The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Prospects to Pros: How a Lamar Jackson trade could impact the draft, team’s approach to pro day, tape vs. traits and more

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

How could a Lamar Jackson trade impact the draft? Andy Staples and NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein discuss where Jackson could land, if the Ravens would draft a QB and more implications. Then, they talk about how teams determine the continent they send to pro days and what players have stood out to Lance during his film review. Follow Andy on Twitter: @Andy_StaplesFollow Dane on Twitter: @dpbruglerFollow Lance on Twitter: @LanceZierleinThis episode is brought to you by Betterhelp, Visit betterhelp.com/mays today to get 10% off your first month.Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube0:45 How a Lamar Jackson trade could impact the draft9:06 How do teams determine the contingent they send to a pro day?18:11 Could Hendon Hooker go in the first round?23:35 Tape vs. Traits - Who in the draft has surprised Lance on film?Today's show is brought to you by...Atlassian: For projects impossible alone, visit www.atlassian.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to Prospects to Pros, the podcast that covers the folks that are heading to the NFL draft and the biggest job interview of all time, all those things we say about the draft every year. Lance Zerline from NFL.com joins me. I'm Andy Staples from The Athletic. Lance, it's getting close. This podcast is dropping 29 days before the NFL draft. decisions are going to need to start being made. But a fairly significant piece of information dropped this week that one team knew about.

I'm not sure how many other teams knew about it. But I feel like it changes things a little bit. And that was Lamar Jackson, strategically and conveniently, as John Harbaugh is doing an interview at the owner's meetings, dropping the little nugget that he requested a trade on March 2nd. Mm-hmm. So what does that, what does that mean? Well, I guess it started the process of the exclusive tag being given. And then that allows them now to, it doesn't, not trade necessarily, but begins a process of compensation for a player that they, that goes to another team, right?

So I guess that's the, I guess that's the best case scenario. I guess if they didn't, I mean, they had to have tagged them. And Lamar has to agree to sign his tender before. he can, you know, agree to go to another team. And so this is, and do a new deal. So it's still, does it change anything? I think it's, all it did is fortify what I already expected, which is Lamar didn't want to.

Right. Lamar was headed in a different direction. But, but that, I think that changes a little bit of the, the dynamics of it, because now we know he's not going back to Ravens. Right. Yeah. And that, that changes their leverage significantly. with other teams because you're right the non-exclusive franchise tag is essentially an agreement

to trade if you want to take that player you're agreeing to give up these draft picks for the right to sign that player so you're essentially agreeing to a trade with the ravens if you if you want to do that so we know that part of it and then there are teams chris ballard i think said that the colts would consider trading for him or maybe we're Was that Ursay? No, it was both. Chris Ballard said, and Jim Ursay said money is not an issue. So, okay.

So potentially that is a team that was probably in the market for a quarterback, maybe goes off the board. And we'll probably find this out before the draft because that pick is going to be part of the package if you decide to take him. Now, here's my question for you, Lance. This is less a first round question and more of a all the other. quarterbacks we've been talking about question. If you're the Ravens,

I would assume you now have to go forward thinking Tyler Huntley is your starter. Do you have to take a quarterback right now as a potential backup for Tyler Huntley or someone you might hopefully be able to groom into a starter? No, you never have to take a quarterback because if you take a quarterback, the clock starts ticking on your job. Like if you take a quarterback in the first round,

you believe in them and you believe that they can lead you into the playoffs, I would assume that they have that kind of ability. You only draft a quarterback, especially in the first round if you believe in a quarterback. That should be the rule for every quarterback because if you don't believe in them and you just draft it goes, well, we need a quarterback. It can set you way back. You have to have a belief in that quarterback. What if it's Jake Hainer in round three or four and you believe he's a value pick in round three or four?

Oh, well, I think that's, I think it's totally different. because you're not tied to those guys. Look, Atlanta's not tied to Desmond Ritter. The Titans aren't tied to Malik Willis. Those are third round guys. I don't think you can just completely, I don't think you could have just automatically taking Atlanta out of the mix for a quarterback or as you mentioned, who's the other, oh, the Tennessee Titans.

You can't just automatically assume that they're good just because they added a third round quarterback. Now, I would think that the favorite would be Ravens Take quarterback. I would think that that would be the favorite. Because you will get a pick. Right. You would get the fourth pick if you're doing this with the Colts. And don't you want to do the deal? If you're going to do the deal for Lamar, you could wait.

