The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Prospects to Pros: Lance Zierlein’s 2023 NFL mock draft 1.0

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Who does NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein have going No. 1 in his first 2023 NFL mock draft? He joins Andy Staples and Dane Brugler to talk about Jalen Carter vs. Will Anderson Jr. and the transfer portal players who could go in the top 10. They also talk about QB's Will Levis and Anthony Richardson, Lance reveals his WR1 and much more. Follow Andy on Twitter: @Andy_StaplesFollow Dane on Twitter: @dpbruglerFollow Lance on Twitter: @LanceZierleinSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube2:08 If the Bears do pick at No. 14:06 Jalen Carter vs. Will Anderson Jr. at the top7:15 Transfer portal players in the first round12:28 Will Levis17:23 Keion White20:58 Anthony Richardson24:58 Calijah Kancey28:55 Jalin HyattToday's episode is brought to you by...Atlassian: For projects impossible alone, visit www.atlassian.comPeloton: Try Peloton risk free with a 30-Day Home Trial, New Members only at onepeloton.com/home-trialBurrow: Show Burrow you’re listening to The Athletic Football Show by shopping at burrow.com/mays and get 10% off your first orderAllbirds: Discover your perfect pair of Wool Runners at Allbirds.com todayBlue Nile: Find the perfect piece of jewelry for life’s special moments and save up to 50% now at bluenile.comBetter Help: Visit BetterHelp.com/mays today to get 10% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to Prospects to Pros, the podcast that talks about the guys who just got drafted. The guys were about to get drafted and everything in between. We're in full guys who are about to get drafted mode. We were all together at the Senior Bowl, me, Dane Bruegler, Lance Zerline. Now we're back. Well, Lance is out and about. But Lance has gifted us with a mock draft.

Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we have more picks. Now, Dane, if you recall, in his most recent mock draft, did propose some trades. Lance, you did not propose a trade at number one. You let the- Yeah, I intentionally, it was an intentional move. I wanted, so I look at all of my mock drafts is there's different, I use them for different purposes. This one I wanted to do no mock, no trades.

I wanted to see what it would look like going team to team to team. team where I would land on players. And this year, actually more than most, I used my own personal opinions on players to kind of fill up the draft board, except in a couple of instances, there are players that I wouldn't put there. I think this is not, you know, for me, I'm struggling with, there's a player who will tumble down the draft board that I just, I couldn't find a place for him. We'll get to him in a little bit. I struggle putting defensive tackles in the first round. And I struggle with linebackers because I'm just not sure there's, you know, there's going to be a bunch of linebackers that go on a first knee and a lot of teams

need linebacker help. So I went with some of my own grades for the most part as opposed to just later on it's going to be an exercise and trying to figure out what another team is going to do. This time I said, you know what, I'm going to lean a little more heavily on what I would do here. All right. So you start with the Bears who everybody assumes you're going to trade this pick. But if they kept this pick, you've got them taking Jalen Carter out of Georgia. So why Jalen and not Will Anderson out of Alabama, they clearly need a lot of everything.

Yeah. They have their choices here of interior guy or elite edge rusher. Why did you go interior? I went interior because I think if you get the interior guy right, they can cause even more damage. You know, you can, when you have an interior guy that can really just recognize. the blocking schemes, as Dane says, you know, block destruction when you've got that going on. It changes what you can do from a running standpoint between the tackles. It changes how you protect and it opens some things up on the perimeter because you can't just slide to one direction.

You have to give attention to that player and Jalen Carter. And I see Jalen Carter is Jeffrey Simmons all over again. I thought Jeffrey Simmons was the best player in his draft, but I'm looking. them down just a one or two notches simply because of the injury. Jalen Carter is not injured. And so I ended up saying, you know what, I'm going to take best player available on the board from my personal board, who I had the guy ranked number one, Jalen Carter. And I don't think there's a lot of defensive tackles like Jalen Carter in this draft. I do think there are some edge rushers who have potential in this draft. Unfortunately, the bears, you know, don't have a

second round pick because they traded it for Claypools, Chase Claypool. So I do believe the the Bears will trade out of this. But in this one, I wanted to just plant my flag and say, if everything was the way it was supposed to be in round one, here's how I think it would go. They do have Baltimore's second round pick from that from the trade. But that's outside the top 50. So to your point, it's a little tougher to know or to have a good idea of who's going to be there at that point.

