the DeNeal Hunter thing, justice in your mind? Yeah. So I've been around this long enough that I could actually evaluate him when he was coming out of college.

So I had some takes on him. He was a really interesting player because of the scheme. So we were talking about, you know, guys getting in four point stances and stuff like that being run first. That 100% was the story of Daniel Hunter coming out. The other thing, too, he was like 20 years old. Like he had like just turned 20 or something like that. He was super young.

LSU at the time did something called tackle reeds instead of ball reads. So if you're a defensive lineman, when do you know to get out of your stance? A lot of people will say, you know, look at the ball, right? So you're staring at the thing sideways. Danua Hunter was playing in a run first four point stance where he's staring at the offensive tackle. So the tackle isn't moving until the ball is snapped. So he's reacting to the guy reacting to the ball. So he's slow playing everything.

And that was sort of kind of like the run first mentality that the LSU team had. Again, I think the lesson from the Hunter thing is just like nuance, understanding traits, understanding what a player is asked to do. And then from there, you figure out how it would fit in an actual NFL style system because certainly, what he's not doing is waiting for offensive lineman to get off the ball before he gets out of a four point stance that's not what he's doing at the NFL level a few of these other guys that were not very productive on a rate basis in college who become productive NFL players Dorrance Armstrong was second to last on that list he was 6.4% obviously he's become a useful rotational piece for NFL teams Eric Armstead was at 7.4 Leonard Williams was at 7.6

these are kind of muddy just because those guys play in the interior too so that's that I think just body type and you've lumped them in with edge rushers, but there's different types of players. So that's one of the reasons. The guy who really jumped out to me when I was looking at this, Josh Sweat was at 9.4 his last year in college. And Josh Sweat was a fantastic athlete and a fantastic tester coming out. So I think he's a good example.

Yeah, yeah, Diabi is an interesting one. He was at 10.3% in his last year in college. It was a really good athlete. He was productive this year. And then the two that, you know, those guys are mid-round picks, right? Those are third round picks, fourth round picks, Daniel Hunter was a fifth round pick. So it's a lot easier to justify those sorts of dice rolls

as you get deeper into the draft when you're mostly drafting on traits anyway. The two guys who, other than Trayvon Walker, who were first round picks and had probably something to be desired with their college pass rushing productivity, but ended up becoming really good players or at least useful players worth picking up 50-year options, giving extensions to Addafe O'A and Rishan Gary

are probably the two best examples, where Oway had famously zero sacks, his last year at Penn State. And then Gary, I think, was at like 14% when you look at pass rush win rate and stuff like that in college, which is the middle of the pack in this group. And again, both of those guys, unbelievably crazy athletes. So, Derek, the thing, I'm just not sure what the answer is here. How much of this is an exception?

If we have three, four guys who end up becoming first round picks that weren't productive pass rushers and are useful players because they're great athletes, are we willing to make bets on that sort of sample if you look at that. back over five or six years. Is that enough for you to talk yourself into players of this archetype? I mean, yes, and especially compared to, I think the way I would frame it is like compared to what the floor is for if you're contrasting these guys who are super insane athletes, but not very productive, versus the guys who are maybe a lot more productive, but don't quite have all of the athletic tools. I feel like the bottom can fall out for those guys a lot faster.

Like the first one in my mind when I first started doing this was Jarvis Jones. unbelievably productive at Georgia. Like good hands. That was before I was looking at the list, but he's obviously one of the famous examples. Like good hands, tough run defender, all this stuff.

Horrific athlete. And it's just sometimes the really high floor stuff when you're a mature player can really play for you at the college level. At the NFL level, all these guys are A plus athletes. And so if you can't match them, you just kind of get run out

and you are literally out of the league. Whereas at least guys that are the super high, you know, athletic profile, but maybe not that productive, the floor for those guys is usually still pretty high. And like the one for me that comes to my mind to that, and he wasn't even an elite athlete all around, but is Bud Dupree.

Like he ran well and he jumped out of the damn gym. And so to me, I was like he's almost too explosive moving forward to fail. And that was kind of the case for him. Like he probably didn't give you what you want out of a first round pick, but he ended up being a pretty good run defender and like a useful pocket pusher for years in the league. And so I would much rather take the swing.

on these super high athlete guys, knowing that the floor is a little bit higher. And if he fails, at least I have a guy who's useful. Like, even O-A kind of falls into that. Whereas if the bottom falls out for some of these other guys that don't have the traits, I mean, they just might not be in the league three years down the road. I want to talk about this first.