But wouldn't you want to know you're getting a, for example, in your hypothetical, wouldn't you want to know your pick? Like, especially if it's a top five pick, wouldn't you rather have that than get the Colts pick? For example, the year later with Lamar at Quar. quarterback that could be in the 20s? That doesn't have nearly as much value. Right, exactly. So you would do this deal before this draft. You would get, you would know what your pick is. And really, I think Indianapolis is the only one of these teams we're talking about

that would be in play here. So it's, and I'm sure they don't like that because that hurts their leverage. But they can always say, look, we'll just, we like some of these quarterbacks in the first round, we're just going to pick one and not give up as much. Because remember, you're giving up this one, a one next year, and a two next year, or two this year. I mean, you're giving up a lot. It's a lot of picks to do this and paying a bunch of money. And you don't even know, well, there's a lot of obstacles. Lamar has to want to go to the, in essence, he has a no trade clause because if he doesn't want to go to the team, he doesn't have to sign his, he didn't have to sign the tender.

So Lamar can decide where he wants to go. So he still has leverage against any team that doesn't want to give him what he's looking for from a guaranteed contract standpoint. And that's why I think that I think we're dealing with a lot of potential holdups here. Andy, I think that's one of the reasons you've seen teams hesitant to get into Lamar sweepstakes because I know a lot will be made about ancillary reasons. But the fact is he's looking for an unusually high amount of fully guaranteed money. He's been injured the last two years. It's all the things we already know. He's

into the last two seasons on the injured list. It's a ridiculous amount of guaranteed money. The owners don't believe in that fundamentally about guaranteed money in a sport where they have these injuries, and especially at a quarterback position where it's at high, they have to put the money in escrow. There's a lot of things that go into this that make it trickier. But I will say, Jim Ursay, who is not, you know, he's an individual business. There's always the thought that he didn't have enough cash on hand to spend the full, you know, the salary cap allotment in free agency. I would have expected him to be a guy who says, wait a minute, how am I going to come up with $250 million in escrow? You have to come up with that fully guaranteed amount and put it in escrow.

And I've talked to people in the business who say that is a big deterrent for owners who have to take a certain amount of money that could be making two to six percent. in an investment. Yeah. And now you lose all, not only the 250 is in the, you're losing the investment part of that as well. The income that you might derive,

not to mention you have to have $250 million on hand to put up. And it makes it a little bit, a little bit stickier situation because the amount of money was never this high. Yeah. It is, it is truly amazing. So that will affect things. Could affect what the Ravens do later in the draft.

Maybe, maybe there's a quarterback. if they like they pick up because I think you know you can go with Huntley this season and then figure things out and and that's a well-run organization for the most part that they seem to know what they're doing so we'll see but I want to point out Lance we we've been we've been trumpeting some misinformation on this show we did the we kept saying well I did I did too because I didn't look it up either and Dane too, there have been four top 10 quarterbacks in a draft. It's 2018. We have conveniently

erased Josh Rosen from our memories like the NFL has. The Arizona Cardinals traded up for him. Yes. Yes. But yeah. So the only one of that bunch that has turned out to be a superstar is Josh Allen. The rest of them, not so much. Never four in a top seven. There have one time been four in a top ten. Yeah, so that's where we're at right now. Let's transition to these quarterbacks this year. They've had their pro days. I know we've talked about them a lot, but here's something I'm fascinated about in terms of pro days

and evaluation that I'm hoping you can help explain to the listeners and to me. How do teams decide what sort of contingent they're going to send a pro day? Because the Panthers are sending everybody to these quarterback pro. pro like the owner his wife like the seahawks are sending not quite that many but a lot of people like you saw the the picture of will levis at his pro day with with all of the seahawks brain trust essentially and they're doing that with all of them i'm assuming they'll do the same thing with anthony richerson in gainsville on thursday how do you decide when you want to show up in force and what does that mean i wish i had the answer for you because honestly you know the texans did not have

have any of their decision makers show up at all to Bryce Young or to the pro days of Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud. And I want to reiterate here, this isn't just not the pro days for Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud. This is taking a look at a lot of different place, getting eyes on Marvin Harrison, Jr. And Jackson Smith and Gigba and Marvin's Harrison Jr. who's not eligible to next year. Yeah. Exactly. You're looking at a lot of players with NFL potential and you're not there. So I don't know what goes into, you know, I think one of the things you always have to consider is Seattle's a tough one, right? They just signed Gino Smith, who Gino had a fantastic year. But you could argue that Gino Smith is your answer now, but you could draft a quarterback to develop them.