So, Dane, if you had Carter and Anderson on the board, who would you take? I mean, I think you can make an argument that it just comes down to your roster and what you think fits better. And I think, you know, I agree with a lot of what Lance said, and especially with the Bears who you think of that Matt Iberfluse defense. And you think about what a three technique would bring a guy like Jalen Carter. I mean, I agree. I mean, Jeffrey Simmons, you can see a lot of that. I think that it would not be a surprise if one day Jalen Carter is top three in the NFL at his position. he has that type of ability.

And it's hard to say no to that. When you're drafting that early, if you get that interior disruption, a guy that's equally effective versus run in the past. I mean, he's just, does he need to mature in a few areas? Yeah, there's no doubt. You know, I don't think that he has character concerns per se. You know, did Kirby Smart have to ride him a little bit?

Yeah, but I mean, that's most young players. You know, and so I think that based off his talent, based off of where he could be, because he's not hit his ceiling yet. He's far from it. So based on who he is now and what he can be, I would have no problem taking Jalen Carter ahead of Will Anderson, even though I really think you can make a case for either one of those guys.

Absolutely. Lance, I laughed when you said block destruction because I was thinking back to when I realized that Aaron Donald was incredibly special. He had a game in 2013 against Georgia Tech. Now, for those who don't remember, Georgia Tech at the time, had Paul Johnson as their head coach. They were a triple option team. Aaron Donald had six tackles for loss against a triple option team.

Everything about the triple option is designed to gain positive yardage or zero yards. It is nearly impossible to have two tackles for loss against a triple-off. He had six. So the block destruction piece of it, I do understand. Well, and the nature of, and I think the nature of being able to disrupt from the interior, especially because you're right on top of a guard. Typically guards are not going to be the same athletes as tackled, a defensive tackle who has a significant athletic

or hand usage advantage to get quick wins. A quick wind defensive tackle can really ruin your entire plans because there's one section of the defense where you are going to be at a substantial disadvantage. And that's one of the reasons I like a dominant defensive tackle over a dominant defensive end. I think Aaron Donald helped you make the case for defensive tackle when you see what's possible.

And this is last year, right? Trayvon Walker over Aidan Hutchinson. Yeah, although they can play similar positions. Right. And I think with Carter, it's not just quickness. It's not just that he's quicker than everybody else. He has skill to what he's doing. I mean, he trusts his instincts in terms of reading the blocks.

It's just, yeah, he has a rare combination of body control, quickness, power. and that really allows him to deconstruct blocks. But I also think that there is a skill level involved that he has already shown at a young age. So I have a question as somebody who follows mostly college football. The transfer portal has changed the college game considerably, but it's also changed how guys wind up in the NFL draft, when and where they blow up. And what's interesting to me about your draft, Lance, your mock,

you have Christian Gonzalez going to Detroit very early. And then two picks later, you have Drew Sanders going to Atlanta. These are guys who both transferred last year. I'm curious what you think. If Christian Gonzalez had stayed at Colorado, are we talking about him like this? And Drew Sanders, I think I know the answer because if he stays at Alabama, we're probably not talking about him here. Right.

I think with Christian Gonzalez, his tape's really good at Colorado, to be honest. So I think we would be. I don't think that's a problem. Great cornerbacks who have height, weight, length, and explosiveness and who are going to test like he does. It doesn't matter where they come from. I think we would have definitely heard about Christian Gonzalez. And I do think Christian Gonzalez comes off the board inside of the first 12 picks.

He's really going to be a great tester. And he's just one of the better athletes I've studied at cornerback. In terms of Drew Sanders, boy, you're right, Andy. It's really amazing that we take an edge, a guy who is recruited to be an edge defender at Alabama. They allow him to play inside linebacker at Arkansas and do some pass rushing. And one of the reasons I've got him this high is because I'm really high on him as a prospect. Like I said, I put my own personal feelings in here. Atlanta needs linebacker play and rush.