We're going to take one quick break here. All right, so I'm going to read off the top RAS guys from the last 10 or so years and just talk about this pool of players and what we're getting if we're betting on the high-end athletes. Number one here, Derek, is Lorenzo Carter with a 10 out of 10. Not a great start for you in the floor for these high-end athletes. You'll be honest with you.

Can I save myself? You can try. I would like to reserve my high, my super athlete comp for players who are not 250 pounds. Like we got to bump up the weight limit to like 260 and then we'll be okay. All right. So let's keep running down this list because the rest of it actually works in your favor. After that, we have Trayvon Walker, Miles Garrett, O'Dofe O, Roshan Gary, Boye-Mafay, which is right on the line of your 250 thing.

Keon White, Montez Sweat, Brian Burns, T.J. Watt. So that's nine guys that are at least useful NFL players and have been productive and impactful. Before we get to our next one here in Jordan Willis, who was not that, Jordan Willis from 2017. After that, Aidan Hutchinson, Vic Beasley, Daniel Hunter, Jalen Phillips, Yaya Diabi, Leonard Floyd, Preston Smith. and then we get a tough run here. Peyton Turner, Tyos Bouser are the next two. So if you are just shopping at the top of that group justice, for the most part, you're at least getting guys who have been impactful.

We can hem and hall about what level a player, what tier of player they are. But a lot of these guys have at least been contributors that are these high, high-end athletes in the way that Shemar Stewart is. Yeah, for sure. And I think tying the athleticism to the tape is pretty important too, just in terms of being able to figure out what their traits are. Because Jordan Willis was a guy, like, I'm pretty solid at being able to, like,

guesstimate, like, a guy's three cone at this point because I know how that translates, like, at the position and things like that. Jordan Willis was a guy, I would have assumed, would have been a poor athlete on tape. And when he had that combine, I was actually super surprised. And then, you know, he gets in the NFL. He doesn't really do anything.

And you're like, how'd you have that one day in any of? Annapolis where you just ran like crazy. And, you know, those times can't be faked, right? It's not just one good day. Like you can't, Derek, no matter how many times we try, we're not accidentally getting into a 4-2, 40, right? Like, that's never happening for us. Give me enough runs.

Yeah, right. But like, it just never translate to the tape, right? And I think what you're looking for is guys like, you know, a Daniel Hunter or a Trayvon Walker or a Shamar Stewart. where even if he's not showing it consistently, potentially because of what he's being asked to do, what his surrounding circumstances are, whatever it is, you could see how the athleticism checks off on the film.

And I think those are the swings that you kind of want to take. On the flip side of this, there are a lot of other guys on the other side where they were really productive in college. And then they weren't great athletes and they didn't end up becoming impactful NFL players. The guys are the top of this list. Tim Williams, remember Tim Williams from Alabama?

He had a 23% win rate. His final year at Alabama, he had 10 sacks. He was a third round pick. He lasted three seasons. O'Shaine Zeminz, who was a Giants third round pick a few years ago, he had a 23% win rate. He had 11 sacks his final year, third round pick. He has six and a half career sacks.

The funny thing about him is, and probably has no relation because it's a new front office, but if you look at this list, there was one similarity that consistently jumped out to me. There are a lot of guys who are really impactful, productive college pass rushers who just didn't, weren't very good athletes and then didn't end up becoming good or consistent NFL players. All of them were on the Patriots at some point, which is where Zimenez is right now. Ronnie Perkins is in the top 10 of that. In terms of win rate, not being a productive NFL player,

Anfernie Jennings is in the top 15. Josh Uche is in the top 15. So there's clearly something that was happening with how the Patriots were scouting their edge players for like a multi-year period where they were just looking at these guys who were super productive and were average to slightly below average athletes or a little smaller and just saying, and you know what? He was a productive pass rusher. We're going to take a swing. And they were mostly over except for that one Joshua J season.

At least Jennings can set the edge, dude. He's not going to get to the quarterback, but at least he does something. He was a much more productive college pass rusher than I remember. So they had a lot of those same guys that they were going after. A couple more in that same mold. This one is mostly injury related, but Heloika Caha is a famous one. He had 20 sacks his last year at Washington. He was a second round pick.

He lasted two years in the league. So there are plenty of examples on the other side of this justice where these guys are super productive as college pass rushers. And then for one reason or another, they don't end up panning out in the NFL. And oftentimes, they are forgettable or average athletes that end up falling into this category. Oh, 100%. I remember the Derek Barnett versus Miles Garrett Wars. That was a real thing that happened.

