The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Sam Darnold trade reaction & NFL Draft player comparisons with Lindsay Jones & Danny Kelly

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Following the Panthers' decision to trade away a few picks for Jets QB Sam Darnold, Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones react to both sides of the conversation. Did Carolina spend too much? What's the Jets plan now? Plus, Robert is joined by old friend Danny Kelly of The Ringer to dive into NFL draft player comparisons & which players he's looking at the most.Get the best discount you can on The Athletic as the NFL Draft is right around the corner - theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Fun show for you guys today. Danny Kelly from the Ringer. My buddy Danny is going to be joining us a little bit later to talk about how some recent player archetypes might affect the way we look at the 2021 draft class. Also, he's the king of pre-draft comps.

We're going to list off a couple of those. Really fun conversation with Danny. Before we get to that, though, I am thrilled to welcome. My good friend, Lindsay Jones. How are you? I am good, Robert. Our whole podcast plan blew up this afternoon, but I'm here for it. That's totally okay.

That's how we roll in April. I would much rather be talking about Sam Darnold getting traded to the Panthers than anything else as my dog rolls around in the floor in front of me. So here we are. We had a ton of quarterback movement or potential quarterback movement happened in the last week or so. We've had the Niners trade up and you and I have talked about all the dominoes yet to fall. And it felt like the Panthers were one of those teams that may be doing something. The biggest question we had about Carolina was, do the Panthers want any new quarterback or did they want a definite upgraded quarterback?

We knew they were on Matthew Stafford. They were interested in Deshawn Watson. We were curious what their draft plan might look like. And I think that this trade for Sam Darnold is definitive proof that they wanted anybody that is not Teddy Bridgewater because it does seem like they are committed to Sam Donald. So now that you've seen the trade, which I believe is a six-rounder this year, and a second rounder and a fourth rounder in 2022. How do you see this from the Panthers perspective?

Yeah, I mean, it didn't feel like my initial read on it was that this doesn't seem like a ton to give up. It does by committing two future draft picks, the 2022 draft picks, you have to be pretty committed to him and believe, though, that Donald is going to be good enough. because if he's not good enough, you've given up the capital that you would have needed to get yourself in position to get high into the draft again. It's it is a, they're in an interesting situation contractually with him. And we talked about this on the podcast last week when we kind of laid out some of the, we were talking about it mostly in relation with the Broncos. But with the darn old trade, the deadline to pick up his fifth year option is shortly after the draft. It's, it's sometime in that first week of May. So you have to assume now with Carolina giving up to 222.

two, two, 22 draft picks. That is hard. That is a mouthful. Two draft picks next year, that that's somewhat of a long-term commitment. So you have to think that they're going to at least pick up that option. They could redo that deal. They're not locked into him on the fourth year salary. They could still, you know, negotiate a different contract for him at that point.

But yeah, I mean, for Carolina, this is a sign that they think that Darnold isn't broken. They think he's fixable. They think with, you know, a brilliant young offensive. coordinator in Joe Brady, an offensive-minded head coach and Matt Rule, that maybe they're going to get the, you know, the post-Adam Gase bump that so many other players have benefited from, that, that, you know, 23-year-old Sam Darnold is not beyond saving. So that's clearly what Carolina is thinking. For the Jets, I mean, I was on the phone with an agent when this trade broke, and I read it to him over the phone, and he said, wow, that's a terrible deal for the Jets.

and it seems like a modest haul for the Jets. I mean, they're getting three picks. The fact, I guess you're getting a second next year, but they're not getting a ton for a guy that you took number three overall just a couple of years ago. I'm going the totally opposite direction with this. Sam Donald has been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL since he got to the NFL. If you look at it, there have been 51 quarterbacks that qualify with at least 300 snaps since Sam Darn was drafted in 2018. He ranks 49th in EPA per play among those quarterbacks.

The only two guys who have been worse than him are Dwayne Haskins and Josh Rosen. That's it. Those guys were available for nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that's not to say that Sam Darnold should be lumped in with those guys. It's not to say that Sam Darnold can't resurrect his career. I think that's a conversation we'll have in a second. But getting anything for him, any sort of draft capital, in my opinion,

is impressive. It's a second and I do think he was always going to get traded for something. But I don't think a second and a fourth is necessarily this terrible hall for somebody that we've seen be actively bad for three years. If you change his circumstances, I do think that there's a chance he's salvageable. But I also think you have to use your imagination and look and find something that we have not seen on an NFL field to think that Sam Donald is a long-term answer to a quarterback. I absolutely think the Jets.

did fine. This is how you and I know that, or I know that you and I are not offensive coordinators or head coaches in the NFL because they always believe they can see something in a guy. They believe, you know, offensive coordinators or offensive minded of head coaches, they always believe that a guy is salvageable, that they're going to be the ones that are able to fix this guy, especially a guy who's as young as Sam Darnold. And, and yes, he has been objectively bad. But this also tells me how bad a lot of the other coaches, or at least the coaches on the

Carolina staff believe that Adam Gase was because that's that is the answer because Mitchell Trubisky was also the second overall pick in 2017. Mitchell Trubisky signed a one year $2.5 million deal with the bills this offseason for nothing. The Jets just traded multiple draft picks for Sam Darnold and as Jonathan Jones from CBS reported are picking up his fifth year option. Like it is for two guys who have been about as bad as each other during their entire careers to be valued this differently by the NFL establishment says all you need to know about what everyone thinks about the job that Adam Gase has done.

And just, you know, also where they are in their timeline, too. And, you know, if Donald was a, and if Donald was a free agent at this point, it would be maybe a little bit, you know, what he would actually command on the open market. But, but man, it's interesting because I think, you know, you wrote last fall. about Sam Darnold and all of the potential landing spots and where he could fit. And, you know, there is still stuff to like about his skill set. I just feel like we know nothing about who he truly is. And that's because of Adam Gase, the just dysfunction, every weird injury that he ever had.

I mean, he had a spleen thing. He had mono. I mean, he's had every weird thing that has possibly ever happened to him. And that, I will say, that mono. game that he missed, gave us the greatest graphic, the greatest meme potential, forever, which the Carolina Panthers have already tweeted it out. They already put out of New York indefinitely and changed it to teal blue. Oh, I saw it.

That's some quick work. That's well done. I do think that if you're trying to spin this positively for Carolina, he is walking out of the worst circumstances possible into some of what, in my opinion, are the best circumstances possible solely play caller-wise. And the weapons, you know, DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson. He used to have Robbie Anderson. Now he has Robby Anderson and DJ Moore.

We've seen what the post-Adam gaze bump was like for Robbie Anderson. And you hope that the same thing can happen for Sam Arnold with Joe Brady. I mean, he was fantastic dialing up plays for that offense last year. There are significant questions about some of the personnel. They need a left tackle. This allows them to do that at eight potentially. Let's say Penny Sewell drops to them. with the eighth overall pick.

Which is possible. Certainly possible. And if people like Roshan Slater, they could get one of the two best tackles in the league at number eight now if they're not going to draft a quarterback. So some of those holes could get filled. This offense could look pretty good in terms of the infrastructure pretty fast. But I don't think it's necessarily a guarantee that Sam Donald's going to look appreciably better

in Carolina than he look with the Jets. He certainly could. But I do not think that it's a foregone conclusion for that to happen. So now, if you're looking at the Panthers' overall plan, I don't really understand it. Can you draw a through line or tie together all of the moves they've made over the last year to make this move for Teddy Bridgewater? And to have him for at least $10 million on your cap now, if you were to trade him in dead money, for him to be somebody you really committed to a year ago. And now it's not as if they're moving on from a clear upgrade.

they're moving on from a project that even if he has potential, has not been very good and has not been better than Teddy Bridgewater has been over his career. I just think that they're really swinging here in a lot of different directions and don't know exactly what they want to accomplish. Yeah, I mean, they always felt, and I said this last week too, they always kind of felt to me like the team before about a month ago, felt like the team that was angling most to make a serious run at Deshaun Watson. And that would have made sense.

This is not that. If this is a different timeline and the world is proceeding differently with everything related to Deshaun Watson, you could have said, okay, I see that plan. But yeah, I don't necessarily see this as, okay, they're a better team necessarily with Sam Donald, unless Sam Darnold has some Ryan Tannahill in him that all he had to do was get free of the Jets. And all of a sudden he's this new player. But that's a leap.