They happen to get a guy who can do a little of both in this one. And I think Sanders is also freaky big. He's physical and he's going to be an explosive tester as well. And the thing is, if people are wondering, how can a guy that you're mocking in the top 10 have not seen the field at Alabama? Because here are the other edge rushers at Alabama. Will Anderson, who we're talking about above him,

Dallas Turner, who will be talking about next year in this vein, Chris Braswell, who's also really, really good. I mean, that's the issue. And so I was very curious as to how that works, because I do think in college football, if you see stuff like this happened, you saw it with Jermaine Johnson, where he left Georgia to go to Florida State because he wanted to show he's an every down player. And it paid off for him because he was a first round draft pick. I wonder if we're going to see more of that with these guys that are on the stack teams.

And this is partially wishcasting this because I want to see the talent disperse a little more so the games are a little closer. But it does seem like it's working. Well, opportunity. Yeah, that's it. I know Saban wasn't happy when he transferred. He thought that he was really going to get a chance this year, but Drew Sanders didn't want to take that chance, and I think it worked out for him.

Lance, you and I had not talked about Christian Gonzalez yet, and so I'm happy to see him. You have them that high. I also had him to Detroit in my mock draft, and I'm putting together my top 100 for next week, and Christian Gonzalez is going to be a top five player, my top five non-quarterback on my board for everything that you said. with that length, with that speed.

I thought one of my worries was finding the football and making those plays, which I thought over the second half for the season, we saw him make improvements there. So I'm with you. I think Gonzalez is a player. Rare athletic gifts at the position. I mean, he's got, you know, we see guys who move well. We see guys who are fast.

But it's really rare to see the fluidity of his hips, the pure long speed. His explosiveness, he's going to jump over forward. he's going to run really fast, but he's fluid in the hips. And he's got height, length, and weight. A lot of times some of these guys check in at 188, 801, there's nothing wrong with 191. But for him to be that size with 200 pounds, run like that, jump like that, and have the fluidity of the hips and feet,

it's just a rare set of, you know, I wasn't as high on Jalen Rams as I should have been because when you're big and you have special athleticism and really ball skills, that makes all the difference in the world. And I thought, frankly, I thought his tape was better at Colorado than this year at Oregon. So I, you know, I know what he's capable of. His tape against Drake London, it was a battle last year.

It was a real battle with both of them coming out. But even when he lost the battles, he was right there in it. It's not like he was beaten badly on anything. You just don't see that happen. I think my favorite part about Christian Gonzalez is just the bloodlines. You look at his dad, six-nine professional basketball players. You look at his two sisters, high-level track athletes. His sister Melissa was in the 2021 Olympics with Columbia as a dual citizen.

So it's just he not only checks a lot of those boxes that you see on tape and the measurables, but when you look at dive into his background and see his family and all that, you start to understand, okay, this is why he is a high-level athlete. Lance, you've got Will Levis going to the Raiders. Now, we knew that Derek Carr was not going to be with the Raiders anymore. but he actually said it at the Pro Bowl, actually made a nice little joke about it at the Pro Bowl. But they need a new quarterback of the future franchise quarterback.

What about Will Levis makes him the right fit for Josh McDaniels in that offense? Well, I don't know that he is, but I'm putting it. I hate to tell you this, but I'm not co-signing this. I've got Will Levis way down the ranks. I've got him at a low 6.3, which would put him late in a second, basically. if I'm grading this like 14, for example, I'd give him what would amount to a second to third round grade. I think he's got a chance. I think he's going to be an NFL starter.

But Daniel Jeremiah made, I did his podcast last week, and he made some really good points about the amount of injuries he played through. I think Dana's baby made some of the same points. Played through a lot of injuries, a lot of very difficult injuries, showed up and was accountable for what, you know, for how he played, despite the fact that he wasn't at 100%. You know, I even think on 2021, it's better shaped than 2022, but there's still holes in it for me. But with Will Levis, you have size, you have a terrific arm. You have a guy who's very, very tough. And the Raiders have backed themselves in a difficult spot.

I know they probably thought they had a great shot of Tom Brady and then Tom Brady. That option went away. Derrick Carr, the bridge is burned. And so now the Raiders are in a position with lots of weapons at their disposal. and no trigger man. So, you know, what they may do is say, look, let's try to convince ourselves that this is another Josh Allen situation, and we can find out.