People kept pointing to pass rush win rate for Derek Barnett. I'm like, guys, he's a... So like Derek Barnett was a really interesting example because he was a snap jumper, right? And Tennessee's so loud. They got 100,000 people, all that stuff where he was doing some of the Michael Bennett stuff where every third down is just so loud

that like he's just going to go off of the cadence or, you know, the silent count. off of the quarterback. Senator's going to move his head up. He's just going to jump the ball. And I thought, you know, from a trait standpoint, it wasn't great. He was definitely taking advantage and definitely maximizing his situation. But I never thought that he had the traits of a top 20 pick.

And people were sincerely debating him versus Miles Garrett. And that was one of the more insane times on, I guess, Twitter slash X. So if you look at the numbers, he was like 20th among these 100. 40 guys in Winrate his final year in college, he was 130th in RAS, Derek Barnett was. So when you start trying to explain the disconnect between these guys who were super productive, were drafted high, and then didn't end up panning out in the way that you want to, Derek Burnett is actually a very, very good example that checks a lot of those boxes, Derek. And even some of these other guys that were super productive in college, but failed for one

reason or another, a lot of them, you have to go case by case, but like it makes sense in hindsight when you look at it, like, O'Shaen Shimoness. One, he played at a really low level of competition, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself. But usually the guys that pop from that level are like Khalil Max, where they are an unreal athlete. And Shimonese was more like good than great. And the other thing with him is he had unbelievably short arms. And he wasn't that big of a guy. So it's like you could you could kind of piece together like, okay, you can be productive at this level, but maybe not the next.

And then Kikaha. One, he had all the knee stuff. But then he was almost a little bit like Jarvis Jones where like he won with a lot of the high floor stuff. Like he was a really gritty, aggressive player, had really, really good hands. Jarvis Jones kind of did all that, but then just kind of like him and Kikahaj just didn't have the athletic ability to hold up in the NFL. They just didn't have the juice that you need. So usually with all these guys, there's like a clear hole in their game that like they're never going to be able to do X at the NFL level. Where again, with some of these guys that are insane athletes but not very productive, you can at least tell yourself the story that they can do everything in the NFL.

Whether or not you can get them there on all of it is, I guess, a different case. And even if you look at some of the guys who were drafted fairly high, the guys who probably underperform their draft slot more than most of the guys on this entire list, almost all of them were moderate to like bad athletes. The five guys that I had listed off here at the top, LJ Collier had a 3.5 RAS as a first round pick by the Seahawks. DeMarcus Walker had a 3.64 RAS. He's bounced around the league.

Obviously, the bear signed him to a modest free agent contract. He's on his, I think, fourth team now. He had 17 sacks his final year in college. That was a 3.65. Charles Harris, which hurts me as a Mizzou guy, was a first round pick. 4.81, and he was a productive college pass rusher. Kevin Dodd was at 6.14, the second round pick by the Titans that one year. He didn't end up doing anything in the NFL.

And then Tack McKinley was at 7.2. And he was another guy who was a first round pick that didn't end up doing very much. So there are going to be people who point to the Miles Murphys of the world and the Peyton turners of the world as these guys who weren't that productive. as past rushers, but we're good athletes and say, well, look at that. Well, there are plenty of examples on the other side. We're going to be drafting these guys who might have been productive, but they weren't good athletes.

And their floor, like you were arguing, Derek, is maybe even at a little bit lower than these guys who are really good athletes who weren't necessarily that productive in college. And honestly, with some of these guys that are really good athletes, especially the ones who are bigger and longer and stronger, you can sell yourself that, like, their game, in a way, is almost more fit to be like an old man. so when they get a little bit closer to that, their athletic prime, like, you know, five, six years into their career, maybe something unlocks where they're not going to be great even for the team that drafted them, but they can be useful players.

If you're one of these guys that was a middling to low athlete, like, you're never going to tap into anything at 28 that you didn't have at 22. Like, that's never happening for you, whereas at least with the athletic guys, you might be able to at some point. So as you look at the rest of this class, justice, and you just try to parse through Stewart compared to some of the other guys, like is he probably the number two guy for you in terms of the addressers after. Abdul Carter just because of the tools that he's bringing to the table. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, he's number two for me. After that, I think third for me would be Mike Green, the kid at a Marshall.