I mean, that's a really, really big leap of faith. And also, you're still on the books now for Teddy Bridgewater. It's not super easy for them to just move on from Teddy Bridgewater immediately. I mean, it's not this massive contract. It's not, you know, you're not taken on Carson Wentz amount of dead money or anything. But there's not a ton of options. And who out there right now is looking for Teddy Bridgewater? I mean, there's not exactly this like robust trade market now for Teddy Bridgewater either.

So you're kind of stuck in this uncomfortable situation where, you know, you, you wanted Teddy to be the guy last year. You sign him. By all accounts and everything, any of us have ever known or the time we've spent around Teddy Bridgewater, fantastic dude. You know, really easy to root for. You know, he got himself, you know, came back from that devastating injury, did what you're supposed to do as a backup quarterback to kind of get his career back off the ground, thought he got a chance to be a starting quarterback. And now for the second time in his career has been somewhere as the quote unquote starting quarterback when that team has replaced him with Sam Darnold, which is, you know, I guess it's kind of crazy that has happened to him now twice.

And I just don't know exactly where he goes from here. If he just ends up staying in Carolina's the backup, are they going to make this like try to make it a competition? I mean, by all accounts, they are going to try to trade him or restructure that deal. Because if you look at it right now, he's on the books for $23 million this year. And if Sam Donald is the presumptive starter, which I think he has to be when you consider what they trade for him and then picking up that option, then what are you going to do with Teddy Bridgewater? Again, I just think that it's really a scattershot plan. I mean, they have not displayed much patience when it comes to figuring out that position, what they want to be, how they want to build this overall. I just think that

it's really hard to distill what the plan is from that front office so far. I mean, obviously, Scott Fitterer is in his first year there, but I assume, like, all quarterback decisions are, this has to be somewhat ownership driven. And they're kind of, kind of, of urgency to do this all season has to be somewhat ownership driven. And I just don't know if that urgency is necessary or it's been channeled in the right ways when you look at the moves they've made a quarterback over the last year. And I just don't know who's out there right now who's actively trying to trade for Teddy Bridgewater. I think the only real team that we've talked about a lot that still has a potential seat at quarterback or would want to add

competition to their room is the Broncos. But Teddy Bridgewater is a $17 million base salary this year. I don't know if anybody wants to be trading for that if he's not going to be their clear cut starter. And I think that becomes the problem for Carolina to move him. Yeah. And I think, you know, this kind of maybe transitions us in to talk a little bit about the Broncos who, you know, we spent a lot of time on them last week.

And when we're talking about the draft, Carolina was kind of the other team that was in the mix. They were a spot ahead of them at eight. If the Broncos wanted to draft a quarterback, you thought you'd probably have to get ahead of Carolina. Well, now Carolina is out of that mix. There's one fewer team in this future draft coming up in a couple weeks that could be in the market for a quarterback. So, you know, for the Broncos right now, it kind of feels like if they're really going to do something significant to their quarterback room, it has to be in the draft now. And what does that mean for the moves they have to do?

Do they still need to try to move up? or does the way this board could fall now, really depending on what the Falcons do it for, they could have one or two quarterbacks there for them at nine without having to make a really significant move. That's kind of my question for Carolina here. Would it have been smarter to wait until the draft unfolded to see how it fell before you did something like this?

It's not as if the Panthers were Washington or Chicago, where, or even the Patriots, where you can add some talent or add a body to the room, but you weren't necessarily in a position to get one of the top four or even five quarterbacks in the draft. The Panthers of the eighth overall pick,

I'm sure they've done plenty of due diligence on where they could have moved to. And it's certainly possible that at eight, they called the Falcons, the Bengals, and obviously the Dolphins just traded back up. So they called the Falcons and the Bengals and said,

we're interested in going up there to get one of the guys. And the Falcons and the Bengals both said, no, thank you. That certainly could be possible. But even sitting at eight, it still feels like there are enough different ways for the draft to go that you might have been able to get a quarterback there. And that's the thing about the Donald thing. Maybe they don't see Mack Jones as an upgrade over Teddy Bridgewater necessarily. But is Sam Darnold?

That to me is the confusing part about this. I just don't know why you'd have to. make this move right now unless you had really good intel that someone else was going to swoop in and make this deal for Sam Darnold immediately. Well, and Ian Rappaport earlier today tweeted that the Jets and the Panthers, but as they've been negotiating and they've been negotiating over a couple weeks apparently on this, they said that the the Panthers were the best and sole suitor for Sam Darnold. So if you're the sole suitor, does it even matter if you're the best that you're I guess you're the only.

You know, I'm glad I'm sure I was the best in soul suitor for my husband, right? I mean, I don't know or vice versa. But I don't know if like, is that a compliment? I don't know or vice versa. So is that saying that the Broncos weren't actively in it? I mean, there was, you know, there's been a lot of speculation certainly here in Denver that they could have been in play for Darnold. But yeah, I mean, were they negotiating against themselves?

Could they have gotten themselves a better deal if they'd waited a little bit longer? I don't know. The whole thing of it is just odd and that we're here on April 5th and it feels like we've had a lot of these questions answered. I mean, how many more dominoes could potentially fall between now and April 29? We're running out of them.

And I think that's the craziest part is that I just didn't expect something like this to happen with this sort of timeline. Because the idea that the Panthers would be the only suitor, I think indicates that other teams that may have been interested in Sam Donald would have been interested in him as a fallback option. He would have been a breaking case of emergency type of, thing you'd turn to if the draft didn't fall your way. But the Panthers went out and made him a priority when it seems like certain ways the draft

could have shaken out would have made this a better option for them. I don't know. I just don't think that pursuing Sam Darnold, even if you didn't give up that much to get him, this is clearly prioritizing him and making a decision when you don't have all the available information about the way the quarterback dominoes are going to fall. And I just don't know why they needed to be in that much of a hurry. But here we are. Just racing to make some moves on April 5th.

I mean, I don't know. Do you have faith in Sam Darnold? Like, do you think this can work? No. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to completely write him off. I mean, I don't want to say he's like Josh Rosen and he's had his one chance and now he's done and we've kind of moved on from him. I don't want to latch on too much that like how.

young he is and how green is and gay stuff. I think that stuff is real enough. And I think that it's worth bringing up the fact that he's younger than Joe Burrow. He's about a year older than Mack Jones. All of that stuff I think is worth considering. But I also think that he would be the worst quarterback. He would have the longest track record of bad play of any quarterback that's ever become good. And especially when you consider the era.

So if you go back, I did this research when I was writing about him last year in the trades that could be made. There are quarterbacks who have been as bad or right in the range of Sam Darnold that ended up becoming good quarterbacks. Examples include Eli Manning, Alex Smith was really, really bad for his first three seasons. Drew Breeze was also not very good for his first few seasons in San Diego. But we're talking about 20 years ago when overall efficiency and ease of offense was in a much different stratosphere. than it is right now. With the way the game is played right now, it would be a complete historical outlier

for Sam Darnold to end up turning this around becoming an above average quarterback. And that is the bet that the Panthers have made. Do you think that they're hoping that, you know, he can kind of take a Josh Allen kind of leap? Is it a Ryan Tijuana leave? He's not that talented. Like, I don't think he's as physically talented

as Ryan Tannahill or Josh Eleanor. He's definitely not as physically. talented as Josh Allen. I know that for sure. Is he, and he's not as talented as Ryan? Well, Ryan Tannahill was like a freak athlete. He's now had like 18 ACL injuries.

You're really having to talk yourself into this. And you're really having to imagine something that's not there. And if you're going to do that as a contingency, if your original plan didn't work out, that's fine. But it seems like in some ways this is the original plan. Like this is the contingency, I guess, not getting to Sean Watson and Matthew Stafford, but it still feels like it would have been worth seeing the draft through

before committing this sort of emotionally committing and financially committing to Sam Donald as your quarterback for what seems like the next two seasons. Yeah, at least two seasons. Man. Don't you just love that it's another team that's making really frustrating quarterback decisions? I mean, I'm very used to it, but I think that, and I think a team like the Bears is a useful example.