I think everyone's going to try to do that with either Anthony Richardson or Will Levis when they want to talk themselves into either one of those players. And the Raiders just happen to have some really, really good weapons to use. So if the Will Levis play we saw this year was primarily due to injury and suspect line play, the Raiders can do something about that. The Raiders have that ability. So I could see them taking a shot here with the guy that many people had as maybe the top quarterback and from a draft prospect standpoint coming into the year. Yeah.

And I don't think people realize how hurt, well, Levis was this year. I mean, that was a big factor in his play. And so it goes back to the reasons or excuses when it comes to quarterbacks. There are some of these are reasons. Some of these people look at his excuses. But I think with Levis, there are several reasons here why his 20s. 2022 season didn't live up to expectations. We've talked about it at length on this podcast, and that's why he's still going to go probably

somewhere in the top 10 picks and going to be a player that teams, I do believe more than one team will have him as the top quarterback on the board because of all that he offers, most importantly, that toughness, that competitiveness, the intelligence. And, you know, that's something that a lot of teams are going to cling to. And so it's, I think you're absolutely right putting him as, as you did in the mock. I think you have to ask yourself, what would this player do?

And I don't think enough people do this. We just look at how did you do in this game or this year and that's it. And that's why we, you know, that's why people miss on Josh Allen, for example. Ask yourself this question. And but the same thing is true for like the Dwayne Haskins of the world

where you say, okay, what would you do with lesser talent or maybe even, you know, Tua? What would you do with lesser talent at wide receivers? What would you do at lesser when you, when you don't have the best players on the field, when you are not at an advantage at the skill position, how will you perform then? Because the really good players can elevate you.

And what we're trying to figure out are who are the playmakers and who are the snap takers. If you say, well, only the very best players, you know, can take average talent and make them better. Yeah, that's what you're trying to draft. If you're drafting the first or second quarterback, you have to try to decide if that's, you know, what you have if you're a team that doesn't have much. Similarly, we have to take a look at guys who don't have things that are even relatively optimal on the offensive line or skill position, and you say, okay, what would this same player do with a good offensive line and decent skill position players? And if you ask yourself that about Will Levis, if you gave Will Levis the Raiders,

man, you get a great chance to succeed if you're with the Raiders. Now, Derek Carr did not play great. But this is what you want it to look like at tight end, at wide receiver, at running back. You got a lot of that, you know, advantages there. You need to tighten up the offensive line a little bit. But if you can't make it with Levis and then Josh McDaniels, who was Tom Brady's, you know, coach for so many years, I mean, this would be the perfect spot for Levis. The question is, can he, how good is he at this one? So we've talked a lot in this podcast about Tyree Wilson. And you've got him going to Seattle at five. He's the next as rusher behind Will Anderson.

But a guy we haven't talked a ton about is who you have going to Carolina near the bottom of the top 10. And that's Keon White, who played at Old Dominion, transferred to Georgia Tech. We just saw him last week, the Senior Bowl. He is one of the more intriguing prospects in this draft. You know, I wanted to put Bejan Robinson there. And I know that analytics Twitter would have had full-on heart attacks. But Bejohn Robinson, for me, is a special.

player. He literally, I think if you had a young quarterback, I would have left Bijon Robinson there. And I can't count Matt Corral because I don't know what the new regime is going. I don't know what Frank Reich is going to think of Matt Corral. So I can't really count him. So if you had a young quarterback, I would say Bijon takes, he runs the, you know, he's basically Christian McCaffrey 2.0. He's a three-down player with great talent on all three downs and the ability to get short-yardage for you to hit explosive plays, to catch a ball of the backfield, and handle a heavy workload. So for a young quarterback, there's nothing better than a running back who takes pressure off of a quarterback, and that's what Bejohn would do. But Carolina just doesn't have that

quarterback as a jump-off point. So I gave in and took Bejohn out there, and I went with a defensive end, which is another need for them. And frankly, you know, Keon White is just a freak show in terms of his size, his strength, his lean muscle mass is going to be off the charts. When you see him in the uniform, it's really, really impressive. I think what we saw in Senior Bowl, though, Andy and Dane, is that when it clicks, it's really, really good, but there's still some clicking that needs to take place. And I think right now Carolina is not expected when now. Frank Reich does have, you know, a little bit of a grace period.