So you really can't read Seattle. Seattle could be throwing as much as, hey, let's all get in the plane, we're going, and we're going to create smoke. And we're going to be able to trade out of that spot. And get a ransom. Yeah. So you never know on that one. Now, Carolina has obviously taken a quarterback, and they didn't. And they sent the contingency, like you said,

because I think they want everyone to be on board. I believe the Texans want to be careful about looking desperate just in case, as I talked about last week, Carolina tries to squeeze them out of maybe a second round pick just to flip-flop one spot. And so the Texans say, oh, you know what? We won't go. We won't send anybody to either one of these pro days. and we'll bring Will Levis in for a 30-day visit,

I mean for a 30-player visit, one of our top 30 visits. So Will Levis is going to be going to the Texans for a top 30. I think the Texans want to be as unpredictable as possible, too, so as to avoid any kind of leverage against them by Carolina. I think it's unlikely, but there's a chance that Carolina could try to leverage a pick out of the Texans if they get too good a feel for who the Texans may end up liking. But I don't know what goes into that. Honestly, Andy, I would think that the Pittsburgh Steelers, man, it was always for years.

It's Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert on every pro day you can imagine. And now Omar Khan is doing the same thing. Well, Kevin Colbert, I remember talking to somebody to Alabama. And Kevin Colbert, when he was at Pro Days, tended to kind of be the represent, like the voice of the executives and would kind of help set everything up and figure out how things would go. and it's interesting the dynamics of this because you do have certain GMs. And then Tomlin, I forget who it was. It's a former NFL player who was picked very high in the draft.

And Tomlin basically was at his pro day and said, we're too good. We don't lose enough games to pick you. Yeah, I was very honest about it. I saw Mike, keep the, store this one away. I saw Mike Tomlin kind of playfully. bantering with Will McDonald at the senior bowl. He was out on the ground.

And once again, not a lot of head coaches go anymore. And he was a intriguing potential Pittsburgh Steeler right there. He was playfully bantering with McDonnell, Will McDonald quite a bit on the field. And McDonnell wasn't really talking back. He was just, yeah, I think he was too afraid.

Like, I don't know how I'm supposed to, you know, I'm in the middle of doing drills. And Tomlin kept, you know, having comments for him, just kind of joking around stuff. Oh, I see you 4-1 or whatever he's saying. And that was one I kind of stored away because, I mean, he's a little light for a Pittsburgh Steeler.

Most of them are really filled out like Bud Dupree types. And T.J. Watt, I guess, is a little more angular and long and linear. But all I could think of was, I mean, I like Will McDonald. I think Mike Tomlin may like Will McDonald. I'm going to keep my eyes on this one. Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned T.J. Watt, you know, obviously we're not comparing. Will McDonald, T.J. Watt.

No, and I like Alex Highsmith, too. He's a high player. But think about it. You had a year where you went a lot of the year without T.J. Watt because he got hurt. What if you had someone physically similar that you might be able to plug in if something else happened? Right. So. Just something that, it's just something that I always tend to pay attention to.

And you keep an eye on who the guys are at Pro Day. But, you know, Carolina, all the smoke has been on C.J. Stroud. And as I think I said this last week, you're going to start hearing buzz about Bryce Young to Carolina because Carolina wants to make themselves as unpredictable as possible. You wonder why. I remember when the Browns were trying to float these. They're going Josh Allen. They're going Josh Allen. They love Sam Darnel.

They really created, they wanted to create a bunch of smoke. And then they drafted Baker Mayfield. And all I could think of was, why are you doing this other than you think. Now, maybe their thought in hindsight was, we want to see. if we can get two or three to jump. Right. Because we feel like we could still get Baker-Mayfield. People may not have them, you know, ranked where we had them.

Yeah, and I think, I would think Stroud is the one you want to protect. That would feel, he feels like the one most likely to go number one of these four. And so the most teams would want him first. If the Texas are fine-taking Bryce Young, they can ignore all of this. or Anthony Richardson or we'll love it whatever they want to do but they can ignore all of this that they're comfortable with one of the other three

but what if they start selling Bryce Young and the Texans feel like we don't want to get CJ Stroud and you're good well okay let me just throw this scenario because we talk about this the agent for CJ Stroud is David Mulligetta who is also Deshawn Watson's agent

I wonder if there's any pushback from the Texans not wanting to deal with David Mulligetta after all that happened I'm sure they don't, but he is such a power. I mean, he's getting, he's not in Scott Boris in baseball territory yet, but you're going to have to deal with him. Yeah.

With some of your players no matter what. I agree with him. I realize it's different with your quarterback, but it's not that different. Like you're going to have to deal with him. Athletes first, who he works for is a massive organization, massive agency. You're going to deal with them. Like, it is, whether you're dealing with them on the player side, They also represent coaches.