Because there were no other avenues to get a high upside option, you could have argued about trying to go get a guy like Sam Darnold. But it seems like the Panthers potentially could have had a chance to get a higher upside option if they had waited and see how the draft worked out. I don't know. Maybe they just thought that there would be this. It really feels to me that they were just set on Watson and they thought Watson was going to happen and they had to abandon that plan. And this was they thought the best they could do. but I just, I don't think it's that much of a difference from Teddy Bridgewater. And I just don't know how much we learned about exactly what that Panthers offense

should have looked like last year when your best player, Christian McCaffrey wasn't a part of it. Their offensive line wasn't great. So I don't know. Good luck competing in the NFC South. It should be fun. This answers the questions for me of did they just want any other quarterback option? Yeah. And that just feels like you're getting impatient.

That's it. They just didn't like what they had and they were willing to go anywhere they needed to to try something different and see if it worked. out. Well, I'm going to make a meme of that for you from the Sam Darnold meme. Any warm body with Sam Darnold pointing right at you. It could work out. I have a lot of faith in Joe Brady. I think he's very good at what he does. If you play this out a hundred times, I'm just not sure how many of those outcomes have Sam Darnold as a better quarterback option for this offense than Teddy Bridgewater. Maybe it's half. I don't know. But it is a big, big risk. They didn't give up much, but I think

it's more about committing to Sam Donald instead of something else. That is the risk you run. It's not what you gave up to get Sam Donald. Even paying him $18 million next year, $19 million, whatever that fifth year option is going to be. That's tolerable when it comes to starting quarterback money. But I do think that that commitment and spending two years

chasing the idea of Sam Donald, that's the risk. Because if you can't channel that energy into another quarterback option and you're not sitting there next spring open to whoever might be available, everything else. That to me is what might be a problem. And because who knows? So now we need,

we need some mystery team to get involved in this like draft trade scenarios. Just to make, let's spice this up. Let's, uh, you know, we spent a lot of time last week talking about mystery teams. So that's what we need to happen now is this quarterback cycle.

Well, now that's, that becomes really interesting. Because if you're New England and Washington and the bearers and those teams that don't necessarily have long-term quarterback options. Now, if the fifth quarterback, whoever it might be, is sitting there with, I don't know, Dallas has the 10th pick, right? Has the 10th overall pick, maybe there is a guy available that just wasn't going to be for you because one of the teams we thought might draft a quarterback isn't going to do it.

So we say that, you know, one of the dominoes has fallen and we've had one of those questions answered, but this might just lead to more questions. So it's going to be fascinating to watch. All right, Lindsay, thank you very much for doing that. Always good to chat with you. We'll talk to you next week. See you later. I'm thrilled now to welcome my buddy, my old co-worker, Danny Kelly. Danny, how you doing, man? I'm doing excellent. Thank you for having me on the show, man. The ringers, Danny Kelly. I should make that clear. We worked together while I worked at the ringer. So when I was planning the draft shows that I wanted to do, every year I'm fascinated by this. because I think it's impossible to look at any given draft class without filtering it through how the league has been recently.

And that's trends, which we talked about a little bit with Scycicciccglenal last week. It could be certain play types and whatever. I think it's inevitable. It's human nature to react to whatever has just happened. And I think the same thing happens with player archetypes. And that's what I wanted to talk about with you today because one of the things you do in your fantastic draft guide, which you guys have not checked it out. You should go to the ringer.com and read it.

It's amazing. It's super well done. And they do it every year. And you do comps for every single player. And your comps are hilarious and they're fun. And we're going to get into some of those comps. But I think those inform the way we think about the league and the way that we connect certain player types and body types and skill sets and everything else.

So if you looked at last year, for example, like Henry Rugg's going 12th overall to the Raiders. I don't think that happens in a world where Tyree Kill doesn't exist. Right. And you know this extremely well with the amount of 6 foot to 33 inch armed cornerbacks that were drafted from like 2012 through 2017 because the Seahawks exist. So I want to talk about what sort of examples there might be for this year's draft. So just right off the bat, I think the one that jumps out to me has informed a conversation we've had for the last week about the Niners. and that's the idea of these raw talented quarterbacks shaping what teams might want. And I just think, and I don't know if you agree with this, I feel like if Josh Allen and

Justin Herbert didn't exist, we would be having a much different conversation about the direction that the Niners should go with the third overall pick. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think you're spot on. And honestly, the Josh Allen pick and the Justin Herbert pick have completely changed the way that I look at quarterbacks, too. You know what I mean? it's like I'm now, basically what I've become is much more open-minded about what these

quarterbacks can be. Like Josh Allen in particular is probably going to end up creating a whole lot of quarterback busts ultimately because he is, he somehow was able to learn how to become accurate and develop and become a much more polished quarterback than he was in college. And I think the big question around him coming out of school was basically, can you learn to be accurate, can you improve in that area? Or is that just God-given talent and you just either have it or you don't have it? And I think what he's proven is you can develop it. You can get better at it. You can improve on it. In some cases, you know, he's still, you still have to

throw off platform and do all those things where I guess like your instinct sort of kick in and you're not you're not doing it as fundamentally sound or whatever. But he's been night and day, basically from what we saw both in college and like his early couple of seasons, both accuracy and decision making. So that number one is just, I think that answers that question, but it's also going to like open Pandora's box because all these teams are now going to be like, okay,

well, this guy wasn't very accurate in college, but we can make him accurate. And then the thing with Justin Herbert, I think that is very interesting is his tape as a rookie is like better than anything we saw in college, almost, I feel like. And so I don't think it's, it's not almost better. I think it's definitely better.

I just want to throw my hands up and be like, I don't know. Any of these guys can be good. Like, let them go play. You know what I mean? Put a good sport system around them. I think coaching is obviously a very big deal. I think support system is going to be a very big deal for all these guys. I don't know what the actual lesson here is, but I do think you're right that teams are going to be more willing to take these, quote, raw guys.

You know, Trey Lance, I think is the perfect example. Totally. 17 career starts. Didn't even barely play this year. You know, is that a lower level of common. competition. So there's like multiple strikes against this guy and he still could be a top 10 pick. And I think he probably deserves to be. And I feel like the question here is precedent. Because that really, really matters for people that are making these decisions within teams.

I remember last year, I had somebody with a team, like a decision maker with a team, talked to me about the Justin Herbert six, six stuff and how there just hadn't been quarterbacks that tall that were successful. This is a real thing. This is not just like a joke. These are real conversations that happen in NFL front offices because until you see something happen, it's hard to bet on it happening. Past performance and past outcomes are the best indicator of future outcomes. And when you look at a guy like Josh Allen, that suddenly turns on some light bulbs because people look at it and say, oh, well, that worked. We've actually seen it work. And I think the same thing happens with certain types of players using certain types of scenarios, right?

Like, take Kyle Pitts, who is, in a lot of people's estimation, the best player in the entire draft. It's not Trevor Lawrence. Right. It's a lot easier to understand the ceiling that Kyle Pitts has and what he can do for your team in a world where both Travis, Kelsey, Aaron, and Darren Waller exist. Because it plays with a lot of different things. With Waller, I think the skill set and everything else is aligned in a way that you don't have to use a lot of imagination. but it also helps you understand the value of tight ends because you can look at the way a team like Kansas City or the Raiders use their tight end as their ex receiver and all of that other stuff. And you could say, well, he's not just the tight end.

Look at how these teams use them. And just by those one or two examples, it can completely transform and reshape the conversation around a player like him. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, having guys like Kelsey and Waller who are both, you know, the number one guys in their offense. basically. Like, they're the number one receivers in their offense. I guess you could talk about Tyree Kill, too, obviously, being there. But I think Kelsey and Waller are the go-to guys in their offenses.