He's a way different mold. You know, we're talking about, you know, small school production, all that stuff. He's better against the run than you would think for a smaller guy who played at a small school. Crazy edge bender. I mean, I saw it was reported that. his three cone was like a six seven which is nuts um if you want the short hand one of the best ever for a defensive end over the last like 20 years yeah if you want a shorthand for like super high hit rates at the defensive end position if the guy can run 4-7 46 depending on size

because edge rushers you know the weight varies and then you know a three cone around seven seconds the hit rate is just like through the roof those guys are your kaleel max you know, Miles Garrett, all that stuff. So the fact that he hit that, I think checks a box for me. I think on the field he's top three, pass rusher for me. And then after that, I think you get into some really interesting questions about guys like, Michael Williams, where you're like, okay, I know he's going to be a good run defender. What is his upside as a pass rusher?

Do you get into questions about like Jalen Walker where you're like, can he play on the edge at the NFL level? Is he going to be able to set the edge? Is he a linebacker who's a situational, like, spinner? And you just hope that he ends up with a guy like Spags or a guy, like, Flores or something like that. You start asking questions about guys like James Pierce, where you're like, are you really explosive? Or are you just fast? Are you just like a chase player?

What do you, what do we do with you on third down? Like, are you just like a third down wide nine alignment? Like, you, we just like, you just like, you? run? How high do we take that? Because it's, you know, it's not top 20. And then I think there's some interesting guys later on in the draft. Like, I really like Princely.

I'm not going to try to butcher his last name, the kid out of Ole Miss. Just a naturally talented pass rusher who's the opposite to Stewart, right? He did not test super well. But I just think, you know, he's going to be a solid pass rusher at the NFL level. And then Swinson, the kid out of LSU, who like, I was. wouldn't be shocked if that guy ended up going like high second. He's kind of Jack of all trades, master a nun type thing, but he's relatively young. He's got some athleticism to him. And he's just a really good football player. The last thing I'll say about this is that

going through this exercise and looking at the productivity and then the athleticism for all these guys going back to like the last 10 years. There's some where it's like, probably could have known this. Right. Like the one guy that jumped out to me as I was doing it, Trey Hendrickson was phenomenally productive as a college pass rusher on a rate basis his last year at FAU. He was also a fantastic athlete. He just got those little T-Rex arms. So I think that was probably the only thing other than-FAU, right? Yeah.

So it's quality of competition. Then the T-Rex arms are what knock him down. But he was really high on that list. And another guy who, he didn't test, but somebody who was really productive as a college pass rusher who, you know, when given opportunities, Malcolm Coontz was another guy who was a really productive. And then some of this is difficult because they're, years, especially the COVID guys, where there aren't a lot of testing numbers, especially for

2020. So it's not a perfect comparison. But it was really interesting, Derek, kind of going through this list and looking at who checked what box and what that ended up saying about their career. And again, a lot of it is if the guys weren't good athletes, that's how you can square some of the disconnect between their college production and their lack of production in the NFL. Yeah, 100%.

And like, even for the guys that if you want to draft the guys who are going to, you know, be productive. Like I feel like the only times it's worked out, even for the mid-round guys are just guys where you know that's all they're probably going to be. Like Malcolm Coontz, like, okay, you're probably not going to ask him to do a whole lot for you in run defense. But when you get 14 sacks in your last 19 games, okay, you're checking a box. Like, Janik and Gokwe had 13 and a half his final season. Like these guys where it's not even, you don't even care if they give you anything in run defense when you're taking them in the third and fourth round. Those are the guys where you can kind of be more okay leaning into the production side. The last thing I'll say here is

that it kind of pleases me just to see how many Packers are in the top 10 of this pass rush win rate list that didn't end up becoming good NFL players. Kyril Fackerel is in the top 10 here. We got King's Lianneigh at 12. So I'm feeling okay about that. It makes me feel a little bit better about how the last 10 years have gone. How dare you? Kingsley and I'm starting over first round pick, Lucas Vanness.

How would that hurts me on two levels, considering Lucas Vannes graduated from my high school. So I can't even enjoy the fact that he's been a little bit disappointed. I didn't know we had a sleeper cell Well given his production I mean What are the Packers Before we get out of here justice What are like the three more moves

You need to see from the Packers this off season For you to leave a content man Oh man So I think if you run down needs Pass Rusher is number one Because right now they haven't added anyone To that room I mean they made the change at defensive line

coach. But defensive end is one. I think defensive tackle is a sneaky need for them because, you know, people look at Wyatt who's been a super productive pass rusher, but hasn't necessarily been a starter over his first three years. And they're like, oh, he'll just start at the three. But Kenny's been playing the three. And, you know, he kind of underperformed last year, too, after an extension.