So you're going to deal with them no matter what. And so I don't worry about that as much. But I am fascinated by how the dominoes fall and how the Panthers are trying to squeeze. Because look, if I'm the Panthers and I just gave up all this to move up, yeah, if I can squeeze a bunch out of or squeeze more out of somebody else to flip-flop one pick and still get who I want. Yeah. Why not try? I mean, that's why the Texans can't let you know who they. The Texans cannot be too, too wide open about who they like because you don't want to have to give up the, even if it's just the first pick of the second round, your 33rd pick.

Yeah. You don't want to give that up for the Texans. It's like buying a car or a house, Lance. I remember so when my wife and I toured the house that we currently live in, I walked in the door and I was like, this is the one. And she, and I didn't say that because I know you don't say that out loud in front of the other. people's realtor. But she saw on my face like this and she like she starts punching me in the side like stop it. Poker face. Like do not do not act like you like this place. Yeah. But that that's what the Texans. You're right. That is what the Texans are doing. And it's funny. Like if I were the Texans,

I would do something completely oddball like just off the wall. And I can't as I don't know if Fresno State has had their their pro day yet, but just send the entire continue. to Jake Hainter's pro date. Aiden O'Connell. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Purdue. I think he's already had his.

Yeah, he's had it. Like, what's up? Hey, how are we doing? Yeah. No, that's one thing you could do or even, well, you can't do that with Hinden Hooker because he won't throw. But he can't, yeah. You know, what do you think about, by the way,

Mike Tannenbaum from ESPN had a mock draft he came out with. He had Hinden Hooker 5, 5 to Seattle. I can see people interviewing Hinden Hooker. crew falling love with him. But that seems awfully high, given he's a guy coming from a system. And I realized Patrick Mahomes was the first to be successful out of a system that hadn't had a successful quarterback before. But this system really has not had a successful quarterback before.

This is the system that produced Bryce Petty. You know, it's not a bunch of quarter. Jared Stiddle, well, Jared Sidham played in a little bit, but then he played in Gus Malzahn system too. Right. So I'm not mentioning any NFL starting quarterbacks is what is the point here. Or really starting receivers if you get right down to it. Corey Coleman, another one out of the Baylor.

This is the Art Bryles Baylor offense essentially. And it is a very effective college offense that a lot of people are running now. Ole Miss runs it now. Arkansas runs it now. But Tennessee has probably run it the best in the past few years. And we'll find out with Jalen Hyatt and Cedric Tillman. You know, can they kind of break that mold as receivers? But Hendon, remember, was at Virginia Tech, was not a particularly good starter at Virginia Tech in a more conventional offense.

I would be very concerned taking him that high, especially he can't play right away. He tore his ACL in November. Are you going to rush him back from an ACL injury? Yeah. Well, so the idea is you're going to draft him into first to just buy back the year that you're, you're going to lose from the ACL. That's the idea. But I think that sounds great in theory, but you really need to have additional draft capital to be able to do that. And Seattle does, but I would, if Seattle really loves to do that, wait until your second pick of the first round

if you want to do that. I just, I'm having a hard time thinking that we're going to see five, five quarterbacks in the first round, but maybe we will. But it just doesn't feel like this class should produce five in the first. I think we're just talking ourselves into it. Just like, Just like last year, we kept talking ourselves into more potential first round quarterbacks than there were. And what happened? There was one, and it was in the 20s. Yeah, I mean, Desmond Ritter, you can make an argument. Desmond Ritter was substantially better on tape than Wille.

He was substantially better than Anthony Richardson. Was not the physical talent that those two guys were. Malik Willis was. But Malik Willis went in a third also. But he had, you know, he had bad tape. The thing with Anthony Richardson was he had a great Utah game. You can hang your hat on the Utah game. But it's the first game of the year, but you can hang your hat on that.

Right. And there are plays and throws against like an LSU defense. Oh, you have flashes. Right. Yeah, you have flashes. But so the pro days, I mean, every quarterback has benefited from the pro day. There's a lot of positives about Will Levis. My guess is Richardson's pro day.

I don't know that I've, the only time I remember hearing about a quarterback's pro day being bad was Teddy Bridgewater. Right. Bridgewater had a really bad, you know, pro day. And you know, being a very good NFL quarterback. Most, yeah, and most NFL quarterbacks have good pro days. They're throwing on air to receivers they're comfortable with. Yeah, Teddy's situation, I believe, if I recall, there was some switching of agents. There was some very late decision on who was going to train him for his pro day, which quarterback guru was going to train him for his pro day.

And that was the cause of all that. And as you saw, it meant absolutely nothing because he turned out to be pretty good at the NFL quarterback. he was a very good college quarterback. So that's the part that just some of this stuff doesn't matter, especially with quarterbacks, the pro days are so choreographed. They essentially are, you're not, it's not possible to fail. No. No, you're mostly making throws you're comfortable with.