And it's almost like the positional designation doesn't really matter. Like the way that they're able to create mismatches, whether they're in line or, you know, X-ISO or Y-I-So or whatever, you know, no matter where they're lined up on the field, they can create mismatches for the defense. And so I think, you know, with any of these players, with any draft eligible prospect, you have to go to a team that's willing to kind of like use you for your, for your skill set and use you in the right way. I think there's a lot of coffee hats. Whenever we're talking about guys before the draft, that it takes landing in a situation where a coach is going to know how to use these guys, I think, correctly,

especially when you're sort of talking about a guy like Pitts where there's really zero good comps like for him previously based on like his size, his skill set of speed, all that stuff. Darren Waller's probably the closest one, but, and obviously he had a different career path, I guess. And so it's really hard to find a one-to-one comparison for Kyle Pitts because he's just kind of like, he is the unicorn. That's what a lot of people are calling him on Twitter and stuff. But I do think it's going to matter where he goes and what kind of coach he's going to have

and what kind of system he's going to be in because you have to be able to utilize him to his elite potential to really get all that out of him. So, I don't know, Pitts to me is one of those guys where you look at the history of the tight-end position and the top 10 guys have not really panned out as well as you'd like, and that will scare people off. Like you said, the precedent thing where there's just not a lot of guys taking into the top 10 at that position, that's going to scare some teams off probably. And they'll be like, oh, well, you know, we can get a guy in the second round and he can make an impact. But some team is going to fall in love with this guy, take him, and hopefully he'll

change the narrative around that, that tight-end position thing. I just don't really understand that because I think the only reason you would list him as a tight end is because he can be an inline blocker. You aren't inherently less valuable because you can do one more thing. So that's why I just don't really understand the conversation around him. If you look at what Travis Kelsey is for the Chiefs, he is their ex-receiver on a lot of situations, in a lot of situations, in a lot of the way they use him and Waller is the same. So if you're a wide receiver often enough, I think that you can be valued as a wide

receiver. I don't think that just because you put your hand in the ground every once in a while, it suddenly makes you less valuable. So I just haven't understand that conversation. But when you watched Pitts, did you immediately go to Waller as like, okay, that is the only thing I have to compare this to. Did you find yourself doing that? Or did you trend in that direction after you'd heard other people start mentioning it? First of all, I usually go and look at like height, weight-ish to like get in the ballpark of Comson. I think he was like right around the same size as Darren Waller. So that was an easy comp. But I think the way he moves, the way they move, like move him around in the formation,

how good he is at the catch point. Darren Waller is super underrated as like a contested catch player. Totally. He's really good at the catch point. I think overall, just generally speaking, Waller is super underrated. But he was the first guy I went to just because of the athleticism and the size. He's a little bit like, quote, undersized for being the tight end position. I think he's like 240 or something like that.

So, you know, he's not necessarily the prototypical Y tight end type of guy. And there's just not very many guys like that in the NFL that are that impactful in the passing game. And so he was definitely the first guy I thought of. And then I came up with this much later. But he also reminds me of Michael Phelps on his pro day. Because there are so few one-to-one comps for him in terms of just like size, length, speed. Like the other thing is he has like 84 or something inch wingspan, which unbelievable. The biggest on like record, like they don't have any other tight ends that have.

have had that kind of like those dimensions. And so I was actually texting with you about this. Like he reminds me of Phelps because Phelps was like genetically designed to be a swimmer. He was like born to be a swimmer. You know, like the really long arms, huge flipper hands. I think you told me this. He has like webbing for in his feet. Yeah, it's kind of like how DeAndre Hopkins has webbed hands.

It's the same kind of deal. So, you know, Michael Phelps like you, he just is the perfect body type to be a swimmer. And obviously, you know, he worked his ass off to get. get to where he is. But there, but with Kyle Pitts, like the guy is designed to be a pass catcher. He's just he was born to do this very fast. His movement skills, I think, are really underrated. Like, when you watch him, he looks like a basketball player out there, the way he can move like a, like a, you know, small forward or something because he's just so smooth, really good body control. A lot of guys, like his size, his height are going to be kind of like lumbering around and. Or they can't throttle down.

When you have that sort of speed, can you change speeds? Can you control? your movements in a certain way. And I think of the little I've watched him, that's what really jumps out to me too, is that he can do that kind of stuff. Absolutely. So I'm really excited about him as a prospect. It's going to be very fascinating to see how high he goes.

Because I think that has now become sort of the consensus that outside of the quarterbacks, he might be the most talented player in the draft. Well, this is a conversation I think Nate and I are going to have tomorrow, and I think it's come up a lot in the last few days, and I've been dragged into it in a way that I don't totally appreciate. But this Pettes-Sul-Germar-Chase argument, about the Bengals and how

positional scarcity, I think, should inform the thought process there. And that's why I think that if you're going to make an argument for getting the best pass catcher at number five if you're Cincinnati and the guy you can't get anywhere else, the answer is Kyle Pitts. It's not Jamar Chase. Kyle Pitts is the best offensive weapon

and not even best. I think that's, to reframe that a little bit, the rarest. He is the rarest offensive weapon in the draft. And that's why I think if you're, the Bengals or the dolphins, you could absolutely talk yourself into getting him at five or six,

even if he theoretically plays a less valuable position because he can play a tight end every once in a while. Which, again, that's an entirely different thing. Yeah, I totally agree. The other one I thought was worth mentioning is that because, again, the teams that are winning, the teams that are in the spotlight, everything else, does the way you watch Micah Parsons,

is that affected by how good Devin White has been for the box. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think I don't have it in front of me, like in terms of the track record of linebackers taking in the top five, top 10 or whatever, but, you know, I think generally speaking, yeah, it's not like something, it's not like a tackle or a big time pass catcher or whatever, quarterbacks obviously are huge in the top 10. And you want a guy that's going to be super, super impactful. And the way that the NFL is going these days, right, is defenders are getting smaller, you have to cover. Like, that's the big thing. You have to be able to cover. And, you know, there's all these things where the modern linebacker is sort of shrinking and turning into like,

almost like a big safety. With Parsons and with white, like, I went back and I was just watching some white this morning because I was trying to like remember exactly how, you know, the Buccaneers used to him. He's just in the backfield. He lives in the backfield all the time. And the way he's able to like juke and slide off of blocks, that really did remind me actually a lot of Michael Parsons. Like, Michael Parsons is essentially a pass rusher who's playing linebacker. And I think that kind of... You almost can't find the plays where he's in coverage.

There's only like three or four of them in a given game. It's kind of wild, actually. Yeah. He doesn't... He didn't play a lot of man. He was, if anything, he was like spot dropping and kind of just hanging out in zones. But then they were also using him as like a delayed blitzer coming off the edge. You know, that skill set, I think is really interesting because he's in the pros.

He's going to live in the backfield. He's going to be, I bet you'll have a ton of tackles for a loss. He's probably going to get a few sacks. he's that type of player that can really impact the game in that way. Now, I think the question is, can he cover and if the team gets him and asks him to run in man coverage, like that, I guess, is like a projection because you don't see it a lot in his college tape. And he's relatively new to the position. Like he was a high school pass rusher.

So I think he has the athleticism, the, again, the body control change of direction, all that stuff to be a really elite player. But again, it's like finding the right fit for him and finding a team that wants to utilize that skill set. is going to be key for him. I think of the other guy that I would throw out in terms of his pre-draft profile is what Anthony Barr was coming out. Because Barr was somebody who did a lot of pass rushing at UCLA was obviously physically gifted and was asked to play off the ball when he got to Minnesota. But for the most part, it was a projection. You had to use your imagination in order to get to that place. And it worked out. He's been a very good player and does a little bit of everything.

But it's not as simple to me as saying, all right, these are the other. off-ball linebackers that have gone on the top 10. Like, in my opinion, a guy like Michael Parsons is a vastly different player than somebody like Devin Bush was, for example. Right. Who could blitz a little bit. But, and I think that if you look at the way that the Bucks have used Devin White, that to me is kind of a best case scenario with Michael Parsons.

And I think there are gaps in that, right? Like, I feel like Devin White was overrated for a good portion of last year because he is a little bit lost in coverage. And I think early in his career, Michael Parsons probably will be that too. But you can see the value by the, which. the way the team, a team like Tampa Bay used him where he's adding on into stunts and he's blitzing late and everything else and he has a feel for that, I think it helps inform what a team could see in Michael Parsons because we've seen it so recently. And I just don't think

without that, I would be as optimistic about the way that he could work out. I also think the one difference that is worth match between him and White is that because he's longer, there's a little bit more margin for error in coverage because his arms are there's just more space that he covers and that you compared him to Tremaine Edmonds because he has that sort of frame and I think that's the difference between him and white is this the overall length that they have so those are the ones that I was thinking of what do you think are some of the other archetypes or just desirable player types that have cropped up in the last couple of years that have informed the way you've watched this draft and you think might inform the way teams are watching this draft yeah the first thing that

comes to my mind is watching safeties in college can be a challenge because, you know, a lot of times they're playing like three defensive back looks, three safety looks. You're not seeing a lot of just like very standard cover three where a guy is like ranging around in the back by himself type of deal. It's, you know, like playing over the slot, playing in the box, playing down, you know, off the edge or whatever.