Why not draft the guy with all the physical ability and tools and upside and allow him, you know, a little bit of a runway since Frank Reich has that runway as well. That's fascinating. because he is a freak. There's no doubt about it. What kind of grade did you give? I know this is a mock. This is what, you know, you're projecting. I've got him a 20th, I think, in the class. Okay. Yeah. And that's a push grade. That's a push grade. Before senior ball, I had him in the 30s. I had him in a second round. But just seeing him live and in person and there are things I didn't like, but also on tape, I know that he doesn't have very good awareness to the run.

He's not very instinctive. But watching some of his power and strength. I pushed him to a grade that I'm projecting him to, not to what the tape. The tape didn't have him at this grade. I pushed him to a projectable grade based on traits and what I think is possible for him. I don't do that for everybody, but I did not for him. But I personally,

nine would be a little rich for me. I know Daniel Jeremiah has him ninth, ninth out of his top 50 players. For me, he's closer to 19, 20, 21 for me. And that's with a little bit of a push for traits projection. Yeah.

And that's what makes him so interesting. because, you know, it is a more of a traits-based grade. And, you know, and that's why I think we're going to see a lot of discourse from teams about where he belongs in this draft because not everyone's going to be on board of those traits. They're going to see the player. They're going to see, okay, does he have the makeup to become the sum of his parts? And so Keon White will be a very, I think, divisive player in this draft in terms of where exactly he's being slotted by teams. Yeah, that's one of those.

I, well, let's do it. While we're having the traits versus production discussion, I'm going to step in as the guy who covers college football again and say, you have Anthony Richardson in the first round, Lance. You have him going to the Buccaneers. Yeah. It's not where I would draft him. Okay.

But so, this seems to be pretty universal among draft analysts, though. Like, this is where everybody's at. Like, this guy's getting drafted in the first round. in spite of what we saw on the field. Yeah, you know, last year was, I thought Malik Willis had a terrible year last year if you want to know the truth. Oh, he did.

And, I mean, you couldn't find it on tape. I mean, you could find flashes. I would tell you, Anthony Richardson, against a better level of competition, actually had a better year, although it was wildly inconsistent. I mean, the best he looked was game one against Utah. Man, he is patient.

He's getting through his progressions. He is throwing a ball with, timing. And it made me think, okay, if this is him with the most amount of preparation and maybe his mechanics are at the best, because I thought his feet were much better than, and maybe it kind of falls apart on him as the season winds down, then, you know, my positive I would say is that I think Anthony Richardson, maybe if you keep drilling down the muscle memory reflex and you keep working on it, maybe you start to see more of the Utah games and fewer of the LSU games, you know, moving forward. So Anthony Richardson, I just thought it made a lot of sense. Now, I couldn't find a place for him

beside Tampa Bay. And it is fresh in my mind that everyone passed on those quarterbacks last year other than Kenny Pickett. And, you know, we're used to seeing if you're a good quarterback, you know, everyone's going to go on the first round, everybody. Well, they didn't last year. And so Anthony Richardson has great physical tools. So do Malik Willis. And he went in the third round. And there was no character issues that I knew of with the Malik Willis. There's no injury issues. you could make a case that he's Jalen Hertz 2.0 in terms of what his capabilities could be. And so, of course, that was before Jalen Harts was this year's Jalen Hertz. Anthony Richardson, to me, my comp is Cam Newton.

And I think there's a lot of Cam Newton in his game. He's a sporadic passer. He overthrows guys. The footwork isn't where it's supposed to be, but he's big. He's a talented runner. He needs to rely on it as much as possible, probably early in his career. And I think Tampa Bay now realizes, okay, This is up now.

We're done with Tom Brady, and we're going to have to realistically look at how we're going to build slash rebuild this team. And if there's a place where you could get away with it, it would be Tampa Bay where you say, we're going to sell, we're going to sell, this isn't a timeshare. We're going to sell the dreams of a new subdivision that's still being cultivated in Anthony Richardson. We'll put you up in this, you know, we'll put you up right now in this time share that may be whoever. We're speculating. Yeah. This is a speculative. Now, we're also going to find out if this is the Freddie Mac, Freddie May.