You know, I carry less about, I care a lot less about the trick shot stuff where they roll left and throw right 70 yards. That's great. But you're never going to do that again. see do that in games is Aaron Rogers for the most part. No one is Aaron Rogers. No one's going to be Aaron Rogers for years and years. What I want to see is when they throw that little, you know, that little 15 yard out,

are you accurate? Are you throwing on time? Are you consistently accurate? And I thought Bryce Young was really accurate with the throws I wanted to see. And there's no pressure on it, but I've seen it on tape too. So it's a confirmation. The guy that it's going to, the two that it matters most, C.J. Stroud is a very accurate quarterback.

Strout, I mean, Levis. and Richardson are the two that, you know, that's going to be the concerns. And until they're facing live action, I don't, I just, they kid, there's nothing that's going to sway me on a pro day or a combine from these guys. But I do, I will admit that seeing Anthony Richardson in person and Levis to an extent, it's, it's impressive, man. These two guys physically are very, very impressive. But at the same time, you know, I just, I needed that tape to be a little bit better for

both those guys and it just it wasn't so for me it's still high ceiling low floor on both guys yeah yeah and and look they look like creative players if you go into madden and you could just put all the dials up that's that's what they look like but and and we know why that entices people so let's let's talk about enticing and and you know tape versus versus traits again this is a question i've been meaning to ask you the whole time we've been doing this and i think it's really interesting to break down because you do the breakdowns of every player for NFL.com. So you have you have watched extensive film on all of these guys.

But you also, you know, you're not one of those guys who just drops in who doesn't watch college football. You host a radio show in Houston. You got to watch college football. You got to talk about it. So you have some preconceived notions of these guys going in. Who in this draft surprised you one way or the other when you really got. to study them.

See, that's a great question. One of the things I've tried to do since about 2018 was I tried to watch less critically during the season when I'm watching college football so that I don't develop these, because I think what can happen, Andy, is I think we develop confirmation bias. And so I try to, I mean, everyone does. It's just a fact of life. So what I try to do is I try to avoid that by. by being as

by being as neutral as I possibly can. I like to, before I start to really become insightful about players, I like to wait until I have a certain amount of tape that I can watch so that, you know, it's the Twitter factory, right? If I just saw Anthony Richardson's highlight reels, I'm like, this guy's got to be the first pick.

This is Cam. I mean, he's got to be the first pick. But then when you have several games to watch, and not just Utah, because if you watch Utah, you say he's the first pick of the draft. You've got to get through the LSU game. You've got to get through, you know, Georgia. You've got to get through all these other games.

And I do that for every player so that I try not to have a positive filter where I start having confirmation bias or a negative one. It will happen from time to time. But even with that said, you're right. Or sometimes what's happening now is I'll hear the media, draft media, or I'll see mock drafts from guys on ESPN or whatever. And so I'll have an expectation of a player going into tape. And then I'll say, whoa, this is nothing like what I thought or how is this guy not in it?

And I'll give you some examples of some of those players. Yeah. Let's see. So one would be, I would say the first one would be Drew Sanders. For me, I'm higher. Drew Sanders wasn't in anybody's list. I'm much higher on Drew Sanders than everyone else. I know a lot of pro teams who like him about the middle of the first.

I think he's got a chance to be higher. There wasn't a lot of people talking about him. So I went into it. I'm like, wow, this guy can rush, like has good rush. He is a very productive player. He's got traits. Like, he's got everything. You know, it's the same kind of thing that I went through with Tremaine Edmonds

where I knew Tremaine Edmonds was a good player this summer when I studied him. And I don't have to write an article studying players for the summer. So I typically don't do as much of it now. But I was like, wow, Drew Sanders. has production traits, explosiveness, can play inside. He's just played one year of inside and has all these tackles for losses, tackles he can rush as a pass rusher. That was one.

I was like, how are more people not talking about him? Luke Musgrave, another guy. He only played two games this year. So I got to the tape and I'm not thinking anything of it. I'll just watch two games. And then I go back and watch 21. I watch the two games on 22. And I'm really, really impressed with him.

Michael Meyer is kind of the other way. I like him. Hey, to this day, I like Michael Mayor. But I had seen all these things written about Michael Mayor, Michael. Yeah, we just assume he's the number one tight in in this class. Yeah, I don't think he's going to. I think Dalton Kincaid is going to end up being the number one. And that's not to disparage him.

I do like him. But the way that people were talking about it, I expected more in terms of athleticism, in terms of him being able to get in and out of breaks quickly, get open quickly. he seemed open on TV when I'm watching him, but then when you get to tape, you recognize some of the differences. I think Jordan Addison. Jordan Addison, I was actually came away like,

eh, I mean, but all the talk was Jordan Addison in the top 10. It was very, very early. And then when I watched him, I saw a guy that I'm wondering, now why does he not have more production with the Heisman winner? How does he not have more production? His quarterback is the Heisman winner. He's 170-odd pounds.