Like, safety's in college do that a lot. So I think teams are still looking, and from the NFL point of view, teams are always going to be looking for the Tyron Matthew, Jamal Adams, Derwin James archetypes where you can have guys. And those are all, those three are different type players too. So it's like basically what I'm saying is very versatile, multiple skill set type guys that can line up in multiple areas.

Last year we saw, you know, guys like Xavier McKinney, Grant Delpit, Jeremy Chan, Kyle Duger. And then this year, there's a few guys that fit in that mold too for me. Like Jeremiah Wussu Coromo from Notre Dame. We'll get to him. We'll get to him. Jvonne Holland from Oregon, Elijah Molden from Washington. So to me it's like you see these guys and you watch the tape and you're like, okay, I like them, ball skills.

You know, they're very instinctive. But with a lot of these guys, it's like, I don't really know exactly like where they fit. They're not like with Elijah Molden. He's like very instinctive, flies around. But he's short. He doesn't have length and he's not super fast. So what is he? you know what I mean in the NFL is he going to be like a slot corner is he going to be like a nickel

safety is there a difference and so I think these like tweener type guys I think number one I think a lot of these guys are coming out of college game and number two I think NFL teams are still looking for these kind of guys to like plug into their defense guys that can match up with either a slot receiver or a running back or a tight end and kind of hold their own so that's one archetype that definitely comes in mind I think a few guys fit into that and then when you were when you're talking about the quarterbacks. You know, I think the raw thing where you're turning a lump of clay into a good, good player at the next level, the other thing that I think has happened over the last few

years is the so-called like sandlot quarterbacks. Those guys are having sort of like they're much more, I don't know if accepted is the right word. Like teams are actually looking for that more now. Like you got Mahomes, Russell Wilson and Aaron Rogers are kind of like three that come to mind for me. And I think all three of those guys are. benefiting a guy like

Zach Wilson who obviously the arm strength and the arm talent is apparent but like the way he plays like he carries it low he throws for multiple arm angles he whips it around he like will go across his body across the field no look past type things I feel like in the old days or at least like 10 years ago

NFL teams would have looked at Zach Wilson as an undersized improviser with bad fundamentals who trusts his arm too much and now they're looking at him like this guy can be Mahomes 2.0 or Rogers 2.0 because of what he can do, you know, after the play breaks down. So I think there's been a change in mindset among NFL teams

where they actually look at Sandlot skills as like a positive thing, whereas in the past it was like, oh, he can't play in structure, you know. He can't get the ball out immediately. I'm not saying that Zach Wilson can't do that, but I'm saying that style of quarterback, I think would have been looked down upon a lot more in the past, whereas now it's Zach Wilson is one of the most exciting prospects in the entire class. And then thirdly, I just think this has been a thing,

and it's going to be a thing every draft, is the positionless offensive playmaker, the Cobb, the Harvin, the Debo Samuel. You got a few guys in this class. Cadarius, Tony, Rondell Moore, Elijah Moore, Mari Rogers, few others who fit that mold as like slot receiver slash running back slash whatever, like do sweeps, end rounds, take the ball from the backfield, all that kind of stuff. And I think teams are always going to be looking to add those kind of guys too. I also think that if you look at, so me and Seth Gleena last week spent a lot of time talking about how some of the schematic trends on defense in the NFL inform the types of players that teams might be looking for.

And we talked about safety for a while for similar reasons to what you're talking about. Just that, you know, you have guys that are, they're helped by, you know, certain aspects of how they're lining up and the way that they're split field coverages so they don't have to cover as much ground and you're almost protected by other players. So you don't, their range doesn't matter as much. So I think all of that is true. And I think if you look at what's happening on the offensive side of the ball, think about how many teams now have touched or are adjacent to the Shanahan-type offense. I mean, think about how many you could list. The Rams, the Niners, the Packers, the Titans, the Falcons now, the Jets.

The Jets now, the Browns now, the Vikings now. I mean, you're almost at a third of the league. That's crazy. Those are all different. But I also think that it's beyond, and I think the Niners are a perfect example, right? They clearly have a type with the sort of receivers that they want to go after. Totally. The fact that they drafted Debo Samuel and Brandon Ayuk in back-to-back years shows, and Shenahan's talked about this,

essentially saying that there isn't as much true traditional route running in college football because of the types of defenses they play against the type of offenses they play. So you're really able to just judge guys that are good with the ball in their hands and what they can do after the catch. And they have chased the best guys at that. And if you go look at what the Niners' offense is like, there's a ton of that kind of stuff. There's a lot of yak opportunities. There's a lot of just short completions where let's get, let guys get the ball in their hands, even running plays, the guys at DiBio Samuel.

But even beyond kind of the gadgety stuff they do, look at a team like the Titans. Even though those two receivers are more traditional outside receivers, the number of drift routes within their offense where it's just play. play action in breaking, get the ball to the guy on the move, there's tons of that. And that's not real refined route running stuff. Like late separation on those plays is nice at the top of routes. But for the most part, you're just trying to get the ball in the guy's hands and let him go to work. And I think that's why if more and more offenses are going to run plays like that and try to get balls into their guys's hands behind linebackers on the move left to right, having guys that are

just really good with the ball in their hands. that are plus plus athletes becomes even more important than guys who are necessarily refined players at the position. And I just think that's going to become more and more prevalent as more and more teams run that type of offense. So it's just fascinating because it almost feels like the game in a way has set up for guys to be better route runners. They're running more routes than ever.

They also understand coverage structures better. Like the number of seven on seven reps you're going to have played in your life and saying, well, this guy's capping this guy and the way he's lined up. It's just all of that information is just more robust with receivers now that it never has been before. But also, the amount of space being created through play action is bigger than it's ever been. So that stuff is less important. It's just it is, that's why it's so, so hard to scout receivers really well. And we never know which ones are going to end up being the best ones. Yeah. So this, the whole time you're speaking, I was just reminded myself of A.J. Brown. The

AJ Brown evaluation coming in was he only ran out of the slot. You know what I mean? He was not running like a really full route tree. He didn't have a ton of experience, at least in his last year there, playing on the outside. He was essentially a slot receiver, obviously a slot receiver that was built like an X receiver. But I think that was like important part of like the context is I remember writing this in my report. Like, you know, he's a big explosive slot receiver that can get yards after the catch. and I probably way undersold him because he mostly played in the slot.

Now, you throw him in that offense and he's perfect for what they're doing. The same could be said about like D.K. Metcalfe, you know, very limited route tree, can't run a three cone to save his life. But he is really, really good at a few routes and they get him in the NFL, and he's perfect in the Seahawks system where he can just run a go route or he can run like a deep overrout where they're playing off play action. He's just going to run away from a defender. So it does make scouting.

Receiver is really difficult, but it's also. I think this is like the golden age of receivers because of all this stuff you talked about offensively that's happening. It's like you get these guys can just go out there and be really, really good athletes and, you know, make a difference. I think that the AJ Brown and D.K. McHaff outcomes are really telling and they're informative for what we should be thinking about because it's just betting on traits and figuring it out later. And one of the reasons that's difficult to do or was difficult to do for a really long time is because it wasn't that long ago where there were not nearly enough offenses in the league

that were actively helping their players get open. I think that we are not that far removed from really static offense throughout the NFL. The coaching is just better. And I think that teams are more willing to just let their guys do what they're good at. And I think the AJ Brown and DK Macon for the perfect example,

you take these guys who are plus plus physical specimens. And as rookies, you don't say, I want you to be Devante Adams or Keenan Allen. You say, This is what you do really well. Let's tailor the offense and your role in the offense to what you do really well. Go back and watch what A.J. Brown did as a rookie compared to what he did last year. Way less stuff outside the numbers vertically.

He's just getting the ball on yak opportunity after yak opportunity, just tunnel screens, but also just again, in breaking routes where they're creating space for him and letting him go to work. D.K. McHaff lined up on the left side running vertical routes in the Seahawks offense his entire rookie year. He's got one look. That position is so, it's why it's so fascinating because unlike something like Corner or I guess Corner, you can kind of do this, but unlike something like offensive line or cornerback or quarterback, you can't play situationally in those positions. You just have to play against everything.