You know, if this is, if we're bundling up a bunch of bad debt here. Credit default swaps. I never thought that phrase is going to be uttered on this podcast. With his lack of consistency and lack of accuracy. But, I mean, the traits are the best in the draft, without question. And the guy he could be is a really high-end quarterback. I just, there's a grade that we have on our scale, 6.5, boom or bust. I gave that to Zach Wilson because I was really worried about the bus factor, to be honest with you.

And I just can't, I couldn't bring myself to give a grade that that's, that high to Anthony Richardson. I just, I needed to see a look, I needed one year of relatively sustainable play. And this year, it just saw a really good mix with some really bad. And it's a really interesting landing spot with all Florida quarterback, chart with Kyle Traskillard. That's right. One more player I wanted to ask you about real quick, Colagia Cancy,

major first round mock. He is so interesting. I mean, the more I watch of him and really finish up his report, I can get on board with that, him going in the first round. I can be on board with him being a top 40 pick.

It's going to be interesting. What he comes in at, is he under six foot? Is he over under 280, 285? Where is he his best, in your opinion, the best place to play him

on an NFL defensive line. You know, so I just went back to my, my, Ed Oliver discussions. Now, I went back to thinking about, okay, Ed Oliver was a high draft pick. This guy is more productive than how Ed Oliver was. He's just as quick. I think Ed had better strength at the point of attack

and played with a little better leverage. But when it came to getting into gaps and being disruptive in terms of tackles for loss, Cancy, to me, is maybe even more explosive and quicker in some regards. And as a pass-huster, I think he's more skilled. than Ed Oliver, maybe in the same category. And Ed did it against the lower level of competition, relatively speaking, as opposed to a Power 5, although someone argued, you know,

about the level of competition, I suppose. I just, we're in a draft where a quarterback with outlandish outlier qualities from a side standpoint is going to be the first quarterback taken off the board. It's going to be bright, John. We've got 175 pound wide receivers left and right. Tank Dell is 163 pounds. We've got, you know, there's going to be players that are smaller than normal. I had a team tell me that Emmanuel Forbes played in a 160s at over six feet tall,

which is rail thin. I just saw a guy with no calves and J.L. Skinner, no calves at all. No, none. And he's six foot four. And I'm like, it was blowing me away, yet this. This guy's a hitter. He's physical. So I'm going to worry about the guy who's got mega production from Pitt,

who's undersized from Pitt and kill it. And now the only thing. It's almost like they've had a defensive tackle who was undersized who had mega production before. I had a history of this. Yeah. And so now the difference was that he murdered the senior bowl. Yeah.

We're talking about Aaron Donald. And he was a human door jam. Like you couldn't move him. That's not the case with, with, uh, with, uh, Cyancy. That's not the same case. But he is disruptive. I think he's more of a rotational run defender and every down pass rusher.

And, Dane, I mean, teams need defensive tackles. I don't know if the kid from Baylor can play three downs. Give me a guy that I know can make plays. I love guys that make plays. I know he's 280-ish pounds. I just don't care. He's a playmaker late in the first. I can't remember who I gave them to.

Cincinnati. Yeah, I gave him to the Bengals. And the Bengals are a team that have some, you know, they actually have some depth so they can play some games in terms of, hey, you know what, in this situation. Because the other thing that you can do with Cancy is move him around to whoever the weak point is on the defense and exploit them. So I just, I know Mel Kiper had him early and I thought, boy, that's ballsy, Mel, 280 pounds. And then I realized, I just kept moving him up saying, God, all he does is make plays. Am I really, to your point, Andy, productive guys are typically. He has productive.

The best football players seem to be the best football players. Yeah, and he has productive qualities. Like, he has qualities that will be productive. Is he going to get beaten and running? Yeah, but I said the same thing about Ad Oliver. Yeah, Ed Oliver is going to get pushed around sometimes. But he'll make enough explosive plays that it balances it. I agree 100%.