So I think that's a position where they might try to get ahead of it where, you know, they can move off of either Wyatt or Kenny going into the 2020. six season. So I wouldn't be shocked if they drafted like a Derek Harmon or even like a Kenneth Grant in the first round. And then the other one is just speed at wide receiver. They have no man beaters. Jaden Reed is a guy who, you know, you look at yards per route ran. His efficiency is basically cut in half when he's playing against man coverage versus when he's playing against zone. He's also a guy who only is on the field when he's in the slot and he's only on the field when he's in 11 personnel. And that's their most productive wide receiver. So this guy is limited

to playing in one tight end sets in the slot against zone. Pretty limiting, especially with the Christian Watson injury. Everyone kind of assumes his father tweeted out like he's expected to be out like the first three months of the regular season. So if that's the situation, they really don't have much speed outside of like Bow Melton. And if you look at what, I guess they just had a meekle Hardman too. But if you look at what Matt LaFleur actually plays on offense, Jaden Reed is the small guy. His wide receivers are like 207 pounds on average because they're playing so many condensed sets and stuff like that that those guys are real factors in the run game. And once you have a Jane Reed doing all the like the fake end around stuff so that he doesn't have to block on that play and you're keeping defense as honest and all that.

It's hard to play a Jane Reed and a Bow Milton at the same time. So getting a big fast guy like maybe like a Jaden Higgins or something like that or like a Eumonor I think would go a long way for the Packers. cornerback is a little bit further down the need list for me. I think they're going to play Kishon and Nate Hobbs. Everyone who's not a Packers fan thinks I'm an insane person for thinking that those guys are going to be the outside starting corners because they're like, that's it. And yeah, that's kind of it.

That's the market that they're in right now. It's funny, their obsession, and I think they do this at multiple different positions, and I understand why they do it, but I'm not sure another team thinks about it quite to this degree of, well, he can play two positions. So I want him because he can play two positions. And it really does feel like that's part of the selling point with Hobbs is that he can play outside, but in certain looks, he has a little bit more size. You can bump him inside.

The fact that him and Bullard can both do it depending on whatever package you're in, the fact that every offensive lineman they ever acquire is somebody that has played multiple positions at some point and they can move them around. That is such a priority of that front office in a way that it isn't for a lot of others. And I understand the benefits to it. It's just fun to kind of think about through, think about it through that lens as you look at the moves they make anytime in a given off season. Yeah, they're pretty specific with what they look at for sure. I mean, at the end of the day, this is the story I always tell Packers fans when they're like, why are we going after all these like, you know, vague athletes that were trying to like mold into something?

I'm like, Goot came from Ted Thompson, who came from Ron Wolf, who came from Al Davis. and that is the that is the through line that is who we are it's that that is the other like kind of thing that makes them unique is that there actually is a shared history like all these other teams it's like yeah well organizationally you don't have preferences like you have different front offices they have different belief systems this one actually does have like a lineage that goes back multiple decades in terms of what they're looking for and for the most part it's worked out okay it's just this little run here to hit the bricks we were like I won the Super Bowl.

Get out of here. You're just a coach. You're not a general manager. And then we made the mistake of hiring Mike Sherman as, you know, general manager and head coach. And then he drafted a Mod Carroll who's 5-9 and we said, never again. Never again will this happen.

GMs forever. We'll see how the rest of the Packers off season goes. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to do this with us. I sincerely appreciate you helping fuel this idea with one of your observations last week. Thank you very much for that. And thank you for hopping on. Yes, sir. Whenever you guys, whenever you guys need me.

All right, guys, that's all we got for today. We'll be back tomorrow with me, Derek, and Dane breaking down the 2025 quarterback class. We're going to do the top five guys on Dane's big board. The guys who he has slated, not necessarily to go in the first two rounds, but on his big board, they are top 64 picks. So quarterbacks who could potentially be drafted in the first two rounds. We're going to talk about those five guys on tomorrow's. show. If you did not listen to yesterday's show with Jordan Reed, we're doing something fun on the show

over the next month or so. We're going to split this over five different shows with five different guests. We're calling it on the clock. Yesterday was the first six picks of the draft. I gave Jordan three options for each of those six teams, and he got to play GM for those six teams. So yesterday was picks one through six. We had a nice little wrench with the Brown's pick at number two that kind of threw things off in a very fun way. And so next week, we will have picks seven through 12 and then so on and so forth until we get all the way through the first round. So encourage you guys to come back and check out those. It's going to be fun to work through every single team as part of those discussions. But in the short term, we got Dane and Derek doing nothing but 20, 25 quarterbacks

tomorrow, which should be very exciting. So please come back and check that out. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.