At receiver, you can completely tailor it around what a guy does really well as he learns the game. Right. And I just think that's why betting on guys that do well. with the ball in their hands after the catch and just have these outlandish physical abilities. That's the thing you should bet on because you can have guys come along slowly and because we're creating more space

than we've ever created in the entire sport. And I think that's in some ways, the evaluations of that position are a little bit outdated. And I'm guilty of that as anyone. When I was watching D.K. Matcalf, I was just like, no. Like, I don't, because I am so far onto the Devante Adams, Keenan Allen,

Stefan Dig, side of things. Those are the players I love. And watching somebody who's a little bit stiff and doesn't have a nuanced understanding of the position, I'm like, pass. Like, you can, he's the best athlete there is,

but that's not what I want. But now I just think that that is the way of thinking about things 10 years ago and not now with this basketball on grass type of approach that we're taking to the game. Yeah, I mean, and when you think about it, like obviously this is a broad generalization,

but like NFL offensive have changed a lot where in the old days with like your devante adams example a guy has to get to a spot like at the exact right time where the quarterback hits his back foot and gets the ball out and if you're not there at the exact right time like it's going to mess the entire play up you're going to have you know interceptions are going to be thrown and this precision precision timing and getting to where you're supposed to be it's like so hard that's why you'd see like receivers come to league and not play for the first two years is because they're trying to learn. There was that third year breakout. That was always the conversation.

Yeah. Your three break out with receivers. And it just, I mean, the other thing is like option routes and things like that. Like you're trying to read the defense and, figure out what you're supposed to be doing, be on the same page as a quarterback and all that stuff. It's just very complex. And like you've been mentioning it's here is like now teams are saying, look, we got these elite athletes. They can really be explosive playmakers for us. But we just got to put them in a position to succeed. And maybe coaching is getting smarter or maybe coaching is just getting more flexible. I don't know exactly what it is, but I think it's here to stay in the sense that teams are going to be more catering more to what college players know how to do

because they've seen the success that these guys have had early on in their careers. I think more flexible, more open-minded, all of that stuff is real. And I also just think the amount that we're using these kind of things, Ryan Tannenhill used play action on 36.4% of his dropbacks last year. Five years ago, in 2016, when Matt Ryan won the MVP award, he led the league and play action percentage at 27.6. 10 percentage points higher and it's not just one outlier. Matt Ryan led the league at 27.6% in 2016. Do you know how many quarterbacks were above 27.6 this year? 16. 16 guys.

And I think that smart teams. I talked to a play caller about this recently, just about looking at the, if you're looking at the pie of plays that the Titans use, how much drop, how much pure play action is what they're doing. And I think smart teams are going to try to increase that slice of their pie. And as more teams try to copy that sort of thing,

we're going to see more space created for receivers. It all starts starting to piling on one another. If you're looking at those after the catch kind of playmaking types in this draft, do you have a favorite? Ooh, that's a very good question. And so I think Elijah, I don't know if Elijah Moore fits perfectly into this category, but he is one of my favorite sort of sleepers in this draft. And I think he could even sneak into the first round potentially.

But he is, you know, sort of known as like a slot only receiver. You know, he's not super big, but he's very explosive with the ball on his hands, very good athlete. He never drops the ball. So, like, I trust him to be the kind of guy he's going to catch a ball. Like, you know, like tunnel screens and stuff like that where you're running towards the quarterback and trying to catch the ball sort of like knowing you're potentially going to get hit.

That's not like an easy catch. Like you can trust a guy like that to do that on the move over the middle of field on, you know, little slant routes, things like that. So Elijah Moore would be one that I really, really like. And then obviously I think the one most interesting guy fitting into this discussion is Cadarious Tony from Florida because he is, you know, very raw as a route runner. He does a lot of, you know, just sort of like improvising his routes, kind of just like doing whatever he feels like he should do like down the field.

And I think that could rub, you know, a lot of quarterbacks or play callers the wrong way. But if you get him the ball, he's very, very elusive, breaks a ton of tackles. It's almost like uncanny how he can break tackles. It comes out of these like three-man scrums and he just like keeps going all of a sudden. Just appears from a pile. All of a sudden he's still running. But he's not the kind of guy. like we've been saying like that you're just going to line up and run him in like a normal offense or else it's going to be a catastrophe.

You have to like kind of ease him in, I think, and get him looks, get him touches and then teach him, you know, some of the more intricacies of the position. But it's looking more and more like he's going to be a first round pick. Like he's that explosive. He's that dynamic after the catch. But I think in the wrong offense or in the wrong coaching staff, like in the hands of the wrong coaching staff, it could be bad. And I think that's, it goes back to the receiver thing. I wonder how many of those were going to, I wonder how many coaching staffs were going to kind of label that here over the next few years. And how many teams we think are truly bad spots for some of these guys.

Because I almost think we're running out of them. Like, I feel like for the most part, the baseline level of offensive coaching and the number of schemes. Adam Gase isn't anywhere anymore. Like there are no Adam Gase offenses right now. And I do think those are starting to shrink. And that's why these types of guys, I think we're going to keep seeing be successful because of that, just because of how many teams there are going to be that are able to use them well. All right.

Let's get to some of your favorite cops that you had in this draft class. And I'm going to throw out a couple as well. So why don't you start with Zach Wilson? Because this one I really, really like. All right. So I had Wilson as Baker Mayfield slash Henry Rowengartner. And for people that didn't grow up, whatever, whatever is this was like the 90s, early 90s. It was 1994, I believe. 94. A movie directed by Daniel Stern.

All time great filmmaker. Yeah. So obviously, this is a joke. It's kind of like tongue and cheek. But for a few reasons I had the rookie of the year in my mind, basically, Zach Wilson looks like he's probably about 15 years old. And the story of rookie of the year is he breaks his arm. And for whatever reason, the tendons like heal up and you can throw 100 miles an hour all of a sudden. And so like Wilson is this like baby face guy, but just has like a whip for an arm, throws from all different angles. It surprises the hell out of you. You don't really understand exactly how he could. So like for the pro day throw that everyone was like, you know, freaking out about, you watch that. And it was legitimately like an impressive throw. Like I didn't really get how he could

generate that kind of velocity the way he was moving. It was like all sort of like in the rotation of his upper body and like his arm. And it was like, you know, he didn't like set his feet. He basically just whipped it with his upper body. So yeah, that's my, that's my comp. Like, Baker Mayfield was kind of the first guy I thought of when I watched him. That might be selling him short a little bit, but I'm not ready to go to like the Aaron Rogers thing quite yet is kind of like the deal. But yeah, he to me was, you know, just like the dynamic arm, like the ability to throw from different like arm slots and platforms is kind of like how you define him. So rookie of the year, yeah. It's funny because when you watch rookie of the year, which I've seen many,

many, many times. Ricky is a very important film to me. As a kid who grew up in Chicago in the 90s, I was six years old and Ricky the year came out. I've seen it a lot of times. If you've ever seen it, there's a comical sound effects whenever he throws the ball,

it's like a snapping sound. It's exactly what it's like. When you're watching Zach Wilson play, you can almost hear that snapping sound on some of those plays because it doesn't look like it should be moving that quickly. And I do think that's the biggest thing Because when you watch Baker Mayfield, Baker Mayfield is capable of generating a lot of power, but he's doing it in the pocket.

On the move, he's not going to be able to generate that sort of power because he needs to have his cleats in the ground and he really needs to push off and use that rotation to generate velocity. Wilson is able, he has so much more creativity on the way that he throws. Baker is not going to be able to make those sort of throws from those sorts of arm angles while he's on the move. and his best stuff and when he's really putting some RPMs behind it, that's when he's sitting in the pocket. And Wilson's not like that. He just has that creativity where it looks like his arm is snapping in a comical way, which I completely agree with.

All right. Let's get to your next one here. Who'd you have for Najee Harris? I assume everyone knows who these people are. Naji Harris is the running back from Alabama. Correct. Yes. So I had Stephen Jackson for him. I think the Naja Harris comps are very interesting because he's another

type of guy who doesn't have a ton of like very strong spot spot on one to one comps because he's big physical you know you just don't see many running backs that are like six foot two and in his size and so i won't see even jackson a little bit further back but like jackson big physical guy like grinder type running back but also very effective in the running or in the passing game you know soft hands all that stuff uh and that's kind of like how i would think of Harris is like a dynamic physical, you know, three-down back grinder type player who can, you can give him 20, 25 carries in a game and it'll be fine with it. But also very effective in the passing game. I think that's like the big thing about him is he's going to be a pass catcher in the NFL offense.