Because he'll be bullied at the goal line and some of that short yard and stuff. But he is so quick. I love his hands. They're violent. They're quick. He is a guy that is, I appreciate it. A lot more, the more I watched of him. So, yeah, we're on the same page with Kansas.

Yeah. One more before we wrap, because we were just talking about ideal size and less than ideal size. Your wide receiver won and your mock lance. Jalen Hyatt to Houston, really, really leaning into that Will Fuller comp. Yeah. But this is a guy who was 153 pounds coming out of high school, eat and eat and eat to get toward the 180s. Mm-hmm. And he's the first guy off the board.

Well, I mean, look, the year that Jay, that I took a little bit of heat the year that I didn't have Laquan Treadwell as the first pick or Corey Coleman. Now, that turned out. And I had Will Fuller. Will Fuller was the best of those three guys without question. Will Fuller's had injury issues, hamstring issues. But Will Fuller had bad hands. Like, he had hand problems coming out of college. But these two guys, man, it is freaky similar.

I think I made a Deshawn Jackson cop just to stay away from the Will Fuller injury stuff. and I think you can make the Deshaun Jackson Comp as well. They have similar body types. They both have a smoothness to their gate where you just, you wouldn't even know they're that fast except there's another player on tape that you see going much, much slower. I never saw one person run with him on tape at all this year. And if you're Houston and you've drafted Bryce Young.

And remember some of this is based on what you did previously, if you've drafted Bryce Young or you draft C.J. Stroud, you know, either one of those two guys. I've got Nico Collins as my big possession guy. I've got John Metchie coming back this year in the slot. And now I've got my guy that takes the top off the defense and can pull safeties off the line of scrimmage where Damian Pierce was a hammerhead last year. And really, you know, a godsend for that run game.

Now of a sudden I've got a dangerous home run threat and the team needs explosive plays. But he has an ancillary impact on the running game. And I don't think that's, I don't think enough is made of what a fast, wide receiver does two coverage schemes and how it can have an impact on not just the running game, but the possession receiver who maybe finds a little bit more of the slot receiver on the same side who finds a little bit more room to operate. So I went with Jaylen because frankly, I just think he is, I think a team's going to draft him for what he does well. Is he a guy

that's going to get in and out of breaks and be an intermediate route runner? No. He is an explosive. He's an explosive bat. He's an explosive receiver with a very specific set of skills. just like just like just like just like leonneson and taken yes there's an there's an explosive set of skills here and you don't and you don't want to be on the other end of have ask Alabama Alabama when they had to cover them they never changed their coverages up Kirby smart did it way different if you watch Georgia and um Jordan Addison's 175 pounds and he plays in the slot that's not what's special about that quentin johnston drops everything I mean he's big and fast but he didn't have the same impact on games on a consistent basis

that Jalen Hyatt hit, I can't find that wide receiver one that I could put ahead of Jaylon Hyatt, to be honest with you. I love it. That's great. And he does two things really, really well, the explosive speed and the ball skills. And I mean, if you could do those two things at a high level, you have tremendous value at the next level. So I get it. And I know what he is and I know what he isn't. And always remember, this is my thing I always try to, I preach to people, is when people talk about a player's limitations, like you've got a player who's a strong player, but he's not as athletic.

Well, I mean, he's not as athletic. Yeah, but the team drafting him is probably not going to run a lot of outside zone. They're drafting him for what he does well. Well, this player, you know, he doesn't have a lot of speed around the corner. Well, that team probably employs more speed to power and they may have speed on the other side.

Like teams know what the strengths and weaknesses are. So if there's a scheme-specific type of corner, that team who drafts him like Seattle back with cover three corners, they're drafting a specific corner. So he's probably going to be at his best. In some ways, schemes specific players are more likely to be drafted by the teams who are expecting to utilize them for what they do well

and try to avoid the things they don't do well. Right. And it's when they don't, when somebody who runs something completely different and says, oh, we can make you into this. That's where you have problems. But you're exactly right. And what Lance described in Houston, if they take the quarterback, you look at what else they have, you put those pieces together, Jalen Hyatt fits in very well there.

So I'm fascinated to see how all of this fits together. We'll have a lot to talk about now, between now and the combine. Guys, we'll be back next week. We'll do it all again. This was the Athletic Football Show.