I watch him. I thought he was good, but I think he's a slot only. I mean, to me, I gave him what amounts to a second round grade. And so that was one where I thought I didn't see as much as I was expecting. Paris Johnson, another one, didn't see as much with Paris Johnson as I was expecting based on media hype. I still don't see it. When people are putting him at number nine, I still don't see that. I don't see that on tape.

And I recognize that tackles a very, you know, priority position. But Paris Johnson's another guy that I liked. I didn't love. Miles Murphy liked, didn't love. but based on my TV watching and you see some plays made and you hear the names so much. Then you see them in draft media stuff with primarily ESPN just because they're early on a lot of that stuff. Then when I went into the tape and I'm like, he doesn't have as much explosiveness as I was

expecting as a rusher. You know, it's different when you're watching on TV and you're really focusing with all 22 tape. It turns into a much different viewing experience than when you, because you also have an opportunity to go match them up against the best competition you can find once you have a full season of tape. So those are, you know, those are some of the guys. And then from a positive standpoint, I would say to this day, I still think John Michael Schmitz from Michigan, I mean, from Minnesota, man, I think he is a really good player. I didn't expect him to be as good as he was.

I think Josh Downs, I'm not sure how people aren't talking about Josh Downs in the first round more. I watched him and I thought, how is Josh Downs not getting first round? This guy is Josh, Josh, Josh is my Tyler Lockett theory. Yeah. You're the only threat and everybody knows they're going to feed you and we still can't stop you. Do you, is that your comp for him? Is that who he reminds you of? No, no.

I just, that's just, he's the first guy that I formed that theory around the, the, the player who is kind of the, the, the obvious. only threat in an offense and defenses are obviously keyed up to deal with them and then for some reason he still catches you know 12 passes for 150 yards those are the two so there's two things that always look for what you just talked about if you're the guy and they still can't stop you like if you're a pass rusher a great pass rusher and you still are getting double digit sacks and you had double digit sacks the year before and they know that especially in power five that that makes the difference to me, especially if I beat my guy sacks and not play extending sacks. But the other one is, if you're a small school player, it doesn't mean that I can't project

you to be a good player, but I do want to see you dominate the competition across. Right. Like, I typically want to see you be much better if you're a small school prospect. That's why, like, well, this wasn't a smaller school. It was a mid-major guy but didn't have the numbers. Don Terry Poe, I always was skeptical of because. you should be dominant in in that league. I believe it was at that point they were in Conference USA. Yeah, it was USA, yeah. But you should be dominant.

Now, he wanted being a good NFL player. But that's what, that gives me pause when it is somebody in a mid-major league or an FCS type player who isn't completely, like they need to put up such dominant numbers that there is no question. Well, similarly, I think when a player puts up dominant numbers, on the on the on the small school because we we get these guys all the time when I go hunting for players and I want to look up one guys I want to look up one guy's stats right now but when we go look up smaller school players because I've got to write 500 so I'm always on the lookout for you know

who's a guy that I need to find and invariably I'll run into NAA division two players division three players and you try to find okay what was there you know what were what were their numbers what did it look like for that guy. And I'm trying to, excuse me, I'm trying to find something right now when we look. But if you had dominant, dominant numbers, then you really have to pay attention to,

you know, you have to go give that player a look. Now, if they have bad, if they have dominant sack numbers and tackle for loss numbers, and then, you know, but they, you know, it's an edge defender who runs a 4-9-1, you still have to go do your work on them. But if they don't have some traits, if they don't hit a certain level,

it kind of you start to worry. I'll give you an example of a guy who I missed on. Alex Highsmith. Alex Highsmith, his last year at Charlotte, a CUSA team, had 21 and a half tackles for losses and 15 sacks. Now, the year before he only had three sacks, he had 18 and a half tackles for losses.

Alex Highsmith has turned into a good football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And I saw those numbers, and it's not small school, but it is mid-major, as you might say. But when you have those numbers and there's decent quality competition, which you do have at CUSA, at least when he came out. Well, it's like, it's like Khalil Mack. Everybody knew about Khalil Mack. And he had traits too.