I think that's huge. And so, yeah, Stephen Jackson, I don't know if I necessarily think this is like the closest comp, but he was the guy I thought of. I like that a lot. And when I watch him play, it almost feels like this amalgam of. Stephen Jackson and Matt Forte. Because he's taller like Matt Forte was. Forte was six foot two. He's really smooth

in the passing game like Forte was like Stephen Jackson is. But his running style isn't as smooth as Forte's. It's almost more violent like Stephen Jackson's. So it almost feels like a combination between those two guys. I see people have compared him to Forte. I see

the Forte stuff. I also he doesn't have quite as much straight line speed as Forte had. I think that's the biggest difference. Forte ran a 4-4-4, I believe, at the Combine. Harris did not run Alabama's pro-dix and he's nursing an injury, but on tape he's not that fast. He does not have that breakaway speed like Forte did.

So I almost think, again, that's why he compares a little bit more to Stephen Jackson, but the height and he's actually coming in a little bit older the same way that Matt Forte did it. I know that's not a stylistic thing, but Forteay was also 23 when he came into the league, the same way Harris is going to be. So I completely agree with both of those. Stephen Jackson also, both of those guys, Forte and Stephen Jackson, all-time favorites. Like, dudes that I could not have enjoyed watching more when I did.

I mean, Stephen Jackson was older than Forte, but both of them were on their teams while I was in college. And I went to school in Missouri. One of my buddies, it was my roommate, was a huge Rams fan. Stephen Jackson was his all-time favorite player because Stephen Jackson was the only tolerable player on the St. Louis Rams during that era. It was really rough. Those days when Stephen Jackson was amazing. The Rams were not. That's all I have to say.

All right. I feel like Stephen Jackson to me, I think when I'm picturing him, I feel like I'm, hopefully I'm not misremembering this, but I feel like he had a really good like stutter step hesitation move. And I see the same thing with Najee Harris. He's like, like he said, he's not a home run hitter, but he's quick and he can like get guys off balance by like doing like little, you know, like rock or step type moves or hesitation moves that kind of get guys off like balance.

And I see that a lot in Harris too. And I think that's why it compares a little bit more to Jackson than Dustin does Forte to me because Forte was a smooth glider. And with Harris, you watch him and it's a little bit more violent and sudden in the way he's putting his feet down. And I think that reminds me of Jackson. All right, let's get to Travis ETAN. Let's stick with the running backs here. The way we shape this, we're trying to talk about some positions that we haven't talked about on the show yet

or we're not talking about tomorrow with Nate. So there's not going to be a lot of wide receivers in this group. So let's stick with the running backs. Who'd you have for ETN? So for ETN, this one's a little bit off the wall, and it's not what I think he's going to be in the NFL. It was mostly because I think ETN has a weird running style, like it's a little bit herky-jurkey. Like when you watch him, it feels like he's all shoulders. I don't know, like when he's running, he's just like churning out yards with his shoulders.

So I comped him to Darren McFadden, who was also a four-three-type runner with a sort of stiff herky-jurkey-jurkey running gate. but explosive explosive acceleration. And that's really the big thing with me for ETN is he's extraordinarily explosive as an accelerator. He can get to top speed immediately. And that makes him elusive. He's not like a shifty guy. Like that's kind of like, you know, make a lot of guys miss probably in the backfield. But what he does do is explode at two top speed and then break through arm tackles.

And like basically surprises guys. and beats them to the corner or like totally just annihilates your pursuit angle. Like his speed is almost like surprising, which is weird because he's, you know, famously a very explosive runner. But I still think like just the way he runs, it almost like it doesn't look like he should be as fast as he is, I guess. And so I wouldn't make fadded purely based on like running, like the way he looks when he's running.

Not like this is what he's going to be as a pro, basically. Yeah, it's interesting because he's the exact same size as Alvin. They're both 510-215. But he's not nearly as smooth. He doesn't glide like Camara does. But I do think that the contact balance is similar to some of the stuff that you see from Camara and where ETN is faster in a straight line. I mean, he ran sub-4-4-4-4.

It was 4-39. Yeah, I believe so, yes. Everybody ran 4-3-9. Everyone did. He's fast. When you watch him on tape, he is a home run hitter. There's no question. I think he plays that fast.

But the other thing that the comparison with Camara is even though Camara didn't play that fast, Camara, I think, had a 97 percentile broad jump. ETS is 93rd. Like they get from zero to 60 very, very quickly. It's just the ETS can get from zero to 80. So I think that's, I see those comparisons, even if, again, it's not quite as effortless as Camara often makes it look. Yeah. He ran a 4-4-4.

So adjust that to like 4-4-3 or something like that. but yeah, he's obviously extremely explosive, extremely fast, home run hitter. Touchdown maker at the highest level, like he scored a million touchdowns in college. I don't know if that's a skill. I think it is a skill, just the ability to like will yourself into the end zone, and he certainly has that. How do you stack up the running backs? Like if you were trying to go one, two, three, how do you have them? I should know this.

Harris, E.T.N, and then Javante Williams from North Carolina as my tip. I haven't watched Javante Williams enough yet. That's something on that. He's a lot of fun. He's a tackle breaker. He's the first couple guys I thought of, I think Josh Jacobs and like the high end version of Josh Jacobs where they're actually feeding him more touches than the Raiders are doing. And then this is like totally underselling him, but he reminded me of Mike Davis like this year.

Like you know early on after CMC got hurt, Mike Davis was just going ham. Mike Davis is good. It's amazing to me that Mike Davis is good. Mike Davis has played for both of our teams, but also I'm pretty sure has played for every team in the NFL. Every team has had Mike Davis at some point. And Mike Davis looking as good as he did last year, I think was shocking to both of us who have paid a lot of attention to Mike Davis in the past. Yeah, for sure. And again, I don't want to say he's going to have like a journeyman career, but I'm just saying like his

Mike Davis was just like running through tackles like early on in this last season. And so I kind of saw like that same style. But yeah, he's going to be a tackle breaker at the next level. But like, like, and it's going to be a lot of fun to watch. And that's one of those things that tackle breaking is one of the stickiest stats and stickiest traits from college to the pros that we have. And when you combine tackle breaking ability with pretty excellent straight line speed, you can get a pretty special player. My understanding, though, is that he can play a little laterally sometimes. There are moments where he's trying to bounce stuff and it's not there. So there might be some vision issues.

But overall, I think the physical skill set, I mean, that jumps out to you. I watched a lot of him this morning. All right. Next guy we had in this list, somebody we mentioned earlier, and I definitely want to talk about, is Jeremiah Wusukoramo because digging it to him a little bit easily the most fascinating defense I think there are a couple arguments

but I can't remember anybody with this sort of pre-draft profile that was mentioned this high in the draft because even a guy like Isaiah Simmons, right? There were questions about how he'd be used in the NFL but I think everyone

kind of understood he's a linebacker you know you figure out how exactly how it's going to go, even if he doesn't necessarily have a position at Clemson. This guy, we know how he was used in college, but people are projecting him as a linebacker in the NFL. There's almost like a disconnect there to me. So when you were trying to comp him, who did you come up with? The first thing I thought of, and this is maybe a little bit like I'm being a Homer because I'm a Seahawks fan, but he reminded me exactly of Jamal Adams in the for multiple reasons. Number one, Adams lines up all over the formation. He's a flashy player.

Like he makes flash plays tackles for a loss He flies around Pretty big hitter And basically is like a spark plug player for the defense Like he's always amping people up He's always making big plays

Energy All that stuff So like that completely Reminding me of Jamal Adams But in the same vein And we saw this with the Seahawks Like if you don't use him in the right role He can almost

He has the potential to like Not be a liability necessarily, but not live up to his potential. Disappear. He can disappear every once in a while. Yeah, so I think if you're asking him, if you're asking Ousukor Moa to be a real regular linebacker where he's going to have to be taken on blocks and getting big in the box, all that stuff, he could definitely struggle.

But if you're playing him all over the formation, asking him to like blitz from the slot, line up over the slot, do a little bit like over in the box. but maybe like help protect him or whatever. I think he could be extremely, extremely exciting, extremely good player for a defense. But again, like landing spot is going to be big for this guy because he's undersized. He's the size of a safety.

I think he's Jamal Adams's a size. I think, I really just think he's a safety. Like to me, he's not like necessary. We're going to call him a tweeter because he was a linebacker technically and he's probably going to be like going to say linebacker on the card or whatever. But to me,

he's a safety. Play him as like a strong safety. and I think he'd be really, really good. So he lined up over the slot on 331 snaps last year. He was in the box on 212 snaps last year. He is not a linebacker. I don't understand why we're calling him that. Like, he is, that's not what he is.