He had dominated against Ohio State and against Tennessee. His team lost those games, but he was unstoppable. And so those coaches came away saying that's the, that's a dude. And it's funny because that's actually in this. era in this transfer era that's how you wind up getting you know recruited out of the portal that's how jared verse got recruited out of the portal there's no i mean jared verse keon white yeah keon went went to georgia tech there's a kid from frostberg state this offensive lineman who was going to go to the senior ball and then he ended up somewhere in the cc oh yeah this is happening a lot

this is the new the transfer portal is the new moving from the minor leagues to the major leagues that's what it's become and and it's allowing us to get eyes on some of these guys that would have been secret players honestly like you you mass played so many by games that andy isabella had was actually probably a pretty easy eval yeah because you got to see him against really good competition he hit 200 yards against georgia but he hasn't turned into an NFL player but against georgia i'm like holy crap he just put 200 on georgia yeah this is but you know he didn't he didn't make it because he doesn't run with pace like there's some football stuff I could get into here with Andy Isabella,

because he is really fast in a straight line. But you know, Cedric Tillman from Tennessee, who you mentioned earlier, had monster games against Georgia and Alabama in 2021. That matters to me. When I'm watching the tape from 2021, that matters to me.

So if you're playing against much lesser competition, I want you to put up those same kind of numbers too. And then when I have that, then I'm going to write you up for NFL.com, and I've got to try to figure out if it's translatable. And the best way to find that out, is do you have NFL traits? And if so, then it just becomes kind of a guessing game.

Right. Right. Because you have to overcome, like, with receivers. The Cedric Tillman example is a really good one. There are people you're up against who have done that to Alabama and Georgia. So why would I pick you when I could pick them? Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's it. If you're proven against a Power 5 team and a Power 5 powerhouse, that's why it was important for me. I needed Quentin Johnson. It's not really his fault because the offense couldn't do anything. But Quentin Johnson had, was it one catch for three yards against Georgia? It would have been really nice if he had hung up six catches for 83 yards, something like that in a touchdown.

But the quarterback had no time to throw. Max Dugan didn't have a particularly good game. But that's why when you show out in big games against big competition, it matters to, it matters to NFL evaluators 100%. But. Yeah. And that's the Quentin Johnson thing for me, because he had been able to do that, even though he's dinged up a little bit, he had been able to do that against almost everybody they played. He didn't have a huge game against Texas, but he did average 22 yards a catch on his three catches. So the fact that somebody shut him down like that, it is somewhat troubling.

You know, but I remember watching also Rashad Bateman, right? So that's another guy. I was going back to your question. You know, sometimes I'll take bullets. for not being higher on a guy. This year was Jackson Smith and Jigba. Some people about Jordan Addison. They, you know, why are you so high on this?

Why aren't you higher on this guy? But like Rashad Bateman, I just didn't like the tape. I didn't think he fought hard for contested catches. There was a game against Lamar Jackson from Nebraska, the cornerback, the big cornerback where he just really physically got bandied. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I didn't, I just didn't love that. And Bateman has not, you know, what's the number one thing you hear about Lamar Jackson, the quarterback. He doesn't have any weapons. Well, Bateman was supposed to be that weapon. So a lot of times, you know, I'll also take bullets for being lower on some guys that I didn't love. And I'll miss some, but I'll hit some. Unless you come back and evaluate which ones were misses and hits, you don't get a good feel for it. I know which ones I miss because I don't mind missing. And I try to figure out why I missed on it, just like Alex Highsmith. Why did I miss on Alex Highsmith? Okay, because it's because he was 240-something, which I thought was a little

light and he wasn't stopping a run and now you look at him he's got big muscular arms so like you always have to remember that guys are most most players at that position have the room for better nutrition more weight work and they're getting older and growing into grown man bodies too so you can't like an andre carter miss this postseason i'm ready to almost ride him off based on his senior ball and his size and some of the lack of strength but i know wait a minute he's got a good chance of being 25 pounds heavier in two years. So I got to slow my role a little bit. Well, and that's the other part is age matters.

We talk about age with quarterbacks, but we don't talk about it nearly as much with other positions where we should be talking about it. Like a defensive end who just turned 21, we don't know that that person is done growing. They're certainly not done physically maturing. Right. And that matters too.

So if that person is 24, it's a different evaluation. They're 20 or 21. Yeah, you know, some teams, Andy, love lean muscle mass and the bone scans, the Dexas scans. There's a lot of teams, maybe not a lot,

but there's plenty of teams now who rely on lean muscle mass. They want to know what your lean mass numbers are, what you can carry as good weight. And they really rely on those as markers for how big a guy is. Or if they've got a low, if there's a tackle with a low lean muscle mass

of like 235, they'll say, okay, this guy to play at 350 is going to be carrying a lot of extra bad weight and that can lead to injuries. He can be not as quick. So there are some ways that teams, teams do have an idea of how they can physically project players who are going to be bigger with good weight and without good weight. I asked, I did a story on this with college coaches about how they project because they have,

they have an even tougher projection because they'll, they'll deal with, you know, edge rushers who are 210 in high school. Oh, yeah. To become 280 pound defensive tackles or, you know, offensive linemen who are either 400 pounds and have to lose the weight or are 240 pounds and are going to gain the weight. And Will Mustchamp, who's the defense coordinator, Georgia, he gave me one of the best answers for that story. I want to ask you, okay. Okay.