It feels like calling him a linebacker is a misnomer. And I don't know how he's going to be used in the NFL. But I do think that the way that players at that position are being used now, it raises some questions about, the right spot for him, but also how valuable he could be in the right system, just because versatility is so important. You know, can he be a money linebacker or your third safety, all of these different things?

And I don't know the answer to that, but it really does feel like he's stepping into the league at the right time to be used in the right way, kind of similar to what we talk about with the receivers. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, yeah, if his experience playing over the slot is going to be massively valuable in my mind. And he showed instincts and coverage.

You know, I don't know if he necessarily got a ton. is that's what I was really impressed with. He has a very good understanding of leverage and where to push guys, everything else. And it's not because with some of these guys, especially I think Isaiah Simmons is a good example. You're projecting based on the athletic traits. With him, there's not as much projection involved because you've actually seen him cover before, which I think makes it a little bit safer. Yeah.

And I would say, like for people that I haven't watched him, he was, I think that the most, like the earliest, it was immediately evident that this guy is fun as hell. Like, you know, sometimes, like, grinding through 150, 200 players, it can be kind of boring at some positions. Like, Jeremiah Wusukormo was the most fun player to watch, like almost immediately. He just flies around.

Like, no regard for physics or his body. He's just flying around, you know, laying guys out, amping up his teammates. Like, he's the kind of guy who's, like, amping up his teammates, even when he doesn't make a play. kind of deal.

Like I just, I don't know, he was just a lot of fun to watch. I think that there's a spot for him in the NFL, like we talked about in the right scheme. If you use him like a Jamal Adams, where he's rushing and he's being a blitzer and he's being used in the, like,

pass rush, I think he could also be like a big factor there because he just closes, like lightning. So, I don't know, he's just like a personal favorite of mine, one of my, like,

the most fun players to watch. I really hope he lands in a position to, to like, be able to use that skill set. I'd just be so, I'm so curious. how teams will filter their scheme through him and what an individual team will see from him. I think that that's always fascinating with these guys who don't necessarily fall into a pretty

traditional box. All right. Let's get to the next one here. Azizzo Jalari, the edge rusher from Georgia. Who did you have him come to? So I didn't go like super deep on this. Basically, I want Shaquille Barrett. And for a number of reasons, number one, I think he's bendy, good length and undersized slightly.

like just a little bit under height, I guess, for an edge rusher that can play both two and three point stance. I was going back and watching some Shaq Barrett highlights from his last season. I was like, okay, I think this makes sense. I think it's a good, good comp because, like I said, not the height you want him to be. I think O'Jolari is like 6-2, but he's got good length and he's really bendy. He's really explosive. And I think he can play like that sort of off, you know, the two-point stance, three-point stance, or whatever they need him to do. So it was just more like a stylistic sort of size profile type.

hip comp. I totally get it. When I was watching him, he's confounding because when you're watching him and he's just standing there, he seems much taller than he is because his arms are so long. You just don't have many guys built like that. Because the guys I've seen him comp to, I think Shaq Barrett makes total sense. Another person is Yanukkahue because he's a six two rusher with really good bend. And I think that, Ojalara, you see the hands and the swipe and the flexibility. And I get the Ingaqwe thing. But in Gakwe's arms, are much, much shorter. Ojolari has 34 and a third inch arms, okay,

compared to 32 and a half for Ingaquay. Ojali at 6-2 has longer arms than Romeo O'Ocora, who we would call a long pass rusher who uses his length really well. And that's why it's just so hard to come up with somebody that I think he plays like because he has some of Ingakwe. I think there is a little bit of that check Barrett.

The thing about Barrett that I think is a little bit different and unique is that he's 6-2 and he's not necessarily overly powerful but he's so, so consistent at playing through half a man as a pass rusher. When you watch him, he's attacking

one shoulder all the time and stringing together moves and always moving toward the quarterback. It's like just a sense of how to go after guys that I think is very advanced. And with Oja Ljali, I don't know if he's there yet, but I think if you get him with the right coaching

staff and you teach him to weaponize that length. Yeah. You just get a 6-2 pass rusher of the sort that we don't often see. Like, those guys just don't have that sort of length. You can't long-arm people at 6-2 in the way that he's probably going to be able to in his career. And I just think that's why he's so interesting. But I do think there's definitely some imagination involved with him, too.

He doesn't play very strong. You know, it's a lot of stuff that with a 6-2. 250-pound guy, you'd want him to be a little bit more powerful and play with more leverage than he does. Like, he's not that dissimilar in terms of overall size to Carl Lawson. Lawson is incredibly powerful. O'Gillari doesn't necessarily play like that, which I think that's kind of why he's more similar to in Gakway. But yeah, I mean, it's the fact that we're having this conversation and there are all these things you can kind of dig at with the best past rushers in this class, I think is very telling. And I think the same goes for Jason Oway from Penn State, who is next.

next on your list, who would you compare him to? So this one's more like a comp as a prospect, but I, I comped him to DeNeal Hunter. And basically it was because like length, athleticism, tools, everything that you look for from a pass rusher. But just the production isn't there. And I think that's the big thing. And obviously, this past season was weird. And, you know, they didn't play like a full season or whatever.

And so, like, it's not apples to apples, but he did not have a sack this last season. And that's going to be a red flag for a lot of teams. And I think, I don't know. I feel like I've heard this before, but I don't think there's ever been first-round pass-risher, like pure pass-risher that had zero sacks the year before. You know, if it is, it's a rare thing. And so that is a question NFL teams are going to have to ask. Is, like, is this guy just a weight room warrior type guy?

Because he ran like a four-three-something, you know, at like 250-something. It's one of the greatest. purely one of the greatest pre-draft physical performances that have ever existed. Like, that's not an exaggeration. He is the first defensive end in many databases to run a sub-4-4-40. He weighs 250 pounds.

I mean, everything about the way that he tested is out of this world good. Yeah. And I think, you know, he was decently productive, at least from a disruption point of view. But, yeah, the sack thing is a glaring red flag. And I know that was the same deal with DeNeil Hunter. So I think these match up.

The only difference is always probably going to go pretty early. And it's the last round. There was a third round pick. Yeah. Late round first, late first round, I should say, or maybe it's an early second because of the lack of sack production.

But there's going to be a team that's going to be like, dude, this guy is just the best athlete at that pass rusher that we've ever seen. We're going to take him early and turn him into something. So this pass rush class is very interesting because there's no one like very clear best guy. or even like a top 10 pick necessarily, or at least clear top 10 pick. So it's going to be interesting

to how these all stack up. I think that I would love to see him land with the right coaching staff in the same way that Neil Hunter did. Like let's say O.A. ends up in Minnesota with Andre Patterson who coached DeNeil Hunter. I think that is the best case scenario for him

because you need somebody who's going to be able to tap into that skill set. And it is a vast skill set. But if he lands with the wrong coaching staff, you're just going to have somebody that is really out. athletic and doesn't know how to play. But there is a lot to shape there. All right, buddy, that's all we got. I really, really appreciate you coming by to do this. It's always good at

Shaq Football with you. I missed you. I miss you very much. So I'm glad you're doing well. I'm glad you're doing great. This was really fun. Guys, please go listen to the Ringer Fantasy Football show that Danny does with Danny Heifitz and Craig Horlebeck. It is very entertaining. It is not just the fantasy show. You will learn a lot about football. He is also holding down the Friday spot on the Ringer NFL show right now doing their big board shows. Please go check those out. And go read the ring or draft guide. It is one of the best pieces of draft content out there.

And I'm not just saying that because I used to work there. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Oh, absolutely, buddy. It was great to chat with you. Yeah, absolutely. All right, guys, thank you very much for stopping by. Thank you so much to Danny Kelly.

It was always good to chat with him. That was a lot of fun. Thank you to Lindsay. We will be back tomorrow. Nate and I are doing the top. past catchers in this draft, mostly receivers with little paddle pits thrown in there, I assume. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform with choice. I would sincerely appreciate that.

And please subscribe to The Athletic, Theathletic.com slash football show. I promise you, you will not regret it. Just an amazing amount of draft coverage that we're putting on all the time. Dane Bruegler's draft guide comes out this week. So now is the time to sign up if you have not. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate. Appreciate it, guys, listening. We'll talk to you later.

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