The phrase, hair on his legs, was that ever mentioned? That's where I'm going with this, not hair on his legs. Will Mustchamp always ask players when they started shaving. Okay. Because it helps him determine where they're at in terms of their growth process. Right. So if a 16-year-old says, I shave once every six days and you're recruiting another 16-year-old who says, I shave every day, well, the one who shaves every six days, there's a chance he's got a lot more growth potential than the other guy. Yeah.

That's not perfect, but, and obviously they're looking at parents and other family members and that sort of thing. So it's, but it is, it's a big deal. So it's a, so I'm part of a company called Scout Source where I work with Tyler Overley, who was the, um, analytics director for the Tampa Bay Bucks for five years. And one of the things that we have and that we do is we go to college camps or we can do this with high school kids, um, high school camps. And we can take wrist, knee. Um, there's like, Tyler's got a variety of measurements. He's, he's reverse engineered this from 25 years of common. combine data and he can project frame potential for players.

And he actually hit on this like a kid who was skinny, skinny wrists and skinny ankles. You're not getting that big. No, yeah. Like there's different ways. What could be your, you can get bigger, but it's,

is a good way. You want to find what the frame is capable of handling. So yes, ankles, knee circumference, wrist, there's some different things. But he created an algorithm that,

that fairly accurately project size. So it can help project a hundred and ninety, pound running back into a 230 pound linebacker potentially. The biggest one, look at Northern Iowa with Spencer Brown and Trevor Penning. Yeah. Both one, Brown gained, I think, 80 pounds and Penny gained 100 pounds. Like, and they had a coach who just eyeballed it and knew that these guys were going to get bigger.

There was a guy named Reese Morgan. Well, he's still alive, but he's not coaching. He's retired from Iowa now. But Reese Morgan was a defensive assistant in Iowa. He might have had the best eyeball for that because he was the guy who went into the eight-man football territories and was just like, okay. And he'd see these guys, you know, 180-pound kids that grew into 260-pound tight ends or 200-pound guys who grew into 260-pound defensive ends. And it was just like he had just an incredible eye for it. It is a truly amazing gift.

I think, yeah. I think it's incredible. And I also don't know that those guys even know exactly what it is. They may have some markers they kind of look at. I just think they have an innate ability to just recognize and they can't even maybe put it into words, but they can just tell. They can just tell. And I think that's an amazing skill. It is incredible.

It is incredible. But that might be a story down the road for the athletic. I think that would be a fun story to do. you know, the bone scan thing does put some science to the hair on the legs question. Yeah. And it's exactly right. I mean, if you have skinny wrists and ankles, you can gain weight. I am a former offensive lineman with skinny wrists and ankles.

When I got heavy, it was bad. Bad weight, yeah. Bad weight. So, like, I'm not supposed to carry it, like, physically not supposed to carry that much. They don't lie. Everyone has a lean mass number. Yeah. So I, this, I mean, it's fascinating. And this is the sort of thing, like, this is baseline stuff for every NFL team these days. Baseline. People are, the teams are way more advanced. The S2 tests now for quarterbacks.

Like it is, there's still people, I think, who are operating under this, this, this, this idea that the NFL is so far behind this and so far behind that. The NFL over the last five years has made, last seven years has made unbelievably rapid advancements with, in terms of analytics, sports science, projection of body types, projection of processing for quarterbacks. It's a much different world now than people would believe. And some teams certainly are way ahead of others, but there are some teams who really take it seriously, and that's the only direction it's headed. It's not going backwards.

It's just going to keep moving forward. Well, it's going to be fascinating to see what the next frontier of this is. But I can't wait. shoot, I'm just waiting for GPS 40 times to become the norm. Because God knows, we're all wearing GPS on our bodies every minute of every day at this point. So let's just standardize that. Enough of the lasers and the hand timing. I know.

I mean, that's ultimately what it's going to turn into. It needs to happen tomorrow. Let's make it happen. Lance, we have a lot to talk about going forward. Dane will be back with us next week. we'll have the Anthony Richardson Pro Day will be done, but most of the pro days will be done by the end of this week. And we can really start drilling down on some of these guys

that have moved up boards, moved down boards, and what these team needs are as free agency finishes up. So it's going to be a fun sprint to the draft. We were less than a month away. We'll talk to you again soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.